#and then says she'd feel empty inside if she thought otherwise

[roseluwakcoffee]

Sometimes I think I write Kyoko too much like a cold, hard detective for being a literal teenager/young adult, but then I remember at the age of 13 years old she canonically doused herself in vodka and threatened to light herself on fire if the killer didn’t reveal themselves

[deluxewhump]

Lawrenceville Baptist

II: Jesse and Peter Sullivan

Part one

CW: cold whump, mentions of murder, adoption, house fire, death of family members, religion (Christianity), hurt/comfort, night terrors, disordered eating from PTSD, Peter is 17 at this time, dysfunctional sibling relationship

After dinner, with their mother in her room, Peter and Jesse went back out to the barn to get Paulo. Their mother didn’t know they were keeping the stray pet in there. Or she did, and she just didn’t want to address it. It’s hard to say how much she knew.

To Peter Sullivan, felt like their mom stopped paying attention to anything whenever Glen left for a long haul in his eighteen wheeler. The exception was Sundays, when she was temporarily reinvigorated from church and would begin a doomed project she'd abandon by Monday morning. Otherwise, she would stay in her room nearly all day and all night. Three in the morning, Peter would get up to go to the bathroom and see the light from the TV flickering under her door.

She’d get better the day before Glen was scheduled to get back. She’d vacuum and make the boys do Laundry Mountain. He and Jesse would do a deep muck on the horse stalls and replace all the bedding with fresh sawdust, sweep the barn's cement center aisle so it looked new. She’d wash her hair and put makeup on and cook a big meal, instead of Jesse cooking for just him and his little brother like usual.

Everyone knew taking Paulo in was the Christian thing to do, even the ones that looked at him like he had a communicable disease. They’d called a social worker to the church, like you’re supposed to do in that situation. She documented everything and it was quickly decided that since Glen and Tabby Sullivan were already adoptive parents, it would be 'more than appropriate' for the abandoned pet to stay with them until someone showed up to claim him, or they decided to surrender him to the state.

And so Paulo had come home with them. The social worker had never even come by the house. Pets aren't really their bag, Jesse said. Pets aren't really anybody's bag, except the traffickers.

Jesse handed him a flashlight.

“What’re we doing?” he asked.

“We have to go check on him. He could freeze. It’s a lot colder tonight than last night and he was all wet.”

Peter didn’t want to go back out in the cold, but he knew Jesse was right. He hadn’t really thought about how cold the barn gets, that it was not that same as inside the house. But he still didn’t want to lose his spot in Jesse’s room for some abandoned pet, or to have Jesse be distracted from him like he was his senior year in high school when he’d had a girlfriend from town. She was dead now. Peter had never seen Jesse so empty-eyed and inconsolable as he had at her funeral. He was so broken up by her death it was like he’d died, too. He was somewhere Peter couldn’t reach, and it made him afraid. 

Watching him touch the casket had made Peter feel wobbly inside, a feeling he recognized immediately and was terrified to feel again. He'd felt it acutely after the house fire in Pittsburgh that killed his parents and grandfather in the same night— the same hour, three AM.

That was when he realized the world was not solid, the ground beneath his feet could not be trusted. For a year he feared spontaneous combustion, gas leaks, cars and their hot engines full of combustible fluids. He thought he was choking when he ate anything other than short noodles in butter and lost fifteen pounds at Montgomery Children’s Home. He feared the very plates of the earth opening up like a dream and swallowing him whole, separating him from everyone else forever. That was Hell, he understood after the fire. Being truly alone.

The next year he was enrolled to enter Cheshire Junior High as an eighth grader. The Sullivans finalized their adoption and he had a home again. Not just a mother and father but chickens, eight horses, a four wheeler, and an older brother, Jesse.

They pulled on their winter jackets, warm from hanging above the radiator. He followed Jesse out the backdoor and across the yard. Snow crunched under their boots and they could see each puff of their breath in the air. The moon looked far away and blue. Jesse went in the side door of the barn, easier than opening the big doors in front on their icy metal runners. The horses whickered softly at our footsteps, hoping for extra hay. Chance tapped his stall door with an expectant hoof.

Jesse went to the tack room, where they'd locked Paulo in a few hours earlier. The tack room was like a big closet, windowless and dusty. There had been more horses here once, years ago, but now there were only two, so most of the saddle racks and bridle hooks sat empty. Still, it always smelled of leather. A space heater affixed to the wall was meant to keep the leather from being damaged by extreme cold, but like a lot of things on the Sullivan property, it was not being kept up the way it once had. It was humming weakly, emitting an orange glow and very little heat. Paulo was curled up close to it, shivering.

Jesse knelt down in front of him. Paulo had told the social worker he was nineteen, making him and Jesse the same age. He had the same homogenized American accent they did, minus some of their rural colloquialisms. Peter shone the flashlight at the ground so it wouldn’t be in Paulo’s eyes, but so he could still see him in its halo of light.

“Can you walk?” asked his brother.

Paulo looked dazed. His lips were not the shade they should have been, and Peter felt the uncomfortable twinge of sorriness he had when Samson had been half drowning him earlier. They knew he was different. They knew he was likely used and damaged in ways that both repulsed and darkly fascinated them.

Until Sam started dunking his head in the horse trough, Peter had been glad there was someone newer and more out of place than him. Someone clearly involved in evil and not just kissed by it, like he had been with the fire.

Peter had been baptized in the church before the adoption finalized, but he was still worried they knew he was some kind of defective. He was just saying the words, letting them dip his head back.

He wanted to be Saved, he just didn’t know if he was or not. He had waited and prayed for that feeling in his heart that Pastor Patterson had described, but even when he came out of the water there was only silence. He was terrified to confide this to anyone, fearing it would reveal his true and permanent otherness to them. Eventually he softened it, declawed it, and mentioned it to Jesse, who casually reassured him that it was fine, that silence was where God lives. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered to be afraid of anything without consulting Jesse first, who seemed afraid of nothing.

Jesse handed Peter his flashlight so he could help the other boy to his feet. He shucked out of his own winter jacket and put it over Paulo’s shoulders for the walk back to the house.

“I forgot this heater is on the fritz,” he muttered, holding the more slender frame of our guest up easily. Jesse was big, strong in a way Peter didn’t think he’d ever be. The football coach in town had begged Jesse to stay on the team and play his senior year, but he was still too messed up about his girlfriend at the time. The murder had just happened and it felt like the whole county was still in shock. Everyone had understood when he hadn’t played. Even Glen.

He’d had to go to the station and answer questions for hours, go over timelines with them, everything he knew about her calls and her texts in the days leading up to the murder. The cops in Cheshire never really suspected Jesse. No one who really knew him did. Even people who had reservations about their own sons knew Jesse hadn’t hurt Jasmine Black. But the cops were just doing their jobs, and the boyfriend of the dead girl is always a good place to start.

Peter walked alongside them, shining the flashlight in front of them so they wouldn’t slip on a patch of ice. They made it inside and he locked the door behind them, following them down the hall to their room.

When he was adopted, they’d converted Tabby Sullivan's old sewing room to a bedroom for him. Though small, it was freshly repainted and had brand new carpet. But the only thing that kept Peter from having night terrors about fire was sleeping in Jesse’s room with him, on his floor, where he would reach down from his bed and touch Peter between his shoulder blades, or on his hair. It became such a habit they dragged the mattress off Peter's bed and put it on the floor where he preferred to sleep.

Glen saw and said it was one step above bedwetting. Peter needed to learn to sleep in his own bed in his own room if he was ever going to grow up to be a man. He was thirteen, for Chrissake, he reminded them all over Sunday dinner, and Jesse was fifteen. They were not five and seven.

He never found it in his heart to forgive Glen for shaming them at the table like that, though he prayed for the strength for months after. Shaming him. It was clear their father thought Peter was the one who was weak, in the wrong room at night, and needed to grow up.

But Jesse still let him in his room in secret after their mom and Glen were asleep. Jesse would leave the door cracked so he made no sound pushing it open to slip inside, and he would find his thick sleeping bag already unrolled on the floor so he could climb in. Jesse would wake him before morning, reaching down and tapping him on the shoulder so he could retreat to his room and his cold sheets just before dawn.

Eventually, Jesse and Peter became so inseparable that even Glen gave up. They shared the desktop computer in Jesse's room, played video games together in his room, and eventually brought Peter's single bed into his room. Their mom reclaimed the sewing room and Glen never mentioned it again. His work as a truck driver had been taking him further and further from home for longer stints, and he didn’t seem to have energy for them anymore.

As Tabby retreated into herself, Glen was pulled out of the house as if by a tide, and Peter's world became school, church, and Jesse. It was a relief. As much as he had ached for parents, he now realized he couldn’t replace the ones he had lost. There was no going back, he was just who he was now, so he might as well get used to it. And now, all he really needed was Jesse. Jesse took care of him. The first time he heard the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, he knew exactly what it meant. He and Jesse had their covenant. They were a sovereign country unto themselves.

Jesse asked him to go make some hot tea. He was annoyed at being sent out of the room, but he also wanted to help undo whatever damage Samson had done, as he knew it wasn’t helping him be a good Christian. Paulo hadn't done anything to them. He was all alone. Peter knew a thing or two about that. That’s what Hell really is. Being all alone.

When he got back with a hot mug of herbal tea, Jesse had stripped Paulo’s wet clothes from him and replaced them with a t-shirt and sweats from his own closet, and wrapped him in the comforter from his bed.

Paulo kept opening and closing his hands, like they hurt. Peter knew it was serious when Jesse took them in his own to warm them. Back at school, or at church, Jess never would’ve taken another boy's hands like that, so gently and earnestly, trying to warm them. You’d let his fingers get frostbite and be cut off before you’d commit a social faux pas like that. Peter had been taking cues on how to behave from Jesse for five years now, four of them while attending the same school. When Jesse did something out of step with his usual behavior, he noticed.

Paulo looked at Jesse warily, like he half-expected him to break one of his fingers next. Peter couldn’t blame him, after what they let Sam do to him earlier. Anyone new wouldn’t understand— everyone let Sam do whatever Sam wanted to do because it was just easier. He wore you down. And he always stopped before he went too far. And he always made you forgive him, sooner or later. He’d find a sore spot and make it feel good, smile at you like nothing ever happened and you’d just find yourself smiling back, mirroring that warm glow.

Jesse gave Paulo sips of tea by lifting the mug to his lips for him— another extreme oddity. Peter dropped his eyes. It felt like watching a Catholic mass in a movie— the part with the wafer, so foreign to the beige, carpeted church we worshiped in.

“Does he have hypothermia?” he asked.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Jesse told him, making eye contact with Paulo as he said it. Telling him.

Jesse didn’t know the answer to his question, but he wouldn't admit it. Jesse would just tell Peter something else he did know, and Peter was always satisfied. Jesse had never lied to him. If he said it was going to be okay, he knew it would be, because it always had been. He wondered if Paulo wasn’t more or less their slave now. He knew it wasn’t like that, they had taken an abandoned pet in… but didn’t it amount to the same thing?

They put Paulo in Peter's narrow single bed with extra blankets, a thick pair of socks, and a glass of water on the nightstand beside him. He climbed into Jesse’s double bed with him, and was happy when Jesse put his hand between his shoulder blades like he used to when he was younger and would wake up whimpering and mumbling nonsense on his floor. He scooted closer to let Jesse know he still wanted him to touch him, that he wasn’t too big and it hadn’t somehow gotten weird. It would never be weird between them. He didn’t see how it could happen. Jesse was his brother. And he also wasn’t at all.

Jesse draped his arm around him and he maneuvered himself backwards until he felt the unwavering solidity of Jesse's chest on his back. Jesse pulled him snug and held him, and he fell almost immediately asleep.

[papermatisse]

Perchance To Dream || L.SY

† genre: horror

† word count: 1.7k

† warnings: disturbing content, murderous intent, controlling behavior, self harm (actively keeping self awake and consuming energy drinks and caffeine), mentions of insanity, paranoia, fear, psychosis

† synopsis: when a monster has taken your one unconscious refuge from the world and now seeks to hunt you in your dreams.

† (a/n): this is based on a few things: the one twilight zone episode where a guy was being hunted in his sleep and the Russian sleep experiment. I just think both are neat lol. this one goes out to my friend, britt :))! also thank you to my friend jinnie for helping me lay down the warnings bc I had no idea what to say about this thing.

anthology | main masterlist

It's been three days. Three days filled with coffee and energy drinks coursing through her system at all times. Three days filled with hourly alarms blaring 24/7. Three days of utter fear and debilitating paranoia eating away at her psyche.

Three days she's been awake.

Three days since she last slept.

Three days since she last saw him.

(y/n) remembered what it had felt like when he first came to her. A pleasant, if ever fleeting, moment within a dream. She couldn't even remember what the dream was about, but she remembered him.

Like a beacon of light, he seemed like an angel. A handsome face with a charming smile, doting upon her as she went about her dreamscape. His touch still lingered on her as she awoke the next morning, a barren emptiness filling her heart as she came to terms with her literal dream man being nothing more than a figment of her imagination.

The next night, however, he was there again. And she began to process where she was. A heaven like realm of pink skies dusted with light and fluffy clouds, viridescent plains of grass stretching over hills and weaving between woods, distant mountains reaching above and towering over the little nook she found herself in.

And there atop a hill, leant against a tree, staring forth into the beauty of this world, was that boy again. His eyes lazily trailed over to her, and upon spotting her, a smile stretched across his face.

His touch was gentle as he brought her over to him, his hands calloused and rough yet tender upon her as he spoke endless mantras of adoration. Sweet nothings that warmed her insides and relaxed her muscles. It almost felt like taking a calmative of sorts, that numbness that spreads through your body until all you want to do is sleep. Instead, she remained talking to him for what felt like hours of the night.

His name was Sangyeon, and he introduced himself as what her dreams are made of. It sounded nice and lovely, just like him, and she grew even more enamored by the man her mind created.

For the next week, her nights were filled with nothing but Sangyeon. And just as he had assured her, he truly was her personal fantasy. The sickly sweet, saccharine sensation of happiness seeping from every encounter she had with the man. That blithe elation which comes with love. That hollowness when she'd wake up, that undeniable yearning that ate away at her, was still present, though grew weaker as the days passed, knowing she'd fall asleep and reunite with him once more.

At first, nothing seemed astray. Her days seemed brighter, her nights more comfortable. Sleep had gone from being a vague or otherwise tasking matter that was inevitable of her to pursue, to the thing she looked forward to most at the end of the day. She craved the feeling of Sangyeon's arms wrapped around her, his voice as he spoke sweet nothings into her ears, his all consuming presence that swarmed her every waking thought.

(y/n) didn't think much of it the first time she slept past her alarm. It was only five minutes. Five minutes well spent with her fantasy of a man serenading her with lovely songs and sending her into this tranquil state of peace. Though five minutes soon became ten minutes past the initial alarm, and soon thirty. It had gotten to a point that her boss had to pull her aside and warn her of the penalties of being consistently late.

She didn't know what was happening. Why it was becoming harder and harder to wake up. One solution she came up with was to have three alarms, all at full blast, loud enough to jostle her through that muddled dream state that drowned out all the noise about her. She was getting to work on time again, albeit still acutely aware of the concerning matter at hand.

Though soon the cycle of late wake ups commenced again, and she was now considering other options. Even creating a Rube Goldberg machine that would dunk water on her head, or something similar to this extreme.

It was four nights ago. Sat beside Sangyeon, pressed to his side while he hummed lovely melodies for her. Comfort. Serenity. Warmth. Her lovely, perfect dream. Her ears were tuned into his low voice playing a tune of sorts, though she began picking up another sound. A monotonous droning, overlapping in a way, though still consistent enough for her to detect that it wasn't human.

"Oh, my alarms!" (y/n) called out, scrambling to her feet. "I have to go."

"Why?" Sangyeon asked from behind her.

"I'm going to be late for work." How does she get out of here? Usually she just jolts awake. She's never been this aware of the situation at hand, though now that she was, she realized how loudly the alarms were blaring.

"Why do you care?"

"Well, no job, no money, no food, no rent, no life." She kept wandering about the plains of the dreamscape, head turning about in all directions in hopes of finding an exit.

"You can always stay here with me. I'll take care of you."

"That's a tempting offer, but you're just my dream! I'll see you again when I go to sleep."

A hand grasped her wrist, tugging her back almost violently in a way. She whirled around to face Sangyeon, his face as gentle as it always was.

"It doesn't matter that I'm just a dream. Come with me. We can live here together forever."

It was a tempting offer. It truly was. With how repetitive her days were becoming, as well as that dull and tedious ambience that seems to encompass much of life, the thought of living in an Eden of her own creation with her literal dream of a man was quite the proposal.

Sangyeon's charming smile swept her off her feet, and for a moment, she truly was compelled to abandon everything beyond this paradise, and fall further in Sangyeon's embrace. Though the alarms seemed to only grow louder and louder with intensity.

"I… I can't, I have to go. There's so much—" She was cut off with a yelp as her arm was yanked closer to him, his grip unforgiving as he suddenly glowered down at her with these cold and murderous eyes. Eyes which gleamed with this insatiable hunger. Eyes she's never seen from the man before.

"You think I'll let you go after I've gotten this far?" He spat out, voice laced with this venomous disdain towards (y/n) that left her trembling beneath his presence. "You think I've escaped the confinement of your consciousness just to let you slip away?" His fingers near dug into her skin, (y/n) wincing as he grew more and more violent in his mannerisms.

So many things ran through her mind. Questions and concerns, wondering what was happening, why couldn't she get out of this, why did this feel so terrifyingly real? Yet her mind blanked as she stuttered out the only words she could muster.

"What are you?" A grin spread across his face, a rictus of utter madness, as if her state of trepid vulnerability delighted him to no end.

"I am so much more than a figment of your imagination. I am what your psyche tries so desperately to hide. I am that ceaseless darkness that lurks in the recesses of your mind. I am your worst fears, your crippling insecurities, your intrusive thoughts that drive you mad. I am the insanity that is staved away by sleep." He drew closer to her, nails digging into her skin. His other hand grasped her face, squeezing it between his grip with only a fraction of his strength. "But I've so nearly got you. I'm so close to having you. You just need to give up."

"No." She didn't know where that sudden surge of confidence derived from, but it seemed to only spur on Sangyeon and his madness as he leaned even closer to her face.

"Give up." He spat out. "Give up. Give up. Give up. Give up—"

(y/n) awoke with a shuddered jolt, heart hammering away at her chest, breath labored as she attempted to regain some semblance of a composure. The alarms blared incessantly around her, their jarring ruckus grating upon her ears, though the sound was a near symphony to her. The things which managed to save her from near death. Because as she woke up, she still felt the remnants of his iron grip upon her, and a glance down at her wrist confirmed her worst nightmares.

Hopelessly cradling the now bandaged wound to her chest, which was once bruised and bloodied beyond recognition in the same spots that Sangyeon had grasped her, she glanced at the clock on her wall. It had now officially been four days since she last slept. She didn't have much time left.

In a predicament like her own, she was met with two conclusions. Either she falls asleep, accepts what her body has been craving for so long, allow herself to shut down and embrace slumber with its ever so loving embrace, only to then get devoured by the creature living within her subconscious; or, she lives until her body decides for her, crashing in on itself with the degradation of exhaustion plaguing her weary from. Either way, this was the end of her. A test of her might, and how far her physical corporeal form could reach. Seeing what her limit as a human was.

Because even now, as she remains fully conscious, fresh dose of coffee running through her system to keep her as alert as possible, she can feel it. She can feel his presence inside her head. She can hear his voice somewhere deep within. She can feel his eyes monitoring her. She can feel him waiting for her.

He knew he won. It was only a matter of time, and he could wait a few more days.

[myristicisms]

There is something so strange about how swiftly a wondrous opportunity can fall into lunacy, two years was all it took to go from a young lady with a bright future to feeling helpless, miserable and constantly afraid. Fear was something she had come to know all too well, cycling through her system alongside grief while she's forced to carry out orders because she was such a promising assistant that could truly make it big with her dedication if only she shut up and listened, if only she used her brain more than her heart and thought with logic rather than feelings. That's what she'd been told by the man in the glasses, his rat-like features contorting with grating laughter after each demand, each insult thrown towards her. It wasn't the constant belittling though that left her trembling each day, rather the ache in her heart to see so many suffering and being able to do nothing about it; Children, elderly, there was no discrimination in the pain that was inflicted upon the residents within the labs and yet no matter how she pleaded to treat them as the people they were, her grief was only ever mocked.

Miriam isn't shocked one bit when a metallic tang invades her senses, heavy footsteps swiftly approaching the blonde teenager before barking a demand at her. Clean-up, tend to the subject. It cackles, her heart drops into her stomach but she knows there's nothing she can say nor do to convince the man otherwise and even then, whoever was just tested on deserved gentle hands tending to their wounds, not clumsy fingers digging into already sore and irritated flesh. She sees the blood tainting his gloved fingers, once pristine coat stained in crimson and Miriam knows it's bound to be a mess, a disaster of a scene that will be added amongst the many other scenes carved into her memory. ( I'll be okay, I have to be okay. ) It's a silent mantra, one that she never fully believed but it was enough, it had to be enough to continue onwards as best she can even with the heavy guilt that ate away at the pallid teenager.

Her journey to the lab is long and tedious, many researchers glancing to her knowingly and none offering any warning for the sight she's bound to walk into and yet despite how insistent she had been to herself she would be fine, that nothing could be nearly that bad, she has to force herself from emptying what little she had eaten the night before at the strong scent of blood, at the child sat in the center of the crimson stained room and the way his flesh melded back together unnaturally. Tears sting hot upon her eyes, threatening to spill over as she fights her body's urge to retch and cautiously approaches him; He's familiar, one of the children she's tended to many times for shots and injections and basic check ups because that work was far too tedious for the older scientists, they were too good for mere nurse work and yet she never minded much.

“ Weiss... ” Soft and grief filled, her voice barely manages to break past her lips whilst Miriam slowly approaches the crimson covered boy with trembling legs. Teeth burrow deep into her cheek, senses being flooded with the salty taste of her own blood while she fights to remain stoic, struggles to force a gentle smile upon her features once she's knelt in front of the child. “ I... I'm here to clean you up, can... Can I do that? ”

@sleeplesswork | Weiss the Immaculate ;;

it's always the same; each and every day blends into the last, marring the young boy's concept of time. he'd never spent so long without nero since his brother was born, and something about that simple fact felt worse than the hands prodding at his insides; hurt more than the way a scalpel doesn't even try to be delicate as it cuts its way through pallid skin. he's conscious the entire time, whatever drugs the scientists had administered do nothing but take away his ability to move. weiss reminds himself of a bug pinned beneath a glass frame; he'd seen the picture in a book one of the scientists had given to him to pass the time. the only difference between himself and that creature was that whoever posed and pinned it was benevolent enough to kill the thing. the scientists examined weiss's organs to see if there were any differences between himself and humans — he thought about how the bug's wings were spread wide, ready to fly off of the books' page at any moment — there was nothing remarkable about the boy's organs, so they ran blood tests, again nothing. weiss wondered what it would take to kill a bug. would it be the same as slaughtering monsters, or easier because of its small size ?

as his skin forced itself back together, and his heart pounded within his ears, weiss's thoughts came to a halt when the head scientists declared they wouldn't get anywhere at this rate. the room was a mess after a week's worth of dissections, so they'd send in someone to clean up weiss and take him back to his cell, then the room would be sterilised, and they could resume. that was good; whatever was left of the boy's consciousness decided, he'd be able to see nero now.

[defire]

Dance of Death Chapter 24:

Trickery by Capitulation

Content: sneaking around, slavery, intimidation, chin-tilt, slapping

It took a full week and a half before she found another opportunity to sneak into the nobles’ wing after dark. 

Iridiss had helped Nife distract Enimee right before bedtime, resulting in her forgetting to lock the slave quarters’ door again.

Nife crept down the hall, feeling the blue line of magic in her forearm ache and pull at her magic. She pulled back. Not enough, not yet. She just had to hope that none of the people with the control tattoos were up at this hour of the night, or they'd know exactly where she was and what she was doing.

It was easier to breathe in the dark somehow. Maybe it was just the knowledge that she'd have to be heard to be caught by a Bane. Her feet luxuriated in the soft, warm carpet underfoot in the spacious hall. In the light, she would've been able to see the paintings on the wall, including the practically monstrous face of Lord Reek glaring down at her. 

Instead, she enjoyed the soft creak of the wood floor, watching the cold wafting up through the boards and fading in from the windows. All she had to do was remember where the furniture was, and she'd be fine.

She padded down the hall towards Keerenn's room. She had to figure out what she'd seen. Maybe she'd see it again.

As she peeked down the hall, there was a sudden noise in the chambers across from Creack's room.

Those were Striker's quarters.

Nife darted back, because otherwise she'd be trapped in the end of the hall.

She took the chance and ducked into Creack's chambers, heart pounding. She looked around the room and breathed when she saw that he wasn't in his cluttered sitting room.

Striker's door creaked open harmlessly as Nife pressed herself up against the wall, just on the inside of Creack's doors.

"Creack?" Striker called. "You still up?"

This blazing guy must have ears like a wolf, Nife thought.

Striker's weight creaked across the floor toward Creack's room.

She darted across the empty room, noticing that Creack's light was still lit in his bedroom. He must be up late researching again. The window was cracked open, and she climbed onto the sill and pulled her feet out of sight against the wall just as Striker opened Creack's door.

"Creack?" He called.

"Fuck." Nife whispered.

Nife clung tightly to the corner of the roof, bracing her weight between a jutting loft window and a gutter joint. The gutter groaned under her weight when she shifted. She didn't dare try to stand on the gable window sill; they'd be able to see her from Creack's room. 

"How's my favorite nephew?" She heard Striker say in a confidential tone.

There was no answer as Nife struggled to get up, finally slapping a forearm over the loft window tiles.

She smiled in victory, only to see someone in a guard tower slowly turning in her direction. She dropped down, keeping her grip by just her fingers.

"Fuck this security, man," She muttered.

Her feet were getting sore and her arms were starting to shake from trying to hold herself up in that one position. That was when she noticed that the blue line of magic down her arm had faded, and was flickering between nothing and purple.

Purple was Nife's color. She knew that instinctively. She frowned at her trembling arm, biting her lip with her bottom teeth.

What was she doing right?

She heard Creack's droning voice from below--

"I don't... know what to say when you say that, Striker."

"Find anything out?" Striker said. "It's been a week and a half. I want something more than guesses this time."

Nife couldn't stay for the answer. Her arms were killing her and her toes felt like they were about to break under the pressure. Giving it one more powerful effort, she pushed herself up.

The guard's back was turned again, so she crawled up onto the roof and rolled over the ridge to take refuge in the shadow on the other side, panting.

She lay on her back, woven strings of beads scattered over her chest, breeze whisking sweat off her skin. Her whole body was sore, and her heart beat fast, but her mind was dancing. She smiled at the stars, at the rust-edged clouds as they skated over the moon. For just a second, it felt like literally everything she'd been through was worth it for this instant of seeing this sky and feeling this wind.

She glanced down at her forearm.

The line was gone.

As she looked closely, it began to come back, glowing slightly, and as her back ached from the caning she'd gotten earlier–eye contact, again–she felt the reality of what she was sink back in five times as heavily.

Slave.

The blue line pulsed and she grabbed it, covering it like that would keep her owners from knowing where she was.

She looked back up the sky again, trying to get control over the magic. It wasn't working.

No, it wasn't the sky giving her power.

It was the dance.

She closed her eyes and danced her fingers to a rhythm, whispering a Druid chant. Then she opened her eyes. The line was fading, flickering.

She grinned.

Freedom lay in that dance. All she had to do now was figure out how to--

"Intruder!" Someone screamed behind her.

Nife gasped and turned, realizing one of the Wry towers overlooked this side of the roof. She was clearly visible.

She leapt over the roof before she could be recognized, clumsily rolling, and then she realized she was rolling toward the edge, and her heart dropped into her stomach as she flailed for the gable roof, feet tumbling off and slamming into the gutter with a loud creak.

"Uh--wait--" She heard Creack in his room, and the sound of his doors close. "Uncle Striker?"

Nife's hands were too exhausted to hold her much longer. She looked down at the six-story drop under her legs.

Yeah, that wasn't an option.

She crept around, fingers trembling as she peeked into Creack's room.

He was inside, squinting at a book with a pen in his right hand, leafing through and making agitated scribbles. Right, he wasn't moving anytime soon.

Nife cursed under her breath and pushed the window open gently with a toe. Muffling her labored breathing and hoping the wind would pick up and cover for her, she climbed inside and dropped into the shadow under the windowsill, grimacing as she tried not to pant. 

As she knelt, she saw Creack move a little, and she froze.

"Uh..." He said slowly. He slowly lifted his head, turned and squinted into the darkness under the window. "Did you need something?"

Nife's face went completely cold as she stared at him out of the darkness. A normal person should be freaked out by suddenly finding someone crouching in a corner of their living room, but this was Creack. He squinted, then said,

"Is that you, Nife?"

Nife groaned.

She stood up slowly, hands making fists at her sides.

"I'm sorry, your lordship." She hesitated, noticing he was frowning in confusion. She took Iridiss' advice and added another, "I'm sorry."

"Why are you in my room?" Creack said.

"Well, I–" Nife looked around the room desperately, eyes coming to rest on Creack's hairy orange legs under his robe. "I was going to, uh, seduce you. But I can see you're otherwise engaged..."

She raised her chin, waiting to hear a pronouncement of punishment. Her fingers quivered as she put them together in front of her like a proper servant, digging her toes into the board floor in a desperate effort to appear calm.

"I'm not engaged." Creack said. "No one seems to like me enough."

"Well, that's..." Nife swallowed. "So strange, your lordship. You're such an unselfish, caring person..."

Creack frowned. 

"Well, it seems you've proven too strong for my wiles." Nife said, edging toward the door.

Creack stepped in front of her slowly, thoughtfully.

"What wiles?" He said.

For a moment, Nife stared him flatly in the face, meeting a set of cold yellow eyes that seemed to bore straight through her brain.

"Look, I'm sorry if you've been rejected so many times, but that's just cruel," She tried to joke, but as she tried to step around him, he put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched hard, forcing herself not to step back. 

He pulled back, looking surprised.

"I didn't mean to be cruel." He said. "I don't understand. I'm trying to be nice, and no one likes me."

"I don't know, what with your impeccable social skills, not to mention the whole branding people thing, it's a real mystery." She snapped. "Maybe you're just too damn nice."

"You think so?" Creack thumbed his chin, starting to pace around the room. "I kind of thought those things were a turn off."

Nife's jaw dropped as she tried to contain her shock. He was taking her seriously.

"Yeah, people can be suspicious if you're too nice." She stepped sideways, around the circles he was now pacing. "You're so kind. Real problem."

She put her hand on the doorknob, teeth gritted with anxiety, but he barely glanced up.

"Oh, by the way, you're not allowed in here without permission." He said. "Just remember that next time."

Nife swallowed and bowed deeply, not sure if she was mocking him or genuinely grateful as hell. 

She slipped into the hall and pressed her back against the wall, shaking with the relieved tension. A giggle nearly pressed itself up against her throat, which didn't make sense, because she wasn't happy, she was terrified. She slowed her breathing, listening for the sounds of the alarm.

And then she heard the sound of Striker's voice speaking with a guard. 

"You didn't see? You should have identified who it was before raising the alarm!"

Nife realized with a pang of fright that they were coming in her direction up the stairs. 

Nife bolted down the hall, barely catching the corner and ducking away before they saw her. The house would be in too much of an uproar for her to check out Keerenn's room, and she needed to get back to the slave quarters before she was found outside them.

She slipped back into the slave quarters, unperceived, and crawled under her blanket.

She waited anxiously to find out if Creack had reported her, but he didn't.

Next morning, Striker roamed the mansion's halls as he mulled over his plan to protect the city from its epidemic of rebels.

Nife was the key piece; he needed her desperately to make a show of her being completely vanquished. If they couldn't turn her submissive, he could at least publicly humiliate and kill her. Make an example of her for the other rebels.

He passed their primary sitting room with barely a glance at the gold-trimmed finery his sister indulged in. She enjoyed it, and he deserved it, but it wasn't worth appreciating unless he outright owned it.

Well, not to worry. This would all belong to him in a matter of time, once his sister realized exactly how much power over her he had.

He slowed as he came nearer to the kitchen, listening to the silvery voices of his little adversary and her friend. He had to keep close tabs on Nife these days, she seemed to be at cross-purposes with him without being aware of it. Or perhaps she was; she kept unpleasantly surprising him with her intelligence.

"Whatcha mean you're not hungry?" Iridiss giggled.

"Yeah, excuse me for a few misgivings about floor germs."

"Anyway," Iridiss' voice was muffled now; she must have eaten the food. "I know you been sneakin off, what'd you get?"

Striker paused a few paces before the entrance, certain that he was moving much too quietly to be heard, hoping to overhear something useful.

When he did, he realized they had stopped talking.

"Why..." Iridiss was shushed by Nife.

Striker ground his teeth in irritation. How did they always know when he was there?

"Who is it?" Came the almost indiscernible whisper.

Striker had excellent hearing.

"I think what you're calling 'sneaking off' are my latrine visits." Nife replied finally, a little loudly. "My internals seem to be troubled by the fare they call 'food' here."

Striker gave up and moved forward again, rounding the corner and watching for Nife's reaction. Despite his silent steps, she was already looking straight at him when he came in, but she flinched at the eye contact and immediately looked down, folding her hands in front of her stomach and taking the classic slave pose alongside Iridiss.

He stepped inside, savoring the submission of Nife Raizden. Blazened in his memory was the girl that spread her body possessively over his family's best furniture, flashing him a roguish smirk when he spoke against her political ideas. She acted like an empress, twirling a dagger or a stirring stick like it was a damn scepter and she was about to make a ruling. That pensive, even gaze had always been unsettling for Striker. Usually all he had to do to set off someone's anxiety was to stare into their eyes and unveil his instinct to murder. But she acted like she couldn't see it, sending him the same smirk she sent her friends. The competition wouldn't have been nearly so annoying if she hadn't been so damn casual about it.

Now she was vulnerable and scared. When he took another step toward them, her skin prickled in goosebumps. She was terrified of him.

He silently reached for her, and she subtly flinched, but didn't resist when he tilted up her chin. Her eyes rested on the ceiling behind him.

"Look at me." He said.

She looked him in the eyes. The defiance was jarring.

Why was she so good at this? When he had been in a position like hers, he'd been strong-willed, but this was a completely new level of self-respect. Children weren't supposed to respect themselves. He couldn't decide whether he loved it or hated it. He'd have to see more in order to decide.

He watched her as she frowned slightly, her creepy red eyes dilated as the tendons on her neck stood out. She looked like she was deciding something as well; the little shit really thought she had some kind of agency in this situation.

He released her and slapped her in the face.

She cried out and lifted a hand as if to cover her cheek, but instead clenched it and brought it down to her side, rigidly staring at the floor as her cyan cheek purpled in the shape of his hand.

"How dare you look me in the eyes?" He said. It was a little fun to punish people for obedience, though he didn't tend to indulge in the habit, for practicality's sake. Nife was a special case.

"Oh I'm so sorry your lordship," She said to the floor in a monotone. "I didn't mean to scare you."

This one actually did provoke him, and he clenched his fist. He refused to lash out. He prided himself on his self-control, and Nife would not be the one that broke that.

When she saw that, she looked confused, but steadfastly kept her eyes down.

"Iridiss," Striker said. "Do you think she should've said that?"

"...No sir, your lordship." Iridiss said softly.

"Hm?" Striker said.

"No, your lordship," Iridiss said more loudly with a little glance at Nife. "She shouldn't have said that."

There was a long pause in which Striker could see Nife's muscles rippling in her arms, every muscle tensing, hands clenching tight enough to squeeze out a few drops of water that lingered on them from washing the dishes. She licked her lips.

"I'm so sorry, sir," She gave a small bow. "I thought you appreciated my humor. I didn't mean to offend."

Striker considered for a minute, then decided.

"You're forgiven." He said. "I do appreciate your humor... when it's self-deprecating. You'll do well to remember that."

"Oh thank you sir," She bowed and flushed slightly as she added, "there's no shortage of material."

Striker patted her shoulder and she flinched. He noticed her stifling a grimace of rage and hiding her face with a shake of her curls.

He suppressed a smirk and left.

As he walked away, he realized she'd completely manipulated him into forgetting why he'd come in.

He stopped and turned around, looking at the doorway to the kitchen, which was now silent except for the sound of washing dishes.

No, it was too late now. He cursed and moved on down the hall. He'd have to try again later.

First chapter: Next chapter:

Taglist: @tildeathiwillwrite @mimostic @fleur-a-whump @a-n-j-a-maria

Per Tumblr's content policy, this is the non-nsfw version of Dance of Death.

For anyone following along on this story that wants the canon NSFW version of the story for free, I’m posting this story on ao3 as well, part by part. You can get the full book right away on amazon for $0.99, and if you like this book, it would mean so much to me if you leave a review of Dance of Death on Amazon.

[echantedtoon]

Shards

Shard x Nicole

Before this if you asked someone what she thought true pain was, she would have answered the many times she thought her friends would die. Or maybe the time the Iron Queen warped her into her worst self. .....But no.... THIS. This was truly raw pain. The kind that get's under your skin and makes your heart clench and your stomach feel painfully empty. That was the pain she felt now. "Are you sure you want to stay? It's no shame if you don't. We understand." She turned to the older hedgehog. His kind green eyes showed the endless patience and kindness he possessed. His white mustache crinkled up in a smile. She shook her head and stayed still. She wasn't going anywhere until it was done and over with. "......Alright. But if you feel uncomfortable, you may leave anytime." She didn't respond so he turned back to the monitor. Typing a few keys into the keyboard, he began the process. "Back tracking remaining data," the high tech screen read out. It would take a while for the super computer to go through all the memory files. After all, he did have a lot of memories. Good, warm memories. With her. And him. The time they first met. The times they spent together. The time he- She had to literally bite her tongue to keep a choke or sob from coming out. It probably wouldn't have came out anyways with how tight her throat was. "Recovery of memory files complete. Restore in progress." She flinched and slowly turned her gaze to the screen. Many pixels and numbers danced green against the otherwise black nothingness. The elderly hedgehog watched carefully and typed a few keys every now and then. "...........Uncle Chuck?" "Yes, my dear," he answered still looking at the screen. ".....Do you think.....he'll be the same?" From the corner of her eye, she glanced at the unmoving figure on the metal table. ".....That he'll be Shard?" He remained silent. ".......I can't guarantee anything just yet. I have to finish all that's needed." "........." This time she fully turned to the still figure. His metal body was shiny and looked new. No one could tell he was in a brutal fight not too long ago. When he was found, his body had been trashed and mangled and honestly looked worse than she'd ever seen. A piece of her died inside. "Restoration complete. Awaiting data transfer." She watched intently as he did a few more things on the screen before standing up and turning away from the computer. He stood up and looked directly at her. When Shard was recovered, it wasn't just his outsides that needed repairs. His inner workings had also been damaged in the fight against Metal Sonic. It wasn't looking good either. His motherboard or 'brain' as some called it, had been critically damaged from the impact his head sustained. Uncle Chuck managed to retrieve any thing that he could and fixed what was left. Luckily, by some miracle, his memory chip wasn't badly damaged. But that doesn't mean he'll be the same. After all, there as a difference between Shard and a copy with his memories. Uncle Chuck approached the table, stopping at his head before humming and reaching up a hand to gently run along one of the wires connected to his head. He nodded and looked back to her. "We're ready to begin."

Clicking a button on the panel to the left, a whirring sound emanated from the machine which all the wires were connected to. "Data transfer in progress. Please stand by." Waiting was agonizing to say the least. She didn't quite know how long they stood there not saying a word. Staring at his unmoving form with Uncle Chuck checking the monitors every little while. She didn't even know how it'll- "Data transfer complete." The sudden voice startled her and she let out a squeak of surprise. Uncle Chuck chuckled good natured and began to carefully unplug the wires from his still body. "There now." "Will it work?" "We'll have to wait and hope for the best. I've done all I could." The wires were fully removed and she slowly approached the table. Her body shaking and her nerves skyrocketing. "S-Shard?," he said barely over a whisper, "Can you hear me?" Nothing.......but silence. Cold. Dead. Silence. "S-Shard?......Come on! Wake up!" His cold metal body creaked as she shook him. Desperate for him to wake up. For him to smile. Say he was only playing dead as some bad joke. "WAKE UP!! Wake up, wake up, wake up!!" "Nicole!" Someone grabbed her shoulders and pried her from him. Turning her struggling form around to face his stern look. She froze with tears streaming don her face. He slowly turned to a look of pity........and shook his head. That was it. With a choke, she collapsed to her knees. Her form shaking and glitching in places. Her wails didn't go unanswered as two arms slowly wrapped around her, pulling her against him. ".......A-Aw! DoN't tell M-Me y-yOur goNNA l-leak oIl o-oVER t-THIS!" They froze at the distorted voice. Sniffing, she slowly raised her head in the voice's direction. Green eyes smiled at her as the figure was propped up on his arms smiling. "H-Hi. M-misS mE?" "SHARD!!" She tore from Uncle Chuck's hold and towards him. Colliding with a small metal tink sound. "HEY! DoN'T get ALL sApPy at-t MY expenCe." "How do you feel my boy?" He turned to the older hedgehog. "F-F-Fine THaNks. B-B-But-t I think my-Y voicE Chip cOULD u-use some TUNING." He nodded. "That'll be the first thing I work on." "T-ThankS, C-CHuCK." "Shard." He looked back at her. "Y-YES?" "I'm so glad you're safe.....and YOU again." "You had us all worried sick, Son." She gave him a small kiss on the forehead which made him freeze. His motor gave off a thrum and he chuckled nervously. "G-GueSS I just-t needed-d a R-Reboot."

[soraeia]

[ 29 years ago, on the Aegis, hosting King Aiden au Namodia's birthday. ]

"I just....I don't like how ruthless things have to be in Court, even if it's necessary sometimes. It would be nice if, for once, people could just be....gentler."

She'd been staring at the night sky, the look on her face almost somber as she watched Luneunte parade across the expanse of stars. And though he'd been invited out to enjoy the view and a quiet moment away from the fray of the gala, Kallen found himself more entranced with the way the mother moon's light danced along the princess's soft features.

"...But that is how all of it is," he spoke after a sip from his glass. "People bite. And most of them will never appreciate your patience, so why waste your time? Are you telling me that you are never going to bite back?"

"Well..." She began to ponder as she answered, pink lips pressing together before she affixed her thoughtful gaze onto him once more. "I would for my son. But otherwise...no? I don't want to be cruel..."

"What if they're cruel?"

Allisae's brows knitted together, pouted lips curling into a tiny frown. "I don't want to be cruel," she said finally.

Kallen shook his head, trying to resist the smile pushing its way onto his lips and ultimately failing as he began to laugh. "You will want to, some day."

"No, I don't think I will."

"How will you protect yourself then, princess? You need to be a little cruel to protect yourself."

"Well...maybe you can protect me."

"....."

At that, Kallen fell quiet, blinking. As he tried to gather his thoughts, he watched her confident gaze waver when the silence grew too long and the glowing marks on her cheeks betrayed her....becoming a light that rivaled the shine of any moon.

He could feel his own cheeks warm, along with a weightless feeling in his chest.

"...When they say Cythonians are conquerors, they are right." She seemed to shrink away at the statement, before he reached over to take her empty hand in his. "...But it isn’t always countries that they conquer."

As he raised her knuckles to his lips, the glow of her markings brightened, illuminating her face almost like a halo and lighting up her eyes in a manner so beautiful, Kallen almost felt his heart break.

"...My siblings would laugh if they ever heard someone call me a conqueror. You're just teasing me..."

"I am being honest, I promise you."

"Your tongue is too silver, Viscount, and you use it too well."

"...Well, I would like to use it for things other than conversing, if you'd allow me..."

She only blinked up at him for a moment or so, her eyes eventually widening as if realizing something. His smile curled further into a grin and he opened his mouth to suggest taking their conversation elsewhere, only for the words to catch in his mouth as she responded.

"Are you hungry...? I'm sorry I kept you, Kal. Let's go find something to eat then, I'm certain there's food left..."

"......" He let the words die in his throat and allowed himself to be led back inside by the hand, shaking his head fondly and chuckling under his breath.

[rafent]

Alear trailed behind the Fell Dragon like a duckling would with its mother but instead of seeking for a nurturing soul she was searching for the perfect opportunity to stop him to talk. As he turned towards an empty hall her pace picked up, with a little jog she now stood in front of him.

"Happy birthday!" She chirped, lifting folded fabric higher than the box on her other hand. With a quick swing of her arm the clothing unfolded showing a black dressing shirt with a golden trim, the neck of it had a simple diamond design on each side—the Divine Dragon thought it would suit him nicely. Maybe not a shirt he could wear everyday but for a special occasion it would be perfect. "I saw this shirt while looking for gifts and i immediately thought of you. I'm not an expert in fashion but i believe it's your style, right?"

But that wasn't all! She had a special gift for him, one that would surely make him smile, even if a little.

Alear placed the shirt on his shoulder, and brought the box to his hands. A proud hum as she stepped a little closer as if inviting to open in. Inside of it was a little batch of chocolates, all way sweeter than she would like but perfectly fitting to Rafal's tastes. "I hope you like these chocolates, i made them myself."

She was no cook, her experience behind a fire or using a knife was none but Rafal—even if not the one standing before her—made confections for her and she thought it fitting to put the same effort in return.

But it didn't feel right to wish him a happy birthday, hand him these presents and leave, she had to do one last thing. The dragon wrapped her arms around him, giving him a warm hug before stepping back. "You know Rafal? You may have made many mistakes in the past but you're sweeter than you think. I like you a lot."

Beaming, a Fell Dragon spoke to another one last sentence. "I hope you have many wonderful birthdays today and all these years ahead and i hope to be there to celebrate them all as friends."

Rafal's anniversary of birth was not spectacular. It hardly inspired any special emotions toward one end or another. Not any longer. If once he cursed his origins, embittered by the unjust fate that spelled a failure like himself into existence, now there was only his dispassion - even his forgetfulness for a date and a celebration long lost to time. But as always there would be one who would act in direct reversal to that which Rafal bespoke and believed.

Behind him the Divine One's footsteps sounded. A familiar presence presaged first and foremost by the most surprising of words. 'Happy birthday?' he nearly echoed, gazing on in fixed wonder - unable to divert his wide eyes from the gifts extended. A silken ebony shirt well-matched to his standard fashion; baked chocolates, clogging the air with sweetness even at a cursory whiff; these items conceived with particular mind paid toward his satisfaction.

"You put thought to what I would like. Produced from those considerations offerings and even labor. And now intend to give them to me." Statement. Fact. Disbelief. Then, a rumbling laugh that was not hostile. He reached into the box and plucked from it a single piece for tasting. Acceptable to the eye, the lacquer-like surface had cooled with slight ridges. "Very well. Let us observe the fruits yielded by those efforts."

Words of a bitter prophecy. Chewing amounted only to attempting. The chocolate though appropriately sweet was so hard he initially assumed it to be a black pebble she'd concocted instead. With notable effort and a heavily worked jaw eventually he could swallow; only the kindness of her gesture curbed what stinging extremes might have otherwise followed.

". . .There is no doubt that you are more consumer than producer, Divine One." To stop there at that objective statement was a rare act of mercy, but even if he wished to say more a throw of arms halted his thoughts. He froze with uncertainty at the embrace and - as the other dragon drew away - looked down instinctively to ensure that his disgusting chocolates had not been damaged during the contact. An awkward cough diverted from possible notice toward the strange fixation.

"I would warn you that your kindness is better dealt to one more deserving." Crimson eyes directed sideways, thumbs grazing over the box wistfully; a minuscule smile born in the shadow of these acts. "—but today it is appreciated. Thank you."

[sapphireclawe]

Why did the massive pipe get installed again?

The pipe stretches onward, her boots squelching into gelatinous reddish ooze, whispering of freedom. She has to get out, before they find her. Her ear twitches as she listens for any sign of pursuit. It's quiet. Another squelch as she slumps down, exhausted from running.

It's only for a few minutes. I'll find out where this pipe goes afterwards. She lets her eyes drift closed, tired and hungry.

Her empty stomach betrays her.

"She's in the recycling pipes!" Eyes snapped open, she starts running again. She can't let them catch her, not now. Her free will isn't worth the claws they were going to implant. The dark tunnel starts growing lighter and she runs faster, certain that freedom is ahead.

The giant metal teeth gnashing together say otherwise.

"She either isn't stupid enough to go that way, or she's in the next meal, sir. I propose we turn back." "Good idea, perhaps we saved ourselves some trouble. After all, the anesthetic doesn't work as well on her, hence she went unmodified for so long." "I thought it was because she was-" "Naturally born? We have another, we don't need both of them." The voices grow distant as she drops down from the edge of the pipe. There's a small safe area between the pipe and the teeth for maintenance reasons, but if she hadn't stopped when she did, she would be pulverized. She looks around, before quickly realizing what they were saying.

Those of us who die get turned into food!? I thought we fed on negativity!

She finds the door out of the grinder maintenance, steps through...

The first thing she notices is a leather jacket and a flat box that smells delicious. The next is the very lumpy... and smelly pile she'd landed on. Normally there's a process to hide from the people but she didn't bother. Not like it would have helped her escape. She opens the box and scarfs down the bread disc inside of it. The wind picks up and she grabs the jacket, throwing it on to keep herself warm. Her eyes drift closed again, and she lets herself rest.

Thankfully it's a while before she feels something poke her nose. She opens one eye to see something that she was trained to destroy. Pale helmet, or do they call them masks? She could never remember. The pure darkness of the Void, coloured slightly by the soul within. Massive wings stretched out behind her. And robed in the deep red of the Wards of the After.

"What is your name?" The Ward asks, oddly melodic. She looks down at her hands, fur as red as the blood caked on it from her mad dash out of the operating room. She looks suspicious to anyone right now. Fight, or flee? She gets up, and realizes that something is wrong with her leg. A yelp and she drops, knee buckled under her. The Ward tilts her head like a bird with no idea what it's looking at.

"Why do you care? You're just gonna kill me anyways, right?" She snikts her natural claws out, ready to go down taking the Ward with her. She may not have a soul like a Ward, or a normal person, but she has her free will to defend. What she wasn't expecting was a laugh.

"I'm not going to take your soul to the After, don't worry! Why would I kill you-" "Because I'm a Dreamcarver, okay!?" She snarls. She thought it would be obvious, given everything. And if the Ward was taunting her, better to get her death over with quickly.

"Then why are you in a dumpster with your leg at a weird angle? Where's your backup? Dreamcarvers never use a weak one as bait." Wait, we could use that tactic?

"I... ran away." "What?" "I didn't want to lose my free will to get metal claws." As soon as the last word leaves her mouth, she's in the air, being carried by the Ward.

"By the way, my name's Aria! I'm taking you to see Rabbeyon, maybe you could join us!" "What use does a Dreamcarver have to the After?" "Information, another person to help us protect people from other Dreamcarvers, and in this case you look like you could use a bath and a meal. Apparently you feed on negativity-" "And apparently cannibalism, found that out while escaping." "So you can eat physical foods! That's awesome, Rabbeyon makes the best fruit tarts, you're gonna love them! Say, since I told you my name, why don't you tell me yours?" "..... Ruby."

[mixed-up-multiverse]

@bytepire sent: talk about lizzy and doll! your thoughts on their relationship, lizzy's opinions on the absolutesolver program that doll is using, just gimme allll the deets

Let me ramble | VERY SELECTIVELY accepting

// OOOHOHOHOHOHO, FASTEN UR SEATBELT, 'CAUSE I AM GONNA GO ON ABOUT LIZZY AND ALL THAT'S HAPPENED TO HER AND HER FRIENSHIP WITH DOLL. Although I am gonna try and put everything in order so that my ramble about her truly makes sense, so bear with me here.

// So to start, before everything went down, Lizzy's life was pretty much great. She was one of the most popular folks in RoboPrep school alongside her best friend Doll and some others, and they would do everything together-- from slumber parties to ditching class to teasing the Purple scrub who's always rambling about killing all humans and railguns. Life, as they both know it, is great-- they wouldn't have it otherwise.

Doll is the friend she's known the longest, as they met when they were literal Babies/Untrained Neural Networks. She doesn't even mind Doll and her family's faulty vocal chips (which make them speak Russian rather than common). Though to be fair, it's not something drones would mind anyways as they are programmed with a built-in translator in their brains, but I digress. In fact, it was thanks to Doll that Lizzy learned she likes girls. Doll happened to be her first crush, too.

Then, the Purple Scrub leads the murder drones to the colony, and while some drones die and most survive, there IS a major difference afterwards. For starters, Doll is more... quiet. Distant. Not as happy as she used to be, as if something happened to her. And when Lizzy asks? Doll reveals that her family had been killed by a murder drone that calls itself 'V'. Lizzy at first assumed she's joking (as her own father survived so Doll's parents must have too), but when she actually goes to Doll's house that weekend? She realizes that it wasn't a joke. Doll's parents are actually dead. It's... a shock, but Lizzy doesn't think about it too much. Until one day, by circumstance, a murder drone sneaks into her room with intention to kill-- the same drone that killed Doll's mom and dad. But while initially frightened, Lizzy manages to keep V from killing her by feigning immediate attraction to her and promising 'friendship'. V is confused slightly, but views it as a chance to trick a dumb worker into letting her kill everyone and... goes along with it.

Doll eventually discovered this when Lizzy shared a photo of herself and V by accident, and so shecalled Lizzy over saying "I want to show you something". Lizzy, of course, visited her bestie, and what happened next shocked her; Doll stated that ever since her parents died, she's had this... new ability... inside of her. She even showed her some of what her new ability could do. And seeing her friendship with V, she offered a proposition; Lizzy keeps up the friendship so that Doll can get some good ol' fashion payback. Which involved killing the Prom queen candidates. Of course Lizzy was against it at first due to having a weird gut feeling about Doll's new power, but relented because Doll was her friend and no one would miss a Murder Drone, right?

Well, as the deaths counted up and Prom day grew closer, Lizzy was kept in the dark about what Doll was specifically doing with the bodies, and when the day finally came, she found herself warning V-- who she thought she'd never get attached to-- to RUN. Of course that failed, and V was trapped and Lizzy was flung away as what was basically a massacre broke out. She recovered and helped N and V fix themselves before escaping home, and after that called Doll to see if she was okay. But... nothing. No responses, even after a message spam or two. As if Doll's just... gone. And that hurts.

For the following days up until the camping trip actually arrives, Lizzy was constantly wearing a vapid facade, hiding behind empty popular girl smiles. She acts like she's 'replaced' Doll with Rebecca and some other popular drones, but... she hadn't. She missed Doll greatly now that she had just... vanished, and nothing was the same anymore. Not even wiping her feet all over that Purple-eyed freak was as fun anymore.

Of course, said freak later turns into a monster and massacres the class. And while some drones make it out alive (Lizzy included again), at this point, she is... utterly traumatized, using her phone to get her mind off of everything and not doing a good job at it.

By now, her perfect life is in shambles. She's lost a lot of people close to her, the purple freak is even MORE unapproachable and not just because of her ugly fashion sense but because she just ate almost everyone in the most violent and gruesome way possible. And Lizzy herself played a part in her snapping, for all she knows. And worst of all... Doll is gone. Following that failed plan to kill V, it's like her bestie dropped off of the face of Copper 9. She hasn't responded to any of her texts, and she's... probably dead for all that Lizzy knows.

Her best friend is dead for all she knows, and almost all of the popular kids she would even bother hanging around are all dead no thanks to that purple monster. By now, Lizzzy acts as if nothing is happening to her and her life is still the same 'alpha ritch girl', but... it's not. She's deeply traumatized from all that's happened to her, and she's wearing a smirky-face-mask to hide all that's bothering her ever since all that's happened.

She wants Doll to be okay. But the radio silence is making her lose hope. And she has no friends to talk about it to. And her father (AND teacher) is practically apathetic to everything so he's automatically no help. If that damn purple freak hadn't led those drones here, none of this would have happened. Doll would still be here. No one would be dead. She'd... still have her perfect life.

But she can't show anyone her sadness, not now. She still has to keep that smirky-face-mask on for a little longer.

[7thphase]

@astrcls.

jing yuan can't quite keep the wistful look off his face as he stares at dan heng's figure in the distance; exhaling on a soft sigh, he folds his arms across his chest, then regards march with a soft smile --- one that does nothing to hide the sorrow in his eyes.

"it wasn't lost on me the way you lightened the mood when his darkened, you know," he says, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "you seem very ... in-tune to him. i suppose i owe you a thank you. perhaps i am ... struggling more with making the distinction between dan heng and dan feng than i ought ... but it brings me great joy and relief to know that in this life, he has someone who cares for him deeply ... "

he'd almost startled her, when march realized that the general was actually talking to her directly. she had been watching jing yuan curiously as he'd gazed off at dan heng, a strange sense of longing on his features. it was strange to march at least, to see the way her companion's unknown past was catching up to him, how his... friends? or... enemies? had opened up this new side of him, one march 7th had never seen before.

her feelings on the topic were complicated, but it was not her place to hold an opinion.

upon being caught staring, march flushed a bright pink and glanced away, gaze settling on dan heng for only a moment, before she dropped it to the ground in front of her feet. she'd just barely caught jing yuan's smile, but the image of it burned itself into her mind, like a screen left on for too long, with an afterimage seared into an otherwise empty black picture. she blinked — once, twice, oh no — as his voice, smooth though it was, rattled inside her skull.

in-tune...

distinction..?

baby pink lashes fluttered for a moment as march lifted her gaze once more, glacial eyes focusing on the back of her best friend, her partner, her home... would he be home to her forever? did jing yuan ever see that man as his best friend, or partner, or home? she supposed she'd never know, because she'd never ask. asking seemed too cruel, now, to jing yuan himself, but also to march, who wasn't sure she could handle knowing a life without dan heng.

thoughts of standing in the general's position made march 7th's stomach flip, in the worst way she could imagine. watching her closest companion look at her in a new lifetime, with no emotion in his eyes... knowing he had new loved ones, new friends, and family, and—

she turned away.

❝ he may find a new home someday... the best i can offer is comfort, and happiness in the meantime. i can't come to expect i'll have meaning later down the line, but i can build him up for greater things, greater people than myself. right, general? ❞

[secondhand-sonder]

Saph stormed outside. Her chest hurt with emotion and she hated herself for how much she felt like crying. When she thought about the things that Jade had said to her the tears finally spilled over and she angrily wiped them away as she walked, refusing to break into sobs of hurt. Saph wouldn't let herself cry over this. She didn't deserve the catharsis anyway. It wasn't like Jade was saying anything new. Saph had said exactly the same things to herself a million times, but for some reason they cut deeper when someone else said them. When someone you loved said them.

Saph's fists clenched against the winter cold. The city sidewalk was completely empty at night. There was snow piled up by the edge of it. The evening was just barely warm enough for there to be small, stagnant puddles of water pooling on the sidewalk, and it would no doubt get colder. Saph was glad that she hadn't taken off her jacket earlier, otherwise she'd be walking through the cold without it right now. She heard the motel door open and close, then footsteps behind her, loud and running. It couldn't have been anyone except Clem. The footsteps slowed to a walk just behind Saph and matched her pace.

"Saph-" Clem started, but Saph pivoted on one foot to look at him.

"Fuck off!" she snapped. They both took a few steps backwards. "Whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear it."

"Where-"

"Go back inside," Saph commanded. She turned around and kept walking.

"Where are you going?" Clem asked angrily, watching Saph get further away instead of pursuing.

Saph didn't answer.

"Well-" Clem's voice raised to a shout, either out of frustration or simply because Saph had gotten so far away. "Do you at least plan on coming back sometime?"

Saph stopped. She slowly turned around, not all the way, but enough to look back at Clem. Uncertainty was written across her face. Then with renewed resolve, she began walking away again.

Clem stood in shock for a moment. "Are you really going to leave us like this?" he asked in disbelief. His mouth suddenly twisted with rage. "Just like you left Plus?"

Saph turned around, walking quickly towards Clem. "How dar-" she started, but her voice cracked with emotion. She swallowed and tried again. "How..." Saph stopped, lips pursed tightly together.

Clem stood in front of her, waiting for an answer.

"Just go back," Saph said softly.

"Not without you," Clem said.

Saph's expression softened. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but then she shook her head and walked away again.

Her head was bowed, but when she accidentally met her own gaze in a puddle, Saph looked up, trying to keep her eyes ahead of her while her mind was mired down in the past.

***

A little earlier that day, just after sundown, Plus wandered a city several miles away, shivering. His mind was in a fog and his body hurt. He had spent the last three days in a hell of his own creation and, to his own surprise, he found that he didn't regret it. Of course, he feared the pain, he hated the suffering, and he had loathed the feeling of being something subhuman. He knew that it would weigh heavy on his shoulders for the rest of his life. The reason he didn't regret it was that because he stayed behind to guard their escape, Jade, Saph, and Clem had made it to safety.

So he could die in peace. Plus had accepted it. He knew he was going to be dead by morning. It was far too cold for someone in his state to survive. He had no idea where the other three had gone and he had nowhere else to go. He was glad that he had at least escaped that damned facility before he died. He was happy to have died anywhere but there.

He was wandering because he was looking for someplace convenient to die. Someplace out of the wind, and preferably dry. He found an alley that suited his purposes and sat down, leaning against a cold brick wall and an even colder metal dumpster. He wished that he could fall asleep. He wished that he actually wanted to die.

***

And in the present again, Saph sat on the public bus seat, her head in her hands. Her chest was hurting again. When she turned away from Clem that last time, she thought he had finally turned back. It seemed that what he had really done was wait until she couldn't hear his footsteps, then followed her all the way to the bus station. It seemed like a painfully Clem thing to do.

His look of utter defeat as the bus door closed behind her was going to haunt Saph for a very, very long time.

She had allowed herself to cry a little bit, quietly enough to not be noticed by the few other people on the bus.

She didn't know why she had chosen the bus to Mendevele. It seemed almost fitting. They had escaped from it, and now that she was leaving Clem and Jade behind she was going back.

Saph was still conflicted about that. She didn't want to leave them, but she couldn't live with them after she had killed Plus. Because he was almost certainly dead. It had been three days since they left him behind now. Her chest hurt, and for the first time she was able to correctly register the emotion as grief.

She wanted to go back. She wanted everything to be okay, she wanted to see her friends again, and most of all she wanted the quiet understanding that Plus offered. But that understanding was the problem, wasn't it? It had been why Plus had made her promise to leave him behind long ago, when they were still on Old Earth. Leave him behind and save Jade and Clem while he bought them time. In that quiet understanding Plus knew that Saph was the only one cruel enough to go through with it. She despised herself for it.

Saph felt the bus stop. After wiping her face of tears she sat up, looking out of the window. Gray light was dawning. She wasn't sure how long the bus ride had been. It had been about four o'clock when she had left the motel.

She stood up and got off of the bus quietly. She didn't know what she was doing in Mendevele. She didn't know why she came here. She felt like she had some purpose, but she had no idea what it was.

Closure, Saph realized. Going back to Mendevele would give her some sort of closure for Plus' death, like visiting his grave. She would visit Plus and then, she decided, she would take the bus until she was so far away from everything that not even the past would find her. She held no hopes that her life after this would be anything but heartache and homelessness. Hell, she might not even survive this winter. She might even get recaptured and brought back into the Mendevele research facility to live the rest of her short life in a cell as a glorified science experiment. But she couldn't spend another second trying to be a friend to Jade and Clem. Not after she had killed their friend. Her friend.

She walked into the city as it slowly came to life. Lights came on in windows. People began to drift into a nearby coffee shop. Soon, Saph was no longer the only person outside walking. Being surrounded by people made Saph feel even more alone. She looked down.

She missed Plus.

Saph blinked, her eyes focusing on footprints leading into an alley. For some reason, it was sheltered, meaning that the pavement was dry. It seemed that someone had left wet footprints on the dry pavement, which had frozen overnight. Now that the sun was just starting to shine its light on the city, the prints were disappearing.

She refused to let herself hope, but she thought she recognized the shape of the cloth shoe given to prisoners at the research facility.

She missed Plus, but fortunately it hadn't been by much.

Walking down the alley, Saph tried not to hope. She wasn't even sure if it was Plus. If it was, she didn't even know if he was alive. But she had to look.

Saph's heart stopped as she recognized the shape curled in the corner, unmoving.

[honorhearted]

Anna's eyes flashed in that bright, rebellious way he'd come to recognize, but rather than push her away when she stretched her feet onto his lap, Benjamin remained perfectly still, watching her as she got more comfortable. Many would deem her behavior unladylike -- it was, most assuredly -- but what she'd seen and endured was hardly what any lady should have to bear.

“I resent that comparison,” she mumbled.

Benjamin hummed. "You feel the need to fight me on a whole lot of things, so why does that not surprise me?"

As if in answer to his jibe, Anna removed the pins from her hair, then shook her locks free of their severe updo. The act was defiant, inappropriate, and for a long moment, Benjamin could only gape at her in stunned silence. He shouldn't be looking at this -- he should look away -- and yet somehow, it felt far more disrespectful to ignore his friend's vulnerability when she was so clearly defeated.

“Am I not allowed to have secrets of my own?" she challenged. "You certainly have no qualms about keeping yours.” 

"That's different," Benjamin replied, defensive. "What I hold secret...it affects the ring. And like it or not, you and Abe and the others cannot keep secrets from me, because any small sliver of doubt or private torture...it could ruin us. We have to be honest with each other, Anna. Otherwise, how can I help?"

She swayed a bit, her eyes glassy and distant. “You know something, Ben,” she slurred, “you care so terribly much…so much so that I don’t believe a single soul cares more than you do about anything. That’s why we’ve come as far as we have with all this.” 

Benjamin flinched, a dull ache fluctuating between his ribs as he lowered his eyes. "It doesn't benefit anyone to care in this war," he whispered, "but...I thank you for noticing. I can't say that anyone else..." appreciates me.

Tamping back the words, he instead accepted the outstretched bottle, and swallowed down his confession with booze, his heart growing heavier as Anna babbled her convictions.

"Someday, when this whole wretched war is done, you'll make a fine husband to one lucky woman and have sooo many adorable babies with big blue eyes," she cooed.

Unable to help it, Benjamin laughed, a twinge forming inside his chest as he lowered the bottle. "I'm afraid I'd have to find a woman first, but sure...I suppose I can lend to the fantasy. We'll move up to Connecticut, and then I'll be able to teach my children myself -- all my sons and daughters will have the same educations, because I believe intellectual prosperity is important."

Shoulders sagging, he set the empty bottle down onto the floor. "But what's the use?" he softly asked. "Isn't it just tempting fate to dream of what I might never have? I could be here today, but gone tomorrow..." Glancing over at Anna, he gave her stockinged feet in his lap a gentle squeeze. "But for what it's worth, if that morbid thought comes to fruition, at least I'll have spent my final hours in worthy company."

More often than not, Anna wouldn’t permit herself a moment to think of much outside of the obligatory things such as the children – were they being fed well enough and properly looked after while she manned the Sutler cart? What was the latest news from Abe in Setauket or Townsend in New York? Could she be doing more to help this conflict end sooner rather than later? 

As of late, she’d even added Benjamin to that list in place of Selah’s absence. Was he eating and resting adequately? Could he manage his duties while at the same time tending to his well-being? 

It wasn’t as though this was abnormal. During her Summer stays with her Aunt and Uncle in their sleepy seaside town, Anna had always spent time doting on the boys, being the eldest of them, even before she and Selah had become romantically involved many years later. Mothering had always been in her nature, whether it was wanted or not.  As of late, it seemed it was quite frequently the latter. 

On their way to the cabin, the liquor began to dull her senses, lower her inhibition, and numb her grief. Tonight, there would be no room for thinking. In truth, Anna feared if there had been, she’d have broken down in hysterical tears. That was the last thing they needed. 

Instead, there was a relief to be found once they were behind closed doors. Appraising Benjamin as he helped himself to the bottle, Anna once again noted how much older he seemed these last several months. He was no longer the young man who had left Setauket in search of his own life, nor the idealist who had enlisted to serve his country. 

The hardship and turmoil had thickened his hide, adapting him into someone who learned to endure, just as she had, and it broke her heart to think the sweet boy whose hand she’d held while he cried from a bee sting was as dead and gone as her beloved husband. 

"Dare I ask what brought this on?" he asked, handing the bottle back to her before taking a seat,  "Typically, you are the voice of reason in this group, so I'm wondering why you decided to turn into Caleb Brewster...granted, you're much easier on the eyes -- the nose, too."

Anna sighed as she slumped into the seat across from him, deigning to stretch out her legs until they settled upon his lap and too tired to be concerned with any potential protesting. 

“I resent that comparison,” she mumbled as she suddenly determined her hair was tied back too tightly and tugged the pins free before carelessly discarding them on the ground. Since it’d been ages since she’d been able to trim her hair, dark locks cascaded down past her shoulders, draping over the curve of her breasts and along her stomach as she slid back into the comfort of her chair. 

“Am I not allowed to have secrets of my own? You certainly have no qualms about keeping yours.” 

In her saturating inebriation, Anna studied him to the best of her current ability and gestured toward him with the near-empty bottle, offering him the rest of its contents. 

“You know something, Ben,” she slurred with a shrug, “You care so terribly much…so much so that I don’t believe a single soul cares more than you do about anything.” 

The odds that she was making much sense were slim, but that wasn’t going to stop her from continuing. 

“That’s why we’ve come as far as we have with all this.”

Though she gestured around the room, she meant to allude to the success of the Ring. 

"Without you, I fear this Cause would be failing miserably."

Here, she blew a raspberry to indicate failure.

"Someday, when this whole wretched war is done, you'll make a fine husband to one lucky woman and have sooo many adorable babies with big blue eyes."

[pirate-tink]

Umm, I have no idea where this came from? I may have come a little unhinged after this week's episode. I'm sure I'm not the only one. But in next week's preview, the clips of Buck look like he's talking to Eddie and helping patch his wall in his bedroom...!

And then my brain did the thing where it goes: Buck talking (to Eddie, in Eddie's room, fixing his wall cleaning his mess,) in a hoodie, with loose curly hair, which, after Monday's episode, we've seen is early-morning-comfortable Buck. Extrapolating from that, it's not beyond the realm of possible to presume Buck spent the night at Eddie's...? (I've connected two dots.)

So anyway, that's what inspired this. I haven't written anything in literal months, or shared anything in longer, and then I wrote this in a couple hours and sat on it for two days agonizing over it.

This is dedicated to @tulipintulle, because she is my bestest fandom friend, and keeps me appraised of the latest happenings, and listens to me rant about our stupid weewoo show (affectionate).

Buck leaves his loft after an explosive fight with Taylor that he thinks ended in a breakup? Neither of them actually said the words, so he's not sure... All he knows is that that's the last place he wants to be right now.

He's in his car driving to Eddie's house before he remembers that he and Christopher aren't home; they're still in Texas celebrating Eddie's dad's retirement. Buck briefly considers changing direction and heading to Maddie's instead, before deciding against it. She's at Chimney's, helping him settle in after being released from the hospital, and while he knows she wouldn't begrudge him the use of her couch, her's isn't the couch he wants to sleep on.

Buck pulls up to Eddie's and parks on the street, already feeling calmer than he had since seeing the news report on tv the night before. The feeling of peace only grows as he unlocks the door and lets himself inside, toeing off his shoes and dropping his hastily packed duffle by the door. He turns a lamp on in the otherwise dark living room, and collapses back into the couch.

The silence of the empty house envelopes him, but doesn't press in on him the way it had while packing his bag at the loft. Taylor had stormed out, going for a walk she'd said, and Buck had used her escape to make his own. Cowardly? Maybe. But he's said all he could, and more than a few things he'd aimed to hurt, just a little, just to try to make her see sense, and if she isn't going to try to understand where he's coming from... well, he knows better than to keep beating against a brick wall.

Buck would have thought he was too keyed up on adrenaline after the fight to fall asleep, but apparently he's wrong, since the next thing he knows he's startling awake at the sound of the door being unlocked. He rubs his eyes and twists to look over his shoulder at the door. What is Eddie doing home so early? Or, maybe it's late.

It's completely dark outside, and Eddie shuffles in carrying a sleeping Christopher, carefully closing the door behind him. "Hey, Buck," Eddie says lowly.

"Eddie? Everything okay? I thought you weren't coming back until Tuesday?" Buck finishes rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and yawns around the end of his question.

Eddie ducks his head and hides his fond smile in Christopher's messy hair. "It is Tuesday, Buck."

"It is?" Buck might be more tired than he thought, if he forgot when Eddie was coming home.

Eddie huffs a soft laugh, barely more than a puff of air blown out his nose, and says "Let me put Chris to bed, and then we can talk about why you're asleep on my couch in my empty house." He says it so fondly that Buck knows he doesn't mean anything by it, but he still stands up and straightens out his jacket he never took off, feeling a little guilty about imposing on Eddie when he's just gotten back from a trip.

Buck had thought he had another day before Eddie got back, a whole 24 hours to decompress from his life imploding, figure out if he still had a girlfriend - or even wanted to - and sort out if he needed to find a new place to sleep for the foreseeable future. Now he's left floundering for an explanation to Eddie's unasked question about what he's doing there as the man himself backs carefully out of his son's room and gently closes the door.

"Want a beer?" Eddie asks as he slips out of his boots and nudges them next to Buck's. The sight of their shoes lying next to each other's momentarily distracts Buck, and he has to forcefully pull his attention away when Eddie quirks an eyebrow at him and points his thumb back over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen, even as he takes a step forward toward Buck standing aimlessly in front of the couch.

"Nah, I- I should get going anyways. Get out of your hair, let you relax," Buck rambles. "It- it's late, and you just got in, and-"

"Buck," Eddie interrupts, "you don't have to leave." He crosses the rest of the way over to the couch, abandoning the idea of grabbing a beer.

"I don't want to impose," Buck barely starts to speak before Eddie is shaking his head softly.

"You're not imposing. You're always welcome here." One side of Eddie's mouth lifts in a smile, and he ducks his head to catch Buck's eye when he tries to lower his gaze. "Everything okay with you?" Eddie nods over to Buck's duffle, still lying where he dropped it on the floor, a single sock and his phone charger spilling out where he hadn't pulled the zipper all the way closed in his earlier haste.

Buck feels his face flush, and finally breaks eye contact with Eddie to say "Taylor and I broke up. I think."

"You think?"

Buck winces. "It's complicated. We- we had a fight, and- and then she left, and then I left, and I don't really want to go back there tonight- I don't know if I want to go back there at all-" Buck cuts off his rambling with a sharp inhale of realization. "I don't want to go back to her."

Eddie seems to sense there's more to the story, but glances at his watch, and only says "Well, like I said, you're welcome here, as long as you need. Hey," Eddie pauses, and catches and holds Buck's gaze, "as long as you need, Buck, okay?"

Buck can only nod in awe and relief and gratitude.

Eddie smiles at him, and claps him gently on the arm. "C'mon, you get your stuff ready for bed, I'll get the pillows, and we can talk more in the morning."

Buck ducks his head down again, before lifting his gaze slightly to smile gratefully at Eddie. "Yeah, okay."

Eddie squeezes Buck's arm gently before letting go, and turns to go to the hall closet for the spare pillow and blanket Buck uses when he crashes on the couch. Buck heads to his bag and digs through it for the things he needs for bed, pulling out a clean pair of socks, cut off sweats, and a hoodie to sleep in. He thinks he forgot his toothbrush, but it doesn't matter since he's kept one here for longer than he can remember anyways.

He wonders at that, while he changes and brushes his teeth in the bathroom, that he's had a spare toothbrush here for longer than his and Taylor's entire relationship. It's silly, but it feels like a sign, that Buck has a home here, has had a home here, for longer than he's tried to make one elsewhere. He has a fleeting thought about some things being worth the work, while others feel like a struggle in futility, before he forces all thoughts out of his head.

Eddie said it's time for bed, and that they'll talk tomorrow. He'll tell Buck all about Texas, and his not-screwed-up/screwed-up family, and Buck will try to sum up the craziness of the past few days. Maybe they'll make pancakes; Buck wonders if Eddie's newfound culinary skills extend to breakfast foods beyond cereal.

Buck heads back out to the living room, where Eddie's apparently waiting for him after having made up the couch to sleep on. They look at each other in comfortable silence for a moment, Buck with his hands stuffed in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie picking at his nails, before Eddie steps forward.

"Goodnight, Buck," he says, and instead of walking past him down the hallway to his own room, Eddie pulls him into a hug. It shouldn't be unexpected, but Buck is still surprised enough that it takes him a moment to pull his hands out from where they're trapped between them so he can bring them around Eddie to hold him close as well.

The hug is everything they haven't said tonight, can't say in the fragile dark of night, and is everything Buck needs.

Sooner than Buck wishes, they're pulling away. Eddie tells him goodnight one more time, before padding softly down the hall to his bedroom. Buck turns the lamp off, and settles into the couch to go to sleep. They'll talk tomorrow, and Eddie will be there for Buck, just like Buck's been there for Eddie, will always be there for Eddie. Buck closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep with a smile on his face. He knows, somehow, everything will be okay.

[ghoulisheous]

A Little Vicious Snippet #1

HERE, #2 X, #3 X, #4 X

Summary: Vlad sabotages the portal. And Danny's life sucks. So much. Set pre-portal accident. Will probably end up being a crossover.

Hesitantly giving a warning for this snippet, cause I still haven't let this idea go. TW: extremely violent thoughts, objectification. A couple lines tip over, almost, into gory territory. I mean, I wouldn't say it's gory at all, but just in case my standards are warped. And I'm paranoid.

Vlad's a bad, bad man.

Still, not sure I'm committed, but I'm hesitantly calling this A Little Vicious.

-----

Vlad throws himself in his chair so hard it screeches backward a little on the clean, freshly polished wooden floors. The wide open, empty space of his dining room and the long stretch of the table in front of him feel like a new weight on his shoulders.

He hadn't seen either of them in so long.

He hadn't seen her in so long. And she hadn't seen him at all. She only saw Jack. Her hand gently cradled his scruffy chin. Like it was sweet. Like it isn't caustic. Like it isn't nauseating. Just like the old days, then. With Jack's large figure standing over her, between him and Madeline. Only this time Vlad was invisible in an entirely different way.

They are still as tightly wound around each other as they always were. As committed to their work as they always were.

Vlad's lips pinch closed. They're together. Still. And they looked..

Charmed, still, with each other.

His heart clenches painfully at the thought. But something in him boils in rage at it as well.

Vlad grips the roll of papers in hands so hard. His whole body tenses in a tight coil. He feels like he could spring out of his hunched shoulders in a moment. Tear into anything he can find. Tear into him. His knuckles turn white in his rage. He thinks about incinerating the rotten thing they hold.

And they had children together. Proof of their undying devotion. He almost spat, but held it. Vlad had never been anything but upstanding. A proper man. A great man.

There was a teen girl, he can't know her age. 16. 17 maybe. She had been sitting in their living space, a book cracked open in her fingers. Every few moments, she'd stop and scribble on a sticky note. Her hair was more red than Maddie's ever was. It reminded him more of Madeline's mother, the one time he had seen her.

And then a second one, as if the first slap in the face wasn't enough. A boy, younger than the girl by a few years. He looked awkward as he joined his sister on the couch, absent-mindedly staring at his phone. He kept his limbs close to his center as if he was afraid he'd lose them otherwise. Keep all hands, arms, feet and legs inside the vehicle at all times! Vlad thinks almost deliriously.

It's pathetic how angry he is, Vlad thinks and hunches his shoulders closer. He needs a stiff drink.

But at the same, is his anger not right? Because both those children, sitting side by side, looked just enough like Maddie and Jack. They were family after all. Jack's family. It's like proof that the marriage his old friends had entered into was cut from marble.

But it wasn't, was it? Marble statues last long. Too long. And so have Jack and Madeline. But even they don't stand the test of time. Their colors have long worn out, leaving them pale in comparison. Many are even left in pieces. Missing limbs.

Missing heads.

Vlad doesn't believe they were ever in a serious relationship. He's no fool. He knows Jack better than that homewrecker knows himself. Jack could never be that serious. The man doesn't take anything seriously. Especially Maddie.

He doesn't deserve someone like her. He never did.

And Maddie deserves so much more than a pitiful excuse for a man like Jack Fenton.

But now they're married. Vlad knew that. He had received the invite 18 years ago. He'd always remember that moment. Lying in his bed, feeling so weak–still so weak, waiting for the caretaker to leach the last of his inheritance as she cared for his ails.

It was like he couldn't move. Like his bones were lead and his ribcage crushed his lungs. His heart beat so hard in his chest.

He had stared at the invite with so much intensity he thought he might somehow be able to gather his strength. Run to her. Fling the doors of the chapel open and yell "I object!"

And he did so object. To everything. He clenches his teeth hard.

But it didn't matter how strongly he yearned. His strength was gone. And soon Maddie was as well.

Or so Vlad had thought. At least on that day that Maddie signed away the rest of her life, her name thrown out with the deal.

His hands shake with rage as he unfurls the tightly curled papers in his hands.

The blueprints. As many as he could get his hands on when he was there. After he had seen what had become of–

He wants to twist Jack's throat until something pops out of him. A low gurgle. His eyes maybe–if he just squeezes hard enough.

Or maybe he'll shove his fist into the cavity of his chest and–

He snarls as he slams the papers on the table, flattened out as much as they could be.

He had known what it was when he saw it. He knows what it is. He can't believe the nerve of that man.

Or perhaps it wasn't the nerve. Jack Fenton never had another thought in his head outside of each petty desire.

Jack never thinks things through. And he never learns his lesson. The consequences of his actions. Their rivalry–it's Vlad's job to teach it to him. Show the man his place is the hell out of Vlad's way.

In the ground, he thinks with a curve to his lips. That would be his preference.

Everyone leaves him eventually, except the one person Vlad wants gone. Everyone stepped on his back to achieve their happy endings while Vlad is always left to wither in dismay. Alone.

Jack Fenton got his happy ending, almost at the cost of his life.

No, he growls to himself.

The cost was his life.

And it isn't fair. He can't help but feel like his life isn't meant to be this way. It just isn't. Great things, great love is what he's destined for. Nothing less than great.

Maddie is his great love. She was always supposed to be. He remembers the day he met her. At college orientation, when he was still a business major. They talked and the world moved around them. Made room for them. He'd made her laugh. He remembers he made her laugh.

He remembers the feeling that stirred in his chest at the sight of her smile. He saw a glimpse of everything they could be. And everything he could have.

And then it all ground to a halt when an arm slung across her shoulders. Jack Fenton's arm. The man who dared call himself his friend.

Unfortunately the closest of his friends in high school who followed him all the way to his new college campus. No one ever stuck around Vlad long, but Jack was a leach he couldn't get rid of. Jack described their friendship as "attached at the hip." And if he had asked, Vlad would have called Jack "just a placeholder."

On the same day, he met the love of his life, the love he deserved, and then found the man he'd hesitantly called a friend had the pleasure of meeting her first. Vlad still didn't know exactly when or how.

It isn't fair. Anything he wanted, it seemed like Jack got to it first. He ruined anything he had the gall to place his hands on. He just wishes he could make the man feel what it's like to come second and play catch up. To have something taken from you and have to fight for it.

But that's it though, isn't it? There is one thing Vlad managed to do first, one thing he could lord over Jack that the man would actually care about. Vlad would make him care about it.

Vlad Masters is not as human as he once was.

And he is no longer accustomed to losing.

Vlad stares down at the blueprints. Reading them over. Inspecting them. Seeing what's different in this one. The beginning of a plan forming.

He could take his life back. He will take his life back. Jack will never stand in his way again.

The sketched out visuals of the ghost portal lay bare on his desk. The size, reminiscent of the prototype. At least on paper. And seemingly insignificant.

His holy grail.

But it was not life size. Vlad saw that for himself.

Jack will learn his lesson. He'll know intimately every agonizing moment Vlad had gone through in college. Every last shred of inferiority Jack had unfairly foisted on his shoulders.

He'll feel Vlad's heartbreak. His loneliness as he laid sick and shivering and unknowing if he would live. Or if he still did.

He had so much more experience. He's the pioneer of this lifestyle.

Maddie won't stay at his sickbed for long. Especially not as Jack stews in bitterness and spite.

She'll run to Vlad.

As Vlad studies the sheets before him, spread out, sun shining down on them from his windows, he notes the failsafe marked on the inside of the portal. He slowly pulls a pen out of his breast pocket to sketch out what he'd need to change. Rewire.

Vlad will stand firmly in front of everything Jack had built for himself. What good was killing the man when he could be as-good-as dead and suffering all the more because of it. Vlad's accustomed to the weight of it. But Jack's unprepared.

Jack would make a pathetic halfa, and Vlad wouldn't be alone. Not anymore.

And when he finally understands. When he finally realizes the rivalry that's been their relationship since that first day in college. When Vlad has Madeline standing at his side, so far from Jack it'd feel like heaven and Earth were in his way, then Vlad will wrap his fingers around his throat.

And squeeze.

It was only a matter of time.

[jasgirl-creations]

Amy's eyes rolled back, half in pleasure and half in oxygen deprivation as Jas' grip on her throat tightened. Even as her sister squeezed harder around her neck, the two girls kissed even more frantically. This was it, Amy thought, This was all she needed, all she wanted. She knew deep down that she had destroyed her relationship with her sister, that she was greedy and broken and disgusting for needing this so much, but it was getting harder to care.

Her tongue felt so good inside her mouth, the taste of her, the feeling of Jas' hot gasping breath against her as they made out. Fuck, it was intoxicating. It was bliss! Again and again Jas' arm thick cock sunk into Amy's needy puffy cunt, spreading her wide open with every shaking thrust. Jasmine was right, she had gotten fat. Not long ago the two girls had been identical in almost every way, except Amy's slim lithe body was now mirrored by Jas' soft, beautiful, shaking rolls.

Amy admired her sister so much. It broke her heart as she saw how angry Jasmine was at her new body, how it was Amy's fault. Amy still thought she was beautiful. No... not still. Jas was more beautiful than before, more than Amy. She was perfect. She tried to think of words to say this to her sister, but all that came out was a soft moan, lost in the gentle grunts of the two girls as they came closer.

Jas' hips shook, her movements more erratic. Almost without warning her cunt wrecking cock began to violently twitch inside Amy's ruined hole, shooting rope after rope of thick girlcum. It was so hot that Amy imagined her pussy steaming from the sheer natural force of it all, and still Jas kept filling her up. More and more shot inside her, despite the fact that this was the fourth time today. Huge globs of cum began spurting wetly from Amy, but even so there was so much emptying from Jasmine's overworked balls that the pressure inside Amy's cunt caused her tummy to inflate. A little at first, then bigger and bigger. Soon Amy had a tight round stomach of her own pressed up against Jas' softer jiggling rolls of fat.

Jas' weight kept Amy pinned like this, unable to escape even if she had wanted to. Drool escaped from Amy's mouth as the series of brain-popping orgasms left her dumb. Still squeezing her neck, still lost in the uncontrolled anger and passion of both hating and loving her sister, still desperate to teach her a lesson, Jas' eyes gleamed as she reached over to the box of pills on Amy's bedside table.

If all of this was happening because of these fucking pills, thought Jas, then she was going to have some fun with them too.

(part 7/8) Why shouldn't she? Why was it fair that she had to be the responsible one? That her stupid sister got to be a horny slut and blame it all on her sickness and the pills she had to take and but Jasmine was just supposed to deal with it? Jas kneeled on the bed between her sister's legs, still panting, breath ragged from her orgasm. She held the box of her sister's pills in her hands, the ones that had destroyed Ami and turned her into a disgusting sex obsessed nympho. The ones that had left her masturbating nonstop all day. The ones that had made he beg her own sister for her cock, beg to be fucked, for weeks until... until Jas had finally given in. She stared down at her sister, unable to tell if Amy was even conscious. Her eyes were open, but vacant. Drool ran from her mouth and pooled on her neck. Her breaths were ragged, but she was otherwise laying still. Her belly was absolutely swollen with cum. So swollen that she looked pregnant. Maybe she was pregnant, Jas thought. She had pumped her sister full of so much cum, just today. Not even counting yesterday, or the day before, the week before. How could she not be pregnant? The idea made her still hard cock throb. Why shouldn't she get her sister pregnant. Ami's life was already ruined. So was Jas'. She knew it/ She'd known it deep down for awhile. Ami had ruined both their lives. Her stupid selfish sister had ruined everything by letting herself become a sex addicted slut. No... no, Jas knew it wasn't really Amis fault. She was sick, and the... the drugs had done this too her. But she hated her sister so much. She loved her, but she hated that their lives were already over. Jas knew it. She knew she'd never go back to school now. She's probably never be able to lose this weight. All the stress eating wouldn't stop! how much more weight would she gain? She'd never have a normal relationship. Never get married. Never have kids. All because her stupid sister and her stupid pills! She shook the box of pills in her hand. It was mostly full. A whole month's worth. It wasn't fair that Amy got to just take pills and be a brainless needy slut, and Jas was stuck taking care of her. It wasn't fair! Slowly, Jasmine shook a dozen pills into her hand. her sister took two every day, she knew. Well, she had to catch up! If Amy could my a mindless slut who only whined and whimpered for sex all day, so could Jas! They were twins, after all. And their lived were already ruined. She swallowed the pills, then emptied a dozen more into her hand and fed them to her sister, massaging her throat until she swallowed. Jas was nearly trembling with excitement. This was it! Everything was over now! She was going to be just like her twin sister. A needy sex addict, unable to do anything but masturbate and beg for attention. Her cock throbbed with excitement. Ami had ruined their lives, so it was only fair that Jas took them to the next level. She crawled between her sister's thighs again, positioning her cock at the cum leaking entrance of her cunt. Jas was trembling so hard that she could barely control herself. It was too soon for teh drugs to have any effect, but she let herself believe that's what it was anyway. The drugs. She was going to fuck her unconscious slut twin sister, and it was the drug's fault! She pushed inside, and felt Ami suddenly squirm under her. Her sister moaned. "Jas.... oh... k-keep fuck... fucking me..." Jas couldn't tell if Ami was actually conscious or just talking in her sleep. She didn't care. Fuck, she hated her sister so much. She loved her too. This was it now. Just fucking. Nothing else. "I'm going to,,, get you... pregnant, Ames!"