#and its not like i can like. draw anything about it. because the entire thing is that they literally have no way to reconcile any of this.

[shadesofmauve]

Alliance Normandy SR-2 redesign: Deck 5

We've finally arrived at the bottom: deck 5, home of the hangar, the Kodiak shuttles, and now, Marine Land!

There are some oddities with this deck, because I was guessing at how fast the hull tapers towards the bottom at the back (I'm working off references that show front and rear elevations, but that only shows you the broadest points). I messed up something with my core chamber measurements and had to make the entire rear end (heh) slightly bigger here before posting, but the deck design errs on the side of narrower.

Hangar

When I wrote A Star To Steer Her By I ignored the silly shipbuilding because I was focused on a relationship (and because it wasn't supposed to be a door-stopper novel. Oops), but as I went on things like "this hangar should be regularly exposed to vacuum, how can you leave gym equipment in here" bothered me more and more. By the time of Sunset and Evening Star I couldn't let that state of affairs stand. So: this hangar is regularly exposed to vacuum. No fancy force fields that keep in the air but let out shuttles. You don't leave anything in here that isn't protected from vacuum and strapped down.

The hangar is the limiting factor in the size of the entire ship; it has to fit between the central elevator and the hangar door, and it must fit two Kodiaks. To reach this size I had to make the Kodiaks boxier; my drawings are taller for their length than the game models. They still seat twelve, and there's room for one to do a 180 on it's axis while the other is in its cradle. The hangar floor slopes down slightly towards the door in the middle, and the Kodiaks are 'shelved' to the sides.

Cortez runs the flight deck from the exact same place he is in game, but now he has bulkheads and windows between himself and the cold death of space. Airlocks on either side give access to the flight deck. There are also giant doors straight into the deck 4 cargo bays, but those won't open unless the hangar is pressurized.

Marine Land

Jack's Sulking Pit is now a gym, with weights, treadmill, stationary bike, heavy bags, and mats for sparing (and occasionally making pillow forts for evacuee toddlers). Mats are usually stored stowed against the wall, and other equipment can be moved as needed.

To port are the marine berths. The usual compliment of marines is a dozen, including their unit leader, but there are twelve bunks as well as the officer's tiny cabin (because there's no point wasting the space, and you never know). Other than their semi-privacy, the marine racks are no different from the enlisted racks on the two decks above.*

*"Except for the smell." — the rest of the crew, probably.

Berthing the marines on deck 5 is all about quick access to their arms, armor, and transport. Directly across from the marine berths is the entrance to the locker room and armory. After armoring up they grab their weapons and can get to the shuttle through an airlock entrance in the armory. On the way back, they reverse the process; stow weapons, strip off armor — often dropping damaged plating into the recycler chute as they go by — strip down, and shower.

The Alliance military is gender neutral, and nowhere is this as obvious as the marine lockers. The marine unit regularly strips down in front of each other; it's just part of getting ready for work. You can't be body-shy and be an Alliance Marine.

(I like to think the separate bathrooms on the crew deck were the Illusive Man's weird traditionalist decision. Sometimes the gendered-bathroom thing starts to grate on Bo Huan, the third-watch pilot, so they come down to deck five to use the locker room showers, leading Joker to quip "Ah, the third gender: marine!")

More engineering, and the answers to a few questions

Ladders from deck 4 lead down to another engineering area on the hangar level. It's not connected to the main areas of the deck by conventional corridors, but it is accessible through the warren of service passages that run throughout the ship. More of those access-ways lead aft of the eezo core chamber to the fusion plant (not shown). Because the core chamber narrows faster than the ship, it's easier to get around it here than it is on the engineering deck, where the core chamber is at it's widest but the hull has started to narrow. These access tunnels are rarely comfortable to get through, though they often open out into areas that are easier to work in, or into surprising pockets of unused space. They may require crawling or climbing, or clambering over obstacles.

All the maintenance accesses are kept pressurized and aired up, but the habitable area shown on these posts is wrapped in an inner hull, and the doors for maintenance access are all pressure doors: if a hit damages the tunnel you use to access the ship's innards, it won't kill all the crew in the room next to it.**

**It will obliterate the illicit still and the not-actually-a-secret-make-out-nest, as well as anyone stupid enough to be distilling and***/or fucking in those locations, which is why we don't lollygag between the hulls in combat, private!

***AND?****

****Some people are remarkably talented.

Normandy redesign posts

Intro

Loft

Command

Crew

Engineering

Hangar

[end-orfino]

ahhhhhh i remember why i dont read comics & books and watch movies as much as I should. Because they make me lose it

[anxiously-going]

.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

the thing about luci and magpie is that im so fine about them until i think about them a little too hard and then theres Casualties

[somefisher]

Praying to anything that i can get on adhd meds before i start school next semester because i want to be able to learn in my climate change class so bad

[steddiealltheway]

1984 is not Steve Harrington’s year.

Not only does he find out that his girlfriend doesn’t actually love him, but somehow the creepy monster thing that united his now ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, came back in the form of some type of monster dog.

The highlight of his year might actually be befriending a nerdy middle schooler who introduced him to said monster dog - which he named Dart of all things... something to do with a candy bar.

He groans at the thought as the music from downstairs carries into his room. For some reason, Tommy Hagan decided to temporarily ignore the fact that he ditched Steve for the new keg king, Billy Hargrove, who managed to give Steve something else to worry about while literal Hell crawled its way into Hawkins, in favor of throwing a New Year's Eve party in the Harrington residence.

Typical for the year Steve's having. Why not end it horribly too?

He glances at the clock, relieved that it's already somewhat close to midnight. If it weren't for the noise, he would consider trying to sleep through this one. Instead, he lays back on his bed and hopes that no one tries to disturb him.

As if the universe can hear his thoughts, and then curse them, the door to his bedroom swings open.

Steve sits up with a huff and frowns at the person.

A guy with medium length curly hair and doe eyes stares back at him with a big smile that screams chaos.

"Sorry, dude," Steve says, "Bedroom is off limits. Go hookup, smoke, or whatever somewhere else."

Instead of leaving, the guy closes the door behind him and locks it.

Steve scoots back on the bed, hand reaching back to wrap around the nail bat he leaves behind his nightstand.

The dude raises his hands in mock surrender, silver rings glinting in the light streaming in from Steve's window - blinds open enough so he can make sure no one does anything weird in his pool. "Listen, man, I'm not here to hurt you or anything. Although you might hurt me when you hear why I'm here."

There's something about his voice that sounds familiar to Steve when it suddenly hits him - all the yelling and stomping around on tabletops. "You're Eddie Munson."

Eddie smiles and bows dramatically. "Guilty as charged."

Steve's frown deepens, and for a fleeting moment he thinks Dustin would really like the guy. "So, why would I hurt you if I hear you out?"

"Because, Steve," Eddie draws out his name as if it has a deeper meaning, "I was downstairs thinking about what a wonderful year I've had, and I decided that I might as well start the year with a little chaos."

Steve's grip tightens around the bat in case he's some sort of satanic serial killer or something, although his gut tells him that he shouldn't be scared of the man. "What do you mean by chaos?"

There's a strange glint in Eddie's eye when he shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks on the feet as if he wants to move closer to Steve but has decided to plant himself by his door. "I mean... I came to this party to sell my supply and after my whole lunchbox was cleaned out, I started thinking about who I should kiss at midnight. Or more precisely, who would be the worse option, or rather, the option that would bring the most-"

"Chaos. Yeah, I got that part," Steve cuts him off.

Eddie's smile changes to something genuine for a moment as he comments, "Wow, Steve Harrington is actually listening to me."

Steve rolls his eyes, grip loosening on the bat. "I'd rather you not stand on my desk to get my attention." To Steve's surprise, Eddie actually laughs in response and pulls a strand of hair in front of his face to hide his smile. And to Steve's much greater surprise, his heart starts beating a little faster and he finds it harder to not smile back at him. "So, chaos?" Steve prompts.

"Right," Eddie says, rocking on his feet again, "Chaos." He ducks his head for a moment as if hyping himself up for the next thing he's going to say, which is when Steve entirely releases his grip on the bat, realizing that Eddie is more scared of him. "So, I thought, to start the year off with the most chaos, I would choose someone to kiss that would bring the most chaos. And I thought, why not the host of this party?"

Steve frowns. "Tommy's downstairs."

Eddie mirrors his frown. "You're not hosting?"

"Why would I be in my room if I'm hosting?"

"Why would the party be in your house if you're not hosting?"

It suddenly hits Steve. "Wait, you want to kiss me?"

Eddie takes a step back, hovering even closer to the door than he was before. "Consensually, of course."

It takes a moment for Steve to fully process what is being asked. "You think I'm the worst option to kiss?"

"That's what you're asking?" Eddie asks, trailing off to mutter something like, "The fragile ego of athletes, I swear."

"I got dumped this year. Of course my ego is low."

Eddie smiles bashfully. "Sorry, my uncle always tells me I'm not as quiet as I think I am." And there's something about Eddie's cheeks that are slightly flushed, the strand of hair he starts tugging at again, and the way he can't stop bouncing as if he's buzzing with energy and nerves that makes him so...

"Yes," Steve blurts out suddenly. For a moment, he wonders if the mindf- mind fly? mind... whatever evil thing from a few weeks ago has possessed him.

"Yes what?" Eddie asks sounding genuinely confused. As Steve stands up to look out his blinds and shut them, Eddie rambles, "Yes, I'm not as quiet as I think I am? Or yes, you're about to punch me, and I'm going to finally figure out how it felt when you got your face bashed in a few weeks ago?"

Steve rolls his eyes before holding up both of his hands, mimicking Eddie's pose when he first came into the room. "Yes, I'll kiss you."

It's as if Eddie has forgotten he's asked the question the way his jaw drops, and he stares at Steve like he's said the most confusing thing he's ever heard. Which... to be fair... is highly likely.

"You want to kiss me?"

Steve takes a small step closer to Eddie. "I want to give you your chaos."' When Eddie doesn't look convinced, Steve takes a step closer to him, hand running through his hair as he continues, "Who knows, maybe it'll give me good luck or something for next year by cancelling out the chaos from this year."

Eddie nods. "Okay. You're giving me your chaos. Yeah. That makes sense."

"And you're taking my chaos away," Steve agrees, trying to tell himself that this is a rational decision. "This makes sense."

"You're not going to beat me up?" Eddie asks, risking a small step away from the door.

Steve shakes his head. "Seems like a bad way to start the year, don't you think?"

Eddie nods as Steve steps closer to him, slowly, as if not to startle him away. "You know, I thought just asking you would be chaotic enough as is and then I could run away and pretend you hallucinated or something when you tried to beat me up."

"Should've asked Hargrove then," Steve says, cocking his head to the side. "Does that mean you don't actually want to kiss me?"

Eddie swallows and shakes his head. "I didn't say that."

Just as Steve gets in front of Eddie, he hears people downstairs counting down from ten. "Good," Steve says, "Because there isn't enough time to find someone else."

Eddie scoffs, the countdown now at eight, "That's not true for you."

"Maybe, but I'm not really looking to find anyone else right now. Are you?" Five.

Eddie smiles and takes a step forward. "No." Three.

Steve reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind Eddie's ear. "Good." One.

Steve's not really sure who moves first or if they move together, but the yells of, "Happy New Year" are drowned out as Eddie's lips meet his in a kiss that feels more desperate than Steve expected. He's not sure why they're kissing as if the countdown was for the end of the world, but he really doesn't care.

It's only when Steve's gets a little carried away, Eddie's back slams against Steve's door with a thud that's loud enough to alert anyone that something's happening in Steve's room, that Steve breaks away with a gasp, seeking the air Eddie's stolen from him. He wonders if - hopes - it's the chaos he's taken.

"Happy New Year," Steve whispers, hands cupping Eddie's face while Eddie's are tangled in the mess he's made of Steve's hair. He's not sure when either of those things happened.

"Happy fucking New Year, Steve," Eddie mutters, hands slowly dropping from his hair.

Steve's hands hold onto Eddie's face a little tighter for a moment, and he sees the moment a bit of fear sparks in Eddie's eyes. Steve quickly shakes his head. "No, I'm not about to beat you up. It's just... I kind of slammed you against the door a little hard there, and if someone else is up here and they see you..."

"Chaos," Eddie fills in with a nod, "And not the good kind."

"Yeah," Steve sighs, "Not the good kind." He glances to his window where the blinds are firmly shut - thank you Jonathan for teaching him that lesson - and down at the locked doorknob before looking back at Eddie. He glances at his lips momentarily before blurting out, "Stay with me."

Eddie's jaw drops, mouth opening slightly in shock.

Steve steps back, hands reluctantly leaving Eddie's face. "Stay until everyone clears out at least. No ulterior motive."

Eddie shoves his hands into his pockets and moves back into Steve's space. "What if I want there to be an ulterior motive?" He tilts his head down and gives Steve a case of lethal puppy dog eyes. "Fully take your chaos away, remember?"

Steve is absolutely sure that this in no way will take away the chaos of his previous year and will likely only invite questions, confusion, and further chaos into 1985.

"Yeah, I remember," Steve says, pulling Eddie into another desperate kiss.

Maybe Eddie was onto something about starting the year with a little chaos. And maybe 1985 will be his year.

(i accidentally wrote a tiny epilogue later in the tags that i really like)

[stllmnstr]

sacred monsters: part one

pairing: lee heeseung x f reader

genre: academic rivals to lovers, vampire au, slow burn

part one word count: 19.3k

part one warnings: swearing, blood and all sorts of other vampire-y things, semi graphic descriptions/depictions of violence, I don't know anything about publishing and wrote about it anyway, not quite as much in this part, but I want to forewarn you that while there is still nothing explicit, we do get a little ~sexier~ than most stllmnstr fics

note/disclaimer: I have been itching to write an enha vampire fic for ages because hello? the material is RIGHT THERE!! this is a story I'm super excited about, and it's definitely gotten me out of my comfort zone. in order to help build this world, I did draw from some outside sources. primarily, a lot of the vampire lore and some plot elements are inspired by the dark moon webtoon series. I did also pull some things from twilight and other well-known vampire myths. lastly, there is a section with "poetry" in it. these "poems" are translated lyrics from still monster, chaconne, and lucifer by enhypen. some are in their original form and some I altered slightly. everything else is straight from yours truly! as always, happy reading ♡

soundtrack: still monster / moonstruck / lucifer - enhypen / everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears / immortal - marina / supermassive black hole - muse / saturn - sleeping at last / everybody’s watching me (uh oh) - the neighbourhood

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

A literature student in your third year of university, you’ve been dreaming of having your writing published for as long as you can remember. With a perfect opportunity dangling at your fingertips, the only obstacle that stands in your way comes in the form of a ridiculously tall, stupidly handsome, and unfortunately, very talented writer by the name of Lee Heeseung. Unwilling to let your dream slip out of reach, you commit to being better than the aforementioned pain in your ass at absolutely everything.

But when a string of vampire attacks strikes close to your city for the first time in nearly two hundred years, publishing is suddenly the last thing on your mind. And, as you soon begin to discover, Heeseung may not quite be the person you thought he was.

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

The last sip of your coffee tastes bitter on your tongue. Acidic, like it was left to brew too long. Or maybe not long enough. Your limited knowledge of coffee extends to its effects on your alertness and little else. 

Taste has always been an afterthought, something of little consequence. Besides, some bitterness is to be expected when you take your coffee black. 

Suppressing the small wince that always follows your final sip, you set the reusable thermos down on your desk. Next to your open notebook and favorite ballpoint pen, it settles in nicely with your other class essentials. 

Call it poetic or romantic or unbearably pretentious, but you actually do prefer to take your notes by hand. Partly because it feels more fitting for a literature major and mostly because your laptop is on its last leg and between tuition and rent, you don’t exactly have the funds to shell out for a new one. 

Frowning at the bitter taste that still lingers on your tongue, you feel another pang of regret for forgetting to pack your water bottle this morning. But no matter. Today is a day for optimism. The bitterness now only means that your imminent victory will taste that much sweeter in comparison. 

Because today is the last day of the fall semester of your third year. Which means that this is the last morning you’ll be sitting here in this lecture hall in the minutes preceding 9 am. 

Which means that today is the day of your professor’s long awaited announcement. You still remember the day, nearly four months ago, when he first told the entire room of undermotivated, overcaffeinated students about it. 

A publishing opportunity. A real, actual publishing opportunity. Something most literature students would sell their soul for. 

Because Professor Kim, while a rather mediocre professor who prefers to dish out criticism and bite back praise, has an excellent eye for great writing. So much so that nearly twenty years ago, he founded his very own publishing house. 

Known by the name New Haven Publishing, it’s a small operation that deals mostly in short pieces that are marketed more for niche literary circles than mass public appeal. Being published by New Haven may not be a straight shot to the New York Times’ Best Sellers List, but it’s still professional publishing. 

And a week into classes, he announced that for the first time ever, he would be choosing one of you to not only intern at New Haven the following semester, but also to publish an original piece of short fiction with them. 

You’ve been fantasizing about it for months now. You can already imagine it. A piece of your very own, marketed and edited by professionals. Published and complete with Professor Kim’s stamp of approval. 

It’s what you’ve been craving ever since you decided to switch paths and pursue literature studies at the end of your first semester. It’s everything you’re sure you need. Validation that your writing is good, that your words are worth reading. 

Hell, maybe it will even earn you the approval of your parents. 

And, perhaps most satisfying of all, you will have officially beaten Lee Heeseng once and for all. You don’t want to speak poorly of the rest of your classmates and their writing abilities, but this has always been a competition between you and him. 

Or, at least, it has been for you. 

It’s the last day of the semester, and honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if Heeseung still had a hard time remembering that the internship was even happening. Then again, you wouldn’t exactly be shocked if he couldn't remember your name, either.  

And if you were hard pressed to choose only one thing, that would probably be what annoys you the most about him. Not the way his hair is alway somehow perfectly mussed. Not the way his writing is painfully beautiful and poetic that you swell green with envy just thinking about it. 

No, the root cause of your infinite ire when it comes to Lee Heeseung is how damn aloof he is. Like his classmates and professors and even his greatest rival aren’t worth the effort of remembering. 

And it’s not like it’s because he’s got some kind of crazy social life outside of academics. Other than mandatory discussion groups, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen him so much as talk to anyone. 

But that’s just the way he is, you suppose. 

Perfect Heeseung with his perfect hair and his perfect writing and perfect attendance record doesn’t need anyone but himself—

Wait. 

Perfect attendance record. 

Glancing at the clock mounted high above the front door of the lecture hall, you can hardly believe what you’re seeing. 

8:59. 

There’s no way. There’s no fucking way that the universe is rooting for you this hard, that the stars are aligning this perfectly. 

Despite your doubts, the second hand continues its onward march. You suppress the sudden urge to bounce your leg in a matching rhythm. 

He has five seconds. 

Four. Three. Two. One. 

And it’s official. A ridiculous amount of pent up tension drains from your shoulders as your spine straightens. You can’t believe it was that easy. 

A semester of agonizing over every word, every sentence, every assignment you handed in for this class. A semester of panicking over missed buses and waking up way too early just to make sure you always beat the clock. 

But today is the day where everything comes to a head. 

And Lee Heeseung is officially late. 

Professor Kim, at the beginning of the semester, had only two pieces of advice to offer his students that were suddenly all gunning for a shot at being published:

One: “Don’t make me read awful writing.”

And two: “Don’t be late to class. I have zero tolerance for tardiness.”

Heeseung has just broken a cardinal rule. One row down, nine seats to the left from where you sit. It’s the place that would usually be filled with an annoyingly broad set of shoulders and distractingly sharp jawline. In fact, Heeseung usually beats you here most days. Not that you’re keeping track, of course. And not that it matters. 

Because this morning, this fateful morning, that particular seat, his seat, is glaringly, gloriously empty. 

Your eyes flicker over to it again without your permission. But you can’t help it. You’re so antsy now, teeming with self-satisfied excitement. It’s almost unbelievable actually. A golden stroke of luck that he chose today, of all days, to be late.

In fact, you think the more you stare at the empty seat, Lee Heeseung is such a reliable presence that the entire lecture hall suddenly seems a bit off kilter. Tilted too far in some precarious state of imbalance. 

Your smugness is still there, yes, but now there’s also a heavy feeling beginning to settle at the bottom of your gut. Why on earth is Lee Heeseung late?

You’re so distracted by his absence, the endless loop of possibilities and explanations running through your mind, that you almost miss the second abnormality of the morning. 

Because now the clock reads 9:04, and Heeseung isn’t the only one missing. 

All at once, your attention is on the podium at the front of the lecture hall. It’s empty, too. And Professor Kim may be a hardass, but he’s no hypocrite. Never once throughout this entire semester has he ever begun a class even a millisecond late.

Frowning, you pull out your phone to confirm that the clock on the wall is not playing tricks on you. Maybe there was a power outage or something, and maintenance hasn’t had time to correct it yet. 

But your phone screen lights up, and 9:05 is the time that stares back at you. 

Glancing around, no one else seems too particularly bothered by this. There are a few titters, a few annoyed grumbles that sound like hypocrite and double standard where they reach your ears. 

But still, the clock ticks forward. 

The minute hand has fallen another two notches when the front door finally opens, Professor Kim striding in unhurried. Despite his lateness, his steps are steady, even. There’s nothing frantic or apologetic about the way he sets his briefcase down next to the podium, pulling out his laptop and a small stack of notes before clearing his throat. 

As the students around you fall silent, class begins as it always does. Other than the time, nothing is out of the ordinary. 

But your spirits are still high, and you figure you can cut your professor some slack. Maybe he ran into a bad bit of traffic or spilled coffee all over his shirt. Maybe he’s too embarrassed to draw more attention to his error and has decided that not acknowledging it at all is the best course of action. 

Oh, well. It’s no use ruminating on it now. Settling back into your seat, you do your best to focus your attention on the front of the room and not that damn empty chair. But the distraction isn’t necessary for long. 

The clock is just striking 9:12 when a second late arrival draws the eyes of the class to the front door of the lecture hall. Like your professor, Heeseung maintains a certain air of composedness as he makes his way towards his seat wordlessly. 

There’s a moment, a fraction of a second, where Professor Kim pauses, letting a sentence drift into silence. 

Twelve minutes late. It’s a rookie mistake. For a fleeting moment, you almost feel bad for him. Because surely Professor Kim is about to make an example of him. No one walks into his lectures late and leaves unscathed. 

Wincing, you remember a handful of weeks ago when a poor girl that sits a few rows behind you arrived late. Not only had Professor Kim stopped the entire flow of his lecture to draw attention to her tardiness, he had also assigned her an extra short story for homework. One on the merits of punctuality.

But the ebb in the lecture begins to flow again, the moment passing as soon as it comes. Heeseung settles into his chair. Your professor resumes his sentence. 

For the remainder of the class, you do your best to pay attention, but you’re having trouble finding a point. It’s not like he can assign homework or an exam or a discussion on the last day of the semester. 

Like you, most of your peers are fully zoned out, just waiting for him to get to what everyone has been dying to know for months. 

Who’s interning at New Haven? Who’s getting published?

But distractions in this class have never been hard to come by. More than once, you find your wandering gaze drifting to the back of Heeseung’s head. Usually, you’d be bitterly admiring how soft his hair looks. But today, there’s only one question that plays in your mind as you stare. 

What on earth happened that made perfect Lee Heeseung late?

Your thoughts are only interrupted by the sudden shuffle of small movement around you as everyone sits up a bit straighter in their seats. 

“Ah,” Professor Kim glances at the time. “That wraps up our semester, then. As promised, I would like to announce the student who will be interning with New Haven Publishing this upcoming semester. And, of course, the student that will have the opportunity to publish an original piece with us.”

He pauses for a moment, looking down at his notes. You wonder if the people sitting close to you can hear the way your heart pounds in your chest. 

Please be me. Please be me. Please be me. 

The rushing in your ears is so loud that you almost miss it. But not quite. Because the sound of your own name is something you’d recognize anywhere. 

Because it was your name that he said. Not anyone else’s. Not Heeseung’s.

You. You did it. 

You’re officially going to be interning with New Haven. You’re going to be published. 

When he asks you to stay a minute after class to discuss the details, it’s all you can do to nod. Butterflies are still scattered in your stomach. 

As the rest of the students begin to file out, you pack up your materials with hands that shake slightly. It doesn’t feel real. It feels too good to be true. You poured your everything into this all semester long, and now it’s actually happening. 

Your mind is a mess, and an erratic movement almost sends your empty thermos flying. Luckily, you snap out of it long enough to  catch it before it hits the ground. With everything packed back into your bag, you make your way down to the podium on slightly unsteady feet. 

A handful of passing classmates congratulate you on their way out, and you smile in return. 

You’ve almost made it to the front of the lecture hall when a body blocks your path. It takes a moment for your brain to register the identity of the offender. And once it does, it spits his name with venom. Heeseung. 

Oblivious and self-centered as always, he nearly knocks you over. Rolling your eyes, you move to step around him. Apparently whatever gift he was given for writing doesn’t extend to his spatial awareness or consideration for others. 

But as you lean to the left, he follows the movement, still in your path. Your gaze snaps up, eyebrows raised when you find him already looking at you. 

Oh. So it’s not a spatial awareness problem, then. He’s in your way on purpose. 

As always, his expression is infuriatingly blank. You can’t get any sort of read on him, and it unnerves you. Irritates you. Here he is, blocking your path, and the only thing he has to offer you is an empty, silent stare.

You could just say excuse me, force your way around him, and be done with it. You should. The semester is over, your professor’s decision is made, and you have no stake left in this game. 

But you’ve been biting back snarky comments and masking irritated expressions with mild indifference for months. The nerve he has to block you. The utter gall of it all. To physically stand in your way when he’s been your metaphorical obstacle to success all semester. 

When every time you look at him, you still remember that one sunny afternoon, early in the semester. The time you tried, actually tried to be his friend. When he waved you off like a buzzing fly that was nothing more than a nuisance. 

You inhale, weighing your options. His head tilts slightly at the movement, and it’s your last straw. 

There’s poison in your voice when you bite, “Oh, what? Now that I’ve proved myself, you can spare some time out of your day to talk to me?”

Heeseung’s eyes widen, lips parting slightly. It’s the most emotion you’ve ever seen from him, and he’s wasting it on shock. As if he can’t quite comprehend why the girl he’s been giving headaches for months might not want to stop and have a friendly chat with him. Not that you imagine he’d even be capable of that if you tried. 

Already, you regret your comment. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have said anything. You’d be just as detached and cold and aloof as he was on that day you hate to think about. You still remember it like it was yesterday. Without your permission, the memory floats front and center to your mind. 

It was warmer, then. The last clutches of summer were still holding on tight. Sunlight was bright in the sky, and it felt like a good time to breach the barrier of your comfort zone. 

Class had just ended. Usually, Heeseung was one of the first to leave. You had to pack up abnormally quickly just to catch him in the quad right outside the lecture hall. 

But you did catch up to him.

And in a voice braver than you felt, you asked, “Hey, it’s Heeseung, right?” 

You’d been brighter, then. Still full of an energy you haven’t been able to muster since midterms. Not yet burdened by the weight of assignments and rejection, your disposition was as sunny as the sky above. 

Heeseung hadn’t bothered to dignify your question with an actual answer, but he had at least stopped walking, and that seemed like an invitation at the time. Now, with the power of hindsight, you wince. You should have spared yourself the regret.

You remember watching as he pulled out his earbuds, tucking them back into his pocket before turning his attention to you. Or at least half of it. Even then, you never felt like he was truly looking at you, hearing you. His mind always seemed off in the distance, preoccupied somewhere you could never quite reach. 

You recall being nervous, heat in your cheeks as you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His eyes tracked the movement like a cat tracks a ray of sunlight. Lazily, intently. With an energy you weren’t quite sure what to do with. 

Instead, you had stuttered, “I, uh, I wanted to tell you that I thought your analysis today was brilliant.” The worst part is that it really was a brilliant analysis. Although you’d never admit that today, and much less to his face. 

Instead, you cringe just thinking about it. You should have taken his blank stare as a sign. You should have just let the one-sided conversation die there. With at least a little dignity and some of your pride left to spare. 

But you hadn’t. 

“I never thought about the use of sunlight as a metaphor for life. I mean, now that you’ve pointed it out, it seems kind of obvious.” The memory of your nervous giggles settle like rocks in your stomach. “Anyway, I feel like I’m rambling, but if you ever want to get together and look through assignments or review each other’s analyses, I’d love to—”

You’d heard his voice before, of course. In class discussions and presentations. But never this close. And never directed at you. 

He kept it short, his interruption, his response to your shaky offer. 

“I’m busy.”

And that was it. Two words. Two fucking words. And not even an explanation or an I’m sorry or a sheepish expression to go along with them. 

With that, you’d watched, a bit helplessly, as he pulled his earbuds out of his pocket, put them back into his ears and turned away from you before you could realize just how thoroughly you’d been rejected. 

With a sudden haze in the air and hope dying in your heart, your friendly smile slipped into confused dismay as you watched him track a steady path across the quad. 

If your cheekbones felt warm before, you were sure they must have been aflame by then. After all, it was your body’s natural response to the crushing weight of the embarrassment and thoroughly bruised ego he’d left you there standing with. 

Fine then, you’d resolved after walking as quickly as you could in the opposite direction, sending a prayer to the heavens that no one from your class had just witnessed the most mortifying interaction you’ve ever had. If Lee Heeseung wanted nothing to do with you, the feeling could be mutual. 

In fact, it was probably for the best. You were vying for that internship and if the past class discussions were anything to go by, Heeseung would be your only real competition. If he was too busy for you, then you would just have to be too busy for him. 

Too busy perfecting every assignment and acing every exam. Too busy drowning in dictionaries and thesauruses and reference materials to make sure everything you submitted was perfect — no, scratch that — better than perfect. 

Too busy to attempt another conversation or interaction or do anything but nod along politely whenever he did make an unfortunately great point in class. 

So, no. Heeseung doesn’t get to dictate your time or attention or conversation now that you’ve actually been awarded with a publishing opportunity, now that all of your efforts and dedication and late nights have paid off. 

If Lee Heeseung wants a bit of your attention on today of all days, at this moment of all moments, then you’re just going to have to be too busy to entertain him. 

Standing in front of you, still blocking your path to the podium, Heeseung has the nerve to look confused. As if you have no reason to give him the cold shoulder. As if you’re the one being unreasonable here. 

His brow furrows further. “What?” It’s the third word he’s ever spoken directly to you. It makes your blood boil. “No, I…” he trails off. You can practically see the gears running in his mind, like this wasn’t the conversation he expected to be having. Like he has no idea how to navigate it now. “I was just going to say that you should maybe reconsider.”

Your voice is ice when you ask, “Reconsider what?” 

“Well…” He’s treading in dangerous territory, and he seems to realize it too. “The internship,” he clarifies, and it’s the second most insulting thing he’s ever said to your face. 

You screw your eyes shut. Cold and detached. Blank and aloof. All the things you should be. But you’ve always run a little hot. And end of the semester exhaustion finds you more willing to throw caution to the wind. 

“You have got to be fucking with me.” Eyes reopening, you’re met with that same expression of mild shock. Brows raised, lips parted. And god, he even looks good like that. “Yeah, right. Let me guess, so you can do the internship and publish a piece of your own? If all you came over to do is insult me, then save your breath.”

“What?” He still looks so damn confused. “No, I—”

You don’t want to hear it. “I have nothing to say to you.” If he won’t get out of your way, you’ll just have to go through him. The shoulder check is maybe slightly more intense than it needs to be as you shove your way past him. He barely stumbles back an inch. It makes you want to rip your hair out. “Besides,” you add, not bothering to turn back to look at him. “I’m busy.”

It’s a dig at him, yes, but it’s also true. You are. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and Lee Heeseung is not about to ruin it for you. 

To your unending gratitude, he doesn’t try to intercept you again. Your path to the front of the lecture hall is clear, and Professor Kim is just tucking his laptop back into his briefcase when you reach the podium. 

Ultimately, it’s a watered down version of the million times you’ve imagined this moment in your head. Even coming on the tail end of the most annoying interaction you’ve had in months. Professor Kim congratulates you again, and hands you a printed schedule of when you’ll be expected at the publishing office for the first time. 

There are also submission dates. Deadlines for you to submit drafts of the piece that you’ll be publishing. You take it all in with a beam and enthusiastic nods, mishap with Heeseung from minutes ago all but forgotten. 

That is, until Professor Kim’s gaze lands somewhere over your shoulder after he tells you he’ll also send you a follow-up email with all the information you need. 

You watch as his expression shifts, something uneasy, distrustful entering his gaze as he looks beyond you. “Something I can help you with, Mr. Lee?”

Following his gaze, you turn to look behind you. The lecture hall is empty, students cleared out from the class that dismissed nearly five minutes ago. All except for one, that is. 

Gone is the shock from Heeseung’s delicately sharp features. Instead, he wears his mask of indifference again, betraying no emotion. You must be imagining the way it looks almost strained this time, as if he’s forcing his expression into neutrality instead of it there of its own accord. 

Wordlessly, his gaze shifts to you. 

And now it’s your turn to be confused, but you won’t let it last long. At least not outwardly. You’re quick to match his gaze with nothing but pure ire, venom dripping seeping from every inch of your glare. 

Is he seriously still trying to ruin this for you? So much for being busy. 

“No, sir.” Heeseung shakes his head. He’s addressing your professor, but he’s still looking at you. A muscle ticks in his jaw, betrays a hint of tension. “I was just on my way out.”

True to his word, he begins a steady descent towards the front door. 

Your professor clears his throat, turns his attention back to you, resuming the wrap-up of your conversation. 

You’re extra grateful for that follow-up email now, given the way movement in your periphery distracts you from Professor Kim’s last few statements. Instead, your focus hones in on the even footsteps that carry Heeseung to the door, allow him to slip through it silently. 

It must be a trick of the light, must be a figment of your overworked, over irritated imagination. But you swear you see him linger there, just on the other side of the small glass window carved into the door. 

Professor Kim says his parting words, and you thank him one final time. If there’s an unnatural quickness in your footsteps as you turn to leave, you tell yourself that it’s because you’re excited to get started on your draft, not because you have the sneaking suspicion Heeseung is still standing just on the other side of the door. 

But you swear that’s his silhouette you see as you draw closer, shrouded in shadows but distinct all the same. You’re debating the merits of shouting at him or maybe accidentally shoulder checking him again as you pull open the door handle, a little more roughly than you intend. 

But the only thing that greets you on the other side of the door is a nearly empty hallway, save for the pair of students bent over a laptop a few paces away. You ignore their twin expressions of shock as you let the door fall closed behind you, much more calmly than you opened it. 

…..

The blank expanse of your notebook stares at you accusingly. 

You’d stare back, if that would somehow make words appear on the page. Sighing, you reach for your long forgotten cup of tea sitting on your desk. Taking a slow sip, you realize it’s gone cold. 

That just makes you double down on your frustration. How long have you been sitting here, waiting for inspiration to strike? 

People always talk about the merits of a change in scenery, but ever since you started your first semester of university three years ago, your favorite place to write has always been here, at the small, simple desk that sits in the corner of your bedroom. 

Back then, writing was a hobby. Something to do when the last of your biochemistry homework was finished. A way to release pent-up stress and tension from long days in the university lab and long hours feeling like you were drowning between all of the extra study sessions, TA workshops, and office hours. 

At first, it had been worth it. You maintained high grades and high spirits. Mostly because of the small sprinkles of support your parents showered you with. 

Every little You got this! that lit up your phone screen on dreary afternoons and We believe in you! that made your evening lectures a little more bearable felt like tokens of your parents’ affection. Something tangible to show for the care they held for you. 

Most of all, you cherished the We’re proud of you messages. You can’t remember the last time you received one. 

And it’s not like they were mad, exactly, when you told them you wanted to change majors. They did their best to be supportive in the ways that they knew how. 

For your father, that was concern. “Are you sure? Literature? What do the job prospects after graduation look like?”

And for your mother, that was letting you know that she thought you were capable of more. Of better. “It’s not that literature is bad, sweetie. It’s just… Well, you’ve always been such a smart girl…”

You get it; you really do. All the questions and prodding comments that felt like criticism were wrapped in nothing but love. But that didn’t do much to soften the sting. 

In the end, it was this desk that made you follow through with your change in major. Slumped in your hand-me-down chair late one Friday night, half finished lab report sitting untouched in your bag, the threat of tears burning at the corners of your eyes, all you wanted to do was write.  

To put into words the feelings and emotions and fantasies and frustrations that you could never seem to express otherwise. To commit a piece of your soul to paper and wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was someone else out there who would read it and find a sense of solidarity, of common ground. 

You submitted your official change request the next morning. You never regretted it once. 

But your parents still make comments, still share their concerns. And for the last three years, you haven’t had anything to show for it except for empty promises. But now, you have something. A real something. 

Publishing a story of your own is the exact validation that you need that your choice was the right one. And it’s the proof you need to assuage your parents’ fears, to show them that pursuing literature was the right call. That you can carve out a life for yourself with it. 

You’ve fantasized about this for years. For the chance to have your voice heard, your words read. There are a million half-baked thoughts and partially written drafts scattered in your notebooks and digital documents and on the corners of takeout napkins that have been lying in wait for a moment just like this. 

But no matter how hard you stare at the page in front of you, the words just won’t come. The more old drafts you scour, the more amateur your writing feels. The more you feel like maybe Heeseung should have won the internship over you. 

It’s a miserable cycle your brain works itself into. The less you write, the more you criticize, the more you wonder. 

What if he hadn’t been late that morning? What if Professor Kim was hoping to choose him instead? What if the reason he didn’t say anything when Heeseung finally arrived in class was because he was so disappointed that his first choice wasn’t an option anymore?

Groaning out loud to an empty room, your head falls on your desk with a muted thud. 

It’s there, facedown on your desk, where an idea strikes you. If you can’t manifest a draft out of thin air, maybe you just need some parameters. A general guide to get the creative juices flowing. 

Lifting your head back up, you push your notebook to the side and reach for your laptop. Opening a web browser, you navigate to New Haven Publishing House’s homepage. 

It’s a simple website, reflective of its simple namesake. Chin in one hand, you click the link that reads Recently Published. 

The list that pops up is modest. Unlike a larger, more corporate publishing house, your professor’s self-made enterprise is churning out new releases at a slower rate and smaller volume. 

Perusing the titles and descriptions, you note that the vast majority of the works are short form fiction. There are very few full length novels. The majority is made up of essay and poetry collections, short stories, and memoirs. 

Scanning the list again, a title close to the top catches your eye. 

The Thirst for Revenge: An Analysis of Contemporary Vampire Activity. It was published less than a month ago. 

Your cursor hovers over the link, brow furrowing. It strikes you as odd that something so… archaic would be published so recently. 

Professor Kim has always come across as a discerning man. Someone that prides himself on his well curated taste. 

But vampires… that’s hardly a headline worthy topic these days. 

While most people still practice caution walking down dark alleyways at night and some even go so far as to carry charms infused with garlic cloves, monsters of the night are by and large a thing of the past.

The entire species of bloodthirsty, ravaging immortals were hunted to near extinction almost two hundred years ago. Those that survived relocated to remote areas. Some adapted to life in the countryside by learning to enjoy the taste of animal blood. Others found humans willing to donate small portions of their own blood intermittently. You won’t pretend to understand, but you suppose it’s preferable to the alternative.  

Some still hunted in the traditional way, of course, but vampire attacks on humans are few are far between these days. After all, vampires, as a means of survival, have all but forsaken major urban areas. Population density spells demise for their species. 

You’d have to confirm through research, but if you remember correctly, the last recorded vampire-related death in your city was nearly two hundred years ago. 

Without bothering to click on the link, you continue scrolling down. Honestly, it was probably just a fluke. After all, who knows? Maybe there’s some niche circle out there that enjoys analyzing vampire literature, regardless of how outdated it is. 

The next title seems a bit more promising. Shadowless Nights. The brief description marks it as a short story published half a year ago. 

You click on it, take a sip of room temperature tea while the page loads. 

Night was my favorite time of day, the first line reads. 

I loved the stillness of it all, the all encompassing serenity. With the moon in the sky and stars in my eyes, every moment felt like a secret between me and the universe. Something we alone shared. 

I whispered secrets to the earth and held hers in return. My days felt like dreams. Distant, blurry, faded. It was only then, in the distinct stillness of midnight, that I truly came alive. 

Interesting, you think. It’s a bit more melodramatic than you expected, but maybe your professor prefers a poetic touch. 

In the night, I earned peace. And in the night, I learned fear. 

It came slowly at first, that sinking feeling of dread. The horrible suspicion that made the hair on the back of my neck feel sharp, the air in my throat feel shallow. 

But if I have learned anything of monsters, it is that they revel in that fear. That sickeningly overt reminder of mortality, of humanity. The way I couldn’t help the racing of my pulse, the darting of my eyes. 

He enjoyed it, toying with me from the shadows. Watching me become desperate, watching me become weak. 

But it paled in comparison, I’m sure, with what came next. Every story has its climax, and every beginning has its end. For him, it was the sweet, clean taste of my blood. 

Wait. Another vampire story? One was strange enough, but for the last two published works at New Haven to be vampire related doesn’t feel like a coincidence. Especially since the more you read, the more you realize it’s not as much of a story as it is thinly veiled anti-vampire rhetoric. 

The dramatized descriptions of a weak, innocent female lead being victimized by a faceless, bloodthirsty monster. It just feels… strange. Outdated. Irrelevant, even. 

Clicking back to the list, you scan over the next five entries. All of them are more or less the same. Some are more metaphorical than others, abstract in their rhetoric, but the topic is always the same. And the conclusion always affirms the immense, inevitable, irredeemable blight that vampirism is to the world. 

It’s just bizarre. Especially considering that Professor Kim never once had you analyze any anti-vampire propaganda throughout the entire semester. In fact, you were never assigned to read anything vampire related at all. 

If this type of literature is so central to his professional career, it doesn't make sense to you that he wouldn’t incorporate it into his class. Especially considering the fact that he was awarding an internship at New Haven to one of the students. 

You take another long sip of cold tea. Well… you could try to come up with something that aligns with the current profile of New Haven’s recently published works. It’s not like you’ve ever written anything related to vampires. Maybe you just need to think of it as a writing exercise, a challenge of sorts. Producing a piece that feels relevant and fresh even if the central topic is a bit out of style. 

According to the revision schedule Professor Kim gave you, your first draft issue in a week and a half. The same day that you’re set to go to New Haven for the first time and tour the office you’ll be interning at once winter break is over. It’s an ambitious timeline, but he did specify that he’s looking more for a solid concept than a well polished draft. But something in you wants to have more than just a concept. You want his approval, to impress him. 

So you have a week and a half to come up with a draft that will catch his attention, that will convince him that you were the right choice for this opportunity. Not anyone else in your class. Not Heeseung. You. 

A concept that will excite New Haven Publishing House’s usual reader base, that will maybe actually earn you some commercial success. 

A story that will prove to your parents that literature was the right choice for you. That your words do matter, that you can make a name for yourself with your writing. 

Well, you think, suppressing an internal groan, it looks like you have your work cut out for you. 

…..

Despite your admitted lack of vampiric knowledge, once you have your topic, the words start to flow. You’re not sure if it’s your best work. You’re not even sure if it’s good. But it feels a hell of a lot better than staring at a blank page for hours. 

This afternoon finds you in the corner of your favorite coffee shop. Mostly because they offer half priced lattes on Wednesdays. As you make a dent in yours, the pen in your other hand continues to fly over the pages of your notebook, occasionally stopping to scratch out a word or rewrite a sentence. 

The bare bones are there. Just like in the handful of stories you perused on New Haven’s website, your plot features a young woman. It’s a historic setting, mostly because you still can’t quite bring yourself to write vampires into the modern day when the reality is so starkly different. 

And it’s not a vampire story. At least not at first glance. Instead, you weave an enduring metaphor to symbolize a parasitic relationship between two lovers.

The woman in your draft is young, full of life and energy and optimism. And she dreams. Vivid, brilliant dreams that she clings to in order to escape the harshness of her reality as a lower class woman in the countryside. 

Her husband, however, is a brute. Older than her and with a decidedly less sunny disposition. When he learns that his health is failing, he discovers that he can heal himself temporarily by stealing these dreams from her. 

So, no. It’s not overtly about vampires. But it does fall into step with some of the more abstract anti-vampire tropes you came across in your preliminary research. 

Crossing a dark line through the word you just penned, you sigh. 

This is the fastest you’ve put a story together in ages. It’s cohesive, and the writing is solid. Your use of metaphor is strong and concise, and the prose feels true to your identity as a writer. 

But something in you withers a bit with every new word you commit to paper. It’s not that you hate your topic. If anything, it’s just that you have no stake in it at all. It doesn't feel innovative or exciting or representative of your creativity. 

No matter how easily the words flow out of you, something about it just feels… flat. One dimensional. 

You need something new. A different angle or an alternative perspective or… Or a fresh set of eyes. 

Struck with a sudden idea, you pull out your phone, plan taking form in your mind. The literature club at your university hosts bimonthly peer review sessions, and you haven’t taken advantage of them nearly as much as you should. They’re a chance for any writer, literature major or otherwise, to come together and workshop any piece of writing of their choice. 

Tapping your finger impatiently on the table, you wait for the page to load. The fall semester did end almost a week ago, so it may be a long shot. You’re not sure if the club typically holds sessions over winter break. But as you pull up the club’s calendar of events, a small smile tugs at your lips. 

Luck seems to be on your side this time. It’s written there in plain, bold font that there will be a session this upcoming Friday evening. That means that if you attend the session and get some solid ideas for revision, you’ll have exactly five days to refine your draft before you present it to Professor Kim. 

The idea of having not only a topic, as the schedule outlined, but an actual complete,  well-written draft to show him next Wednesday, turns your small smile into one that overtakes your features. 

Energized with a new vigor, you reach for your pen again. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you remind yourself, even as a turn of phrase makes you cringe. Even as a piece of punctuation feels out of place. It just needs to be written. You just need to have as much content as you can to share on Friday. 

Besides, you’re sure that a second opinion will help you fine tune this story into something you’re proud to share, something you’re excited to attach your name to.

The afternoon is quick to blur into early evening, and you’re still bent over your favorite corner table. Coffee long drained, you’re full of a new confidence. The thought of proving yourself suddenly doesn’t seem like such an unachievable, out of reach task. 

And when you do finally gather up all of your belongings and make your way back to your apartment for the night, you’re sure that this is the exact boost you needed. 

That same stroke of self-assuredness carries you all the way through a finished first draft. It’s rough and messy and littered with loose ends, but it’s tucked away in the bottom of your tote bag with a smile as you haul it to classroom number 105 in the university liberal arts building Friday evening. 

You pause at the door to the classroom, only for a moment. The inhale you breathe in is deep, full. Nodding to yourself once, you push open the door. 

You haven’t been to one of these workshop sessions since the second semester of your first year, back when you had just switched to a literature major. You remember being wide-eyed and incredibly protective over your work. It was hard to part with it, to let anyone else read over the sentences you were so unsure of. The writing you had little confidence in. 

But your partner had been kind. Another girl in her first year, she had nothing but gentle feedback to give and reassurance that your writing was worth reading. Honestly, it was such an overwhelmingly positive experience that you would have come back for more sessions if you weren’t constantly struggling to find minutes to spare in the day. 

You’re hoping that tonight will be just as rewarding as you enter the classroom, tote bag in tow. But as you survey the space around you, your face falls flat, easy going smile dropping from your lips. 

You weren’t expecting a big crowd, considering that it is winter break and most students are deliberately avoiding campus right now, but you were hoping there’d be more than one other person in attendance. 

Well, you think, deciding to look on the bright side of things. At least you’re not the only person. 

The other attendee is sitting in the far corner of the room, occupying a desk near the front of the classroom. At the sound of your entrance, they turn to face you. 

With that, your small disappointment is quick to snowball into an intense wave of exasperation. Because why is the universe so hellbent on playing games with you?

Your mouth drops open without your permission. “Heeseung?” 

Your sudden outburst fills the room and lingers long into the awkward silence that follows. You hadn’t meant to say anything, but really, what are the god forsaken odds?

If he’s bothered by your reaction to seeing him, Heeseung doesn’t show it. Instead he looks strangely… relieved. It makes absolutely no sense for him to feel any sort of relief at the sight of you, but it’s hard to put a more apt descriptor to the way tension drains from his shoulders, crease between his brows softening as he looks at you, scans you from head to toe. 

A moment of stilted silence passes between the two of you. Another. Your heartbeat feels too loud in your chest.

You exhale, a cross between a scoff and a laugh so humorless it could freeze a flame. Weighing your options, the most tempting by far is to just turn on your heel and exit the way you came. 

Heeseung seems to read your intention before you can commit to it. 

Breaking the heaviness in the atmosphere, he acts as if you’ve greeted him like an old friend, not as the source of all your recent headaches. 

“Hi,” he nods, so tentatively you almost want to let your jaw drop open in shock. Almost. 

Because what the fuck does he mean by ‘Hi?’ This has to be some kind of mind game, some way to get in your head and ruin this for you. 

“Right.” Your lips pull into a tight line. You don’t bother to return his greeting. “I’m just gonna go, then.” Hiking up your bag on your shoulder, you turn to do just that. Your first draft will just have to be unpolished. Oh, well. You’re sure Professor Kim will have better feedback for you than Lee Heeseung ever would anyway. 

Once again, Heeseung’s voice cuts across the classroom. “Wait.” There’s a command in his voice. Gentle, but firm. Insistent. So pervasive that you find yourself following without really meaning to. 

Mind made up and dead set on leaving, now you’re just annoyed. What a waste of a Friday evening.

“What?” You turn back to him. You’re not sure if there’s more venom in your voice or your eyes. 

And Heeseung, who commands a classroom with quiet grace, with his steady, unwavering presence, suddenly looks so damn unsure. As if tormenting you is uncharted territory. As if he’s never once left you in the cold with flaming cheeks and a thoroughly shattered ego. 

“I…” he trails off, not quite meeting your furious gaze. “Didn’t you come here to get feedback?”

“Right.” You scoff again. “Because I’m sure you’d love nothing more than to tear my writing to shreds. Forgive me, but I’m not interested in being the butt end of your joke tonight.”

“What?” If you didn’t know any better, the ignorance he feigns would be rather convincing. “That’s not why I’m here.” He shakes his head. “I brought something I want reviewed too.” 

Your brow arches. He can’t be serious. “Even if I did stay,” you counter, “you’re actually the last person I would want to read my work. Feel free to be offended by that, by the way.”

For a solid minute, Heeseung just looks at you. He wears that same damn deer-in-the-headlights expression he had after you brushed him off when he intercepted you in class the other day. He pauses, weighing words on his tongue. “Look, ____.” The sound of your name on his lips strikes a strange chord in you. Until now, you were certain he didn’t even know it. “Did I do something to offend—”

And no. Absolutely not. No way are you rehashing that day in the quad with him now. 

“You know what,” you interrupt. You need to go. Now. You need an out. “I’m actually, like, super tired. I think I’m just gonna head back, and—”

But then it’s his turn to cut off your train of thought. “It’s your piece for Professor Kim, isn’t it?” Heeseung takes your silence as confirmation. “Publishing is a big deal. A second set of eyes will only make your work stronger. And if you hate my feedback, it’s not like you have to use any of it.”

You hate it. You despise the way his reasoning matches your internal monologue nearly word for word. The way your thoughts align exactly. 

You pause, a decision weighing heavy on your mind. He is an excellent writer… There would probably be substance to his feedback. Real, actual, good substance that you could use to make your writing bloom into something truly amazing. He could be the exact spark you need to make your story come to life. 

You purse your lips. “What’s in it for you?”

Heeseung smiles, a nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips. He knows he’s won. “Like I said, I brought something I’ve been working on.” There’s an intention you can’t quite read behind his gaze when he adds, “I want to know what you think of it.”

Hook, line, and sinker.

With a grumble, you take reluctant steps towards where he sits on the opposite side of the classroom. And if you slide down into the seat next to him with a little more force than necessary, well, it’s just because you’ve had a long week. No other reason. None at all. 

“Fine,” you relent, reaching to pull your notebook out of your bag. “You get twenty minutes.”

“That’s not nearly long eno—”

“Thirty,” you concede. “And don’t push it.”

Sensing your disdain, Heeseung doesn’t respond. Instead, he accepts the notebook you reluctantly hand him with an outstretched hand and an open palm. The transfer between the two of you is gentle. You have the distinct sense that he’ll treat your work with care, in more than one way. 

Still, something in your heart seizes at the thought of letting your work be read. Of letting him be the one to read it. 

In return, he offers you a notebook of his own. Bound in brown, aged leather, it’s certainly much more refined than yours. Of course. 

He hands it to you still closed. Staring down at the cover, you ask, “What page?” It feels intrusive to start flipping through his writing uninvited. 

“There’s a bookmark.” Heeseung nods his chin towards the small piece of paper sticking out of the top edge that you missed at first glance. 

And then the transfer is complete. A piece of your heart is spread open on his desk, and a piece of his soul is in your hands. 

Ignoring the way your fingers tremble with a slight shake, you delicately open his notebook to the bookmarked page, letting it fall open on the desk in front of you. 

At first glance, the writing strikes you as odd. The paragraphs are strange lengths, ending at random junctures instead of extending all the way to the margins. And then it hits you. They’re not paragraphs. They’re stanzas. 

Poetry. Lee Heeseung writes poetry. 

You sneak a sidelong glance at him out of your periphery. He’s already engrossed in the pages of your notebook, pausing occasionally to jot a note down on a scrap piece of paper. His brow is furrowed, and there’s a tension in his jawline that only makes it sharper. 

Still, the image of his profile is shrouded in a distinct sort of softness. The kind of effortless beauty that feels like it should be reserved for intimate moments in the dead of night, secrets passed between lovers. It’s wasted under the fluorescent lights and patchy, beige walls of an underfunded classroom, but you waste another minute staring at him all the same. 

For a fleeting moment, it’s not hard to imagine those hands, those long, delicate fingers maintaining an even grip on a ballpoint pen to write something as romantic as poetry. 

Shaking your head, you clear the errant thoughts. Instead, you turn your focus back to the page in front of you and begin with the first poem. Forcing your eyes to focus, you read. 

As if nothing happened,

She looks at me

With shadowless eyes.

But it is me who has been 

Forgiven and reborn countless times.

You inhale. Exhale. Short and succinct with a distinct twinge of tragedy. That was… not what you were expecting. Pushing forward, you move onto the next entry. 

Even the stars in the universe

Will close their eyes one day.

Underneath their watchful gaze,

All of these moments are precious.

For memory, for regret,

I will carve them

Into the repetition of the moment.

Again, you pause, taking a moment to breathe. It’s so… melancholy, so poignant in its evocation of pain, of regret. While you’ve been familiar with Heeseung’s ability to analyze the hell out of a novella, this was not something you thought you’d find in his repertoire. And the more you read on, the more you realize these aren’t flukes. This is his identity as a writer, or at least a significant part of it. 

The world that abandoned us

Slowly turns to ash. 

But I don’t feel the pain. 

I only feel the cold.

My god. You nearly close the notebook on instinct. Without your permission, your eyes flick ove to the desk next to you. The broad set of shoulders that fill the seat. What has this boy been through? Why is he letting you read this? 

Heeseung looks up. Not at you, but the movement is enough to startle you out of your staring. Returning your eyes to his notebook, you read the last entry on the page. 

A shaded castle with no sun

The thick scent of dying roses never fades. 

In a broken mirror, I see myself. 

And my reflection whispers, “Monster.”

The breath you release is long. Audible. You’re overcome with the urge to run your fingers over his words, to feel the indents his pen made as he carved pain into the page. His writing is gorgeous. It’s beautifully, tragically haunting. Of that much, you’re certain. But you have no idea what to do with that information. 

His words feel too raw, too terribly intimate. Like something that was never meant for your eyes. You can’t understand what on earth possibly possessed him to let — no — to encourage you to read these. 

You can’t fathom any kind of feedback you could offer him. These feel like pieces of his soul, not something to be commodified or commented on in a writing workshop. Discussed in the cold, unfeeling walls of an old classroom.

Despite the discomfort that lingers with each passing stanza, his writing has an almost addictive quality. Over and over, you find yourself rereading each brief poem. You’re searching for meaning, for clarity, for something hidden between the lines that you missed on your first handful of reads. 

Thirty minutes pass in a trance, and Heeseung, true to his word, is the one to break the silence when your half hour is up. 

Mind still reeling, you realize with a sinking feeling that you have absolutely no feedback to give him at all. 

Instead, you turn to face him. Throwing a meaningful glance at where your notebook still lies open on the desk in front of him. Doing your best to not look too hopeful, you ask, “Well?”

For a moment, Heeseung just looks at you, an unreadable expression on his face. Tension pulls at his temple, his jaw. Frustration seeps from beneath his skin, and you can’t tell where it’s directed. 

“Oh, come on,” you prod when his silence extends even longer. “I know you’re dying to spill the gory details of how grossly incompetent I am and how horrifically amateur my writing is, so don’t—”

Heeseung wastes no fanfare. “This is awful.”

Your lips flatten. “Or just cut right to the chase.”

He’s quick to clarify. “But not for any of the reasons you just listed. I mean, sure, there are some craft issues here, but even those seem like a result of your concept.”

“What’s wrong with my concept?” The edge of defensiveness in your voice escapes without your permission. 

Heeseung just levels you with a look. Returning his gaze to your notebook, he reads from your draft verbatim, “...Stashing away the light from her life. Tucking it into his back pocket like extra change just for the satisfaction of temporary happiness. It was never love that bound him to her, but the promise of a never ending fountain of life. Of wishes and thoughts and hopes and dreams that he could use to sustain himself as long as he subjected himself to the numbing pleasure of existing at her side.” 

He raises an eyebrow, turns back to you. “I mean, really, ____? I’ve read some nauseatingly vitriolic vampire pieces in my life, and this just about has all of them beat. Besides, the whole vampire thing just feels so… irrelevant. Do people still read this stuff anymore?”

Your first instinct is to defend yourself, your work, even if his thoughts mirror your own. Before you can, Heeseung is pressing on. You don’t have the space to get a word in sideways. “I mean, what happened to the writing from that piece you presented back in September? I don’t remember all the details, but there was something about watching birds land on water and connecting it to the feeling of belonging but never truly fitting in.” He looks at you again. There’s more emotion, more glittering life in his eyes than you’ve ever seen from him before. “That was a fresh take and a well done metaphor.”

Your mind is reeling. It’s far too much information to take in all at once. But something stands out amongst the rest. Because that almost sounded like— 

“Was that a compliment?” It seems unlikely, but you can’t find another way to take his words. “You paid attention to my presentation?” 

You liked it? You don’t ask that question out loud, but the needier parts of you crave his answer anyway.

“Yeah, of course I did. Peer review was a mandatory component of the course.” Heeseung’s cheekbones remain the same, even, honey-tinted tone, but you swear you see a flash of embarrassment in the way he averts his gaze. 

“Well, yeah.” It’s not a justification that holds much weight in your mind. “But you don’t exactly seem like the type to really pay attention to other people’s stuff. Especially if you think it’s not worth your time.”

“I just told you your presentation was good, didn’t I?”

You arch a brow. “Yeah, right after you finished calling my draft horrific.”

Heeseung shakes his head. “I didn’t say it was horrific…”

“Oh, please. Spare us both the semantics. That’s what you meant.” You’re not sure why your mind always goes back to that day in the quad, but you find yourself still sore from his rejection, his new assertion of your work poking at old wounds. Picking at poorly healed scabs. “And it’s not like you were jumping for joy at the chance to review my work back then, either.”

Heeseung’s brow furrows. You can practically see the gears turning in his mind. You’re not sure if it makes you feel better or worse, the fact that he doesn’t seem to remember that day at all. 

In the end, you decide to spare him the effort of empty recollection. With a sigh, you spill your shame. At least this time around, you’re the only two that will bear witness. “That one day in class. Back at the beginning of the semester. We had to present our analysis of that one short story. You remember, the one about planting seeds in bad soil.” Heeseung nods, but there’s no spark of realization. Not yet. 

Continuing, it only pains you slightly to admit, “Your analysis was brilliant, and I gushed about it in front of the whole class. Laid it on thick with the compliments. And then after class, I stopped you in the quad.” Something flickers over Heeseung’s features. A memory tugging at the back of his mind. “When I asked if you wanted to review each other’s pieces for the next assignment, you completely brushed me off.”

Brow still pulled downwards, Heeseung is thinking back to that day, too. But it doesn't seem to hold the same awful, leaden weight in his mind. “I didn’t brush you off,” he argues. “I think I said I was busy.”

It takes a lot of willpower not to let your jaw drop open. “That’s brushing someone off!” Your voice is too loud for the near empty classroom, for your close proximity. “Like literally the textbook definition. Everyone knows that ‘I’m busy’ is code for ‘leave me the hell alone.’”

Almost imperceptibly, Heeseung’s features soften as he watches yours strain. The fluorescent light bulbs that fill the room suddenly don’t seem quite as harsh when he says, “Well, that's not what I meant. I was busy.”

It’s hardly a satisfying answer. But you suppose it makes little difference. If he wants to stick to his story, you’ll continue to feign indifference. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters now anyway.”

And then your mind is back on his poems. His beautiful, tragic, gorgeously phrased stanzas scribbled in his handwriting. Fragments of vulnerability that he handed to you without hesitation. 

It’s like comparing apples to oranges in a way, but there is no doubt in your mind that between the two of you, the writing he brought tonight is better. Better than your story, better than most things you’ve ever written, probably. The imagery is evocative, striking in a way you’ve never quite been able to achieve no matter how many seminars and workshops and lectures you attend. 

Not for the first time, your brain dangles a dangerous thought in a place where you can’t avoid it. What if Professor Kim chose wrong? What if Heeseung hadn’t been late to class that day? Would you be sitting here with a mediocre draft and a raging inferiority complex?

You’ll never know, not really, but you find yourself asking anyway, “Why were you late to class that day?”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you wish you could take them back. It’s not like his answer will change anything. And it’s invasive. Far too personal to ask someone you barely know. That up until thirty minutes ago, you actively avoided. 

But maybe the universe is on your side for once. Maybe you got ridiculously lucky and he didn’t hear you, despite the fact that it’s dead silent in this classroom. Maybe—

“What?”

Or not.

Well, you’re committed now. “The last day of class. When the winner for the publishing opportunity was announced,” you clarify. “You were late. Honestly,” you add with a wry smile, “you’d probably be the one writing overdramatic vampire slander right now if you hadn’t been.”

It’s a self-deprecating joke. It might land poorly, but you’re hoping it will lighten the atmosphere. 

A dark shadow crosses Heeseung’s features. “Trust me, ___. You winning had nothing to do with me being late that day.”

If he thinks flattery will get him anywhere, he’s wrong. You can feel your frustrations bubbling in your throat, clawing at your mind. You won. You beat him. So why doesn’t it feel like it? Why doesn’t it feel like anything you do is ever good enough?

“C’mon, Heeseung.” He doesn’t deserve your anger. At least, not now. But he gets it anyway. Insecurities and inferiority and frustration all wrapped in rage. “You were practically a shoe-in, and everyone knows it.”

He’s just as insistent. Leaning towards you slightly, he looks anything but aloof now. “No I wasn’t. Professor Kim chose you to intern with him. He read both of our submissions all semester and chose you to publish with his firm. I told you, your writing is good. Really good.” Glancing down at your notebook, he adds, “Even if this one is a bit… uninspired.”

A compliment and a slight. His version of the truth, wrapped up in a bow and delivered right to your waiting ears. You don’t know whether to be furious or overjoyed. Maybe it would be best to feel absolutely nothing at all. It scares you, just how much weight his opinion holds. 

But approval from him has its way of feeling like a long sought victory, and now the air feels fraught with something delicate, fragile. Precarious, even. 

It’s early evening in a threadbare classroom. The most neutral territory imaginable. But it’s the two of you, alone, secluded. And suddenly, that frightens you. 

“Right.” You won’t tell him ‘thank you’ for the compliment or ‘go fuck yourself’ for the criticism. Both options feel like you would be revealing too much. 

Instead, you take a glance at the clock. It’s not late, but it’s an excuse. “I should probably get going.”

Heeseung exhales. Leans back in his seat. “Of course,” he concedes easily, reaching to hand you your notebook.

You do the same with his, almost sad to watch his poetry pass from your hands to his. It’s odd, the way his words already feel like something you’ll miss. 

You realize then that he hasn’t asked you for your opinion on his work. For your advice on how to make it better. In all honesty, you’re relieved. You haven’t the slightest idea what you would say. 

So instead, you busy yourself with repacking your tote bag. In your haste, you knock your pen off of your desk. The sound it makes as it strikes the thinning carpet can’t be loud, but it feels thunderous in your ears. 

As you reach to pick it up, Heeseung does the same. There’s a moment, fleeting but unmistakable, when the skin of his hand brushes against yours. 

Instantly, Heeseung recoils as if you’ve burned him. His hand is back in his own space at a speed so fast you nearly miss it. 

It was an accident, a tiny blip with no real consequences, but the way he’s looking at you with those damn eyes makes you feel like you should be apologizing. 

“Sorry.” The severity of his reaction stings like rejection. It’s not like he’s exactly your favorite person either, but at least you have the common decency to not look repulsed at the thought of touching him. At the accidental brushing of your hands. 

Heeseung frowns. Shakes his head slightly as if to clear his thoughts. “No, I…” he trails off, letting his words hang in the air for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he concludes, but it feels disingenuous. And he doesn’t bother to elaborate. Looking over your shoulder, he reads the clock on the wall. “It’s getting kind of late. Where are you parked? I can walk you to your car.”

His hands are busy putting his notebook back in his back. It’s a considerate offer, but coming on the tail end of everything else, it doesn’t hold much weight with you. His words don’t match his actions, and you decide you’d be a fool to take them at face value. 

“Don’t bother. I’m walking home, not driving.”

Heeseung freezes, hand still inside his bag. He’s not looking at you, but you feel the weight of his attention all the same. “Do you need someone to walk with you?”

The way he phrases the question makes you feel like a burden. He’s asking if you need someone to walk with you, not offering because he wants to. A subtle difference maybe, but the last thing you want is to feel like you owe him any favors. 

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” He does look at you now, concern painted across his features. “It’s getting dark earlier these days, and—”

His words are wasted on you. You’re already halfway to the door. “I’m sure.” But before you leave, you decide one more hit to your pride can’t worsen the damage that’s already been done. At least this time, it will be by your doing. Standing under the doorframe, you turn back to him. “Thank you for your feedback. It was good to hear an honest opinion.”

Your words sink into the air. Linger for a moment. 

Heeseung nods. Something in his jaw tightens. “You know, if you do decide to change topics, I’d be happy to read whatever you write.”

It almost sounds like another compliment. Or maybe another insult. Either way, you’re sure that even if you figure it out, you’ll still have no idea what to do with it. You nod, only once, and then your back is turned again before you can linger too long on any of it. 

But his words, the sweet ones this time, replay in your mind the entire walk home. 

Maybe if you weren’t so distracted by the ghosts of compliments, you’d have noticed the pair of quiet, even footsteps that trailed after you in the distance. That only retreated once the front door to your apartment was pulled shut and locked tight behind you. 

Then again, maybe not. Heeseung has always had a knack for going undetected. 

…..

You wake up the next morning with Heeseung’s words replaying in your mind. 

Awful. Irrelevant. And of course your favorite, ‘nauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece.’

In the faded glow of morning light, you groan out loud to your empty bedroom. The worst part of it all is that he’s not even wrong. But it’s Saturday morning, and your first draft is due on Wednesday. The thought of starting a new story from scratch and writing it to completion within that time frame is enough to make you want to curl into a ball and screw your eyes shut until you can pretend the world outside your bedroom is nothing but a figment of your imagination. 

So no, you don’t think you can start over entirely. But maybe, just maybe, you can rework things. Tweak the narrative to feel less cliche, less outdated. More true to you. 

Part of you wants to abandon the vampire concept entirely, convinced it’s what’s holding you down. The other part is hesitant to do so based on New Haven’s list of recently published works. 

And while Heeseung’s criticism was the confirmation you needed that your story needs reworking, it’s not like he gave you any ideas as to what you should change. What direction you should take.

Nauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece. That seemed to be Heeseung’s biggest problem with your draft. Not that it alluded to vampirism. No, you think he disliked that it was a tired and rehashed propaganda piece on the inherent evilness of vampires. 

Everyone knows that vampires were monsters. Writing about it, no matter how many metaphors and symbolic phrases you wrap it up in, just isn’t interesting. 

That’s the route you’ll take, then, you decide. You don’t have to invent a new concept out of thin air. You just need to find a way to bring something new to the table. Something worth reading. Climbing out of bed, you switch your pajamas for clothes more acceptable in public. 

And then you make your way to the university library. 

Just as you suspected, it’s essentially empty. Between long rows of meticulously shelved books, vacant study rooms, and community computers, the only other person you see is the librarian that greets you as you arrive. Even her eyebrows raise in mild shock to see someone else during the break, and on a weekend at that.

Heading to the second floor, the first section you peruse through is historical records. But between old newspapers, reports, and journals, the content itself is quite cut and dry. Detached descriptions of vampire attacks that only contain details of the date, time, and death toll aren’t exactly riveting. And you don’t think they’ll do much for your feeble draft. 

Before long, you move away from the nonfiction section. Navigating to supernatural fiction on the third floor, you start browsing titles. Vampire stories make up a rather small portion of the texts, and from what you can tell, the vast majority align with what you found on New Haven’s website. 

From Demons of the Dark to Left in Cold Blood, you doubt that most of what you find will offer any kind of new perspective. But on your third, slightly desperate scouring of the shelf, you make a discovery. 

It’s a small, nondescript book. The muted tones and faded lettering on the spine go easily undetected amongst the much flashier copies of anti-vampire propaganda it’s nestled between. 

Pulling the book out from the shelf with a delicate touch, you flip the cover face-up in your hand. 

Sacred Monsters: A Collection of Essays on the Origins of Immortality

It piques your interest. At the very least, it seems different from all the other novels. 

Book in hand, you make your way to a nearby desk. Once you’re settled in, you pull out your notebook, opening to a new page with the intention of taking notes. 

The book you lay on the desk next to your notebook seems like it’s lived a long life, the old scent of dust and aged paper and time all contained within its pages. Flipping open the front cover, you look for an author or publication date. But there’s nothing there, not even a title page or a table of contents. 

Glossing over the slight oddity, you decide the beginning is as good a place as any to start. 

The Taste of Blood, is the title at the top of the page. 

And the first sentence begins:

It is neither sweet nor particularly savory. There is no distinct aroma, no compelling flavor profile, nothing that appeals to the eye or excites the taste buds. The only merit is the fact that it is necessary. For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die. 

Frowning, you flip back to the cover, as if that will provide any clarity for the strange passage you just read. But nothing is different. Nothing new stands out. Just the same, faded title. No author or indication of any kind of publication date. 

Intrigued, you turn back and resume where you left off. 

Some are said to enjoy the act. The purity of release, of giving in to the instincts that can be convinced into domesticity but never fully silenced. I have never found such relief. The ghost of my humanity has always been stronger than the voice of the monster, even as he screams with unbounded ferocity. 

Without it, I feel incomplete. With it, I feel irredeemable. Even now, I dodge the truth, omit the profane. I have seen many moons, enjoyed their silver glow. I have stolen the very same pleasure from countless others. And yet, I struggle to call it by name. I cannot reconcile the battles waged in my bones, the war fought in my mind. 

There is no winner in either. All that remains in the taste of it. Lingering on my breath. Haunting my waking dreams. That which I cannot name. 

The taste of blood. 

In my fervor, it soothes like honey. In my regret, it turns to ash. 

And still, nothing changes. And still, nothing remains the same.

-- Anonymous

Well, if you were looking for something different, you found it. Because what the absolute fuck are you reading? If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it were written from the perspective of a vampire. 

Then again, shelved in the fiction section, you suppose it’s plausible. Actual vampires may have housed little room in their consciousness for anything outside of bloodlust, but it is an interesting idea to think of vampires as conflicted. Haunted by the brutality of their innate instincts. 

You’re not exactly sure how or if this will be able to influence your own story for the better, but something about it makes you want to keep reading. 

Alone, tucked amongst the dusty shelves of a neglected section of the library, you lose yourself between the pages of the mysterious book. 

As the title indicated, it’s a collection of essays. Most are quite short, around the same length as the first one you read. And none are claimed by an author. All are signed off with the same boldface type that spells Anonymous. There are subtle differences in the writing though, stylistic choices that make you think that more than one person wrote these essays. 

Despite that, they’re all woven together by a common thread. The first essay, as you discover, was not a fluke. Every single one is written in first person from the perspective of a vampire. 

The writing is compelling, humorous in places and deeply upsetting in others. It seems odd to you, just how much humanity is captured within the pages, within each turn of phrase. 

You feel inclined to root for the narrator in some stories and abjectly horrified by them in others. But never once does the writing make you think that vampires are incapable of self-actualization, of reflection, of morality. 

In all honesty, aside from Heeseung’s poems, it’s the most interesting thing you’ve read in ages. So much so that by the time you realize you’ve finished the last essay, the winter sun is teeming dangerously close to the horizon, and the library is nearing its closing hours. 

The notebook page you intended to use for notes, to jot down points of inspiration, is still woefully blank. But as you make your way back to the front of the library, the small, strange book comes along with you. 

Stopping at the front desk to formally check it out, the librarian frowns when she enters the number from the spine into the system. She clicks around on her computer for a moment longer before handing the book back to you. 

“I’m sorry, but the book isn’t coming up in our system for some reason. Would you mind writing down your student ID number for me? I’ll have to enter the information manually.”

You oblige her request, tucking the book into your bag before you leave. 

It’s chilly outside, the cold clutches of winter gaining a full grasp on the crisp, frigid air. After a long day in a stuffy library, the freezing air is almost soothing. Tucking your hands into your pockets, you turn towards the direction that will take you home. 

You’ve barely taken five steps when a voice calls your name from behind. Pausing, you turn to find the source of the sound. 

“Heeseung?” But there’s no mistaking it. That is most definitely Lee Heeseung, currently jogging towards you on the otherwise empty sidewalk in front of the university library. 

He catches up to you easily, no sign of perspiration or even a hint of breathlessness when he asks, “What are you doing walking alone at night?” As if you’re the strange one in this situation.

You give him a once over. The loose jeans and dark winter coat he wears are nothing special, but he wears them well regardless. You suppress the urge to sigh. “I could ask you the same.”

“Fair enough.” His tone is too light, too casual. Like he’s forcing it. Like he’s hiding something. “Are you headed home? I’ll walk you there.”

And if you weren’t suspicious before, you sure as hell are now. Why on earth would he want to walk you home? “I’m fine, thanks.” You turn away from him, heading in the direction of your apartment and hoping he’ll take the hint. 

Your wish goes ungranted. He matches your pace easily, even as you try to quicken it. “It’s after dark, ___. And there are a lot of…” He trails off, searching for the right word. “strange people out at night these days. I’m not letting you walk home alone.”

Lips tight, you don’t bother looking at him. The idea of Heeseung letting you do anything makes you want to throw things. “I’ll be fine.”

But he’s persistent. He’s all smiles and a strange amount of desperate when he says, “Either you let me walk you back or I’ll just follow you at a weird distance, which will be far more uncomfortable for both of us.”

That makes you stop in your tracks. And now you do turn to look at him. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Heeseung nods, “Exactly. So—”

You arch an unimpressed brow, crossing your arms over your chest. “It sounds like you’re the strange person at night I need to stay away from.”

Heeseung sighs, matches your eye. A strand of hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it away with long fingers. “Are you gonna start walking or are we gonna stand here and argue a little longer?”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“What a great night to find out.”

You stare at him a moment longer, lips tight. You don’t want to be the one to give in, to hand him any kind of victory, no matter how small. 

But it is getting late. The walk from campus to your apartment is never one that’s made you uneasy, but it never hurts to have someone at your side. Besides, you think he was serious about following you. He’s made it clear that he’ll be tagging along one way or another. 

“Fine,” you huff, arms still crossed over your chest. “But only because the streetlight a few blocks away is out.”

Heeseung inclines his head, a minute acknowledgement. There’s a hint of movement at the corner of his lips. “Naturally.”

You resume walking, and he falls into your pace with a practiced ease, hands in his pocket, eyes on the stars. It’s a cloudless evening. The sky above you feels vast, immense as the last rays of daylight lie to rest on the distant horizon. 

With a slight shiver, you pull your jacket tighter around your body. Heeseung notices the movement. Parts his lips as if he wants to say something. Changes his mind. Closes them. 

You’ve just reached the far edge of campus when he breaks the steady silence. 

“How’s your draft coming?”

“It’s…” You trail off, not sure how well honesty will serve you here. It feels vulnerable, like a blatant weakness to admit that you’ve got nothing. But something about cold air and the vast expanse of night has you wanting to tell the truth. “Not great.”

Heeseung lets your response settle. Turns it over in his mind a few times. You’ve noticed that about him. He’s careful with his responses. Weighs his words before breathing them to life. “Still looking for inspiration?”

“I don’t know if it’s inspiration I need.” It’s easier to talk to him like this, when your eyes have something to focus on, when your body has the constant repetition of steps to occupy part of your mind. Without little distractions like these, Heeseung has a way of becoming all consuming. “I feel like I backed myself into a corner with the vampire concept. I’m not sure if there's really anything there to explore that won’t feel outdated and irrelevant.” 

“Mm,” Heeseung muses. It’s noncommittal, neither an agreement nor an argument. “Maybe. You said it yourself; vampires are nothing but bloodlust. Riled completely by instinct. Nothing left of their humanity.”

Frowning, your footsteps almost falter. “I didn’t say that.”

“Forgive me.” If there’s a tinge of bitterness in his tone, you suppose it must be because of the cold. The fact that he’s wasting his Saturday night walking you home. “Heavily implied it.”

“Honestly, the only reason I even wrote that story was because there were a lot of similar ones on New Haven’s list of recently published works.” Your reasoning feels almost stupid when you admit it aloud like this. You’ve always prided yourself on your originality, your commitment to staying true to yourself as a writer. But when push comes to shove, you let your desire to impress your professor get in the way of that. “I wanted something that would align with their usual publications.” 

You’ve admitted a weakness, a poorly made choice. You’re expecting ire, more of that haughty contempt. But Heeseung’s mind is going in an entirely different direction.

He’s not questioning your abilities, not even alluding to them at all when he asks, “What do you think of vampires, then?”

His question catches you off guard. Why on earth would he care about that? “What’s it to you?”

“My bad. We can just walk in awkward silence if you prefer.”

It takes a ridiculous amount of your energy to swallow the laugh that bubbles in your throat. Since when did Heeseung crack jokes? Since when did you have to fight the urge to giggle at them like a schoolgirl with a crush? You suddenly find yourself grateful for the cover of night, the way shadows make the heat on your cheeks undetectable. 

But his question still lingers. Ruminating on it, your mind flickers to the small, odd book currently sitting at the bottom of your bag. 

Sacred Monsters. 

It feels like a strange combination of words, two concepts that shouldn’t fit together. 

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” you breathe. You don’t know if it could possibly be true, the idea that creatures of the night have a high level of consciousness, the ability to moralize, to feel conflicted. But it certainly makes for a more interesting story. 

“I mean, vampires had to have some level of base cognition, right?” You’ll never know for sure, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. “They were hunted to near extinction, but they put up a good fight. They hid. They fled. They tried blending in as humans. Some resorted to drinking animal blood. I guess there’s no way of knowing, but that doesn’t feel like pure biology or an evolutionary response alone. It feels like… something a human would do.”

“Wouldn’t that be worse?” Heeseung’s voice is low. If the faint hum of faraway traffic were any louder, you might not hear him at all. “For them to know what it means to be alive and still make the choice to take that away from someone else? To exist as a parasite.”

“It would certainly be tragic.” The words of the first essay come back to you. 

For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die.

“It’s a fatal flaw, a cruel design. They need blood to survive. The very thing that their bodies used to create on their own. It’s parasitic, yes, but that doesn’t make it animal instinct. I can’t imagine the horror of having to experience that with the burden of human consciousness.” 

You feel the weight of Heeseung’s gaze on the side of your face. “It’s still evil, is it not?”

His words feel heavy, weighted under moonlight. Though you can’t imagine why, you have the distinct sense that your answer is important to him. 

“Like I said, I think it’s more complicated than that. Taking someone’s life is evil, yes, but that was never unique to vampires. Is a vampire that chooses animal blood still evil just because they’re a vampire? Is a human that chooses to kill another absolved of their crime just by virtue of being human?”

Your words settle into the space between you. 

“That,” Heeseung finally breathes, “would make a much better story than the one I read last night.”

This time, you do laugh, a light airy thing. It feels easy, lighthearted as some of the tension drains from the atmosphere.

“Unfortunately, I’m not so sure Professor Kim would agree. Based on everything New Haven publishes, he seems to have some weird anti-vampire vendetta.”

As you round the corner, your apartment comes into view. Nodding toward the staircase that leads to your front door, you tell him, “This is me, by the way.”

Heeseung glances at the stairs, then back at you. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “When is your draft due?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” you groan. “Wednesday.”

“Mm,” he winces, an offer of understanding. “What time?”

“I’m supposed to be at New Haven by three, so—”

“What?” Heeseung cuts you off, expression suddenly tense, voice suddenly sharp. “You’re going to the publishing office?”

“Yeah.” You nod slowly, unsure why that would possibly warrant such a strong reaction. “I’m dropping off my first draft and getting a tour. The internship starts right when spring semester does, so he told me I could come in person to familiarize myself with the space first.”

“Right.” Heeseung nods. The tension in his jaw doesn’t relax.

It’s all so strange. He always seems to be speaking in riddles, dealing with invisible problems you can’t detect. 

You’re tired and confused, and the moon that hangs above you doesn’t feel like a remedy for either of those things. In fact, it might be making things worse. 

Because despite the way you feel like you’ll never quite understand him, bathed in the shimmering glow of moonlight, Heeseung looks… 

He looks like all the things you’ve been trying to avoid calling him for the duration of the semester. Ethereal. Beautiful. Maybe even kind, at least when he wants to be. 

After all, you’re standing at the base of your staircase with company, and it wasn’t due to any insistence on your end. 

The silence lingers. A string somewhere is pulled taught. 

You’re standing still, and you’re still a little breathless when you tell him, “I should go.” You don’t want to. You’re not sure why. 

Again, Heeseung only nods. 

The movement sends shadows dancing over his features. The bridge of his nose. The plane of his cheek. The line of his jaw. Things you’ve never let yourself linger on. Things you’re having a hard time looking away from now. 

 But he’s seen you home safe and sound, and even nights under the stars have their inevitable end. 

It occurs to you then that you have no idea how he plans to get home, or even how far away he lives. 

After he walked you home,it’s the least you could do to offer, “Do you live far? I could help you pay for a cab or something if—”

Heeseung shakes his head. He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It won’t take me long. Besides, I like to walk at night.”

“Okay.” It feels strange, trading these bits of kindness. You’re craving some normalcy, something unwavering. So with a final wave and a small goodnight, you climb the stairs to your door. 

You couldn’t say for sure if his eyes follow you on the way up. You feel the heat of them, the weight of a steady gaze on your spine. But it’s a fickle sensation and you’ve been wrong before. And you can’t quite bring yourself to turn around and look. 

The door closes behind you. Surrounded by the stillness of an empty apartment, you release a long held exhale. It drains out of you audibly. You hadn’t even realized you were holding your breath. 

…..

Dawn breaks Wednesday morning and carries with it a certain kind of dread. 

Despite your efforts, and there have been many, your draft remains far too close to its original state for your satisfaction. No matter how many times you pour over Sacred Monsters, you can never quite seem to find a way to make your submission more interesting while also staying true to New Haven’s general themes. 

If anything, the book has been a distraction. Long hours that you could have spent editing or revising or rewriting were instead dedicated to detailed web searches with a variety of keywords and spellings that never seemed to bear any fruit. 

It doesn’t matter which search engine you use. It doesn’t matter which database you browse. Other than the copy sitting on your desk, Sacred Monsters doesn’t seem to exist. 

But the annoying, wonderful, awful thing about time is that it passes. Time doesn’t care that you haven’t found it in yourself to produce a draft you’re proud of. Time doesn’t relent just because you always feel like it’s slipping through your fingers. 

And Wednesday morning turns to Wednesday afternoon with the same steady predictability as always. 

You’d like to think that you know the area around your university quite well, but New Haven’s main office is in an entirely different part of the city. You’ll have to leave now if you want to catch the bus with a little cushion of time to spare. The last thing you want to do is be late to your first day. Especially since the draft tucked neatly into your bag isn’t one you can hand over with confidence. 

To your relief, the bus is relatively empty. You tuck yourself into a seat and thank your lucky stars that you missed the afternoon rush. 

Popping your headphones in, you’re searching for something to fill the time. There’s the draft sitting in your bag, of course, but the last thing you want to do is spend the next thirty minutes agonizing over it. For now, it will just have to be the mess of mediocrity that it is. 

Instead, you reach for your phone. Maybe some mindless scrolling will be what you need to put your nerves at ease. 

But when the app loads, the first post you see doesn’t have you giggling or rolling your eyes or scrolling on without a thought at all. Instead, your spine straightens, shoulders suddenly tense. 

Because the words you’re reading are not something you ever expected to see in your lifetime. 

Three dead in suspected vampire attack, the latest headline from your local news reporting channel reads. 

Clicking on the article, the details are hazy, but that does little to lessen the grip of fear that makes a sudden grab at your throat. Fragments of sentences capture your attention as you scan the page. 

Three bodies found near the river…

Bite marks on their necks…

No trace of recent animal activity in the area…

Eyes widening with every new piece of information, fear claws at your throat. 

Bodies completely drained of blood.

Two hundred years. Two hundred years of the belief that vampires have all but been eradicated. Shattered in one fell swoop. 

And in your city, of all places. At the river. Somewhere you’ve been. Somewhere you wouldn’t think twice about going. It’s not particularly close to your apartment or university, but it’s not exactly far enough away for comfort.

You shudder, suddenly grateful that Heeseung was there to walk you home last night. Not that he would be able to do much if you did stumble across the path of a vampire, but—”

Oh god. Oh god. 

Heeseung. 

You have no idea if he made it home safe after parting ways with you and you have no way of checking. He hadn’t made any indication as to where he lived before saying goodnight. For all you know, he could have been heading in the direction of the river. He could have been at the river. Right when the attacks occurred. 

Doubling down on your phone, you scour the article for any information you can find on the victims. Objectively, it’s probably a good thing that they’re described only vaguely. Probably an intentional choice to protect the privacy of grieving friends and families. 

But ‘three victims, two men and one woman, all in their early twenties’ does very, very little to assuage your terror. In fact, it only heightens it. 

Blood pounding in your ears and dread pooling in your stomach, thirty minutes passes in the blink of an eye, you nearly miss your stop. But as you get off of the bus, you’re spiraling. Should you even be here? It feels wrong, leaving such a terrifying loose end untied. 

But then you think it through a little further. Even if you got back on the bus, rode it all the way to the stop by your apartment, you have no idea where you’d go from there. You may have shared insults and confidence and a moment under the moonlight with Heeseung, but you don’t know anything about him. Where he lives, where to reach him, where he could possibly be right now. 

But Professor Kim might. You’re sure that student information is strictly confidential, but if you explain the situation to him, he might be understanding, might just be willing to bend the rules a bit for you. 

So with a heaviness in your heart and fire in your footsteps, you double check the address of New Haven’s office and start walking away from the bus stop. Your surroundings are not a primary area of your focus, but it does strike you as odd how deserted the whole area seems. 

Other than a few residential looking buildings, the street you walk is mostly empty lots. Abandoned houses. Not the kind of place you would consider ideal for any business. 

Despite the cold morning sunshine, the afternoon has brought a cover of clouds. Squinting towards the distance, you wonder if you should have brought your umbrella, just in case. It almost looks as if it’s going to rain. 

When you do finally find the building, you have to stop to double check the address. Not only is there no signage, but New Haven’s supposed headquarters looks just as run down as all of the other buildings in the area. 

Frowning, you reread your email. The address does match the faded numbers next to the front door, and Professor Kim seems too meticulous to make a mistake like an incorrect address. Then again, he also seems too well off to run his publishing company out of a decrepit building far away from any of the city’s major business centers. 

But you won’t bother worrying about it now. Even your dreary first draft feels like an afterthought at this point. Who cares if the building’s not what you expected, if the location isn’t ideal? Right now, you need to focus on finding Heeseung, on making sure he’s okay. 

Because the alternative…

No, you refuse to let yourself spiral there either. But the pressure of grief borrowed from the future is already pressing firmly against the backs of your eyelids, blurring your surroundings. 

As you approach the front door, you notice a small, faded placard. 

New Haven. Well, at least that confirms that you’re in the right spot. Even if it is a bit odd that they left off Publishing. 

Standing at the door, you hesitate. Should you knock? Just walk in? You take a sidelong glance at the window, scanning for any sign of movement. But there’s nothing there. In fact, it looks as if the lights are off. 

Dark, quiet, desolate. Strange, yes, but not something you’ll waste time ruminating on now. 

You knock once. Twice. The sound echoes; the only response is the whistling of the wind.

Deep in the pit of your stomach, a sense of unease begins to build. It feels off, like something is wrong. Senses on high alert, you force the feeling aside. You need a way to find Heeseung, to make sure he’s okay. Besides, the lingering unease is probably just the anxiety of not knowing if he’s safe. 

Steeling your resolve, you reach for the door handle, twisting it tentatively. It opens slowly, the hinges groaning in protest. As if the building itself doesn’t want you there. Stepping inside does little to shake the feeling. Dark and devoid of any decoration, the interior is nearly as gloomy as the sunless sky outside. 

And even the layout of the building is strange. The front door opens to a long, dark hallway with no lights on. It’s eerily quiet. Too quiet. Too empty. You weren’t expecting a welcoming party by any means, but it’s hard to imagine anyone, much less Professor Kim, even being here. 

“Hello?” You call, clutching your bag a little closer to your body, suppressing the shudder that licks at the base of your spine. “Professor Kim?” You wait a moment, but sustained silence is the only response. 

Forcing your footsteps forward, you tread tentatively down the hallway. After all, you didn’t come this far just to turn around. Especially now that Professor Kim might be your only way of finding Heeseung. 

Taking slow steps down the dark hallway, you pass two doors, both of them pulled shut. The end of the hall opens into a larger room, still empty of any furnishings. It certainly doesn’t look like a publishing house. It doesn't look like much at all. At the very least, there’s a bit more visibility here, faint traces of faded daylight streaming in through the half drawn blinds on the other side of the room. 

Turning to your left, you see another door. This one is also pulled shut, but there’s a name placard on the front. Drawing closer, you read your professor’s name. It still doesn't feel right. Ducking down slightly, you check the gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floor for any sign of light, of movement. But it’s just as dark, just as quiet as the rest of the strange building. 

As you stand back up to your full height, you raise a hand to knock. Just before your knuckles make contact with the door, you see it. An odd array of crimson stains near the handle. Peering closer, your brow furrows in a combination of disgust and confusion. 

If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think it looked like blood. 

But that doesn’t make any sense. None of this does. You won’t pretend to know Professor Kim, but he’s never shown up to a lecture with so much as a hair out of place. Why on earth would he run his publishing company out of a building that’s nearly falling apart? Why would there be strange, suspicious looking stains on the door to his office? Why would it be empty at the time he asked you to come present your draft and tour your future internship location?

You have no idea what to do. Opening the door to his office and letting yourself in would feel like an inappropriate invasion of privacy, but you’re at a loss. This entire thing is so strange. 

Before you can decide how to proceed, you hear something. A faint noise, barely there, but distinct from the wind that still whistles outside. It’s disjointed, arrhythmic like the sound of hushed voices. Overlapping. Arguing, maybe. 

Inclining your head, your brow creases further. It sounds like it’s coming from your professor’s office, but how could it be? The noises are too muffled, too distant to be coming from right in front of you. 

You lean closer. Deciding you’re past the point of maintaining decorum, you press your ear to the door, careful to avoid any of the suspicious looking stains. 

For a moment, you hear nothing. Half convinced the voices were nothing but a figment of your overactive imagination, you almost pull away. 

But then you hear them again. Still muffled, still indecipherable, but undoubtedly louder than before. Which means they must be coming from behind the door. The voices pause, suspend you in silence once again. 

And then you hear another noise, different this time. Less like a voice and more like movement. Scuffling, maybe. Feet dragging against the floor. It’s punctuated by a strange gurgling noise. Something wet and thick and throaty. The kind of sound that makes you wince in a subconscious reaction. 

And then a sudden thump has your bones jolting beneath your skin, everything muscle in your body tensing as you suppress an uninvited gasp. Because that didn’t sound far away. It was loud, too loud to be anywhere but right on the other side of the door. 

Mild unease is quick to transform into sheer panic as you stagger backwards on shaky footsteps. You need to leave. You need to leave now. 

You’ll find another way to get ahold of Heeseung, to make sure he’s okay. And maybe there’s a rational explanation for all of this. Maybe this is an old New Haven office and Professor Kim forgot to send you the new address. Maybe there’s an email in your inbox now, and he’s apologizing for the oversight and rescheduling your draft meeting. Maybe he’s—

The sound of the front door you walked in through minutes ago slamming shut kills the train of thought. This time, you can’t bite down the noise that crawls up your throat. 

It’s stupid, from a logical perspective. A fatal flaw of human nature that your first instinct is to scream. To alert whatever danger surely lurks nearby of your exact location, the precise depth of your fear. 

But the terror that leaves your lips is muffled. It comes from behind, the palm that covers your mouth. The outline of a body that presses into your back, forces you into submission with a hand around your wrist.  

You thrash against the ironclad grip to no avail. Dig your heels into the ground but find little purchase in the hardwood floor as you’re dragged backwards, every nerve in your body singing with terror as you’re forced into a dark room. Even with your elbows flailing and head jerking, the grip on you remains steady, firm. 

In the end, it’s a bite that frees you. The hand that covers your mouth drops away as soon as you sink your teeth into the flesh of your captor’s fingers. There’s a muffled grunt of pain in your ear as you spin on your heel. 

Again, it’s stupid. You should be running, sprinting in the opposite direction, but everything in you is begging to know. To gain some sense of control over the situation. Eyes still adjusting to the dark and blinded by fear, you turn to find—

“Heeseung?” Your mind is spinning a million miles a minute. There are too many thoughts, too many emotions to keep up with. Relief. Fear. Confusion.

Relief, because he’s okay and he’s here, but—

“What are you doing?” You have a million questions that demand answers. “Why are you here? Why did you grab me like th—”

“Are you okay?” Heeseung takes a step closer to you, reaches his hands out as if to grab you again. Thinking better of it, he lets them fall back to his side with a slight shake of his head. There’s terror in his eyes too when he clarifies, “You’re not hurt?”

“No, I…” What the hell is going on? “I’m fine, but—”

A flash of relief makes itself apparent on Heeseung’s features before they’re morphing again, regaining all the urgency, the fear that was there before. He’s serious, gravely so when he tells you, “We have to get out of here.”

“Okay,” you stumble forward as he reaches for your wrist again, intent on tugging you behind him. “But I don’t understand. What’s—”

“I’ll explain everything later.” He’s frantic, you realize. Desperate. And so terribly afraid. Emotions you’ve never seen him wear. Not in the cool, calm mask of indifference he had in class. Not in the faint flickers of vulnerability from stolen moments under moonlight. This is different. This is so much worse. “But we have to go. Now.”

With that much command in his voice, that much fear in his eyes, you’re putty in his hands. But in the end, it makes little difference. The door to the room he’s dragged you into opens with a resounding bang before the two of you can make your escape. The sound is so loud, so frightening that you feel reverberations in your marrow as the door collides with the room’s interior wall, no doubt leaving a sizable dent.

And standing there, shrouded by the gray tones of sunless winter daylight, your professor blocks the room’s only exit. 

Instinctively, you take a step closer to Heeseung. He does the same, pulling you towards him, behind him, until half of your body is covered by his. Peering over his shoulder, the sight that greets you is one that will haunt waking nightmares for a long time to come. 

Professor Kim, who always prided himself on maintaining a neat, clean appearance couldn’t be further from that now. His clothes are ripped, hanging from his body at odd angles, adding an element of disfigured monstrosity to his silhouette. 

And his eyes. His eyes. Bloodshot and so wide they must hurt, they dart around the room, narrow in on you and Heeseung like he doesn’t see humans. Only targets. Enemies. Prey. Mouth open and snarling, you swear you see a glint in his mouth, the shape of a tooth far too long and pointed to belong to any normal person. 

But even those things you could force yourself to forget. 

What horrifies you the most is the blood. Even in the shadows, the unnaturally potent shade of crimson is unmistakable. It stains him, covers him, drips from him. Seeps from his clothes and his skin and his mouth. 

Panic clawing at your throat, you suppress the urge to vomit. 

“Get behind me,” Heeseung whispers, low. “Now.”

But a split second of averted attention is all your professor needs. Professor Kim, lover of literature, beacon of taste, a role model you’ve looked up to since the first time you stepped foot in his class a handful of months ago, pinches a tiny object between his long, bony, blood-covered fingers. And then he throws it. 

With startling precision, it whistles through the air, races through a hazy cloud of confusion and panic before it strikes its target true. 

It doesn’t hurt, not really. The hand that flies to the side of your neck is instinct, more than anything. But the fingers that linger on your pulse point don’t find the smooth expanse of your unblemished throat that they usually would. 

Because there’s something there now. An object lodged just beneath your jaw. Delicately, you draw your hand back in front of your face. There’s no blood on your fingers, but that doesn’t stop them from shaking. 

As you look over Heeseung’s shoulder, the world starts to blur around the edges. Darken, as if your eyes are closing of their own volition, against your will. You see him retreat, the terrible ghost of your professor. In the dark, he looks almost forlorn. Regretful. 

“Fuck,” Heeseung whispers. He doesn’t see the way your professor spins on his heel, runs in the opposite direction. His attention is trained fully on the space beneath your jaw. “Fuck.”

“Heeseung?” Your voice sounds strange to your own ears. Distant, muffled as if you’re submerged beneath water. You have so many questions. 

But it’s suddenly so cold. And you’re so tired. Wouldn’t it be nice to just lay down? Rest for a moment? Surely that couldn’t hurt anything. 

Your legs are wobbly beneath you, and you would collapse to the floor in an ungraceful heap if it weren’t for the two hands on your waist, supporting your weight. 

“I’m here,” he tells you. Cold. When did it get so cold? Your eyes try to focus on Heeseung, but your vision is swimming. You wonder if he would be warm. “I’m right here. Just… fuck.”

Gently, he eases you both to the ground. The floor is hard beneath you, but it feels like a reprieve. You’re tired of holding the weight of your body upright. Your blinking is becoming slow, lethargic. Your head is suddenly far too heavy for your neck. 

Slowly, Heeseung removes his hands from your waist, relocates them to either side of your jaw. With the care of someone well versed in patience, he delicately maneuvers your head to the side, exposing the length of your neck. 

Whatever he finds there must be displeasing. You can’t imagine why. You can’t think much of anything. The world has taken on a sort of dreamlike quality in which everything feels loose, fluid and unburdened by the laws of any physics. 

“Fuck,” he whispers for the fourth time. The curse scatters over your cheekbone like a kiss. 

Pulling back slightly, he meets your half-closed eyes. “I’m sorry.” It sounds like a prayer. “This might…” he swallows, something in his resolve wavering. “This might hurt.”

Pain. You can barely conceptualize the sensation. It feels like a distant memory. 

And then he’s tilting your head to the side again. His face draws closer, overcomes the last of your remaining senses, demands the full attention of what’s left of your consciousness. 

You think he might kiss you. Whatever desire remains in you almost wishes he would. 

Your eyes flutter shut, lips parting slightly as your eyelashes fan against the tops of your cheeks. 

But his mouth never finds yours. Instead, you feel the soft caress of his lips against the side of your neck, a fleeting touch against the sensitive skin just beneath your jaw. Inhibitions whittled to nothing, you shudder against the sensation, release the airy ghost of a sigh.

He was wrong, you think. With his mouth on your neck, pain is the last thing you feel. 

You feel his lips part against your skin, chasing away some of the cold that has only seeped deeper into bones, into the very essence of your being. 

And then you feel it. Whatever capacity for sensation that remains all focuses on the sudden flash of agony as his teeth pierce the skin of your throat. 

The tiny moan that escapes your lips is pitiful. Your ability to think, to rationalize, feels like something that’s dangling in front of you, just out of reach. Your body is too heavy, too weak to respond to the flash of searing pain as your skin is pierced deeper. 

He can’t speak, but you feel the shallow vibration of a hum against your neck. Soothing, calming. His hand that doesn’t bear the weight of your head moves to push a stray strand of hair from your forehead. It’s gentle, reverent. In complete opposition to the war he wages against your neck. 

Mouth still full of you, a groan escapes him. It’s heady, throaty, and you feel it travel the length of your spine, settle in the pit of your stomach. Sensation is the only thing tethering you to this world, and you can’t quite tell if this is pleasure or pain. 

He pulls back, the absence of his steady heat leaving your jaw vulnerable to the chill in the air. 

“Hold on,” you hear. You can’t pinpoint where the noise comes from. Sound surrounds you, washes over you in a strange uniformity. You feel the ground fall away, something warm and solid behind your shoulders and under your knees.“We’ll be there soon.”

Floating, you think. You must be floating. It’s hard to tell. Moments are bleeding into one another too quickly for you to keep up. 

Eyes closed, body molten, you relax into the steady grip that carries you. 

And the last thing you hear before reality loses its hold is the fervent, whispered sound of your name. 

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

CONTINUED IN PART 2 (which can be found on my masterlist!)

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

note: THANK YOUUUUU for reading!!! this is pretty different from what I usually write plot wise, so I hope it made for a good read. vampire heeseung and this oc are near and dear to me, and I'm excited to continue their story. the rest of this fic is fully plotted and partially written. I'm actively continuing to work on it, and hearing your thoughts/theories/screaming/feedback/etc. is great motivation! as always, I love know what you're thinking. ♡

[thepitlanepress]

NEVER TOO BUSY FOR YOU –

↳ oscar piastri + gf!reader

⌗ :: masterlist

⌗ :: a/n: i like to think im the sweetest person alive so this is written for my girl nadsies while she isnt having the greatest day ever. just a short lil fic bc im working on the smau pt2 and some other ones ;)

you dont like bothering oscar when he's at work. its a weird thing you have, one that oscar's tried getting out of your head on more than one occasion. does it stick? no.

the cramps you had been feeling for the entire day had made it almost impossible to move, so you weren't exactly able to reach your phone to tell oscar either.

that is a fact you use in a later argument. which by the way doesn't work.

so when the door to your apartment swings open and you hear your boyfriend's voice, you nearly flat out start crying. its so nice to hear a comforting sound.

"sweetheart?" oscar calls out for a second time when you don't reply, even talking feels like too much right now. you hear some shuffling around and then the soft footsteps as he walks down the hallway.

"hey, baby," he murmurs when he enters the room, coming to sit next to you on the edge of the bed. his hand comes to rest on your back rubbing slowly through the duvet. "how are you feeling?"

a noncommittal grunt escapes you and you wince in pain as another wave of cramps hit you like a train. fuck periods actually.

oscar sensing your situation quickly, he gets up and places a quick but soft kiss to your forehead before walking back out to the kitchen promising to be back soon. you stay awake for a little while but eventually the sounds of him moving around, and the soft clinking of dishes quickly puts you to sleep.

it was a comfort knowing someone else was home with you.

some time later you feel a dip in the bed beside you, two arms wrap around your waist and pull you into their warmth.

"hey you," you whisper.

"hey you," he whispers back his hand drawing circles on your skin. "are you feeling better after that nap?"

"sort of," you sigh. "mainly im-"

"hungry?" oscar guesses, you can hear the smile in his voice and you slowly sit up, cautiously testing different positions before finding one that doesn't make you feel like you've been shot.

you look over at oscar who has turned away bringing a tray of snacks over from the bedside table. it has all your favourite snacks, chocolates, your phone and a warm cup of tea.

"i called mum, while you were asleep earlier," he said almost nervously. "and asked her what type of tea to use because i was worried and wanted to help and she said to use-"

you shut him up by placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth "its perfect thank you osc," you settle back against the pillows - and him, okay mostly him. his arms are wrapped around you as you soak in the quiet afternoon, the soft sound of the show you had playing on your computer earlier the only noise in the room.

"why didn't you call me?" his voice rumbles through you.

"i didn't want to bother you while you were at work," you look down to the cup of tea in your hands and realise now that you probably won't be winning this conversation. there is no one who cared more about you than the man currently wrapped around you. he would drop anything in a second for you.

hence why you didn't call him. he cant be distracted from work. its so important to you.

but he won't take that as an answer.

"you know i always have time for you, sweetheart, i'm never too busy for you. you're my number one priority. always."

the cramps didn't seem so bad after that.

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[wingedhallows]

— JUST A GRAZE —

— ๋࣭ ⭑⚝ pairing: abby anderson x reader | 2.5k words — ๋࣭ ⭑⚝ plot: a near death sitiuation — ๋࣭ ⭑⚝ authors note: hey, babes. here's a little something. this is angsty with a happy end, so enjoy :)

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Chaos.

This mission is absolute chaos.

Rain lashes down in sharp, icy sheets, stinging against your skin, but the sensation is a distant thought—buried beneath the instinct to survive. You push forward, staying as close to Abby as possible, your breath coming fast and uneven.

Bullets tear through the air, too close. You duck with a sharp curse, but the storm swallows the sound whole, drowning everything in its relentless downpour.

A sudden grip—Abby’s hand, cold and desperate, latches onto yours, yanking you forward. Her fingers are slick with rain, trembling as they tighten around yours.

Then, for the first time since you’ve known her, you see it.

Fear.

Raw and unguarded, reflected in her wide eyes. She’s just as terrified as you are. Terrified to die here, in the mud, in the storm.

She drags you forward, your grip slipping as you sprint through the slick mud beneath your feet. Bullets whistle past, and your fingers tighten around hers in a desperate hold.

“A little further!” she shouts above the storm, her voice sharp and strained. She tugs you forward, her urgency matching yours.

The rain lashes against your face, and you fight to keep your eyes open, struggling to breathe against the torrent. You feel like you might drown, the cold water mixing with the weight of the moment.

Then, without warning, Abby veers sharply left, her hand gripping your shoulder as she shoves you into the remains of a crumbling house. The window is jagged and broken, but it’s a refuge—and it’s the only one you’ve got.

She slips in through the window after you, pressing her back to your front, almost instinctively shielding you from the storm—and from everything else.

Her body is warm, and in this freezing chaos, it feels like the only thing holding you together. She keeps one hand on her gun, but you can barely focus on that.

All you can feel is the rapid rise and fall of your chest against hers, the rhythm of your breathing desperate and uneven, matching the frantic pounding of your heart.

Your breath hitches in your throat, and as you press your hand against your side, it’s like the world shifts. Pain explodes through you, sharp and nauseating, and suddenly, the blood soaking through your shirt is the only thing you can think about.

“Baby... I...” You choke, words twisting in your throat as the agony sinks deeper. It’s not fatal, not yet, but the blood is warm and sticky, tracing a line down to your waist.

Abby’s gaze flickers over to you, her eyes scanning your face, searching for something—anything—before her focus shifts to the blood. Her jaw tightens, and without a second thought, she drops her gun, her attention entirely on you.

The world outside, the FEDRA agents, the chaos—they don’t matter anymore.

"Fuck," she mutters, her voice tight with frustration as she slowly lifts your shirt. The fabric is wet and sticky with blood, and you hiss in pain as it pulls against your skin, the sting a sharp contrast to the cold air in the room.

"Already did," you choke out, your words thick and strained, teeth gritted. Your hands cling to the crumbling windowsill, your knuckles white from the effort.

You fight to stay upright, refusing to let yourself slump against the rotting floor beneath you.

Abby doesn’t react to your joke—her eyes are hard, focused. You can’t tell if it’s because of your weak attempt at humor or the mission itself, but either way, the air between you thickens with the tension.

"Just a graze," she murmurs, her voice low, almost soothing as she inspects the wound. Her touch is careful, almost tentative, as she probes the skin around the injury.

The sharp, stinging pain makes you bite your lip hard enough to draw blood, the pressure helping you fight back the urge to scream.

Her eyes find yours, wide with barely concealed panic as she cups your cheek, her touch impossibly soft despite the blood staining her fingers.

“You’ll be okay, you hear me, baby?” Her voice is firm, steady—but beneath it, there’s something raw, something fragile. You don’t know if she’s saying it for you or herself.

You manage a weak nod, your hand grasping hers, fingers trembling, slick with rain and blood.

“We need to go… I—” A sharp, searing pain cuts off your words, stealing your breath. Black spots dance at the edges of your vision, and the world tilts violently.

“I feel lightheaded already,” you finally hiss, voice strained, barely more than a whisper.

Abby reacts instantly, her movements fast, almost frantic. She hooks her arm under yours, hoisting you up with ease, but you feel it—the tension in her muscles, the slight shake in her grip. She’s scared.

The moment you step outside, the wind slams into you, cutting through your soaked clothes like ice. You shudder violently, pain lancing through your side, and Abby tightens her hold.

“I’ve got you, love,” she murmurs into your ear, her breath warm against your freezing skin. You tilt your head toward her instinctively, seeking out the comfort of her presence, her voice—anything to anchor yourself.

By the time you reach the stadium, darkness has settled deep into the city, and your body is no longer cooperating. Every step feels heavier, your legs barely responding. Abby is practically dragging you, her breath coming in sharp, uneven pants as she fights to keep you upright.

“Keep your eyes open, baby. Don’t you dare close ‘em,” she pleads, her voice tight, cracking under the weight of her fear. You try—you really do—but your eyelids feel like lead, and your fingers, curled weakly into her shirt, are numb.

“I’m so cold, Abbs…” Your voice is barely a whisper, and it terrifies her.

She pounds her fist against the stadium gates, her voice raw, desperate.

“Somebody open the damn gates! Help me!” Her grip on you tightens, like she’s afraid you’ll slip away right here, right now.

“Stay with me, baby. Please, don’t do this to me,” she begs, her free hand shaking as it brushes over your hair, a touch meant to soothe, to calm—but it does nothing to steady her.

Her heart is hammering, her mind screaming at her to keep you awake, to keep you breathing.

The gates finally groan open, but the moment relief is within reach, your body betrays you. Your legs give out, and you slump against her with a quiet, broken sound.

“No, no, no—baby, come on,” Abby chokes out, struggling to hold your weight, her muscles burning, but that’s the least of her concerns.

“Somebody help!” Her voice cracks, and she doesn’t care. Tears burn in her eyes as she cradles you, her hand threading through your damp hair, the same touch that had once been so casual—so loving—now a desperate attempt to keep you tethered to her, to keep you from slipping through her fingers.

A few of their friends rush through the gates, and the sight of you—unconscious, limp in Abby’s arms—is enough to steal the breath from their lungs.

Owen and Mel move fast, reaching for you, but Abby hesitates for a split second, arms tightening around you like she could hold you together, like letting go might mean losing you entirely.

“Abby, let go,” Owen urges, but she barely hears him, her mind a chaotic mess of rain, blood, and your fading warmth against her.

It’s only when your head lulls back, dangerously slack in Owen’s grasp, that her fingers loosen, and suddenly, you’re no longer in her arms. A sharp, panicked breath catches in her throat.

“What happened?” Mel’s voice is frantic, but Abby barely registers it.

She swallows hard, her throat thick, words tangled and broken in her mouth.

“I… FEDRA… it was—just a graze.” But the words sound hollow, meaningless, because no graze should make you look this pale, this still.

Owen glances down at you, then at Abby, and something in his expression shifts. He doesn’t waste another second before urging Mel toward the infirmary.

Abby follows like a ghost, her steps quick, unsteady, her pulse a deafening roar in her ears.

The moment they push through the doors, Mirella practically leaps from her desk.

“What happened?” she demands, rushing forward as Owen and Mel lower you onto a stretcher.

Abby stands behind them, frozen, eyes fixed on your face. You haven’t moved, haven’t even made a sound, and the silence is suffocating. She doesn’t realize she’s gripping the doorway until her knuckles ache.

“A graze,” Mel says, but Abby can’t tear her gaze away from you long enough to correct her, to explain how much blood there was, how your fingers went cold in hers.

Mirella barely nods before giving Owen a look—one Abby recognizes instantly.

Get her out of here.

Owen shifts toward her, and as soon as his hand brushes her shoulder, she snaps.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Moore.” Her voice is low, but it trembles at the edges, caught somewhere between warning and desperation.

Owen doesn’t listen. He nudges her back, and when she resists, Mel speaks, gentle but firm.

“She’ll be alright. Let Mirella do what she needs to do.”

Abby’s jaw clenches, muscles locked so tightly it hurts. She doesn’t want to leave. Not now. Not when she doesn’t even know if you’re going to—

Her breath shudders as she forces herself to take a step back, then another. Each one feels impossible.

The second she’s out in the hall, the weight of everything crashes down on her.

Her back hits the wall, and the ground beneath her feels unsteady, like she’s still out there in the storm, slipping on rain-slicked mud, trying to keep you standing.

Then, without warning, the dam breaks.

A choked breath rips from her throat as she slides down the wall, arms wrapping tightly around herself. The sob that escapes is raw and silent, like she’s fighting it, like even now, she can’t afford to fall apart. But she is.

Owen and Mel freeze, stunned into silence.

Abby Anderson doesn’t cry.

But right now, she’s shaking, unraveling right in front of them, her fingers digging into her arms, shoulders heaving with the force of it.

And there’s nothing they can do except watch.

After what feels like an eternity, Mirella finally emerges from the infirmary.

Her hands are stained with your blood. Abby notices—of course she does—but it barely registers.

She feels like she’s floating outside of herself, like she’s been emptied out, scraped hollow. The breakdown has passed, but it’s left her brittle, fragile in a way she doesn’t know how to fix.

She waits.

Waits for the doctor to speak.

Waits for something—anything—to take away the dread constricting her ribs like a vice.

Mel is the first to break the silence. "How’d it go?"

Abby doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t want words. She wants you. She needs to see you, talk to you, hold you—something real, something solid, proof that you’re still here. Anything but this unbearable waiting.

“She’s awake.” Mirella’s voice is gentle, careful, like she knows Abby might shatter if she’s not.

Abby sucks in a breath so sharp it stings. A sob tries to claw its way up her throat, but she swallows hard, hands trembling as she wipes at the tears that have fallen without her permission.

She wants to drop to her knees and thank whatever god is listening, but she can’t—won’t. Not yet.

“She’s asking for you.” Mirella offers a small, hopeful smile, a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

But Abby doesn’t respond. She can’t.

She’s already moving, legs carrying her forward before she even realizes it, feet pounding against the floor as she rushes into the infirmary.

There’s only one thought repeating, over and over, louder than the pounding of her heart.

You’re alive.

You’re awake.

And the first thing you did was ask for her—your girlfriend.

As soon as Abby catches sight of you lying on the stretcher—pale, fragile, wrapped in a thin blanket—her breath catches.

The relief is overwhelming, suffocating, and before she can stop it, the dam breaks. A silent sob wrecks through her, shaking her shoulders as she stumbles forward.

She doesn’t hesitate. She reaches for you, her trembling fingers closing around your clammy hand, cradling it as if it’s the most precious thing in the world.

You’re here. You’re real.

“Hey, baby,” you whisper, voice hoarse, soft—barely more than a breath. But it’s enough.

Abby presses your hand to her lips, closing her eyes as she lingers there, inhaling deeply, as if grounding herself in the warmth of your skin. She sniffles, hurriedly wiping her face, but the tears won’t stop.

“You scared me, love,” she chokes out, voice raw and unsteady, nothing like the strong, unwavering woman you’ve always known.

A weak but reassuring smile tugs at your lips. “I’ll be fine, Abbs.”

She exhales shakily, her free hand reaching forward, careful and reverent, as she brushes a stray strand of hair from your face. Her touch is featherlight, as if she’s afraid you might disappear if she presses too hard.

The way she looks at you—eyes full of unspoken words, love so deep it nearly drowns you—steals the breath from your lungs.

A tear slips down your cheek before you even realize it, but she’s already there, brushing it away with the pad of her thumb.

Abby nods, biting her lip hard, as if that alone will keep her from falling apart again.

“I know,” she murmurs, voice barely above a whisper.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that I almost lost you today.”

There’s something so intimate about the way she says it, like a confession only meant for you, like if she says it too loudly, it might break her all over again.

You squeeze her hand gently. “I’m right here,” you murmur.

“And I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

Something in her crumbles at that, and she leans forward, pressing the softest, most reverent kiss to your forehead. She lingers there, breathing you in, reveling in the warmth that’s finally returning to your skin.

You’re here. You’re alive.

“Good,” she whispers against your skin. “No dying on my watch, baby.” Her lips brush over your forehead again, lingering like a silent prayer. “No leaving me behind. Got it?”

A small smile tugs at your lips as you nod. You reach up, fingers brushing against her jaw, then her chin, gently tilting her face down toward yours.

Your lips barely ghost over hers as you whisper, “Yes, ma’am.”

And then you kiss her—soft, slow, full of love. A silent promise. A reassurance.

You’re here.

You’re hers.

And you’re not going anywhere.

[hoe4hotchner]

can you dooooo, secret relationship with reader owning a 5 star restraunt??? the entire team goes there on rossi's dime and everyone finds out because the chef keeps coming to the table again and again and hotch was given a dessert he didnt order and all of his food was removed from the bill??

Étoile | [A.H]

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Chef fem!reader | WC: 1k | CW: Fluff, food, wine

A/N: I honestly just realized that I forgot the part about the bill.

The scent of roasted garlic, seared steak, and freshly baked bread filled the air as Hotch followed the rest of his team into Étoile. Everyone in the city seemed to rave about the five-star restaurant. The interior was a masterpiece of elegance — something that looked like it came straight out of a French Château — with its low lighting, polished wood and golden accents, and flickering candlelight casting a glow over the tables.

Rossi had insisted on treating the team to a celebratory dinner after their caseload lately, and he had, of course, spared no expense.

The team marveled as they were led to their table — a spot tucked into a private alcove that provided a perfect view of the open kitchen. Hotch felt a flicker of nerves as he glanced in that direction, and his eyes found you instantly, at the center of the busy kitchen, directing your staff with a calm yet authoritative nature to you — one that was rarely seen in the field.

You looked brilliant in your chef's coat, hair neatly tied back, your focus shifting seamlessly from one task to another. Hotch quickly looked away, feigning interest in the wine menu as the host seated them. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to notice how intently his gaze lingered on you.

But, of course, fate had other plans.

Just as the team settled into their seats, you stepped out of the kitchen, your confident stride drawing their attention immediately. A polite, professional smile curved your lips as you approached the table.

"Good evening, everyone," you greeted warmly, your voice carrying easily over the soft hum of the restaurant. "Welcome to Étoile. I’m the executive chef and owner, (Y/N). It’s a pleasure to have you dining with us tonight."

“Wow,” Garcia said, her eyes wide as she glanced around the dining room before settling on you. “This place is gorgeous! And you own it? That’s amazing!”

You offered her a genuine smile. “Thank you. I hope you’ll all enjoy tonight’s menu. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Your gaze flicked ever so briefly to Hotch, the corner of your mouth lifting in a barely perceptible smile. It was a fleeting glance, gone almost as quickly as it came, but Hotch caught it — and so did Rossi, though he said nothing.

The team, oblivious to the exchange, returned their attention to their menus, already discussing what they might order. Hotch, on the other hand, shifted in his seat, his nerves bubbling just beneath his exterior.

As the evening went on, the telltale signs of your connection to each other began to unfold.

You checked on their table personally — not once, but several times, despite the fact that the restaurant was fully booked. Each time, you lingered just a fraction longer than necessary, your smile a little softer when your eyes met Hotch’s.

When the entrees arrived, Hotch’s plate was different from what he’d ordered. It wasn’t a mistake; it was a refined, elegant dish not listed on the menu. The server placed it in front of him with a knowing smile.

“This is Chef’s special request,” the server explained.

Hotch blinked, his expression giving away nothing, though he was certain his team noticed the slight shift in his posture.

“Special request, huh?” Morgan said, leaning back in his chair and eyeing the plate. “Man, must be nice to get VIP treatment.”

Hotch only gave a tight smile, his response curt. “I’m sure it’s just part of the service.”

The night continued, the atmosphere lively as the team enjoyed their meal and laughed over Rossi’s insistence on ordering the most expensive wine. But the final nail in the coffin came with dessert.

The team had ordered a selection to share — an assortment of tarts, soufflés, and pastries. But when the desserts were brought out, the server placed an additional plate in front of Hotch — a chocolate soufflé adorned with a delicate swirl of raspberry coulis and a small chocolate garnish.

Hotch frowned. “I didn’t order this.”

The server smiled, unfazed. “Compliments of the chef.”

Morgan arched a brow, his curiosity piqued. “Compliments of the chef? Again? Alright, Hotch, what’s going on here?”

“Yeah,” JJ chimed in, grinning. “You’ve been getting the royal treatment all night.”

Hotch opened his mouth to deflect, but before he could respond, Rossi leaned forward, his tone teasing. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed, Aaron. The chef herself has been hovering over this table like a moth to a flame.”

Garcia’s eyes widened. “Oh my God. Wait a second — Hotch, do you know her? Like, know her know her?”

Before Hotch could say anything, you appeared at the table once more, a light laugh escaping your lips as you held up your hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, don’t be too hard on him. It’s true.”

The team turned to stare at you.

“Hotch and I…” You glanced at him with a soft smile. “We’ve been seeing each other for a while now.”

For a moment, there was a stunned silence over the group. Then Morgan let out a low whistle.

“Hotch,” he said, shaking his head in mock disbelief, “you’ve been holding out on us. A five-star chef? Man, you’re full of surprises.”

Garcia clapped her hands together. “This is amazing! I have so many questions. How did you meet? How long has this been going on? Oh, and please tell me he helps you in the kitchen sometimes because I’m picturing it, and it’s adorable!” The pictures played in her brain, mixing with the memory of cooking omelets with Hotch.

As the team bombarded you both with questions, Hotch met your gaze across the table, a faint blush shading his cheeks. Despite the exposure of your relationship, a warmth spread in his chest.

You reached out to squeeze his hand briefly before pulling away, your voice tinged with humor as you answered the team’s questions to the best of your abilities, making sure not to overstep Hotch's boundaries with the information you let pass.

[mandatory-ftmbreeder]

I like to draw a lot and lately I've been having a hard time finding references for a new project I'm working on.

I ask you if you wanna come over and let me take some pictures of you to use as reference, we can hang out and it'll be fun. You agree, happy to help your friend and have an excuse to hang out.

You come over and I ask you to do a few simple action poses. Nothing crazy. But then I point out the fact that your clothes are kinda baggy, so it'll be hard for me to understand your anatomy beneath them. I ask if you'd be willing to just wear your binder and boxers, and I promise these photos will only be seen by me. You agree again, because you know I won't share them, and we're both trans guys, so it's alright, right?

The poses get a bit more ... specific. I ask you to get on all fours. To lay on your back and stomach. To sit with your legs spread. Poses that are definitely meant to be provocative.

I finally tell you what the project is for. I'm drawing a lot of self-indulgent trans guy porn and want to make a short comic about it. I say that the most difficult thing to get references for is t guys with their pussy visible. So if you really wanted to be helpful, you could take your boxers off and let me see everything.

You agree. You kick your boxers off, and I continue making you pose in all sorts of ways that now feel outright humiliating. Sit on your ass and hold your legs open with your hands. Get on your hands and knees face down, ass up, and really put your ass up high. Lay like you're about to get fucked missionary style. Press yourself against the wall and spread your legs wide. Let me get a few up close pictures of you spreading your hole as wide as you can.

And despite how embarrassing this is, that I'm just your friend asking for a favor, you're getting wet. Really fucking wet. It only makes you even more embarrassed and you wonder if I notice it, because if I am, I'm not saying anything.

But I absolutely notice it. Its hard not to, when your pussy is literally fucking glistening in the light. I want to touch it so fucking bad its taking every last ounce of self restraint in me to not just start playing with you. I think of any excuse I can make up to touch you.

Finally I get my chance. You're in a pose where you can't reach your pussy very well to spread it open, so I use my fingers to spread it open myself.

"Holy shit, you're really wet right now. Are you wet like this all the time?" I finally ask, my fingers gently rubbing around your hole. It's actually a little shocking to me just how wet it feels.

You shake your head. Obviously, you're probably not gonna constantly be dripping, but I just wanted to make you say it.

"Why are you so wet right now, then? Is it because... of what we're doing?"

Slowly, you nod, feeling more embarrassed than you have this whole time.

"Huh. I didn't know my friend was such an exhibitionist slut." I say, fingers teasing up and down your cunt. Your entire body trembles and you let out a whine, unable to even formulate an answer right now.

I tease my fingers right around your hole. Pressing in just a slight bit. Pressing more and more until two of my fingers finally push inside your cunt, sliding deeper till they’re fully inside. “Sorry, I would’ve asked if I could penetrate you, but… I mean, its pretty obvious that’s what you want.”

My fingers sliding in and out of your hole faster till im fingerfucking you. My other hand coming up to gently pinch and pull at your clit, all thick and fat from T. You whine and grind down against my fingers. I flick your clit a few more time with my fingers before finally rubbing it in earnest like you so clearly need.

“I’ll let you cum, as long as you let me shove a dildo up your cunt later and take pictures of it. I need some good references of a little bitch getting fucked.”

You don’t just agree- you outright beg me to take all the pictures I want, just so you can cum.

“And its good jerk off material for me, too. Hope you don’t get too mad at me if I ‘accidentally’ take a few videos of it too.”

I slap your cunt with my hand, the noise wet and loud and filthy, before going back to rubbing your clit just how you love it being touched. Your entire body trembles at how turned on you are, how good you feel, and suddenly your orgasm is rushing through you, making your hips jerk, cunt clench around my fingers, as all you can do is let it take you. I keep fingerfucking you and rubbing you through your orgasm, not stopping till you seem coherent again.

“That’s a good fucking bitch.” I say, pulling out my fingers and licking them clean. I give your ass a firm slap as you collapse to the ground in exhaustion.

I take a quick picture of you like this, looking sated and well-fucked. “You’re the best model a guy could ask for. Now let me see your hole, I wanna capture the way it looks all stretched out right now.”

[gay-dorito-dust]

Batboys with reader who has a silly collection of stickers and puts them over their faces, their suits or their weapons (most of them with silly encouraging phrases to cheer them up lol)

Dick

He bought you a set of stickers once and ever since it’s been his ultimate downfall but in the most humorous way possible.

Dick has a sense of humour, he didn’t mind a couple of stickers here and there, even going so far as to keep the cute cartoon mushroom stickers that you’ve left on his escrema sticks as your personal touch on his belongings.

He even once woke up to a face full of them and when he asked your reasoning as to why, you only shrugged your shoulders and said ‘I thought it’d be funny to see how many stickers I can put on your face without waking you up.’

Dick takes the whole thing in stride and in good faith and loves the fact that you went out of your way to cheer him up through your cute but inspirational stickers. It was almost as though you knew that he needed a little pick me up that day and did so tenfold by coating his hands in stickers that reminded him of your deep care for him and his mental health.

So nowadays Dick doesn’t mind waking up just to see his face covered in stickers and instead smiles and goes about his daily routine as though nothing was out of the ordinary.

Jason removed his red helmet from his hand and could only stare at the stickers that littered across the sides and back either a blank stare as Roy practically pissed himself with laughter.

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, how did I not see this?’ Jason muttered under his breath, scratching at sticker of a cartoon Robin holding a stick in its beak.

‘Oh there’s nothing to be ashamed of in a little self expression Jason,’ Roy snickered, ‘but I didn’t peg you as the type to collect stickers and cute ones at that.’ He then points to a particular sticker on his helmet of a cat hanging from a branch followed by the saying; just hang in there.

‘piss off.’ Jason told him. He knew something was a miss but didn’t know what it was and now that he knew, everything was starting to make a bit more sense. For starters you didn’t kiss his helmet like you usually did before he left of patrol, almost as though you didn’t want to ruin something on his helmet that he didn’t see, at least not at that point in time.

He should’ve known because you’ve pulled this stint with his guns before in the past but what you didn’t know was that he kept a few that were now a little worn and faded. So while he appear a little peeved that you have took it upon yourself to decorate his helmet, he was a sentimental guy deep down who loved anything and everything you’ve given him and treasures it with his entire heart.

Jason’s a secret sap when it comes to you and knows that he’ll come to laugh at all this at a later date as he recalls all of it to you when he comes home, already envisioning your reaction when he’d inevitably calls you out on it, knowing that he could never stay mad at you for very long. He physically couldn’t and refuses to when all you were trying to do was lift his spirits.

You were too sweet for him but he wouldn’t want it any other way.

Damian

Wants you to take them off at first, how was he meant to be taken seriously if he was covered head to toe in stickers, ridiculous.

He thinks them childish unfortunately

However when you do stop putting your stickers across every one of his belongings for a brief stint, he begins to realise the true intended purpose behind them, and would begin to leave subtle hints that he wanted you to go back to coating everything he owned in stickers in his own way of apologising.

He’s stubborn but he cares for you and what you meant to him and if planting stickers on the sheath of his sword on the premise to uplift his spirits, then who was he to stop you from doing so. He wasn’t use to someone going out of their way to try and cheer him up and was more use to isolating himself from everyone in his room and just draw out his innermost feelings.

So you covering his face, suit and or weapons with stickers with cute and uplifting words was something he needed time to get use to, but once he does he tries to keep the stickers that had long served their purpose within the pages of his sketch pad as a keepsake of your thoughtfulness towards him.

This portion of his sketch pad is kept under a lot of secrecy on his part but you find it eventually because of course you do.

Damian wasn’t use to someone caring about him as much as you did and in a more unique way than littering the hilt of his sword in stickers made to make his day just that a little better. Damian, much like Jason, keeps a sticker or two on his weapons but in places where it would be harder for others to spot and would run his thumb over it whenever he felt that he needed your presence.

Tim doesn’t mind you putting stickers on his stuff, he’s pretty much unbothered by it and would just accept the fact that this was your way of saying that you’re thinking of him and his well-being. Tim knew you well enough to understand what you were trying to say through your stickers from the stickers you used consistently.

However due to his egregious sleep schedule lead to many instances where he would wake up to his face covered entirely in stickers, and at first he thought it was the lack of sleep that was making him see things but soon realised that his face was indeed covered in stickers, and would silently stare at you through the mirror as you tried hard not to laugh.

He threatens to plaster your face with stickers next time, he does follow up on his promise but that’s a story for another time.

To Tim it was almost as if you had just made up an entirely new way of communication through stickers, he’s even got them categorised based on their subliminal messages and what you were trying to tell him through them.

He appreciates the stickers and would even find himself smiling at them on the odd occasion and run his fingers over them gingerly as to not accidentally peel one of them off. He loved your unique way of cheering him up and would get a little sad when he sees that someone them were starting to fade or become worn, only to feel a warmth spread throughout his chest when he saw new stickers next to the places of the old ones.

Each and every sticker had it’s sentimental significance to him and if Tim were to ever find out that you didn’t have anymore stickers to spare, he would buy you more sets and act like he didn’t have any part in this despite the parcel having his name on it.

[alexanderwales]

The high-level prophecy interpreters all worked for the government or major corporations. They were the ones with the money, and the ones most likely to be the subject of a prophecy. Sometimes you'd have a multi-billionaire hire on a prophecy interpreter, but usually they just had one on retainer. The same went for celebrities who were famous enough to attract significant prophecies.

But at the lower level, there were prophecy interpreters who opened up their own firms, usually just one or two if they weren't in a major city. That was me: I had gotten in prophecy interpretation in college and ended up majoring in it after the Kepler Incident. I had my name on bus stops and billboards, and a single secretary in my employ who thankfully handled most of the phone calls.

In the field we sometimes divide the business up into three sectors based on timing. There's "prophecy impact", which is when we do a consultation right after the prophecy has been made, or at least sometime before it rears its head. Some prophecies are decades in the making, but people want to be told what to do about them. I hate that part of the job, personally, because there's not a whole lot to do, depending on the language. Plus the conversations are pretty repetitive: a guy hears a pretty clear-cut prophecy that he's going to die falling out of a plane, and he's begging for some way out, as though there's something I can do about it, as though I can tell him that prophecies are lairs sometimes. Prophecies are liars, but they're clever liars, hiding meanings inside words, only clear after they've passed. You can't escape prophecy, and at least half of "prophecy impact" clients explaining that fact to them.

The second sector is "prophetic immanence", when the client has a prophecy that they think is coming true. Sometimes this can be because there's a trigger phrase in the prophecy, a conditional that appears to have been met. One of the dirty secrets of the industry is that nine times out of the ten, people are mistaken: the nature of prophecy is such that you can't often pinpoint when the prophecy is nigh. In my opinion, you can judge a prophecy interpreter by how upfront they are about this. The weasels will milk their clients dry by pretending that every moment is a crisis moment.

It's the last sector that I find the most satisfaction from, which is why it's a disappointment that it's the least in demand. This is post facto prophecy interpretation. You're not trying to prevent anything, you're not formulating a reaction, you're just trying to figure out what happened and how it all fit together. These are clients that are in the aftermath of prophecy, or what they're pretty sure is the aftermath, and a lot of the time, they just want someone to talk to more than they want my specific expertise.

My client that day was an artist, a rising star who had a few very successful gallery showings. It had been prophesied that her older brother would accidentally kill her father, but it had been her instead. This wasn't a recent trauma, but the wound was clearly still there, so I tried to navigate it as carefully as I could.

"One of the things that makes prophecy tricky is ambiguity," I said gently. "There are some, outliers, that depend on pretty tortured readings. But in this case, I think it's just an alternate meaning. From what you gave me, the prophecy was specifically 'the child who first draws breath', and that's in reference to your career as an artist."

"That's stupid," she said. "He's two years older than me, would he really never have doodled a person drawing? Just a few lines indicating that something is coming out of their mouth?" Her hands were folded in her lap. They were curiously still, for someone who used her hands for a living, but maybe artists were like that, preserving the tools of their trade.

"It's stupid," I agreed. "But I do think it's entirely possible that his drawings didn't include anyone breathing, and that yours did."

"How can we know for sure?" she asked.

"We can't," I replied. "Though if we take for granted that the prophecy was fulfilled, and that you were the one to fulfill it, then we have to search for answers within the realm of what we know. And if you're not satisfied with that answer, then I need to spend some time searching for alternate meanings, to find some interpretation that lands better."

"I could understand it if I had some obsession with drawing breath," she said. "If I had done a series of paintings of visible breath escaping from a person's body, then that would make sense. But it's not that, it's the first to draw breath, and that's just ... I mean, doodles we did when we were children. It means nothing. We have no way to mark that. It wasn't pivotal."

I shrugged. "It is what it is." I use that phrase a lot. "There's a selection effect with prophecies. The ones we hear about are hugely ironic, they show the hand of fate, they warp and twist people. But many of them are just," I shrugged again. "Things that happened."

"My brother moved away," she said. "My father had kind of accepted it, probably from the moment we were born, or before that. He'd made peace with it, hadn't tried to fight it. But it was a hard thing to learn for my brother, and he'd just left to go to school a thousand miles away, and coming home was always stressful for him, because maybe this was when it was going to happen."

I nodded. "I can see where that would be difficult. How did he handle it?"

"Poorly," she sighed. "Dad was a good guy. My brother lost all that time, and it had always been a source of tension between them, not the death, but their perspective, you know? Dad preached acceptance, my brother wanted to avoid it, and so when my brother went out west, dad was disappointed. He said it was like losing his son, and that he'd have rather died than have that happen. So not only did my brother not have a close relationship with my dad because of the prophecy, it turns out that dad was right all along. It would have been better for everyone not to fight it."

"Maybe," I said. "In the business we don't counsel people not to fight prophecies. Sometimes it's the right thing to do."

"Well, sorry for wasting your time," she said. "Though I guess I'm paying by the hour, and I'm not going to apologize for something I paid for. So I'd like my apology back, please."

I smiled at her. "Certainly."

She stood up to go, and I marked the time so I could bill her later, but she paused for a moment. I put in the time all the same; so far as I was concerned, we were off the clock.

"Do you have any unresolved prophecies that you know of?" she asked.

"That's sort of a personal question," I said. "But I get it a lot, and if it might help you, I can share: I'm going to be eaten by an alligator."

"You're ... what?" she asked.

"An alligator?" I asked. "They live in swamps."

"And how are you going to be eaten by one?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know," I replied. "There's a chance I've dodged it already, or ... dodged it in the way that you can sometimes dodge an obvious reading." I held up my hand and showed her my pinky, or rather, my lack of pinky. "I went down to Florida, had my finger amputated, then fed it to three baby alligators under the supervision of a zoo keeper."

She stared at me. "And that works?" she finally asked.

"We'll see," I replied. "In general, yes, it's an approach with relatively good outcomes. A self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a peace of mind thing."

"But ... your finger?" she asked. She was looking at it. I sometimes thought that going with a toe would be better, or a chunk of flesh from somewhere else, but I had heard that losing a toe could interfere with balance. I had never regretted that it was a pinky finger.

"If I didn't avert the prophecy, I want to be the kind of guy who says 'oh, well that's funny'," I replied. "I think ... whatever helps you, you know? And now I don't need to stay up at night wondering how the hell it's going to happen. See, your father had it right, I think. You have to find a way to make peace with it. And this was what it took for me to make peace with mine. Though I have to admit that I'm not a fan of zoos, and I don't take vacations south of the Mason Dixon, so maybe I'm not as much at peace as I would like myself to believe."

"Huh," she said. She looked away from the missing finger and to my eyes. "Thank you for sharing that."

"It's okay if you think it's kooky," I replied.

"No," she said. "I was just ... thinking that if my brother had something like that, he might have had more time with dad before he passed."

I nodded. "You can share that story, if you think it will help. Sometimes it does."

When she left I went back to my computer, cruising the local news sites to see whether there had been any updates. I hadn't given her the best advice. My mind had been elsewhere.

A local guy had been busted for breeding reptiles without a license. I was sure it was nothing, but they hadn't said what specific reptiles it had been. It was probably nothing. I mean, a full-grown alligator escaping from custody, finding me, and managing to eat me was a little too much for me to believe.

But fate is a funny thing sometimes, and I was going to keep my eyes open.

[akakay31]

So much for Legends Celebi or B3W3, lmao.

But for real, before anyone starts theorizing about ultimate weapons or ancient wars in Pokémon Legends ZA, there are a few important things to consider first:

1. The game will be set entirely in Lumiose City.

A bit disappointing, though Lumiose is already a big place, and it’ll only be bigger now that it’s the central focus. A smaller scope will also probably mean a higher-quality product in the end, too. Though it does makes me wonder how catching wild Pokémon will work within an urban city. Maybe the game will be more battle-focused, as opposed to the catching-focused Legends Arceus.

2. The game will (almost certainly) not be about the events of 3,000 years ago.

If it wasn’t already obvious by the limited setting, Legends ZA will most likely have little to do with the events of the ancient war and ultimate weapon. If it’s anything like Legends Arceus, Legends ZA will instead be set in a period based on the latter half of the 19th century, soon after the invention of Poké Balls. Anything set before this period would predate the invention of Poké Balls, and thus have to have drastic changes to its gameplay, which is something I just don’t see happening.

And we know that Legends Arceus is set during the mid-to-late 1800s because of the events it is based on, i.e. the Japanese annexation of Hokkaido in 1869, as well as the subsequent colonization efforts.

Similarly, we can guess that Legends ZA will be set during this same period because of the event it is seemingly based on, Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s renovation of Paris from 1850 to 1870.

For those unaware, Haussmann’s renovation was an urban renewal project, commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III, that included the demolition of old medieval neighborhoods, the annexation of surrounding suburbs, the construction of new sewers, etc. The renovation was extremely unpopular, what with the whole bulldozing thousands of houses and replacing them with standardized streets and buildings thing, resulting in Haussmann’s dismissal in 1870. However, work on his plans continued until 1927, and ultimately are what made Paris what it is today.

While Legends ZA likely won’t go too far into the nitty-gritty of the real-world events, knowing what the game will be drawing from is essential for any speculation on what we can expect to see.

In fact, using this same method, we can probably even guess what future Legends games will be like by looking for historical events during the mid-to-late 1800s period. Take Unova, for example, which could…

Oh.

Oh no.

[colleendoran]

Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

 Go me!  

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because  right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt. 

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back. 

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news. 

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work. 

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing. 

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful  eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work. 

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way. 

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry. 

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was  hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings,  enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year. 

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks. 

[sp0o0kylights]

Bullshit.

The word rings obnoxiously in Steve’s ears as he pushes his way out back, not wanting to be anymore of a talking piece at this party than he already was.

He’d just wanted Nancy to stop drinking, take a second, pace herself…

Steve swipes furiously at his eyes, and then curses when it nearly causes him to run into Chrissy Cunnginham, who’s perched in a chair tucked away from the patio door.

“Sorry, sorry.” He apologizes, trying not to sound like he’s upset, trying to keep his cool--only for her to look up and away, brushing off her own tears.

“Oh.” Steve says, a little laugh bubbling out of him. “You too huh?”

Thankfully she correctly interprets that he's not laughing at her, and adds her own giggle to the mix, the sound gentle even if pitched in upset.

"Boy problems?" Steve asks her, sinking down to the vacant chair on Chrissy's right.

She nods, clasping her hands together in her lap.

"Girl problems?" She asks back, and he grimaces a smile.

They sit for a minute, Steve pulling out a cigarette and offering it to her before lighting up. Chrissy shakes her head, and though her nose curls a little at the smoke she doesn’t say anything.

Neither of them do, staring at the few people bringing the party outside in the way only drunk teenagers can.

"Can I tell you something?" Chrissy says finally, as Steve continues to struggle to keep himself breathing evenly (and not spiraling. He still has to go back and try and escort Nancy home, and he needs to keep his temper when he does it.)

She licks her lips. "I keep trying to break up with Jason, but he won't let me."

It takes a second for the words to register, but when they do he leans himself towards chrissy in concern. “What do you mean, he won’t let you?”

“He’s not--it’s not…”She trails off, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “He talks me out of it is all.”

She’s downplaying it, and Steve’s concern grows tenfold. “Does he argue with you or just…tells you no or something?”

"It's complicated." Chrissy says, refusing to look at him. "He has this vision for me, for us."

Steve watches as she worries at a hangnail.

Feels the need to reach out and take her hand, but keeps his own hands to himself.

If Steve has learned anything, it's that not everyone wants to be touched as much as he does.

"He keeps telling me I'm just being anxious. That I should trust him, and I do, he just expects me to always do what he says? And more and more lately I--"

She huddles down into the little cat costume she's wearing, pulling the thin black sweater around her. "I want different things than he does."

Steve wonders vaguely if Nancy wants different things.

Or a different person entirely.

"That's not fair to you." Steve says, leaning forward and lowering his own voice. "He can't keep you in a relationship you don't want to be in."

A hard thing for him to say, after the bathroom conversation but this is different.

‘Please, let this be different.’ He thinks, before pushing the thought aside.

"He can't force you to do what he wants just because he wants it, or thinks its best. He should be listening to you and what you want too. Relationships are about…compromise right?” It’s what he’s heard anyway, though most of the time “compromise” means “letting the other person get what they want.”

Which is what he thought he’d been doing for Nancy all this time.

“I can help you if you want. Be your," Steve poorly mimes waving a pom pom. "cheer support."

Chrissy looks at him, eyes still wet. "You would?"

"Of course.” He says, before scooting just a smidgen closer. “Might have to ask you to return the favor though. Nancy said some things tonight and I could really use a second--”

A loud curse makes them both startle, interrupting Steve.

Together, they look around before another noise, like bark being scraped, draws both their attention to the large oak that stands in the backyard.”

"Is…is that Eddie Munson?" Chrissy asks.

"I think so."

Chrissy squints a little, as if not quite believing what she's seeing. "Is…he stuck in a tree?"

Steve finds himself staring in his own disbelief, hands moving to his hips as he watches Munsons wriggling, cursing form.

"I think so." He repeats with a shake of his head.

Eddie's foot slips off a branch, once, twice.

"Hey--" Steve calls out in warning, but unfortunately it comes too late.

The branch under his foot gives away with a startling crack! as another branch shreds Munson's jacket as his full weight caches on it.

"Oh!" Chrissy gasps, hand flying to her mouth as Eddie falls right onto his ass with a yelp.

"You good man?" Steve asks, rising from his chair, hesitant to go over but needing to make sure the idiot hasn't cracked his skull open.

Chrissy has no such qualms, popping up to run over to Munson.

"You're bleeding." She tells him worriedly, dropping to her knees to get a better look.

"Well shit." Munson says with a wonky grin. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Chrissy asks, as Steve’s newly honed babysitting instincts kick in and drive him to get up and look at Munson’s injury himself.

Chrissy carefully strokes the older teen’s hair out of his face, as Steve bends down to check his head and neck.

"You hurt anywhere?" He asks, spotting the scratch that had Chrissy worried.

It’s on his forehead--the guy must have knocked his face against the tree when he fell. Head injuries always bleed a ton but this one's well contained to a small scrape.

Probably not a concern, though Steve looks at his pupils anyways.

"Nah, I’m pine. I didn't mean to drop in on you guys.” He waves a hand behind him before dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that tree, it was pretty shady.”

Steve, long trained by Dustin, narrows his eyes. "Are you making puns right now?"

"Maybe?" Munson hedges, looking delighted to have been called out.

“Uh huh.” Steve puts his hands back on his hips, straightening up from where he’d crouched down. “Your head okay? You remember your name and shit?”

“Edward Edwardian Munson, present and ready for duty!” He gives a mock salute, before dropping Chrissy a wink. “If the duty is drinking and playing games that is.”

“Your middle name cannot be Edwardian.” Chrissy laughs.

"It is!" He defends, at the same time Steve says,

“It's not "

“Oh?” Munson challenges, as if this entire situation isn’t ridiculous. “Then what is my middle name, Sir Steven?”

“No idea, but I know it’s not that.”

Munson blows a raspberry at him. “Well then, maybe you should mind your own beeswax."

"Like you were doing? Up in the tree right above us?" Steve banters back.

The playful look dies a little, Munson beginning the painful process of standing after one falls.

"For the record, I absolutely was not eavesdropping, you guys just happened to be under the tree I climbed and I was there first. " He says it rapidly, like he's used to being accused of such things, and is heading off as many problems as he can.

Steve just ignores it, opting instead to hold his hands out. One to Chrissy and one to Eddie.

Watches surprise cross the older teens face, even as he waits for Chrissy to get up before accepting Steve's hand.

"Why were you up a tree? The family dog run you up there?" Steve grunts as he pulls the metalhead up.

"Funny." Munson quipped sarcastically. "But no. I was up there for reasons."

'Reasons.' Steve mouths, and has to fight himself to keep from grinning.

"Even though I was there first, I did happen to hear some things." He looks at Chrissy, voice turning serious. "If you need any help getting things through Carver's thick skull I'd love to lend a hand."

"You would cheer for me too?"

"Oh absolutely. I'd make a far better cheerleader than Harrington here." He shoots a grin towards Steve to take the edge off the words, before doing a far more enthusiastic mimicry of the cheerleaders pom pom routine.

"But I know how much Carver hates the word no. If you break up with him and he gives you shit after, I'm happy to step in."

Steve hadn't actually thought about that yet, but given what he knew of Jason it makes sense.

He could easily see Chrissy worrying about Jason harassing her after the break up.

"Thank you. Both of you." She sniffs. "Eddie, are you sure you're okay?"

"Right as rain!" Munson gives a rather theatrical thumbs up. "I'll let you in on a family secret, we Munson's have rubber bones."

She gives him another giggle for his efforts, and even Steve can’t fully cover his

Munson, the ass, notices.

“Well call me the court jester, I got both the King and Queen to smile!” He cheers.

Steve rolls his eyes, but doesn't deny it.

"Chrissy!?" Someone barks, loud in the otherwise quiet backyard.

"Speak of the devil." Eddie drops his voice dramatically as Jason strides out of the house.

"I've been looking for you." He chides, two of his friends following close behind.

They're younger members of the basketball team, ones Steve's brain sluggishly attempts to remember.

"Are your knees dirty?" Jason asks Chrissy, disgust tinting his voice as he slowly looks from her to Munson next to her.

His eyes narrow, expression almost offronted.

"You heathen." Jason snarls, stepping forward with a fist clenched.

It was a move right of the sitcoms Steve swore he didn't watch, and it looked just as cheesy in real life as it did on screen.

"Calm down." Steve speaks up, hands going to his hips.

Jason's head jerks as he registers him, so focused on Munson that Steve slipped his notice entirely.

"Harrington?" He asks, as if Steve could be mistaken for anyone else here.

Steve gives him jazz hands in return.

"What are you doing out here?" Jason speaks only to Steve, whole body angling towards him like he's the only person who matters.

It's something Steve's dad does, if there's a businessman he considers to be an equal in the room. Zoning in on them, so he can subtly work in ways to make them feel inferior.

It's narcissism at its core (or so says his mother, when she's blitzed out on too many glasses of wine.)

"Talking to people." Steve deadpans. "If you're looking for beer, you walked past it."

Jason entire face pinches, like he just stepped in dog shit. "No one just talks to Munson."

It's a stupid thing to say, and whatever Hason was trying to imply with it wasn't appreciated.

"Well mark me as the first." Steve's hip cocks, voice frosting over.

Surprise washes across Munson's face, though he remains silent as Steve deals with Jason.

Probably a smart move, given how Jason seems to be eager for a fight.

"Whatever it is you're doing, you can leave Chrissy out of it." He says, and god his voice even sounds like Steve's dad.

"Chrissy," Steve says, with an eyebrow raise he knows looks judgemental, "can speak for herself."

He turns to face her, inviting her to the conversation, in the same way he'd always wished someone would invite his mother to speak against his father.

Watches as the cheerleader bites her lip, trying hard to hide the tears that have sprung to her eyes--but proves that she's stronger than Steve's mother ever was.

She steps forward, taking the opportunity offered to her with a steadying breath. "Jason--"

"You can explain it to me later." Her boyfriend waves her off, like she was a waitress offering water and not his partner.

Uncaring entirely that she's clearly upset.

That she wants to talk.

Munson has come to stand on Chrissy's other side, gone still in a way Steve's never seen him do.

It's downright weird for a guy who's normally always moving, and Steve knows it's defensive.

He's feeling a little defensive himself right now, though he doesn't want to particularly untangle why.

"Jason, listen to me." Chrissy tries again.

In his preffery vision, Steve spots a flash of familiar color. Turns his head automatically, seeking it out--and sees Jonathan hustling Nancy across the room.

The younger man is trying to balance Nancy while opening the front door, and for a second Steve almost beelines for them, except--

Except.

Nancy's whole body moves in what Steve intimately knows is an exhale, leaning her head in the crook of Jonathan's shoulder.

One arm wraps around his waist, as Jonathan finally gets the door open, and Steve watches with a stunned sort of horror as his girlfriend presses a kiss to Jonathan's shoulder.

It's fine.

He's fine.

Nancy was just--drunk. Seeking comfort. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't mean it like that, she didn't--

"Oh shit Harrington." Jason drawls, a lazy sort of taunt. "I think Byers just stole your girlfriend."

Steve's head snaps back to him, the emotions he was attempting to box up flying to the front of his brain like dogs who slipped their leash.

"Never thought a priss like Nancy would be easy like that, but then, you never were the kind of guy to inspire loyalty." Jason continues, clearly ignoring his own girlfriend and all Steve can see is red.

Munson sucks air between his teeth next to him, nervously eyeing Steve while Chrissy's eyes have gone wide with shock and growing anger.

"Jason!" She admonishes, but he's not even looking towards her.

That too sharp smile is all for Steve.

He thinks of Nancy, the way she'd been so angry with him but so gentle with Jonathan.

He thinks of the monster he faced down in the Byers house, the terror that had shrank down to that same adrenaline soaked focus he had on the basketball court.

He thinks of this asshole Junior in front of him.

Making Chrissy cry just because she'd been kind enough to try to help Eddie, and accept Eddie's kindness in return when the weirdo tried to help her and Steve both.

Steve taps his foot, then switches his stance.

'Plant your feet.' Hargroves voice snarls in his memory and Steve wouldn't be surprised if the asshole abandons the keg long enough to come watch this.

Have his turn at heckling, just because he can.

Steve plants his feet anyway.

"You know what Carver?" He says, hands dropping from his hips.

Jason's face curves into a smile. "What?" He says, tone smarmy.

"You're full of shit."

Hand cocking back of its own accord, Steve puts every bit of himself into his punch.

Feels it reverberate up his arm as his knuckles connect to Jason's cheek.

It's going to hurt later, but right now all he can do is stand over Jason as the asshole's head snaps sideways, legs staggering him backwards until he's falling into his friends.

Chrissy gasps, Jason's boys chanting variations of 'Oh shit!'

Steve just glares him down.

The junior wipes his bloodied mouth, letting his friends push him up before shrugging them off.

"You're going to regret that." Jason snarls, and Steve squares up a second time, expecting to be rushed, when the sharp snickt! of a switchblade freezes them both.

"I think we're done here." Munson says, knife in hand.

The blade he holds is stained a deep, russet red. Crusty flakes fall off it, drifting gently down to the patio floor.

Jason's eyes boggle at it for a moment before he stands up straight.

"Now it makes sense. You're weak, Harrington, letting the Freak get his claws into you." Jason spits bloodstained saliva down at Eddie's feet. "No wonder Coach wants Billy as co-captain!"

Steve just scoffs.

"Chrissy!" Carver barks, making the poor girl jump. "Come here, we're leaving!"

Trembling, but stepping closer to Steve, she shakes her head.

"Chrissy." Jason orders again, and has the audacity to point to his feet, like a man commanding his dog.

"No." Chrissy says it quietly at first, voice a little shaky, before she seems to realize it.

She stands taller, repeats herself in a stronger voice. "No, Jason. We're done."

Jason stares at her, hard. "Chrissy, your mother told me to bring you home. So I'm going to take you home and get you away from this--demon and his lackey!"

It doesn't sound loving.

It sounds like a threat.

He steps forward, hand out to grab her arm and Steve tenses, shifting to step in front of Chrissy.

Eddie beats him there.

The word demon seems to awaken something in him, because his face is now grinning theatrically, voice dipping low in pitch.

"You heard her, Carver. She said no, and even I respect a lady's wish. So run along now," he walks two fingers in the air, from the hand not waving the knife around. "before I decide to make you and her both one of mine, just as I did Harrington!"

Jason actually crosses himself, before making one last attempt for Chrissy.

"That monster is dangerous. if you don't come with me, I'll have to alert your parents." He locks eyes with her. "For the good of your soul."

Steve snorts at that crock of shit, but Eddie lunges forward, slashing the knife in the air.

It's nowhere near Jason, but the guy leaps a foot back anyway.

"Begone!" Eddie booms, and that's all it takes for Jason and his cronies to huff and puff and stride away.

He keeps his arms in the air for a few beats more, before dropping them when it's clear Jason won't be back.

"So I'm yours, huh?" Steve drawls, as Eddie finally puts his hands down and turns to face them.

The guys scary face drops into something almost excited, and Steve can practically see the adrenaline crackling through him.

"Hey it worked. Carver's a religious nut, he goes running anytime you even hint at Satan." Eddie shrugs, grinning wildly. "Put on a little show and poof! Him and his flying monkeys melt away!"

He mimes melting and Steve stares at him for it, until he hears Chrissy laughing next to him.

Eddie grins at her and Steve is hit with the realization that it was for her benefit. To make her feel better about her psycho ex.

Something fond and familiar winds through his chest as the other boy bows.

He refuses to put a name to it.

"Did you paint your knife?" He asks instead, rubbing the hand he hit Jason with.

"What?" Eddie asks, startled out of his court jester act.

Steve nods to his hand holding the switchblade. "That's not blood, it's way too red."

"Ah." Eddie turns the grin back on, and this time it's for Steve. "Yeah, it's uh. Modeling paint. Not like Carver would know the difference."

Unspoken was the fact that he hadn't thought Steve would.

Prior to last year, he'd have been right.

Drunken cheering erupts into wild yells inside, breaking whatever spell the three of them were under.

Hargrove's voice is the loudest among them, and the dude is definitely wasted.

Steve has a feeling Hargrove also knows the difference between paint and blood, rendering Munson's knife trick useless if the dick tried to start something.

"Do you want a ride home, Chrissy?" He asks quietly.

"If it's not a bother." She says, wiping tears shed refused to let fall from her eyes.

Chrissy Cunningham was a lot stronger than people gave her credit for.

"Come on, Munson, I think it's time we all make our exit." Steve says, finding himself weirdly unwilling to leave the older teen behind.

Eddie could hold his own, but given how badly things were playing out Steve figured it was best if they all just called it a day.

"Yeah lemme just…" Munson puts his blade away, fumbling at his pockets for a moment before turning and snatching up a metal lunchbox.

"There! After you, my liege." He says, before opening the lunchbox to make it talk.

"My lady." He makes it say, pitching his voice high.

Chrissy breaks into giggles again and Steve rolls his eyes, but he claps his good hand on Eddie's shoulder as he walks past.

Eddie smiles at him, this one a bit softer than the others, eyes sparkling and Steve chooses not to read into that either.

The three of them walk together, Eddie splitting off to his van after Chrissy thanks him.

Part Two