#and now when I open it I see a bunch of cobwebs and it's very dirty

[koka-mi]

I dunno why but I keep thinking abt the way I used to spend my nights two years ago

I remember around 6-7pm (in the autumn/winter) or 7-8pm (in the spring/summer), I'd lock my bedroom door, bring my tablet and headphones up with me onto the roof and play songs that I liked I watched the sun set. The songs were mostly either sapphic-coded (like sofia by clairo, strawberry blonde by chloe moriondo, etc.) or something ambient and soothing to me (like colorful interlude by sublime jupiter or rhubarb/#3 by aphex twin). I don't remember why though..I guess I just liked those types of songs back then xp

sometimes I'd bring my sketchbook with me too and sketch out random things like landscapes or characters from fandoms I was in at the time. Or I'd bring my journal and write about my completely nothing day. Most of the stuff I wrote was about the same but it's still nice to look back at them :3

Was it the safest for 14 year old me to just chill on the roof? Probably not. But tbh I didn't care at the time xD I honestly wouldn't have minded dying there.

I was at like.a reaaaaally low point in my life. Probably at my worst. Like I would cry everyday over little things and I found it extremely difficult to take care of myself. I guesss when I was out there on my roof watching the sun set with nice music in my headphones I actually felt..peace?? for once?? I dunno how to explain but it was suuuper nice I remember ^^ and it was nice to let out good cries up there.

I guess I can't help but remember this fondly and find it kinda nostalgic even though it was only two years ago and when I was not.doing great :'D I'm better nowadays luckily but hadhehdjwd makes me emotional sometimes.

[caelesjjk]

simply meant to be | jjk

☾ Title: Simply Meant to Be ☾ Pairing: pumpkin king!jungkook x fem reader ☾ Genre/AU: nightmare before Christmas au, romance, horror, smut ☾ Rating: m (18+) ☾ WC: 4.6K ☾ Warnings: this is not your average nightmare before christmas, its pretty dark and unhinged. jungkook is jack skellington. reader is somewhat of a sally character. jungkook calls you immortelle (it means everlasting), jungkook has face tattoos (you'll see), monsters, fear, seokjin appearing as Dr. Finkelstein hehe, electrocution therapy, being held against will, jungkook unalives someone, a game of cat and mouse, mentions of blood, smut in the forms of: kissing, grinding, fingering, unprotected sex, knife play, blood play, creampie ☾ Summary: you aren’t sure how any of it can be real. This place…these creatures…this man. You wake up next to a man you’ve never seen before with no memory of who he is or where you are. But everyone in town seems to know you. You belong to the Pumpkin King. Scared and utterly terrified you run into someone who claims they can help you remember. And now you’re starting to wonder if that’s truly what you want. ☾ Authors Note: hello darklings! Please enjoy my trick for the Fantasy and Fangs halloween collab! this fic became so much more unhinged than i originally planned lol. it may not be for everyone! just e sure to check my warnings before you proceed with the fic. this is heavily unedited.

Your body jolts upright, lungs immediately gasping for breath.

Panic surges through every nerve as you frantically look around at your surroundings and grasping at the thin sheet you find bunched around your hips. 

You’re naked. God why are you naked? How did you get here? Where the fuck are you?

Your heart pounds in your chest as you look next to you in bed and see that someone is lying next to you. A broad back and muscular arms covered in tattoos leading up to a head of messy black hair that covers the persons face lies snoring quietly against the sheets.

“Shit.” You mumble, wrapping the thin sheet around your body as you scramble out of the bed. The man lying in the bed stirs slightly and reaches into the space where your body once was. 

You don’t wait to see anything else, dashing for the bedroom door and stumbling into the very dark hallway. The only light comes from the cobweb covered candle sconces that line the black painted walls. 

You adjust the sheet around you the best you can before taking off running down the hallway. There is an immediate feeling that you’re being watched and you make the mistake of turning around to look behind you. 

The dark shadowy silhouette of a man stands where you had just been a moment ago. You beg your feet to move faster.

Before you reach the top of the stairs, you glance back over your shoulder once more to see what you can only describe as a jack o lantern grin light up and stretch across the face of the man taking his time moving towards to you down the hallway.

“Where are you going, immortelle?”

A voice comes into your mind and almost causes you to fall face first down the winding spiral staircase in front of you.

“Please leave me alone.” You beg as you rush down the stairs. You don’t make it far before you suddenly feel hands gripping at your ankles. Hands with claws….some covered with slime…reaching from under the stairs and tearing at the sheet keeping your naked body from being exposed.

You scream until your throat hurts. Kicking at the hands as you continue to fight your way down the stairs.

“You know how much I love chasing you, baby.”

Somehow you manage to make it to the bottom of the stairs, but you almost wish that you hadn’t when you fall against the front door and throw it open.

You must be hallucinating with fear.

Outside the sky is black and grey swirls of clouds in constant motion, you know if you stared too long you’d become dizzy. Instead, your eyes wonder around to the bare trees surrounding the house you just made your way out of. Just a few leaves hang on for dear life as the wind quite literally howls through the air.

Down the crooked stone steps in front of you is a huge iron gate with two giant pumpkin designs bent into the bars. Gargoyles sit atop every stone post surrounding the house. 

Wasting no more time, you descend the stairs until you’ve reached the iron gate, shaking the bars when it doesn’t budge.

“Please open. Please.” You shove with your shoulder as hard as you can and the gate loudly creaks open just enough for you to squeeze out into the open street. 

You turn around and shove the gate back shut, looking up at the top of the stairs where the man who had been chasing you through the house now stands with a smile on his half tattooed face and his arms crossed over his bulky bare chest.

You can see even from here that the tattoos on the left side of his face are skull like features. It’s absolutely terrifying.

He lifts a hand in a wave as he menacingly tilts his head to the side and smiles.

Fuck this.

You wrap the blanket tighter around you and take off down the street without a single clue as to where you are. Anywhere has to be better than where you just were.

You spoke too soon again.

The sight in front of you as you round the corner is just as terrifying as that house and that man.

There are monsters, literal monsters, standing in the streets. Selling items at market booths. Chasing their children on the sidewalks. Laughter…and screams. It’s a terrible mix of sounds.

You freeze as a bouncy ball belonging to what you can only assume is a swamp monster child rolls against your feet.

“Happy first day after Halloween Ms Y/N!” The little creature says, staring at you expectantly.

Your instincts tell you not to scream. If you scream it will only make things worse.

“You know my name?” Your voice shakes and so do your hands as you continue holding the blanket around your body.

“Are you alright, miss?” The child’s mother appears behind him, looking at you with concern.

“I um…I should go.” Your bare feet move to cross the street, making you pause when you step in something wet. You know that it’s blood before you even look down. Vomit threatens to fill your mouth but you continue walking away, dragging the train of the sheet you’re wearing through more of the bloody streets.

More monsters stare at you as you go. Some with long sharp teeth and claws that could easily slice through a normal humans delicate skin. Some walked on two feet and some slithered across the ground like sickly serpents. 

“Are you lost?” A horrifying witch grabbed your arm and tried to pull you back into the street.

“No, no I’m just on my way somewhere.” You lie the best you can, yanking your arm away only to immediately see deeps scratches from her long nails.

“So sorry miss.” She cackles, moving to join two other witches who were waiting for her on the other side of the street. They all continued their uneasy laughing until you turned the corner up ahead.

As you turned the corner you ran hard into something. Or someone it would appear when you looked up.

“What are you doing out here in nothing but a blanket, Y/N?” The man asks, pushing a pair of glasses up onto his nose.

This man had stitches across his forehead and down around his neck. Like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster, he’s been sewn together.

“Do I know you? Why does everyone here know my name?” You step back to put space between you and the monster.

“Ah, I see. Come with me.” He turns and begins walking but stops when you don’t follow. “I can help you. Come.” He holds out a hand, and while you don’t know what the fuck is happening, something tells you it’s okay to trust this stranger. 

You take his hand.

“Who are you?” You finally ask.

“I’m a friend. Dr. Kim Seokjin.” He swings your hands between you in a silly way. “You usually call me Jin. Sometimes Jinnie.”

“Jin.” You repeat, the name feeling familiar on your tongue. “Where are we going?”

“To my lab. I have things that can help you there.” Jin turns another corner and up ahead you can see a tall crooked tower looming in the distance.

“Your lab is in there?” 

“It is. Don’t worry Y/N, I promise you’re safe with me.”

You swallow hard but continue to let Jin lead you inside the tower and up, up, up the long spiraling stairs until you reach a door that he slides open.

Inside is a room filled with equipment and various experiments. Glass beakers filled with colorful liquid bubble and burble over small open flames. Sparks fly from wires that connect to different machines and some that connect to nothing at all. There are also several control panels at the center of the room with gurneys situated next to them.

“What kind of doctor are you, Jin?” Your voice shakes a little.

“The helpful kind.” He answers with a menacing grin on his face and a flicker of something slightly insane in his eyes.

“Wh-what do you have here that can help me?” You look down at the dirty blanket still wrapped around your body.

“First,” he grabs your hand again and leads you to a side room that has a cot with some folded clothes lying on top of it, “you can use those clothes to change into, okay? Whatever you want.” 

“Thank you.” You step into the small room and turn to face him. “Is something really wrong with me? Something that makes me not remember?”

“Everything is fixable. I’ll have you as good as new in no time.” Jin winks and closes the door behind him so that you can change in private.

You dress in a daze, still feeling very off kilter from everything that’s unfolded from the moment you opened your eyes. Flashes of the man you woke up next too and his terrifying tattooed face race across your memory and leave chills over your skin.

“Ready now?” Jin calls from outside the door. You take a deep breath and walk back out into the laboratory. “Why don’t you take a seat on one of those?” He motions to the gurneys at the center of the room.

Reluctantly, you walk over to them and sit on the thin mattress. It crumples under your weight and immediately sends a sense of dread swimming into your veins.

“How can you fix me?” You barely get the sentence out before Jin is next to you, situating your arms at your sides and wrapping leather straps around your wrists. “What are you doing?” Panic thick in your voice.

“This is how we fix you. Bite this.” He puts a leather strap up to your mouth.

“Are you crazy?! I’m not doing this. Let me go!” You pull against the restraints, thrashing your head and body in an attempt to get the fuck away.

“I know it’s a little frightening. You do this every time. One of your only flaws.” Jin shakes his head, sounding disappointing.

“Flaws? What are you talking about!?” 

“You’re my creation. I made you.” He tilts his head and smiles, “and you’re absolutely perfect except for that mind of yours. It resets. Forgets.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Creation?! I’m a human being! I’m not some experiment! What is wrong with you?” Hot tears starts to leak from the corners of your eyes and blur your vision.

“You’re so adorable sometimes.” Jin yanks on your restraints to tighten them, “sit still, Y/N.” 

“You’re hurting me.” You whimper.

“You think that hurts?” Jin smiles before he begins sticking sticky pads to your head and neck. “Just wait.” He whispers into your ear.

You’re such an idiot to have trusted this monster. You were so sure that he was good. A friend. He felt like a friend when you saw him. Familiar.

“Please…don’t.” You beg just before he forcefully shoves the piece of leather between your teeth.

“You’ll thank me soon.”

Terror freezes your body as you watch him slam down a lever on one of the control tables, green electric waves traveling down the wires and entering your body in trembling shocks.

You don’t know how long you lay there, screaming through the pain before you pass out from how much electricity Jin lets pass into your body. But eventually the room goes black and the last thing you hear is Jin manically laughing from across the room.

“It’s getting worse.”

“I tweaked some things this time. I’m hopeful it lasts longer.”

“It better. I’m tired of losing her.”

You hear quiet voices as you begin to come to. Voices that you recognize almost immediately.

“Jungkook?” Your voice croaks. Almost immediately the door to the small room slides open and the silhouette of the only person you want to see fills the doorway.

“You’re okay, immortelle?” Jungkook rushes into the room and kneels next to the cot you’re laying on.

“What happened to me? Why am I in Jinnie’s lab?” You turn your head to face him when he cups your cheeks in his hands.

“You had another episode, my sweet.” He brings your hand to his lips and kisses your knuckles one by one.

“Episode?” Your brows draw together in confusion.

“You forgot who you were. That you belong to me. You forgot it all.” Jungkook looks sad while he explains and it breaks your heart.

“How could I forget you?” You sit up slowly and he helps you. “How could I forget my love?”

“It’s not your fault, immortelle. Don’t blame yourself.” Jungkook looks over his shoulder at Jin who stands in the doorway. Jin rolls his eyes before walking away.  

“Take me home?” You ask, wrapping your arms around Jungkook’s neck when he picks you up into his arms bridal style.

“Of course.” 

Jungkook carries you down the long winding staircase of the laboratory and outside where it’s pitch black besides the white melting candles inside the lamp posts along the street.

A smile pulls across your face when you see all the monsters that you love busy in the streets. They all smile back at you, tossing greetings and wishes of quick recoveries your way.

“They love you.” Jungkook whispers into your ear.

“No. They love you, you’re their pumpkin king. I’m just lucky enough to be yours.” You touch the skull details tattooed on the side of his face so he looks at you.

“You’ll be their queen soon.” He reminds you. You lean up to kiss his lips.

“Let’s get something to eat before we go home. I’m famished.” Jungkook sits you on your feet but keeps your hand in his.

Jungkook talks with some of the shop owners and you watch as he gathers all of your favorite things into a basket. Wines, cheeses, and some sweet treats leftover from the night before. You love him so.

You make your way over to a stand selling haunted dolls and look around at all the choices. You’re about to go back to find Jungkook when someone grabs your arm and twists you around.

“You’re so pretty.” The drunken vampire says, the smell of blood thick on his breath. He’s had too much.

“I appreciate your compliment, but I need you to let go of my arm.” You pull away but he doesn’t let go.

“Don’t be that way. Come with me.” He stumbles and almost falls on top of you.

“Get off of me!” You say louder but the vampire doesn’t listen, it’s nails scratching through your skin. You’re about to scream for Jungkook when he’s suddenly there, ripping the vampires hand from your arm.

“May I ask what you think you’re doing? Touching what’s mine?” Jungkook says too calmly.

“I…I didn’t recognize Ms. Y/N…I didn’t realize.” The vampire stumbles over his words.

“Is that your excuse?” Jungkook laughs, the terrifying cackling sound sending tingles through your body.

You know what’s going to happen next, and the thrill alone has you aching between your legs.

“I’m sorry, I’ll never make the mistake again.” The vampire takes a few steps back.

“Immortelle?” Jungkook looks over his shoulder to you. He’s asking a silent question that you already know the answer to. You nod yes as a smile spreads across your face.

“Remember in your next life my friend, to keep your filthy hands off my girl.” Before you can blink his hand is shooting out between them and into the vampires chest cavity. He holds it there a moment so that he can watch the life drain slowly drain from the vampire before he yanks his hand back out holding the still thumping heart in his hand.

The vampire falls to the ground in a lifeless heep, his eyes still open and eternally full of the fear he last experienced. The crowd around the market doesn’t take offense, they know if their pumpkin kills someone it was for a damn good reason.

Jungkook turns towards you, handing the heart to one of the children playing with the body on the ground. He pats their head and then slowly brings his hand up to his mouth, licking a thick stripe from the bloody palm of his hand to the tip of his middle finger, all while keeping eye contact with you.

You smile, closing the space between the two of you and claiming his mouth. Your tongue seeks out the blood that’s dropped down his chin and around his lips.

“It never gets old…watching you kill for me.” You breathe into his mouth while his blood hands lace into the strands of your hair.

“We need to get home before I show everyone here how well I fuck you.” His mouth leaves hot kisses against your neck as he leads you backwards down the street until your back hits the iron bars of a familiar gate.

Home.

The gate loudly creaks open as soon as it realizes the two of you have arrived. Jungkook stops kissing you to take your hand and walks with you up the stone stairs to the front door that also opens all on its own, the door knocker welcoming you home.

“Do you want to play?” You whisper, making Jungkook pause at the bottom of the stairs. Those tattooed details raising into a smile.

“Okay, immortelle. Let’s play.” He kisses the top of your hand before taking a step back. He slowly slips of his black and white striped suit jacket and unbuttons his shirt before it joins the jacket on the floor.

You soak in the tattooed planes of his body, the muscles begging to be touched. His dark falling over his forehead as he steps back farther into the shadows until he’s completely disappeared from your sight.

“You know what happens if I catch you, immortelle.” His voice floats into your ear from somewhere unknown. “Don’t let me catch you.” 

A thrill shoots through your body again and you sprint for the stairs, loving the way the monsters and ghouls grab at your ankles and whisper your name. You immediately turn left at the top of the stairs, your mind going a million miles an hour trying to think of where you could hide.

He knows all of the good places for hiding.

In a last ditch idea, you run into your shared bedroom upon hearing Jungkook’s footsteps running up the stairs. He took this game of chase so seriously and never took it slowly.

You slide under the bed, your chest heaving in fear but also excitement. You’re hoping by hiding somewhere obvious that he won’t even think to look here and waste his time checking all of the usual spots you tend to hide.

“Where are you, immortelle?” You hear his menacing voice out in the hallway coming closer. You almost giggle. “You know I’ll find you. I will always find you.”

You hear his footsteps stop outside the bedroom door and then the door slowly opens right after, lightly hitting against the wall behind it. 

Jungkook’s heavy footsteps make the floorboards creak as he walks into the room. You throw a hand over your mouth to keep from making any noises. Jungkook undoes the buckle of his belt and a moment later slips it from his belt loops and lets it clang against the hardwood floor.

“Are you soaked for me right now, my love?” You watch with wide eyes as Jungkook slowly walks around the bed. “I’ll find out soon enough.”

He doesn’t say anything else and when you look around at the floor you notice that he’s no longer next to the bed, his black boots no longer anywhere in sight. You release a long breath of relief.

And then you’re being yanked by the ankle from beneath the bed, a startled scream escaping you as you flip onto your back just in time to see Jungkook trap you with his body against the floor.

“You caught me.” You smile, lifting your hips up to meet his, desperate for friction against your core.

“Don’t I always?” His mouth is on yours, his hands pushing your dress up around your hips.

He was desperate for you too.

“I love you.” You whisper on his lips, the tattooed skeleton grin on his beautiful face turning upwards.

Jungkook sits up on his knees between your legs giving you a full view of his naked torso. Pretty muscles and flawless skin that you ached to leave your mark on. Scratches and bite marks and bruises were the only things that could make him more perfect.

Your chest heaves as you watch him reach behind his back in the band of his black dress pants to retrieve a silver shiny knife. Your pulse quickens immediately.

“Is this what you want, immortelle?” He presses the cold steel flat against the inside of your thigh, keeping the blade from cutting you just yet.

“Will you torture me?” You ask, your hands coming up to cup your breasts with anticipation.

“Absolutely.” Jungkook moves the knife farther up your skin until the point brushes over underwear. You moan pathetically at the feel of it brushing over your center and slowly sliding over onto your other thigh.

“Jungkook…” you sigh.

“Be patient. I’ll give you what you want.” Jungkook uses his other hand to undo the button and zipper of his pants, pushing them down until his perfect cock springs free from the confines.

You bite your lip at the sight in front of you. Jungkook slowly strokes himself to the sight of the knife moving across your skin. He draws the sharp side of the blade oh so gently across your stomach, so sharp you don’t even feel it draw blood. The view of you on display for him makes him groan and move his hand a bit rougher up and down his shaft. 

Your fingers move on their own accord, slipping through the small pool of blood on your stomach and moving them back over your breasts to smear the crimson liquid in a trail.

“Fuck. Fuck you’re so perfect.” Jungkook moves the knife to your throat, gently leaving one long cut from one side to the other. You immediately feel warm blood leave the wound and drip down the sides of your neck.

Jungkook drops the knife to the floor and bends over your body to attach his mouth to your neck. He licks and sucks at your blood, whimpering at the taste of it on his tongue. Your body instinctively arches from the ground, your chest rubbing against his and spreading more of your blood between your bodies. It was the most beautiful visual you could imagine.

You looked down between your bodies to see Jungkook’s hand still stroking his cock as he continues to move his mouth down your body to the cut on your stomach. You can barely stand the burn in the pit of your stomach any longer, your desire for the man on top of you smoldering too hot.

“I need you now. Please.” You lace your hands into Jungkook’s hair and lift his face. The sight of his face covered in your blood, his eyes solid black with lust almost does you in completely.

“Such a good girl, saying please.” He moves back onto his knees, squeezing precum from the head of his cock before he releases it completely and picks the knife back up off the floor. You watch in awe as he brings it to his mouth and licks the blood from the blade.

“I always want to be good for you.” You say sweetly. His cock twitches at the sound of your obedient voice.

Jungkook moves the knife down between your legs and ever so carefully pressed the sharp blade to your underwear and drags it down until the fabric slices apart and reveals your absolutely drenched pussy to him. The knife clangs to the floor again and Jungkook leans back down to claim your mouth, his thumb immediately finding your clit.

Your lips part to moan and his tongue swipes against yours swallowing up all the sounds that escape you. The dripping head of his cock suddenly swipes through your folds and causes a high pitched whine to bubble up your throat.

“Is your pussy desperate to be filled, immortelle?” His hand swipes the blood on your stomach before it’s back on his cock, the blood lubing his shaft to make it easier when he fucks himself into you.

“Yes. It hurts, Jungkook.” You let your hands wander his chest and stomach, watching him watch you.

“I’m not going to last long once I get inside your perfect pussy, my love. But I need you to cum and I need you to scream.” Without warning he roughly spears himself inside you, his hands holding you on his cock as you writhe from the sudden intrusion.

“Oh my fucking god.” Your eyes roll to the back of your head when he starts to move, rough and hard.

“Made for me. I literally had you made just for me and you’re perfect. So fucking perfect and pliant just for me.” Jungkook’s hand comes down to your throat, careful of the cut across your skin, he gently tightens his grip.

You immediately see stars, wrapping both of your hands around his wrist to keep him in place. You gasp and moan at the feeling of him controlling your breathing and ruining your pussy at the same time. 

“I’m going to come. God I’m coming right now.” The words are quiet as he continues to hold your throat but he hears you just fine, moving his hand from your throat to play with your clit.

“Scream. I need you to scream so I can fill you up.” You open your eyes to see Jungkook watching you, his hair sweaty and mouth parted. Just when you’re about to beg for a kiss he punches your clit between his fingers and your orgasm rolls through you like a hurricane.

Black and white sparks explode behind your eyes and though you can’t hear yourself, you know that you scream loud and high pitched. Just what Jungkook needs to find his own end, dropping on top of you as he continues to fill you past the brim and onto your thighs.

Dried blood scratches between your skin and his as he lies on top of you, his head against your chest and your hands roaming the expanse of his broad shoulders. 

“You’re okay, immortelle?” He finally asks through his heavy breathing.

“I am, of course.” You lift his face to place a kiss to his lips.

“We didn’t even make it to the bed this time.” He laughs lightly, groaning as he pulls out and helps you sit up with him.

“I didn’t mind.” You both smile knowing he feels the same.

“I’ll never mind being with you, immortelle. Never.” He touches your cheek and kisses your lips once more.

“Even if…even if I keep forgetting?” 

“Even then. We are simply meant to be, my love.”

[chuuyascumsock]

Hop On That Delulu Train Bestie || Minors DNI

Summary: HOOOLY S H I T. WHY. DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF? May you all find peace one day and cure your chronic horniness and delusions for men who would never want you irl <3 (Just like me fr). Anyways, this has been sitting and gathering cobwebs for weeks now, but I’ve decided to finish it in honor of chapter 109. Keep being delulu babe.

Tags: Dazai Osamu/Reader, Afab reader, Soft Dom Dazai, Fingering, Cunnilingus (Why Is That Such A Silly Word), Pussy IS Therapy Ig, He Just Seems Like An Avid Pussy Eater Idk, Would Definitely Use Your Thighs As Earmuffs, Sorry Y’all Don’t Get The Dick <3, I Was Too Lazy To Turn This Into A Full Smut.

The quiet hum of a low light lamp buzzes through your ears as your eyes flicker over the words to the page mindlessly. Reading was boring, watching television was boring, everything was boring.

You look over to the clock on your nightstand and let out a loud sigh. Nearly midnight and he had still yet to walk through the door as he usually does and smother you with sweet nothings and soft kisses. Your gaze falls back onto your book, the romance novel glaring back with the most dull descriptions and irritating plot. You shut the book, tossing it aside as you groan and knock your head back against the headboard of your bed.

Picking up your phone that sits on the nightstand dresser, you note the empty screen with no obnoxious texts from a certain brunette. It was almost worrying not seeing his name on your lock screen with a bunch of random emojis spammed next to it. Unlocking your phone, you re-read your last text sent to him nearly two hours ago— asking when he’d be home.

You start to wonder if he’s late because of another failed suicide attempt, but you quickly let the thought pass when you finally hear the front door open. It closes almost silently, muffled footsteps growing closer to your room. Your eyes focus on your door frame as Dazai finally steps in, his clothes disheveled and hair messy.

“ ‘Samu…” You murmur, slightly taken aback at his appearance.

His warm brown eyes travel over to the bed where you lay and a small smile curls onto his lips as he shuffles over and climbs onto your side of the bed, his face and upper body planting atop of your legs. He heavily inhales before exhaling, his hot breath blowing against the skin of your thighs. Subconsciously, one of your hands makes its way into his hair and begins to comb through his tangled tresses. His arms wrap around under your legs and lock them in place.

“My love…” He whispers back, his body relaxing on you as his feet hang over the bottom edge of the bed. He kicks his shoes off and allows them to thump to the ground.

“You didn’t answer my text, something happen?” Your brows scrunch together in concern.

Dazai sighs, pressing a light kiss against your thigh, “My phone was in my pocket during a shoot out and it was sadly destroyed.”

You wait for him to make a joke about wishing the bullet went through his skull instead, but it never comes to your surprise. “Oh… Well, I guess we can go look for a new one tomorrow then.” You finish unknotting his hair with your fingers as a moment of silence settles over the both of you before you add, “I’m guessing today was rough then?”

He hums in return, enjoying the way your hand runs through his hair affectionately. “Kunikida made me do my paperwork,” He pouts, his chin coming to rest on your thighs to look up at you.

You briefly laugh, patting his head before speaking with a mock-sympathetic tone, “Aw, my poor baby…”

He huffs, burying his face back into the plush of your thighs, “You don’t sound very genuine, that’s very mean you know… He’s always bullying me around.”

You raise an eyebrow at him, knowing full well that whatever shit Kunikida gives Dazai— he deserves every bit of it for his shenanigans. You’ve only met him a few times as well as Dazai’s other co-workers, but it was safe to say that if anyone was being bullied— it was that poor bastard, Kunikida. “Oh, really? And you don’t bother the hell out of him until he loses his shit?” You stop running your hand through his hair.

Dazai gasps, overdramatically, of course, “I would never! Kunikida is my respectable co-worker who I value and treat with the utmost—“

“Then why do I get calls from him begging me: “For the love of God, please come get your terrorizing bastard of a boyfriend, I can’t do it anymore.” Huh?”

Cue another gasp, “You’re talking to other men?! Kunikida no less!?”

You roll your eyes, “It was originally because he called me to come get you every time you decided to take a dip in the canal, now it’s a complaint hotline for you.” You poke an index finger against his forehead firmly.

“Owie…” He brings a hand up to rub his forehead, bottom lip jutting out.

“You’re a handful, you know that?” You grumble, staring down at him, “I deserve a medal for putting up with your shenanigans.”

“Isn’t my love enough?” Dazai whines, making puppy eyes at you.

A sigh leaves your lips, “Yeah… You’re lucky you’re cute.”

His lips quirk up back into a smile and he nuzzles his face back against your skin, placing small kisses to your thighs.You don’t really keep count, but it takes a few pecks until he gently nips at your thigh.

“Hey—“ You squeak, pushing at his head which causes him to chuckle, “You’re doing that on purpose.”

The kisses on your thighs grow sloppy before he moves his arms from around your legs to nudge them apart, his body fitting between your legs. He quickly maneuvers your thighs until the backs of your thighs press against the tops of his shoulders, arms wrapping around your legs to keep you against him. “What? I’m just getting comfortable, my love.” He plays off innocently, his cheek squishing against one of your thighs as he looks up at you.

Your brows furrow, heat crawling up your neck as you glare back suspiciously, “I know what you’re doing.”

“And is it a bad thing?” He chimes back, going back to kissing your thighs.

You shiver, feeling his wet lips leave a trail of saliva to air along the insides of your thighs, “You know I’m—“

“Sensitive? Yeah,” He trails off with a noise that sounds like a groan mixed with a hum.

At this point, you feel a tingle crawl up your spine and warmth spread across your face. A fuzziness begins to form in your mind as his lips grow closer to the edge of your sleep shorts.

He pauses when he gets to your shorts, his face pulling away and his hands coming to tug at the hem of your shorts. “Want these off,” He mumbles, pulling at them.

You’re quick to lift your hips and slip your shorts down your legs, Dazai’s hands fumbling along yours to throw them to the side. He buries his face between your legs once more to press his lips along your inner thighs until he reaches your underwear. His face pushes forward until his lips press against your cunt and nose nudges your clit through the thin fabric.

A strangled moan passes your lips as he meets your flustered gaze, and although you can’t see his mouth with it pressed against you— you can tell he’s smirking through his eyes.

He softly breathes in before placing a searing kiss against your clothed pussy, causing your thigh to slightly twitch in his grasp. “I missed this pretty little pussy— haven’t tasted it in days,” He groans before bringing a finger to pull your underwear aside and reveal your glossy folds to him. His gaze is greedy as he parts your folds with two fingers, mouth watering at your slicked insides.

“Don’t stare…”

“Awe, but I can’t help it— looks so good,” Dazai breathes out before leaning forward to slip his tongue flat between your spread folds, licking up to your clit to collect your taste on his tongue. “Tastes good too…” He groans, lapping his tongue through for a second time, “I could spend the whole day eating this pussy out until you’re quivering and begging for me to stop.”

A strung-out whimper escapes your throat as you watch him. Heat burns the nape of your neck, the dizzy feeling hitting you twice as hard as your eyelids lull.

Dazai is shameless in his sucking and slurping of lips and tongue against your dripping cunt as loudly as possible. He doesn’t hold back any of his needy groans and muffled whimpers as he tastes every drop of arousal you have to offer. He strains painfully against the confines of his pants as he holds back the urge to fold you in half and fuck you on his cock until your drooling cunt is filled to the brim with his cum.

His tongue delves into your tight hole, the warm muscle wriggling against your clenching walls before sliding out. After repeating the process a few times, he moves to suck at your throbbing clit, sighing at the way it pulses against his tongue. There’s a small ‘pop’ when he pulls away reluctantly to replace his mouth with his lengthy, thin fingers.

“I love the way you squirm under my touch— drives me crazy— you know that?” Dazai grins before sinking a finger into your wet hole.

An airy gasp leaves your lips as you try to move away from him in surprise, only to have his grip tighten around your thigh with his free hand. “ ‘Samu, I—“ Your fingers clench into the sheets on the bed.

“I know, my love— feel good?” He borderline coos, eyes glued to the way you sucked his finger back in with every pump. “I bet it does, your fingers just don’t reach like mine, do they?” He adds a second finger, his digits curving into your gummy sweet spot.

Your hips involuntarily buck in to meet his thrusting fingers, your pussy squelching around his lithe digits. He leers at the obscene image of your sweet cunt swallowing his fingers down to the knuckle with a lewd moan.

“Good girl, keep fucking yourself on my fingers like that,” He croons, leaning forward to suck at your puffy clit again.

Surges of pleasure rampage within you as you clamp your shaking thighs around his head, grinding your aching pussy against his mouth and fingers. “M’gonna come, s’too much—“ You whimper.

“Come on my tongue— wanna feel that pussy clench around my fingers,” Dazai muffles a groan against your sensitive clit which has you coming undone and vehemently shivering from the feeling of your climax.

Dazai slides his fingers out of your pulsing hole and presses his tongue against your drenched pussy as you ride out your orgasm— his tongue not missing a single drip of arousal. He sighs quietly when he’s finished and pulls away, your bare sex covered in merely his spit now.

With your chest heaving from the aftermath, your head weakly shifts to watch Dazai sit up on his knees and hover over. “ ‘S-Samu…”

“Shh, I know, my love,” He laughs softly— and you think he’s going to redress you before cuddling into you like he usually does, but he doesn’t. Instead, his hand trails down to unzip his pants, the tip of his pre-cum leaking cock peeking out of his waistband. He pushes both his pants and boxers to his mid thighs before stroking his hard cock.

“You’re tired, so why don’t you just lay back and let me fuck that pretty pussy to sleep, hm?”

[emeritus-fuckers]

Hi! I hope you guys are having a great day! I saw Ghost asks are open, and I wanted to request the Papas comforting male reader cause there's a bunch of issues with friends and such, and they aren't feeling too well. Preferably with Terzo and/or secondo? You can ignore this if you want. Have a great day/afternoon/night!

Papas comforting their s/o through friend issues

Primo (He/Him)

He can tell the moment he sees you that something is up. You hear the kettle boil as you settle on the sofa in his garden shed. The wind rushes through the trees outside and you take a breath feeling a little calmer.

"Stay as long as you want" He says as he places a steaming pot of tea on the chipped wooden table. He pours you some, handing you the mug. "This will help." Even the smell of the tea calms. You wrap your fingers around the mug as you start to tell him what happened.

He nods "I'm sorry you are having such a terrible time of it, your friends don't seem to be the best right now." He sips his own tea "Everything passes, the good times and more importantly the bad times."

Somehow just being around him and having him actually listen to you really helps. Primo then spends the rest of the afternoon with you and insists you come find him whenever you need. Or as he says with a smile, if you prefer, just listen to Ghost and all of them will be with you.

Secondo (He/Him)

You sink back on the plush sofa, dressed in the most comfortable silk pyjamas that Secondo insisted you accepted. You've just been allowed access to his Papal baths and they are more like a spa. He hates seeing you down, he'll get you whatever he can to help. Or if you prefer he'll take you away for a few days to your favourite place. No expense is spared in helping you, he will also clear his timetable for the day.

He is not impressed with your friends, they have upset you. He offers to go and have a word with them. A very scary word...

He'll pamper you the entire day. He'll encourage you to talk, as the more you say stuff out loud the more you seem to work through it and figure it out. But of course there is no pressure if you just want to relax and forget about it all, he can help.

Depdning on how you feel he'll offer to take you to a party that night to take your mind off things.

He gives the best hugs, you feel totally safe in his embrace and he will hold you as long as it takes.

He'll cook your favourite food for you. He'll bring it out to the table still with the apron on. The food smells amazing, tastes even better. The more you enjoy it the bigger his smile gets.

Terzo (He/They)

You've been looking for him all over the ministry but it's Terzo who found you. He sees you looking down and pulls you into the biggest cuddle "I heard you were down Caro? What is wrong?"

When you tell them their face falls and he says "You don't need them, not when they are treating you this way hmm?"

You can smell the incense on him from days spent in the chapal. "Let me help caro, whatever you need I am here for you."

He starts to smile again when you nod. He starts to use his usual fambloyance and charm to get a bigger smile from you.

"I know a good spot, my secret hid out where I could get some peace and quiet." It was a room in an area of the ministry that seemed forgotton. Cobwebs hung over the corridor, the statues and paintings covered in dust. One door however was clear of all that. He pushed it open and the room was decorated with purple drapes and very well kept. "Stay here as long as you need" he gave your shoulder a squeeze. "I'll stay too for as long as you want." He settled on the window seat and beckoned you over with a grin. "The perfect spot to watch the patio in the garden. This is where a lot of siblings meet in the day" He pushed the window open a jar and a devilish chuckle came from him. "This is how I am so good at match making, I observe." Terzo's eyes fell on you "I just love how happy two people look when they find the right person. If things don't work out with some people in your life, try not to worry too much, someone better might come along."

As much as they try to cheer you up with laughter and distraction they can be serious too. When they realise you need advice or need to talk more they are there for you. Something about the expression on their face is just so comforting, they really sees you.

Copia (He/Him)

It might be his solution to everything, but as the rats clamber all over you and Biscotti curls up on your lap you let out a breath.

Copia smiles and passes you a mug of your favourite hot drink and sits down next to you. "What has you so troubled?"

You explain and he nods. "Ah, that is very hard. But I am here with you, that helps Sì?" His expression is ernest as he scans your face. "Just let me know what I can do to help..."

You do feel better having him there and nod, Copia sits up a little straighter. "With the people that have upset you, I could err try the moves Mr Saltarian taught me? Give them the old one two sì?"

You carefully stroke a now sleeping Biscotti and Copia pulls out two video game controllers. "Maybe this will take your mind off things? I know you said you don't feel too well so lets just spend the day here. Away from everone and everything else."

Old Nihil (He/Him)

You have to tell him a few times what's happened because, even with the best will in the world, he can't hear you. He just keeps loudly shouting "WHAT?" until a very fed up Sister walks over and turns his hearing aids on.

As soon as he hears what's going on he looks concerned and angry. "I will have a word with those friends. Seesstor can help." He gives her a simping look.

You kinda imply you just want some company as you don't feel too well.

"Oh.." he smiles "I can do that."

He'll take you on his favourite walk - or shuffle in his case. But the gardens are beautiful and Nihil ,although he comes out with a lot of useless advice, sometimes he says something very helpful. You just got to know when to listen.

He'll pretty much do anything you want if it will cheer you up.

He might spend some of the time complaining to you about Copia, after all a problem shared and all that. "That boy... he could be one of your friends for all the use he is..."

Young Nihil (He/Him)

You find him in his rooms, the haze of smoke hardly there today as he lies on the sofa strumming his guitar. The windows thrown open wide to let what little breeze there is fight off the summer heat. It's cooler as you step in. On the table a jug of mocktail full of ice, condensation running off the outside, pulls you towards it and Nihil.

He hands you a glass as you slump down on the well worn sofa. "What's up?" He asks placing his guitar down.

He'll offer to take your mind off it completely, he knows some fun parties and you can meet new friends! He might be confused as to why that doesn't work but when he sees you are really down he will do anything he can to help. Even if he is a little useless he really means well and that care shows through.

He'll offer you a drink or something stronger to help. His method of dealing is self medicating but he knows it's not a good idea for everyone so he won't push it.

He is actually suprsingly good at listening and he'll just sit there for you as long as you need. It helps if he's a little stoned, he tends to be calmer and able to listen better.

He'll play his guitar for you, if that will help you chill.

Once you start to feel better he talks you into going out for the night with him, and it does cheer you up. Whether you drink or not it doesn't matter. Nihil's smile is infectious and you just can't help but join in.

~

Written by Nyx.

[potatoqueensays]

hey u shoudl iek,,,, tootally tlak about that reverve falls au rehash you said you were amking,...... for like.,.,,, totally no reason,,,,,,, yeah,,,,,,,,, dont mind the voice recorder dont mind it im not the fbi wdym we;re in an interrogation room what gaslighting isnt a thing ure tripping anyways

HI!!! HI HI HI!!!! ANON HELLO!!!!

...So yes!!! I am working on a teensy weensy little rehashing of the Reverse Falls au. I'm sure as we all know, the original is a bit....outdated so to say. What with suspicious art and some questionable decisions here and there.

I'm not saying mine is better! No way no how, I'm absolutely sure there's a bunch of people out there with something better. This is just a little thing I'm working on with a friend of mine ( @danklemckspankle ) and how we would imagine a reverse falls au. Rather than it being low-key swapping personalities, it swaps roles as it should. And I'd like to think the premise is exciting as well! It makes me very very happy to talk about it as it's been plaguing my mind for a week or two. Tbh ever since book of bill came out....

So!! Lemme talk about it a little!!! I hope you're ready for a little mystery wink wink

Ahem. So! Our little story starts in a little shack called "The Shack of Telepathy"!! (So original yeah I know)

Bud Gleeful is the shack owner, living as a single father with his son Gideon Gleeful. Bud makes money by being a tourist trap, grabbing people in under the premise of reading their minds! (Gravity falls people are just easy to read but shhh don't tell Toby)

Gideon is a little 9 year old with a heart of gold and full of promise. It's a new summer in Gravity Falls and he has big plans! He wants to have the best adventure he can, and hopefully get a new badge on his vest!!

Yes, this little guy wants to be a boy scout!! Unfortunately, there is no chapter in Gravity Falls, so he's gonna have to make one himself!

Here's my little drawing ref of Gideon. Look at him, he's so squishable

With his dad's pin machine, he makes badges whenever he does something good or a big accomplishment! (His pride and joy badge is the one he made with his dad on Father's Day :] )

He really wants to have a good summer. He hopes, by golly, he hopes.

Now a neighborhood down, is town darling Pacifica Northwest. Her family isn't as rich in this as canon, so her family sits as upper middle class at most. Modern suburbia yk? Her family wants to set an example for the people of Gravity Falls, taming the weirdness out or whatever they say.

Pacifica just wants a summer where she can have a little relief. Away from the eye of her parents and the public. Just one day where she can be herself!

Little drawing ref of Pacifica. She still wears a bunch of makeup. (Just....maybe one less powdering. Maybe.) Also she's 12.

So she goes walking in town while her parents are busy planning their big weekly barbeque or whatever. She comes across this kid named Gideon. He compliments her sense of style and makes an offhanded comment about making a badge or something.

Now Pacifica, despite however much her parents influence her, starts her own trends and styles. (With the permission of her parents) So when this kid compliments her she goes on a (grateful) rant and they hit it off!

Gideon tells her about his dad's shack, and all the business business business Bud does. Pacifica talks about her parents planning events every week and, begrudgingly, church. They scurry off into the woods to just explore, and be kids!

On their way as Gideon is messing around with nature, they come across this metal tree. Weird, huh. They do some digging around and press buttons, when a crater opens in the ground!! Pacifica goes to check it out, pushing Gideon back in case of danger.

What they see is a journal! Very dusty and cobwebbed, but a journal with the number 3 painted on it. They pick it up and peruse through it. Pacifica is skeptical at first, wondering if it's part of any tourist trap Gideon's dad planned. When Gid says no, they realize the journal mayyyy have some merit. With how weird Gravity Falls is all the time and the little things that happen here and there, the author of this journal could be telling the truth.

So when they go back to the shack, the talk about the journal and what it could mean.

Now I haven't planned too far ahead to make a full writing of each episode, barely even the pilot, but! This is the gist of it in my head.

As you know, yes I mentioned Ford was evil! And I'm keeping a little of the previous reverse falls lore for this (surrounding the pines. Other things will be different!)

Maybe I'll make a post talking about the pines, but y'know. I just wanna talk about the general feeling I have for it in my head.

Have a bonus doodle of Gideon reading the journal (for an author who doesn't deserve it)

I'm very excited to work on this. Mayyyybe I'll share a bit of the roles with you that are swapped. Juuuust to keep interest ;)

Bud -> Stan

Stan -> Mixture of Pacifica and Gid's parents

Pacifica & Gideon -> The mystery twins ofc

Wendy -> Robbie

Soos -> Dude he's just himself here. Soos is perfection and cannot be interchanged (he goes undercover for Stan and works at the shack every other day. Undercover name is Deuce because of that one guy that looked like him 👍)

Shitty discord whiteboard sketch of Soos :]

Ford -> Bill tbh. How else is he gonna be so evil?

I'll probs make another post talking about the pines family, but I'd like to make colored refs of them first y'know?

I hope this catches your interest. Other characters are reeeeally integral to the plot and I'd like to keep the mystery just for a little moment 💥💥

Anyway ty for asking I'm so very happy to share this with someone that's not already aware of it 🎉🎉

[aratakatism]

Every Word

A hurt/comfort Keith “Two-Bit” Mathews fanfic

(set 10 months before Curtis parents died)

“Alright! Alright, catch ya later, Steve! Wha- yeah, yeah, you’re one to talk with your big ugly mug! Haha!” Two-Bit called out as he closed the door to his house, and all was quiet. He had just spent a long afternoon with Steve while Soda was working. It was filled with catcalling random broads that either Two or Steve fancied, sneaking into the back of the diner and stealing most of their fries, and ending it with a Mickey Mouse marathon at the Curtis’s. Two-Bit definitely had the time of his life and was smiling ear to ear.

The redhead’s footsteps echoed through the small, quiet house. His mother was working late, and his sister was sleeping over at a friend’s house, so Keith had the place all to himself. He excitedly jumped onto the red couch in the living room while it squealed and groaned in protest. Careful not to lay on the exposed springs, Two-bit leaned over to turn the knob on the TV.

The screen flickered to life and began displaying a re-run of one of Two-Bit’s favorite episodes; the christmas special. Seeing as December was steadily approaching, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary to the greaser. He kicked his muddy shoes up on the peeling coffee table and sighed contently. This was nice.

“Good golly, Minnie! You shouldn’t have!” Mickey Mouse’s voice came from the TV as Minnie offered him a present under the tree. Everyone was there, laughing and joking and drinking hot cocoa. Two-Bit frowned and switched off the TV.

An empty, lost feeling began to form in his chest as he stared at the blank screen. This feeling wasn’t new, but it definitely wasn’t welcome either. It was weird; he hadn’t had a problem with this episode before. But now, seeing the scene of everyone sitting together as a family and sharing kind words flashed in his mind and only deepened the pit in his stomach. He wanted to feel loved like that.

What was he talking about?? He was loved! Steve wouldn’t spend time with him for nothing! The Curtis brothers wouldn’t keep letting Two-Bit in the house because they hated him! Dallas wouldn’t be swiping cigarettes and beer for him because he wanted him dead!

But still.

Keith stood up from the couch and walked over to his room. It was a complete mess in there; clothes strewn all over the place, trash cluttering the corners of his room, and a weird smell that nobody could seem to identify. And yet the redhead still knew where to look.

He crouched down to peer under his bed, brushing out some crumpled wrappers and bottle caps in the process until he found what he was looking for. An old, cobweb-covered shoe box. The redhead pulled the box out from under the bed and gently ran his calloused fingers across the uneven cardboard before opening it.

Inside were hundreds of pieces of paper, ranging from birthday cards to homework sheets from years ago. Two-Bit rummaged around at random before pulling one out. It was an old test from the third grade which he, surprisingly, got a C+ on. The greaser’s fingers gently touched the fading red pen of his old teacher’s calligraphy.

“Great job, Keith! :) Keep up the good work!

  -Mrs. C.”

It was the first time Keith had ever gotten a good grade on a test, let alone a C+. His mom was ecstatic when she got home; Two-Bit even stayed up past his bedtime to show her. He giggled softly at the memory before rummaging around in the box again and taking out another sheet of paper. This time, it was a note his mother left taped to the door one day after he walked home. 

“Hey sweetpea!

I just wanted to let you know that I’m gonna be working very late tonight and I won’t be home by 12. There’s some lasagna in the fridge if you’re hungry. 

Love ya bunches!

   -Mom. ♡”

The redhead slowly traced his mother’s handwriting; the loops on the J’s and the Y’s, the ovals on every dotted letter, and the little heart at the end. That was a great lasagna, Two-Bit thought with a soft smile that grazed his expression. He was already feeling a lot better, but a small patch of need was still nagging at him.

He once again placed his hand in the shoe box and pulled out a post-it note. This one was creased and torn in different places, aging quite horribly, but when the greaser boy saw it he felt his breathing pause.

“Hey kid. Happy 6th 8th birthday. Sorry I can’t make it. See you soon.”

“Love,

  -Dad.”

Keith didn’t even notice he was crying until a tear dropped and fell onto a note inside of the box. He wiped his eyes and murmured softly; “Thanks, love you too.”

The redhead placed the notes back into the shoebox, shoved it back under his mattress and crawled onto his messy, unmade bed. Even still, thoughts swarmed around Two-Bit’s head like flies.

Why couldn’t he make it to Keith’s birthday party?? He was his dad’s son, after all!! Why’d his dad wish him a happy birthday if he was gone anyways? How come his dad signed off with “love” even though he left?? Why can’t there be a spot next to his mom’s bed that’s a little bigger than hers and smells like cologne that Two-Bit could hop into and cuddle up into the scent like Pony or Soda could??

Two-Bit finally closed his eyes and let hot, salty tears stream down his face and into the fabric of his bedsheets.

He knew his dad wasn’t coming back, but he could dream.

you said this was hurt/comfort in dms you LIAR!!!!!(/silly)

“An empty, lost feeling began to form in his chest as he stared at the blank screen. This feeling wasn’t new, but it definitely wasn’t welcome either. It was weird; he hadn’t had a problem with this episode before. But now, seeing the scene of everyone sitting together as a family and sharing kind words flashed in his mind and only deepened the pit in his stomach. He wanted to feel loved like that.

What was he talking about?? He was loved! Steve wouldn’t spend time with him for nothing! The Curtis brothers wouldn’t keep letting Two-Bit in the house because they hated him! Dallas wouldn’t be swiping cigarettes and beer for him because he wanted him dead!”

where’s that one imagewait

OKAY IN ALL SERIOUSNESS YOU CAPTURE THAT PERFECTLY,,, LITERALLY I FELT IT AND IVE BEEN IN THAT SITUATION BEFORE I FEEL IT,,,,,

“The redhead slowly traced his mother’s handwriting; the loops on the J’s and the Y’s, the ovals on every dotted letter, and the little heart at the end. That was a great lasagna, Two-Bit thought with a soft smile that grazed his expression. He was already feeling a lot better, but a small patch of need was still nagging at him.” I LOVE THE DMALL ADDITION OF HIS MOTHERS HANDWIRITNG OUHMY GASH…… i’m sorry i love this sm it’s just a nice detail ykyk??

“ “Hey kid. Happy 6th 8th birthday. Sorry I can’t make it. See you soon.”

“Love,

  -Dad.” “

DUDE IF THE GREASER PARENTS (besides curtis and ms mathews) HAVE NO HATERS IM DEAD . this is gen so sad the crossed out 6th is so AUGHUAUEBWOWBEUAHBEIWHEJWJEIWIE 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 this hurts so bad idk just AUGHHHH of course your useless ass can’t make it 😒😒😒

“Keith didn’t even notice he was crying until a tear dropped and fell onto a note inside of the box. He wiped his eyes and murmured softly; “Thanks, love you too.”” two-bit…. two-bit no….. his ass does not deserve that!!!!!!!!!!!

”

Why couldn’t he make it to Keith’s birthday party?? He was his dad’s son, after all!! Why’d his dad wish him a happy birthday if he was gone anyways? How come his dad signed off with “love” even though he left?? Why can’t there be a spot next to his mom’s bed that’s a little bigger than hers and smells like cologne that Two-Bit could hop into and cuddle up into the scent like Pony or Soda could??

Two-Bit finally closed his eyes and let hot, salty tears stream down his face and into the fabric of his bedsheets.

He knew his dad wasn’t coming back, but he could dream.”

chat… chat you said this was hurt/comfort… CHAT…… dude this makes me so fuckign SAD PLLLSSSSS THE DETAIL ABT PONY AND SODA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?????! reminder that two-bit has a sister cought cough FUCKING HSELESS ASS FATHER!!!!!!!!! BUT SERIOUSLY J LOVE YOUR WRITING WHENS YOUR AO3 ACCOUNT COMING BBABYGIRL 😞😞

[nyxnightshade1332]

Expectations When Expecting (Prologue)

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The walk to her new, temporary, residence, was filled with semi-awkward conversation, making Yuu wish for the ground to swallow her whole.

"...By the way, miss Yuu, may I ask how far along you are?" Crowley blurted, making her cringe slightly.

"W- Well, according to the nurse, I'm a little over two months. She said that I'm about ten weeks." She told him.

"Well, my dear. Would you like for me to inform anyone about your condition?" Crowley asked, seemingly much more giddy about her answers.

Yuu nodded, stepping over a stone. "I think it'd be best to just include staff in this. It'd be weird to tell a bunch of boys that there's some pregnant girl among their ranks." She stated, earning a nod from the Headmage.

"I understand. However, I'm not certain that you will be able to study with the others." He mentioned it to her calmly. The headmage that led her by the hand stopped suddenly in a gloomy looking part of the campus.

"Yeah, I get it..." She collided face-first into the tall man.

"Here we are!" He announced proudly. Yuu looked up, her confusion quickly turning into surprise as she saw a tall, clearly haunted house that was practically falling apart.

"Wow. Um... This is a little too much character, if you ask me." She remarked, gawking as the headmage opened the door. Everything about this house looked barely passable for living.

"Charming, isn't it? Right, scoot inside now. There you go." He pushed her inside, and she was immediately met with the scent of rotting wood, wet furniture, and an air heavy with dust.

"This should keep the elements at bay for the time being." Crowley stated, turning around as he did so, and shooting her a quick smile. "Now, I should return to my research. Do try to find some way to keep yourself busy."

Yuu turned on her heel to see him abandoning her. "Wait-!"

"Oh! But don't let me catch you wandering the campus! Ta!" Crowley nodded his goodbye as he slammed the door, kicking up a very sudden flurry of dust. Yuu couldn't help but cough. "Ugh..." She groaned before examining the area.

The entire room was in a state of disarray, old books were strewn across the floor, furniture was flipped over, and paintings had been knocked off of the wall. She noticed the peeling green wallpaper and how the entire place had been covered in dust and cobwebs.

"Gross... This looks like it's in worse shape than my uncle's basement before I went to help him clean it. At least there was a good spot to sit in there."

She got to work on cleaning, working on flipping over the table and rocking chair that had been flipped, and used her robes as a makeshift mask as she beat the dust off of a rug and several of the cushions. Before long, she heard the boom of thunder and the light pattering sound of rain.

"Looks like it's started to rain." She muttered to herself, moving to look in the dorm's kitchen for a broom or a feather duster.

Until she heard the scraping of a grimy window opening. She grabbed an old pan, slinking toward the sound of an intruder as quietly as she could. It was then that she heard an animal shake and a familiar voice. She made it to the window in the lounge, confirming her suspicions as soon as she saw the fiery ears and the forked cat's tail.

"GWAH! It's pouring out there!" The creature hissed

"What the- GRIM?!" She cried out. She moved closer, still clutching the pan in her hands before glaring at him.

"Bwahaha! That look on your face is priceless! Like a bat that got blasted by a water gun." He giggled as if he didn't look like a drowned rat.

"Yeah, okay. But what are you even doing here?" She questioned, narrowing her eyes.

"As if I wouldn't just sneak back onto campus the second I escaped pryin' eyes. You all got no idea what I'm capable of!" He announced, standing on his hind paws to emphasize what he was saying. "I ain't givin' up on goin' here just 'cause I got kicked out one measly ol' time. And if you think otherwise, you don't know Grim!"

She paused, placing the pan aside. "Yeah, okay. I don't, so help me understand something. Why are you so determined to go to this school?" She asked the cat monster.

Grim paused for a moment, considering how to answer the question. "Isn't it obvious?" He asked.

She shook her head, watching the cat.

"I was born to do this! I'm a magical prodigy who's got the makin's to become one of the greatest mages who ever lived!" He began, pumping his little paw in the air. "So I've been waitin' and waitin' for that black carriage to come for me. And yet..."

She felt a pang of empathy in her chest as Grim's voice trailed off. "It never came..."

Grim huffed, turning his nose up slightly. "That Dark Mirror's got no eye for talent! That's why I took the initiative and came here myself." He reasoned. Yuu put together that he was more or less like a human child. How cute, he's like my nephews. She thought, sitting down on the somewhat dusted couch. She heard a loud, uncomfortable yowl from Grim.

"C'mon, scoot over! I'm getting dripped on here!" He bristled slightly before shaking off more water. "Another hole in the roof! These flamin' ears are like my trademark, y'know? I can't let 'em get doused!"

She snorted in amusement at his childish antics. "Yeah? Good luck with that. The ceiling's riddled with holes." She saw Grim rush over to the couch and curled up on another cushion.

"I dunno why you don't just magic those holes away. You could have it fixed in half a jiff." He remarked before smirking. "Ahhh, right. You can't use magic at all. Pffft, man you're useless."

She narrowed her eyes at him, huffing and pushing him slightly toward the leak. "Fine, if I'm useless then you can go dust your own cushion off."

"MYAH?!" Grim yelped, feeling another drop hit his ear. "Okay! Okay! Fine, I can help!" He cried, attempting to claw his way back onto the couch just as the leaks got worse.

"Good to see we're on the same page! Now... About those buckets." She smiled at him, allowing the wet cat into her robes, where he curled up against her stomach as she stood up.

A few moments of silence later, she heard, "Hey, human? Why's your smell like this?"

"What do you mean?" She asked, confused by his question.

"Ya know! You smell nice, and your stomach's super warm." Grim said, shocking her.

"How about this? Once we find the buckets, I'll tell you. Okay?" She asked.

"Okay, fine! Deal!" Grim stated, hopping out of her robes, looking around. She agreed, splitting up so they could look in more places. She heard the random sniffing, snorting, and sneezing from Grim whenever he'd accidentally inhale dust.

It was about one hour of looking when she felt the temperatures suddenly drop and a trio of strange laughter echo from behind her.

Yuu spinned around, every fiber of her body telling her to run."This place is seriously freaky." She shivered, blinking away the tears of anxiety in her eyes. On the third blink, she opened her eyes to see the figures of three ghostly beings, cackling maniacally and began to float toward her.

Her arm hair stood on end and she felt the tightness in her throat loosen enough for her to release a horrified scream. Ghosts!

The larger of them cackled. "We haven't had visitors in ages! Oh, I'm just itchin' for new friends!" His voice was deep and playful, but his actions appeared much more hostile in the dark of the hallway.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! Nonononono!" She yelped, rushing away from the three phantoms.

"Hey human! Keep it down over-!" Grim called, directing the ghosts' attention to himself. Grim, upon spotting them, gave a terrified screech, shouting "GHOSTS! GHOOOOOOSTS!" Before turning tail and running after her.

The middle ghost smiled creepily. "All the people who used ta live here got scared of us and ran away." He said, his voice trembling.

"We just want a new ghost to play with! What do you say, buddy?" The larger ghost suggested, giving chase.

"Hell no!" She responded, grabbing Grim and rushing down the stairs. She felt the little monster squirm in her arms once they made it to the lounge's entryway, and she let him go.

Grim, despite shivering like a chihuahua, stood up on his hind paws. " I-I'm a master sorcerer! I ain't afraid of any dumb ghosts!" He called, inhaling deeply.

He's going to blow fire?! Yuu stared incredulously. He's brave, sure, but why are his eyes closed?!

The spirits cackled, circling the little monster.

"Nuh-uh. Not even close." The tall, thin ghost teased.

"Over here! Over here! Ah ha ha ha!" The larger one taunted, fading to match the area.

"Argh! They keep disappearing and reappearing!" Grim snarled in annoyance.

"Grim! You're gonna set the dorm on fire if you don't open your eyes!" She called.

"Shaddup! I don't need any lip from you, human!" He snapped, spooked and exasperated.

Yuu thought for a moment on what to do to encourage the little beast. Her eyes widened with realization.

It's a half truth, but a truth nonetheless. Sorry Grim. "Hey, Grim! If you beat them, not only will I tell you my secret, but I've also got a can of tuna with your name on it!"

This seemed to catch Grim's attention for a moment just as the ghosts began to throw things. "Ganging up on us... Yer a buncha cowards!" Grim huffed indignantly.

"Grim! Let's team up!" She called. She watched the little monster turn toward her and nod, although clearly struggling to accept.

"Fine! You, human! You tell me which way the ghosts are!" He ordered.

"On it!" She responded. "To your left!" She called, watching Grim inhale and blow out strong azure flames, landing a direct hit on the ghost.

"Aaaaah! It buuuurns!"

Grim puffed out his little chest proudly as he nodded at her. "Ha, got one! Keep it up, just like that... And let's clear out the whole lot of 'em!"

She nodded, giving a salute. "Aye aye! To your right!" Yuu called, watching Grim follow her call. 

Chapter 6

[funkii-fox]

I had a dream about the day i move to Norway. It was a summer evening. There was still daylight but it was fading. All the street lamps and outdoor light fixtures on the houses were turned on. It was maybe like 19:00 or 20:00. I was outside my childhood house, standing in the backyard driveway. The house’s backyard was just across the street to a park. I’ve played in it many times with my siblings and friends in my childhood. But now i stare at it for one of the last times. I had a stuffed sloth hanging in my right arm. I was holding him by the paw with the rest of him hanging down. His arms are long, skinny, and cream colored, which contrast his body that is round, short, and covered in brown fur. His arms were so long, that his other paw was scraping the cracked concrete of the driveway. I don’t have one of those in my plushie collection irl, but i do know that the day I leave for Norway I’m bringing some of my stuffies for emotional support. I picked up Mr. Sloth and hold his body close to me, my two arms wrapped around him. I walked into the backyard nearby. I gazed at the backyard while I walked to the patio. It was shades of grays and blues with the foliage being so dark in the evening light, that they look black. When i reached the patio, and I stopped and looked at the crappy outside light we have out there. Its bright orange-yellow light that paints everything in the scene orange-yellow. I can see cobwebs highlighted around the light. Brown moths fluttered around it. The frame around the light is broken, but at least it works. I sat down at the corner of the patio. I stare at the ground. It’s still concrete, but now it has a sandy tone to it thanks to the light. I sit there and think “It’s time to go.” I walked back to the driveway and see my dad’s white car there. It’s open, and he’s clearly doing something. I approached it. The trunk is open and I peer inside. Nothing interesting: just a bunch of tools and car stuff. I walked over to the backdoors of the car, that were also left open. I saw that my two cats, Ginger and Stubbs, were in their carriers. I reached in and pet them. “This may be one of the last times I see them…” i thought. Ginger is a senior cat and she may very well pass away while I’m in Norway. Stubbs is an adult, and i wouldn’t say hes old, he could die from anything like a freak accident. I was worried that my dad was gonna get rid of them. He appeared and I asked him what he was doing with them. He said something that made sense in the dream, but I can’t remember what it was. I thought “at least he’s not getting rid of them.” Then here comes the scary part. My roomate had arrived, and it was time for me to get to the airport. For context, I’m planning on living with roommates so i dont need to pay too much rent. Irl, i will probably meet them halfway after the fly to Norway, but in the dream she came to the US to “pick me up” in a way. But anyways, she’s here. I got in her car and we drove off to the airport. While we were driving, I stared out the window at the familiar buildings passing by for what felt like the last time. The evening light made the scene even sadder: everything was gray and blue. I tried to hold my tears. “I’m gonna try not to cry. At least, not until we board the plane.” I told her in the passenger seat. I was failing though, as tears ran down my face. I felt them in real life too; tears wet my flat pillow that I laid on. Idk how emotional u need to be to cry in real life. But anyway, she hugs me and wipes me tears (while drving at the same time). “Everything will be fine.” She told me. Then we’re on the plane. The warm, welcoming light of the inside contrasts the depressing grays and blues of the outdoors. I’m sitting next to her in a window seat, but I don’t dare open the window out of fear of the dark, depressing scenery outside. I am holding my sloth plushie to my heart. I am sad, but I don’t cry. And I wake up in tears.

I don’t usually think of dreams having meaning, as I’m a very logical person. To me, dreams are just what your brain processes while you’re asleep. But I like to think this is fate telling that it will be hard, but it will be rewarding in the end. The depressing scenery for most of the dream is a metaphor for the hardship to come. There will be a lot and no doubt won’t end when I leave the US. It will be intense and daunting, not just because of the move but because i am sensitive. And the comfortable inside of the airplane is when I finally get my peace. The reward for everything I’ve been through on this journey. I won’t cry anymore because all the tears have already been shed. I have a new life now, and I can’t mourn the loss of my previous life anymore.

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch2. you may now kiss the bride!!

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, n have been taking care of your sick mom ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, mild love triangle(s), gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity; btw gojo in this fic is in his mid 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 2/x (probably 10)

ᰔ words. 16.8k (i be yappin)

a/n. AHHH thanks very much for 2k followers!! yippeee :”) i had a lot of fun writing this chapter of ihm i feel like there’s a lot of silly but a lot of angsty too and i got to set up a lot of secondary plot lines in this chapter which was fun. i really hope you enjoy!! see ya at the bottom!!

nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 :: ch4 (pending)

“Can you chop down that stupid avocado tree of yours already? It keeps dropping its devilish spawn all over my herb garden.”

“Wow. Good afternoon to you too.”

Gojo scratches the back of his head from where he’s opened the front door of his house, standing in his pajamas and you briefly glance down at his bunny slippers before looking back up at him with a ridiculing face before pushing past him into his house.

Gojo’s house is almost the exact mirror of yours, as are most houses in the neighborhood, but it’s been a while since you’ve been inside of it and so you take an indulgent look. A cozy family room to the side, which you see he’s decorated with a coffee table and a loveseat, and the staircase is visible from the entrance. A modest dining table sits where the carpet turns into wood, and you’ve noticed he’s made the effort to place real hardwood on his floors contrary to the laminate in yours. Ok, show off. Your eyes take in the paintings on the wall, and you remember how his house almost looks fake, like in the way he sets up props in open houses he’s showing for clients, as if someone lives here and yet somehow there’s no real living proof of it.

And because it’s pretty much the exact same layout as your house, you know exactly where the pantry room is, and you grab a bunch of Doritos and Pocky from his secret snack drawer.

“Oh yes, go right ahead. Please,” he says sarcastically as he leans against a support pillar near the dining room and watches you stuff your face with his snacks.

“So,” you say, muffled, “did you grab the paperwork?”

“No, I didn’t.” He glances at his watch. “My friend’s a family law lawyer, and he’s gonna be here soon to help us out with the prenup.”

You roll your eyes. “Oh my god, you’re being serious about the prenup? You really think I’m trying to gold dig at the cobwebs of your bank account? How little self respect do you think I have?”

“...do you really want me to answer that questi–”

The doorbell ringing startles you, and you quickly wipe at your face to clear any crumbs before setting the wrappers in your hands onto a bookshelf as you watch Gojo head to the door and open it.

You hear another distinct masculine voice ring in the air as Gojo exchanges pleasantries with him in the form of a handshake and a familiar hug with a few pats on the back, and then the angle Gojo twists his body reveals the man standing outside the door. He’s a bit shorter than Gojo with a lean build, clad in a fiercely formal black suit and tie with polished shoes. His hair is well-kept, short and raven black, and his eyes are sunken with what you can only imagine is fatigue. And it’s kinda hot to you, unfortunately, after years of working the night shift, you’re starting to find dark circles under people’s eyes to be extremely attractive.

“Uh, y/n, this is my friend, Higurama. Hiromi Higurama,” Gojo says, gesturing between the two of you,  “and Hiromi, this is y/n. My obnoxious neighbor. Careful though, if you get too close she’ll bite off your fingers.”

“I’ll bite off a different appendage of yours if you don’t shut the fuck up,” you snarl at him, and Higurama takes a step inside the house to greet you with an outstretched hand. 

“Hi, it’s lovely to meet you,” he says, and you’re a little startled by the politeness, but aptly shake his hand and nod before squawking out a likewise!!

You look past Higurama at Gojo who’s got an eyebrow raised at you, and then your eyes are on Higurama again as you watch him set his briefcase down on the dining table. “Are we ready to discuss?” he asks, brown eyes darting between the two of you. You nod and take a seat across from him, and Gojo first grabs everyone some glasses of water before he takes a seat at the head.

“So,” Higurama starts, “I take it you two are madly in love and would like to enter a marital agreement to declare your affections for one another in the court of law under just circumstances?”

You blink at him. “Y-Yes. Very just circumstances. Nothing shady going on here, we are indeed very madly in love and would like to get married.”

“Why the fuck would you say it like that?” Gojo chirps in but not before sighing. 

“T-The way he asked was really nerve wracking!!” you counter. And then your eyes widen when you look at Higurama again, who has a slightly amused tug to his lips. “...oh, you already know this marriage is a fraud.”

“I was just testing you,” he casually says, “in case they mention any suspicions in court. Seems you should just let Satoru do the talking.”

You pout a little and sink further into your seat, then bring the glass of water up to your lips. 

“Well, in any case,” Higurama says, and then he goes on into the details of what to expect in the courtroom. He pulls out paperwork for the marriage license application and starts to walk the two of you through the prenuptial agreement. 

“It’s my understanding you’re both desiring a prenup for this marriage?” Hugurama asks, brow furrowed slightly as he rustles through the endless papers in front of him that he was drowning in.

You briefly glance at Gojo, who’s also looking through all the papers with a concentrated look on his face, his features tense and he’s slightly worrying his bottom lip through his teeth. He’s thinking way harder about this whole prenup thing than you would, and you realize he’s genuinely taking this very seriously. 

“Um, yes,” you acquiesce, suddenly feeling a little guilty. And you remember who’s the one in need of the favor here. “I’m okay with the prenup.”

Higurama tells you two about the implications of the prenup, what can and cannot be included under state laws, and stresses the importance of full financial disclosure and fairness in the agreement to ensure its enforceability in the event of a divorce. Basically, don’t fucking lie about anything or else you two could sue each other to hell for it should divorce occur. You both agree, and you’re feeling sick to your stomach with anticipation. 

“Alright,” Higurama interjects your thoughts, “I will begin to draft the document then. Let’s start with assets.”

Gojo drones on about his tangibles, intangibles, cash equivalents, stocks, yada yada and you open up with yours too, but you can barely hear anything you’re saying and you can hardly hear what anyone else is saying either because you’re just dreadfully awaiting for Higurama to finally bring up—

“How about debts?” he asks, mindlessly as he types away on his laptop, as if the question doesn’t make you want to throw up. 

Your breathing picks up in speed, and you’re nervously fidgeting your hands over the surface of the table. You glance over at Gojo again, this time startled to find his eyes are on you too. His gaze briefly flickers to the shuffling of your fingers, then it meets yours again as he tilts his head slightly in a silent ask of you good?

“Uh–” you start, when you feel Higurama’s eyes on you too now that the silence has stretched on for too long, “I’m…well, I’m in a bit of…debt. From nursing school, a little bit from undergrad still, actually…”

“Okay,” Higurama says, “how much would you approximate? I’ll need the official loan statements soon, though.”

“Well, I’m paying off slowly…but last month I have around seventy-thousand still to pay off.”

“Alright,” Higurama accepts, “and you, Satoru? Student loans?”

“Oh, I don’t have any,” he says, “I paid them off a while ago.”

You feel like you’re being opened apart at the seams, and suddenly feel ashamed.

“Alright, what about other debts? Credit card debts? Any loans to know about?”

You figured you just needed to rip the bandaid off.

“Um,” you say, “I’m about three hundred thousand dollars in medical debt from my mother’s treatment loans.”

The room goes quiet, there’s no more rustling of papers or the mechanical jumping of keys on a keyboard, hell, even the birds outside stopped chirping to display their disbelief. 

“Wha–” Gojo starts, like he can’t help it, before he catches himself out of politeness, but he’s still looking at you with concern and shock. “y/n…what happened?”

You look over at Higurama too, and he’s completely turned away from the document he was drafting on his laptop, full attention on you, and his brow is creased with the same amount of concern. And you feel like you’re in therapy. You also feel like you’re about to cry.

“Well…it’s just,” you start, throat feeling raw, “my mom couldn’t qualify for medical loans because of years of poor credit, and insufficient income, and her cancer treatments became really costly, and so–” you suck a breath in, because your voice cracks slightly at the end. You were not about to cry in front of them right now. “And so I decided to cosign on her loans so she could receive treatment, and stuff kept coming up, and I had to work reduced hours for a couple of years when she was first diagnosed, and…some payments got away from me, and so then…there was interest, and…it’s…I guess over five years, things just…accumulated.”

They both sit there in stunned silence, shifting uncomfortably in their seats, like they understand your situation is so fucked in its entirety that they can barely even bear to put themselves through the trouble of even imagining themselves in your shoes, let alone fathom that you’re living in them.

Higurama clears his throat and redirects his attention to the computer. “That’s… no problem for the prenup. Thank you for being honest.”

“Hey,” Gojo interjects, and his hand reaches out to lay over your fidgeting hands over the table. His eyes are serious. “Why didn’t you–” he starts, and his face softens slightly when you can’t help the small sheen of tears that reaches your eyes, “...why didn’t you say anything about this? I mean, anytime we’ve talked.”

It’s your turn to look at him with a tense expression, and you slowly withdraw your hands from the hold of his palm to place them in your lap under the table. “Uh, why would I share about my financial woes to my neighbor? Don’t most people just act like shit’s normal with their neighbors?”

“I guess, but I didn’t know it was that ba–”

Higurama’s phone starts to ring, and he glances at the Caller ID before sighing slightly. “Sorry, I have another client I need to see soon. We’ll have to wrap this up, but I’ll continue drafting this document. Please send me your relevant statements for any loans and–” he glances at you, “...associated debts.” He starts to gather his things at the table, then neatly tucks his papers into his briefcase before placing his laptop in there too. He reaches to shake Gojo’s hand first, then shakes yours, and holds onto your hand a second longer to gather your attention. His eyes are almost solemn.

“I truly hope your mother gets better soon,” he says to you, tone contrite. 

You slowly nod and thank him, and then Gojo goes to see him out the door.

The house feels quiet when Gojo closes the front entrance, and he stays facing the door for a few seconds before slowly turning around to face you, back leaning against it as he crosses his arms in front of his chest, and just when he opens his mouth to speak, you cut him off.

“I really–” you say, “...I really don’t want to talk about it.”

His face contorts into confusion, and it looks like he’s about to protest, but you allow yourself to show the slightest amount of the hurt and the worry on your face, and he realizes that means he shouldn’t try to push it.

“Okay,” he says, and quietly. 

Things are awkward in the air for a second, so you waltz over to the window and watch through it as Higurama gets into his car, some type of sleek old black Mercedes Benz but it’s polished to perfection, and you let out a content sigh.

“What?” Gojo asks you, tone a little short. 

“Ohhh, nothing,” you say, bringing your hands up to cup your cheeks to feel their warmth as you take in the image of Higurama’s slender legs in his business attire, “I just…” you sigh again, “I just loooove men in suits. I wish I knew more men that wore them often.”

A beat of silence. “Um. I wear them often?”

You turn on your heel to face him. “Yeah, but you wear them in, like, a slutty way. Higurama,” you say, pointing with your thumb facing the window, “wears them in the actually respectable workplace way. Hence why it’s hotter on him.”

He scoffs. “And yet you’re always staring at my ass from afar when I’m wearing my tailored trousers.” 

“I seriously wonder what it’s like to be so fucking delusional all the time,” you shake your head at him and he looks like he’s got a comeback on his tongue but you sshhhhhhhh him and walk back into the heart of the house. You look over your shoulder briefly, and see Gojo’s standing where you were standing at the window a few seconds ago, looking out onto the street, and he’s grumbling something under his breath you can’t quite hear. And then you hear the sound of Higurama’s car driving away. 

You circle around the dining table, and take a seat to look through the marriage paperwork Higurama left behind for the two of you to fill out.

“Bring the paperwork over to the kitchen island,” you hear Gojo say as he makes his way to the kitchen, “I’ll fix us some coffee.”

The island has a seated side to it with bar stools that raise high and turn in fully 360 degree fashion, so you swirl around in your seat to make yourself dizzy while Gojo brews some coffee with his espresso machine. 

“Mm…smells nice,” you comment, still swirling.

“Milk? Sugar?” he asks you, and you stop swirling to answer him.

It’s not the first time you’ve been to Gojo’s house. When he first moved in next door, you brought him a plate of cookies as a welcome to the neighborhood! gift and he had invited you inside and fixed you a cup of coffee then too. The house was mostly empty back then, he’s made a lot of good work in filling it with furniture in that sort of IKEA catalog fashion, and you can clown on him for it all you want, but it still looks nicer than most homes you’ve been in. Anyways, you only visited him in his house a couple times after that before you realized you hated him. Because he blasts loud music at the most random times, which you’re convinced he’s just trying to show off the sound system he probably spent an unnecessary amount of money on, not to mention an unnecessary amount of time installing. He also always forgets to mow his fucking lawn, and it drives you nuts because then the weeds spread over into your lawn, but it’s not like it matters because you hardly mow yours either, but still. And that fucking boat. That fucking boat he keeps right at the edge of your driveway that taunts you and your ability to pull into garages after every single one of your dreadful night shifts. One of these days, you might just steal it and drive it into the ocean so it drowns. Wait, boats don’t drown. That’s the point of boats. They’re buoyant. It’s okay, you’ll find another way to get rid of it. The boat, you mean. 

“Here you go,” he says, sliding a cup of coffee to you across the island. You peer inside at the brown liquid, and the scent alone awakens your senses.

“So, logistics,” you say.

“Logistics,” he repeats after you as he stirs a spoon in his mug. 

“We need to make this believable,” you say to him, “otherwise the marriage could be invalidated, and we could face criminal charges, and I could lose the insurance benefits for my mom, and potentially get sued by said insurance companies, and get thrown into jail for life, and—”

“And how much sleep have you lost thinking about this?” he asks you with a sigh as he brings his mug up to take a sip. 

“I’m being serious, Satoru,” you say to him, “I…would just rather err on the side of caution. It’s a small town, people talk. And sometimes those people know the law.” You shudder.

“Who the fuck is out there that would be so pissed about us getting married just so you can help out your sick mom?” he asks.

Your eyes flicker downwards slightly in consideration. You can think of one person, at least. And when you look up at him, you’re surprised to see there’s a similar look on his face, as if he could think of a particular one person too. But before you can dwell more on the expression on his face, he grabs the paperwork in front of you and looks through some of it. “You should get started on your paperwork. Higurama filled most of mine out for me already, so you’re the one he’s waiting on.”

You groan and stretch your arm out across the island counter, then lay your head on your upper arm. “Sigh, why couldn’t he have done that for meee tooooo.”

“Probably because he doesn’t know you?” Gojo snorts. He’s silent for a moment as he takes another sip. You can’t see his face. “So,” he starts, “I mean. If we’re going to make this believable, which, to be honest, I don’t think a single person in this neighborhood would find us getting married believable, but still, if we were to try making it believable, wouldn’t it make sense for us to, uh, I don’t know, live together? Like what regular married couples do.”

“I am appalled you would even suggest that.”

“It’s going to look like we’re just faking it if we don’t at least cohabitate together,” he tells you.

“We can’t do that,” you sigh, “I bet you’d try to touch me inappropriately.”

“What???” 

“Yeahhh, I don’t know, you just—...you just seem like a guy with very little self control.”

“...y’know what? This is over. I’m calling off this engagement,” he says, and he walks over to the dining table with his coffee cup in hand and you lift your head up off your arm in a panic.

“Wha–...no!! Wait!!” you say, grabbing all the paperwork off the island and bringing it to the dining table where he’s taken a seat. “Please marry me. I need it so bad.”

“Woah,” he says, looking up at you, and there’s a darker glint to his eyes. “You need it so bad? Can you say that again?”

You curl up the papers in your hands into a makeshift hollow pole and whack him across the head with it. “This is exactly why I think you would touch me inappropriately.”

He grumbles slightly as he nurses the spot you whacked him with two of his fingers rubbing the area, and then he fixes his hair with a comb of his hand through it. The sleeve of his shirt drops a little from the movement, and you can see the muscles of his arm flex, then your eyes are quickly darting away so he doesn’t catch the line of your gaze on him. What the fuck. That was weird. You blame ovulation. 

“Alright, fine,” he says, and he grabs the papers out of your hand, “also don’t bend these. It bothers me.” 

You circle back to the kitchen to grab your abandoned coffee cup, and then bring it to the dining table to sit down with him at it. He places your half of the papers in front of you. You glance down at the first few boxes to fill out, and you already feel like giving up.

You glance up at him for a distraction. “Aren’t you going to ask me how long I want you to be married to me for?” you ask him.

“Uh, how long do you want me to be married to you for?”

“Forever,” you say. To scare him.

“Yeah, right.” He waves his hand in the air dismissively. 

You sulk because it didn’t scare him. “Six months.”

“More plausible.”

“Really,” you say earnestly, “six months.”

He looks up at you now, a curious expression on his face. “Why specifically six months?”

Your eyes find the color of your coffee fascinating once again. “I don’t want to put my mother in hospice for too long. I’ll miss her,” you say, “it’s just…something I’m trying out for now. And to just get a bit of a caretaking break, and also so I can pick up more shifts at the hospital to work on paying off my debt. It’s just…temporary.”

His shoulders roll back once and he sits up a little straighter, holding up one of the pieces of paper to study it better while he clicks his pen. “Alright. Whatever works for you.”

You twiddle with your hands again, blinking a little in consideration as a few moments pass by. “Uh…about living together. That’s fine. I suppose.”

His eyes widen slightly. “Really?”

“Yeah. But no touching,” you point at him with a strict finger.

He tilts his head back up to the ceiling in annoyance. There’s a roll in the muscles of his throat as his jaw goes slack. You squirm in your chair a little. Ovulation, you think. 

“I’m not going to touch you, y/n,” he assures you when his chin tips back down. You just stare at him for a few seconds as he seems to be in thought about something, and then his eyes meet yours. “Whose house are we going to live in?”

“Mine,” you say, “yours looks like a shitty catalog. It’s lame.”

“True,” he says, “yours feels homey. I like that.”

You’re a little taken aback by his words, and then purse your lips together. Your sort of go-to thanks expression reserved for him. “So, are you gonna sell your house then?”

“Huh? No way,” he shakes his head, “I’ll just see if I can rent it out for now.” He shakes his head even more. “I mean, god no, I wouldn’t be caught dead selling a house. Not with these market conditions. You know how much it’s already risen in equity within just the past few months alone? In five years from now—”

While Gojo continues to drone on about the lunacy of not holding onto property in this housing market, your eyes widen slightly at his words, like your body realizes a truth to what he’s saying before your mind does.

And then that’s when it hits you.

How you can help pull yourself out of debt.

You slam your coffee mug down on the table with a little more fierceness than you probably should’ve.

“Hey,” he scolds you, “can you be careful with that?”

“We’re not going to live in my house,” you say, ignoring him, “we’re gonna live in yours.”

“Huh?” he responds, “...but I thought you said mine looks like a catalog.”

“A shitty catalog.”

“Did you need to specify?”

“We’re not going to live in my house,” you tell him, with resolve, “because I’m gonna sell my house.”

He sits up a little straighter at your words. “Like, the house next door?”

“Mhm,” you nod.

He sighs. “Were you even listening to me? It’s so much more worth it to–”

“I don’t care,” you cut him off, “I need the money now. Not five years from now.” Your eyes glance down at your hands, and your tone becomes quiet. “I…I don’t even know if my mom has five years left to live.”

A silence settles in the room, and you see in your periphery that Gojo’s stiff and still, like he’s barely allowing himself to breathe as if you’d find it abrasive, and when you look over at him, his expression is soft.

“I know,” he says. “It sounds like a plan.”

“Will you help me sell it?” you ask him. “I’d…need a realtor.”

“Sure,” he easily agrees.

“Okay…” you say, and take a sip of lukewarm coffee, as if you haven’t just decided on an extremely major life decision. “Um. I’ll go get the paperwork then. From my house.”

“Oh. Right now?” he asks you, and he leans forward in his seat a little to get a closer look at your face. “I mean, don’t you want some time to think about it before putting it on the market? We can wait for a little bit.”

“No. That’s okay,” you say, standing up from your chair, “I’ll…go get the paperwork.”

He nods at you slowly, but his eyes are observant, and you ignore it to keep up the momentum of this decision that was definitely the right decision by all means and one that you should not be hesitating on at all as it is such an epiphany that can help clear your debilitating financial burdens. 

“Drive safe,” he says to you when you grab your purse off the coffee table in the family room.

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

The outside air is breezy, it’s a nice day with the sun shining down and sparkling off of sprinkler dew drops on overgrown grass, and you hop across with a pep in your step as you make it to your house next door. You’re always quiet when opening the door, because you never know when your mom is sleeping or not, and since her bedroom is downstairs, she’s privy to noises. Once you’re inside, you check to make sure she’s sleeping with a small creak open of her door, only to find that she’s sitting on her rocking chair and looking through a box of paintings.

Your heart twists at the sight, and you gently knock the door with your knuckles.

She glances up at you, and you can always tell from just the look in her eyes if she recognizes you or not. Because they’re warm and gentle when she does, but they see right past you to the wall when she doesn’t.

“Hello,” she says, “can I help you?”

You come up to her and kneel down beside her, placing a hand up on the rocking chair arm rest while she looks down at you.

“Hi, mom. It’s me. Your daughter,” you gentle reintroduce yourself. It’s what her neurologist suggested you do anytime she can’t remember you, but it rips away a piece of your soul each time.

Her eyes still see past you, abstract, empty with no feeling as she wraps her head around your words. “I am no one’s mother,” she tells you, tone sounding sharp and like she’s a moment away from terror.

“That’s okay,” you quickly remediate, feeling hollow inside from her words but you always had to be the sane one, so you direct her attention to the box in her lap. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh, I just found these paintings!” she exclaims. “I thought they were wonderful. Do you know who drew them?”

You smile up at her. “You did.”

“Me?” she blinks at you. The wrinkles in her forehead crumple with surprise, “oh, no, dear, I could not paint such things with detail. Look at me!” She holds her hand up. “My hand is trembling!”

She’s getting weaker. You make a mental note to bring it up to her doctor.

“You used to hold a paint brush like it was just an extension of your hand,” you tell her, picking up one of the paintings out of the box, “you were an art teacher, mom.”

“Don’t call me mom,” she says to you, that sharp tone from earlier cutting through to your soul. “I am no one’s mother.” Her eyes shimmer with a light sheen of tears.

You stare at her, brow pinching together with hurt, but you bite back the part of you that wants to beg her to remember you, to take one close look at you, and see you with warmth and not emptiness. But she sees past you all the same.

“Can you do something for me?” you whisper to her.

“Yes?” she asks.

“Could you please lay down? You need some rest.”

“Are you my nurse?” she asks.

You breathe in deep. “Yes.”

“Am I…” she glances briefly at her reflection in the vanity mirror, her eyes flitting up to the head scarf on her head that covers the absence of hair, “am I sick?”

You exhale. “Yes. You need rest.”

“Oh…” she acknowledges, “why, yes. I do feel…a little frail.”

“I know,” you comment, and you put the box down on the floor then help her up onto her feet slowly by holding onto her arm, and you guide her to sit on the bed and take her medications. She then lays down, and you nod at her reassuringly before you head out the door and close it behind you.

Your lip trembles with the threat of a sob as you stare straight forward at the wall in the dimness of the hallway. But a harsh bite to the plush of it ceases the quiver.

You make your way up the stairs to go grab that binder you had with the mortgage and house information, plus some of your recent utility bills. Except the binder is hard to locate, and you’re rummaging through the cabinets in your closet, the drawer of your nightstand, you’re even looking underneath the bed. But when you lift your head up from under it, still kneeling on the carpet, and glance at the wall, you notice something.

48’’ eight yrs. what a big girl! 

46’’ seven yrs. big jump

41’’ six yrs.

37’’ five yrs. my little princess

…

..

–all written in graphite pencil, scribbled up the wall where you would stand tall against as a kid, your mom marking your height at every birthday. And your eyes start to well with tears. 

This was your childhood home. With magical corners tucked away where you used to play hide and seek with your dad, with your old bedroom you used to play in with dolls and have tea parties with all your stuffed animals. There’s still a stain of fruit juice on the carpet underneath the rug that you never told your mom about because you knew she would be mad at you and would scrub it out, but it was in the shape of a heart and when you were a kid, you thought that meant you would find your prince charming some day. This house holds so many memories, like birthday parties and Christmas Eve and the sunflower patch in the backyard where you laid Sniffles to rest.

And it holds the familiarity of you that seems to be slipping through your mother’s fingers with each passing day, all those memories you created with her now solely yours to keep and no longer to share. But you realize at this moment that you’re not alone. This house still holds those memories with you.

Your eyes flicker to the graphite pencil marks on the wall again, and the tears flow freely.

In the moments where she cannot remember that you are her baby, this house remembers for her.

Your sleeve wipes at the dampness on your cheeks.

But it’s never enough, is it? And it’s never that easy, either. Life was never that easy, and you don’t always have the choices you might think you do.

You find the binder, and grab all the utility bills too, and head downstairs. You pass by your mother’s room with softness and sleuth, and guilt in your heart when you realize what you’ve chosen to do. There’s no pep to your step when you make it back to Gojo’s.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“Sooo,” Gojo says, after about twenty minutes of looking through all the house paperwork in the binder at the dining table, “your mom transferred ownership of the house to you as a gift deed when she was diagnosed?”

“Mhm,” you say.

“She paid off quite a bit of it,” he comments as he looks through banking statements, “but still not enough to pay off your medical debt, unfortunately.”

You sigh. “I know. It was never really a house she could afford anyways. She just received it from the divorce, and I remember we were supposed to downsize, but…she didn’t want to.”

“I see,” Gojo comments, “well, it’s alright, it would still help you a lot for sure. How many years are left for your solar panel lease?” He has a pen in hand and a custom realtor notepad in front of him with his messy handwriting all over it. 

“It’s new,” you say, “still got thirty years left.”

“Jeez, okay. How much per month?”

You scavenge through the bills on your table. “Ummm um um ummm…….”

“You should really…get more organized.”

“You should really mind your fucking business.” You find the bill. “$285 per month.”

“Okay,” he scribbles it down, “does it offset your electricity bill?”

Your shoulders sulk. “A little bit.”

“Yeah, it might scare some buyers away.”

You sigh. “Oh and then the HOA too.”

“HOA?” he looks up at you with a puzzled expression on his face. “We don’t have an HOA in this neighborhood.”

“We don’t?” you blink at him. “Then who have I been sending $195 dollars to every month?”

“…….....you’ve seriously gotta be some special kind of stupid.”

After panicking for five minutes while checking your credit cards for fraudulent activity, Gojo gets done cutting up an apple for you. 

“Here,” he says, sliding the plate to you, “since you look like you’re about to faint. Knowing you, it’s probably just low blood sugar.”

You dramatically sigh and sink in your chair. “I can’t believe I spent the last three years paying an HOA that doesn’t even exist…”

“Hey, on the bright side, there’s some dude out there on an exotic vacation that’s very thrilled by your idiocracy right now.”

You shoot him a look. And then you hang your head low to drink your extremely cold coffee that you were still nursing, before downing it all in one go. Your eyes catch the marriage paperwork that Gojo was reviewing earlier, and you see Higurama’s pre-filled in information that he typed onto the papers before printing them for him. 

“Hm,” you hum, “it says here that you’ve been married before. You might want to get that fixed before we submit these.”

He stands up from the table, two of his fingers hooking onto the handle of his coffee cup, and he glances into yours to make sure it’s empty, briefly flicking his eyes to you and you shake your head for no, no more coffee, thanks before he wraps his other two fingers around the handle of your mug as well. The clink of the two porcelain mugs in his hand startles you a little as he walks past you to the kitchen sink. “There’s nothing to fix about that,” he says, his tone level and easy, “it’s true. I’ve been married before.”

Your eyes widen at his confession, and you quickly twist your torso in your chair to stare at him. Or at least, the back of him as he turns the faucet on and begins to rinse out coffee mugs. 

Married? Before? There are so many questions swimming through your head right now, ones that you desperately want answers to, biggest of all perhaps being now who the fuck would actually want to marry him??? for real??? you’re telling me this self obsessed dork proposed to a real life woman with a pulse and she actually said ‘yes’ to him??? who was this woman, and which psych ward did he find her from??? 

But he’s so quiet from where he stands, broad shoulders less pushed back like they usually are, and something tells you he wouldn’t entertain any of those questions from you right now. A glance at the paperwork, though, tells you the divorce was recent. Less than a year ago. Around the time he moved in next door. 

He still has his back facing you, and you try to sneakily catch a glimpse at more info under the Wife section on the prior marriages form. You can see the paper says maiden name: Inoue and you’re just about to sneak a peak at the first name when—

“You want to stay for dinner?” he asks when he turns around, leaning back against the sink counter. “I’m ordering pizza tonight.”

You’re surprised by the sudden invitation, and shuffle the papers over one another again. “Oh–that’s…that’s okay.” You glance at the clock he has hanging on the wall. “I’ve got work in a couple of hours, so…I should really get going. Have a few errands to run before then.”

“Okay, so, we’ll…talk later?”

“Yeah, later,” you stand up from your chair, and for some reason, the air feels a little heavier to you now. “Uh…” you start, awkwardly scoffing a little, “wow. Bachelor life again, then, huh? Probably just–...probably just beer and pizza every night?”

He purses his lips together, humoring you with a small laugh that comes out as a scoff through his nostrils. “No. Not really. I only order pizza when I close a sale on a house. My way of celebrating.”

“Oh,” you respond, “I see.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he says.

“I live next door,” you remind him.

His eyes widen slightly. “Oh. Right.”

“H-Hope the traffic’s not too bad!” you joke.

His laugh comes more genuine now. “You’re stupid.”

You head towards the door, and when he opens it for you, there’s a chill of air outside and it’s darker now, hues of dark gray, purple and a slight orange still present on the horizon paint the sky and you step outside then turn on your heel to face him.

“Um. Congrats, by the way. On the sale,” you tell him, “enjoy your night. And I’ll see you this weekend?”

“Huh?” He raises an eyebrow. “What’s happening this weekend?”

“We–” you scoff, “we’re getting married this weekend?”

“Oh!” he exclaims, tense, “right, yes, see you this weekend. For marriage. Of us.”

You roll your eyes and make your way down the concrete pavement that leads its way to his house, and leads its way away from it too. And when you walk back to your house, it’s not with a sulk, but it’s not with a pep in your step either. You just feel…neutral.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“So, tell me about this fake husband of yours,” Hana says, leaning against your work-on-wheels as you attempt to catch up on charting notes with 4 hours and 15 minutes and 53 seconds left on your shift (it’s not like you were counting though).

“Yeah, in a sec,” you mumble as you punch in keys.

6/2/2024 0344: patient placed on 5150 hold on 5/31 at 1745, continually monitored by ED tech. all objects have been removed from pt’s room to prevent any danger to self or others. however patient accessed hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall at roughly 0320 and ingested all the hand sanitizer. notified MD of toxic ingestion, follow up plan is to coordinate care with poison control. no further orders at this time

“Okay, what were you saying?” you look up at Hana again and rub the tired out of your eye with a balled up hand, along with all the mascara. 

“Your fake husband!! Tell me about him!!” she chirps, shaking your work-on-wheels in excitement and the blur of your computer screen makes you feel dizzy.

“Shhhhh,” you hiss at her, “keep your voice down when we discuss illegal activities.”

She rolls her eyes. “Why are you always so paranoid? I’m already sick and tired of you charting incessantly every five seconds to save yourself from medical lawsuits that you haven’t even been accused of.”

“In a medical lawsuit, the chart is the law, Hana,” you say eerily with a shiver, and her words remind you to continue your detailed charting. “Never forget that.”

She sighs. Her gaze travels across to the other end of the emergency department, and you assume she’s staring at the asses of the EMT boys again, so you glance over your shoulder too. 

Except instead, you see the worst person on the planet.

Well, second worst as of right now.

The worst person title was reserved for someone else.

Approaching from down the hall is Yuna, your ex-best friend, a bounce in her step as she walks with a sort of allure as her hips rock side to side, her mile-high ponytail swaying in beat with the rhythm as well, and the ashy blond highlights in her hair hypnotize anyone she waltzes by. 

She was the kind of nurse that all the other nurses are jealous of. Always has cute little accessories and stickers on their badge, is wearing the fancy FIGS scrub sets that hug her sporty curves in all the right places, paired with those little shoes with the ankle socks, and she most definitely gets her water goal in for the day because she’s always sucking on the straw of her periwinkle Stanley cup around the ED all night just like she sucked the cum out of your boyfriend of seven years just twenty-four hours after the two of you had broken up–

“y/n,” she casually calls your name, leaning her elbow up on the cubicle divider of the nursing station. “It’s time for you to take your break. I’ll watch your patients.”

“I’m not taking my break,” you say, trying to relax the grit to your teeth which makes your eye twitch out of frustration instead. “Now get the fuck away from me before I call a Code Black.”

She sighs, rolling her eyes and smacking loudly on her gum. “Yaga said you have to take your thirty tonight. Something about how you haven’t clocked out for a break in more than two months and the hospital could get sued for that.”

“The hospital has way bigger cases they should be biting their nails about getting sued over,” Hana snorts just to butt in on conversation.

“C’mon,” Yuna says, her fingers reaching out to touch the handle of your work-on-wheels, purposefully stretched so that you can eye the perfect sparkly manicure to her nails. You curl your fingers into the skin of your palms to hide your gel polish that’s long started to scrape off. “Go clock out.”

“I’d rather die than listen to a single fucking thing you tell me to do,” you tell her, plain and simple.

“y/n!” a loud masculine voice calls from the other end of the Emergency Department, and all three of you visibly shrink a little in your stances out of fear. Head nurse Yaga. “Take your break, or I’ll be damned to let you set another foot in this hospital!!” he’s yelling at you all the way from the entrance to the CT scanner.

“But–”

“Now!!!!!”

Your eyes flicker to Yuna, who has an amused look on her face and a tilt to her head, and then you’re grumbling before logging out of your computer then stepping away from it. “Draw a CBC & chem on Beds 24 and 28 at 4 AM sharp,” you grumble to her, and she just gives you one of those tight-skinned smiles. 

The break room is empty, with shades of beige on the walls and even more depressing shades of gray on the lockers. There are all sorts of things pasted on the walls, like photos from staff Halloween and Christmas parties, drawings that pediatric patients have made in appreciation of their nurses, and employee information that Yaga’s constantly shoving in everyone’s faces. 

Okay, the backstory with Yuna. Pretty simple. You two had been best friends since high school, like inseparable best friends. Y’know, sneaking out late at night to use fake IDs at the bar, cover for the other when you’re busy losing your virginity to your high school boyfriend in the most dishonorable way possible, rooming together in college, sobbing and crying through all of nursing school together, ride or die type of friendship that you think you’d only find once in a lifetime. Except turns out your best friend, who you’d considered a sister, had eyes for your boyfriend since you started dating him in college, and the second that dickwad dumped you, you catch her sucking him off in the back of his Toyota Camry when you go to pick your stuff up from his place. Yeah, ouch. You lost the two closest people in your life, all in the matter of twenty-four hours, so pardon yourself for being a bit bitter about it. 

But being bitter is the coping mechanism. The real way you feel comes in the form of tears prickling in your eyes and the pain in your throat as you try to swallow away the knot that’s suffocating you from the inside out. A type of loneliness that leaves you stranded even in a room full of people. But at the very least, this room is empty, so no one has to see the crack in your resolve.

There’s no time on a thirty-minute lunch break to have a full mental breakdown, so you sparsely wipe at your tears and head back to your shift.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

If you want to know who actually holds the worst person on the planet title right now, well, you run into him on a Tuesday afternoon while on a grocery run after you just woke up from barely sufficient post night shift sleep. Bitter and drugged by Melatonin was not a state of being you needed to be in right now, but you’re out of orange juice and you’re having Vitamin C withdrawals which warrants a trip to the store. Unfortunately, the town only has one grocery store, which means you were bound to run into pestering ex-boyfriends at least once every full moon. 

“Get the fuck out of my way, Choso,” you snarl at the man who’s walking backwards ahead of your grocery cart, trying to stop you in your tracks so you’d just chill out and listen to him for a second.

“Can you just chill out and listen to me for a second?” he asks you, irritation evident in his voice like you’re being the difficult one here.

“I already told you that I quite literally never want to see your stupid ugly face ever again for as long as I live,” you say, and you ram your grocery cart forward with so much force the metal hits his knees and he doubles over the basket indignantly with a groan.

He seems like he’s had enough of you evading him, so he jams his foot under the wheel to keep you from moving forward, and you’re scowling at him and struggling against his foot-stop but to no avail. 

You briefly consider abandoning your cart all together and just bee-lining for the exit, but he’s a cop, so he’d easily be able to tackle you to the ground if you tried.

“What do you want?” you snarl, impatiently tapping your foot with every miserable passing second spent in his presence. 

“I just–” He sighs, “I just want to talk. And to know how you’re doing. You won’t pick up any of my calls.”

“Huh?” You blink at him. “I’ve had you blocked for the past two weeks. You shouldn’t even be able to call me.”

His eyebrows raise. “Really?...who have I been dialing then?” 

“Fuck if I know,” you shrug, and you use his moment of confusion to swerve your cart off to the side and make your way down the refrigerator aisle. Ohhh, dulce de leche gelato sounds nice, and it’s on sale. You grab a jar. 

Choso’s trailing behind you as you eye price tags and sale signs in the open chill of the yogurt section. “Babe–”

“Don’t–” you immediately cut him off, spinning fast on your heel and he stops himself just in time from crashing right into you. You hold your index finger up in the air between the two of you with a clench to your jaw so tight it feels sore, and through gritted teeth you say, “don’t call me babe.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry. It’s habit.”

Indeed, habit. Seven years of him calling you babe, or baby, or boobie (idk don’t ask). Your favorite though? Babydoll. He’d always call you that when he’d make sweet, sweet love to you while you were wearing his favorite flimsy little piece of lingerie–babydolls. Even now, the memories have your cheeks feeling hot. But he doesn’t get to call you babe anymore, and he doesn’t get to fuck you anymore, or talk to you anymore, or breathe in your general direction anymore, because he betrayed you. He wasted your time, and then he betrayed you.

Seven years of your sexual prime, where you could’ve been fucking hunky firefighters and bisexual Europeans, wasted on a man you weren’t even going to marry in the end anyways. Now you’re pushing thirty, and the idea of having to date again makes your skin crawl with anxiety that turns into fury because your doom is all caused by the man in front of you.

Whatever, forget about the sex and the impending loss of a woman’s novelty within society for a second. You loved him. A part of you still loves him. You wanted to marry this man. You thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with this man. Little sheriff deputy’s wife, Mrs. Kamo, the perfect number of letters to get on a bejeweled license plate. You had envisioned all the cute little quotes of adoration that would be imprinted on your wedding reception’s custom-made doily napkins with everyone that’s ever meant anything to you sitting at the table, ready to celebrate the love that you thought was real and true and brave and strong and one that would last forever.

But he abandoned you when you were at your lowest. And he fell into the arms of the one person you thought you could turn to crying when the relationship crashed and burned in the first place. And the problem with living in a small town is that everyone knows everybody’s business, so now you’re just the woman that wasted her youth on a man that played her like a broken fiddle. Utterly heartbroken, and humiliated. 

So, yeah, he doesn’t get to call you babe anymore.

“Listen here, asshole,” you say, stabbing him in the chest with your finger, so he can feel even a fraction of the pain you’ve felt in the past three weeks, “I couldn't care less if you live today, or die tomorrow. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone. Or I’ll file for a restraining order.”

“Really?” he says, brows pulled tight together in disbelief, like he just can’t understand what he’s done to make you act this way, and quite frankly, that only makes it sting even worse, “after everything we’ve been through, you’re just going to throw away the past seven years?”

“What the fuck are you saying?!” you all but snap at him, and an elderly couple that’s passing by flinches a little from the noise and you wince in apology before glaring at Choso again. Your voice is hushed this time. “You’re the one that broke up with me, but I’m the one that’s throwing it all away??”

He purses his lips together, and you notice how dark the circles under his eyes are. He shuts them tightly and leans back away from you, which makes you realize how much he was leaning into your space just a second ago. “I know that we…aren’t dating anymore. But, I mean, c’mon, y/n, it’s me. Just because we’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean that I don’t still…care. I want to know how your mom’s doing, and how treatment has been for her, and–” he glances up at the ceiling briefly, as if to mislead you into thinking that the next thing he says is just as nonchalantly desired as the other things he listed, “and I want to know how you’re doing, too.”

“You don’t deserve to know how I’m doing. Continue to wallow in your pathetic self righteousness, or go run with your tail between your legs to that two-faced rat I used to call a best friend. Either way, I don’t give a damn,” you say, in a way that very much sounds like you give a damn unfortunately, and spin on your heel to continue pushing your cart down to the juice section.

“Yuna and I–” you hear him say behind you, and just the mention of her name on his tongue makes your heart ache in your chest, to the point you need to place a flat palm over it just to alleviate the pain, “I–...I broke things off with her yesterday.”

Fuck. Pretend like you’re not fazed by that info. Pretend like you’re not fazed by that info.

“Okay? Whatever,” you barely manage to say.

He’s silent for a moment behind you. The wheels of your cart squeak as they roll. 

“I mean, we’re not together anymore. I’m not seeing her anymore,” he clarifies, as if he didn’t believe you heard him right the first time.

“Cool,” you comment, tone colder this time, since you had the practice round. 

“You don’t–” Choso starts, a rattle of hurt and confusion in his voice, “you don’t care about that?”

“Nope.” 

He reaches out to grab your wrist, and the contact burns through your skin, like something so familiar yet so foreign. You turn your head to look at him. 

“I…” he starts, and you can see his chest rising and falling with more intensity. Oh god. Please. Please don’t say it. You’re not sure you can handle hearing it. “I really miss you.”

Damn it, he said it.

Your posture relaxes slightly when you take a long look at him. You finally notice his hair has gotten longer in just the three weeks you’ve been apart, layered locks curling at the end of his neck, and it’s the first time you’ve noticed such a small detail because you were so used to spending everyday with him. He spent most of the week at your house, since the two of you could never formally move in with one another after your mother was diagnosed and it was easier for him to come by to yours so you could continue to keep an eye on her. There’s no option to live on your own and start your own life when you’re taking care of someone sick. They become your priority, not yourself, but you’d still make every single sacrifice you’ve made for your mother over and over again in a heartbeat if you had to relive the past five years. 

But that meant that you never had a real and true chance to live the life that you wanted with Choso. A place just for the two of you, lived in intimate solitude and not with the cries of your mother down the hall when she feels too sick to get up out of bed or when she cannot remember her own name. But you had never been this far apart from him to where you notice his hair is an inch longer than it was the last time you saw him. He was never that far away, as he is now. And you’ve just now realized it.  

“I don’t,” you start, swallowing the lump in your throat and your voice quivers ever so slightly when you speak, “I don’t care that you miss me.” You take a deep breath. “I’m getting married this weekend.”

His face entirely relaxes, like a calm before the storm, before it twists with so much confusion and incredulity and shock and–was that horror on his face?

“What?” he practically spats out, “it’s only been three weeks since we broke up!”

“Uhh,” you glance up at the ceiling of the store, just in time for an employee to make an announcement on the overhead for a manager at checkout lane 2 please, and then you glance back down at him, “I was having an affair while we were dating.” An easy lie. 

He scowls. “Yeah fucking right. There’s no way you’d cheat on me.”

His words burn bitter. The fact that he couldn’t even fathom you hurting him the same way he hurt you makes you clench your teeth. Because he knew you were better than he was, and that you were too good for him, and yet he still wasted your honor.

His friends, who used to be yours too, have probably fed him lies since the breakup. Like it’s okay, man. You broke up with her before you got involved with someone else. You didn’t do anything wrong.

But you say bullshit to all of that. Because after seven years of being together, you can’t just cold turkey a relationship like that to sleep with someone else, and then claim it’s not cheating. Technicalities like that were no vindication if the betrayal hurt all the same in the end. Because it still felt like you got cheated on regardless.

“Whatever. I don’t need to explain myself to you,” you tell him, “I’m getting married this weekend, so I really don’t give a damn about anything between us anymore. It’s over.”

“Who are you marrying?” he asks, suddenly breaking a sweat over the news like he’s starting to suspect you’re actually being serious.

“My neighbor.”

His face twists with disgust. “Old man Jenkins? He’s eighty-four years old.”

You roll your eyes. “Not the one on my left, you idiot. My neighbor to my right.”

The corner of his mouth tugs up in a ridiculing smirk, and the sight of it makes your skin crawl. He scoffs. “There’s no way. You hate that guy.”

“It’s true. I’m marrying him.”

“Seriously??” He guffaws at you, leaning in closer to you and you lean away until your back is resting on the handle of your shopping cart. “The obnoxious realtor I once heard you talking in your sleep about how much you want to murder him and then dump him in a lake?”

“What?! I talk in my sleep?!” you gasp.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. You have for years.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that?!”

He looks annoyed. “Because you’re such a hypochondriac. You would’ve thought you had a brain tumor or something, and I’d have to deal with the paranoia that follows suit.”

“Choso,” you say to him with a strict tone, jutting your hip out to the side in preparation to scold, “my mother has Alzheimer’s, which is genetic, and I was having an abnormal neurological symptom for years which has studies to show is an early indication of dementia and you just chose not to tell me because you didn’t want to be annoyed?!”

“See?” he gestures to you, “you’re doing it right now. How did we go from just sleep talking to ‘I might have dementia’?” 

“We,” you point between you and him, “are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever getting back together. If there’s one thing you can pull through that stupid skull of yours, make it that.”

“Excuse me,” you hear a tiny voice squeak out, and you turn to your right to see a little kid trying to push past the two of you to grab a box of GoGurt in the Yogurt section. You move your cart forward by bumping it with your butt to get out of the kid’s way, and Choso circles around to the front of your cart before you start moving forward again. Like he’s literally stopping you from moving on from him. 

“You’re lying about marrying this guy,” Choso says like it’s a fact. In typical cop gaslighting fashion. “You’re just saying that to make me jealous.”

You roll your eyes. “No. I’m just that hot and gorgeous that I made a man fall in love with me in three weeks.”

“He’s in love with you?” he asks.

“Duh, he wants to marry me. When you dumped me, I found comforting solace in my next-door-neighbor, and we fell into bed with one another, and now he feels the obligation to provide for me for the rest of my life. What’s so hard to believe about that? You didn’t find abrupt matrimony odd when we binged all three seasons of Bridgerton two months ago.”

“That show is set in the fuckin’ regency era,” he hisses at you, “look around. There’s plastic bags of Hot Cheetos with Red 40 in them everywhere. Does this look like the 1800s to you?”

You have to be careful with him. He’s a cop, who could arrest you for medical insurance fraud, and would also have a personal vendetta against your marriage because boo hoo he misses you. But yes, he was right, you did want to make him jealous, and you just can’t help it.

“Well, me and him have a love that no one else can understand, so suck it. I’m marrying him, and he’s super into me, and he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with me, and he desperately wants to put babies in me, and–”

“And where’s the ring he gave you, then?”

Fuck. You briefly flick your gaze down to your left hand and note the daunting absence of a shiny diamond on your ring finger. Note to self, Gojo needs to buy you a ring.

“I left it at home,” you mumble.

“Uh-huh, as all newly engaged women who have been waiting for a ring all their life would do.”

That pisses you off. Because you were waiting your whole life for him to put a ring on your finger, and he never did. 

“Go fuck a fleshlight,” you snarl at him, unfortunately in earshot of the GoGurt kid and his mom shoots you a nasty look, but you’re a jaded woman after everything you’ve been through and you ram your cart into Choso so hard you swear you could’ve cracked his knee caps, and he doubles over in enough pain for you to have the time to leave him stranded there as you push your cart all the way to the end of the store. 

You finally make it to the orange juice section, the one thing you needed, although your cart is filled with things you didn’t need, because that’s always how these grocery runs go. You try to take a few breaths to calm down the fast beating in your heart after that confrontation with Choso. You’re not good with confrontation, even though it might seem like you are, but you’re just putting on a face. Acting strong, when really all you want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. But there are bills to pay, and images to upkeep, and orange juice to replenish. 

Your hand reaches out for the handle on the refrigerator door, but just before you curl your fingers around it, another hand beats you to it. It’s a large and masculine hand, with veins disappearing into the cuffed felted fabric of a suit jacket, and the knuckles turn a shade lighter than the olive skin around them when the fingers flex around the handle. 

You glance up at the person standing next to you, who you register towers over you in height. He has long, sleek black hair that shimmers under fluorescent lighting, some of which is tied up and out of his face, while the rest cascades over his back. But there’s tendrils of hair falling over the left side of his face, barely distracting you through the intensity of purple in his eyes when he glances at you.

“Ah, apologies,” he says, and the way he speaks is so calm and gentle, different from the intimidating aura he holds himself with. He retreats his hand from the handle.

“Oh, that’s–” you find yourself stuttering, “...that’s okay.” You grab the handle and open it, the chill rush of the fridge hitting you as your eyes peruse the selection of orange juice cartons while his eyes remain on you. You awkwardly glance at him again. “Sorry, d-did you also need to get orange juice?”

He nods. “Yes, I did.”

Not a man of many words, you think to yourself. Or maybe just around people he’s just met.

Your eyes catch the familiar labeling of your go-to orange juice, the one with no pulp and has added Vitamins D and E (basically the one for children), but you realize there’s only one left. You grab it anyway and put it in your cart. When you glance up at the handsome stranger beside you, there’s a slight look of amusement on his face.

“Seems we both have the same taste in orange juice,” he comments. 

“Oh no,” you say with a small laugh, “I’m sorry. It’s the last one.” Your eyes widen. “You–…you can have it, if you want–”

“Oh, no, no,” he shakes his head, long hair swaying with the motion as he holds his hands up in front of himself, “please. I will just find a nearby store.”

You tilt your head. “Oh there’s no other stores nearby…unless you get on the highway for at least twenty minutes. It’s a…small town.”

His lax expression finally cracks into one of subtle surprise. “That’s interesting.”

“Are you…new to town?” you ask.

He nods with a small smile on his face. “Indeed. Well, just visiting. I’m from New York.”

“Oh! Wow, that’s a long way from here.” You briefly register that he does look like a city man. Upscale restaurants, skyline views, premium outlets. The subtle fragrance of his cologne smells expensive too. “What are you up to while visiting?” You mentally facepalm yourself for asking personal questions, but he seems mysterious and you like peeling the layers back on people like him.

His expression drops, turning almost solemn and his eye contact that was previously very direct is suddenly averted elsewhere, “Just…visiting some old friends.” There is no elaboration.

“Ahh…I see,” you say, picking up on the hint that he has no more words to give you. “Well…I’ll be taking the orange juice…maybe try one with pulp?” you suggest a little cheekily. 

His lips tug upwards in a lopsided smile, one you’d call a smirk if you weren’t so mesmerized to define it as one, “I’ll think about it.”

You hum slightly in polite acknowledgement of him, then push your cart back towards the heart of the store without a word of goodbye.

Odd stranger, who’s good at giving misleading answers. You wonder what life he’s come here to escape. 

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

It’s a bright, picturesque Sunday morning, with children laughing and squealing out on the streets in front of your house as they ride their scooters up hot pavement while their parents catch up on PTA drama on the lawns. You’re standing in front of your full length mirror, trying on dress #3 for your little meeting with the courthouse today. And by little meeting, you mean your wedding. You’re getting married today.

The dress you have on falls to below your knees and has buttons all the way from the hem right up to the base of your neck, where the collared neckline wraps around you like a noose. Suffocating, way too prim and proper, although it’d make your grandma very happy and adored to see you should you show up to church service in it. 

Your bed is cluttered with clothes you’ve thrown across it as you try to find a good dress. Your hands move with impatience as you skim through the rack of your closet for another dress to try on, since you’re starting to push the time a little too much. You’ve only got ten minutes before you need to leave. 

A dress tucked in the corner of your closet catches your eye and you pull it out. It’s a cream-colored milk maid dress with an underskirt to puff out the A-line silhouette, length down to your shins that would be oh-so-flattering with a cute pair of heels. There are small red flowers adorning the pattern, with tiny green leaf details as well. It was cute and sweet and feminine, something you haven’t worn in a long time unlike your usual monotonous hospital scrubs, stained sweatpants and adult onesies.

It was the dress your friend Sana convinced you to buy when you thought you were going to get engaged. In the first two years of your relationship with Choso, you two talked about marriage non-stop. You both had just graduated college when you first started dating, and it felt like your lives were finally starting. At the end of the second year you two had been together for, after Christmas dinner with your family, he pulled you into his arms and you squealed with glee as he spinned you around in your childhood bedroom upstairs and told you how much he wanted to marry you, and that he was going to propose in the new year.

Your mother was diagnosed with cancer in January, and he never brought up marriage ever again. 

He still stayed with you for five years after that though, and swiftly dodged every single question you ever asked him about his impending proposal. For five years, you were fed every excuse in the book. And in hindsight, you feel like an idiot for staying, and for still holding out hope, when what you were really holding onto was heartbreak. The feeling of not being enough, like someone was just tolerating you, and not loving you. It was easy to ignore at times, given how occupied you were with driving your mother to chemotherapy appointments and reading up on books about which diet works best to slow down the development of Alzheimer’s because your mother started showing signs of dementia just two months after the cancer diagnosis. But in those moments of freedom, where you had a moment to breathe, all you could breathe was a suffocating smoke. Because you stopped feeling wanted or loved in between all of it.

But there was a trip he planned for the two of you to Greece. It was after your mother had first successfully gotten into remission. A gasp of fresh air amongst all the pain and suffering, and you could only assume that he wanted to celebrate by taking you on a trip. Sana was convinced he was going to propose to you on this trip, and you wondered if maybe he was just waiting until your mother felt better before he proposed so that the two of you could enjoy being newly engaged without the pressure or worry. Sana took you shopping, and you bought this dress, one that clings to your form in a way that made you feel beautiful. Made you feel wanted. Made you feel worthy of being loved. Because all other parts of yourself had been overlooked and paid no attention, but you thought a dress could save you. 

He never proposed. You left Greece with an extra suitcase of souvenirs, but without a ring on your finger or even a compliment on how beautiful you should’ve looked to him standing there on that beach with this cream-colored dress on, arm wrapped around his. And it was at that point you became numb, and you existed in limbo for the remaining four years of your relationship. Until he finally did what you silently begged him to do, with every sullen look in your eyes when you glanced at him. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, what he did to you. Something you willed him into because you didn’t have the strength to leave, and so he had to.

You hold the dress up to your form in the mirror. It’d still fit you, and it’s far too pretty to have only worn once. But you’ve been numb for so long now, you don’t even remember what it’s like to feel pretty in a dress. You unbutton yourself out of dress #3 and step into failed proposal dress #4, and as you slowly zip up the back of the dress, you’re met with resistance. 

Fuck.

The last thing you need right now is a weight-related meltdown.

You tug up on the zipper even more, harshly, to the point you hear a stitch rip and you gasp and try to do it slowly so as not to completely tear the dress apart. But it’s not fitting. It should fit. You just assume the zip is stuck, or it’s too rigid after years of no wear.

You’re about to do another colossal yank upwards that could potentially dislocate your shoulder when you jump at the sound of your phone chiming with a notification. And then multiple.

“What...the hell…do you want…” you sigh to nobody, swiping your hands across the pile of dress fabric on your bed to find your phone, and when you do, you quickly tap on the screen to see the messages.

|| 11:32AM neighbor (avocado tree): Hey, are we still getting married today?

First of all, wild fucking thing to nonchalantly ask.

|| 11:32AM neighbor (avocado tree): Your car’s still parked out front, so I wasn’t sure if you’ve left yet. I was just about to leave, and then the thought occurred to me that we should probably carpool?

|| 11:35AM neighbor (avocado tree): But just wanted to verify, are you sure you want to go through with this? You’re not having cold feet? Won’t be a runaway bride? I’m not gonna be left at the altar, wondering where I went wrong?

You roll your eyes, breathing heavily still from the struggle of zipping up your dress.

|| 11:36AM You: yes, we are still getting married. I just can’t zip up my dress for the life of me 

It takes him a whole minute to respond.

|| 11:38AM neighbor (avocado tree): Do you need help?

You blink at your phone screen. Help? What kind of help? Helping you zip up your dress?

You look over your shoulder to the full length mirror, eyeing your back. The dress was zipped up to just above the small of your back, with the rest of it flayed open to reveal the expanse of your skin. Setting your phone down, you roll your shoulders back once and flex your fingers to try again in securing this dress, but to no avail. You curse yourself for not having the flexibility, and to be honest, you’re not even sure if you can take the dress off anymore to get into something else with the way the zipper won’t budge neither up nor down. Well. You’re just going to have to wear this dress for the rest of your life now. A scary predicament.

You pick your phone up again.

|| 11:41AM You: yes

It only takes about two minutes for him to text you that he’s at your front door, a surprisingly considerate gesture considering your mother is sleeping downstairs so it’s good he didn’t ring the doorbell, and you tiptoe your way down and over the creaky floorboards of the stairs to the front entrance. 

You slowly crack the door open only a couple inches, hiding yourself from him behind it as you peek at him. “Hi.”

“Hey,” he says, and he glances at his watch. “We’ve got to hurry.”

You nod, and take note of his appearance. He’s wearing a dark fitted navy suit over a white dress shirt, which to your surprise, doesn’t have the top two buttons sluttily undone for once. His suit pants are perfectly tailored to his ankles and you can barely see the exposed fabric of black socks before they disappear into his polished Oxfords. He looks like he’s going to a wedding. Oh wait, he is. 

He raises an eyebrow at you when you refuse to reveal yourself by stepping away from behind the door. Even his hair is particularly kept and proper, swept off to the side slightly in a way that makes him look younger and you feel nervous from the intensity of those eyes, which are usually somewhat hidden by the fringe of his snowy hair, now look at you unwaveringly with no obstruction. You feel like you’re seeing him in a completely new light, and for some reason, it makes you cower behind the door even more. 

“Uh, are you going to let me in?” he asks you, his foot tapping lightly on the welcome! mat. 

“Yes,” you say, but you make no movement to prove your word. 

“y/n,” he says, “we need to get going.”

You sigh, tapping your fingers against the stained glass window of your front door to release some nerves before hesitantly stepping to the side and pulling the door open all the way, then you’re standing in front of him in full view. You catch a glimpse of the black tie hanging from his neck that’s secured all the way up to the collar of his shirt, before you finally look at his face.

Those striking eyes of his round slowly until he’s looking at you wide-eyed, blinking in some sort of dazed surprise as his gaze eventually sweeps down your entire form to take in the sight of you standing barefoot on wooden floor in your cream-colored dress, and you swear you see the muscles in his jaw jump. His brow furrows like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“You–” he starts, that shocked blinking still taking place on his face, and you grasp the fabric of your dress in front of you from the anticipation of what he’ll say, “...you look beautiful.”

A silence settles between the two of you as he continues to roam his eyes all down you like there’s nothing that could stop him from doing it, and you feel heat in your cheeks from his compliment. It’s just a silly little cream-colored dress. One that didn’t look pretty on a beach in Greece, so why would it look beautiful on you  here right now? While you’re standing at the dusty front entrance of a decades old house? He’s bullshitting you.

“You know you don’t have to compliment me, you know that, right?” you squeak out, trying to keep your tone level and easy to fight back the raw feeling in your throat, “this isn’t a first look. There are no photographers around to capture your reaction. We’re not actually getting married.”

“But–” 

“Can you just help me with the dress?” you cut him off so he doesn’t say anything else that makes you feel pretty right now.

“...sure,” he agrees, and he steps inside your house. You start to walk upstairs, and he follows suit, and you suddenly feel his eyes on your back so you turn around and walk up the stairs backwards while facing him.

“I don’t understand the concept of first looks anyway,” he says out of nowhere to cut the silence, “isn’t it a bad omen to see your partner before getting married?”

“That’s such an outdated superstition,” you tell him as your feet finally press firmly flat at the top of the stairs. 

One of his feet is placed next to where you’re standing up straight at the top, while the other is still on the third step down. And it’s like he’s kneeling on one knee in front of you as he looks up at you. After a moment of deep breathing on your part, you finally step away from the top of the stairs so he can finish walking up them too.

“I don’t know what happened,” you say to him as you make it to the front of your full length mirror, “I was just trying to zip it up but it got stuck. And it’s not unzipping either.”

He comes up behind you, and you can see in the mirror that he’s put a decent amount of space between the two of you from the way his arms are reached out in front of him just to access the zipper. He tugs up on it.

“Hm. It…” he struggles with it, “it seems…” he yanks again, “jammed?”

“Fudge,” you mutter under your breath (more ladylike perhaps, as opposed to fuck) and you sulk your shoulders. “But will it close at all, do you think?”

He takes a step closer to you, and his cologne has the fragrance of woody oak with undertones of citrus, like something expensive and sophisticated. His hand sweeps your hair off to the side and over your shoulder to the front so he has a better view, fingers brushing against the nape of your neck from the motion and you try to fight the shiver. A glance to the mirror, and you see his eyes are set on the exposed skin. He tugs to pull your dress together, and is able to cross the fabrics. “Yeah, it should. I think just hold your breath for a second? I’m going to try to see if zipping it down helps unjam it.” 

“Okay,” you say softly, and he eyes you in the mirror at the sudden subservience. 

You try to hold your breath as he tugs down on the zipper, and you hear the metallic click when he succeeds in unjamming it before he zips it down just an inch. You can feel the small of your back exposed to cool air from the motion. 

He’s suddenly frozen entirely behind you, the knuckle of his index finger brushing against your skin as he continues to pinch the zipper between it and his thumb. You feel his slow exhale on the back of your neck. You’re too scared to look at his expression in the mirror.

“Sa–” you stutter through a gasp, “Satoru.”

“Sorry,” he says quietly, and then he’s shifting on his feet once before slowly attempting to zip the dress up. 

He’s met with a slight resistance just underneath your shoulder blades. “Hey. Just hold your breath.”

“I’m trying to,” you tell him, almost whining, because it’s hard to stop breathing when your heart is beating fast and it needs the oxygen supply.

“Do you want to try on a different dress?” he asks you.

“No,” you immediately answer him. You’re not sure why, but the idea of wearing this dress for the rest of your life doesn’t scare you anymore. In fact, you never want to take it off.

Your hands twiddle with the flimsy string at your collarbone that you tied to connect the fabric across your chest, and then you realize. “Oh…maybe I need to–” you tug at the end of the string, “undo this? That might make it looser?” You finally glance at the mirror to seek his approval of your suggestion.

His eyes meet yours, and when he sees what you’re referring to, his eyes widen. “But that would–”

“Just don’t look,” you say simply.

You two remain looking at one another in the mirror, and you see his chest heaving slightly through the tightening of his dress shirt against the expansion of his breathing. Like you’re asking the impossible of him.

“Or I’ll kill you,” you say.

He sighs, and his eyes flit down to your zipper again. You swear you feel his hand tremble slightly. “Alright.”

You pull on the end of the string, watching him in the mirror to make sure his eyes don’t wander, and the fabric covering your breasts falls open, but you use a hand to still sparsely cover your skin with the cloth where you can. In the reflection, you see his jaw clench but his eyes remain on the zipper, and only briefly flicker to the bed once. Then he’s zipping up your dress with ease. 

You quickly tie the string above your chest once more to cover yourself up, and then spin to face the mirror, petting down the fabric of your dress and throwing your hair back over your shoulder. It was a snug fit, but at least it still fit. 

He’s a step behind you with his hands shoved in his suit pockets, looking at your face with a slight tilt to his head like he’s studying you in the mirror just as much as you’re studying yourself. And then he pulls his hand out of his pocket to glance at his watch again. “It’s almost noon,” he says. 

“What?!” you bark at him. “We’re fucking late!!! Why didn’t you say anything?!?!”

“Huh??” he baffles. “I’ve been trying to tell you we need to rush this entire time.”

“Oh my god, oh my god,” you say, pacing your room to find your things in a scurry, picking your purse up and then grabbing your Manila folder of paperwork from your desk, and you try to walk past him to the door when you trip over the five pairs of shoes that you had been trying on earlier, almost twisting your ankle, and you gasp then grab onto his suit jacket for purchase before his arm attempts to reach out to hold you upright but to no avail since you tug on him as you fall straight backwards onto your bed and bring him down with you. 

His hands sink into the soft mattress on both sides of your head, wrists tickled by your hair, as he hovers over you, and your fingers quickly curl into little balls at your chest as you shrink underneath him, looking up at his surprised expression, likely from having to suddenly brace himself from falling right on top of you.

You both look at each other, blinking as you come down from the sudden chaos, and his tie that’s hanging from his neck brushes against your knuckle and falls over your hand to graze the skin above your breasts. His eyes briefly flicker to the sight, and he catches himself only to stare at your lips instead.

Even through thick layers of fabric, you can see the thick curves of the muscles in his arms, pulled taut from how he’s holding himself up over you. And for once, you wish the buttons of his shirt were undone, so you can see what he’s hiding underneath. The hair he had swept up above his eyes now falls freely with gravity, soft tufts that dangle above you and shadow over the blue of his eyes as he looks at you with a furrowed brow that–...that makes him look handsome. 

You must be ovulating.

No, wait, you finished ovulating a couple days ago.

Oh god.

Was your next door neighbor hot this entire time?

There was simply no way. 

You refuse to believe it.

You’re laying still like a deer in highlights, motionless underneath him, before he curls his arm around your waist to bring you up with him as he stands up straight, and you only spend a moment pressed up against him before you get yourself out of his grasp by pushing flat palms against his chest, and then the two of you are in proper distance from one another once again.

“D-Don’t ever do something like that ever again,” you stutter, shimmying your hips slightly to pull the snug fabric down your waist from where it had risen up.

“I didn’t do anything,” he grumbles, and he runs a hand through his hair. Now it looks like it always does, no longer prim in style.

“Whatever, let’s just go.” You slip your feet into one of the pairs of heels sprawled across on the floor, and then you head straight for the door. “You drive.”

You hear him sigh behind you. “Yes ma’am.”

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

The courthouse is bustling with people when you two arrive but Gojo’s pleasantly able to pull into an open curbside parking spot right in front of the entrance. You’re surprised when he comes around to the passenger side to open the door for you, and you swat his hand away when he offers it to you too, but you probably should’ve taken it, since you almost twist your ankle for the second time today as you step out onto the curb and get used to walking in heels again like a newborn fawn.

“Should’ve taken my hand,” he says to you, smile turned upwards into a smirk as he watches you struggle while he’s a few steps ahead of you.

“Give it to me then,” you grit through your teeth as you wobble, giving up your pride to avoid adding yet another medical bill to the list of debts in your name.

“Nah,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets, “too late. Lost your chance.” You curse his entire lineage in your head.

You two make it inside the courtroom, and the first person you look for is Hana, whose head you catch at the front row much to your pleasant surprise since she is your sole witness to sign on the marriage certificate today. But in your study of the room to find her, you notice that there are a lot of other people in here as well.

“Don’t tell me…Did you invite people??” you ask Gojo, grabbing onto his sleeve to get his attention and also for balance, but he doesn’t need to know that latter part.

He glances down at you. “No? Why would I invite people to my fake wedding?”

Your eyes peruse the room once again, and you realize that most of them are just old retired people with nothing better to do on a Sunday than visit the courtroom. Some are elderly couples, eyeing you and Gojo as you two make your way down the aisle with sweetness in their eyes like awwwwwww to be a young couple in love once more <3 while they wait for the judge to call on their hundreds of unpaid parking tickets because they don’t know how to access an internet portal.

“D-Do you have the marriage license?” you squeak out to Gojo, who has now adjusted his walking speed to match yours.

“No, I left it at home,” he tells you in a flat tone. “Of course I brought the marriage license.”

“I was just checking, jeez…” you grumble.

Gojo hands the clerk the folder he was holding in his hand, and you hand in yours too.

Oh god. Your peripheral vision already recognizes him before your brain can, but you see an extremely familiar silhouette standing guard off to the side of the Judge’s bench, and your gaze immediately snaps in that direction.

Choso stands there, in his Sheriff Deputy’s uniform, his thumbs tucked into his vest as he puffs his chest out in assertion of his oh so important duty securing the courthouse on a Summer Sunday from any devastating danger, such as an elderly man not wanting to pay a parking ticket and then proceeding to charge towards the judge at 2 MPH, and you can’t help but roll your eyes from his attitude and scowl at him. Of course he pulled some strings and saw when you were getting allegedly married and decided to show up on that exact day. Whatever. You’ll pay him no mind. As long as he doesn’t speak now.

You and Gojo walk back to the lower desk in front of the Judge’s Bench.

“Ah! y/n, hello my dear, how are you?” the judge calls out to you.

“Hi Judge Jin,” you say meekly with a small wave, your voice echoing in the room, “good, and yourself?”

6/4/2024 1232: Judge Jin is a 72 y/o man with a past medical history of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, hyperglycemia, GERD, liver cirrhosis and COPD, who endorses a social history of frequent tobacco usage and occasional alcohol consumption. Patient presents to the ED with chief complaint of chest pain, onset two hours ago after he drank three bottles of beer, and—

“Much better since you took care of me last week!” he humphs, patting his stomach.

You snap out of your automatic charting that was droning on in your head on reflex from how many times Judge Jin has shown up to the ED for acute chest pain which almost always ends up just being beer-induced GERD.

“At the hospital!” you clarify, “for taking care of you at the hospital!”

The man laughs heartily from where he sits up at the raised platform bench. “Yes! And Mr. Gojo! Nice to see you as well.”

You flit your eyes to Gojo, like you know him too? He only briefly spares you a sidewards glance before looking back at Judge Jin. “Likewise, sir.”

You postulate he scammed the fuck out of the man into signing a forty-year lease on a condo in the shady part of town, and you’ll leave it at that.

“I have to say, I am a little shocked by this matrimonial partnership!” Judge Jin chimes in. “But do you both swear to enter this marriage under just circumstances? I will need verbal affirmation from you both.”

Gojo raises his hand up in the air to swear on it, and you remember that he’s possibly done this before. Y’know how people have a courtroom wedding before a real wedding, something like that. And maybe that’s why he knows to raise his hand, because you didn’t even know you were supposed to raise your hand until now.

A real wedding. Something you’ve pictured a lot in your head, and so much more different than the arrangement you find yourself in right now. And because the pain of imagining yourself tying the knot with someone is too much right now, especially when the man you thought you were going to marry stands in uniform five feet away from you and probably doesn’t even recognize the dress you’re wearing right now, you glance over to Gojo and you try to imagine what a real wedding would’ve been like for him. Since he’s done it before.

He probably had a tacky wedding, like in a barn with barrels of beer used as tables with barely flickering string lights hung across wooden planks high on a triangular ceiling. The reception and the ceremony likely happened under the same roof, because he seems like the minimalist type, more focused on the feelings behind it and all, and not the grandeur.

Or maybe he was into the grandeur. Maybe he had a wedding on a skyline penthouse in the city, wearing expensive cologne like the one he’s wearing now, and a Dior suit he got custom made because it was a once in a lifetime occasion so why not? The image becomes a little too vivid in your head now, where you can picture this woman he’s marrying too. Pretty, tall just like him, wearing a ball gown white dress. He would’ve told her she looked beautiful, too. He would’ve told her he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with her. Vows uttered shakingly into the microphone at an altar while the sun is setting far into the sky, shimmering off of high building windows until the air is golden and it reflects off of his and his soon-to-be wife’s face. And when they’ve professed their love for one another, he grabs her by the waist and dips her in a kiss, for the perfect picture against the perfect backdrop in front of all the perfect little people because there probably was a photographer at that event, wanting to capture the moment.

You snap out of the dazed moment when a loud voice calls out your name, and in a shock, you glance back up at Judge Jin who’s looking at you with slight irritation.

“Huh?” you squeak out, and then turn to look at Gojo, who’s got a look of mild concern on his face as he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Please swear that this marriage is under just circumstances,” Judge Jin states with a cadence that indicates he’s commanded this of you multiple times already.

“Oh!” you stand up straight, “I—…I’m sorry.” You hold your hand up. “Yes, I swear this marriage is under just circumstances.” Just like Higurama had you practice. He’d be proud. Phew, the hard part was over.

The rest of the ceremony goes by in a rather fast blur, and it’s a little awkward when you both have to tell Judge Jin that you don’t have any vows to exchange at the moment when he offers the time for them, but Gojo comes up with some lie about how the real vows will be at our formal ceremony, and Judge Jun seems entirely satisfied and a little too ecstatic by the answer before allowing you two and Hana to sign the marriage certificate.

“And rings?” Judge Jin asks as he peers down through his glasses to the paper he was holding at his desk. “We can now make time for the exchange of rings.”

You’re prepared for Gojo to come up with another lie about how the real rings will be at our formal ceremony, but you see him shuffling with something in his pocket in your periphery. Hm? You glance down at his hip, and you see him pull something shiny out.

He turns to face you, and he holds his hand out to you with an up-facing palm. You blink at him and then glance down at his hand. And then you look up and blink at him, and then glance down his hand. And then you look up and blink at him, and then gl—

“Give me your hand,” he says to you, a little hushed and rushed.

“Why???” you ask, baffled.

“So I can put a ring on your finger?” he says, like it’s the most casual thing. Like getting a ring slipped onto your fourth finger is the most casual Sunday for you, when it’s something you’ve dreamt of your whole entire life.

You finally take a long hard look at the ring he’s holding in his right hand. It shimmers with every glint of light in the courtroom off of every angle, no doubtedly precisely cut diamond from a jeweler who really cares about their craft, and you swear you’ve saved a similar looking ring to one of your Pinterest wedding boards before.

You hesitantly bring your hand up and hover it over his.

“Your left hand, silly,” he tells you.

“Oh, right,” you say, and hand him your left one instead.

He holds it in his hand that is much warmer than yours, and it’s so tender, the way he gently slips the ring onto your finger. It fits with ease, perfection actually, and you can’t help raising your hand up in the air, spreading your fingers weakly as you admire the stone now sitting above your knuckle. It’s pretty.

You feel Gojo’s eyes on you, as he’s halted in frame, and you glance past your hand to look at his face. You dislike him. You do. You should. He’s your annoying as fuck next-door-neighbor. So then why does your heart feel like it could burst right now?

A glimmer of silver catches your eye, and you look down at his hands as he slips a silver ring onto his left hand while facing you before he turns to face the front again, signaling the end of the ring exchange, except you didn’t get to put it on his hand. He didn’t give you the chance.

“Alright! Wonderful!” Judge Jin exclaims, whose eyesight is probably too poor to have seen that it wasn’t even a proper ring exchange. “With the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife!”

There is scattered applause across the courtroom, a few cheers as well, as you two stand in front of the court of law in holy matrimony.

Judge Jin glances at Gojo. “Well, young man, you may now kiss the bride!”

“Oh—…that—” you stutter, “that’s not necessa—”

“Okay,” Gojo says, more to affirm Judge Jin than in acknowledgement of your protest, and in a series of what feels like just one motion, he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you two him and then he—

He kisses you.

He kisses you like it’s real, like there’s history, like it’s a pure thing meant to last and not something you quite literally put a time stamp on. The kiss muffles the small sound that comes from your throat, your hands held up in the air in some slight surrender before they slowly settle on his shoulders as he bends you backwards over his forearm to deepen the kiss and the cheers surrounding you grow with a fervor that has your cheeks burning red but for some reason you don’t want it to end—

And then he pulls away from you, eyes darting across the features of your face in close proximity as he exhales slowly, like a release, and it feels like the two of you are the only ones in this room before he glances at your lips one last time and then he releases his hold on you. You stand shocked, and briefly glance at Choso, who looks like he’s about to burst a fuse off the top of his head.

What.

What.

What?

And just like that, you were married to your insufferable next-door neighbor.

.

.

.

[end of chapter 2]

a/n. thank youuu soooo so much for reading this chapter of ihm!! i’m kinda liking the writing style i’ve adopted for this series, it’s kinda lax n lenient sort of like a stream of consciousness and i hope it doesn’t come of too crass of informal lol i’m just playing around w some writing styles rn. ANYWHO i hope you enjoyed!! btw i picture choso as long-hair choso in any modern au (and not pigtails choso) so if you see me describing his hair in the way that i do, that’s why lol. love you all so much, hope to see you in the next one <3

➸ take me to chapter three!

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meme of the chapter:

[bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky]

Spooky Season | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Hi! Happy September 1st AKA HAPPY HALLOWEEN SEASON! 💀👻🎃

Warnings: fluff, me being overly excited about Halloween

Also please note that this one is super short and I wrote it on break at work

Bucky reflexively pulled the knife he kept hidden in his boot. Someone he didn’t recognize launched themselves at him just as he opened the door to the apartment you shared. This was his biggest fear. A Hydra holdout. A vengeful victim. Someone coming for him- for you- in the home you shared.

But as he tried to take down his assailant, he heard you squeal with laughter.

“Happy Halloween!”

Bucky took a second to refocus. It was then he realized that his attacker was actually a plastic skeleton. He sighed with relief and quickly sheathed his knife. Embarrassed.

“Ugh, I’m sorry, babe. I thought that would be a silly, spooky little prank…” you took his face in your hands and swept your thumbs over his cheekbones. “It was a bad idea.”

Bucky pulled your hands from his face and positioned them behind his neck instead. He knew you loved Halloween. And Wanda warned him about your affinity for all things spooky. But if it made you smile, he liked it too. He kissed you long and deep. You’d taken his breath away, and now he wanted to return the favor.

“So, it’s Halloween now, huh? I thought that wasn’t until the end of October…”

“Welllll, the Halloween season starts September first!”

You flashed him a jack o lantern grin. This was how things worked in your house. Every year in September first, your mom declared it “Halloween season”. She’d let you help decorate the house. And each year, things got more elaborate. She instilled in you a love for Halloween. And you kept her tradition alive.

“Oh, yeah? That wasn’t on my calendar…” Bucky teased. He loved your passion. Your sense of whimsy. There was something so freeing about your light hearted spirit. He was always so burdened. So weighed down by his past. But you were a welcome breath of fresh air. A warm breeze on a cold night. And even though he wasn’t the biggest fan of Halloween, who was he to rain on your parade.

“You wanna give me a tour then? Show me all your hard work?”

Another excited squeal pierced the air as you took him by the hand. Orange lights and fake cobwebs lined every doorway. A patch of Jack o lanterns sat in front of the fireplace. A garland of spiders hung from the mantle. And that was just the beginning.

“Okay, so we’ve got some spooky pillows and blankets for the couch,” you said. And Bucky’s eyes popped wide open at your definition of “some”. There were skeleton pillows and bat blankets. A small army of plush pumpkins. And a stuffed black cat with a collar that read “Binx”.

“Wow, looks cozy…” he tackled you to the couch and pulled a yelp from your chest. “Yup! It’s very cozy,” he confirmed as he sunk into the pillows. He held you tight to his body and reveled in your warmth. He could’ve stayed like this for days.

“Cozy and spooky”, you corrected, poking him in the chest. “Don’t forget spooky.”

“Of course, doll. My bad.” You shot him an affectionate eye roll as he reached for the candy bowl on the coffee table. “Great tour, doll. Absolutely loved it.” He tore into a Twix and gave you the first bite.

Obviously, there was more to see. But how could he resist eating candy and cuddling with his best girl? If this was what the Halloween season brought, he wasn’t going to complain.

But before he had the chance to enjoy his candy, you yanked him from the couch. Were you always this strong? Had you always been able to pull him around like a rag doll? Or did the Halloween season make you more powerful?

“So, as you’ve discovered, we’ve got a fully stocked candy bowl” you said. “And a bunch of little decorative witch plates in case you’re feeling fancy.” Finally, he popped the candy into his mouth. “Oh, and I have more candy locked and loaded for when you inevitably finish this by next week.” Bucky smiled at you, his lips smeared with chocolate.

The tour resumed as you tugged on his arm once again, dragging him toward the kitchen.

“Look at all the cookie jars!” A skull, a Jack o lantern, and a Frankenstein head sat on the counter. “They’re all full of Halloween Oreos right now- but I’m gonna make some Halloween cookies tomorrow!”

Bucky stole an Oreo from the skull and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. He loved seeing you so excited- and he loved snacks.

“And I’ve got these salt and pepper shakers that look like ghosts and- Oh! Look at these Ouja board plates!”

“These are perfect,” he laughed. “Now I can summon demons while we eat dinner.” You delivered a light punch to his arm. He faked an agonized groan.

The entire apartment was bathed in Halloween spirit. Like you’d dunked it in a can of black and orange paint. Ghosts, witches, mummies, and werewolves sat in every corner and adorned each room. Fall scented candles filled the room with autumn air. And the tv sat paused on Scream. For you, this was the most wonderful time of the year.

“Ooh! Candy corn!” Bucky reached into a glass jar shaped like a ghost and nabbed a handful. He dumped it in his mouth, and almost choked at your horrified expression.

“What?”

“Ew, Buck!”

“What?!”

“Candy corn is gross- that’s just for decoration!”

“What?!” he said a third time, his mouth full of candy. “Candy corn is delicious!”

You didn’t care that Bucky was the ex Winter Soldier. You didn’t care that he’d killed people. But liking candy corn? It was almost unforgivable.

“Wow…you think you know someone”. You narrowed your eyes at him. It was a betrayal, an offense to your sensibilities. “You’re skating on thin ice, Barnes”.

He pelted you with a piece of candy corn, “more for me then, dollface.”

You stuck your tongue out at him. He did the same, his mouth tinged orange. “Show me the rest, baby”, he said, his cheeky mood dissipating. This Halloween stuff meant a lot to you.

He could tell by the messy bun and your mismatched outfit you’d been decorating all day. And he knew you worked extra hard to get it done before he got home. You loved surprising him. And making his home a welcoming, cozy place sat at the top of your priority list. He deserved fun Halloween decor and over the top Thanksgiving feasts. Obnoxious Christmas lights and lovey-dovey Valentine’s Days. He’d missed so much, and you wanted to make up for it.

An instant smile stretched across your face. “I have to show you the best part!” You made Bucky promise to stay in the kitchen with his eyes closed. This was it- the pièce de résistance. The thing you’d been excited about all day. Was it silly? Yes. But you knew Bucky would love it. You grabbed your surprise from the bedroom and did your best to keep it concealed.

“Okay…open!”

Bucky removed his hand from his eyes and burst into laughter. But the laughter melted into a chorus of ‘awwwwww’.

There in your arms sat Alpine. Dressed in a little witch costume. She bonked her head against your hand and twirled her tail around your wrist.

“Oh my god- Alpine!” Bucky scratched under her chin. She purred for him and gave his hand a budge, asking for more pets.

“I’ve never seen a cuter witch”.

“Right! She kinda fought me on the hat, but now I think she likes it.”

Alpine pawed at Bucky, needy for his attention. This all felt so strange to him. So other-worldly. Only a few years ago, he’d been trapped in his own mind. He was abused. Miserable. Used. And now, he stood in the kitchen of the home he shared with his incredible girlfriend. He had a home. He had someone who loved him. And he had a tiny white cat wearing a Halloween costume.

“Okay- you’ve convinced me”. He pulled you close and sandwiched Alpine between your bodies. “Halloween is the best season.”

———————

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[weaselle]

Ant Cthulhu

Tumblr ate my story! Goodbye to. just. so many thousands of notes. This was one of my first stories that people on tumblr liked. So I’m making it a new post, so that people can find it. Plus, of all the thousands who read the first one or two installments, not nearly as many discovered that I had written a third and final installment that ends the story, so here is a chance at that. 

The story was inspired by a pair of observations on Tumblr, where users probablybadrpgideas and 20thcenturyvole said, respectively 

“if Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.” and “Well if a bunch of ants formed a circle in my house I’d certainly notice, try to figure out where they’d all come from, and possibly wreak destruction there.“

It gets just a little dark, but any story named for Cthulhu surely must have some death and destruction, right?

ANT CTHULHU

That’s why knowing and correctly pronouncing the true name is so important to the ritual. Imagine how impossible it would be to not go take a look if the circle of ants started chanting your name. And they’re like, you can’t leave because we drew a line made of tiny crystals - now you have to do us a favor. And you’re like, let’s just see where this goes “yup, you got me… what’s the favor?” and usually the favor is like, “kill this one ant for us” or “give me a pile of sugar” and you’re like… okay? and you do, because why not, it isn’t hard for you and boy is this going to be a fucking story to tell, these fucking ants chanting your name and wanting a spoonful of sugar or whatever. And SOMEtimes you get asked for things you can’t really do, one of them, she’s like, “I love this ant but she won’t pay any attention to me, make me important to her” and you’re like… um? how? So you just kill every ant in the colony except the two of them, ta-da! problem solved! and the first ant is like *horrified whisper* “what have I done” …. _____________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile another colony of ants invades your house, and evidently that last ant has gotten some of them to join her in a circle and taught them the ritual because you’re coming out of the bathroom one day and you hear the ants singing your name. Sure enough it’s that ant, but she’s dark and fucked up now, and she’s like, “kill the queen. I will rule this colony” and you’re like, sure, I guess I kinda owe her, and you do it. And she manages to become queen, and they worship you. Which is cool, you’re not, you know, very important in the human world, but to these ants you’re practically all-powerful.

Your beloved Naya doesn’t understand your fascination with the ants at all, but you easily train her to leave them alone. She’s such a good dog. The ants are horrified that you command such a beast.

You begin to realize can’t be just, doing everything a bunch of ants tell you to all the time. When would you watch Netflx? So you tend to only show up for super important ants; you teach them some extra words and when hear them you go see what’s up. Usually. Also though, you’ll show up to just your name, if you’re bored and you hear it. And, sometimes some of the ants are like, tell us more human names, and you’re kind of jealous of the idea of some other human diluting your private godhood, so you refuse. Your roommate Greg is like, yo, that’s fucking awesome, I want ant worshipers! But whenever he approaches any, they run away, because it turns out that the illusion of control from the named summoning is what makes them feel safe around you. That’s great, because Greg is a dick who never does the dishes, and one day you decide to teach Greg a lesson. So you show up at the colony, and you’re like, “yo, witch queen, did you think there would be no price for all these things? Your colony must do something for me, go to the Room of the Housemate, I will meet you there.” And you go sit on the couch and play Overwatch for a while. You’re like, right there, you can clearly see the ants all marching along the wall to Greg’s room, but to them you’re not even there, you’re so far away they can’t see you. It takes them, like, an ant week to make the journey. They have to figure out ways to get over and around things. Some of them drown, or get stepped on by the dog, or whatever. You win a game, you lose a game, you look over, and they’re trying to get through some cobwebs… looks like they’re mostly going to live, you keep playing, you look over, okay they’re all in there, and you stand up and walk over and by the time they’ve chanted your name once, you’re there. “right, hold on” and you look around and you see a twelve-pack of Greg’s precious fucking soda, that he keeps in his room and refuses to ever share, even though it’s a communal food household and you share your hot chocolate with him all the time. So you gather the ants unto you, and you poke a little hole in each of the sodas and you leave the room to the sound of the ants rejoicing. Greg will suspect of course, but he’ll never be able to prove the ants didn’t chew holes in the plastic and steal his stupid drinks.

He actually tries to blame it on Naya. What a prick. You insist with wide eyes that the ants must have found it somehow — maybe he shouldn’t leave soda pop laying around his room. But later, while you’re at work, Greg destroys most of the colony in a rage, and you come home to find the witch queen gasping her last. “The Dew of the Mountain, which you had us steal, was cursed - and so I lay my curse on you” she manages, and then she dies. Well first of all, you don’t really believe in curses, but last month you didn’t believe ants could know your name, so that’s unsettling. And second of all, you feel kind of bad. You know, not SUPER bad, cause she’s like, an ant. But still. And most importantly, third of all, Greg must pay. Like some kind of movie villain, you pet your loving Naya and say out loud “Oh yes, and pay he will.”

But Greg has done more than kill a bunch of the colony. As you wait for eggs and pupae to replenish the ant population, you discover he has found some ants that didn’t go on the Mountain Dew raid, and he’s spared them, told them his name.

He’s made himself a good sized cult in YOUR fucking ant queendom. Greg has started locking his door. So now you NEED the ants. Once again you direct the ants loyal to you to journey to Greg’s room. You meet them at the door. A locked door means nothing to the ants, they don’t even know there is a door, and can barely perceive the difference between it being open and shut - either passing the threshold on the floor regardless, or being on its surface no matter the position. But you need them to get inside. You’re going to put itching powder in his underwear drawer and leave a raw fish under his bed. So you instruct the leading party of ants how to go into the Cave of Keyhole, and position the Magic Megaliths inside just right to enable the opening of the Great Door and allow you to pass into the Realm of Housemate. Crouched by the door, you can hear when your ants are met by a party of Greg Cultists, who insist that if the Great Door is opened, the colony will be doomed. There is fighting. Your ants prevail, the lock tumblers are moved into place, and you swing the door open… To find Greg! In his room all along! It’s a trap! His cultists attack you! I mean, they can’t do much real harm, but it kind of hurts and it’s super annoying. You order your ants to attack him, and they do, but he storms over and pours bleach down the colony entrance.

It’s the end of their world. Now you and Greg are at war, and you both understand the unspoken rules to your fight. You can’t do things directly to each other, why, that would be assault. But anything you can get your ants to do is fine, because “she told the ants to do it to me” isn’t going to get very far with any authority figures that get involved. Later, nursing your anger, you confer with your few remaining ants and stare moodily at your new prize, the ant farm that came in the mail. It will take time to integrate them- your ants have to get access to the new ants’ scent marker chemicals and go undercover. Meanwhile, you’ve got a laptop schematic to go over with your high priestess. It’s finals week, and if you time it right, he’ll lose everything. … You look down into the summoning ritual. The current high priestess, Zé, is an ant of great influence and personality - you quite like her, inso far as a human can be friends with an ant that worships them. You thought the new queen would become the next high priestess, but according to Zé the queens don’t like to come out of the colony after they shed their wings. Plus they are very busy laying eggs and supervising the care of their ant larvae. Zé says it’s a better deal for you, this way your high priestess can have the time and energy to really serve your interests, and wield an authority among the colony that is purely yours - no conflict of interest, and no baby making duties. It’s really just what’s best for both you and the colony queen to have her as high priestess, she informs you, making you laugh at her flattery-wrapped ambition. There’s no laughing this evening though. It’s serious business on the docket tonight. “O wise and ancient entity of power, you grace us with your presence!” and for formality’s sake, she intones the additional ritual greeting from their holy books “You Look Fantastic, Have You Done Something New With Your Hair?” Ants don’t really understand hair. You respond as you have become accustomed “Thank You, Yes.” It’s just easier. They mean well. Mystic greeting complete, Zé and the rest of the dark clergy move straight to business. Several 10s of them line up in formation, creating a diagram of the apartment complex. You had to coach them into how to make it, as far as they are concerned it’s a complex sigil that conveys knowledge to you - for creatures that traverse the building in long journeys along the pipes in the walls and in the spaces between the lower ceiling and upper floor, it looks nothing like the apartment complex as they know it. Zé claims to understand it, but secretly you suspect she’s just mostly cementing her authority among the clergy. She has, usefully, memorized which parts of the sigil correspond with what parts of the building, and that’s good enough for your purposes. “O mighty being, we have done as instructed. Our scouts had to search wide for them, but we have left the corpses of many termites in all the locations you specified, every night this week. “Very good,” you assure them, “and the Greggorites?” “Our spies among them have learned of their next attack. We should be able to influence their timing somewhat.” “Good. And..” your eyes narrow, “the other thing?” “Ah, yes.” Zé’s antennae wave and dip in that way you know means she is uncomfortable. “to the best of our ability to find out, the… Antifreeze initiative was entirely conceived of by the Demon Lord Greg.” “Just Greg,” you tell Zé with bitter hatred as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. “Greg is not a lord, just a fucking prick who’s going to get what’s coming to him. I swear by all of creation he will.” “Is there…” Zé trailed off and tried again. “O Deity of my heart, far be it from me to question Your Exaltedness, but help your poor servant to understand… your plans have become, ah, they seem perhaps, I am sure I am wrong, but they seem, overly audacious? Your recent change in demeanor has made some of us nervous - not me! - but some of the less devout among my sistren, have become… concerned.” Your fists clench. “I don’t expect you to get it. I’m pretty certain none of you could possibly understand.” Your voice breaks. You clench your teeth. You won’t, you won’t cry in front of your ant worshipers. You lean down and say in the strangled half whisper that is the only way you can force the words past the lump in your throat, “He killed my dog, Zé…” The ants flee the sound of your terrible wailing. The great Finals Erasure had worked to more devastating effect than you had anticipated, and things had… escalated. Then Greg proved himself to be less human than the ants , who themselves had turned out to be such surprising little beings. So. The orders for the heinous deed did in fact come from him. Now, there are things that have to be done. You call the ants back out of hiding and get to work. In the end, it was easier than you thought it would be. You talk to all the neighbors, without Greg. You hide the relevant pieces of mail. You have the scuba gear and the stuff from the sex shop shipped to a friend’s house. You ensure your spies among the Greggorites have escape plans, though Zé assures you they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the cause. “I’m not that kind of Deity,” you tell her. The night before, your ants slip a double dose of tylenol p.m. into Greg’s milkshake. You almost laugh; all your efforts to make sure there is only soup to make for dinner, and he comes home with Burger King. He sleeps so soundly that he never comes close to waking the whole time you are attaching the padded bondage equipment to his limbs and hiding with him in the closet. The walk through by the company inspectors that morning is a tense moment, but as you suspect, they don’t open the closets. After they leave to do their work outside, you finish your work inside, tying Greg to his bed. By the time he starts to wake up, you are sitting in a chair in the doorway to his bedroom, with your mask on. The air is beginning to thicken and discolor. Greg coughs around his ball gag and opens his eyes. You feel curiously calm and empty. “Hi, Greg.” Your voice is muffled, “You like my dive mask?” Greg makes an angry questioning noise, spread eagled to the full extension of his limbs. “Oh, yeah, that must be uncomfortable. Can’t give you enough slack to jerk against the ropes, though, or you might leave tell-tale bruises through the padding.” More angry noises, coughing. “Hhhmm? Oh, did I forget to tell you? It’s termite day, Greg, they’ve tented the house. That’s Sulfuryl Fluoride you’re breathing. You’ll cough for a bit, you’ll throw up, and your heart will stop.” He’s thrashing around as much as the ropes will allow, which isn’t a lot. He’s pretty energetic about it, though; maybe he can’t hear you over his efforts. “You shouldn’t have meddled around with godhood, it didn’t suit you. Power compromised your judgement. You definitely shouldn’t have fucking killed my dog, Greg” You’re suddenly filled with rage. You need to know he hears you. You stride over to the bed and grab him by the throat. Not too hard, you try to remember through your anger, no bruises. The grip is enough to make Greg stop thrashing and look at you with wide wide eyes. “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKING KILLED NAYA YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHY? WHY? HOW COULD YOU!? SHE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!” Just as suddenly, your anger is gone. You feel tired. You look down at him and shake your head.”Time to die, Greg.” You cross the room and sit back down in your chair in the doorway. Watching him die isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as watching Naya suffer through acute kidney failure. Afterwards, you take off all the bondage gear, throw it in a duffel bag. You leave through the back, rolling out from under the fumigation tent against the back fence, and packing the scuba gear into the duffel before you climb into the neighbors yard. A month later, you’re moving from town to town. The colony has become so large you’re going to need a bigger truck full of clay for them to live in. Maybe an old Uhaul. The ants bring you a newspaper. They bring you everything now, food, money, information. Word of how you value the life of each individual ant has spread through the colony, and reports brought back from the apartment by scouts confirming your status as a godslayer has …elevated… their worship of you. You open the newspaper to find Greg’s death has made the papers. No suspicion of foul play despite the exterminator company lawyers insisting on an autopsy. Tylenol p.m. in his system accounted for his presence in the building, it was decided, and the failure of the inspectors to notice Greg in bed during their walk through was settled out of court, paid off by their insurance. The ants bring you a conga line of grapes, peeling them for you while you stare off into space. A small line of ants brings the peels back to the colony larder. You’re going to have to teach them how to disable cameras - the leaked security footage of hundred dollar bills slipping themselves out under the bank doors has caused a bit of a stir on some parts of the internet… you eat another grape, and count your money. As usual you put half of it in an envelope, uncapping a sharpie to write “From Naya” on it. The ants will slip it under the door of the local animal shelter for you tonight. END

_____________________________________________________________________

so, looking back, I feel I should tell you that when I wrote the final chapter of this I had just become homeless and had to leave my dog in a better home than I could provide. It’s cool, we still see each other a lot these days, I was just real sad about it and it effected what I wrote. Anyway, that’s the Ant Cthulhu story

[grumpyhedgehogs]

Nameless

Virgil never uses Deceit's real name. It doesn’t have to be a thing. It’s not a thing.

It’s not.

~

They don’t actually call on Janus that much in the beginning. He supposes he understands, in a bitter sort of way; Roman is still smarting from letting him into the fold and Patton is trying to soothe everyone’s ruffled feathers and Janus is pretty sure Logan is at least a little upset that he’s been pushed to the fringes of two videos by Deceit.

Janus carefully does not think about how Virgil is taking things.

So he’s startled, just a little, when Patton rises up in his room one night. He looks just as out of place as he actually is, and Janus has a hard time not hissing at the intrusion. This is totally not his private space.

“Patton, it’s such a pleasure to see you. Please, come in, invade my personal domicile.”

“Oh thanks--wait, are you actually happy to see me? I can never tell with you.”

Patton is wringing his hands. Janus takes pity on them both and tips his hat further back to survey the other side clearly. He’s nervous, but not overly so. Not like a certain other side could be once upon a time, when he wasn’t sure he was welcome in Janus’s room. Not that Janus is thinking about anyone in particular or anything.

“What do you need, Patton?”

Morality blanches for a second before drawing up his courage. He has a very expressive face. Janus does not acknowledge the tiny swell of warmth that curls in his chest.

“I wanted to know why you aren’t coming to the videos more often.”

Janus stares. Patton blinks back.

“What?”

Patton goes back to wringing his hands. “Is it-- is it something we did? If it’s about Roman, he’s--well he’s working on it, but it’s safe for you to come down now, I just...I want everyone to be okay.”

“I--” Janus clears his throat which seems too tight suddenly. “I was unaware that you would have liked my presence so often.”

“I meant my apology, Janus,” Patton says. He looks so soft Janus wants to hiss instinctively. He refrains, but only just. “Everyone is welcome. Everyone.”

Janus nods woodenly. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t really know how.

Maybe that’s okay.

~

He doesn’t come to every video, and he always makes them wait for his dramatic entrance when they call his name. Just because they know it now doesn’t mean Janus will come like a trained dog.

Still, Logan almost never calls on him, so when he hears the logical side scream for him with more desperation than he’s ever known him to possess, Janus comes running.

“What.”

Something’s been off for a while now, but Janus’s room is farther away from the common area than the others’ are, so he’s managed to ignore it. It was just Virgil doing his job; he’d felt the roiling in his stomach and the ache in his chest but Virgil hadn’t introduced a panic attack for months, so he’d thought it would pass. Janus had assumed it was something innocuous, an audition he’d forgotten about or a new friend coming over when Thomas hadn’t cleaned in a while.

He should have known what happened when he assumed.

“Janus, you’re right on time,” Logan says. He’s so dry Janus still isn’t sure when he’s joking, but he takes one look at Logan’s face--pale and wan and more than a little gaunt--and straightens his back in reaction. He looks around for the source of what’s disturbed Logan so.

The common room is in shambles.

The couch is overturned, the television is cracked and fallen on its side. The blinds are ripped. There’s cobwebs everywhere and shadows lick at the corners of the ceiling.

On the stairs, the three other sides huddle, looking like a particularly ragged bunch of kicked puppies. Logan is the only one standing, his hands woven through the bars of the stairway to clutch at someone’s sleeve. He’d turned his head towards Janus when he’d appeared but hadn’t gone to greet him. Roman is sitting on the bottom stair, katana across his knees; his knuckles are white around the hilt and his eyes are darting. Patton is half hidden behind Creativity, crouching with his back to Janus. He’s whispering reassurances and doesn’t pause when the others speak. He’s reaching out to something--someone--but Janus can’t see what.

“It’s Virgil,” Logan says tightly and Janus’s throat constricts.

He shakes it off, though, and steps up beside Logic to get a better view. Virgil is curled in on himself, so much so that only his purple bangs show. His hood is up and his head is buried in his arms. He’s shaking and small and Janus can hear his breath rattling from here.

“What’s wrong?” Virgil flinches and Patton squeezes his arms where he’s gripped them just below the shoulder, cooing. His eyes are wide and scared when he looks at Janus, but Janus just holds up a hand. “What’s happened, Virgil?”

There’s a small, sharp gasp, and the side looks up. Janus catches his hiss before it can crawl up his throat, but it’s a near thing. Virgil is always pale, but his skin is translucent now and his veins show black against his face. His eyes are glowing above shadows black as the pits of hell.

“Thomas is being followed,” Virgil tells him, voice reverberating so much it shakes the walls. “No one would listen to me all morning but he’s there, he’s on the bus, he moved two rows up to sit behind Thomas, I can feel his breath on the back of Thomas’s neck. He’s going to trap us, he’s going to follow us home.”

Roman and Patton open their mouths, maybe to ask for more information, maybe to deny involvement, but Janus cuts his hand through the air and clutches at the banister next to Logan. “When did you notice him?”

“He followed Thomas for ten blocks before we got on the bus.” Virgil’s eyes flick to the side, checking on their host. He refocuses on Janus and his irises have been completely swallowed now. Janus suppresses a wince; it hasn’t gotten this bad in a long time. “Please, Deceit. You have to help Thomas.”

Something in Janus squeezes and twists, but he slaps on a smirk anyway. “It’s what I do best, dear Virgil. Leave it to me.”

Deceit convinces Thomas to get off the bus early. He advises Thomas to call Joan and wait in the Starbucks next to the bus stop until they can walk with him. He makes sure the man with the baseball cap stays well away in the meantime and that Thomas never puts his phone down in case he needs the police. It’s a close thing, and Janus’s teeth are on edge the whole time, but Thomas is safe and sound at the end of the night and Virgil has calmed when he gets back.

“Hey, Deceit,” Virgil says when Janus goes to sink out. He’s still curled up on the stairs, but his influence has died down a bit and he’s not hiding his face anymore. The others have wandered back to their rooms, now that the uproar is over, but Janus knows Virgil will stay to keep an eye on things, just in case. The words he says next sound clunky and wrong in his mouth. “Thank you. You saved Thomas.”

Janus smiles and it feels strange on his face, so he sinks out instead of answering.

~

The second time Janus notices it is vastly less dire. Somehow, that makes it worse. More noticeable, perhaps. No danger for either of them to focus on.

Patton has instituted a weekly family dinner. They’re only just now inviting Remus to every other week’s dinner, since Roman can only recreate the common room’s furniture so many times before getting exhausted. Janus, apparently, has a standing invitation but he can’t deny that it still feels strange, popping in like he’s not going to be attacked if he shows his true face. To combat this awkwardness, Patton sends a new side to get him every time. Logan has had the most success in easing Janus’s mood, due in no small part to their shared interest in debate. He must say combating Logic is a fulfilling challenge. Patton himself, of course, simply does not take no for an answer and so he is Janus’s second favorite by default.

Roman is...not ready yet for more than a sharp rap of his knuckles on his door, but Janus appreciates the effort it takes the other side for even that. It’s a work in progress.

So when there’s a light tap on the yellow wood, he assumes perhaps Patton himself has decided to greet him slightly less boisterously than usual and pulls it open without ceremony. (Well, not much ceremony. He is part of Thomas, after all.)

Virgil takes a startled step back. His hands are shoved into his pockets and his head is down. Janus can barely see his eyes through his fringe.

“Oh.” Janus says. “You..are Patton.”

The corner of Virgil’s mouth twitches. He jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “Dad says dinner’s ready.”

Janus raises an eyebrow just to be contrary. He can’t capitulate to every request just like that; he has appearances to maintain.

Virgil rolls his eyes. “You’re supposed to be there, Deceit.”

Janus grits his teeth, looking away. “Right. Well. Thanks.”

When he looks back, there’s a strange expression on the other side’s face, like he can’t quite figure Janus out. He shrugs and turns, ambling back down the stairs.

Dinner is not as quiet and awkward as it was at first, but with Roman still sulking and Virgil’s natural propensity for silence, Logan and Patton are hard pressed to make up for Janus’s current lack of enthusiasm. He spends the night with something not quite angry, not quite sad, and not quite resigned twisting in his gut.

Janus nearly doesn’t stay for dessert, but pauses when a slice of lemon pie is shoved under his nose. He blinks for a moment before looking up at Patton’s smiling face. “Virgil told me it was your favorite?” He asks hopefully.

Janus blinks and looks at Virgil. Virgil hunches his shoulders up to his ears and shrugs. “It is,” he mutters to the floor. The pressure in Janus’s chest doesn’t go away but it does recede. A little, anyway.

Janus eats the pie, more confused than he was before.

~

“Janus,” Roman says, a little stiffly. Janus leans against his door jamb and arches his eyebrows. “Come on. Everyone’s waiting.” He sinks out before Janus can ask what, but that's alright. He already knows, and if anyone (Remus) asks, he is definitely not smiling as he sinks out.

With family dinner nights comes movie afternoons and marathon days on the weekends. Thomas has never quite gotten over ABC Family discontinuing Harry Potter Weekends. Janus can’t really blame him, to be honest.

“You’re supposed to be wearing a onesie,” is the first thing out of Virgil’s mouth when he pops in to watch Marvel movies that afternoon. Janus snorts at him, disgruntled, and sits primly on the edge of the couch when Thomas pats the space beside him absently. Roman has taken a place on the floor and Logan has the armchair, apart but still near. Patton smiles brightly from where he lays with his head in the prince’s lap, waving his hand excitedly before letting an explosion on-screen tear his attention away. Virgil is on Janus’s other side, pressed against the armrest with one knee drawn up to his chest. There’s a careful three inches of space between them that Janus is hyper aware of.

“Logan isn’t wearing a onesie.”

Virgil shrugs, seemingly uncaring of the side sitting next to him. After a second there’s a lull in the action on the television and Janus catches him moving out of the corner of his eye. Not that he was looking at Virgil, of course. He just. Noticed it.

He tilts his head a little, glancing at the other side out of the corner of his eye--it’s his snake eye, does it still scare Virgil these days?--to find Virgil has a little smile on his face. He leans his temple on his knee and, miracle of miracles, winks at Janus and whispers conspiratorially. “Logan’s weird.”

Janus snorts. He pulls his gloves off absently, setting them, his cape and hat on his knees before leaning back into the cushions gingerly. “You can say that again.”

“Falsehood,” sounds at the same time as Patton’s “That again!” and Janus does not smile.

Virgil shifts a little. It’s so small it could be nothing but--but if Janus just leans a little further back they could be touching shoulders.

“Come on Deceit.” Virgil says, eyes on the screen again. “Live a little.”

Janus’s stomach turns to stone. He doesn’t stay for the whole movie.

~

“Hey Janus!” Thomas says brightly. How he can have so much energy after shooting a video all day, Janus may never know, although he does think maybe it has something to do with Remus convincing Thomas to spike their coffee with Red Bull all morning. They’re all going to pay for that tonight, Janus just knows it. No one sane puts Remus in charge of their digestive tract.

“Thomas,” Janus inclines his head, “you called?”

Thomas called him. Thomas wanted to see him. Him. Janus. Sometimes Janus still can’t believe it.

“Yeah, hey, listen.” Thomas scuffs the back of his neck and Janus narrows his eyes. Oh, this had better be good. “I’ve got some more shooting to do later, it’s for another video after this one but…”

He trails off, and they’re left standing in a very awkward silence. Janus crosses his arms and waits. And waits. By God, this is where he gets his flare for the dramatic, isn’t it?

“What’s wrong, Thomas?” Janus asks drily. “Snake got your tongue?”

“No sorry.” Thomas laughs but nerves still tinge it. “I just--this new video, it’s not gonna have you in it. Okay?”

Oh. Okay. It’s the most recent video that’ll have no place for Janus in it since his name drop but that’s fine. It’s fine. It’s not like they’re going to replace him. Janus can handle it.

Janus narrows his eyes. “You’re not going to ask Leslie Odom Jr. to come back, are you?”

“What? No. I mean, that’d be so cool, but no. He’s got, like, other stuff to do.”

Okay, Janus can definitely handle this. “Well I’m completely devastated, Thomas. I can’t believe you’d do this to me. After all we’ve been through too; really, I’m wounded.”

His host rolls his eyes and chuckles at him. Janus feels warm and content and he can maybe see why the Light Sides want to do this all the time. Maybe. He’s not gone all the way soft, after all. “Yeah, okay, drama queen. If it makes you feel better, Virgil’s gonna be hanging back too. You two could hang out!”

Janus thinks back to the times before all this, when he’d let Virgil into his room and rest an arm around him during the panic attacks and cook him dinner and share a blanket with him on movie nights. For a second the old, familiar ache is gone, his heart is whole and he is light as a feather.

Then he remembers the sound of “Deceit” leaving Virgil’s mouth at the drop of a hat and shoves it all away before it can hurt him again.

“Yeah right, that’ll be the day,” Janus says and sinks out before Thomas can ask what he means.

~

“Deceit! Hey, Deceit, stop for a minute.”

Janus does not stop. In fact, he takes the stairs two at a time and barrels down the hallway.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

Janus hisses air out between his teeth, seething. He’d almost managed to get into his room unnoticed. Almost. Damn Virgil and his skill of popping up where he’s least wanted.

He turns, dread making his stomach go cold, and there Virgil is, hands curled in his sleeves. He’s hunched over again, worried and trying to hide it. If Janus didn’t feel so cornered or hunted or goddamn tired of this, he’d take pity on the side.

“Whatever do you mean, Virgil? I’m not doing anything like that.”

Virgil shifts on his feet, worrying his bottom lip before seeming to steel himself. “That’s bull and you know it. Thomas said you were running away from me for some reason and I’d like to know what it is.”

“Yeah, well, turnabout’s fair play, isn't it?” Janus snaps.

Virgil looks--surprised, Janus supposes, but it’s more than that. Lost, a little afraid. He’s still so young. Janus can remember when he was small enough to fit in Janus’s arms, when he’d left him onto his shoulders and let Virgil wear his hat on his tiny head--

Those days are over.

“What--what’s that supposed to mean?”

Janus laughs and it’s nearly as ugly as anything Remus could come up with. Virgil flinches. “I think you know exactly what it means.”

“Uh, I really don’t.”

“Well maybe you should figure it out.”

“Hey, what the hell man?” Virgil scowls. “Stop treating me like an idiot just because I don’t know what’s going on with you. At least I’m asking.”

“Oh you--” Janus whirls on him. He strides forward, one step, two, three. He’s nose to nose with Virgil but the anxious side doesn’t take a step back like he would have years ago by reflex. He’s grown so much and Janus was never there to see it. “You, you want to know what’s wrong, huh? Well, congratulations, now you're part of the club.”

“Deceit, what--”

“I asked you a thousand times!” He screams at Virgil. “I asked you what was wrong and I had Remus ask you what was wrong and I tried to understand you but you didn’t let me!”

Virgil gaps at him, staring, but Janus can’t stop now. The dam has been broken.

He throws his hands in the air, gesturing at nothing, mouth working against a silent scream. “I wanted to help you, Virgil, and you left! You never even gave me or Remus a chance to help you. You ran away from me and you didn’t look back.”

Something in Virgil’s eyes hardens now and he snaps his jaws shut with a click. “Deceit, that’s not fair.”

“Fair? Fair? You wanna talk about fair? I fucking raise you, I was there for you, and you turned your back on me. You dropped me like a rock and now that you can’t avoid me, you can’t even use my real name!”

“I didn’t know I was allowed to!”

That stops him, trips Janus’s words up on his tongue. He steps back instinctively, like Virgil’s just punched him. He feels winded. “Wh-what?”

Virgil’s hands are clenched into fists but they stay at his sides. His eyes are burning and the shadows underneath them are darkening rapidly but he stands his ground. His voice wavers but carries. “I-I left. You’re right about that. And I know, I know I could’ve handled it better. I just--”

Virgil breaks off, huffs, drags a hand through his hair. He looks away, impatient, like he’ll find the words he wants scrawled on the walls. “I just didn’t know I could reach out to you, okay? I didn't--I didn’t learn that. I never knew how to lean on people or trust people or be kind until I came here because-- because you never seemed like you could get hurt. I didn’t have to learn that with you because I--I didn’t know I could hurt you like that.”

Janus opens his mouth, but Virgil plows on, picking up steam. He has both hands in his hair now, tugging harshly and Janus almost reaches out to gentle their grip before stopping himself. “I didn’t realize that you-- you were my friend.” Virgil sniffles now and Janus feels his heart thaw and break at the same time. “I--you were my family and I left and then the Light Sides taught me what that meant and by then I’d been gone so long. How could I go back? What right did I have to do that to you after I left how I did?”

He pauses but Janus can’t seem to find words for the first time in his life. For a moment there is silence and then, very slowly, Virgil drops his hands. He nods, not quite meeting Janus’s eyes, and sniffles again. His face is turned away now but Janus can see the tear tracks on his cheeks. “You came in here and you’re--you’re here, you know? And the others are trying, like they did with me but you told them your name, not me. So I just-- I didn't think you'd want me to use it.”

“You already knew my name.” It’s all Janus can think to say.

Virgil looks up.

Janus steps closer, frowning. But his chest feels light, like he’s finally slipped a metal band he didn’t know was around his lungs this whole time. “You knew my name before--before you left. So, why not use it? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Virgil furrows his brow. “It wasn’t my choice; it was not my secret to tell. It was yours. And you told Patton and Roman, and Logan’s kind of a package deal with them, so. You chose to give it to them. You just got stuck with me in the beginning.”

“And you aren’t a part of the package deal? Not even after all this time?”

Virgil smiles and it is like cracked glass in a mirror. “I guess I don’t really belong anywhere.”

“Yes you do,” Janus says. “ You always did. You always will.” The heat in his chest is boiling now, rising up his throat and into his face and spreading to his fingertips and he reaches out before he can stop himself. He reaches out and Virgil reaches back and suddenly they’re there. Together. And Virgil buries his face in his shoulder, and Janus shudders and curls closer and they both don’t mention how wet their faces are and they’re both laughing, maybe, or crying but it doesn’t really matter.

And Janus says, “I missed you, Virgil.”

And Virgil says, “Welcome home, Janus.”

[bubblegumbeech]

Pieces of Time CH:2

Day fourteen Ectoberhaunt: Mimic vs Music Box

AO3

Ch 1: Here   on AO3

The place they end up landing is in the middle of a smaller residential area. A place where even if someone did call the cops upon seeing their strange suspicious craft, they were more likely to be waved off than believed. Tucker clicked the keys auto lock and the Specter Speeder beeped. 

“Okay so where do we go from here?” he asked Sam.

She took out one of her books. “To be honest I’m not really sure, it does give a general location and an estate name. The family home apparently got turned into an occult business before becoming the main headquarters of the circus, but there’s really no way to know if they’re still in business, or even if they are, if they’ve stayed in the same place,” she said, flipping through the pages. 

“Sure there is,” Tucker said, taking out his PDA. “Let’s see, Showenhower Inc… Okay, I’ve got a current address, and it’s not actually far. Follow me.”

Keeping the GPS glued to his face, Tucker walked around the corner. Sam and Danny shared a shrug and followed before running into his back. It turned out that when Tucker said they were close, he meant they were literally right there. 

It was clearly an old, dilapidated building that had probably once been a large mansion with a grand estate. Now, it still had most of the mansion in more or less one piece, but a large (and very faded) sign was plastered above the front door that said: Selling your Dreams and Wishes! The Circus of Occult. On every side were crammed smaller buildings that had clearly been built decades after the mansion, on property that was sold bit by bit as the Showenhauer estate lost money. 

All in all it was pretty much exactly what the trio had been expecting, except slightly worse.

“So do we knock?” Tucker asked, turning off the GPS on his PDA.

Sam smacked him lightly on the back of his head. “Yeah, Tucker, let's alert the Showenhower family that we’re here to steal a priceless artifact of theirs, because that makes sense. Let’s tell them we have a ghost with us too, and ask if they can show us how their mind control magic works.”

“You keep arguing and they’ll find us out anyways.” Danny said, transforming into his ghost form before grabbing them both by the collars of their shirts and flying in through a side wall. 

It was dark inside, and dusty. Danny was beginning to suspect that no one had actually been there since Freak Show had started his stupid circus. Or his family had. Actually Danny wasn’t sure which came first, the circus or him. Tucker coughed.

“I’m starting to think walking in the front door won’t have made a difference. This place is empty as hell,” he said, trying to wave away some of the dust.

Sam hummed in acknowledgement, “Well, if it is empty our job just got easier, right Danny?”

“Right.” he lit up an ecto-blast in his palm and the hallway they had phased into glowed an eerie green. Other than the thick cloud of dust, the place also had large spots of mold and old dry cobwebs, long abandoned by their spiders. 

He couldn’t help but think that this place screamed trap.

Sam took point when she noticed Danny hesitate, leading them down the hall and to the left. The first room they passed was an open foyer, with creepy, gothic decorations Sam would probably love to take home and a thick layer of dust coating the carpet. “There’s a bunch of places the Eye could be, now normally I’d suggest splitting up-”

“No way in hell,” Tucker interrupted. He got a quick smack in the back of his head for the trouble.

Danny opened the next door they came across, it was a small closet, nothing but dusty old coats and moth balls. He sneezed, quickly closing the door and heading to the next one. The place certainly looked empty so far, he couldn’t imagine anyone willing to live with this much dust. Of course, there was more than the living they had to worry about. 

“As I was saying,” Sam continued, “That’s what I’d suggest normally, but since we aren’t in Amity Park and we don’t know how strong this relic is, we should stick together just in case. It could be an anti-ghost thing like Freakshow’s staff, so we’ll need both me and Tucker if things go sideways.”

“Sounds good,” Danny nodded and turned to go down the hall. “Let’s head down first, I feel like the basement is the best place to start.”

Tucker was still rubbing the bump on his head. “You know, violence in a relationship leads to some pretty steep slopes.”

Sam grabbed his sleeve and dragged him along, following Danny’s lead.

They had gotten deeper into the bowls of the old mansion, stopping and looking in pretty much every room they passed to no avail when Danny stopped, startling the other two. 

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

Danny shushed her quickly. “Do you hear that?”

Sam and Tucker both shared a concerned look before closing their eyes and trying to listen. It was almost silent with only the soft creaking of the house settling, the gentle rhythm of the trio’s breathing…

And a quiet, barely there song, like something out of a music box. 

“That can’t be good,” Tucker whispered, opening his eyes and looking into the dark shadows of the hallway before them. 

Danny looked around too, his eyes were better for the dark, and his own glow helped. But there wasn’t anything around them, just the old, crumbling walls of the house.

“We have to keep going.” He started to walk forward. Two pairs of hands grabbed at his arms and he was pulled back.

Sam’s face was way too close, and she was frowning. She grabbed his chin and tilted his head this way and that before lifting the skin of his eyelid a bit and checking his gaze. 

She let him go and turned to Tucker. “He doesn’t look possessed, or like he’s being controlled.”

“That’s a good sign, that means it’s not a mind controlling music box then,” Tucker replied, typing something into his PDA. “I’m finding a lot on ‘creepy haunted music boxes’, so we’ll have to get more information. Like what it looks like. Hey Danny, would you say it’s making your head spin, or drawing you towards it?” 

“I’m not-“ Sam pulled one of his hairs, “Ow! Sam, I’m fine. We need to follow it so we can find where they might be keeping the Eye.”

Sam raised her hands and shrugged. “We just wanted to make sure. We do this with affection, you know.”

He rolled his eyes, pushed through them to hide his blush, and rounded the corner.

There was a laugh and the sound of footsteps running past. He felt the hairs on his neck stand.

What was in here with them? 

“Danny, did you hear that too?” Tucker asked, holding his PDA to his chest.

“Yeah,” he kept walking. They were never going to get anywhere if every suspicious sound had them freezing in place. “I think this place might be haunted.”

The chorus of annoyed moans behind him helped to offset the mood, and before he knew it they were before a door, imbedded slightly into the ground at the end of the hallway. 

“This must lead down to the basement. How sure are we that this Eye will be here anyways?” Tucker asked, not looking up from his PDA. 

“Where else would it be?” Danny rolled his eyes, grabbing the PDA from Tucker to see what he’d been looking at. He’d been making a map of the inside of the mansion, not playing Tetris or Doom like Danny had hoped (if only so he could tease him about it). Danny tossed it back quickly when Tucker kicked his shin.

“Not cool dude,” he said, lovingly petting at the PDA, “And honestly? Anywhere. It could be literally anywhere. Who's to say we’re the first to try and steal it? What if the staff was a recreation of a recreation? What if the whole thing was a coincidence. I mean, we never found anything about the Time Keepers Eye, but I don’t think you can control ghosts with it. That’s a weird power for a recreation to have right?”

Danny sighed, he hadn’t thought of that. What if they came all this way and didn’t find anything at all? There was only so much he could keep from Clockwork, and only so long he could do it. “It’s the only lead we have.” He reached for the door, pushing aside the doubts that were now crowding his thoughts. 

Sam stopped Danny from trying the handle. “Do you think whatever we heard laughing might be down there?”

“It could just be some kid, you know. Breaking and entering isn’t unique to our situation.” This was getting ridiculous. His friends were way too overprotective. If there’s ever another missing piece of Clockwork or something he was definitely leaving them behind just for time's sake alone.

He sighed again, no he wasn’t. Bar the world itself ending they were a trio for a reason and Danny wasn’t about to end that any time soon. “Let’s go.” 

He opened the door and stepped through, stumbling when the floor wasn’t where he’d expected. Fortunately he had experience as a clumsy idiot, so he was able to catch himself easily and warn the other two. 

The stairs were dark, even with the light from Tucker and Sam’s flashlights, and Danny’s unnatural glow. 

The music from the music box was louder down here. 

Danny slowed his steps. The air was acrid and warm, generally unpleasant for the two humans in the group, but especially uncomfortable for Danny. He let out a bit of his power to cool it down, just on instinct, but it scattered into the room, not building up at all. Frustrating. 

“Over here,” Sam called from somewhere deeper in the room. 

Her light was pointed steadily at something, Danny moved closer to get a better look. But when he got closer the laughter from before came back, louder and surrounding them. He turned his head, trying to follow it, but there was no one there.

There were tables spread out, similar to a museum showroom. The ones Danny walked past had different artifacts, a creepy looking stuffed bear, an old victorian era sewing machine, any number of jewelry and other trinkets. All in all it looked like the exact kind of place they might have kept Clockwork’s eye. 

It wasn’t there. 

Shaking his head he finished walking over to Sam. Haloed in her light was a music box, clearly broken with its dancer missing an arm and completely silent. 

“Wait,” Danny said, picking up the music box and lifting it to his ear, “if this isn’t playing the music… What is?”

Tucker screamed. 

Danny dropped the music box, not paying any attention as it crashed into the floor. Tucker had been back by the entrance last Danny saw him, but now his light was over at the opposite end of the room. 

They rushed over. Where was Tucker? His flashlight rolled gently back and forth on the ground where they’d seen the light. He must have dropped it in a hurry, or in fright. Sam cursed. “Tucker?” she called out, “This isn’t the time to play games! If you got kidnapped by a ghost tell us now.”

The laughter came back. 

“What are the chances of the known mystic ghost hunters having an old headquarters that’s haunted by a malicious ghost again?” he asked, standing with his back to Sam’s.

“Apparently high.”

Danny chuckled nervously. “Yeah well, I was never great at statistics.”

It was only getting louder, surrounding them, echoing off the walls. He took a deep breath, and froze the room.

The laughter stopped. 

“Sam, you okay?”

“Cold,” she said, a heavy shiver in her voice. 

“I’d offer body heat, but-”

“Yeah, uh no thanks.”

The ice was glowing slightly, and finally allowed the two a view of the entire room. Though it was slightly obscured by the ice itself. The room was bigger than Danny had been expecting, and had multiple doors in different directions. There could be an entire floor down here, or a maze. Hopefully Tucker hadn’t been taken too far. But with their luck Danny wasn’t betting on it just yet. 

“Tucker isn’t here,” Danny said, “We’ll have to check one of the doors.”

The music was still playing. 

He tried the first door. It creaked open slowly, giving a bit more resistance than Danny had been expecting. Inside was a small room, just like any other children's bedroom with a plush, worn carpet and a small twin sized bed. Danny stepped inside and the smell of rust hit him immediately. 

Trying not to gag, Danny went into the room, looking around the bed to make sure Tucker wasn’t hiding or something. There were chains, piled in a corner with the cuffs closed at the end, covered in a thick red rust. He grit his teeth. There was no need to think about who could have been kept down here, or why, but it still set him on edge. The Showenhower he knew wasn’t exactly the most empathetic guy around, and Danny honestly doubted his family would have been much better. But whoever it was had clearly vacated the premises a long time ago. Getting angry now was a useless endeavor. 

Danny turned around to tell Sam the room was clear. There was a little girl standing between them, short blond pigtails and a familiar beak-like nose. She giggled, it was the same laugh from before, and pointed at the bed. “I don’t need to sleep anymore,” she said, her voice echoing slightly in the familiar way all ghosts speak. “Mommy was right! She used to call me her ‘good little experiment’. Are you a new experiment?”

She disappeared. 

“Sam-”

“I saw her.”

He met her eyes, they were filled with fury, and her shoulders were shaking. He walked towards her, putting an arm around her back and leading them out of the small room. “Let’s find Tucker first.”

“Yeah, okay.” 

They tried the next room. 

This one was more reminiscent of a storage shed. Every wall and corner was stuffed full of random boxes and trinkets. Books were laid out pretty much anywhere they could be and there wasn’t a single shelf throughout that hadn’t been completely filled. 

“The Eye might be in here,” Sam said, grabbing some random gem off the top of a stack of books before setting it back down and looking towards Danny. She walked deeper in, the room wasn’t big in itself and with all the junk it was hard to move around. “I don’t see Tucker though.” 

“There’s one place left to check.” Danny backed out and to the next room, trusting Sam to follow.

It was the last option, if Tucker wasn’t in here Danny might have to raze the place to the ground. Clockwork’s eye would probably survive anything he threw at it. The little ghost from the room though…

Danny shook his head. That wasn’t worth thinking about now. He had to prioritize.

Opening the door was easy this time, no rust to creak the hinges, or stacks of junk to get wedged in the way. But the acrid scent from when they first entered the basement was at its heaviest here. It was like walking into a swamp. 

“Is Tucker-” Sam walked in behind him. 

“Don’t come in!” Danny shouted, spinning on his heel and trying to push her out of the room. He didn’t want her to see this. No one should have to see this. 

The door slammed shut before they could make it back out.

Sam slapped him, forcing herself out of his grip and backing away. “Danny what the fuck is your problem?”

He didn’t answer, just stared painfully at the mess behind her. It wasn’t something he could hide anymore, not with the two of them trapped in the room. Sam noticed his strange behavior and slowly turned around. 

She gasped, covering her mouth and stepping back towards him. “Is that-?”

“I think we found the source of the music,” Danny said.

The room was a large, naturally carved cavern in stark contrast to the carefully built and furnished house it was connected to. The walls had markings and drawings on them with symbols and languages Danny couldn’t quite recognize and there were half melted candles strewn about. 

The center of the room had been carved in a similar fashion to an Ancient Greek theatre, though only with about half a dozen steps until the center, where someone had been laid out and left. Danny finally recognized the smell. It was embalming fluid, half spilled out from the container and coating the ground in a thin, sticky layer. There were other embalming tools, jars and syringes filled with Ancients’ knows what.  

They had clearly been used, if not recently, since the last time someone had been in the room. He recognised her dress, as rotted as it was. It was the same one the little girl ghost had been wearing. He bit down his anger, there were more important things to focus on. Someone still alive to worry about. 

Danny got closer, Tucker was there, passed out next to the body. He rushed over, grabbing his friend and gently checking his pulse. It was there, and steady. Luckily he’d only been passed out. Now whether that was due to the ghost doing something to him, or due to the corpse being a step too far, that was anyone’s guess. 

“Is he okay?” Sam asked, walking towards them with her shirt pulled up over her nose.

“He’ll be fine.” Danny picked him up, unwilling to leave him lying next to… well that.

The ghost girl wasn’t here. Granted Danny wouldn’t want to haunt the room his corpse was actively rotting in, but it still had him ill at ease. He didn’t like not knowing where she was. He hadn’t much liked any of this trip so far. 

Sam walked towards the corpse. 

“What are you doing?” Danny hissed, clutching tighter at Tucker’s unconscious body.

She didn’t bother looking back towards them, just kneeled down awkwardly and reached towards one of its hands. “She’s holding something,” Sam said, gently prying it out. “It's… a tooth?”

Danny took a step closer to see it as she held it up. It certainly didn’t look like a child’s tooth, and Sam looked back at the corpse’s mouth as if she was debating whether or not she should check. “Don’t touch anything else,” he said, dragging her attention back towards him. “Let’s just check the other room for the Eye real quick and get out of here.” 

“Fine,” she dusted off her hands onto her jeans, “But I’m keeping this for now. She had to have been holding it for a good reason right?”

“I don’t think anything that happened here was for a good reason,” Danny snapped.

Sam was unimpressed. “You know that’s not what I meant. Chill out.”

He grimaced. “You’re right, sorry. Let’s just get out of here so we can call the cops okay?”

“Okay.” She took hold of his arm and he phased the three of them over into the other room. It would be quicker if they had all hands on deck, so Danny shook Tucker until his eyes slowly blinked open. 

Before he was fully awake, he jolted violently in Danny’s arms and resumed screaming. 

“Tuck- Tucker! It’s just me!” Danny tried to calm him down. He pulled him into a hug and Tucker stopped, gripping tightly into Danny’s shirt as he opened his eyes fully and looked around. 

His eyes were still a bit wide, and he looked overall pretty spooked. Danny could hardly blame him. “You guys, you won’t believe what I saw-”

“We saw it too,” Sam said. “We’re calling the cops once we find the Eye, so help us dig for it.”

Tucker frowned, looking at the storage shed around them. “Isn’t that kind of unethical?”

“You want the cops to get their hands on it instead?” 

“Nope, you’re right. I will start over here.” He scrambled up, accidentally elbowing Danny in the side, and went for one of the many, many boxes. Danny dusted himself off before grabbing one himself. It shouldn’t take too long to find an artifact as powerful as Clockwork’s eye, right? 

They couldn’t find it. 

There was nothing, not so much as a mention or a whisper. After going through all the jewels that were even vaguely red and then some that were more orange or purple than anything else, they had taken Tucker’s advice and gone through the written journals instead. Hoping to find some hint at where the eye could be, they had skimmed and skipped, looking for just a hint. But it had been fruitless. The little girl had popped in occasionally as they searched, being more nuisance than help, but not hurting any of them. She kept calling Danny experiment two, which was more confusing than threatening and only served to raise his hackles as he had to read through journal after journal of this family's trysts with the supernatural. 

There was an entire collection on how to harvest vampire fangs. Danny hadn’t even known vampires were a real thing, but apparently their fangs could help cure anemia if grounded into a powder and preserved with the ground stems of spider lilies. He didn’t know if he believed that. 

“Hey Danny,” Sam called from her own corner of the room, “you might want to see this.”

He flew over, excited. “Did you find something?”

She grimaced, holding up one of the newer (comparatively) hand written journals. It was dated on the outside for 1964 in neat cursive and had the words ‘Trial One’ at the top. “Not about the Eye, no. But it’s important.”

Taking the journal from her he opened it gently. 

I have volunteered my daughter, she has shown no aptitude for magic so in this at least she will be useful. The trial begins tomorrow.

“Sam, what is this?” Danny asked, reading further and further into the journal. It detailed rituals and experiments. Force feeding blood blossoms mixed with concentrated ectoplasm every day, bleedings, and … other things. “Why…?”

Sam grabbed another journal, ‘Trial Ten’ written at the top. “They’re making ghosts… I can’t be sure based on what I’ve read so far but,” she grimaced, looking at Danny, “I think they were trying to make half ghosts specifically. They don’t call them that though.”

This was too much. They were here for one thing: why was his entire world view being thrown away? 

“What did they call them?” he asked instead of the real questions he had. Like, why would you try and half kill your own child? How did they know about half ghosts? Was Vlad not the first one? Was it only theoretical? Why would you kill your own children? It wasn’t even an accident like Danny’s!

Flipping through the pages until she found the right one, Sam held it up for Danny to read.

It has come to my attention that though we have heard tale of ‘Liminals’ that which is a human mortal that exists partially in the realms of the dead, we have yet to see affirmative proof that such exists. These experiments, though tasteless, seek to remedy this slight and give us definitive evidence that crossing the mundane with the beyond can be accomplished. 

He looked away. “The Eye isn’t here is it?” Danny asked. Sam shook her head. “How much do you wanna bet this is the kind of thing Clockwork led us to so we’d get distracted and give up?”

“Judging by what you’ve told us of him? This is the parallel to Mr. Lancer inviting us to dinner with his sister and the restaurant being an abandoned arcade.” He nodded, agreeing. 

Turning back slightly to call Tucker over, he ran through everything in his head. There was really only one thing to do. “We have to burn it down,” he said once Tucker was within earshot.

“What, why?”

“Sam can explain, I need to find our new ghost friend and give her an apology.” Danny flew towards the door. “Make sure you call the cops after you’re out of the basement.”

His friends followed him, heading up the stairs to the main residence as he paused in the basement’s display room. He didn’t know what anything in here was, but he doubted it was full of anything worth keeping. He unfroze it, letting the ice melt into a natural state of ectoplasm and ruining what was left of the floor.

The girl’s voice came back, less cheery than it had been. “Are you leaving, other experiment?”

“Yeah,” he said, trying to force calm into his own voice, “wanna come with?”

Her eyes widened, and Danny let her grab his sleeve. Her hand was warm and clammy. She probably had a warmer core than his own, so taking her to the Far Frozen was out of the question. But Pandora had a fire core, and she was just as good with kids. The least he could do was take this girl away from this place before they burned it down. 

“I’m not ‘other experiment’ by the way,” he walked slowly so she could keep up with him, “I’m Phantom.”

Her nose crinkled in confusion. “That’s a weird name.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, it’s one I picked myself.” He waited for a beat, he wasn’t going to call her experiment one, and it was a big taboo to ask a ghost about their lives at all, even if you’re just asking for an old name. “Do you want to pick a name for yourself?”

The little girl froze, an overly concentrated expression on her face. Danny let her take her time. The others were probably out of the mansion by now. The only thing left to do was set the fire, call the cops, and get this baby ghost to the Zone before his parents found out what was going on. 

“You can call me… Lily Pad.” She smiled up at him, proud of her new name.

He smiled back and gently ruffled her hair. “Okay Lily Pad, let’s go somewhere fun.”

[unpeumacabre]

soaring dragon dancing phoenix - 龙飞凤舞: chapter one

Yunmeng is no longer home for Wei Wuxian, for he is no longer welcome. And so when he visits he can always count on Jiang Cheng descending upon his head with the full strength of heaven's fury, to chase him out. But one day when he sneaks into Yunmeng again, days go by without Jiang Cheng making an appearance. Something has happened to Wei Wuxian's prickly shi-di, something that - once they reunite - they will find is far greater than they could ever have anticipated. Accompanied also by Wei Wuxian's dear friend (?) Lan Zhan and a Lan Xichen who has only just reluctantly left isolation, the four of them set out on a journey that will bring them across the greater part of China to the mystical Kunlun mountains of mythology - and more importantly, may bring them love, healing, and reconciliation.

If only Wei Wuxian could take his head out of his oblivious arse and start putting himself in other people's shoes for once...

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Wangxian, Xicheng, Wei Wuxian & Jiang Cheng

Read on AO3 (bc tumblr might mess up the formatting + more extensive author’s notes on the story)

Count: 8k

<- previous

Wei Wuxian woke in darkness, and it was a darkness he did not recognise.

He sat up, groaning as the movement jarred his bones and made him ache in places he’d not known existed. There was something clouding his thoughts, draining his energy; after a few moments wherein he tried to get his bearings, he sensed the presence of a suppressing array designed to repress spiritual energy and sap his strength.

It was not a man-made array. Instead, it had the hallmarks of something far more ancient and terrible.

The amount of resentful energy in the air was so thick that he almost choked on it. In fact, if not for the suppressing array, he would have had trouble stopping the energy from churning through his body and sending him into a state of backlash.

As he stumbled to his feet, there was a crunch underfoot. Something sharp poked into his hand as he steadied himself against the ground. He felt for the object, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realised he had stepped on and broken the jaw bone of a skull.

“Ah – “ reflexively he recoiled. Then he relaxed as he realised it was likely the skull of a deer.

As he blinked and looked about the room, slowly things came into focus. First he saw around him walls made of dark, dank stone. There was a sour, mossy smell in the air; the air felt thick with moisture, and he wrinkled his nose in response. His head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, and there was a faint ringing in his ears, likely from the blow to his head he’d received to knock him out before he’d been dragged into this chamber.

“At least whatever took me left me mostly intact,” he muttered to himself, fishing a talisman out of his robes and lighting it with a brief spark of spiritual energy.

He looked down, and realised that the floor was littered with more bones – animal bones, human bones, and unidentifiable shards which were coated in a thin layer of something shiny. When he nudged one of the fragments, it made a squishing noise under his foot, and Wei Wuxian instantly regretted his curiosity.

This must be the lair of the human-eating monster, he thought to himself, and this is where it chucks the remnants of its meals…it must have deemed Mo Xuanyu too skinny and underfed to be worthwhile fare, and tossed me in here for storage instead. It’s not my fault his isn’t a body which builds muscle easily! Why, if I only had my old body…

As he continued to stew indignantly over the monster’s disrespect of his physique, he returned his gaze to the walls, and suddenly realised that there was a passageway carved into the wall, leading into the next room. With one last glance around the chamber he was currently occupying, he deemed there to be little else of note therein, and trotted over to the aperture in the wall.

As he walked cautiously through the passageway, feeling his way with his hands and trying not to cringe at the thin layer of sticky moisture which gathered on his palms, suddenly the corridor opened out into a large chamber. More bones crunched under his feet, and now he found he had to pick his way carefully across the floor without falling over.

Abruptly the faint light from his talisman revealed a purple-clad body on the ground, and Wei Wuxian tripped.

Thankfully, he caught himself before he managed to fall on the body, and once he had regained his balance, he squatted over the body and squinted balefully at the face of the unfortunate person.

Jiang Cheng?! Wei Wuxian exclaimed mentally. What luck!

- Or, lack thereof, depending on how you looked at it. It was supremely lucky that he’d managed to find Jiang Cheng – alive, judging from the steady shallow rise and fall of his chest – and with all limbs and his head still firmly attached. But also supremely unlucky in the sense that they were now alone in a room with both their spiritual energy severely depleted, and without other Yunmeng Jiang sect members/Lan Zhan as buffers.

“Oh well. The rice is now cooked; what’s done is done, and there’s no way around it,” Wei Wuxian sighed. “I’ll just have to deal with his bad temper when he wakes up.”

Wei Wuxian leant over Jiang Cheng and scanned his body. There were faint lines on his temples where dried blood had trickled down from a wound on his head, similar to that on Wei Wuxian’s own forehead, but there didn’t seem to be much lasting damage. His spiritual energy was worryingly low, however, and it could barely be felt through his pulse point. Hurriedly, Wei Wuxian yanked open the collar of his robe and undergarments and placed his hand against his chest.

Thankfully, the thrumming of his spiritual energy was still present – very faint and weak, but still there.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING,” Jiang Cheng said weakly.

“Aaaahhh!” Wei Wuxian yelped, falling backwards and dropping the talisman. They stared at each other for a moment.

“Why are you the one yelling? I’m the one who woke up to being groped by a goddamn cut-sleeve!” Jiang Cheng shouted, albeit a bit feebly.

“Even when you’re half-dead you’re still so noisy,” Wei Wuxian said peevishly. “I was just checking your golden core! As if I’d want to touch you. Gross. And I’m not a cut-sleeve,” he added quickly.

Jiang Cheng ignored him, lifting himself up on his elbows and attempting to get onto his feet. He slapped away Wei Wuxian’s outstretched hand and managed to hobble upright on his own.

“My golden core,” he said suddenly, and looked up at Wei Wuxian with wild eyes. “I can barely feel it. And my senses feel dulled. I can’t think properly. What the hell’s happened to me?!”

“There’s a suppressing array in place,” Wei Wuxian answered. “Can’t you feel it? It’s suppressing your spiritual energy and sapping your strength.”

“Why don’t you seem affected then?” Jiang Cheng said, his tone mildly accusatory.

Wei Wuxian paused. “I don’t have a golden core, remember. And I’ve gone so long without one, I suppose it’s easier to get used to operating on lower spiritual energy.”

He kept his tone breezy and light, but even he felt that it was slightly over-played. Jiang Cheng’s jaw clenched and he turned away.

Wei Wuxian sighed. “Come on, Jiang Cheng,” he tried. “You know it doesn’t matter to me anymore. It’s an old wound, and I was the one who chose to give it up anyway. It wasn’t your fault at all.”

When Jiang Cheng turned back, there was so much guilt and anger in his eyes, Wei Wuxian found he could no longer stand it. He broke their gaze and looked around instead.

“We’re going to need weapons for defence,” he said, thinking out loud. “Spiritual weapons won’t work, since you’re low on spiritual energy, so Sandu and Zidian are out. Oh, how about this!” and he skipped over to the corner of the room, where a bunch of corpses were haphazardly piled on top of each other, covered in sparse cobwebs. A giant hairy spider crawled out of one of the skulls’ mouths and scuttled sideways into the shadows.

From their garb, the bodies had apparently been farmers or fishermen, and accordingly, there were various tools scattered on the ground next to them. Wei Wuxian picked up a few of the items and scrutinised them.

“Here, Jiang Cheng!” he called, and held them out. “Hoe, spade, pitchfork; time to play farmer for the day! Take your pick?”

Jiang Cheng grabbed the pitchfork without looking, his eyes trained on their surroundings and scanning the walls with what little light from the talisman remained. He clenched his fist, and Zidian crackled weakly, but otherwise there was no response, as expected.

“What do you remember before you were knocked out?” he said finally. “How did you find me here?”

Wei Wuxian was relieved to find that Jiang Cheng’s demeanour was back to normal.

He dropped the tools carelessly. “Hmm… I’ve been in Yunmeng for a while, and I went to – I met some Yunmeng Jiang disciples in Yunmeng and they told me you’d taken a group of your cultivators to the area outside the city where there had been a monster causing trouble and eating humans,” he said. “Since you’d been gone for quite a while, I figured it might be an interesting monster, so I came to have a look. I found the entrance to a cave in the area the disciples mentioned, but just as I entered, something knocked me out. Though I didn’t see what.”

“It was the same for me.” Jiang Cheng’s brow darkened, and his jaw clenched. “We must find the Yunmeng Jiang cultivators who came with me – whether they be dead or alive.”

Wei Wuxian nodded grimly. “I came from another room in which there were also many bones and remnants of clothing. There must be other rooms in which they may be found.”

They made their way sombrely through the various passageways and tunnels into other rooms which also reeked of dampness and decay. One by one, they found the distinctive bright purple robes of the Yunmeng Jiang disciples, covering bodies with the flesh only recently gnawed off the bones. For all of them, Jiang Cheng knelt by their sides and covered their bones with their robes, and arranged their remains tidily as best he could.

As he stood up from the side of the last corpse of the Yunmeng Jiang cultivators who’d accompanied him on his night hunt, his eyes were red with unshed tears. Wei Wuxian tactfully remained silent as Jiang Cheng took a few moments more to compose himself.

“We should get out and find reinforcements,” Wei Wuxian said at last, when Jiang Cheng’s colour had returned, and his grip on Sandu’s handle had loosened.

At Wei Wuxian’s words, he stiffened, and said suddenly, “What about the monster? It’s somewhere in here causing havoc. Who knows how many more people will killed in the time it takes for us to get back to Lotus Pier and fetch more people to help?”

“Our spiritual energy is so diminished, and we don’t have any useful weapons on us,” Wei Wuxian answered exasperatedly. “With this suppressing array in place, what damage can we possibly do to the monster?”

“Even if we bring reinforcements, they’ll be hit by the suppressing array too,” Jiang Cheng said stubbornly

“This creature is clearly a dangerous one, if our experiences have taught us anything, and one not to be taken lightly. We won’t be able to do much to it!” Wei Wuxian protested.

“Didn’t you kill the Xuanwu even while starved for three days, and heavily injured?” Jiang Cheng rebutted angrily. “Are you saying I’m not as competent as Lan Wangji?”

When Jiang Cheng was like this, it was difficult to deal with him. Wei Wuxian let his exasperation get the better of him. “Fine! Have it your way then!” he snapped. “For the record, I still think we’re going to our death. But since you’re being so pig-headed about it, we might as well try and find the monster and do what damage we can before we end up dying.”

They walked for a bit in a stony silence. The talisman, previously already on its last embers, soon shrivelled away into nothingness. Wei Wuxian wordlessly fished another yellow sheet from his robes and lit their way once more.

In the few moments in which darkness had reigned, Jiang Cheng’s expression had changed.

He quickly schooled it back to his familiar frown, however, and Wei Wuxian would have thought it a trick of the light, if he had not seen it plain as day.

“At least… let’s at least scope out the terrain so we know it better,” Jiang Cheng muttered, with a curious scraping noise, as if he were grinding his teeth. “Then we’ll know it better the second time when we come back with reinforcements.”

“… Are you feeling alright?” Wei Wuxian asked cautiously, with concern. “You don’t have a fever, do you? Why are you agreeing with me all of a sudden?”

“Shut up! Don’t make me change my mind!” Jiang Cheng said huffily, and walked a little bit faster.

Now I remember why Jin Ling’s princess-like temper seemed so familiar, Wei Wuxian thought to himself. He’s a carbon copy of Jiang Cheng as a child! No wonder, what with the way Jiang Cheng raises him.

Of course he would never dare to say such a thing to Jiang Cheng’s face, so they continued ambling on in more silence. Suddenly, Wei Wuxian stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?”

“I can sense something different,” Wei Wuxian said, turning his head from side to side as he attempted to trace the thing which had caught his attention. He closed his eyes and focused his mind.

It took him much concentration and mental capacity, but finally he sensed what had distracted him – a tendril of energy which differed from the constant thrum of resentful energy that threatened to overwhelm him at every step, the latter which likely came from the multiple corpses that they had left behind in the previous rooms. This new energy felt more similar to the force that sustained the suppressing array, but at the same time, curiously unlike. Wei Wuxian tilted his head to the side as he tried to sort out the tangled coils of energy in the air, into a more coherent map.

“I think I can sense the spiritual energy of the monster,” he said, after a few moments. “That is, if this creature is indeed the one that set up the suppressing array. Following its energy should lead us to its location.”

“There’s such a thick cloud of resentful energy. You can tell the monster’s energy apart?” Jiang Cheng asked in disbelief.

“Master of Demonic Cultivation, remember?” Wei Wuxian said, mustering up a grin. “I lived and breathed resentful energy for a while before I, er, before the siege on the Yiling Mounds.” He rushed on quickly before Jiang Cheng could become maudlin again. “It’s nothing to me, to tell apart different sources of resentful energy.”

“I’ve never before heard of a beast that was able to cast a suppressing array,” Jiang Cheng said, thankfully too preoccupied with the matter at hand to be easily distracted by talk of the past. “It must be a human-like monster then – but no, those were clearly the marks of an animal’s teeth on the bodies of my cultivators.”

Wei Wuxian nodded. “My line of thinking was the same as yours. I don’t think this thing is purely beast-like nor human-like, and it’s probably a mix of both, such that it’s able to cast a suppressing array, and yet attack people with such ferocity and strength. We’ll have to trace the energy to its source to find out.”

With a grunt of acknowledgement from Jiang Cheng in response, they continued trudging on in a firm, painful silence. This was a foreign concept to Wei Wuxian; even in his time with Lan Zhan, that taciturn rock of a man, he’d been able to fill the void between them with his aimless chatter and the playing of Chenqing. But something between him and Jiang Cheng still felt too raw, too new and vulnerable, to risk damaging with his usual frivolous antics.

This is so awkward, Wei Wuxian thought. Should I make the first move? But he might yell at me again. Hang on, since when have I been so afraid of Jiang Cheng’s scoldings? Anyway, what would I even ask him? ‘How are the lotuses doing in Lotus Pier?’ Um, no…

Surprisingly, however, Jiang Cheng was the first to break the silence.

“How – ahem. How is Lan Wangji?”

Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure he’d heard him right at first, but as he looked at Jiang Cheng incredulously, the question forming on his lips, Jiang Cheng flushed, and looked away.

“Oh! Er, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked, loudly to cover up both their discomfort. “I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s Chief Cultivator, you know! Isn’t that amazing?”

Jiang Cheng muttered something that sounded suspiciously like I’m the Yunmeng Jiang sect leader, of course I know who the fucking Chief Cultivator is, but then he harrumphed and cleared his throat. Wei Wuxian magnanimously decided to let him off and pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

“I thought you two were inseparable?” Jiang Cheng asked, darting a sideways glance at Wei Wuxian. “And yet you haven’t seen him for a while?”

For some reason, that particular question grated at Wei Wuxian’s skin, and the light of the talisman flickered in response to his annoyance. “Well, he’s busy,” he said airily, “and… and I’ll see him soon. I’m sure of it. As if he could go a day without my presence!”

“He seems to be getting on perfectly fine without you,” Jiang Cheng pointed out, detestably reasonable as always.

“With Lan Zhan’s poker face, how can you tell?” Wei Wuxian returned quickly. This time it was he who walked a little faster, just to be spiteful, and just because he could.

“You look like you’ve been tramping through the wilderness,” Jiang Cheng said, abruptly switching the subject.

“I’ve just been living wild for a while. You know, living off the land, eating only fruits and berries, surviving by my abundance of wits as usual…”

“Hah!” Jiang Cheng snorted. It was not a nice snort, Wei Wuxian thought crossly, and in retaliation, he decided not to respond.

Jiang Cheng finally spoke up again, after a long while in which Wei Wuxian had been distracting himself with thoughts of a new classification system for demons of the five elements. “We’ve been going in circles!” he said, and his tone bridled with frustration. “I recognise that rock formation over there. I caught my hand on it earlier – look, my blood is still fresh on the stone.”

Wei Wuxian looked at the rock, and indeed, Jiang Cheng’s blood still glistened on its surface. He wondered how he could have gotten so completely turned around – hadn’t he just been following the tendril of malevolent energy? He could’ve sworn he’d felt it getting stronger, too, which should have meant that they were nearing its source. How was it that they’d ended up circling back to where they’d started?

“I thought we were following the energy from the creature,” Jiang Cheng said irritably.

“Shhh,” Wei Wuxian said, not paying attention to him. “There’s something else at work here. Something I’m not getting.”

Surprisingly, Jiang Cheng quieted down, and leaned against the wall. He did so surreptitiously, as if to escape Wei Wuxian’s sight, but of course he noticed.

Jiang Cheng must be more drained than I thought, Wei Wuxian thought, if he’s stopped arguing with me. Especially since he’s been here for a few days more than me already, and with no food or water. I must find a way to get us out of here - and quickly.

He mustered what little spiritual energy he had left, and focused. In his mind he pushed aside the suppressing fog that clouded his thoughts and distracted his attention, concentrating only on sensing the pulses of energy emanating from every wall in the passageway around him. There was the faint tendril of energy from the creature responsible for the suppressing array, yes, and overwhelming amounts of resentful energy pouring from the corpses of the creature’s meals, and underneath it all… underneath all that energy…

“There’s a maze array in place,” he realised suddenly, his voice echoing in the stillness of the corridor. “It’s cleverly buried under the other layers of energy in this cave, but it’s there. It must have been cast a long time ago, for I could barely sense its presence. And it was not cast by the creature maintaining the suppressing array.”

“That’s what’s confusing your sense of direction?” Jiang Cheng asked despairingly. “Then how are we supposed to get out of here with little spiritual energy and our only lead a complete dead end?”

Wei Wuxian shook his head, mustering a small smile. “Don’t lose hope so easily, Jiang Cheng! We’ll find a way out. We just need a way to overcome the maze array – then we can follow the creature’s malevolent energy without being confused. We just need some way of maintaining our sense of direction.”

“What do you suggest we do? Is there any way to track our steps, perhaps?” Jiang Cheng said.

Wei Wuxian tapped idly at the side of his nose as he thought, pacing back and forth in the confined space. Jiang Cheng’s eyes, lit up by the flickering light of the paper talisman, followed him back and forth.

“I could cast a tracking spell… no, but with my depleted spiritual energy, that wouldn’t last long… I have the Compass of Evil which I worked on to improve last week, but this creature doesn’t consume souls, and so it wouldn’t work… Oh?”

The unravelling hem of his ratty travelling robe had snagged on a shard of rock protruding out of the wall, and had caused him to pause in his steps. Wei Wuxian stared down at the little loop of thread curled around the stone protrusion.

Suddenly, an epiphany came upon him.

“I have an idea!” he said, excitedly, and began picking apart the hem of his robe. Jiang Cheng lifted himself off the wall and came over to inspect what he was doing.

“What’s that supposed to do?” he asked sceptically. “Is it just another excuse for you to go naked again? Oi, just because it’s just me down here with you - ”

“It was one time, and I was eight,” Wei Wuxian said exasperatedly, “and don’t tell me you’d never seen a penis before that! I don’t know why you had to act like a blushing maiden and try to stab me with your brush. We’re both men, aren’t we? Nothing you haven’t seen before!”

While he’d been going on, and Jiang Cheng had started spluttering and turning interesting colours, he’d managed to unpick the thread from his robe, and tied it around a sturdy stalagmite on the ground. He gave the limestone pillar a few experimental pulls, and it didn’t budge.

“Now we just have to follow the thread, and we’ll know which routes we’ve walked, and which routes we haven’t!” he said brightly, as he straightened up.

“That’s… actually a good idea,” Jiang Cheng said grudgingly, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at the stalagmite.

“I always have good ideas. Don’t you know?” Wei Wuxian said, grinning. “Come on, let’s hurry. I don’t know how many days have passed, but surely it’s been too long already. We should quickly find the monster’s hideout and then figure out a way to escape.”

It was indeed a good idea, if Wei Wuxian said so himself (and he did, multiple times, very smugly, so much so that Jiang Cheng started ignoring him again), and with its aid, they managed to find their way out of the maze of corridors that surrounded the rooms containing the corpses. Wei Wuxian heaved a sigh of relief as he finally felt the thick fog of resentful energy that had been giving him a massive headache, fade away into the background and eventually disappear.

Now, the passageways they walked were a little less damp, and a little less foul-smelling. There were even lamps embedded in the wall, unlit and covered with cobwebs, but obviously made by a talented craftsman. Wei Wuxian stopped to inspect one of them, and the style of its carvings and the technique of its forging marked it as a craft belonging to the dynasty of six centuries ago.

“Whatever inhabits this cave must be ancient indeed,” Jiang Cheng said grimly, as Wei Wuxian shared this insight with him.

They stopped abruptly as a carven wooden door appeared beside them, looming out of the darkness, leading into an enclave that branched off from the main tunnel.

The frame of the door extended high above their visible range, and as Wei Wuxian guided the talisman as far up as he dared without losing his tenuous hold on the charm, they realised just how large the tunnel was beginning to run. All they could see above them was darkness, and there was no observable ceiling. They exchanged glances, and with a mutual nod of acknowledgement, Jiang Cheng placed his palm on the door and pushed firmly.

It creaked open with a loud sound of protest. The noise made both of them wince and glance around sharply to see if the clamour had attracted any undue attention. But thankfully, even after a few moments of silence, they were still alone in the tunnel, with no foes in sight. Jiang Cheng pushed the door open all the way, and they peered into the darkness cautiously.

“It’s a library - !” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, his voice hushed, as the talisman floated into the room and lit up shelves upon shelves of crumbling, decaying books and scrolls. Jiang Cheng scanned the titles, trying to make out the words on their spines.

“Vegetarian Dietary Principles,” Jiang Cheng read out, “Journey to the West, Classic of Poetry, Classic – Classic of – Music?”

Wei Wuxian expelled a surprised breath and shook his head. “Whoever owned this library must have been a great patron of the arts - he’s even managed to acquire books which no one’s ever had a copy of before! It’s a collection to rival even that of the Gusu Lan library. But such a valuable hoard would usually be maintained zealously by its collector, not left to rot away in such a sorry state.”

The talisman settled on a pile of objects arranged neatly in the corner of the library, and Wei Wuxian felt his brows shoot up even further.

“A guqin, guzheng, pipa, dihu, yangqin – truly an impressive collection of instruments from all across China!” he said admiringly. “They’ve been left to gather dust as well, and they haven’t been maintained in a while. Things are becoming curiouser and curiouser indeed.”

“Perhaps the owner of the collection was eaten by the monster,” Jiang Cheng suggested.

“Perhaps,” Wei Wuxian said doubtfully. I feel that there’s something here we’re still not getting…

They left the library behind, unable to see much in the darkness and with their limited light source. Wei Wuxian had to light another talisman, for the previous one flickered and shrivelled to dust. Just as he did, his stomach let out a loud sound of dissatisfaction, and he automatically pressed a hand to his abdomen.

“I’m hungryyyyyy,” he whined. “Jiang Cheng, do you have any food?”

“Stop talking nonsense,” Jiang Cheng retorted sharply. “If I’d had any food, I’d long since have eaten it up already!”

“Ugh,” Wei Wuxian groaned, leaning dramatically forward as they walked. “I’m going to die of hunger. Who knows how many days and nights we’ve spent in here! It’s not like you have a set sleep schedule so we can count the days. We’ve probably been walking for a few days without rest already – and who knows how much longer it’ll take to get out.”

He felt his coat slip off his shoulder, and he looked down at it. Because of the unravelling string, his already-raggedy outerwear was falling apart, and it no longer resembled anything coat-like. Wei Wuxian shrugged it off and tucked it under his right arm, and was left only in his underthings.

“I feel the wind blowing through places I didn’t know existed,” he complained, shivering.

Jiang Cheng looked at him and immediately averted his eyes, a dull flush colouring his cheeks. “Shameless!” he spluttered. “What wind?! There’s barely any wind, we’re underground! Wei Wuxian, you’re truly shameless as always!”

“Now you’re starting to sound like the old Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian muttered under his breath. “One of him is good enough, thank you very much…”

Suddenly, there was an ear-splitting crash, and it was only their quick reflexes that caused them not to be buried under a large column of rocks that suddenly came pouring down on them. Both of them leapt to the side, and stared, bug-eyed, at the spot in which they had been standing just moments ago.

“Agh, my eyes,” said Jiang Cheng loudly, as the fog from the avalanche cleared, and piercing sunlight shone down on them from the large hole which had suddenly opened up in the ceiling of the tunnel, far above them. Wei Wuxian shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted blearily up at the hole.

…

“LAN ZHAN!!!!” he cried out happily, as he made eye contact with a very dear, familiar figure. Lan Zhan peered imperiously down at them, the sunlight making it seem as though his head was glowing.

“Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao will arrive,” Wei Wuxian said, bouncing excitedly up and down on the spot. “Didn’t I tell you Lan Zhan could be counted on to rescue us?* Huh? He’s reliable, isn’t he?”

*A/N: (he didn’t)

“Did you really have to invoke his name?” Jiang Cheng said grumpily, following his gaze upwards. “I always feel like he’s looking down on me, but now he’s actually literally looking down on me.”

Another figure appeared beside Lan Zhan and peeked cautiously over the edge of the hole. After squinting for a while more, Wei Wuxian realised it was Lan Xichen.

“Are you two alright?” Lan Xichen called down to them, his gentle voice filled with concern. “I’m afraid we went a little, ah, overboard in trying to get down to you two…”

“We’re fine, Zewu-jun, thanks for your concern!” Wei Wuxian hollered back up at them. “Won’t you come down and join us? We’re depleted of spiritual energy and unable to join you up there!”

Lan Zhan immediately flew down, but the moment he alighted and laid his eyes on Wei Wuxian, his finely-sculpted eyebrows shot up towards to his forehead.

“What – what happened to your outer robe?” he said, sounding faintly strangled.

“Oh – this? I used the string from my hem to track our progress through this cave,” Wei Wuxian replied cheerily. “There’s a maze array in place, although it’s quite difficult to detect, and with our limited spiritual energy there wasn’t any other way to stop ourselves getting lost. Jiang Cheng will tell you it was quite a clever idea. It must have been quite cold outside, Lan Zhan, your ears are turning pink! Here, rub your hands together…”

Jiang Cheng, predictably, ignored him and lifted his hands in a salute to Lan Xichen, who’d descended as well to join them. “Sect Leader Lan,” he said formally, and Lan Xichen returned the gesture. Jiang Cheng turned to Lan Zhan and repeated the gesture, a little more unwillingly.

“Here, take this,” Lan Zhan said, pulling a qiankun pouch out from his sleeve. Sticking his hand inside the pouch, he drew out an overcoat with the designs of the Gusu Lan sect and placed it securely around Wei Wuxian’s shoulders.

Wei Wuxian whistled in surprise and appreciation. “Lan Zhan, you came prepared! It’s one of your robes, isn’t it?” A thought occurred to him which made him laugh out loud in pure delight. “Ooh, Lan Zhan, are you embarrassed by my lack of clothing? You know I’m shameless, I don’t mind even if I’m just parading around in my underwear or even if I’m stark naked.”

“As you can tell, Hanguang-jun, he’s doing perfectly fine,” Jiang Cheng said acrimoniously. “The days of starvation and lack of spiritual energy haven’t done anything to dampen his personality.”

Wei Wuxian pouted. “Lan Zhan knows that,” he replied peevishly. “We killed the Xuanwu together under the same circumstances, remember?”

A soft laugh from the side reminded him of Lan Xichen’s presence, and he spun around to face him.

“Sect Leader Lan, what’re you doing here?” Wei Wuxian asked curiously. “I thought you were in seclusion. What brings you here?”

Lan Xichen smiled. “I was in seclusion, but Wangji came to me today and told me of your and Sect Leader Jiang’s disappearance. He was quite distressed by the news, and asked me for help to track the two of you down. And when I heard that A-Yao – that Jin Guangyao had been seen in the area…”

He hesitated, and said no more. None of them pressed him further.

“How did you manage to find us?” Jiang Cheng asked quickly, directing his question at Lan Zhan.

“Jin Ling wrote to me when he found that you were missing,” Lan Zhan answered. “We followed your trail to this place. And I could sense Wei Ying’s energy coming from here, so we entered here.”

“You could sense my energy?” Wei Wuxian asked, bewildered by this new turn of events. “But – how? Plus the suppressing array – “

“Where is the human-eating monster?” Lan Zhan asked abruptly, cutting him off. “Have you already killed it?”

After a pause, Wei Wuxian shook his head, and relayed the events of the past few days to them. It turned out that Jiang Cheng had been missing for nine days, and Wei Wuxian for three – that explains why Jiang Cheng looks so exhausted, he thought to himself; nine days without food or drink will do that to you.

Lan Xichen passed them water in a flask and two bags filled with baozi, steamed buns, which Jiang Cheng immediately started scarfing down ravenously. Lan Zhan took the other bag and held up the flask to Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

“Drink,” he said softly. One of his hands came up behind Wei Wuxian’s back to steady him.

Wei Wuxian drank obediently, thinking, I am so loved.

When he finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Lan Zhan immediately fished one of the baozi out of the bag and held it up for Wei Wuxian to take a bite. The meat inside the bun tasted truly delicious to his starved palate, and he couldn’t stop himself from letting out little ‘mm’s of enjoyment as he chewed.

Only when Wei Wuxian had finished munching on the baozi did Lan Zhan exhale and relax, although his hand still remained on Wei Wuxian’s lower back.

“Thanks, Lan Zhan,” he said, smiling widely. Something about Lan Zhan’s presence always left him feeling refreshed. “I knew I could count on you. You’re such a reliable friend. No wonder you’re the Chief Cultivator, indeed!”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Jiang Cheng said indistinctly, and Wei Wuxian whipped around to look at him.

(If he was being perfectly honest, he’d forgotten Jiang Cheng – and Lan Xichen – were there.)

The two of them were staring openly at him and Lan Zhan, the bag of baozi dangling loosely from Jiang Cheng’s hand and Jiang Cheng’s cheeks still stuffed with bites of baozi so that he looked like a squirrel. Lan Xichen’s smile looked like it had ossified on his face.

“What?” Wei Wuxian said in confusion. He looked at Lan Zhan for reassurance that he wasn’t the only one bewildered in this situation, but Lan Zhan seemed to be trying to do something with his face, alternately widening and squinting his eyes at the two other people.

Lan Xichen coughed. “Never – never mind, Young Master Wei,” he said, his smile back on his face, although now it looked a little bit forced. “If you’ve finished your meal, we should proceed with your original plan to find the human-eating monster. Wangji and I have spent only a few moments in this cave, but already I can feel the effects of the suppressing array. Wangji, you feel it too?”

Lan Zhan inclined his head, his face back to its usual expressionlessness. “It was not cast by a human,” he replied. “The energy is different. Staying here longer than necessary will result in full depletion of our spiritual energy.” He materialised his guqin and played a few complicated sounding notes. Blue light flared as he cast the pathfinding spell, and it formed a faint line on the ground showing the direction in which they were to go.

“We must hurry,” he said brusquely, “or my energy will fail and the spell will disappear.”

“Got it,” Wei Wuxian said, nodding decisively, feeling much more comfortable and at ease now that he was no longer alone with Jiang Cheng, and Lan Zhan was here at his side. As they walked, Wei Wuxian filled the silence with his usual chatter, speculating about the origins of the creature and how it could possibly have cast a suppressing array, interrupted only by Lan Zhan’s ‘mm’s of acknowledgment and the occasional offered insight.

If he was speaking a little louder than usual, it was only because he could feel the supreme awkwardness radiating off the two sect leaders walking behind them. It wasn’t coming off Lan Xichen, no – Wei Wuxian had previously turned around surreptitiously to check on the two of them and Lan Xichen had looked perfectly at ease and his usual composed self. Rather, it was Jiang Cheng who was blatantly trying to avoid everyone’s gaze, and who’d answered Lan Xichen’s initial attempts at conversations with curt, albeit polite, rejoinders.

That’s strange, Wei Wuxian mused to himself, as he chattered on to Lan Zhan about his theories regarding whether or not beasts had souls akin to that of humans, Jiang Cheng’s used to silence and isn’t often fazed. I wonder if something happened between him and Zewu-jun? Or maybe he’s just tired. Or maybe he feels left out of the conversation between me and Lan Zhan? But that’s not my fault! He’s the one being all grumpy and crabby. I mean, I know things aren’t exactly back to normal between us, but I’d thought after the Guanyin Temple events he’d started to hate me a little bit less…

“We’re here,” Lan Zhan said, stopping abruptly, as the faint blue line on the ground ended and they were faced with a large door.

This was different from the door that had led into the library, for it was carved out of granite and not wood, and gems were embedded deep into the stone in a pattern that radiated out from the centre, where two large knockers were located. The faces of two door gods glared at them out of the darkness, painted as they were on either panel of the door.

It must have been a glorious sight, Wei Wuxian thought to himself, when the lamps had been lit. But now the gems only gleamed dully in the limited light from the talisman, and the paint of the door gods was chipped and peeling. Now their stares looked mournful, rather than stern and majestic, as they would have been before.

Words were carved into the upper frame of the door, large, sombre characters in ancient text. They looked as if they had been etched into the stone by a great claw, the edges of the words were still clear and relatively unchipped by time.

“Cave of… Cave of Dormancy?” Wei Wuxian read with some difficulty, for he had not practised reading ancient scripts to any significant extent.

“There is a great well of yang energy beyond this door,” Lan Xichen said from behind them, his voice almost awestruck. Wei Wuxian concurred. As they had been following the path indicated by Lan Zhan’s pathfinding spell, he too had felt the presence of a boundless amount of yang energy emanating from some unseen force, that now apparently lay behind this door.

Even in his weakened state, it felt ponderous and overpowering; he could not imagine what it felt like for Lan Zhan and Lan Xichen, whose reserves of energy were mostly intact. True to his thoughts, Lan Zhan staggered slightly, and the blue line on the ground faded. Wei Wuxian dropped the ratty overcoat tucked under his arm, and steadied him with a hand on his elbows.

The faint crackle of Zidian echoed throughout the space as Jiang Cheng clenched his fist, and he strode forward, placing his palm on the handle of the door.

“Sect Leader Jiang, we must be cautious,” Lan Xichen said, and in his gentle voice it did not sound like a rebuke. Jiang Cheng spared him a sideways glance, then nodded shortly. It took the both of them to push the heavy doors open, and Lan Zhan levered himself out of Wei Wuxian’s grasp to peer carefully into the chamber.

It was the light that hit them first, and blinded them.

Jiang Cheng grunted in surprise and cast his head away, for he had been the first one to gain entrance to the chamber. Wei Wuxian pushed his way forward and squinted into the blinding light.

Once his eyes had stopped metaphorically bleeding, he made out lamps on the walls, larger than the ones in the passageways, and this time, these were lit, with a curious iridescent flame that flickered and danced even though there was no wind.

As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he began to make out more features of the room. It was a vast chamber, with the ceiling towering high above them, and every panel of the walls inlaid with gold and jade. Golden dragons snarled motionlessly at them from the corners of the room, their presumably-once-gleaming surfaces now flecked with dirt. Two thrones sat at the far end of the room – which was more like a hall – one enormous and golden, the other slightly smaller and carved in jade. A thin layer of dust covered every single object and surface in the room.

Except for the centre of the chamber, a shining golden pedestal, upon which lay a great slumbering long.

There was a sharp intake of breath from behind Wei Wuxian from Lan Zhan that told him he’d noticed the long as well. Very slowly, not daring to take even a single breath, Wei Wuxian stepped backwards and back into the passageway.

Once he was no longer in the hall, he spun around, his eyes open so wide he felt they were about to fall out of his skull.

“It’s a Shenlong. A heavenly dragon,” he hissed frantically. “The nine resemblances were present: the stag’s horns, the camel’s head, the demon’s eyes, the snake’s neck, the clam’s belly, the carp’s scales, the tiger’s paws, the cow’s ears, and most distinctive of the Shenlong, out of all the types of long – the eagle’s claws, of which there were five on each foot.”

Jiang Cheng’s were equally wide. “Is it… is it the real thing?” he managed. “Or is it a deformed copy, like the Xuanwu of Slaughter you and Lan Wangji fought?”

“He is a true Shenlong,” Lan Xichen spoke, and there was a subtle tremor in his voice. “He had the chimu atop its head, without which he may not ascend to the heavens.”

“That explains how he was able to cast the suppressing array, and the non-human aura of his energy, given that a Shenlong is a fully sentient being and not merely a mindless beast. But what’s he doing down here, though?” Wei Wuxian wondered aloud. “A Shenlong belongs in the heavens or in the body of water he governs, not under the ground where he has no access to the water which sustains him.”

Lan Xichen shook his head, his gaze equally uncomprehending. “Before we left the chamber, I observed that there were large lacquer panels on the walls with accompanying text, which likely depicted the Shenlong and his story,” he said quietly. “I did not get a close enough look at the words, however. But there is one thing beyond doubt – this Shenlong is unlike his more benevolent peers, and is responsible for the disappearances of the people of Yunmeng. We must find a way to observe both the Shenlong and the panels on the walls, which may give us a clue as to how to combat him.”

“According to the stories, it has superior sight and smell,” Lan Zhan spoke up. “It will be difficult to evade its notice.”

“It did not notice us when we first entered, however, and we were rather noisy,” Jiang Cheng said. “If we are careful, we should be fine.”

Given that none of them saw any other way to proceed, it was on that note of caution that they entered the chamber once again. Wei Wuxian kept his eyes firmly trained on the Shenlong, but even as they eased themselves slowly past the door and into the room, he did not wake. The lines of his magnificent, serpentine body rose and fell in tandem with his breaths, and the silky tendrils of his beard fluttered in the air that whooshed out of his nostrils. A pearl glimmered faintly from where it was nestled underneath his chin.

Wei Wuxian could not help but stop and admire his majestic beauty. It was truly a sight he’d never thought he’d see in his lifetime, for long were said to be mere figments of imagination, myths of the past.

But… I suppose, if there’s a Xuanwu, why not a Shenlong? It was a perfectly reasonable line of logic, he thought, and besides, unless he and the other three were having mass hallucinations, the proof of truth in those supposed legends lay before his own eyes.

It was only when he was sure that the Shenlong was deep in slumber, that he finally turned his attention to the four lacquer panels on the wall. These were clearly done by a great artist - like the rest of the statues and art pieces of the chamber - for the panels were carefully inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold leaf carved into the shapes of miniscule birds and flowers that fluttered in and adorned the background of the scenes. Below each panel were lines of ancient script, carved deep into the rock by the same great claw which had labelled this cavern the Cave of Dormancy.

The words were not clear to him, given his inability to read ancient text, but thankfully, the pictures were evocative enough that he was able to get the main gist of the story. In the first panel, the Shenlong perched atop a mountain, watching as the towns and people in his purview were washed away by strong wind and rain. In the next screen, he was depicted swooping downwards into the fray and picking off various unfortunate victims from the deluge of water below. His large bulging eyes, created with carven jade gemstones, glimmered malevolently in the light. Blood gushed from his cavernous jaws.

Then, in the next panel, a Fenghuang – a divine phoenix - had descended upon the scene, and was tussling violently with the Shenlong, her long, sharp beak digging into the flesh of the Shenlong’s leg where it was buried. The artist had captured their likenesses so perfectly that the extended claws of the Fenghuang seemed to leap out from the painting at viewers, and her vibrant feathers appeared soft and inviting to the touch.

The scene depicted in the final screen was set in a familiar location: here, in the Cave of Dormancy, the Fenghuang presided over the Shenlong, the iridescent plumage on her wings spread wide as she cast her shadow on the slumbering Shenlong. His long body was now marked heavily with the scars of battle and blood, and he lay in exactly the same position as he was in now, atop the golden pedestal, feet tucked under his body and tail curled round his head; a curiously docile posture.

The only difference between then and now, Wei Wuxian reflected, as he glanced back to the actual Shenlong, was the array of bones now scattered haphazardly around his pedestal – some animal, some human.

The old stories only tell of the Shenlong as a noble and wise creature, who bestows rain upon peasants as a water god, Wei Wuxian thought to himself. This Shenlong must be a rogue one, akin to the black dragon of Jizhou which was killed by the goddess Nüwa. This Shenlong must have brought calamity to the surrounding towns and abused his power to consume human flesh.

All this information he recalled from dusty textbooks and boring lessons on rainy days that seemed a lifetime away – well, he corrected in his mind, for him at least, they were a lifetime away. But there was no time to dwell on his sad past, now. The important thing at hand now, was to find a way to defeat this Shenlong, and stop it from killing any more Yunmeng people. The only thing was – how? Wei Wuxian could see from the grim look in the eyes of his companions that they were similarly nonplussed.

In the stories, there were few who actually fought a long, and even fewer who survived, Wei Wuxian thought, his brain working furiously. Of those few, most were deities or gods like the Monkey God Sun Wukong, or the Third Lotus Prince Nezha. Long have few weaknesses and many strengths, and it will be difficult to conquer it without external, godly help…

Then, all of a sudden, came the clear, sonorous ring of a bell.

Immediately, all four of them froze. Slowly their gazes turned, from the four panels on the wall, and landed on the Shenlong sleeping atop the golden pedestal.

Wei Wuxian’s last thoughts?

…

We’re fucked.

[whump-town]

Just As Clueless As You

Warnings: cigarettes, underage drinking, past child abuse (for you already know who), and the angst and pain that will come with time

Summary: Emily Prentiss stumbles upon a boy outside of the library one morning and does him a harmless favor. A few months later a poor seating choice makes him her class partner. The rest... she has no idea.

Word Count: 3,057

It's Not Hotchniss-- you'll just have to take my word on that for now

Freshman Year August 1989-April 1990 Semester One: August- December

“Reciprocity”

Waking up on a real mattress is the first dead giveaway that the bed she wakes up in is not her own. Anyone unfortunate to fall for the absolute scheme that is getting a college education knows the back-breaking lumps that are the “mattresses'' supplied to each dorm room on unGodly squealing cheap bed frames that give a shout with each movement. But she’s laying on a real mattress… with no bed frame. She’s really just laying on a mattress laid out right on the floor. For a moment, looking up at a ceiling with water damage and cobwebs she criticizes some of the life choices that she has made getting here. If it were up to her, Emily Prentiss wouldn’t have come to college at all. She isn’t the kind of girl worth wasting that sort of energy on, not when she’s pretty enough to get by on looks and has her mother’s career to fall back on. Her hobbies lie in illegal affairs-- smoking pot and getting drunk. It makes her incredibly social but she’s not book-smart. School just isn’t her thing. (Which is entirely untrue but sometimes self-image distorts lies too near fact hood). Propping herself up on one arm she gathers the sheets up in a bunch in her hand, covering her naked chest from any of the occupants of the room. To call it a room might be a stretch, there’s hardly any room for the mattress on the floor and the desk by her left. She’s also alone she realizes by scanning the room and catching sight of the alarm clock on the floor she understands why. It’s nearly nine-thirty in the morning-- everyone within a ten-mile radius of her is probably in class right now. Well, if you absolve the students like her: campus’s soon to be drop-outs. With a groan she tosses the sheets off of herself, shifting around the room until she can find her clothes and get out of this disgusting house. Without the protection of the sheets, goosebumps break out across her skin. Her naked body shivering against it as she stretches out, raising her arms above her head and heaving a deep yawn. There’s a sticky note waiting for her, informing her that there isn’t any food around but feel free to grab herself some coffee downstairs. She won’t be doing that but at least whoever the guy is he isn’t her typical sleazeball sort. They typically have her walking back home in the dark as soon as they’re done having their fun.

Her clothes have been neatly folded at the end of the bed, even her underwear which is really a surprise. Folding herself back into them, she grimaces at the distinctly dirty feel that they have. The thick scent of booze and cigarette smoke clinging to them doesn’t help. With no hair tie in sight, she knows better than to waste her time looking, she pushes her bangs back with her hands settling on using a pencil she finds on the floor to twist it up and hold it in place. As she’s sliding the pencil against her scalp, securing her hair she spots a joint discarded by the edge of the mattress. She doesn’t waste the energy in contemplating stealing it, just slots it into her back pocket. That will be fun for later, her pregame for the party tonight. A fun little treat for last night. She even finds a Zippo which gets placed in her joint’s neighboring pocket. A real nice treat, indeed. It takes her a moment to get out of the house, the very last thing that she wants is to be seen by any of the other occupants. For the most part, the coast is clear. She thinks she might hear someone downstairs puking but from the stairs to the main door she’s in the clear. There’s no one in sight. With a glance over her shoulder she grabs a round, amber-filled glass she spots sitting turned over on its side by the couch. Giggling as she tucks it under her arm and makes a run for it. The chill of the October morning shakes her thin bones with its just present enough touch ghosting over her bare legs and arms. The weather rarely permits such exposing clothing anymore but the Crown Royal tucked under her arm will warm her right back up, she just needs to make it to the dorms. No sense in wasting good whiskey on a little shivering, not when she has a comforter to crawl into and a hangover to nurse with something cheap and clear. The first time that Emily Prentiss meets Aaron Hotchner he’s fighting the lighter cupped in his hand, standing with his back to the light breeze. He’s shaking from a chill despite it being nearly seventy degrees out and sunny, gripping under his breath and bobbing the unlit cigarette between his teeth as he does so. The large sweater he wears over his boney shoulders does well to hide his thin body but can not save onlookers from the haunted bags under his eyes. They’re the first thing that she notices as she steps up to him. Without a word she flips the lid of her Zippo open, lighting it with an easy flick and holding the flame out for him. He glances at her-- all bloodshot, sleepless brown eyes-- and leans in, fingers trembling as he cups his palms around the Zippo for a protective barrier. Until the end of the cigarette burns bright red and he pulls in a breath, stepping back to get a good shuddering inhale before he pulls off and offers around a plume of smoke, “thanks.” His voice is rasped from the smoke he’s just inhaled but pinched from disuse and he can’t honestly remember the last person he actually talked to. She shrugs, it’s no sweat off her back. This isn’t even her Zipp, well it is now but she didn’t buy it and no one bought it for her. As a semi-excuse for some of her riskier behavior, she made a vow to herself to never let a man put his hands down her pants without her getting something out of it too. Since it’s rarely an orgasm she’s the proud owner of many men’s oversized articles of clothing, small knick-knacks from nightstands, this Zippo, and the joints they leave unattended. It’s just simple reciprocity. “Cigarette?” he offers, holding the box out to her. She lingers just long enough that he assumes she’s a smoker, doing that sort of awkward shuffle that fellow smokers take on before they ask to “bum a smoke”. The same one he does when he runs short at the end of the month and is pretending to have the forethought to consider putting his money to food and not cigarettes. But she shakes her head, tucking her Zippo back into her pocket and walking away. He’d consider it weird if he didn’t know he’d do the same thing. He hasn’t got the time to be messing with skimpily dressed girls, especially

the sort that looks the kind of trouble that she is. He’s here on a pretentious scholarship. The sort that doesn’t blink twice before dismissing students from their program for poor grades and he might have gotten himself here but he is no one’s definition of a genius. He’s going to smoke this cigarette and bask in the sun for as long as he can before going back into the looming walls of the library and to work on an article reflection for his Sociology class. Which he already knows he will get a 92% on because they’re facing the ass end of November and he’s gotten a single hundred on the twenty or so of these reviews he’s written and all the rest the same score of 92. It’s nothing to complain about, that’s a nice score to be sat at, but it irks him just a little to be planted so firmly like that. Unlike Emily Prentiss, his parents could not offer him any real edge or flourish to get him into this college. His father was a lawyer and while he did make great money it was only in the context of the small town they lived in, an impoverished and drug-hungry place. There Aaron was an oddity in every way that a teenager could be-- coming from a household with two college-educated parents, severely underweight from abuse that went entirely unchecked, finding reprieve in the books he could bury himself in, and discovering his best coping mechanism in either the dissociative flick of pages and weight of a book in his hands or chain-smoking. Though he’d never had enough to say to be good at the social aspects smoking can offer. He’s gotten good at standing at the backs of buildings and smoking alone. The stinger, the worst part is that his father has managed to isolate him. Even in death that man never lets him win. According to the will that he left behind his mother can’t give him a dime of the money, nothing to help with tuition or food or to pay for a dorm. If she breaks the terms of his will then she can’t get his pension until Sean’s of age to make decisions about the money. Aaron’s fairly certain that there is nothing legal about that but the will is headed by one of his father’s assistants and everyone in that office was as loyal as dogs to him. Aaron is nothing to them and his mother has never risked anything for him, he knows she won’t start now. Emily is in every way that can be observed by others his opposite. “Knock, knock.” One of the girls from Emily’s floor sticks her head in Emily’s room, flicking on the light to the room without a second thought to the woman buried under the sheets. “Girly,” she says with a shake of her head. “When was the last time you went to class?” She might not be Emily’s closest friend on the floor but she knows she hasn’t seen Emily out of this room for anything more than liquor and parties. Which is none of her business but how can she even hope to do anything without at least doing assignments? They’ll kick her out. Emily groans from under the safe haven of her bedsheets, picking up her head to squint and see who is bothering her. “What do you want?” she asks. “Food. I was going to go to the dining hall, I just wanted to see if you wanted to come with me.” Emily shakes her head, digging her fingers into the tender flesh of her temples as the light makes her head throb and her stomach queasy. She’s hungover and right now she needs to sleep before she self-medicates with the shitty vodka under her pillow and heads to the party they’re having downtown. It’s not a frat party but it’s something and she knows the guy who lives next door. With a groan, she falls back onto her stiff mattress. “I’m good,” she answers. “Catch you another time?” The other girl lingers for just a moment, watching Emily snuggle back into the sheets and she shakes her head. She’s ruining her life. It’s one thing to not place any importance on college, to be the sort of person that just doesn’t see the flourish or point in it. Life is full of balance, not everyone should want to go to college but people like Emily need the balance. People like her need to scrape by and fall flat on their faces-- they need

ups and downs and overwhelming projects to get some sense of what life is actually like. They need a wake-up call and Emily is wasting hers. She’s not strong enough to face the world just yet but if she keeps fucking around like this, nothing her mother does can save her. No money in the world can teach a hard lesson like this one. The night before the meeting she has scheduled with the Dean, the sort that only comes with lots of money and the kind of threats that come from high, scary places, Emily goes out like she always does. Doing exactly as she’d planned: waking up at seven o’clock to shower and apply lipstick that some dumb boy will likely lick and smear off. Placing her bare feet on her cold tiled floor she groans, not even blinking before reaching into her dresser and pulling out Smirnoff she keeps buried under her bras. It stings going down but if she’s patient it’ll dull the splitting ache trying to pry the lobes of her brain open. Burning fingers digging themselves into the soft tissue of her brain. Tonight will end just the last and the one before that. She’ll find a hungry man-- sometimes they look like they’re not waiting for an invite and others that she knows she’s just corrupting-- and let him use her body in exchange for all the liquor she can get down her throat before they can undo her jeans. Wake up, again, in a bed that is not her own and when she’s walking home she’ll find that tall, tree-like kid standing by the back of the library but this time his cigarette will be lit. The expression across his face nearly zin, despite the tears drying against his cheeks. His chin turned up to the sun. She’ll lower her gaze and keep walking. She’s late for her meeting with the Dean. “Miss Prentiss--” Emily recoils, averting her gaze to the old, shitty carpet of the Dean’s office. She hates being called by her last name, hates being something her mother can own. That’s all she’s ever been her entire life, some little flyer for her mother to tac up on her board of accomplishments. An award to float around because motherhood can be commendable if you weaponize it enough. “Emily,” the Dean corrects with a sigh. “You’re on probation, do you understand?” His fingers are steepled on his desk, giving her that look a thousand men before him have given her. She doesn’t even have to look up to know his eyes wander to her breast far too many times to be considered an accident. “I don’t think I have to tell you that this has nothing to do with the school’s faith in your abilities.” Her chest flushes, she can feel the skin heat up under the tone of his voice. Her mother got her into this school, nothing about her grades or her charm. Nothing about Emily is worth anything just the Prentiss she can’t seem to get rid of. “If your grades don’t improve, if you can’t meet the school’s requirements by the end of next semester you will fail out.” He has the most unfortunate voice, so annoying. “Do you understand?” Oh, yeah and he’s a patronizing bastard. She hates it when adults do that shit. Always mocking. Is it not enough they get to listen to themselves go on these long-winded tangents about honor or faith or self-image but to tac that belittling question at the end. To force you to meet their gaze and mumble that you do. All for what? So he can see what her breasts look like when she extends her right hand to shake his? To see if they move when she stands? Fuck him. “Yes, sir,” she says with a nod. “I understand.” She doesn’t shake his hand. Walking out of his office she keeps her head high, refusing to let her emotion show on her face. The heartbreak she feels splitting her chest open. Before she knows it, she’s walking towards the library. She’s never even been inside but she thinks about that boy and the face he’d made this morning. How relaxed he’d looked and she needs that. Needs whatever he found there. To let go of this feeling eating her alive, the sadness she’d told herself she wouldn’t feel when she walked into that office and found that her mother hadn’t even bothered to come. Hadn’t cared to even ask

if Emily was okay. If her behavior was the product of something else. She sinks down against the wall, bringing her knees to her chest, and lets her forehead fall down against them. How could she be so silly? So foolish? Of course, her mother wouldn’t show up to a meeting with the Dean. God, she’s so fucking gullible. So stupid. All she can do is choke on sobs, pulling in shuddering breaths and trying to stifle the sounds she makes. She just wants to burn alive with the anger she feels. To set fire to something and see the destruction. Ruin something. Somewhere between half-expecting the door beside her to fly open and that mess of a boy whose cigarette she’d lit to come out she realizes that she can smell the smoke lingering in the air. He’s had his smoke break and won’t be out anytime soon. For some reason that makes her cry even harder, that she can’t even find comfort in some stranger. But she could just walk into the library and find him, it wouldn’t be that hard. He wears the same thing every time she sees him-- an oversized earth-tone sweater and old jeans. And, as she’s thinking about dragging her sorry ass up and into that library she realizes something. She has the control to go into that building and find the guy. She has the control every night when she goes out to party, to get lost in some boy’s half-assed touches, and cheap liquor. Emily has all of the control. Her mother gave her a second chance, she knows it was purely for the high that old bitch will get when Emily fails out. When Emily finally proves that she’s not good for anything. But she has the control, not her mother. Wiping the tears on her face she pulls in a deep breath and knows. She knows what she’s going to do next. She is going to ruin something. Her mother isn’t right about her. Emily Prentiss turns her face to the sun and she knows exactly what the cigarette boy felt this morning. Release.

[agerestorybits]

Fluff pile.

(Roman)

The pillow fort was made, the movies chosen. Popcorn popped. Apples sliced. Hot coco made.Smores baked. All that was left was for everyone to snuggle up and enjoy movie night.

Logan was the first down, wearing astronaut pj’s his paci on a star clip. “Cocoa?” He asked excitedly. Roman laughed and ruffled Logan’s hair. It was his night to babysit while all the others got to be little. He didn’t mind it at all. If anything it was one of his favorite moments to shine!

He pulled out all the stops, almost as if it was a friendly competition between all of them to see who could do the best job babysitting.

Roman handed Logan his mug, the one with simple math equations written on it like it was a chalkboard. “Tanks!” Roman smiled, Logan was in one of his younger head spaces.

“Where’s everyone else?” Roman asked.

“Soon.” Logan answered holding his mug carefully with both hands. Roman nodded.

“Do you need help to get settled into the fort?” Roman asked.

“I gots it!” Logan said, setting his mug down on the floor and collapsing into a bean bag before picking the mug back up.

Patton came down with Remus next. Patton in his cat onesie, Remus was wearing a zombie one. “Hi hi!” Patton waved. Remus copied him waving.

Remus going nonverbal when he was little. Roman waved back, He held out their mugs. Patton’s had ‘I like you a latte’ On it. Remus had eyes that were always looking at you.

“Hot chocolate!” Patton said happily. Remus smiled too. “Thanks!” Patton said as Remus just nodded.

“Enjoy!” Roman said eyes going to the stairs as Janus came down. He was wearing yellow and black ‘suit’ pajamas.

“Hot cocoa?” Roman asked. Janus smiled before looking at the snake mug. Roman noticed his hesitation. “Do you want it in a sippy cup?”

“Please?” Janus asked shily.

Roman waved his hand and a yellow sippy cup appeared. He poured the Hot chocolate in before closing it. He handed it over.

“Thank you.” Janus said quietly before going and taking his place in the corner away from everyone.

Patton and Remus sitting next to Logan. Roman smiled before doing a quick head count and coming up messing one.

He frowned and went hunting for Virgil.

“Stpid boton!” Virgil growled from his room. Roman knocked before sticking his head in.

“You don’t ok stormcloud?” Roman asked. He saw Virgil with his skeleton onesie misbuttoned as he tried to straighten it out.

“Help?” Virgil asked looking up at him.

Roman stepped in and quickly rebuttoned the onesies before just picking Virgil up. “Let’s ok watch a movie ok?”

“Mkay.” Virgil said hanging on to Roman as they went downstairs.

He got Virgil settled with his bat mug of hot cocoa before pulling out the snacks and turning on the movie, (Aristocats.) He settled down next to Janus in the corner. Janus curled up against him sideways, not afraid of spilling his drink. Roman hugged him with one arms as he’s eyes scanned over the others for any problems. Seeing none he turned back to the movie.

Perfect.

(Logan)

He took them all ‘camping’. (It was in the common rooms). He put glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and sleeping bags on the floor. There was a lantern on the floor that acted as the ‘campfire.’

Everyone was in their sleeping bags with their stuffed animals.

“Story?” Virgil asked from behind his paci. His arms are filled with a giant stuffed cat.

“I was planning on talking about some constellations.” Logan said.

“Oh.”

“What a con-steal-thing?” Patton asked.

“It’s a set of stars that makes a picture.”

“I like pictures!” Roman said.

“Can we just sleep?” Janus muttered. “I’m tired.” He rubbed his eyes.

Remus frowned at that. Patton looked at him. “Do you wanna hear about the Con-steal-thingies?”

“Constellations.” Logan corrected.

Remus nodded holding his plush squid to his chest. Half of his face hidden behind it.

Logan spend about an hour talking about them. The stars that made them up. (Whatever else you talk about constellations…..) Before he noticed that everyone had fallen asleep except Roman who was still wide awake listening. He was staring at Logan with awe.

“You’re so smart!” Logan paused before smiling.

“Thank you. Now I believe it’s time to sleep.” Logan said.

“Awww.” Roman groaned. Logan paused again.

“Do you want to see something?” Logan asked.

Roman nodded excitedly. Logan turned off the lantern. Roman looked up and saw the glow in the dark stars. He laid down staring at them. “Wow...You’re the best!”

“Sleep now.” Logan said, opening his own sleeping bag.

Roman nodded, still staring at the stars. He lifted his hands as if reaching for the stars. “I wish I was a star.”

“You already are.” Logan promised.

Roman giggled before yawning. He snuggled deeper into his sleeping bag and let his eyes drift closed.

(Patton)

The playground was made to be larger than a normal one so that when they played on it they felt smaller.

Patton watched from a bench as they all ran around playing. Remus (as always when he was little) stuck near Patton and was playing with toys around the bench.

Virgil was building a sand village with Logan in the sand box. Roman was pushing Janus on the swings.

They would play for another hour or so before Patton would call them over for lunch and a nap.

Remus tugged on Patton’s pant leg and handed him a barbie doll. He flapped his hands and pointed at the doll then to Patton.

“You want me to play too?”

Remus nodded and started bouncing. He flapped his hands again and grabbed another doll whose hair he was carefully brushing out.

Patton got down onto the ground with him and put a pair of shoes on the barbie before putting it in the dumptruck.

Remus frowned and shook his head. He dumped the barbie out and put a handful of grass in the truck.

Patton laughed. “Ok then. She doesn’t go there.”

Remus nodded and pointed at the grass and then at the truck. He pulled up more grass and put it in.

“Grass goes in there.” Patton clarified.

Remus shook his head.

“....trash?” Patton guessed. Remus smiled and he knew he got it right. He helped pull up some more grass till it was full.

Roman and Janus walked over, “Food?”

“Oh right!” Patton got up. Remus frowned. Patton ruffled his hair, “We can play again in a little bit kiddo.”

Remus huffed.

“Virgil! Logan! Lunch time!” Both of them ran over. Patton had packed sandwiches and juice boxes.

Everyone was quick to eat except Remus who kept playing.

“It’s time to eat now.”

Remus stared at him before. “N-n-no.” He forced out. Patton stared at him stunned. Remus never spoke in little space.

“What do you mean no?” Patton asked.

Remus pointed at the toys. “I know you want to keep playing but food is important too.”

“Pffft!”

“Remus.” Patton warned.

Remus started to tear up. Patton pulled him into his lap, “How about you eat while you play? Would that work?”

Remus nodded. He tried to put a handful of grass in his mouth. “NO! Nono! We’re eating sandwiches not grass!”

Remus sighed but accepted the sandwich.

Lunch was over quickly and there were a few yawning faces. “Time to go back.”

Remus crossed his arms and pouted as Patton picked up the toys. “Come on Remus.”

Remus turned his head away. Patton sighed and slowly started to walk away. Remus made a panicked noise and ran over, grabbing Patton’s hand. “You can keep playing back home...ok?”

Remus reluctantly nodded.

(remus)

Painting! What better activity was there for a bunch of littles? He thought. And the paint was edible...at least he ate it plenty of times with no problems.

Logan was busy carefully painting solid shapes. Virgil was painting colored cobwebs. Roman was making a castle with himself standing on the top of it. Patton was painting everyone. Janus was painting...himself.

Not on canvas. No he was covering himself in paint.

“We can play in the paint later.” Remus said.

“Bap!” Janus giggled as he slapped Remus in the face covering his face in blue paint. Remus licked some of it off.

“I’m supposed to tell you off for that. But it was funny so I won’t.” Remus said picking Janus up and carrying him into the kitchen to clean both of them up.

Janus giggled as he was cleaned up and ‘helped’ Remus get clean by hitting him in the face with the wet rag. “Thank you for helping little snake!”

“Welcom.” Janus said swinging his legs from where he sat on the counter.

“Help!” roman yelled. Remus picked up janus again and carried him back in. Roman had knocked over a paint jar all over his painting. He looked up at Remus panicked.

“Uh oh.” Patton said looking over. He patted Roman’s head trying to comfort him.

“Aww it’s ok. I can fix it!” Remus promised. He got a good look at what Roman had painted before he left and easily repainted it on a new canvas and replaced the ruined one. Roman inspected it closely before beaming.

“Thank you!”

“No problem.”

���Finisheded.” Logan said firmly. Remus looked at the carefully stacked shapes that filled the canvas perfectly.

“Good job!” Remus gave him a small hug.

“I wanna hug too!” Virgil said.

“Hey! Me too!” Patton said.

Remus grinned before grabbing both of them and pulling them close. He squished them together.

“Cuddle puddle!” Janus yelled jumping on them.

Remus laughed as Roman and Logan joined.

(janus)

It was easy, turn on the t.v pull out some toys and just sit back. Janus didn’t put much work into watching them. Even if Roman and Virgil competed for the ‘best’. He preferred to just have a relaxed non stressed time watching them.

Patton was showing Remus how to build a tower of blocks. Logan was reading a story book. Roman was watching sofia the first with Virgil.

All and all a very easy and relaxed afternoon.

Just the way he liked it. Logan crawled over with his book. “Ummm.”

“Do you want me to read to you?” Janus asked.

“It got big words.” Logan muttered embarrassed.

“Of course.” Janus had him sit down on the couch next to him. He put an arm around Logan and opened the book.

He didn’t notice Patton and Remus had come over to listen till Patton tugged on his pant leg. “Can we see the pictures too?”

He smiled, “Of course.” He tilted the book so they could see too.

It wasn’t long before Roman and Virgil wandered over as well.

He hadn’t planned on story time, but he had no problems with the change in schedule.

(Virgil)

You’d think that cooking would be what Patton would suggest for them. But no, Virgil set them all up decorating sugar cookies for halloween.

There were bats, pumpkins, and cats. All being colored in rainbow colors.

“It’s you!” Roman said holding up a bat cookie that was colored with purple.

“Thanks.” Virgil said taking the cookie.

Roman laughed, “I’mma make me next.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’m red bat...to match you.” Roman said.

“We’re cats!” Patton said. Virgil turned to see Patton and Remus with frosting whiskers.

“OH! Na….yeah! You are! Good job!” He bit his lip trying not to laugh.

Janus drew an angry pumpkin and Logan made a happy pumpkin. “It’s important to have friends.” Logan informed him off hand.

“Yes. Very.” Virgil agreed.

“Patton! We suppose to eat the frosten on the cookies!” Roman said.

Patton was licking the frosting off his butter knife. “Mmm? BUt it’s GOOD!”

Virgil broke down laughing.

“V! It’s not funny! He’s not following the rules!” Roman said angry.

“Yeah!” Logan agreed looking up.

“He can...have some frosting.” Virgil said between laughs.

Janus took a bite out of his cookie. “It’s good!”

“See?” Patton said pointing.

Roman grumbled under his breath as he went back to coloring his red bat.

All in all a very successful cooking play date.

----

“So who won?” Roman asked.

Janus rolled his eyes, “Does it matter?”

“I think everyone won!” Patton said.

“I mean...the park was fun.” Virgil said.

“So was cooking.” Patton said.

“The camping thing was fun.” Roman admitted.

“I enjoyed painting.” Janus said quietly.

“Movie night was great!” Remus said.

“I enjoyed reading with Janus.” Logan said.

“Oh yeah! That was great!” Remus agreed.

“It was nice.” Virgil admitted.

“So Janus won?”

Janus looked up, “What?”

“Good job.” Roman said. “I’ll get you next round.”

“This isn’t...oh forget it.” Janus rolled his eyes, secretly very pleased with being voted the best.