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boo-nito-flakes · 2 years ago

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Vertigo | Reiner Braun + Original Female Character AU: modern setting, neighbors multi-chapter story

Rating: Mature Synopsis: When Josie's mysterious neighbor becomes a temporary guardian for his young cousin, she didn't think she'd be so involved. Reiner was a ghost of a neighbor, the two only exchanging a handful of words in the year they'd lived beside each other. Yet there she was, spending her nights watching true crime documentaries and filling out online personality quizzes with Gabi while Reiner was at work at The Liberio. There were a lot of things about this new arrangement Josie didn't expect; how often she thought about Reiner's forearms was near the top of the list. This could become a problem...

Chapter One

“Um, I’m really, really sorry to bother you, but I kinda need your help.”

“Help?” Josie looked down at her new-ish neighbor, bottom lip trapped between her teeth. It wasn’t necessarily Gabi’s presence at her door that had her worried–it was her attitude. Sedated, with skittish eyes and arms crossed in front of her chest. She shifted on her feet and Josie’s heart lurched with every worst-case-scenario. “Is everything okay? Are you hurt? Is it Reiner––”

“It’s not him!” Gabi half-shouted, big brown eyes wide and wet. “Nothing bad happened… I just… um, can I come in?”

Josie peeked her head fully into the hallway and looked from left to right. No Reiner. No flames or smoke. No bloody trails. No Boogeymen lurking at the end of the hallway. Feeling a little sheepish, she stepped backwards into her apartment and extended an inviting arm to Gabi.

Reiner is my cousin , Gabi explained by way of introduction. A few weeks ago on her way out to get lunch with a friend Josie crossed paths with the two at the complex entrance. Gabi hoisted an overstuffed duffle bag over her shoulder and stepped around Reiner to extend a slender arm–wrist adorned with at least seven multicolored beaded bracelets. So I guess that makes you my new neighbor .

She stumbled upon Reiner later that night while on a mission to retrieve a long-forgotten load of laundry. He was kneeling in front of the only good dryer in the under maintained apartment laundry room. The dryer she most definitely left her linens–which were now neatly folded on top of the machine– in seven hours ago. Josie blustered through an apology, bumping around Reiner in an attempt to immediately remove her shit so she didn’t inconvenience him any more than she already had.

The man folded her towels . The very friendly people living in Rose Hill Apartments Block C (where there were no roses nor hills) had a history of throwing forgotten laundry on the cracked floor. But her ghost of a neighbor took the time to fold her towels and pillowcases into two separate piles. The stacks were tidy, crisper than any laundry she’d ever done herself.

Reiner shrugged off her apology. And when she danced around the weird stairway introduction he awkwardly explained, temporary guardian while her mom works some things out . He gripped the back of his neck, eyes drifting towards the door like he’d rather be anywhere than trapped in the linoleum lined room with Josie, ancient machines rattling against each other.

There was a nervous energy to Gabi as she stepped into the apartment. An ever-darkening flush stained her cheeks, fingers twisting together in front of her frame. “ IstartedmyperiodandIdon’tknowwhattodo .”

Oh. Oh. Josie’s eyes widened a fraction as she processed the rush of words. I started my period and I don’t know what to do. Yeah… that… made sense. Gabi at her door–a stranger’s door–full of a pressing urgency, eyes shifty and hands nervous… it made sense. Something familiar in Josie’s chest tightened at the realization.

It wasn’t any of Josie’s business, what was going on with Gabi and her mother – why a twelve year old girl’s life was seemingly upended and her guardianship was delegated to a bachelor living in an outdated apartment in a just barely okay neighborhood. She didn’t doubt Reiner was a good guardian. But was he really the best choice? Josie bit the inside of her cheek to quell the surge of guilt prickling her skin. It wasn’t her business.

(But she couldn’t help but think of herself at that age. Alone in a tiny apartment with painted over windows, a barely heated frozen meal warming her lap as she struggled to do homework. Slivers of light spilling in through the gap in her bedroom door when her parents got home. Quiet murmurs, conversation falling into nothing. The hum of a late night talk show through the walls. Workboots hitting floorboards. The beep of the microwave cutting short.)

Reiner wasn’t a bad neighbor. If anything, the opposite was true. He was the type of neighbor people dreamed of –Josie included. He was so quiet that it took her months to realize the apartment next to hers wasn’t just sitting vacant. It was a stupid thought; their landlord was a dictionary example of ‘skeevy scum’ who would never keep profitable square feet empty. When she finally crossed paths with her mystery neighbor, it was brief – uneventful, even. He opened his door while she was juggling her keys, work bag, and canvas tote of groceries. They exchanged a few awkward pleasantries and that was that – mystery neighbor, no longer. From what Josie gathered over the next few months, Reiner worked late hours and was either never home or the quietest most considerate neighbor a person could ask for.

“Um, Josie?”

“Sorry, sorry! Come in some more and we can talk or whatever.”

She flashed what she hoped was a reassuring smile (fuck, she was making things awkward, right? ) and waved Gabi further inside. It only took a few steps for curiosity to outweigh weariness. Gabi’s eyes bounced around the apartment, and Josie swallowed the lump of self-consciousness at the examination.

So maybe she was mid-cleaning session when Gabi knocked… and maybe her apartment was a little bit of a mess. Clutter that accumulated over the last week (okay, okay…the last few weeks) waited to be put away in semi-organized piles across her coffee table and floor. A basket of clean laundry, unfolded and definitely getting more wrinkled as the seconds ticked by, haphazardly balanced on the edge of the sofa. Music still played from her laptop, a playlist of punchy pop and rap that demanded constant dance breaks. The vacuum was still out, cord tangled, and off-brand cleaning supplies were abandoned like fallen comrades on the battlefield—hooked on the back of a dining chair, hidden with the leafy greens of a parlor palm, propped against a fiddle leaf fig, dangling from a dusty bookshelf.

Josie gave herself a few seconds to mentally prepare before clearing her throat and prompting, “Ah, so what kind of help are you looking for? Supplies? Advice?” A few seconds of silence passed, Gabi’s eyes still bouncing around the apartment, and Josie shifted on her feet and elaborated, “We can just talk, if you want. If you have questions.”

Gabi finally turned and stared at Josie with a frozen panicked look. The apartment suddenly felt suffocating – too hot, too small. Another childhood memory wormed its way to the front of her mind. Legs crossed at the ankles while she sat on a sticky plastic table in the nurse’s makeshift office, her blood stained jeans folded neatly in a plastic bag by her side. The nurse spoke with a kind, almost muted voice, about cycles and proper hygiene. Josie remembered how she wished she were anywhere or anyone else at the time. She remembered the mortification and shame she felt. How unhelpful Nurse Amy really was – her platitude that her classmates would forget all about it feeling like the biggest lie when she returned to a class full of whispers and giggles.

Before Josie could say anything, Gabi squeezed her fists together and nodded to herself once before meeting Josie’s eyes with a newfound conviction.

“I have questions,” she confirmed. Her hands flexed open and she tugged at the bottom of her shirt, twisting the fading maroon fabric between her fingers. “But I also need… um…,” she motioned to her lower half, and Josie realized–slightly aghast–that she was currently unprotected and definitely super uncomfortable. “Supplies?”

“Oh, shit, of course! Shit–” she winced, hoping her tongue would catch up to her brain. “–yeah, I mean–”

Gabi interrupted with a snort. “I’ve heard worse than that at school.”

“I’m sure,” Josie said, fighting a smile.

She took a few steps towards the bathroom before realizing, 1) Gabi wasn’t following her, and 2) she needed to breach another layer of comfortability and ask about— “You probably don’t have a change of clothing with you, right?”

“Um, like currently?” Gabi squeaked. “No?”

“You’ll probably want fresh underwear, at least.” She paused, a frown tugging her lips as she strung together some of the loose threads in her head. “Wait, does Reiner know you’re here?"

“Um, no?” Gabi said. This time, with a huff of disbelief and a little bit of an ‘are you crazy?!’ expression. She shook her head, face softening a little while she explained, “He’s asleep. He worked a double shift yesterday and goes back in later tonight, so I wanted to let him rest… not that I want to talk to him about this stuff.”

Josie’s heart squeezed tight in her chest. She knew what it was like, searching for the quietest floorboards. Holding her breath while she tip-toed past exhausted parents, just trying to catch a few hours of sleep between shifts. Toeing the line between caretaker and child, burdening herself with responsibilities – always wishing she were a few years older, a little bit smarter, a little more popular.

“Go grab something comfy and let yourself back in. I’ll get some stuff around and once you’re situated, we can talk… if you still want.”

“Okay, um, I’ll be right back.”

Josie followed her the few steps to the door, double-checking the lock wasn’t turned, then turned back for the bathroom, stopping only once to shut off the music still playing from her laptop. The quiet that engulfed the apartment was somehow exhausting and terrifying—the adrenaline of that initial ‘I kinda need your help’ diffusing into something much more bruised and tender.

Her heart thumped dolefully, a familiar pattern that made her pulse tick beneath her skin. Josie bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and forced herself to think of something other than her parents–of a childhood spent quiet and alone, a youth spent chasing the sensation of flying.

And she couldn’t help but… well, she couldn’t help but think about Reiner.

Reiner, picking up extra shifts. She didn’t know where he worked, exactly, or what he did. Just that whatever it was, he kept odd hours. Was he lonely? Could she remember him ever having anyone over? Any company at all?

Reiner, who had this aura of perpetual exhaustion the handful of times they ran into each other around the complex. A sullen, kind of brooding look to him. It pulled at the peak of his lips, mouth always tugged into the slightest pout. Citrine eyes downcast, gaze always somewhere else. She’d never seen him freshly shaven, but the shadow of blonde hair at his chin and across his cheeks suited him. There was a lot about Reiner that suited him. He was handsome, in a rugged way. Handsome in a way Josie never really let herself dwell on…

Reiner, barely an adult himself and taking care of his pre-teen cousin because… because, well, she didn’t know why. It wasn’t information she needed or was entitled to know, but she couldn’t help but wonder. Couldn’t help but suddenly worry he wasn’t taking care of himself enough, if he and Gabi were going to be okay. Josie didn’t miss the look on Gabi’s face when she said she wanted him to rest—yeah, there was absolutely no way he was taking care of himself. Reiner was practically a stranger (calling him anything but would be a stretch) but Josie knew he was a good person; she felt it in her bones, he was decent. However she could help, she would—even if it’s just buying some pads and ice cream for Gabi. Reiner deserved a little rest.

Looking a hell of a lot less fazed than she did standing at Josie’s front door, Gabi walked into the bathroom. Josie hadn’t even heard her come into the apartment; when she slapped one palm on the counter and announced she was ready, Josie startled to attention–shoving her thoughts of Reiner aside for more pressing matters. Lucky for her, Gabi was too busy staring at the tampons and pads splayed out and cluttering the tiny counter to pay attention to whatever the hell was going on with Josie.

“Do you want me to walk you through how to use anything–”

“I can figure it out,” She chirped, way too loudly for such a tiny bathroom, eyes widening.

Josie smiled easily and said, “Okay. There’s a plastic bag there for your clothes, if you need it. I’ll just wait in the living room.”

A few minutes later, Gabi emerged with the crinkling grocery bag bundled in her hands. She visibly looked more comfortable when she sat next to Josie on the couch. She did her best to tidy the apartment while her guest was in the bathroom… so really, she moved the laundry basket from its precarious perch on the couch to the papasan in the corner and consolidated the stacks of bills, spam mail, and restaurant flyers back into one mega pile to be dealt with later. Progress was progress, right?

Josie didn’t expect Gabi to back out of talking, but she didn’t expect a full ‘things they should teach you in health class but apparently are too chickenshit and old-fashioned to talk about’ seminar, complete with a Q&A panel. For as nervous and apprehensive as she first appeared, Gabi was rightly curious and a little grossed out by her body—and that resulted in a lot of questions. Josie did her best to answer things as honestly as she could. Puberty could be fucking awful – in no universe would she sugar-coat that glaringly obvious fact – but it wasn’t all awful. It didn’t have to be, at least, and if even a third of the things she babbled about stuck with Gabi, Josie would call it a successful crash course in the joys and woes of womanhood.

Before sending her back to Reiner’s apartment, Josie grabbed the half-empty box of pads from the bathroom cabinet. “Here, take these with you. It should last at least until your next period, but be sure to have Reiner pick you up another box before then.”

Gabi’s lips twitched a little.“R-right.”

“Let me know if he gives you any shit—”

“Reiner isn’t like that,” She interrupted. Her entire body coiled like a cornered cat, voice hitching higher with every word. “I just don’t want to worry him. He works really, really hard. And even though he says I’m not a burden I know I am—”

“Hey, hey, Gabi. Gabi!” Josie swallowed the sense of panic she felt at the sight of Gabi’s big brown watery eyes. She kept her voice as steady as she could (it still wobbled) and touched a light hand to her shoulder. “Breathe for a second.”

“—it’s my fault he’s so tired, but Reiner is my only family left and he takes really good care of me and I just want him to be okay—”

After explaining the finer details of menstrual cycles with her, Josie was fairly confident she was close enough to hug Gabi without permission. So she did… mostly because she didn’t know what the hell else to do. It seemed to work, luckily; Gabi stopped talking and melted into Josie’s arms. She held her for a while, until her tears soaked a wet spot through her shirt and her stuttering breaths evened. Eventually, Gabi pulled back and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hands.

Neither of them seemed to know what to say. But Josie was the adult, she reminded herself, and she had to say something.

“We really don’t have to talk about it now or ever, but if you want… if you ever want to talk, I’m all ears. My parents weren’t… I mean, I didn’t have the easiest time growing up. I know what it’s like to feel like a burden, is what I’m trying to say, I guess. And you’re not. You’re not a burden, Gabi, so don’t think that for a second more, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” She scrubbed her cheeks with her hands again as she nodded, letting out a meek little noise. “I’m sorry, I’m just really tired and, uh, yeah…”

“Crying is healthy, I think. Something about endorphins.”

“That sounds made up.”

“It’s true! I watched a video about it.”

“Duh. People your age believe everything they see online.”

Josie scoffed through her laughter. “ ‘People my age’ ? I’m twenty-two, you little asshole!”

“I’m just saying!” Gabi exclaimed, hands waving defensively. A smile crooked her lips and she continued in a dawdling way, “I should get back before Reiner wakes up and wonders where I am. He always makes a big deal about making me dinner before he leaves for work.”

Josie couldn’t help but tease, “Aw, that’s sweet.” (She thought it was very sweet, actually.) Something about the off-hand way Gabi said ‘leaves for work’ pulled at something in Josie’s mind, another thread of a question she couldn’t help but ask. “Does Reiner leave you alone when he goes to work?”

“Um… no!” Gabi’s spine straightened, her eyes widening as a fresh wave of panic seemed to work down her spin. Josie raised an eyebrow–she wasn't judging… per se… and it made sense, knowing it was a complicated situation. Besides, pot–meet the kettle. It wasn’t as if Josie hadn’t been alone at that age for hours at a time. Gabi must’ve registered the doubt stamped all across Josie’s face because she swallowed hard, eyes drifting to a corner of the room, and sheepishly continued. “I mean, okay, yes. But he checks in with me a lot and I always make sure I’m asleep by midnight at the latest so I’m being responsible!”

“I was just surprised, that’s all.” Josie admitted honestly, raising her hands. Of course she was concerned, too, but not for the reasons Gabi probably thought. No, Josie had been alone enough at Gabi’s age to know… well, to know how fucking lonely an apartment could be. And if Reiner was working double shifts… “What does Reiner do, exactly?”

“He works at a bar. Um, The Liberio.”

Ah, that made a lot of sense. The Liberio sounded vaguely familiar. Marley wasn’t the biggest city, but it was a college town with a thriving downtown scene. There were more bars than churches. It was something the university transplants loved to brag about, and she’d even seen the accolade blocked across welcome pamphlets and city guides.

Josie was born and raised in Marley, and even though she wasn’t a Warhammer (why they ever thought that was a good mascot for a school, she’d never know), she knew the city the way only a townie ever could. Which meant picking an apartment complex near the outer edge of town, away enough from the bustling energy leaking from Marley University and the rent that came with it, but not so far that the city bus didn’t make frequent stops. It wasn’t a bright or manicured neighborhood –too close to a highway exit to be considered all that safe or desirable– but it worked for Josie.

For a moment, she tried picturing Reiner behind the bar top at one of those trendy places near the university, serving overpriced and watered down neon drinks to college kids. The image went fuzzy in her head. No, she bet he worked at one of the bars where domestic beers were practically free and there were at least four sporting events playing on the televisions at any given time of day.

Gabi said her name, shifting from one foot to the other. “I really do need to go, but… um, thank you. Not just for the uh, pads—” she lifted the box with a nervous flutter, the plastic bag at her wrist sliding down and bunching the curve of her arm “—but for talking with me. That was really cool of you.”

Josie tried not to beam at the compliment. Jeeze. When did looking cool to a twelve-year-old ever matter to her before?

“And um, for other things, too.” Gabi’s cheeks flushed pale rose and she looked away, admitting, “I guess it’s been a really long time since someone hugged me like that and it felt nice.”

That made Josie want to hug her again, but she settled on a one-shoulder shrug. Her chagrin was on display, from reddened cheeks and shy expression to nervous movements.“Everyone deserves a hug every now and then.”

It sounded lamer when said out loud than it had in her head and for a second Josie wondered if her ‘cool neighbor’ points were going to be rescinded. After such a short tenure, too. Damn. But something flickered in Gabi’s eyes and she nodded slowly.

“Yeah… you’re right.”

She left after that, rushing through another ‘thank you’ before slipping out the door. Once again left in the quiet—this time, for good—the last remnants of the weird kind of adrenaline of the afternoon started to wear off. Josie needed to finish cleaning her apartment; she didn’t have another day off for a few days and it was highly unlikely she’d be in the mood to clean again then. Hell, she wasn't in the mood to clean now . A few episodes of her favorite TV show and a nap sounded good. No, it sounded great. A way better way to spend a day off than organizing bill statements and dusting shelves.

But she was already kind of grimy from cleaning and she wasn't going to take a nap on freshly washed sheets (groaning, she realized those freshly washed sheets were still bundled together in her laundry basket) reeking like lemon cleaner. And if she was already kind of gross and needed a shower… she might as well finish picking up her apartment. A night binging some TV after that would be like a reward. And fuck it—she was ordering takeout; there were a half dozen menus on her coffee table, at least one had to have some kind weekday special.

It took a little grumbling and mental ass-kicking, but Josie eventually restarted her cleaning playlist and formulated a half-assed (at best) plan for tackling the rest of the apartment. The name of the game: Damage Control. Instead of reorganizing her closets and mopping the floors, she put away the cleaning supplies littering her space and tossed empty hangers into an empty laundry basket. She fluffed pillows, refolded throw blankets, and struggled through making her bed.

It wasn’t like her apartment was dirty, just a little messy. A deep clean sounded like a proper adult thing to do on a day off. At least she tried . When all was said and done, her apartment miraculously looked tidier than it had that morning. A win's a win.

After a quick survey of the restaurant flyers and menus accumulated in one of her kitchen drawers, Josie decided on a new pizza place in the neighborhood. Ordering from a new spot was a gamble but their mailer had a really good coupon, and in her mind, bad pizza was still kind of good pizza. With her dinner secured, Josie hopped in the shower, spending a few extra minutes submerged beneath the too-hot spray. She dreamed of living somewhere with a big nice bathtub where, after a long day, she could drink wine and soak in water infused with essential oils and bubbles. All too soon, the water pressure flickered – a sign that too many people were taxing the building’s system – and her daydreams were over.

She was half-dressed, deciding between pajama bottoms, when a knock sounded through the apartment. The pizza place advertised thirty minutes or less, and she did spend a lot of her shower daydreaming, but there was no way that could be her dinner, right?

She tripped over her own feet, jumping into a pair of loose pajama shorts as she called out, “Just a second!”

There was an apology queued on Josie’s tongue as she opened the door, and she thanked God she had the foresight to pre-pay over the phone. But it wasn’t pizza.

Reiner, dressed in all black and wearing an unreadable expression, stared down at her. Silence beat between them. The slight rise and fall of his chest as he took a deep breath was the only sign he was flesh and blood in front of her and not some kind of hallucination.

Tongue feeling thick and fuzzy in her mouth, Josie greeted, “Oh. Reiner, hey.”

“Sorry to bother you—”

“You’re not.”

“—but uh, can we talk? About Gabi, I mean.”

“Yeah, of course.” She should’ve expected this—expected him. It made sense, that he’d want to talk about the situation. He was her guardian, after all. He wasn’t upset, was he? Those three words, ‘can we talk?’ , had a tendency to be harbingers of really shitty conversations. Josie hesitated for a second before taking a step back, fingers hooked back with an invitation. “Do you want to come in?”

“Ah, sorry, but I actually need to get to work. I’m already running late. I just wanted to thank you… you didn’t need to do as much as you did.” Reiner huffed out a little self-deprecating noise. “I’ve already given her three lectures about talking to strangers so she knows she shouldn’t be knocking on peoples doors, but um, I’m glad it was your door she knocked on. Thanks, Josie.”

Josie’s heart jumped to her throat. She managed to sputter, “Anytime.”

Reiner rubbed his neck, big hand coming to rest on his shoulder. The motion drew her attention to his arms. His muscles strained beneath black cuff of his sleeve, biceps pinching the material in a way that made Josie’s mouth dry. The cords of his forearm flexed and belated, she realized he was talking. Shit. Shit. Shit. Josie licked her lips, prayed the color of her cheeks didn’t betray her, and found his eyes.

Which was, admittedly, maybe not the best idea. Because there was something haunting reflected in the depths of his murky yellow eyes. Something vulnerable and familiar and heartbreaking. Josie’s palms itched. She pressed them flat against her thighs and forced herself to think about anything but how badly she wanted to reach out and touch him. Which would be crazy and cross so many boundaries but… he looked so incredibly sad . And didn’t she just tell Gabi everyone deserves a hug now and then? Maybe there was a gas leak in the building or she was tripping from eating spoiled fruit or something–there had to be a legitimate reason for the sudden sharp yearning, the wandering ache, the need to project her own fucked up bits onto other people.

“—at least until the end of the summer, so I want her to be comfortable coming to me for this type of thing.”

“She cares about you a lot.”

“Yeah, I know.” Reiner’s face softened. He pulled on his shoulder with a sigh, then dropped his arm and admitted, “She said she didn’t want to worry me. Girls her age should be worrying about… I don’t know, but not that —not this. Gabi’s too smart for her own good, though. She’s already shouldering too much and… shit… I’m not trying to dump this all on you. Sorry.”

There he was, looking at her with those golden puppy dog eyes. Her hands flexed and before she knew it, Josie was opening her mouth and overstepping at least a dozen boundaries.

“She’s welcome here anytime. If you’re okay with that, I mean, and if she’s okay with it, too.”

This could potentially put Josie firmly in the ‘weird neighbor’ category… but there was a chance for it to be good for Gabi. And Reiner. Ever since Gabi showed up at her front door, Josie hadn’t stopped thinking about herself at that age. Parents working overtime. Powdered mac n’ cheese. Homework abandoned in favor of cartoons and bike rides. She thought of how bored she was, how lonely she was… and all the trouble she found.

If there was a chance she could offer Gabi even a sliver of a safe space or some companionship, it was worth at least asking–at least offering .

Seconds stretched by in silence, Reiner’s wide eyes unblinking as Josie anxiously shifted in her doorway. Fuck. Great. Just great. She was really good at putting her foot in her mouth and fucking things up, but this was a new one for her. She had to move, right? Break her lease and find somewhere far, far away from–

“Why?”

“What?” She squeaked.

“Why would you offer to do something like that?”

“I’m sorry if I overstepped—”

“No, no .” Reiner ran a hand through his already messy blonde hair as he cleared his throat, lips set in that seemingly permanent pout. “It’s not that. We’re just… I know we’re neighbors and it was really nice of you to help Gabi out, but you don’t need to do this. We’re not a… charity case or something."

“Oh my God, no.” Josie waved a hand to stop him, a swell of panic tickling the back of her throat. She was fucking this up so badly. “That is not what I meant at all .”

“We’re strangers,” he said pointedly. There was something sharp in the way he looked at Josie, like he was searching for a crack in her story. Like she would only offer them kindness expecting something in return.

“Neighbors,” Josie reminded him, even though they both knew the word held little weight. Neighborly wasn’t exactly a word she’d use to describe their brief interactions; yet, there she was… offering to hang out with his pre-teen cousin while he was at work. Okay, okay, she totally saw where his suspicion came from. “Look, I know family shit can be really weird and difficult. If I can help, I want to—not because I think you need it or see you as charity but because I get it. Besides, I’m home basically every night, so really she’d be, like, keeping me company.”

Josie thought of the way Gabi’s eyebrows furrowed when she said she didn’t want to worry Reiner. Thought about the way they both looked with the word ‘burden’ rolling from their tongues. Thought of herself, bundled under blankets in an empty apartment, all the lights on even though she knew she’d get scolded for the waste, echoes of sirens and shouts and music and cries seeping through the thin walls.

“Think about it,” Josie rushed to say, before he could turn her down directly. “Ask Gabi if she’d even be interested. I just…”

There was a noise at the end of the hallway, distracting them from whatever Josie was going to say. Probably for the best. She cringed inwardly—this was one of the first full conversations she was having with her neighbor and she was making a complete ass of herself. Reiner tilted his head down the hall, mouth pinched in a pout Josie couldn’t help but stare at, shoulders tight and squared. A few seconds later, he took a sudden step to the side.

“Ah…”

The sight of a delivery person, looking every bit a paragon for bored indifference, shouldn’t have taken Josie by surprise but she was startled, nevertheless. They balanced the insulated delivery bag in one hand, the other itching at their neck.

“Delivery for Apartment 2B,” they sighed, one eye lazily drifting between Josie and Reiner.

“That’s me.”

“I should go.”

Their voices overlapped. Josie sent Reiner a sheepish look, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with something that resembled a smile.

Josie rocked on her heels. “Just think about what I said?”

“Yeah.” Reiner gave a quick, curt nod. The crinkle in his eye was gone, a more turbid look in its place. “I will.”

The delivery person sighed again, a loud bothered noise, as Reiner dipped away. Instead of rolling her eyes, Josie forced the corners of her lips up to a friendly customer service grin. They didn’t return the sentiment. Can’t win 'em all.

Reiner was already halfway down the hallway, hands shoved in his pockets. A simple white logo for The Libero stretched across the back of his shirt. At the sight of the blocky Varsity letters something warm bubbled in Josie’s stomach. Before she could stop herself, she called his name. He froze, back straightening, and slowly turned his body. Even from the end of the hall she could see his raised eyebrow, the apprehension on his face.

Ignoring the groaning delivery person and the heat crawling up her neck, Josie blurted, “Have a good night at work.”

Under their breath but definitely not quietly enough, the delivery person moaned, “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Josie agreed. At least she tipped them well . It was hard to care about inconveniencing the driver—or anything, really—because at her words, Reiner smiled. A real smile. Surprise rounded the edges of his mouth, a rosy pink peeking through the fine hairs of his scruffy beard.

“I’ll try.” He cleared his throat then added, “Have a good night, as well—”

Ripping Velcro overlapped with her name. Josie’s eye twitched with thinly veiled annoyance, but the delivery person waved a little tablet in front of her face and chastened, “Can you just take your pizza and sign this? I’ll get written up if the timestamp is over thirty minutes.”

Aaannnddd… Josie’s annoyance turned to mortification. “Shit, sorry, yeah!”

As quickly as she could, Josie approved the order on their tablet and took her pizza. She closed her apartment door to their fading grumbles, letting her head thunk against the well-worn wood. The warm cardboard box flexed under her tight grip. After a few seconds of silence, Josie’s bouncing ball heart ricocheting against her ribs, she let out a low groan and a long and proper fuuuuuuuuccccccckckkkkkkkk .

She had a bad habit of speaking before thinking… but this was too far—too much—even for her. Offering to hang out with her perfectly quiet and polite (and handsome) neighbor’s cousin, despite them both being complete strangers, because she was triggered by… her own lonely childhood? Some… some fucking protective instinct? Neither were any excuse to invite herself into their lives without an offer, yet she did just that. With a smile!

There was a drop ceiling in the employee break room at Paradis Mart. When Josie first started working there one of the older, long-time employees told her they found someone living up there in the 80’s. The story was urban legend garbage meant to get a rise out of newbies with the closing shift (and Josie herself told the story a dozen times to trainees assigned to her shifts over the years), but she was fairly confident she could make the arrangement work if it meant never having to face her neighbor again.

(Something sharp twisted in her chest at the thought.)

#attack on titan #aot #attack on titan fanfiction #aot fanfiction #reiner braun #reiner braun x original female character #reiner braun x ofc #reiner braun imagine #aot fanfic #attack on titan fanfic #gabi braun #modern au #modern aot #neighbors au #reiner aot

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riewritten · 2 years ago

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live footage of me blushing like a slut because i, for once in my life, got proud of how my drawing turned out

#dusk in the brightest #original character #my oc #oc #aot oc #aot x oc #aot original character #aot #snk #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #shingeki no kyojin x oc #attack on titan x oc #attack on titan x female oc #rie draws

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skelly-words · 11 months ago

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Masterlist and Ask Rules (idk kinda ignoring tbh)

minors dni!!! 18+ only

I'm being organized rn so you don't get lost in the reblogs and shitposts

WARNING: i’m an nsfw blog even though some posts are sfw, minors DO NOT follow

I like never post and always have writer’s block smh, but i still luv your support <3

Obey me

Lucifer Drabble (NSFW short af)

Mammon x Reader ask (NSFW 3.7k)

Knock First Next Time|Leviathan x Reader (NSFW 4.2k)

Mermaid Levi <3 (SFW 2.4k)

In My Mouth|Beelzebub x Reader (NSFW 4.5k)

JJK

Bf!Choso Headcanons (NSFW .8k)

Choso x Reader (SFW 2k)

Bf!Geto Headcanons (NSFW .7k)

Sukuna x gn!Reader (SFW 1k)

Bf!Sukuna Headcanons (NSFW .8k)

Part 2 and Part 3 (NSFW)

even more, more

jjk characters at the smoke sesh (SFW .6k)

Shoko Drabble (SFW so so short)

One Piece

Stoner!Sanji x Reader (NSFW drabble)

Assorted Tentacle Smut

Monster Under the Bed (NSFW .5k)

Bring Your Tentacle to Work Day (NSFW .5k)

Part 2 (NSFW .8k)

Part 3 (NSFW 2.3k)

Ask 1 Blue+Pink (NSWF idk short)

Ask 2 at a conference (NSFW 2.5k)

Part 3.5 (NSFW lil bit)

Ask 3 boss's house (NSFW .7k)

Witch's Garden (NSFW 1.1k)

Witch's Garden Pt. 2 (NSFW 1.2k)

Silly Little Original Fiction

Of Bic Lighters and Bad Parenting (SFW 1.4k)

Ask Rules

You can put whatever, questions, requests, rants, etc. as long as it follows the rest of the rules. There's really no theme for my writing because I just post what I want.

No minors: not in my work, blog, comments, asks. I want nothing to do with children at all and I obviously won't write anything romantic/nsfw with minors either.

Yes: fluff, angst, smut, reader-insert, some ships, most kinks, idc, but I'm sometimes picky about characters.

No: No poop stuff, necrophilia, beastiality (can’t even spell it 💀), dd/lg or age-play type stuff, incest or pseudo-incest (step-siblings are still gross), aged-up minors, or anything else I add in the future.

Fandoms: Obey Me, JJK, or monster fucker stuff. I will also write for assorted Mystic Messenger, One Piece, Naruto, Bungo Stray Dogs, Soul Eater, Haikyuu, Attack on Titan, Chainsaw Man, and Demon Slayer characters (comment characters under this post and I'll lyk if I can write them)

Top picks: Sukuna (jjk), Kakashi (nart), Hange (aot), Dr. Stein (soul eater), Aki (csm), Akutagawa (bsd)

Kinda as a final note, I'm a female and use she/her/they pronouns, so I'm not comfortable writing anything that's heavy mlm bc it's not my skill set or experience (i love women though so request some girl-on-girl shit)

#jjk x reader #obey me x reader #monster fucker

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safarigirlsp · 5 months ago

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The Museum Beast

Historian Nicholas Mills x OC

Word Count: 13.8k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Lots of Violence. Gore. Chasing. Monster Action. This is heavily inspired by one of my favorite novels, Relic. If you like any of this, I highly encourage you to read it!

I’m willing to continue this and write more if people like it!

Note: Going forward, I'm going to write characters from now on instead of Readers just because it's really annoying trying to switch back and forth for the non-fic writing I do. However, the female characters will be totally physically vague aside from having a name, so they can still easily be read as an insert by anyone who chooses to insert themselves.

Based on two requests I combined then butchered from @iamburdened and @queeniebee

AO3 Link

Two of the world’s tallest free-standing dinosaurs were frozen mid-battle in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda on the second floor of the New York Museum of Natural History. In dramatic repose, a Barosaurus reared to protect its young from an attacking Allosaurus. The skeletal titans made the browsing museum patrons look like ants milling at their feet. Alice was never unable to walk past the dinosaurs without craning her neck upward to admire their towering presence. The great saurians were much more interesting to focus on than the throng of chattering primates that inhabited the museum during business hours. Walking through the past with her heels echoing on tile hallways that stretched the length of city blocks, she allowed herself to be distracted by the jungle of extinct species giving life to their dioramas. From the tiny, feathered dinosaur skeleton displayed in a dramatically lit shadow box to the gigantic open jaws of a megalodon framing the entrance to an adjoining hallway, there was always something interesting that caught her eye.

If she walked briskly it was a decent cardio session to make her way to the North American section of the museum. A special exhibit had just opened, an exhibition on the American Old West. It had all the good stuff. Cowboys, gunslingers, train robbers, mountain men, and miners. The exhibit was livelier curated than most, or maybe the subject simply lent itself to action and movement. Standing guard on either side of the entrance were the wax likenesses of Buffalo Bill, wearing his original buckskin outfit, bedazzled with fringe and conchos, and Sitting Bull, dressed in a magnificent headdress boasting a rainbow of colors in its plumage. In one corner was a round table of wax men dressed in full regalia, engaged in a heated poker game. A man with luxurious curly hair sat with his back facing the audience, displaying his hand of aces and eights, the famous Dead Man’s Hand, held by ‘Wild’ Bill Hickock when he was gunned down. The mural painted in the corner Hickock faced even showed the characteristic swinging doors of a saloon, being pushed open by a man with a gun in his hand and murder in his eyes. In another corner ‘Hanging’ Judge Parker sat at his desk, writing in his ledger, backlit by a mural of a man swinging from the gallows outside his office window.

Alice was delighted to see some of the famous men of the old west depicted in less obvious settings than gunfights. These exploits were detailed in paintings that supplemented the exhibits and dozens of informative plaques, but many characters were shown in niche exposes that spoke to the true enthusiasts among the visitors.

The most famous lawman of all, Wyatt Earp, was depicted indulging in his guilty pleasure of gambling with his notoriously beautiful actress wife playing right alongside him as she smoked a cigar. Instead of being shown in his best-known role as Wyatt Earp’s right hand in the infamous Tombstone events, Doc Holliday was portrayed as a suave gentleman, dressed in a fancy brocade vest and cravat, focused on the smiling attentions of his consort, Big-Nosed Kate. The deadliest outlaw of all and likely psychopath John Wesley Hardin was shown lounging on a dirty bunk inside a jail cell. He was intently focused on a large law book. After serving his time, he turned from gunfighting to the practice of law. The plaque detailing his exploits explained tongue-in-cheek that he had traded the illegal form of lawlessness for the legal alternative.

Ample attention was also given to women of note. From saloon owners to cut-throat madams, women’s stories were interspersed with the male narrative. There was of course a display devoted to Calamity Jane, dressed as a man and just as dangerous. Prominently featured was the lesser known but equally successful outlaw Belle Starr, shown wearing a pretty red dress while brandishing a six-gun astride her huge, coal-black horse, Venus. The most famous woman of all, and arguably one of the most iconic figures of the Old West, Annie Oakley, was given a full diorama of her own. A wax figure depicted the pint-sized sharpshooter holding a rifle as she aimed for the cigarette held between her husband’s lips.

An armory worth of firearms from the period were on display. From iconic Colt .45 revolvers and Winchester 30-30 lever action rifles to unique pieces like tiny six-barreled pepper-box derringers and huge Sharps rifles, there were enough firearms to lay siege to a small country. It was befitting for the period, when a man’s gun and his horse were the best friends he could ever have. Without either, a man’s lifespan would likely be reduced to weeks or even days.

The exhibition hall was spacious, even with a veritable herd of visitors milling through it like buffalo on the plains. School children raced through the halls and between dioramas as unchecked as packs of coyotes, while their teachers and handlers tried in vain to wrangle them under control. It was afternoon and most groups were on their final turn around the exhibits before leaving. A few pairs of surly teenagers lingered on the sidelines, looking like they were trying to find a place to whip out a cigarette to enhance their cool, and probably having escaped their own class trip from some other section of the vast museum. Despite the chaos the minors instigated, snippets of intelligent conversation also fluttered around the room.

In an attempt to avoid the class field trips, Alice moved to an adjacent room inside the sprawling exhibit. This spacious room was devoted to art of and from the period, Native American weavings and pottery, animated bronze sculptures, and vibrant oil paintings. The more sedate nature of the art exhibits appealed to a more sedate crowd, unable to hold the interest of children and teenagers. The only other people in the art room were an elderly couple, a group of three college-age people who looked like modern beatniks, and one impressively built man standing off to one side, studying the plaque of a detailed mural-size painting.

Alice couldn’t help but appraise the man discreetly as he stood quartering away from her. He was tall and broad, his robust physique apparent through his flannel shirt and jeans. Even from her angle, she could tell his features were strong and masculine. Dark hair curled around his collar and his strong stubble-covered jaw flexed as he read, his bright eyes darting quickly over the text. She wondered briefly about approaching him – men that attractive were rare to find out in the wild – but it struck her as ridiculous to approach the man like she was in a bar and ask him if he came here often. Rolling her eyes inwardly at herself, she turned her attention toward the opposite wall and a painting of a painfully skinny man riding an equally emaciated white horse on a moonlight night.

It was rewarding when out of the corner of her eye she saw the man turn and pause just to look at her. The man glanced toward the doorway leading back into the main exhibit then back at her, seeming to decide whether or not he too wanted to risk making an ass of himself with a clumsy come-on in an art exhibit. Alice fought to hide her smile when he made his decision in her favor.

The handsome man sidled up to her, his approach practiced and laissez-faire. His shoulders were squared and his stride confident, but he angled across the exhibit hall from the side, his eyes fixed on the oil paintings instead of his prize, like a lion casually strolling by a gazelle to gauge distance before an attack. There was an impulse to turn to him with an accusatorily arched eyebrow to show she was onto him. But he was attractive enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Being pursued added a certain spice to the air, after all. With his large hands in his pockets and his posture confident but relaxed, he dripped with top notes of James Dean and undertones of Clint Eastwood.

“Frederick Remington,” the man read the artist’s name when he stopped beside her. He was a full head taller and his voice was deep and a little gravely, barely tinged with a Western drawl. “I think my dad has one of his 30.06 rifles.”

Alice hoped he was teasing, that there were a few active brain cells sparking inside that pretty head. The hint of a smirk twisting the man’s lips confirmed it. Keeping her face deadpan, she played along. “Yeah? These artists must have been starving during their lifetimes, being forced to branch out like that. I hear the guy behind Winchester Arms was really into weird avant garde architecture, too.”

The man grinned and turned to face her, fixing her with a pair of bright eyes the color of whiskey. “I think that was his wife. Leave it to a woman to spend a man’s hard-earned gun money on a house in the California hills, complete with staircases leading to ceilings and dead ends. Think she had a Remington on the walls?”

“I don’t know if Sarah Winchester was a fan of Frederick Remington, but I bet there were a few works by Eliphalet Remington somewhere inside,” Alice teased.

“I’m impressed,” the man laughed. “I couldn’t have pulled that name out of thin air.”

“I bet now you’re wondering if I’m a gun nut or just a history buff. A woman should keep an air of mystery about her.” She smiled and looked at him squarely. She decided he looked at home in the Old West exhibit, exuding a ruggedly masculine quality that was all too rare in modern society. He had a face that belonged on the streets of Dodge City, those crisp hooded eyes staring down the barrel of a Colt .45. She realized she had been staring into those eyes for a rudely long moment, and continued talking to smooth over that faux pas, “I never cared much for Remington’s paintings. They’re drab and all the subjects are in painfully sorry condition – horses and men alike.” She pointed to an incredible scene of two cowboys roping a grizzly bear, their movements frozen on canvas mid-stride, mid-lasso, and mid-snarl, painted with confident strokes in a vibrant palette. “Charlie Russell is my favorite. You can’t beat the color and the action in his paintings.”

“I wonder if that’s worse than having a tiger by the tail,” he pondered, pointing at the lassoed grizzly, snarling and swiping at the horse and rider. “What would your boyfriend say?”

“That position is currently vacant. What a brash way to inquire.” She smiled and nodded back at the snarling grizzly. “I’m sure three out of four ex-boyfriends would say they’d take their chances with the bear.”

“It’d take more than a bear or a tiger to scare me away from such a pretty face,” he teased, using those impressive eyes as tactically as a gun. “I never did have much instinct for self-preservation. Plenty of brash though, and other things synonymous.”

She laughed genuinely. “You’ve covered art, guns, tigers, and balls in three minutes flat. That’s quite an icebreaker without even introducing yourself. What else should I know?”

“Nicholas Mills.” He grinned handsomely and extended his hand, it was callused and powerful and large, easily swallowing hers in his warm grip. “I’m here consulting on this exhibition, on loan from the Old West Museum in Cheyanne.”

“Alice,” she returned, giving his hand a firm shake. “You’re a historian?” Her tone was skeptical as she pointedly eyed his flannel shirt and jeans. “Is tweed out of vogue for you types these days?”

“In the west it’s all denim and cotton.” He popped the collar of his shirt. “Linen if you want to be pretentious. Dust sticks to tweed like hell, not to mention burs.”

“What about your ten-gallon hat and dinnerplate-sized belt buckle?” The question gave her a convenient excuse to gauge the way he filled out his jeans. He wasn’t a man who skipped leg day.

“Those are only fashion accessories in Texas. Maybe Santa Fe. Where I’m from, if you’re wearing a cowboy hat, it better have a sweat ring around the headband, and if you’re wearing a belt buckle, it better be tarnished. Those are work accessories for working ranch hands, not fashion statements.” He let his eyes travel the curves of her figure under the guise of admiring her outfit of jeans and a blazer. “I suppose those duds work equally well for business or pleasure in most fields.” He smirked, but moved on before she could wonder at the double entendre. “Do I get a last name or just Alice?”

Smiling coyly, Alice replied, “I’ll give you a hint and see how well you know your stuff. It’s the name of one of my favorite songs and of a color that looks terrible on me, and I share it with a gunfighter who I’m sad to see isn’t featured in your exhibit. He had one of the best names in the business. That’s three hints, actually. So, are you posing as a historian to hit on unsuspecting women, or the real deal?”

“I’m not up on music and I can’t imagine there’s a color that could make you look terrible,” Nick frowned and pursed his lips. “I know of a couple of noteworthy Browns and even a Dunn, but their names don’t have any special ring to them. If I was a betting man, I’d put my dollar on ‘Texas’ Jack Vermillion. Alice Vermillion?”

“If you were betting, you’d have hit the jackpot,” Alice said with a genuine smile. “A man who knows Texas Jack and Charlie Russell. I’m not yet impressed, but I am intrigued.”

“If this goes the direction I’m hoping, I may yet hit that jackpot and you’ll be very impressed.” He didn’t give her the chance to address that sentiment before changing the subject. He cocked his head toward another painting depicting a man and woman seated side by side beneath an upside down canoe propped above them, taking shelter from a torrent of rain in a thick forest. Despite the weather, the couple was engaged in smiling conversation. “I’m a Goodwin man, myself. But I’m biased. Every time I look at his paintings of cowboys packing up in Alaska or canoeing in the Great North, adventurous couples fishing and hunting together, I get nostalgia for a place I’ve never been.” He smiled to himself. “Someday.”

“Isn’t New York about as far away as a man can get from canoeing up in the Great North and fighting grizzlies over your catch of the day?” she teased. “Not much chance of facing down a maneater on the mean streets of NYC. Although, I hear these days you’re more likely to get bitten by a New Yorker than a shark.”

“You must not know about the Museum Beast.” He flashed a grin that was lopsided and full of mischief.

Alice cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a little early in the day for ghost stories. Shouldn’t you invite me someplace nicer before you start trying to rattle the delicate woman into wanting to cling to your big, strong arm?”

“I’m appalled you think I’m that easy, miss.” He flexed one of those big, strong arms in question in the sluttiest possible way. “It’s no campfire ghost story. The folks who work here believe it. They say there’s a huge beast living in the basement, roaming the halls at night.” Holding up his hands, he hummed the Twilight Zone theme. “They say it preys on researchers who embezzle grant money and curators who hit on their secretaries.”

Alice laughed, maybe snorted a little, decidedly unladylike. “So, you’re saying I’m safe then?”

“I’ll keep you safe,” he teased with faux gravity. “Just stick close to me.”

“That sounds like a pretty firm offer to help with some research to me.” She put her hands on her hips in a playful challenge.

“Would it be smart of you to trust the research skills of a man who’s not wearing a tweed jacket?” He grinned. “What kind of research? Are you a student?”

“God no!” she laughed. “I haven’t been a student in over a decade. I’m something much worse.”

Nick raised his eyebrows, inquiring.

“I’m a defense lawyer, trying desperately to find an angle to show my very guilty client has a mitigating defense.” She mirrored his expression, raising her eyebrows. “You want the facts? They’re not for the squeamish. You don’t have a full stomach, do you?”

“A pretty face with a shady job and an iron stomach to boot?” he laughed again. “You have my attention.”

“Have you ever gotten carried away and gone down some weird rabbit holes?” she asked with a self-deprecating grin.

‘Sure.” He nodded. “I’m not surprised you’re one to go chasing rabbits, Alice.”

“My client is a murder, a serial killer. A cannibal, to be precise.” She watched him for any of the silent tells she was used to seeing when a listener wanted her to stop, or to chew their arm off and escape her work stories. Seeing none, she continued. “He grew up in Centralia, Pennsylvania before the town was evacuated, then worked in mines all of his adult life. He tells me this affected him. Sadly, conventional psych evals don’t back up his claim. So, before I lay out the big bucks on an expert to say whatever I want, I wanted to do some research on the effects of heavy metal poisoning on miners and a correlation with cannibalism. I figured looking at the Old West miners before there were regulations might be a good place to start.”

“Cannibalism, huh? Romantic topic. Did you see the Donner Party exhibit?” He smirked and jerked his thumb in the direction of a diorama of several wax figures huddled around a dying campfire, clutching furs around them to fight the bitter blizzarding cold while suggestively roasting skewers of meat.

“It’s very nice.” She looked back at the macabre display. “But not what I’m looking for. They had a different defense to cannibalism. Duress, definitely. If I were representing one of them, I’d also argue self-defense, in an eat or be eaten sense. I’d win.”

Nick grinned then pursed his lips, nodding as he considered her problem. “You won’t find anything useful up here but if you want to go deeper down this rabbit hole, you’d want to have a look in the museum’s archives. This museum has the largest collection of natural history artifacts in the world. That’s one reason I’m here, frankly, is a chance to explore their collection of Old West relics. It’s better than being a kid in a candy store. It’s almost as good as an occultist getting a backstage pass to the Vatican Archives.” He fixed his intense eyes on hers. “I bet we could find some good stuff in there.”

“Are you offering to sneak me into the museum’s archives with you?” She added a seductive edge to her voice and added, “You’re going to lift up the museum’s skirt for me and show me her goods?”

“I’ll have you know skirt-lifting is a great talent of mine.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully. “Yeah, I’m offering, so long as you let me take you out afterwards. We can discuss our findings over dinner.”

“You won’t get in trouble?” she asked sincerely.

“They can’t fire me.” He shrugged. “The worst they could do is chew me out and deport me back to Cheyanne. What do you say? Dinner in exchange for a private curated tour and me risking getting a big ole ass-chewing?”

“Deal.” Alice smiled, offering her hand again and they shook on it.

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

It was creeping toward five when Nick led Alice out of an employee service elevator on one of the lower levels of the museum. They had met an exodus of employees heading the opposite direction on their way home for the day.

“Is it too late for this adventure?” Alice asked as they walked down a hallway so long she could barely see the end of it. The lights were dim and there were no windows on this lower level. They passed dozens of closed doors and multiple other hallways branching off. She thought the minotaur could get lost in this place.

“I have my all hours, all access pass.” He tapped his jeans pocket where a laminated card was stowed. It served as both an ID card and a key to most of the locked doors in the museum and the employee-only areas.

“How do you not get lost in here?” Alice asked, looking around the endless halls. Especially with no natural light or signage, it seemed impossible.

“Nah, I get lost all the time. I consider it part of the adventure,” he laughed, then saw her askance look and added sheepishly, “Sorry, I forgot I was supposed to be your intrepid guide. I won’t let on if I get lost. Just consider it exploring.”

“That’s comforting,” she laughed too. Secretly, she thought it might not be the most terrible thing to be lost for a few hours or even the night in a place with so much to explore with a handsome man.

Alice was convinced they had covered the distance of several city blocks before they arrived at a pair of heavy oak doors with a plain brass plate announcing they had reached the B Archives.

“Does that mean there’s an entire alphabet of archive rooms and collections?” she asked as Nick held the door open for her.

“Probably.” He shrugged. “I’ve only poked around in Archives A, B, and C. Those collections date from the recent past until the eighteenth century or so.”

Inside the B Archives, Alice was reminded of an enormous library that had seen better days. Or the basement of an ultra-rich hoarder. Rows of metal shelves streaked away as far as she could see in the dim lighting, seven-feet high and with another foot or two of boxes piled on top. Between rows there was enough space for two people to walk abreast if they wanted to get a little cozy with one another. At various intervals in the rows there were alcoves fitted with small tables where one could examine their find without taking it up to the front. The light added to the aged feel, the bulbs candlelight-yellow, a few of which were weak and flickering. The front of the room had a kind of sitting area with chairs and a spattering of small tables. There was a small office inside too, a door with a smoked glass window open ajar.

A hunched old man with white hair and coke bottle glasses poked his head out from the office door, squinting at Nick for several seconds before addressing him. “You’ve been bothering me a lot lately.”

“This time I brought a pretty girl who wants to bother you,” Nick said, placing his hand on the small of Alice’s back as he led her toward the old man. “She’s curious what you have on mines in the old west. Particularly mines with gruesome histories. Murders, deaths, breakouts of illness or insanity. All that good stuff. Cannibalism in particular, if you have any of that on the menu.”

“Cannibalism? On a perfectly decent Friday afternoon?” The old man scoffed, but proceeded to ponder the matter, his bushy white eyebrows drawing together in thought. After a moment, he held up a triumphant finger. “You know, there is a rather curious box of effects that might interest you. It’s some remnants of an old Colorado sheriff’s things. He led quite an illustrious life, it seems. His heirs donated most of his effects to the museum. I took a quick peek through it years ago when it came in, but I haven’t thought of it since.” He pointed a bony finger down the row of aisles. “Aisle S, box 5425, if memory serves, and it always does.”

“How in the hell do you do that?” Nick asked, shaking his head.

“Photographic memory.” The man tapped his temple. “Which also means I’ll remember you precisely if you mess up my boxes.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Nick assured him then led the way toward aisle S.

It took them some time to locate box 5425, partially because many of the labels were faded beyond readability. When they found it, Nick had to stand on his tiptoes and stretch his arms to their full reach to nudge it off its perch on top of another box on the top shelf. He nearly dropped the box when it came free, catching it with one hand and fumbling for balance for a harrowing second. Once he held it securely in his arms, he smiled cockily at Alice and headed toward the nearest alcove in their row.

The alcove was centered in the row and seated directly under a flickering yellow light. Nick set the box down on the small table, barely large enough for a coffee date. The lights were sparsely spaced, leaving shadowy stretches between pools of yellow light. There were still several towering rows of shelving between them and the entrance, but sound carried well in the sepulcher-like room. He was spreading the contents of the box out on the table when he heard then entrance door creak open and a voice bounced down the aisle toward them.

“I’m clocking out for the day.” The old man called. “Put that box back where you found it and don’t tell anyone I left you unattended in here, and we’ll still be friends tomorrow.”

“You got it,” Nick replied, projecting his deep voice so it boomed through the archives. Then he turned to Alice with a wolfish expression, “I hope you didn’t want a chaperone.”

“All a chaperone does is keep an honest man honest,” she replied, appreciating just how close they stood at the small table. “I think you’re a man who will break as many rules as I let you, chaperone or not.”

“Maybe so.” He grinned sideways and chewed his lip as he opened the box.

It may have been a mistake, she realized, allowing herself to be shut away privately and in such close confines with this man. Her profession was dominated by men, she was used to working closely with men and attractiveness or lack thereof never entered into it. Rarely, at least. It was a foreign feeling to be dominated by hormones the way she was now. Her senses felt assaulted, a gate failing before a battering ram. The way he looked and the rich gravel in his voice were bad enough, but now in the close space, Alice couldn’t ignore the masculine scent that subtly infiltrated her nose. She didn’t know if the scent of pine and leather mingled with musk was cologne or if it belonged to him. The small table necessitated him being close to her, their bodies almost touching. He didn’t crowd her, but still the size of him was tantalizingly imposing with the minimal space between them. She felt the heat from his body on her skin when he leaned over to study the papers spread across the table next to her. It made her think of being overpowered, manhandled, taken, even – the things that modern empowered women were supposed to have evolved beyond but that the base part of them craved when they sensed a man masculine enough to give it.

Nick pulled a letter from the box, the paper brittle and yellowed with age. Protocol dictated he should be wearing gloves to handle it, but he didn’t want to leave Alice alone long enough to fetch a pair. Despite his bravado, he had always found these dark and mostly abandoned places inside the museum creepy. He never let it get to him or get in the way of anything he needed to do, of course. But it was still an unsettling sort of environment, surrounded by the dead and their effects, in a place where voices echoed and shadows creeped. It was easy to imagine wakeful spirits watching him from the corner of his eye, just at the edges of the feeble light.

Not unlike being inside a deep, dark mine, he thought as he looked at the letter. He read aloud to Alice, thinking he might have actually struck gold, at least in terms of finding something to keep their afternoon interesting.

October 13, 1882

Darlin Belle,

I’m sure missin you tonight. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this but I hope it will find its way to you. I’m gonna write you like you was here with me and I was just talkin to you over dinner. It makes me miss you less. Every time I think about bein home, all that is to me is bein with you. The men in the posse kid me for bein whipped by you but I can’t find a damn to give over it. Miserable lonely bastards, the lot of em. But I guess they didn’t leave no one behind to miss em when they died. I hope you’ll miss me and remember the things that were good about me. There aren’t many, so it shouldn’t be hard.

“That sounds romantic,” Alice said with a wistful lilt. “I’m not sure it’s useful for my purposes, but I like it.”

Nick grinned and nodded. He read ahead to himself, but decided not to share it with the woman who was now looking at him with a pretty, hopeful smile. Best not to spoil the mood. He read the next few paragraphs to himself, feeling a prickly chill drag along the length of his spine like ghostly fingernails.

It’s been snowin up here in these mountains for days and it’s up over my knees now. Sure makes me miss the warmth of your touch. There’s nothin finer than holdin you in my arms, smellin your hair like flowers and cinnamon, feelin you soft n warm. I think you might be the only thing that can thaw me out ever again. Here I gone and got myself all hot and bothered just thinkin about you. But the snow’s been a blessin for me. It made the blood trail of the one I wounded easy to follow. I found him holed up under a ledge and finished him off with my knife so as not to fire off a shot. Sound carries in these mountains. The snow got thicker after dark. Thick enough to hide my tracks from the rest who are huntin me.

They haven’t found my hideout yet, but they will. I have to beat em to the punch.

I ain’t got much time cause they know the mountains better than me. It makes hidin hard and ambushin harder.

Sorry my writins goin from bad to worse fast. My fingers are numb as hell.

Curious, Alice leaned in to look at the letter and read it along with him. Spender folded it back together with a snap, too rough for the old paper and cleared his throat. He hastily put it back in the box – in the bottom of the box, under some other more innocuous looking items. “I don’t think the rest is worth reading today.”

Instead, he reached for a pocket watch with a gold hunting case, beautifully engraved with an elk hunting scene. Holding it delicately in his hands, he popped open the cover and read the engraving aloud, “To my handsome sheriff. You carry my love for you wherever you go. Belle.”

“That’s beautiful.” Turning toward him, Alice looked into his eyes as she spoke. Though his composure remained steady on the surface, she saw the way his chest expanded, his jaw clenched, his throat bobbed. It gave her a feeling of power knowing Nick was just as affected by their proximity as she was, maybe even more. She told herself she wouldn’t completely give into hormones. But she could give a little. How long had it been since she’d made out with a man like a horny teenager during a study session? Probably not since she had been a horny teenager. She could live a little now. Resting her ass against the tale, she leaned back against it and looked up at him, intentionally giving him the image of her laying sprawled beneath him. It would be a perfectly innocuous posture if the air wasn’t so charged between them, the attraction so tangible. The way he swallowed thickly told her that it wasn’t innocuous to him either.

The next move was his, Nick realized. Smirking to mask the way his pulse thundered, he stepped closer to her, using the excuse of setting the watch down on the table near her hip resting against the table’s edge. He left his hand there on the table, and when Alice kept looking up at him rather than anywhere else, Nick knew he had her tacit approval to act bolder. With his next step, he positioned himself in front of her. His right hand still rested near the pocket watch that held less interest to Alice than the man. He flattened his right hand on the table beside her then planted his left hand on her opposite side. There was still space between their bodies, if only inches, but he now caged her against the table and loomed over her.

“Find anything that interests you down here yet, darlin?’” he asked, letting the huskiness in his voice reflect his mounting arousal.

Alice heard something that sounded like a faint scratch from somewhere inside the archives. It was hardly enough to pull her attention away from the stupidly attractive man who was doing his best to make her forget all the dating rules and run every base right here in this dusty archive.

“I don’t have enough information to know if I’m interested in anything yet,” she teased. Angling her chin up, she presented her jaw and neck in a favorable angle for kissing.

“What do I need to clear up for you?” he played along as he lowered his head, trailing his nose over her cheek and his lips over her jaw, kissing lightly and teasing her with the scratch of his beard.

A box shifted on a shelf deeper in the archive, as though something had bumped it or rubbed against it. Alice heard that too, but she didn’t care. Not when Nick’s lips had moved to her neck and were giving her goosebumps, making her breath come short and her spine tingle. Encouraged by the way her body arched toward his and the way her hands had flown to his shoulders, Nick hooked his hands behind her thighs and hoisted her up onto the table. Pushing her legs apart, he stepped between them, bringing their bodies together then letting his hands caress her thighs and back as he continued kissing her neck. Every part of his body was hard beneath her roving hands, each plane and ridge of muscle a new excitement to discover. She could feel how hard he was inside his jeans too, but she would save exploring all of him for another time. She had talked herself into a nice makeout session with a handsome stranger, but she hadn’t yet abandoned all of her morals.

Bringing his hand to the back of her neck, he cradled her head while he exerted that subtle masculine control that could make a woman want to submit to him. Nick teased the side of her neck with his teeth, also teasing her restraint. He grinned against her skin when he pulled a soft moan from her throat, beginning to lose himself in the feel of her body against his, her soft skin under his callused hands.

When she moaned, Alice heard a strange response from somewhere in the dimly lit room. Something like a wet huffed breath, or a sloppy inhale. It sounded like a large dog snuffling. It was unmistakably not something she could attribute to the old room or hear ears playing tricks on her.

“Nick,” she whispered, not from arousal but trepidation. “Did you hear that?”

“’Course, darlin,’” he muttered dismissively as he nosed and kissed along her collarbone, his fingers digging into her thigh.

“What is it?” She was starting to pull back, making him tighten his hold on her.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” he spoke against her skin, trying to placate her. He hadn’t heard anything, but if there was something, it was probably a fucking rat the size of a wiener dog. They had those fuckin’ things in New York. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. Giant rats wouldn’t do a damn thing to keep her revved up for him. Forcing the thought from his own mind, he resumed kissing her, rubbing his words in with his lips. “It’s an old place. There’s bound to be some weird noises.”

“Listen!” she whisper-yelled, grabbing a fistful of his thick hair and yanking far too harshly to be mistaken for anything sexy.

He winced and frowned at her through one eye, the other was squeezed shut from the pain in his scalp. “You could just tell me to fuckin’ stop, you know?”

“Listen,” she said again, this time her whisper was barely audible. She heard another scrape and maybe another sniffing breath. But everything was quieter now, more subtle. As if whatever was making those faint noises was trying to be stealthier.

“That could be anything,” Nick said at full volume with a laugh on his voice. His voice seemed to boom throughout the archives, sparking off Alice’s inflamed nerve endings.

She clapped a hand over his mouth, hard enough to make him flinch. Her body was bolt upright, incidentally pressing her body flush to his, her every muscle taught. She knew her system had shot into a fight or flight response, but she didn’t know why. Her consciousness hadn’t registered anything that warranted such a reaction, a few odd sounds in an old museum was hardly noteworthy. But something about what she heard struck a chord in her core, deep in her subconscious where instinct reigned. Every sense she had sparked like live electric wires, screaming at her to run away as fast as she could, but she didn’t know what she was running from or even which direction to bolt. Her eyes were wide and terrified when they met Nick’s and she whispered, “Something’s in here with us. Listen. We have to get out.”

His eyes crinkled with amusement and he kissed her palm still held over his mouth. Taking her wrist, he plucked her hand away and kissed her there on her pulse point. He did it teasingly, but he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, “I spooked you good with that story about the Museum Beast.” He smirked and teased further, “I thought you were a big girl who could handle some campfire tales.”

“Can you not hear anything over the sound of your hard on?” she hissed, placing a restraining hand on his chest. “Listen, and try to think with the right head for a minute.”

Nick laughed, he always had a weakness for the feisty ones. He was about to tell her as much and steal another kiss when he heard it. A kind of snuffling, like someone with a runny nose, but also different and unmistakable. Growing up in Wyoming, he had spent plenty of time outdoors around wildlife, hunting, fishing, and hiking. He’d heard that sound once before when he’d come face to face with a grizzly around a bend in a trail. Given their poor eyesight, grizzlies tended to grunt and sniff their way along, their way of assessing their environment. He didn’t believe what his mind registered. There couldn’t be a fucking bear in a New York museum. But he also couldn’t rationally attribute the sound to some wheezy curator or a congested janitor, especially not when paired with a stealthy padded footfall.

“We need to run.” Alice fisted his lapel. Her voice had dropped below a whisper to an urgent breath.

“No, darlin,’ don’t run.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her off the table, returning her feet to the floor. Taking her arm, he pulled her behind him, placing himself closest toward the strange noises and whatever creature made them. He began to back slowly away down the aisle, pushing her behind him, trying to keep his steps silent. His mind raced frantically, but he forced his body to remain in control, repeating, “Don’t run.”

“Can we fight it?” she asked, touching his back from behind, trying to calm herself by keeping contact with him

“We may have to,” Nick gritted, unsure what to do since he had no idea what was creeping toward them from a few rows away. “Just don’t run. If there’s some kind of animal in here with us, the worst thing you can do is run.”

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

That little bitch, Warren thought petulantly as he walked down the dim hallway. The hallway that stretched on for the length of a city block. It was such bullshit. He hadn’t walked this much since he got kicked off his co-ed flag football team in junior high. Fuck her, he thought again as he kicked at a piece of crumpled paper on the tile floor, missed, and stumbled sideways. At least no one was around to see him. His uppity date was nowhere to be found. She had the gall to shove him away when he tried to fondle her boobs before running away from him. The ungrateful bitch. Warren had used his lunch hour to help her sneak out of high school, had paid her admission into the museum, and wasted his afternoon leading her around the exhibits and thrilling her with his acumen. She owed him a feel. He would just tell all her friends she sucked his dick in his car and have the last laugh.

Sullenly picking at the chipped black paint on his stubby fingers, he turned down yet another pointlessly long hallway. Despite being as blonde as a California It Girl and having a dumpy potatoesque physique, he thought that his crooked guyliner and black skinny jeans that revealed a tantalizing glimpse of a sweaty plumber’s crack gave him the hot goth look the girls liked. Not so much the girls in his peerage at college – they were stuck up bitches anyway, already hounding after the guys who were studying law at Harvard – but the girls who were just about to graduate from high school, just turned eighteen, maybe a little homely and desperate for a date to prom. Those were his preferred prey. He usually had some meager success with them, before their fathers found out about him and heartlessly separated them. It enhanced his view of himself as a tragic, long-suffering Shakespearean love interest who had turned to goth rock to bemoan his existence.

Since Warren had somehow managed to get turned around inside the maze of hallways until after it closed for the day, the museum was also devoid of employees. He thought it was only a matter of time before he ran into a security guard. He had a story lined up for why he was inside after hours, a grand tale that emphasized his victimhood. Maybe he could even end up with his name in the paper over it. That would really impress the girls.

Now, Warren lumbered along a random hallway, trying to find his way to an exit. He needed to find an elevator first. He had sneaked into some kind of service elevator with the girl and gone down several floors in his search for privacy. He thought he was in some kind of storage area or basement now, every room he passed was vacant save for troves of weird antiques. He had found the door to a stairwell a few turns back down the hallway, but he wasn’t about to walk up several flights of stairs. His day had been shit enough so far without climbing stairs.

After what seemed like an eternity, he came to a pair of double doors marked B Archives. He couldn’t remember the last time he had walked so far. He must have put in over two miles inside this stupid museum already. Like, a month’s worth of walking. Maybe there was a desk inside with a chair he could rest in even if he couldn’t find an employee to lead him out of this suckhole.

Success! Inside the B Archives were rows of forgotten looking shelves that Warren couldn’t give a shit less about, but there was also an office with an open door and the promise of a desk and cushy chair. The lights were on inside, giving him the additional hope that some diligent employee still remained there after hours.

“Hey?” he called out to anyone who might answer. His voice echoed eerily down the rows and off the tile like tumbleweeds rolling down the streets of a ghost town. “Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out.”

Something sounded in response from far back in the archives, down one of the dim rows. It sounded like a startled step, like he had caught someone off guard and they had turned around fast.

“If you could call a guard or even just tell me how to find the exit, that would be great,” Warren shouted. He walked toward the sound, down toward the back of the archives past the ends of the phalanx of aisles. A strange feeling began to creep into his senses, like the uneasy feeling he got when he watched horror movies alone. The feeling that had made him instigate a rule that he didn’t watch scary movies after nine. He even thought he heard the sound of something breathing heavily. Maybe he needed to ration his porn intake too, now he was blending porn sound effects with horror reactions. He mumbled to himself, “Who wouldn’t be creeped out by all this stupid old shit?”

Warren hadn’t paid attention to the way his walk had slowed without him meaning to or the way his mouth had gone dry. He jumped like he had bumped into an electric fence when one of the lightbulbs overhead surged then dimmed. He was glad the girl had run off now, so she couldn’t see him sweat and his hands shake. He heard something down the aisle to his left, something like a single impatient rap of nails on a desk.

The flickering of a waning yellow bulb drew his attention down the aisle. In the flickering light, it looked like something was moving in the aisle, just beyond the reach of the light on the far side. Something crouched and hulking in the shadows. It must be a trick of the dim light. That and being a little freaked out from being stuck down here all alone for what felt like hours. Still, Warren wished he had worn his smudged glasses. He didn’t wear them when he was trying to impress a girl because they weren’t cool.

He was focusing too hard on the shadows. Focus too hard on something and it can seem like the thing is moving. It was a common optical illusion, and the flickering light didn’t help. It made the weird shape in the shadows look like an animal with its head lowered, stealthily sneaking toward him down the aisle.

“Fuck this,” Warren exclaimed, throwing his hands up like an overwrought woman. He didn’t need to be in the creepy old room in the creepy old museum basement. At least the never-ending hallways weren’t filled to the brim with weird antiques.

Down the aisle something sniffed, like someone with a runny nose. Something definitely moved just beyond the light.

“Shit’s probably haunted,” he decided. That made it easier. He was a staunch Ghost Hunters fan and he’d learned a thing or two from them. Forcing a laugh, he added, “Suck my balls, ghosts!”

Turning on his heel in a flippant insult to the ghosts, he walked briskly back the way he had come. He heard something else, seemingly misplaced inside the haunted archives. He very distinctly heard the sound of a footfall and what sounded like a muffled voice, maybe two if one was whispering, coming from deeper down one of the aisles. But it was immediately overshadowed by the sound of a heavy body rushing down the aisle with the flickering light, and nails scraping on tile. Or claws.

Looking back over his shoulder, Warren saw a huge dark body moving fast down the aisle toward him in a kind of lope. An animal, grunting and running toward him. His mind couldn’t process all the details, or it didn’t want to. What his mind hitched on were the teeth. When the creature ran through the scant pool of light, vicious exposed teeth glinted inside its snarling jaws.

Warren ran.

The beast lunged after its prey with the instinct of a predator to chase after a fleeing animal. Warren felt it when the beast gave chase, like the stale air had chilled and all the ghosts inside the archives were watching him. Claws scrambling on tile and heavy galloping echoed behind him, punctuated by grunts.

Warren could see the exit door. It wasn’t far. He could make it. Trying to make his legs pump faster, he looked back over his shoulder. The creature had rounded the end of the aisle and was charging straight at him in large bounding strides. It was bigger than a lion with terrible yellow eyes and teeth like ivory daggers. And it was close.

With a sob, Warren tried to eke out more speed from his already failing legs, but his steps were clumsy and his breathing labored. All that walking all day had done him in. Something slammed into his back, heavy and sharp at the same time, sending him careening forward face down onto the tile. His back felt like it was on fire, stinging and melting at the same time with hot fluid slicking his shirt to his skin.

Crying, Warren looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the creature’s mouth open as it came in for the killing bite. But the beast sat on its haunches, poised like a giant cat, flicking a broad reptilian tail from side to side and drumming the claws of its forepaw on the tile. It watched him with evil yellow eyes, and it waited. With another blubbering sob, Warren staggered up to his feet and tried to run again. He didn’t get as far this time, only a few steps. The beast bounded after him, swiping one of its razor-clawed paws at Warren’s legs. Warren felt his flesh tear as his feet gave out from under him and he collapsed again. He had played enough gory video games to guess the beast had clawed through his calf on one leg and severed his Achilles tendon on the other.

The creature paused again, watching its crippled prey with a curiously cocked head as the pitiful human crawled away, one foot turned the wrong direction and flopping lifelessly on the floor, leaving a wide swatch of delicious smelling blood in its wake.

Warren couldn’t stand back up this time, and he barely had enough gumption left to crawl. After a few desperate flailing attempts, he turned over and flopped onto his back. He stared at the horrendous beast, his watery eyes meeting those of fearsome yellow. With a sickening horror that churned in his bowels he realized what the beast was doing. It was playing with him. The fucking monster was toying with him like a cat with a mouse. The beast cocked its head to the other side as it gave an impatient flick of its tail. Just like a cat with a mouse, the fun was over when the mouse stopped running.

Warren swore he saw an excited gleam flash inside those eyes as the monster lunged at him one final time. He looked into its ravenous eyes, as a heavy weight landed on his chest, pinning him in place. He felt his body being ripped open from throat to crotch with a sound like tearing burlap. The pain was extraordinary, but he couldn’t close his eyes against it.

Gruesome wet smacking noises filled the archive and Warren’s body jerked, tugged from someplace deep inside. He tried to scream but couldn’t with his diaphragm slashed open. Warren was still very much alive when the monster started eating him.

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

Nick could hear it clearly now, a heavy body moving with great stealth and wet breathing. Closing in on them from a couple aisles away. There could be no doubt, no mistaking it for the noises of an old room or for scuttling vermin. He had placed his body between the approaching animal and the woman. It was a protective male instinct and gallant, but not an act that would be overly helpful if the thing attacked them. A human’s top speed was equivalent to a chicken. If an Olympic sprinter would have a hard time outrunning a rooster, Nick had no delusions that he could outrun an apex predator. All running would do would trigger it into attacking. He also didn’t think he could fight it off, not if it really wanted to attack. He didn’t have a weapon and humans were really quite feeble animals without their tools. He knew the ways a man could try to survive a predator attack – play dead with a grizzly, fight a black bear, shout at a lion to try to scare it off. None of them would work if the animal really wanted to get him. Then, a man could only hope the animal lost interest before it killed him. Balling his fists, he decided that if it came to a fight, he’d fight until his last breath. Or until he was torn apart.

“Hey! Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out,” an unfamiliar voice sounded through the archives.

Nick froze, every sense piqued. He reached behind him and grabbed Alice’s hand, squeezing tightly, silently willing her to stay calm and quiet. He didn’t know the woman and he hoped to hell she had enough sense to stay still and silent, not to yell back toward the stranger or to run in his direction. A mistake like that would be their death sentence. Alice squeezed his hand back, reassuring him, and placed her other hand on his back. The monstrous beast had stilled, its attention captured by the noisome intruder instead of the quieter, more boring quarry. It sniffed the air, assessing the stranger.

Each heartbeat pounded in Nick’s ears like war drums, each second an agony as they waited for the monster to decide which prey it wanted to hunt. With frightening quickness, the beast turned and vanished into the shadowy depths of the aisle.

Keeping hold of Alice’s hand, Nick turned to her and met her eyes. Very deliberately, he brought his forefinger to his lips in the universal gesture for utter silence. He tugged her with him down the aisle in the opposite direction the creature had gone. They heard the stranger’s voice asking the room if someone could tell him how to find the exit. Nick led Alice away from the stranger and away from the beast.

The unknown man was toast. There was nothing Nick could do, and he wasn’t going to waste the life of a woman trying to save a man he didn’t know. He was also smart enough or shellfish enough to value his own life over that of a foolhardy stranger. He hoped the fool would distract the monster enough for them to sneak around it and make the exit themselves. His mind raced ahead of his feet, thinking past the exit to the museum. If they made it out of the archives, they would find themselves back in a long, straight hallway with nowhere to hide and no chance of outrunning whatever the hell this animal was.

To reassure himself, he felt his pocket for the museum key card. He didn’t know if it would help them, but without it they had no chance.

The stranger’s footsteps echoed through the archives as the man started walking down along the ends of the forest of aisles. Nick gambled that the beast’s attention was fixed on that sound and that victim. Pulling Alice along beside him, he trotted down the aisle as swiftly as he could while keeping his footsteps light. For such a large man, he could move stealthily, a skill ingrained by a youth spent hunting with his father and refined by a stint in the military. He was pleased that Alice matched him in both pace and silence. He ran to the far end of the aisle, listening to the intermittent mutterings from the idiot bumbling around at the front of the vast room. The beast could no longer be heard, which worried him, but he had gambled on this hand and now he had to let it ride.

The back of the archives was notably darker than the front and even in between the aisles with the temperamental lightbulbs. An animal stink hung in the air along the back wall, as if the animal used this shady area as a trail of sorts. They moved quickly past the ends of the aisles in the direction of the exit. Nick was a step ahead, still holding Alice’s hand. Looking down each aisle they passed, the archives flashed in time with their steps, giving a visual picture of the room pieced together in morse code.

Nick stopped suddenly, causing Alice to collide with his back. He was so solid, she didn’t even knock him off balance, like running into a warm sculpture. He didn’t so much as look down at her, his wide eyes fixed down the aisle. Thirty feet away from them down the aisle, a hulking silhouette crouched in the center. It looked black in the feeble light and had no discernable features, but they could tell it faced away from them by a broad crocodilian tail flicking back and forth as it watched and waited. Nick didn’t dare move again, not even to step back behind the end of the aisle. It was blind luck the beast had been so focused on the stranger that it hadn’t seen or heard them creeping up at its back. His heart thundered so loudly in his own ears that he thought the beast must surely hear it too.

“Suck my balls, ghosts!” the fool shouted from the end of the aisle, then he started marching away back toward the exit. The beast’s tail stilled, as it watched its prey retreat.

Nick squeezed Alice’s hand, a signal to make ready. The stranger hadn’t taken three steps when the beast launched itself forward down the aisle, entirely focused on its prey. Nick whispered urgently, his voice little more than a growled breath, “Now, we run!”

Nick charged ahead, sprinting full tilt down the back of the archives, pulling Alice along with him. She gripped his hand tight, letting herself be all but dragged along, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground. There was no other way she could keep pace with his long surging stride. Their running footsteps were overshadowed by the sharp sound of claws scrambling on tile and a heavy pounding gallop, then by the sobbing screams of the stranger when the beast caught him. There was no mistaking the anguished cries that filled the archive like a whirring saw in a butcher shop.

At the end of the room, Nick careened around the last aisle, his boots slipping on the tile, and pushed himself even harder down the last straight stretch along the wall toward the door. The screaming continued, now imbued with a gurgling wet quality and sickening chewing and crunching. Alice had heard sounds like that before on National Geographic shows featuring lions over a kill. A meaty abattoir smell engulfed them as they raced down the aisle, bringing them closer to both the beast and the exit.

There was open space at the front of the room, where the beast presently feasted on its dying prey. About fifteen feet worth of open floor between the ends of the aisles and the exit door. There was no option of hiding or stealth when they crossed it. Nick made a mad dash when he reached the end of the aisle, bursting out onto the open floor like a pheasant breaking cover in front of a hound.

The beast reared up from its kill, startled by the two humans erupting from the aisle. It took a second to assimilate these new targets, enough time for them to cover half the open floor. Gnashing its bloody jaws, the beast lunged after the two new fleeing morsels. It landed on forepaws slick with blood, its front legs slipping and splaying out on the tile. Its wet claws found no purchase on tile, and the beast fishtailed before getting its balance.

Nick turned loose of Alice’s hand a step before the double doors and barreled into them with his shoulder at full speed. The doors exploded open, shooting splinters of wood out into the hallway, with Nick falling through off-balance. Alice jumped through on his heels and he pushed her ahead of him as he recovered his footing and ran. Reaching into his pocket for the museum badge, he heard the beast grunting and scrambling through the broken wooden doors, very close behind them.

The nearest door down the hallway was marked obscurely Lab 754, a single door with no windows and a scanner beside it. He didn’t know what was inside, but he knew they couldn’t outrun the monster down a straight hallway. Grabbing Alice by the waistband of her jeans, Nick skidded them both to a stop at the door. His fingers felt clumsy when he articulated the badge over the scanner. A militant light flashed red and an insolent tone told him the card was declined.

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” Nick growled as Alice’s nails dug painfully into his arm. Turning the badge over so his gawky picture faced outward and the barcode on the back faced the scanner, he pressed it against the scanner again and gripped the doorknob in a blanched white fist. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hulking creature charging down the hallway at them, eyes gleaming yellow, teeth glinting white.

A green light flashed, taking too long to approve their entry with a pleasant tone. The beast was another stride closer, close enough to see individual drops of blood slinging from its jaws. The lock slid open with a metallic click. Nick wrenched the doorknob and yanked the door open toward him. Alice rushed inside, but he shoved her ahead of him anyway as he slipped in behind her. The beast crashed into the open door, slamming it shut right behind Nick’s back with violent force. He had thrown himself inside and barreled into Alice, all but tackling her to the floor as he fell and sprawled over her. He cringed involuntarily at the sound of the beast colliding with the wooden door, hunching over Alice beneath him.

All doors opened outward in public buildings like the museum, pursuant to fire code regulations. And most of the doors in this older basement area of the museum were thick, sturdy wood. The door shuddered ominously, but it held.

Nick looked down at Alice from the position of a lover with his hands planted on either side of her head, his hips pinning her down, their chests touching and their noses nearly so. “Are you alright? We have to keep moving. That door won’t hold for long.”

“Waiting on you,” she said breathlessly, shoving on his broad chest to push him back.

The beast roared and hit the door again. This time splinters shot into the room from the dying doorframe like tiny javelins.

Nick pulled her up with him as he pushed up to his feet. They each looked around the room, trying to quickly assess their surroundings. Fluorescent light lined the ceiling instead of weak yellow bulbs. A long central table ran the length of the room piled with what looked like various artifacts and fossils, including the impressive skull of a sabretooth tiger. Chairs were pulled up to the table at intervals, demarcating different workstations. The air inside was cool and crisp and a subtle whirring indicated a local air system. A shop broom leaned in the far corner, its bristles chalky white with bone dust.

“A restoration lab, damn it to hell.” Nick slammed his hand angrily on the tabletop. “We won’t find anything useful in here.” But he began looking anyway as he made his way through the room.

Alice lingered behind him, turning on several bright lamps placed over the table and pointing them at the rapidly weakening door. She turned on one of the drills on the table, leaving it to buzz and bounce across the tabletop. Nick looked at her with a frown and she shrugged and told him, “It might buy us a few more seconds.”

The back of the room ended depressingly in a simple wall. Nick glared at it as if he could burn a hole through the plaster with his anger. He grinned sardonically at Alice, “The hallway makes a U bend. The service elevator we came down in is probably less than twenty away on the other side of this wall. You don’t happen to have a battering ram hidden in your brassier, do you?”

“That would be my other bra,” she said, looking back at the door as it took another thunderous hit, this time accompanied by the squeal of the metal hinges bending inward.

Nick leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling in frustration. His body jerked like he’d been startled and he ran to the broom standing in the corner. Grabbing it, he sprinted back to the far wall, holding it like a spear. Using the wide, bristled head, he rammed it straight up above his head and into the square air vent in the ceiling. Another hard thrust and the vent crumpled and fell out of the ventilation shaft, leaving a gaping square hole in the ceiling ten feet above their heads.

“Here!” he told Alice urgently, clapping his hands together before linking his fingers to form a stirrup with his hands. The beast struck the door again, tearing a hole through the wood. It pawed through the hole with its claws, scraping and tearing at the wood as it snarled in frustration.

“Can you get up there too?” Alice asked as she placed her foot in his hands.

“Don’t think about it,” Nick grunted as he hefted her up into the square vent like she was nothing but a doll. She hoisted her high enough to bring her chest level with the inside of the vent. Planting her elbows on the flat metal and kicking her legs, she struggled inside. Laying on her stomach, she looked back down through the square hole at Nick below.

Bending his knees, he jumped straight up into the vent opening. It was at the far reach of his vertical jump, but his fingers caught the metal lip. But there was no purchase on the slick metal and his hands slipped off almost instantly. Alice leaned down into the opening, reaching a hand down to him.

“Get out of the way!” he waved her hand away. She began to protest, but he shouted, “Can you curl two-thirty-five? Then I’ll only pull you back out with me.”

The beast crashed into the door a final time, bursting into the lab in an explosion of splinters. It halted immediately when the brilliantly bright spotlight hit its eyes, sitting back on its haunches and shaking its head.

“Give me the broom!” Alice said.

Grinning with understanding despite it all, Nick shoved the head of the broom up into her hands. The beast snarled and swiped the light out of its eyes, then turned its attention to the jumping drill and its grating, high-pitched whine. Alice maneuvered the broom so its handle spanned the square opening, wedged as tightly against the sides as she could get it. The beast crushed the drill with its teeth, shaking its head with the drill in its mouth like a dog with a squeaky toy, then throwing it aside. Fixing its ferocious yellow eyes on Nick at the far end of the room, it charged.

Nick bent his knees, looking up at the broom handle inside the vent. He would only get one shot. Swinging his arms, he jumped up with everything he had. The beast swiped at Nick’s legs as he caught the broom handle, but he jerked them up just in time. Using the broom handle like a pull-up bar, he hoisted himself up into the ventilation shaft. Alice shoved herself backward to make room for him as he lunged forward into the small space, making sure his long legs were clear of the opening.

The beast jumped up after him, slamming its head into the metal of the shaft, denting it upwards. Roaring in frustration, it jumped again, making another dent. Then it reared on its hind legs and clawed at the metal. The sound was a terrible, deafening squeal inside the shaft, ringing in their ears. There was enough space for them to crawl on their hands and knees, and Alice crawled frantically away.

“Can’t beat the view,” Nick quipped, following right behind her.

The beast tried jumping at the vent once more before apparently realizing it was futile. The silence when it stopped was much more unnerving than the banging and scratching and snarling had been.

It didn’t take long for them to come to another vent. Looking through the metal slats, Nick quickly assessed they were now over the section of hallway that housed the service elevator. He easily yanked it open and dropped down through it to the floor. Alice lowered herself down feet first until she felt him catch her legs in a reassuring bearhug and let her slide the rest of the way down his body. Holding her against him, he grinned at her and jerked his chin to the side, “Look what we found.”

The service elevator was no more than fifteen feet away. As she sighed with relief, collapsing into Nick’s arms, Alice heard the now familiar sound of clawed feet scrambling on the tile. “It guessed where we were heading!”

They sprinted to the elevator and Nick punched the Up button over and over. The arrow above the doors illuminated green and the bell dinged. But the doors were old and slow to open. The beast rounded the corner of the hallway in a fury of claws and teeth and lather, charging at them with its horrible teeth bared in a snarl. But claws for all their ferocity did not keep traction on smooth tile. When the beast rounded the tight corner, it did so in an uncontrolled skid. The beast scrambled to keep its balance, but it had charged into the corner too fast. Its shoulder slammed into the opposite side of the hallway as it slid, paws flailing haphazardly beneath it, buying its prey an extra second to live. Nick shoved Alice inside when the opening between the doors was still too narrow for him to fit. Even as the doors still opened, she was pushing the button for the upper floor. Nick slipped inside as the beast ran him down, only one good lunge away.

Nick and Alice pressed themselves to the back of the elevator, watching helplessly as death charged at them and the doors closed too slowly. Their view between the doors narrowed with terrible sluggishness until all they could see were those slitted yellow eyes and bloody frothing jaws. The beast lunged at the gap in the doors, striking the metal with a horrendous crash. Saliva and blood spewed through the opening, splattering Alice and Nick, just as the doors closed and the elevator lurched upward.

The doors opened to a main hallway on one of the upper floors, home to the biggest and most popular museum exhibits. Large windows lined this hallway admitting the moonlight and there was enough light in the individual exhibits to allow the security cameras to identify a thief if needed. Many smaller hallways branched off this main one, each leading to an exhibit. They were near the entrance to an exhibit that glowed green in the dim light, labeled Rainforest. A metal stairwell door was beside the elevator.

“Now at least I know where we are,” Nick could have laughed with relief. He ducked into Alice and stole a quick kiss from her lips.

“Freeze!” A militant voice sliced through the silence in the hall. “Put your hands up!”

They turned to see a short and corpulent museum security guard standing behind them, holding a revolver trained on Nick. He had just rounded a corner of the hallway and shuffled toward them as quickly as his pendulous gut would allow, his utility belt jingling with every labored step. Using his gun, the guard gestured from Nick to the far wall, and ordered, “Turn and face that wall right now. And I better see your hands while you’re sniffing plaster. Move!”

“There’s something in here with us,” Alice said, trying to calm the guard. “You need to take us all out before it finds us.”

“I’m sure there is, honey,” the guard sniggered and took a belligerent step toward Nick. “I gave you a command, hoss.”

The security guard held his gun on Nick, the barrel shaking in his uncertain grip. He was the most dangerous sort of person to hold a man at gunpoint – nervous and unfamiliar with a weapon or with apprehending a suspect. Those were the men likely to shoot first and ask questions later, or even shoot accidentally when they shook hard enough to spasm their trigger finger.

“Turn around now!” the guard shouted again, spittle flying from his lips, his jowls quaking.

The guard was too far away from Nick to make a grab for the gun or knock it away. So, he turned, faced the wall, and planted his hands flat on its smooth surface. He made a great effort to keep his voice calm when he spoke over this shoulder, “Look, buddy, there’s something after us. Something chasing us. Something monstrous. None of us are safe here, including you. You have to get us all out right now. Arrest me and charge me with whatever the hell you want, just get us out.”

The guard spoke into the radio clipped to his belt, “I caught someone sneaking around inside the rainforest exhibit. Looks like a pair of lovebirds who broke in to get it on. I need backup. The guy’s giving me hell. He’s a big bastard too. Threatened my safety already.”

“Ten-Four,” a voice crackled through the radio static. “Sending backup. Just cuff ‘em and keep ‘em where you have ‘em until backup gets there.”

Risking a bullet, Nick growled, “Look, you stupid bastard. You can get all the backup you want and you can arrest me. So long as you get us the fuck outta here, and you do it now! We need to move, goddamnit!”

“The big guy is making more threats,” the guard radioed.

The sound of a door being shoved open inside the stairwell echoed behind the door. It sounded like it came from a flight or two below. Alice heard claws scrambling up the stairs. She met Nick’s cool eyes and she winked.

“Excuse me, sir,” Alice said to the guard in a demure tone. “Our friend’s in the stairwell. Go see for yourself. He’s the one you want to arrest.”

“What the Christ are you all doing in here?” the guard scoffed. “Bunch of assholes ruining my night to have a goddamn orgy!”

The scrambling reached the nearest steps, the sound of a heavy body closing in on the door. The guard heard it too. Keeping his gun pointed at Nick’s back, he stepped to the stairwell door. Grabbing the doorhandle, he yelled with gusto, “Hey asshole, this is museum security. I hear you in there. I’m gonna open the door and I better see your hands!”

He didn’t need to open the door. The door exploded open with a metal screech and a monstrous creature burst from the darkness of the stairwell, aiming for the blustering guard. The guard yanked the trigger when the beast struck him with the force of a wrecking ball, sending a bullet into the wall as man and beast went careening together twenty feet across the floor. Its body had passed Alice by inches, close enough for her to smell the fresh blood and older rancid death on its scaly hide.

Nick shoved away from the wall, grabbing Alice’s arm and running with her in the opposite direction from the carnage. The guard was screaming, but it lasted only as long as a few of their running strides before it was cut off with a wet gurgle and replaced by a sound like an overfull trash bag bursting.

They ran into the thick of the rainforest exhibit, where they were surrounded by vibrant dioramas and luscious vegetation. The windows on this floor admitted silver moonlight, allowing them to see it very clearly. Birds of every color of the spectrum were frozen mid-flight, golden jaguars prowled, and ancient Amazonian architecture formed a visual feast. The highlight of the rainforest exhibit was also the centerpiece of the exhibit hall. A huge glass terrarium filled with tropical vegetation housed an army of living butterflies. Thousands of beautiful butterflies of kaleidoscopic colors flitted through the plants inside in a living whirlwind of colorful wings.

They ran past the butterflies to the far end of the exhibit where another hallway branched off. Nick pointed down it and whispered, “The old west exhibit is just down that way. The guns in there are all functional, and a few of the gunbelts still have live rounds. Maybe…”

“Will the bullets still fire after sitting for more than a century?” Alice asked skeptically.

“As long as the primers haven’t gone bad. Or gotten wet. And the cartridges have remained sealed, and the gunpowder hasn’t leaked out.” He grinned sardonically.

“So, probably not,” Alice surmised.

“Probably not,” Nick agreed. “But do you have a better idea?”

The beast entered the rainforest exhibit with its nose held high, sniffing the air. Nick pulled Alice to him and backed against the wall, hiding them as best he could behind an Amazonian monolith decorated with carvings of ancient deities. The beast froze, its eyes fixed ahead, its posture rigid. It looked as if it stared right at them through the length of the butterfly terrarium. With an excited grunt, the beast swiped at the end of the glass cage, breaking it open, and jumped inside. Thousands of butterflies came to life like confetti, fluttering around the beast that had disturbed them. The beast was captivated, cocking its head curiously at the butterflies, flicking its tail as it swiped its paws at them and tried to chomp them between its jaws. It jumped and twisted and twirled inside the terrarium like a cat confronted with a thousand laser dots. It grunted happily as it pounced on a large Monarch then snorted when another flew at its nose.

Slowly, Nick pulled Alice with him toward the hall leading to the old west exhibit. They edged along the wall at a crawling pace so as not to draw the beast’s attention while it chomped and swiped at the whirlwind of butterflies. The old west exhibit came into view at the end of the hallway, horses and cowboys and bison materializing in the dim light. Nick brought his lips to Alice’s ear and told her, “You go grab all the guns you can find. I’ll start looking through the gunbelts for live rounds. .45’s and 30-30’s are going to be our best bets for a match.”

She nodded her understanding as another sound boomed through the hall. The sound of several running footsteps and the clink of metal. Narrow beams of light bounced around inside the old west exhibit from flashlights held by running men.

Nick stopped short, his hold on her arm keeping Alice beside him. He pulled her down with him when he dropped to his knees, raising his hands above his head in a clear posture of supplication, just as several armed security guards ran into the hallway from the old west exhibit. The light hit Nick’s face, momentarily blinding him, as the men rushed them, guns drawn. Alice looked behind them and saw a huge shadow looming in the entrance to the rainforest exhibit, watching them with gleaming eyes. The guard’s light didn’t reach it and they were too focused on Nick to notice the real threat. The shadow seemed to disintegrate back into the darkness like a receding nightmare. The beast must be intelligent enough to avoid confronting so many drawn firearms. Or it was simply biding its time for the right moment.

“You’re under arrest!” the lead guard shouted as he rushed Nick. Turning him bodily around, he shoved him to his stomach with his face pressed into the tile and yanked his arms behind his back.

“We didn’t do anything, you idiot!” Alice said futility. “There’s something in here with us.”

“Save it, lady,” the guard said gruffly. “You both have the right to remain silent and I suggest you fucking use it.” He prodded his gun rudely into Nick’s back and cuffed his hands. “I heard all about you on the radio. Some big bastard resisting arrest after breaking in. And I saw some of your handiwork already.”

“You have to listen, it wasn’t me,” Nick gritted. “There’s some kind of animal in here with us.”

“Yeah, get started on that insanity defense right off the bat, you murdering sonofabitch,” the guard hissed. “Just keep talking so I can testify to all your bullshit.”

Two guards came and hefted Nick up by his arms, yanking them painfully back and straining his shoulders. Alice looked at him when he stood, giving him her steadiest and most reassuring gaze. “Don’t tell them anything. It won’t do you any good. Let your lawyer do the talking for you.” She winked at him for the second time that night. “I promise you have a good one.”

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

Tagging some buddies!

@babbushka @in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather @mrs-gucci @mrs-zimmerman @iamburdened @gabesprincess @rynwritesstuff @candycanes19 @caillea @cas-backwards-tie @queeniebee @mythrielofsolitude @ghoulian13 @icarusinthesea @reyloaddict55 @reylokisses @heartlight-starlight @richbrittstein @thepalaceofmelanie @reveluving @fax4life27 @vedavan @queen-of-elves @srorgana1 @kyloremus @lumberjack00fantasies

#best #fic #summer #halloween #commander mills x reader #commander mills x you

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twins-write · 3 months ago

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Request Information

We write x reader and x OC stories/oneshots, so don't be afraid to give your character a name, unless you prefer it being the reader!

We typically write the reader as a female, but if you prefer gender neutral, let us know!

We generally write for male people/characters as well.

We write:

Fluff

Angst

Hurt/Comfort

Comfort

We do not write smut!

Feel free to send any request for one-shots/imagines, or if you have an idea for a mini-series, don't be afraid to suggest that as well.

If you request, there is no 100% guarantee that it'll be written, but we will definitely try our best to fulfill everyone's requests!

When something is requested, we will try to get to it as quickly as possible, but we are both full time students and play sports, so please bear with us!

We write for a lot of things, but here is the list if you want to go through it all! If you don't see a specific person/show or anything on the list, still feel free to request it. We might have accidentally left it out, but if not, we can still attempt to write that person for you!

You can submit requests by clicking the link at the bottom of this post or the link at the top of the blog, both will take you to a form to submit your request!

FULL LIST OF WHAT WE WRITE FOR:

Shows/movies:

13 Reasons Why

Clay Jensen

Justin Foley

911 (Lonestar and the original)

Eddie Diaz

Evan Buckley

Judd Ryder

Owen Strand

Paul Strickland

TK Strand

Wyatt Harris

American Horror Story

Jimmy Darling

Kit Walker

Kyle Spencer

Michael Langdon

Tate Langdon

Xavier Plympton

Attack On Titan

Armin Arlert

Jean Kirstein

Big Time Rush

Carlos

James

Kendall

Logan

Breaking Bad

Jesse Pinkman

Cobra Kai

Eli Moskowitz (Hawk)

Johnny Lawrence

Miguel Diaz

Robby Keene

Criminal Minds

Aaron Hotchner

Derek Morgan

Spencer Reid

Game of Thrones

Bronn

Jaime Lannister

Jon Snow

Robb Stark

Goosebumps

James Etten

Lucas Parker

Gossip Girl

Chuck Bass

Eric Van Der Woodsen

Nate Archibald

Grey’s Anatomy

George O’Malley

Mark Sloan

Bill Denbrough

Eddie Kaspbrak

Richie Tozier

Jujustu Kaisen

Megumi Fushiguro

Satoru Gojo

Toge Inumaki

Yuji Itadori

Lab Rats

Chase Davenport

Malcolm In The Middle

Francis Wilkerson

Reese Wilkerson

Malcolm Wilkerson

Marvel

Bucky Barnes

Deadpool

Druig

Loki Laufeyson

Peter Parker (Tom’s or Andrew’s)

Steve Rogers

Thor

Wolverine

My Babysitter’s a Vampire

Benny Weir

Ethan Morgan

My Hero Academia

Denki Kaminari

Eijiro Kirishima

Hitoshi Shinsou

Izuku Midoriya

Katsuki Bakugo

Keigo Takami

Shota Aizawa

Shoto Todoroki

Takami Amajiki

NCIS (LA and the original)

Anthony DiNozzo

Eric Beale

G. Callen

Jimmy Palmer

Marty Deeks

Timothy McGee

Nerve

Tommy Mancuso

New Girl

Coach

Nick Miller

Schmidt

Winston Bishop

Now You See Me

Jack Wilder

Outerbanks

JJ Maybank

John B.

Pope

Rafe Cameron

Topper

Percy Jackson

Percy

Pretty Little Liars

Caleb Rivers

Holden Strauss

Jason DiLaurentis

Mike Montgomery

Noel Kahn

Toby Cavanaugh

Shadowhunters

Alec Lightwood

Jace Herondale

Simon Lewis

Shameless

Ian Gallagher

Kevin Ball

Lip Gallagher

Smallville

Clark Kent

Lex Luthor

Stranger Things

Dustin Henderson

Steve Harrington

Supernatural

Castiel

Dean Winchester

Jack Kline

Sam Winchester

T@GGED

Ash Franklin

Brandon Darrow

Trevor Askill

Teen Wolf

Derek Hale

Isaac Lahey

Scott McCall

Stiles Stilinski

Titans

Dick Grayson (Nightwing)

Gar Logan (Beast Boy)

Jason Todd (Red Hood)

The 100

Bellamy Blake

Jasper Jordan

Monty Green

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Ambrose Spellman

Harvey Kinkle

Nicholas Scratch

The Hunger Games

Finnick Odair

Peeta Mellark

The Maze Runner

Minho

Newt

Thomas

The Middle

Axl Heck

Sean Donahue

The OC

Luke Ward

Ryan Atwood

Seth Cohen

The Originals

Elijah Mikaelson

Klaus Mikaelson

Kol Mikaelson

The Outsiders

Darry Curtis

Dallas Winston

Sodapop Curtis

The Rookie

John Nolan

Tim Bradford

The Umbrella Academy

Five Hargreeves

The Vampire Diaries

Damon Salvatore

Jeremy Gilbert

Kai Parker

Stefan Salvatore

The Walking Dead

Carl Grimes

Daryl Dixon

Glenn Rhee

Negan Smith

Rick Grimes

True Blood

Eric Northman

Jason Stackhouse

Sam Merlotte

Twilight

Emmett Cullen

Jasper Hale

Paul Lahote

Seth Clearwater

Wizards of Waverly Place

Justin Russo

Real people:

5 Seconds of Summer members (all)

Ateez members (all)

Cody Fern

Jamie Muscato

Sam and Colby

Stray Kids members (all)

The Boyz (all)

Tomorrow x Together members (all)

Request form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdf15DK07JIGzKMNPC2FrEgP7ces4KfIxTngYcNwvmusaXxGA/viewform?usp=sf_link

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rodentz-hi · 2 months ago

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Rat & Hamster

The two horny best friends who wants to share their deprived thoughts to the world

We write fanfictions! Hamster will sometimes upload fanarts— but our main content is fanfics.

𝔸𝕣𝕖 𝕐𝕠𝕦 ℍ𝕠𝕣𝕟𝕪? Are you feeling down for fluff? Perhaps.. in need of angst? ℂ𝕙𝕖𝕔𝕜 𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥♡ (added soon)

Tags:

For daily chat/other: #rodentztalking

For fanfiction: #rodentzwrites

For fanart: #rodentzdraws

Hamster’s personal acc: @angelovestoru

Below are our rules, fandoms and more😗

Rat

content rules

Anything except Smut & Y/n & Reader & Original character

Detective Conan & Magic Kaito - Kudo Shinichi | Conan & Kaito Kuroba

Demon Slayer - Muichiro Tokito & Giyuu Tomioka

Hazbin Hotel - Lucifer Morningstar

Genshin Impact - Ayato & Tighnari & Freminet & Venti & Scaramouche/Wanderer &

Chongyun & Furina – Might do other characters if requested!

Honkai Star Rail - Yanqing

Harry Potter - Draco Malfoy

Toilet Bound Hanako-Kun - Hanako | Yugi Amane

Project Sekai - Tsukasa Tenma & Mafuyu Asahina & Mizuki Akiyama

– Might do other characters if requested!

K Project - Yashiro Isana

Danganronpa 2 - Nagito Komaeda

MILGRAM - Es

Violet Evergarden - Violet Evergarden

Natsume Yuujinchou - Takashi Natsume

Seraph of the End - Hyakuya Mikaela

Black Butler - Ciel Phantomhive

Cardcaptor Sakura - Yue

Hamster

Angst, Fluff, Smut, Slow-burn, headcannons, character x character, character x yn, male x male, fem x fem, male x female, Leave the smut to me! I also draw fanarts><

(I write for most characters! Request is open <3)

Jujutsu Kaisen — Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Shoko Ieiri, Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, Nobara Kugisaki, Toge Inumaki, Yuta Okkotsu, Ryomen Sukuna,

DCMK —

Demon Slayer —Muichiro Tokito,

Oshi No Ko — Aquamarine Hoshino, Ruby Honshino, Ai Hoshino, Akane Kurokawa,

Your Lie In April

Genshin Impact

Honkai Star Rail

Project Sekai

Love and Deepspace

Harry Potter (Marauders included) — Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Regulus Black, Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin,

CMBYN — Elio Perlman, Oliver

Lady Bird — Kyle Scheible

Dune — Paul Atredies,

Attack On Titan —Levi Ackerman

Rules,

Applied for both.

1. We will not write smut for minor characters, nor will we age them up. Angst, fluff is available.

2. No feet fetish, toilet kinks, adult x minor ships (for parent-child, it is available.)

3. No non-con, incest, rape, or intensely dark content.

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shinyasahalo · 9 months ago

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#AO3 Statistics #All Ships #Shipping Stats #Banned From AO3 #Fandom Data Compilation #Supernatural #Teen Wolf #Sherlock #Harry Potter #Marvel

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ur-mousey · 1 year ago

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~ Ground Zero ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hey, I'm Sydney ♡ 20 ♡ She/Her ♡

☉♓︎ . ☾♎︎ . ☊ ♋︎

Welcome to my decrepit lair filled with fantasies galore! I write yandere smut for the girlies, guys, and non-binary hoes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Follow these other Socials for more contents-

ig = lil.thoughts.xo Wattpad + A03 = @ calypssee, #second.thoughts

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REQUESTS:

I take requests! There is a forum in the description of my profile. Please go there or I will not take your idea. DM only to further elabrote on your idea or if you want to get to know me. I am open to making friends.

Rant Post suggestions can be made if you want to hear my opinion about certain Fandoms. Get spicy with it 😏

RULES:

* Leave a description of the pairing in mind and their situation.

Ex: Yan! Sukuna x faun! reader + dark home * Please specify the gender of the reader! Or they will be written as I see fit. Most likely female. * I write Yandere non/con + dub/con content.

Without any other specifications to not include those topics, I will assume to write that in. * Don't Spam your requests. If you do, I will not follow through with your requests. * NO requests for incest.

* Stories with underage characters will be age appropriate. Or the characters will be aged up. * Kinks such as vore, scat, piss, etc. are off limits. I will not write them or anything similar.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

FANDOMS: links highlghted

Anime ~ * Jujutsu Kaisen * My Hero Academia * Blue Exorcist * Soul Eater * Attack on Titan * Hunter x Hunter * Haikyuu Random ~ * The Folk of Air Series * Class of '09 *The Coffin of Andy and LeyLey Original Works ~ Hireath - Rhin (tentacle monster) Teaser 1 Opinion Pieces ~ *Ghibli Movies + Anime Movies *Collar X Malice (otome games) *The Coffin of Andy and LeyLey

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mirrorsblogs · 1 year ago

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𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜, 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞? 𝐥. 𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: 𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙨𝙩, 𝙨𝙢𝙪𝙩!! 𝙮𝙚𝙖 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙛𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜

“Be nice,” her agent whispered on the elevator ride up. Vera glanced half-heartedly at the woman standing next to her, they both knew she would be anything but. She had a more rigid exterior than most of her female contemporaries who preferred to play into the fantasy of female composers.

She respected their choices to do so as it resulted in their own surmountable success but her path differed, her nature would never allow for a hollow choice. Sure it gained her a reputation for being harsh but all that mattered was creating music that mattered, that could be shared.

The elevator dinged to indicate they reached the top floor of the conservatory, right above the theater where the house orchestra was practicing. They played well enough though not to her standards, those in the third and fourth seats slacked far too much for her liking.

“Ms. Shcherbatskaya, it is lovely to meet you.” Vera looked startled that someone without a present Eastern European accent had been able to pronounce her last name. He had thin-rimmed glasses that most young male composers wore to appeal to the masses, the same could be said of his style. This man though verbally different looked to be another nameless composer destined to be lost to time.

“Likewise, Mr…” She replied. The man smirked at her clear jab to his ego but had no look of annoyance or hurt.

“Ackerman. Levi Ackerman.”

“German?”

“Yes, Berlin specifically.” He paused and inspected her face closely. “Russian?”

“Petersburg,” she muttered, more focused on the mosaic painted on the ceiling. It depicted a scene all too familiar in High-Renaissance pieces, biblical iconography splattered all over. What a sight to behold.

“Your English is amazing,” Ackerman said, interrupting her daydreaming.

“So is yours. Did you learn in school?”

“Yes, along with Russian.”

“How good were your lessons?” She asked in her native tongue, the syllables easily rolling off her tongue as they had done for her forefathers for centuries.

“Good enough.”

She smiled, it had been a long while since she had conversed with someone in her own language. Forever subjected to being held back by speaking a language she was only beginning to learn.

“Could we converse in Russian then?”

“Da.” Levi stood there with his hands in his pockets, he was amused but respectful nonetheless.

“Our agents want us to meet so we can collaborate on a piece.”

“Yes, we should hold on to this because I will be in the countryside to help my Mother for a few weeks.”

“And what shall I do in the meantime? Stay here in this god-awful city waiting for you?”

Vera’s agent placed a warning hand on her shoulder signaling for her to dial back on her tone even though she knew none of their conversation. Levi laughed a little at her antics and walked a little closer to her, he rubbed his hands together before dropping them by his side.

It had felt like years since he was this amused, the days seemed so gray before. He wondered at that moment how he had lived in that muteness for so long now that he was confronted with something starkly different.

“London is not that bad, you’ll be fine.”

“Say that to my lungs! This city will give me cancer I swear!”

Her noticeably dark humor that turned away many potential partners made him laugh even harder. Though she remained noticeably neutral she was shocked internally at someone who had a sense of humor. Her face cracked a smile that Levi took to heart, her reputation had preceded her of course.

The man had expected an old hag rather than a lively young woman, he almost wished it was the former as it would have been easier to leave a hag. Now he was almost considering staying in London for a few weeks and put off visiting his mother. The thought of his mother wondering where he was only to be disappointed once again put him off. He had a duty as a son to care for his mother, a duty he would fulfill.

“I do not want to abandon my mother. You’ll have to wait here. Get to know the orchestra better in the meantime.”

“I could join you?” Both were slightly startled at the impulsivity of the statement but neither expressed rejection over it.

“Forward, are you?”

“No. Dedicated.”

The ride to the Schweinfurt consisted of approximately four train rides with a short walk intermittently after the second. Levi talked little in English and mostly in Russian which greatly comforted Vera. She enjoyed the journey, using it to review some works they could base their piece on and things to do in the area.

“It’s mostly new tech shit there but my mother likes the area.”

“There is a Church to visit.”

“Every town in Germany has a church with a niche significance, it isn’t worthwhile.”

“Then why does this brochure mention it?”

“A tourism scam.”

Vera laughs and closes the brochure, finding more comfort in conversing with Levi than reading. The subject shifted but the attention remained the same as words effortlessly flowed between the two. This is how talking should be, he thought.

The train abruptly stopped near Rottendorf, she gasped at the jolt and lurched forward. He grasped her hand without realizing it and caressed it. The feeling of a calloused thumb over her knuckles felt foreign but nice. She blushed at his gesture and chalked it up to fear.

It took him a few more moments to realize his actions, his hand quickly withdrew.

“Sorry.”

“Why do you apologize when I never raised an issue?”

He opened his mouth a few times to retort but each answer was worse than the last. She grasped his hand again to alleviate her own worries about the train, neither complained. It was only for anxiety, to help her anxiety.

“Apologies, we are experiencing technical issues. At the next station please exit shortly with your items whilst we repair the train.”

He cursed at being so close to his mother but far enough that they could not walk. He glanced down at Vera who took to holding his hand even tighter, she was not faring better than him.

“It won’t be too much for a taxi,” Levi muttered.

“We can split the cost.”

She moved to take some money from her purse only for him to stop her with the hand she caressed.

“What kind of person am I if I let you pay?”

“A cheap one.”

“But not a considerate one.”

“Fine then, be considerate.” Vera waved her hand off in the distance, mocking anger at that moment. He caught on quickly and smirked.

“You are a funny woman, Vera.”

“You would be the first to say that.”

They unloaded their backpacks that held all of their items for the trips and began walking to the area for taxis. Some drivers smoked outside their vehicles and leaned against their cars, a clear sign to avoid them. Vera and Levi settled on a Russian man who sat inside his car patiently reading a Turgenev novel.

“How much to Schweinfurt?” Levi asked the man in Russian.

“I will discount for you, my friend.”

She let Levi handle the haggling for a good fare and hopped into the backseat when they reached a happy mid-point. The driver set aside his novel on the passenger seat and turned the engine on. It was an average day in Germany with fairly normal weather.

“Do you like Turgenev?” Vera asked the driver.

“He is too obscure for my liking but his writing is good.”

“Are you a Tolstoy fan then?”

“Who isn’t?” The driver gestured wildly with one of his hands but kept his eyes on the road. “To be an enthusiast of literature is to be an enthusiast of Tolstoy!”

Levi sat back silently and watched how animatedly Vera talked of Russian authors, almost like she knew them personally. Instead of referring to them as Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, it was Leo and Fyodor. He commented on it as they waited for his mother to answer the door.

“I think of all creative Russians as my brothers and sisters. You don’t do the same with Germans?”

“I’m far too critical to act as though I am on a personal level with them.” Levi knocked once more, checking his watch to see how long they were waiting in the heat. “Besides it would be weird to call Nietzche, Friedrich.”

He blushed in embarrassment as his own native accent slipped out when saying the last part.

“Your accent is cute.”

The door opened with Kutchel standing there, curious as to who the delightful woman her son had brought with him.

“Mother, this is Vera. I told you about her over the phone, remember?”

“You didn’t tell me she was so pretty.” Kutchel took Vera by the arm inside to the dining table where food was already set out. “Are you a composer as well, dear?”

“Yes, I work more in Vienna though.”

“Oh, do tell me about life there.”

“It’s rich with history and the people are good enough…” Vera stumbled over her words slightly when speaking in English, she felt like a five-year-old telling her mother about her school day. “The conservatory is far nicer than any London has.”

“I heard that!” Levi yelled from the kitchen, he came into the room balancing three glasses of water. Vera held herself back from gulping the entire glass and instead sipped politely while Kutchel asked her son a thousand questions on his travels.

“How are your new pieces coming along?” The mother knew well enough of her son’s struggle to compose as of late. His motivation dried up just as he got comfortable in finally living in something other than impoverished.

“That’s what Vera is here for, we are meant to compose together.”

“The room upstairs still has everything where you left it. I’m sure music stores in town should have anything you need too.”

“Thanks, mom.”

Vera thought she might feel like an unwelcome outsider in that moment but it was more akin to the feeling of a silent spectator. Neither shunned nor encouraged to participate, choosing instead to delve into the food in front of her. It was a simple dish of rice and a strange gravy substance but it tasted divine.

“Do you like it?” Kutchel asked when Vera had her mouth full. The girl could only smile until she finally got the food down.

“Yes, it’s fantastic.” Her Russian accent slipped slightly out on the last word.

“Where in Russia are you from?”

“Saint Petersburg.”

“You know Levi’s father, god rest his soul, was from there.”

“Mom-” Kutchel shut him up with a wave of her hand.

“How did he find it?”

“Cold. Said that once he learned of German summers he never wanted to return.”

“Understandable though not forgivable.” They all laughed together, it was clear where Levi got his humor from.

They began the attempt to compose a singular piece the next day, each taking a seat next to one another on the piano bench situated on the far side of the room. The window in front of them shined the sun brightly onto them.

Vera’s pinky hit the ‘b’ key, it felt off to her, not the key itself but its place in this piece. She scratched the blank sheet music which up until this point only held that one note.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect, only concert audiences are going to hear.”

“You don’t plan on distributing it?”

“Why would we?”

“Isn’t that what music is for?” Levi stopped his reply when he saw the pure vulnerability in Vera’s eyes, this was not a simple spew from her mouth but from the heart. “People learn how to play, then they improve and make it their own. Keeps it fresh and lively.”

“But it's more intimate when enjoyed by a few. A singular meaning holds far more value than thousands of different ones.”

“Why did you learn how to play music? Why did you learn how to compose?”

He sat there silent for a moment, trying to drudge the earliest memory of him behind the piano.

“I was good at it and it earned my mother enough money to focus on getting an education rather than sticking to life as a sex worker.”

“You did it out of necessity, yes?” The simplification, though accurate, felt ingenuine.

“It was more than that. Playing in front of crowds made me feel as though I was more than just a poor boy from the slums of Berlin. I kept composing for more people to understand the life I lived.”

Vera heard in passing stories of a young German prodigy coming from nowhere and was soon to be heard everywhere. His pieces were an experience, a mutual friend, Hange, shared. He never published his compositions and kept them close, collecting the sheet music from musicians after each performance. Forcing each to sign a non-disclosure agreement to never share his intellectual property.

“I was similar in my reasoning then.” She splayed her fingers on the piano, playing the part to a familiar Spanish allegro. Levi pushed one of her hands aside and began to play the piece alongside her. “The only reason to learn music is…to share it with others.”

She stopped playing abruptly and walked away from the piano to fetch a glass of water. Levi continued where she had left off, the piece flawlessly transitioning into a somber part. Granados had always been a favorite of his, though the feelings of passion Granados tried to convey always fell short of him as a boy. Now, it was different.

His fingers strummed against the keys perfectly at poco andante, the thought of her forced his fingers to play at a faster pace. He moved to play at an allegro pace, the noise from the piano strengthened in volume. The man failed to see Vera leaning against the doorframe, taking big gulps of the water in her hand.

The last note played at fortississimo caused her to jump slightly, Levi panted in exhaustion from rushing the piece. He rested his fingers on the keys but not with enough pressure to push them, energy flowed out from him.

“We should end the piece in a fortississimo,” Vera said, walking up to sketch something in the last line of the sheet.

fff

Levi glanced over her arms, he took the paper from her hands and sketched a couple more notes out for the end. He played it on the piano and she nodded.

“Work our way backwards, then?”

The next few days were spent either in the composing room or the dining table where Kutchel asked them profusely about their progress. She looked to be happier when hearing of their substantial progress in finishing.

“When you do play the piece, could I come to listen?” Kutchel asked. “I know you don’t like to publish your pieces but I want to hear this one.”

“Of course, mom. I’ll save a seat for you in one of the boxes, and invite whoever you want.” Levi ate another piece of his food, Vera was somewhat shocked by how easy he made it all sound. Compared to the conservatories where she worked, trying to get a seat for family members was nearly impossible. Maybe it was different in London.

“It’ll be nice to see you play Vera since I assume Levi will be playing next to you?”

“Yes, I look forward to it.” Her smile was stiff, he noticed the change in her posture as well. Levi asked about it right before she headed into her bedroom.

“You seemed uncomfortable at dinner. Everything alright?”

Vera contemplated for a moment, she jutted her head into her room, and he followed dutifully behind her. It seemed barely lived in despite them being here for more than three weeks. He saw her clothes in some drawers though no toiletries were even unpacked on the vanity or the sink.

“We still haven’t talked about distribution.” She sat on the windowsill, faintly illuminated by the moonlight.

“I prefer to keep it private.”

“Music is meant to be shared. It is meant for children to clamber over and for young adults to froth at. I think we have a masterpiece on our hands. I don't want it to rot somewhere on your shelves.”

“If we keep it private, it’ll be intimate, draw in more crowds.”

“You care too much about the money and not the people.”

“That’s all music has been about for me, appeal to the most and go from there.”

“But what do you want?”

Levi took the seat next to her on the window sill, his hand fell on top of hers. His mind felt clearer than it had in years.

“I want…” Vera perked up at his drawl. “I want to keep it private.”

“I don’t want to fight you right now.”

Her thumb caressed his knuckles in slow circles like it had on the train, it was more intimate now. They were alone, only the moon was a witness to their actions.

“Then we don’t fight.” Levi tilted her chin away from the window and to his eyes, he neared closer to her face. She subconsciously leaned in closer.

“What should we do instead?”

The calloused fingers she had seen so often playing the piano pressed against her hips and effortlessly lifted her figure onto his lap. She let out a small moan when his lips kissed against her jaw and neck, sucking at her pulse point.

“Levi,” she muttered, angling her head down to finally kiss him. It was less consuming than her past lovers and intoxicating if anything. He knew her weak points and exploited them to the full extent, she almost wished he was bad at this. It would be easier to forget him once the night finished but with the way his lips pressed against her sternum, there would be no forgetting.

“You alright, liebling ?” The German accent strengthened the growing feeling between her legs, pelvis rutting against Levi.

“Da.” Forgetting nearly all of her prior knowledge of any other language she could only compute her one objective: Levi. “Take off my shift.”

“No bra?” If his fingers against her hands were enough then his fingers grazing along her bare body was to die for. He pressed kisses along her nude body that men prior had ignored. Sex was average, this was more.

“You complaining?”

Levi shook his head and bit lightly at the skin along her neck, making sure to leave as many marks as possible. She palmed at his shirt, he discarded it on the ground shortly thereafter. Levi brought her in for another kiss, not letting it go this time. The rutting from her hips stalled as his hands gripped her hips, forcing her to stay stationary. She whined against his lips, and he smirked.

“Something wrong?”

“Hurry up and fuck me already.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Instead of dignifying that with a response, Vera kissed him again. She took some control, resuming her stimulation against his thigh. Her head fell against his shoulder when he lifted his leg slightly to match the pace of her hips dragging.

“Feels good, liebling? ” he cooed, biting lightly at her earlobe.

“Levi, please,” she rasped.

His hands traveled down to the bottom of her backside, he gripped the skin he could.

“Jump.”

She followed his command, deepening the kiss in the process. He easily supported her weight and laid her across the bed, using the time to admire her and shed the last of his clothing. She was left in her panties which he happily took and threw to the ground.

“Are you good so far?”

“Very good.” Vera let her fingernails graze his shoulders, light scratch marks left behind. He groaned at the intense feeling, hand grasping at her chest. The stimulation between both of them causes them to moan.

Levi moved his hand to her slit, inserting one of his fingers. He was the first composer she had slept with, she supposes that this is the reason his fingers reach places no man ever has. Vera cries out at the feeling.

“You’re so tight,” he grunted, adding one more finger to her slit. He worked his way into her for the next few moments, utterly entranced by the sounds she made. When he curled his fingers she whined, and a feeling in his own body grew.

Caught off guard, he barely noticed Vera nearing the edge and eventually climaxing with a loud moan. He tried to commit all the features of her orgasmic face to his mind, to him it was the best picture in the world. Something only a select few had seen.

“Still good?” He purred.

“Hurry up!” She pleaded, wishing that he finished already and became another regrettable one nightstand. Levi did not do that, he focused on his pleasure just as much as hers. He made sure that she would never forget that night.

“There,” he whispered, in pure bliss. Together they were connected.

He took his time to start a slow and punishing pace which inevitably pissed Vera off more who resorted to begging him.

“Please, please, I need more, give me more!”

He relented as his own human instincts took over. The pace was faster now, he leaned down and began pressing kisses around her breasts. She pressed her nails further into his back and dragged them down, Levi groaned from the mix of pleasure and pain.

“You’ll be the death of me. Won’t you?”

“Yes!” Vera gasped, too lost in the throes of passion. When her second climax arrived it came with a newfound force that she had never experienced, it was addicting.

“Vera, fuck!” He moaned, pushing into her one last time. She moaned at the sensation and met him there. They panted in the afterglow, struggling to find their own breath. Levi collapsed next to her and made his way into the bathroom.

She watched as he wiped down the excess cum working its way down her legs and then himself before discarding the rag in the hamper. He sat back down on the bed, pulling her close.

“Have a thing for cleanliness, do you?”

“It’s healthy to clean.”

She missed the way he stared at her sleeping figure, in love with the sight.

They finished the piece shortly thereafter, choosing to take a unique approach to playing. In the beginning, it was a battle for whose notes would make it through but they each had trust in one another to play. The time is used instead to understand the weaknesses of each player and hide them expertly.

Vera left the next week back to London to prepare the conservatory for their event. Tickets had already sold out so now it was the waiting game. She practiced the piece in the upper room she met Levi in, failing to see Hange walk in.

“How was composing with shortie?”

“He’s easy to work with.”

“First time I’ve ever heard someone say that.”

“You’d be surprised.” She put the cover over the keys and turned around to face Hange. “How’s your mother?”

“Still dead.” A beat. “So good.”

They laughed together, Hange took the seat next to Vera.

“That’s lovely to hear.”

“Can I play it?” They asked, glancing over the sheet music and putting the piano cover-up.

“I don’t see an issue, as long as you don’t share it.”

“You relented then? Let Levi’s secrecy dominate?”

“One day he’ll see my side and then we’ll publish it. For now, we can keep it private.”

“But doesn’t that go against your own teachings?” Hange played the first few notes, already loving the tempo and key. “You always tell people that music is meant for sharing.”

“We are sharing but to a smaller audience.”

“To an elite audience. Vera, you love to play your pieces in the streets so even beggars could hear. What changed?”

To play for the rich and poor was a novel concept. Children from all classes had their pick of contemporary pieces like Mozart but access to modern pieces were limited. Composers guarded their pieces in the confines of overpriced sheet music. Vera differed somewhat, maintaining a moral high ground, by posting her pieces publically. Allowing anybody to find and play it.

“If I publish it, then I betray Levi. I don’t want to do that.”

“But to not betray him compromises your values.”

She was left silent as Hange played what was meant to be a happier part in a different manner, it sounded more depressing if anything. Vera leaned her head against Hange’s shoulder, the wool was soft against her head.

“I love him, Hange.” The piano stopped abruptly. “I don’t want to see him hurt by my actions.”

“Levi’s my friend but he is too stubborn to realize his actions are hurting others,” Hange sighed.

Vera left the conservatory and emailed her agent the music, the publishing date was set the day after opening night.

The crowd gathered at the opening night hailed from across Europe, predominantly Eastern and Central. It was comforting to be among crowds who spoke the same language as her. A hand on her shoulder signaled that it was time to head backstage. She caught sight of Kutchel in the box but was only able to wave before being ushered away.

“You ready?” Levi asked, attempting to tie his bowtie in the mirror.

“Of course.” Vera walked over and began focusing on tying his bowtie for him, failing to see the look of admiration he shot her way. “We go out there and prove you’re not washed up and I’m nice.”

“Who would ever believe that last part?” He joked.

“You have. At least I hope.” Vera finished his bowtie and stepped away, not letting her touch linger for even a second. It would risk it all if she did.

“You’re right and if I can believe it then so can they.”

He grasped her hands, sensing the invisible worry in her system. She was good at hiding her anxieties but not to him, never to him. It was Levi who knew when she was mentally exhausted, who knew when she needed a break, who knew when to simply hold her. He knew it all, it frightened her slightly.

“You’re too good for me.”

“No, I’m what you need.”

A stagehand knocked on the door and they both silently followed him to the stage, reveling in the applause from the audience. She heard some hushed whispers but they quieted down when they took their seats at the piano bench.

The piece was simple enough to play with one person but they added so many intricacies when played with two that it required perfect harmony. Complete trust for the other to play their part beautifully, to know when to hit the keys, to know when to reach, and to be patient. You had to truly know the other person to play this.

“Let’s play,” he muttered, starting his hands on the keys.

“Let’s.”

Kutchel had known her son for not much of his adult life, she was a passing face in his grand mission to be the best composer out there. She learned of how he prioritized his own success over others, always focused on his own progress over any other person. She worried for him as any mother would, she worried her son was one of those egotistical musicians they wrote about in the papers.

She was terrified at the possibility of her son being a rich snob.

The man playing on that stage, however, was a different man entirely. She saw even from her seat him waiting patiently for Vera to play at a slower speed while he stormed through his parts. They were opposites but somehow managed to blend. It might have looked chaotic, it was anything but.

Levi did not play like a rich snob, he played like a man in love.

When it ended she anticipated Levi ending on a loud note but his last note was soft, barely audible to those in the higher seats. Vera picked up where he left off and played in the manner Levi had previously, each switching roles effortlessly. She ended harshly, as most loves do.

The crowd roared with applause, it faded into the background. Levi’s hand on the small of her back guided her to the front of the stage. Flowers were thrown, shouts of appreciation. This is what she dreamed of.

Levi bowed first like he had in practice, then she followed. What they had not planned was bowing together which he promptly forced her into. He brought her near after they bowed as most piano partners would.

“I love you.”

Vera recoiled at the suddenness, glancing at the crowd who stared at both of them.

“Not here.”

She left the stage with Levi in tow to the backroom, he pushed the door closed.

“You don’t feel the same?”

“Levi, I do.”

“Then say it.” He took a step closer. “Say it back to me.”

“I-” Vera gulped down a nervous exhale. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Levi, I did something unforgivable.”

“What did you do?” The coldness of his tone sent shivers throughout her body.

“They’re distributing the piece tomorrow across Europe.” Vera took a step back to the door. “We share the profits equally-”

“You think I care about that? You honestly think I care about my side of the profits when you went behind my back and published it?”

“Levi, people deserve to hear this, the music it’s incredible. I don't want it to be only heard in these four walls!”

“And I told you that it was for a reason!”

“A reason that wasn’t good enough!” Levi was shocked at this. “You want it to feel more intimate? What is that? With publishing more kids that grew up like you can experience it. Have you thought about that?”

“Do not bring up my childhood right now when all you are doing is spitting on my legacy!”

“Fine, then I’ll just head back to Vienna. Call me if you want to apologize!”

“What about the rest of the shows?”

“They were doomed anyway. Better no show than a mediocre one.”

She opened the door after already having collected her belongings and rushed out. Some backstage workers tried to stop her for interviews but she turned them away. Her rental car was down the street, she easily made it without looking back.

Vera always failed to see many things about Levi, seeing him rushing out of the conservatory after her would be one of them.

A New Era for Pianist Vera Shcherbatskaya amidst the publishing of her new piece: Friends of Youth

Levi Ackerman publishes his first piece with Vera Shcherbatskaya here’s what we think!

The headlines from small newspaper outlets from across Europe became larger than she anticipated. The two lived in their bubble together when composing and even before but in the aftermath they were exposed to the world.

“The sales on your music books are amazing!” Her agent yelled over the phone. Vera was sweeping her apartment, trying to get rid of the dust that had accumulated in less than a day.

“That’s good. Anything else?” Vera’s voice was as dull as her heart.

“Anything else? Vera, you are the most popular pianist in Europe! This is what we dreamed of!”

“Let me know if Levi or his agent calls.”

She hung up the phone and threw it on the couch. Outside in Vienna was no longer a safe haven as fans swarmed her every move. The only sanctuary was her apartment but even that was a landmine, signs of Levi’s presence were everywhere. The lack of dust in cabinets, organized bookshelves by author's last name, and so much more.

Her next few performances held a significantly darker tone, people theorized it was about a heartbroken lover. Nevertheless, she played with a multitude of partners but each was less satisfying than the last. Nothing matched when they had played in London, critics even noticed.

“You were lovely, Antoine. Just not what I need.” She tried to let the man down gently but he stormed off, writing in the papers that her time with Levi had made her more heartless.

Hange visited when the news started dying down.

“You followed my advice?”

“It was shit advice.”

They shared a bottle of wine while watching old reruns of sitcoms. None of the jokes were remotely funny but it was good background noise.

“You’re still heartbroken that Levi left you.” It was harsh but accurate.

“He hasn’t even tried to call!”

“He talked to me.” Hange chuckled when Vera crawled over to them.

“What did he say?”

“Settle down, I’ll tell you.” They put their glass down and moved closer to the woman. “He said he was sad that he never considered your side but equally mad that you went behind his back.”

“That’s it? I already knew that! Come on, Hange, he had to have told you more!”

“Talk to him to figure it out!”

She did not in fact talk to Levi and instead chose to continue playing their shared music across Europe. His parts were stark silence, leaving it incomplete.

Concert Pianist Vera Shcherbatskaya entering a mournful period

That was spot on. Crowds across the continent noted the far-off look in her eyes in those loud moments of silence. When the last note was played they all clapped the same as that night but with more reproach.

“Ms. Vera!” She turned and found a little girl waving with a marker and paper. “Could you sign this?”

The woman obliged, kneeling to the girl’s level.

“What’s your name?”

“Vera! Like yours!”

“Then you’ll grow up to be a fine piano player, yes?”

“I want to play violin!”

“Then we’ll have to play together one time.”

She finished the message on the sheet and handed it back to the girl, her mother had a tired smile on her face.

“Thank you,” the mother whispered. “I saved up to take her to this concert, thank you for making it special!”

“If you want her career to grow, take her to a conservatory in Budapest. Tell them I sent you and they will give you room and board for free if you work there.” Vera pressed a warm hand into the mother’s shoulders.

“I can’t thank you enough!”

“Thank me when she gets to play on the big stage.”

Playing to massive audiences grew meaningless after a while, people blended together. None resembling who she actually wanted to see in a crowd. Vera left her concert after playing one night in Vienna, choosing to head to a local dive bar. It was packed to the brim for the open-mic night.

They had a piano, it looked out of tune and needed some work but it would do.

“Can I play?”

“You go on in five minutes.”

She stretched her hands out and followed a drunk man who sang a Mariah Carey song, he hit the high notes which surprised the crowd. Performers were meant to introduce themselves but she chose instead to test the keys out.

Most were fine, just the higher ones were a tinge too headache-inducing.

The first part was Levi’s, she never knew how to play it even if she tried. Vera strummed her own slow part in the quiet bar, not nearly drunk enough to not feel the nerves from playing in front of such a judgemental crowd. She paused again.

“Why are you stopping?”

“Keep playing!”

The shouts hurt her slightly but she continued through to the middle, tears fell down her face as feelings of heartbreak came rushing back. A hush fell over the crowd when someone from the audience made their way to the stage. He took the seat next to her, stretching his hands out.

“Let’s start over.” Levi’s familiar voice hummed. She smiled through her tears and leaned closer.

“Let's.”

#aot x reader #aot x yn #attack on titan x you #attack on titan #aot #levi x reader #attack on titan x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x original female character #levi x original female character #levi angst #levi ackerman angst #modern au #aot modern au #attack on titan modern au

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aphroditelovesu · 1 year ago

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⤷✿.｡Since you voted yes to commissions, so here we are. I was a little unsure about the price, so I researched and tried to make it as fair as possible. I hope you agree with this! ❤️

Also, this is completely optional! If you don't want to, you don't have to request a commission! All the other requests works the same way!! ⤷♡.+ n a v i g a t i o n.

⤷♡.+ Status: OPEN.

What I would write

I write for any gender, both character and Reader/OC, be it female, male, neutral transsexual. Any.

Yandere!Character x Reader, Yandere!Reader x Yandere!Character, Yandere!OC x Reader and Yandere!OC X OC.

Dark!Au, Gore, Disorders, Smut/NSFW, explicit language, soft!yandere, alternative AU, Horror, Age gap (depends on how much).

Romantic, platonic and general Yanderes, as well as more specific themes; example: yandere x depressive!reader.

Stockholm syndrome.

Pregnancy, childbirth and death in childbirth.

Non-Con, Dub-Con, BDSM.

Fluff; non-yandere.

Monsterfucking, specific kinks.

Angst.

What I DON'T write

Any kind of NSFW content with children, anything with children will just be platonic.

I don't write NSFW with characters that have a childish appearance or personality, just platonic.

I don't usually write ships because I consider it something personal, but I can do it if someone wants to.

Age play, scap.

Minor x Adult (only platonic).

Prices (in $ and R$)

Headcanons

2,00 $/R$ 2,00 for 500 words;

6,00 $/R$ 6,00 for 1000 words;

12,00 $/R$ 12,00 for 2000 words;

NSFW content adds an additional charge of $3,00/R$3,00.

Imagines, Scenarios, Reactions, Oneshots, Prompts

3,00 $/R$ 4,00 for 500 words;

10,00 $/R$ 13,00 for 1000 words;

18,00 $/R$ 18,00 for 2000 words;

20,00 $/R$ 20,00 for 3000 words.

NSFW content adds an additional charge of $5,00/R$6,00.

My list of current fandoms, but I can always add more:

Anime

Attack on Titan, Amensia, Death Note, Demon Slayer, Diabolik Lovers, Fruits Basket, Haikyuu!!, Hakuoki, Hunter x Hunter, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kamigami no Asobi, Naruto, Mirai Nikki, One Piece, Blood of Zeus.

Books

Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, Pegasus and The Flame of Olympus (series), IT., A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR), The Bridgertons, Twilight, The Lord of the Rings, The Cruel Prince: The Folk of the Air, The Bridgertons, Twilight.

Games

Genshin Impact, Detroit Become Human, Mystic Messenger, Time Princess Dress Up (TP: characters), Yandere Simulator, My Candy Love (Amour Sucré), Arkyos Angel, A Plague Tale.

K-Pop

BTS, BLACKPINK, GOT7, EXO, BIGBANG, TWICE, AESPA, Stray Kids, ITZY, Hyuna and Dawn, Red Velvet, NCT, Monsta X, Taemin, Dreamcatcher, LE SSERAFIM, (G)I-DLE.

Series/TV Show

Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, The Originals, The Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, Supernatural, Outer Banks, Friends, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Euphoria, Reign, Bridgerton, The Flash, Supergirl, Outlander, American Horror Story, Wednesday, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The Sandman, Lucifer, Winx Club, Ragnarok, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Invisible City (Cidade Invisível), Shadow and Bone, Adventure Time, The Witcher, Rebelde MX (RBD), Heartstopper, Hannibal, Criminal Minds, The Last Kingdom.

Movies

Disney Universe, Marvel Universe, DC Universe, Maze Runner, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Transformers, How to Train Your Dragon, Miraculous, Ever After High, Monster High, Barbie Universe, Christmas Movies, Maze Runner, Avatar, Twilight, Star Wars.

K-Dramas

My Demon, Bussiness Proposal, Doom At Your Service, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Crash Landing on You, My Name, Mr Queen, King the Land.

Mythology

Greek, Egyptian, Norse Mythology and Brazilian Folklore.

Historical Characters

Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Caesar Augustus, Julius Caesar and etc...

Additional Information

I accept payment via PayPal and Pic Pay only (PayPal = Ko-Fi)

Payment must be made before I start and I will always send you updates if you ask me.

I write in English and Portuguese.

I have a deadline of 5 to 10 days to complete your commission, however, if something unforeseen happens and it ends up being delayed, I will inform you.

If I write more than what was asked, obviously there will be no additions.

If you are interested, DM me with details and feel free to ask me anything.

#yandere #dark #yandere au #dark au #commissions #writing commissions

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boo-nito-flakes · 1 year ago

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Vertigo | Reiner Braun + Original Female Character AU: modern setting, neighbors multi-chapter story Rating: Mature Synopsis: When Josie’s mysterious neighbor becomes a temporary guardian for his young cousin, she didn’t think she’d be so involved. Reiner was a ghost of a neighbor, the two only exchanging a handful of words in the year they’d lived beside each other. Yet there she was, spending her nights watching true crime documentaries and filling out online personality quizzes with Gabi while Reiner was at work at The Liberio. There were a lot of things about this new arrangement Josie didn’t expect; how often she thought about Reiner’s forearms was near the top of the list. This could become a problem…

Chapter Three

It was all Hannah’s fault, really. Typical. In no other universe other than the one where, over a deliciously rich and greasy plate of chicken and waffles at Garrison’s that had Josie feeling all sorts of nostalgic, would she have ever agreed to this… this hell.

To be fair, it seemed like an okay-ish idea at the time.

It’d been months–at least since Christmas break, if not before that–since she’d met up with Hannah. Hannah hugged her like it’d only been a few weeks (like they were long lost best friends and not just casual friends who fell out of touch with one another) and spent the next forty minutes gesticulating through rants about her degree program, her last boyfriend, and her deadbeat older brother Josie 100% didn’t have a huge crush on back in high school.

Josie was fine to sit back and listen; not much ever changed in her life, and she definitely didn’t want to see the glimpses of pity in Hannah’s eyes when she said ‘yeah, same old same old here’ . (Maybe it wasn’t pity. Maybe it was an empathy Josie wasn’t quite ready to accept. And maybe… maybe she had a chip on her shoulder wherever things like college or the future were concerned.) Josie was safe, stably employed, and mostly happy – there was nothing to pity about that at all.

For some reason, the thought of telling Hannah about Gabi and Reiner made her stomach turn. It was easier to shrug a shoulder and play along with whatever story Hannah was telling.

Okay, she knew she was being a little bitchy and standoffish. How else was she supposed to act when her high school friends drifted back in her life when it was convenient for them? Josie wasn’t just in Marley for holidays and breaks; it was her home, and they knew it. So why get overly invested in stories she couldn’t quite relate to, stories about people she didn’t really know or balancing course loads with internships and clubs, when all those ‘we should get together again soon!’ fell flat when fall rolled back around?

Years of wear and tear meant the red vinyl booths at Garrison’s were permanently tacky-feeling, discolored grooves in the shape of human legs warbling the sagging seats. Josie’s bare thighs stuck to the material, making a plastic-y crinkling noise every time she moved. She was focused on the feeling – the peel of flesh, how her skin immediately re-soldered to the plastic – when Hannah waved a ketchup coated fry in her face and said,

“So you probably haven’t talked to Irma.”

“Like recently?” Josie scrunched her face up. Suddenly, she wasn’t all that hungry anymore. “No.”

“Hm. She’s back. Like, in Marley.” A second passed, then a curious, “She didn’t message you?”

Last Josie knew, Irma deleted all her social media profiles when she moved to Germany a month after high school graduation. So no, she definitely didn’t message Josie.

“No, she didn’t.”

Josie reached for her empty drink, slurping the remnants of melted ice and sweet tea from the bottom of the glass. The sludge coated a thick layer in her mouth.

“Weird. She asked me about you.”

The plastic straw gave way to her teeth; she gnawed on the end. What was she even supposed to say to that? Ask what Irma said? Ask if she looked happy? Healthy? Ask if it was easy for her to live her dream life overseas after abandoning Josie all her friends? After breaking Josie’s heart? Irma was Josie’s best friend. Like actual best friend. Her first friend, too, probably.

Irma lived with her grandma in a mobile home a few blocks from Josie’s apartment complex. They met one summer during middle school and were inseparable after that. Irma was the reason Josie joined the basketball team. She was the reason Josie knew how to do a wheelie on her bike. Why she preferred her eggs scrambled and always reached for spearmint gum at the checkout aisle. Why she had any sort of a green thmb (well, that was all Irma’s grandma…) or knew that a warm water bottle compress did more to alleviate period cramps than ibuprofen. She was the reason Josie could pick a lock, drive a car like… at all (if you counted the few lessons in her rusty Ford Taurus – they gave up after Josie almost ran over a pedestrian), and loved dumb reality shows.

Irma was her best friend. At some point, though, she stopped being Irma’s best friend back.

Josie remembered the last night she talked to Irma in waves–bits and pieces of a painful night. A few days after graduation. A party at some rich kids house in one of the confusing suburbs where the roads all had dumb, long confusing names and the houses looked like they were just dropped there from the sky – manicured lawns against stone and stucco. Dirty plastic pong balls bouncing into red solo cups and a live DJ because why the hell not? (She remembered being so fucking bitter about the DJ. Josie’s parents regularly pawned then re-bought their TV to afford rent, and this asshole had a DJ and light show at his house party.) A few drinks in and wanting to impress the private school tool she was hanging off of, Irma opened her mouth and said, “I’ll be back-packing in Europe this summer, actually.”

Josie snorted into her own cup to keep, thinking it was a bit to fuck with or flirt with the dude. Irma’s grandma lived off government assistance, and the glass jar full of tips from Garrison’s on Irma’s dresser was hardly enough money for a few month’s rent, let alone a plane ticket overseas. But Irma kept talking. About an uncle in Germany (who she hated, this part conveniently left out of the story) letting her and her grandma move in with him. Something about a work visa, a message board full of odd jobs, and getting the fuck out of this dead end town.

The alcohol at the party was better than Josie was used to – kegs of domestic brews and a kitchen island covered with mid-shelf liquor and mixers. While Irma talked, Josie stared into the pink tinted liquid, stomach turning, hazy reflection mocking from the depths of the solo cup. By the time her friend switched to fully speaking in German, Ich finde dich suß and Du hast wunderschöne Augen rolling off her tongue perfectly despite her inebriation, Josie felt sick to her stomach. They’d been friends, best friends, for seven years and this was the first time she was hearing about any plans to go to Germany. Immediate plans, at least. Long-term plans. Irma talked about wanting to go someday, but someday was… in less than two weeks? And she didn’t think to tell Josie?

They argued that night.

Not then, with Irma giggling into the ear of whatever boy’s lap she was occupying. Not when Josie let herself be pulled to one of the folding tables in the yard for a riveting game of beer pong. Not when whatever random person she was teamed up with decided their victory was best celebrated with ‘the hard stuff’ and poured at least four ounces of tequila into a little cup, floating a splash of orange juice on the top. And not even when Irma appeared with her lipgloss gone and sporting a fresh hickey, pouting about missing Josie kick ass and duh, of course she was going to win – have you seen this woman shoot a three from half court?

But when the DJ was gone and the strings of mood lights were unplugged, the two of them searching for an unoccupied section of couch or bed in one of the many rooms in the museum-like house, Josie couldn’t help but ask, “Were you being serious? About Germany?”. Irma muttered a tired, “Can’t this wait?” . But it couldn’t. Not to Josie. She didn’t even really remember what was said that night – a blur of alcohol, adrenaline, and hurt. Voice ricocheting in the hallway until a bleary eyed head popped out of one of the rooms, telling them they had to shut up or leave. Irma threw her hands into the air and stormed off, and that was the last time Josie saw her.

Until now, that is.

Because Josie let herself be goaded into signing up for some dumb indoor cycling class Irma was apparently teaching now that she was back in town. Looking as pleased as punch, Hannah leaned across the tacky vinyl top at Garrison’s and told her all about this gym slash spa downtown (a new gym, like there weren’t already a dozen trendy boutique yoga studios and niche gyms cluttering Marley) her mom’s friend opened the previous year. Irma, apparently, was a certified spin instructor and was teaching classes 3 days a week at Paix Wellness Studio. “She’s like, actually insane on the bike,” Hannah gushed before inviting Josie to a class the following weekend.

There was no way in any universe, but especially in their universe, Josie could afford even a month’s membership at Paix or any other gym. Before she could laugh in Hannah’s face and tell her as much, Hannah flattened her palms on the table and said her membership covered three guest visits a month. How generous. Admittedly, Josie was curious. Despondent… but curious. So she said yes.

Naturally, Josie spent the entire week bouncing between wanting to bail and wanting to storm into the class and ask Irma where she got the nerve.

She did neither. As merciful as she was generous (major side eye), Hannah offered to pick Josie up at her apartment so she didn’t have to spend forty minutes hopping buses to get downtown. Josie was so anxious the night before she caved and asked a twelve-year-old for advice. A new low, potentially, but Gabi was kind of the closest thing she had to an actual friend at the moment. There was another shift manager at Paradis Josie would sometimes get lunch or coffee with, but they hadn’t spent a lot of time together since he took over the morning shift. So Gabi, as mortifying as it was to admit, was her only option.

To Gabi’s credit, she only teased Josie a little bit. She was sprawled out on Josie’s living room floor chomping on a rope of licorice, stuttering audio from TikTok videos filling the space between them. There was no way Josie was going to trauma dump a decade’s worth of her friendship troubles onto the girl, so she tried to play the ‘cool and slightly annoyed’ card – groaning and making some comment about meeting up with an old friend for some ludicrous exercise class and how she already regretted it. It took one look from Gabi, sideways and skeptical, for Josie to spill the proverbial beans. She snatched a piece of licorice and flopped dramatically on the couch before confessing it’d been over four years since they last spoke and they didn’t leave on the best of terms… how she was nervous to see her again.

Gabi rolled her eyes, drew her body up to a sitting position – knee length rainbow socks almost mocking as they bounced with her restless energy – and said, “So what? Do you like, care what she thinks or something?”

Good question. Did Josie care what Irma thought?

“A little, I guess. I think… I think I’m more curious to see if she’ll say anything? Like, she unfriended me on everything–”

“That’s so… people your age.”

“Hey! Shut up,” Josie groused, her bite only half-serious. “This was right after high school, anyway. I don’t know. She just… she was my best friend, and then she wasn’t. I thought I was over it, but I think maybe I’m not.”

Nobody ever claimed Josie was eloquent or well-spoken, but this was a new low, even for her. She shoved another piece of licorice in her mouth to fill the silence that followed her groundbreaking admission. Something rattled in the lone vent in the room, the weak air conditioner kicking on.

When Gabi finally did speak, after a dramatic hum that rivaled the noise of the failing air-con unit, she asked, “You won’t know if you’re still mad until you see her, right? So why are you worried about it right now?”

The answer made something press against her ribcage: embittered, more agitated than amused. She regretted saying anything at all. It wasn’t that easy , Josie wanted to snap, the human brain doesn’t work like that – her human brain doesn’t work like that, at least . Like she was some kind of pre-teen mind reader, Gabi raised an eyebrow with a challenge. It said, ‘are you sure?’ and ‘of course they do’ . She looked so unshakeable in her wordless declaration. Auburn hair plaited into two unruly braids, freckled face bright, candy-like bracelets lining her arm, sporting a bleach stained Shiganshina Devils shirt and rainbow knee high socks.

Though she still felt prickly all over, Josie let out a breath and was surprised at how light she felt on the inhale. Was it really that easy? Just… don’t worry about it until it was time to worry about it? Definitely not. But could Josie distract herself enough to convince herself she didn’t care? Absolutely.

“You’re right,” she exhaled, stretching a leg out on the couch. Her muscles felt tight, like over-tuned guitar strings. “I shouldn’t stress out about it.”

This earned her an eye roll. Gabi put her chin on her knee and said, “Yeah right. You’re so gonna stress about it all night.” Ouch. Shots fired . Something playful tinted her expression and she made a big show of picking a piece of lint off her shorts. “So, we should definitely make cookies or something right? To, like, take your mind off it.”

Josie sent her home that night with two dozen cookies. They raided her cabinets for random ingredients, pretending like they were on a cooking show, and ended up with some wins–pretzel and brown sugar, M&M, and a tried and true peanut butter–and some losses–potato chip, and frozen blueberry.

Hannah picked her up in the same Honda Civic she drove in high school, windows down with a poppy hip hop song bleeding into the parking lot. They talked about the most recent episode of some reality dating show they both enjoyed on the drive, and by the time they pulled into a city parking lot downtown, Josie realized she wasn’t terribly anxious to see Irma again after all. She checked her phone for the time on the walk to Paix, heart fluttering when she saw a text from Reiner waiting for her.

(10:48 AM) Reiner : Good morning. Thank you for the breakfast cookies.

good morning! [smiley face emoji] :Josie (10:54 AM)

you’re welcome. which is your favorite? :Josie (10:54 AM)

(10:56 AM) Reiner: I’ve only tried the peanut butter ones. They feel like they’re the most nutritionally balanced.

Josie smiled at her phone. Since exchanging numbers, she and Reiner had texted a few times. Mostly just a few messages about Gabi or his work schedule changing last minute. He had every Sunday and Monday off but went in at different times throughout the week, usually staying to close up the bar. Josie had a set schedule with Sundays and Wednesdays off, working basically the same hours every day of the week to hit a full 40-hour work week. Nearly every night Reiner worked, Gabi wound up at Josie’s place. It’d only been a few weeks, but they were settled into a pretty nice routine.

whatever you have to tell yourself :Josie (10:56 AM)

(10:57 AM) Reiner: To be fair, I’ve had four…

LMAO i rest my case :Josie (10:57 AM)

“What are you giggling about over there?”

Josie resisted the urge to jam her phone in her pocket like a guilty child as they rolled to a stop. Instead, she floundered, “Nothing! I mean, I’m not giggling.”

“Oh my God,” Hannah snorted, a smile pulling at her cheeks. “You still have such a bad poker face.”

“There’s nothing for me to be poker facing over,” Josie said, this time more impassively.

“Right. Well… we’re here.” She waved her hand at the white brick building they were standing in front of. Josie hadn’t even realized. The front windows were frosted, a white and pink vinyl floral logo and Paix Wellness Studio stamped on one of the panes. “Ready to head in? Seriously, be prepared. I wasn’t lying about Irma being absolutely fucking psychotic on the bike.”

“Jeeze, thanks for the confidence booster.”

“In a fun way! Psychotic in a fun way.”

Josie jabbed, “That makes it more ominous! Who has ever said that? Psychotic in a fun way.”

“Me, right now. Quit stalling, let’s go.”

Josie didn’t look at her phone again until she was squirreling her bag away in a rented locker. Surprisingly, she still wasn’t nervous to see Irma. She was slightly worried this entire ordeal was part of some cult induction ceremony based on the way Hannah was acting. And the staff at Paix definitely gave off mild cult vibes, all of them in similar pink uniforms with matching smiles and bleach blonde hair.

(10:58 AM) Reiner: [smiley face with cold sweat emoji] [smiley face emoji]

She closed the locker with a smile on her face.

And promptly lost that smile twenty one minutes later in a fever dream of flashing LEDs pulsing in sync with way too loud EDM music shaking the mirror lined walls. Hannah was right; Irma was fucking psychotic on the bike. Unfortunately, she was lying her ass off about the ‘in a fun way’ part. There wasn’t anything fun about sweating actual buckets, hamstrings quaking while her former best friend, looking bolder than she did at eighteen–features sharper and hair shorter, instructed her and eleven other people to ‘push harder!’, ‘attack this next climb!’, and ‘embrace the burn!’.

It was surreal, in a way, Josie realized after the fact as she wiped her face with a complimentary pink towel (embroidered with the Paix logo, naturally). Of all the ways she imagined her reunion with Irma, it wasn’t like this– at some trendy dime a dozen gym sandwiched between Hannah and a middle aged woman whose bleached curls somehow managed to not move once during the workout, her diamond ring big enough to actually glisten in the reflection of the LEDs as she cycled.

“That was fun, right?” Hannah grinned as she tossed her own towel over her shoulder. “ God , my legs are jelly.”

Josie so didn’t have the energy for this– and her face must’ve said as much because Hannah started laughing.

She shot her a look, only barely resisting the urge to stick her tongue out. “Fun is like, dancing naked in your apartment or playing a pickup game at the park.”

“We have to get you out more if those are your only parameters for fun, Josie.”

Irma, sweat drenched and smiling, materialized out of thin air. She shouldn’t have been surprised; a quick look around the room showed only Hannah and Josie were left. Their reflections blurred with the still flashing LED lights on the wall of mirrors.

“I get out plenty,” Josie said placidly. Her heartbeat thrummed steadily in her ears, and she told herself it was a side effect of the workout still.

Irma’s smile grew wider. “It’s good to see you, Josie. I’m glad Hannah convinced you to come to a class.”

“She said you were, and I quote, ‘fucking insane’. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see for myself.”

“Fucking insane on the bike ,” Hannah corrected with a pout.

“Either way, I hope I didn’t disappoint.”

“Still deciding,” Josie quipped with a shoulder shrug. “But I’m a little worried I won’t be able to climb the stairs at my place, so as much as I hate to admit it, Hannah might be right.”

“Hey! Don’t say it like that.”

“We used to bike across town all the time. Like all the way out past the Flats and back.” The Flats being an abandoned strip mall at the far edge of town frequently used by local teens as a hang out-slash-party spot. Even after all these years, it was still abandoned and the police had long given up on monitoring the area. “There’s no way a forty-five minute spin class is going to be what takes you out.”

Josie figured it wasn’t tactful to say her bike was stolen a few years back and she hadn’t been on one since. “You weren’t yelling at me to ‘find my groove’ or whatever and keeping me at 150 BPMs back then.”

“Fair point.”

“There are complimentary hydration packs and fruit at the front desk. We’ll grab some on the way out,” Hannah suggested. “It’ll help any cramps, for sure.”

“Complimentary hydration packs?” Josie parroted. There was a food-covered microwave in the break room at Paradis Mart and a sign on the ancient refrigerator that said ‘smile, you’re on camera!’ to prevent theft. The thought of complimentary anything was laughable. “Seriously?”

Hannah scrunched her nose. “What?”

And Irma laughed. “Hannah, dude. Your head is so far up your ass.”

“My ass is perky and cute, thank you very much. Great place to be. Five out of five stars.”

“Sure is, but that was like, kind of entitled sounding.”

Instead of agreeing, Josie muttered, “Cult sounding.”

Irma’s laugh turned to a wheeze.

“I forgot how evil the two of you are together,” Hannah sulked, crossing her arms. “Besides, Irma, if it’s a cult you’re like totally involved.”

“When in Marley,” Irma shrugged. She tilted her head Josie’s way. “I know it sounds bougie as fuck, but the owner has some sponsorship deal with LiquidIV and gets massive discounts on bulk orders so it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Sure.” Josie’s stomach felt sour, and she was suddenly very aware of how tired–physically and mentally–she was after a morning of…whatever this was. Exercise and weird reunions? Regardless, she wanted to go home and take a long nap. “I graciously accept the complimentary, definitely not poison, hydration pack.”

“We shouldn’t tell her about the crystals and hot yoga class,” Irma deadpanned towards Hannah.

“Okay, well.” Josie clapped her hand on her thighs. “This has been fun. Enlightening, even.”

“That’s my cue,” Irma laughed, smile not unkind. She always could read Josie too well. The realization made Josie’s chest tighten… and not in a good way. “I need to get ready for my desk shift, anyway. It really is good to see you, Josie.”

Josie heard herself echo, “Yeah, you too.”

A weight clung to her shoulders the entire way to the locker room, growing heavier as the silence stretched between her and Hannah. There was, at least, a lofi jazzy soundtrack to the tension, courtesy of the speakers tucked in the corner of the subway tiled room. She tapped the code to the locker into the digital keypad and swiped her bag. There was a row of sparkling shower stalls on the other side of the room, but Josie didn’t think Hannah was going to offer to stick around any longer than necessary.

They walked past the hydration packs and fruit basket on the way out.

And by the time they got to Hannah’s car, Josie felt like shit. The fresh air loosen whatever clung to her ribcage, and without the strobing LED lights blasting into her brain, she realized she was kind of acting like an asshole. Maybe it was justified. Maybe she could’ve handled the whole situation better. Maybe all of them could’ve handled it better.

Hannah cranked the air conditioner and didn’t sync her music. Josie knew she fucked up.

She waited a few streets, until they were out of the rush of downtown traffic (until she had enough courage), to say, “Thank you for inviting me today. That place was a little out of my comfort zone, but I really did have fun.” She hesitated for a split second, casting her eyes from the front window to the side pane. “I know I was kind of acting like a dick. I’m sorry. It was just… weird seeing Irma. We haven’t talked in years.”

Silence stretched down another street.

“I didn’t know that.” The turn signal ticked a steady noise. “She seemed really excited to see you.”

“Irma’s good at reading people,” Josie said, like it was some kind of explanation.

“Or maybe she, I don’t know, cares about you? When I told her you were coming to today’s class, she was like, so happy.”

Of course she was; Irma was the main character in her own story, and she either didn’t care or recognize that other people had their own lives. In the years after she left, Josie had a lot of time to think about their friendship. Friendship in general, really… because it wasn’t just Irma that left her.

Some nights she warmed her couch with a box of wine, endless questions of ‘ what did I do wrong? ’ and ‘ maybe I’m meant to be this lonely ’ looping in her mind. A soundtrack to the memories that wormed their way out of the boxes she tried shoving them into. Maybe people like Hannah still reached out every now and then, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t cramming as many bodies as possible in the back of a Honda Civic, music blasting, shitty wine coolers poured into fast food cups, speeding down backroads. It wasn’t sleepovers with gossip and Guitar Hero. It wasn’t pick up game after pick up game.

Other nights, the script flipped. ‘ Woe is me ’ easily turned to ‘ fuck you, and you, and you ’. It was just as lonely, but a little more cathartic.

Josie bit her cheek and swallowed the urge to snap back, knowing she’d regret whatever she said. She let Hannah’s words sit between them for another road before composing herself enough to say, “The summer she left we got into a huge fight at some party. Do you remember? I had to call Lucy for a ride at like, three in the morning.” Lucy was the most mom-like of their friend group, the most reliable at picking up late night calls. She didn’t say a word when Josie insisted they drive by Irma’s place to make sure she was there and not wrapped around a tree. “That’s the last time I saw or talked to her. She blocked my number and refused to answer the door.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. I had no clue she was going to Germany until that night. She got mad when I brought it up, and we fought. Then she left.”

Another block blurred past the window. They were so close to Josie’s complex, she could cry with relief. She just needed to make it a little longer, a few more minutes, and then she could shower, hide under a mountain of blankets, and pretend like the entire day didn’t happen.

“I heard about the fight, but I didn’t see you before I left for Trost.”

“Yeah. Not a lot of people did.”

It came out more bitter than Josie wanted it to, but fuck it. What was the point in pretending like she didn’t care anymore?

Neither of them spoke again until Hannah pulled into the weed congested lot at Josie’s apartment complex. Josie’s hand was practically twitching on the handle as Hannah rolled to a stop in front of the entrance. She kept the car in drive, the locks engaged while she idled. Before Josie could orchestrate her great escape, Hannah cleared her throat. She had one hand on her steering wheel, the other fiddling with her spandex leggings.

“I wouldn’t have dragged you along today if I knew you weren’t, like, on good terms with Irma. I’m realizing I’ve kind of been a shitty friend, too, but… I don’t know. I just wish you would’ve told me. We could’ve done anything else.”

A dozen excuses weighed Josie’s tongue. But looking at Hannah, still a little sweaty from their class – eyes looking through the windshield and hands jittery, she felt just as guilty of being a bad friend. Maybe all those late nights in an echo chamber of her own creation warped her perspective on things. Maybe Hannah was actually… fuck, Hannah was genuine and Josie was the one being a bitch, wasn’t she?

“I wanted to go. I was morbidly curious, I guess.” Josie tasted iron when she spoke and the inside of her cheek throbbed. “I should’ve said something though, you’re right. It wasn’t fair to put you in the middle.”

“It’s not like I asked.” She shot Josie a warbly yet tired smile and unlocked the doors. “Next time you’re picking what we do.”

Josie’s chest squeezed at her ‘next time’ . Hearing Hannah say the words out loud made her realize she actually… she actually did want there to be a next time with Hannah. Despite the way she’d been dragging her feet and griping about well, basically every social interaction, Josie missed hanging out with someone her age who she wasn’t also going to see in the breakroom at work.

“Maybe something involving copious amounts of alcohol?” Josie suggested mildly.

Hannah snorted. “Yes, absolutely.”

By the time she all but crawled through her apartment door a few minutes later, Josie was drained–mentally and physically, smelled like death, and was in desperate need of carbs. A shower sounded like heaven, and there was a container of leftovers in the fridge calling her name. Instead of doing any of the things that would immediately improve her wellbeing, Josie flopped backwards on her floor in an attempt to not get her gross post-gym-ness all over her couch and groaned (rather dramatically, in her humble opinion) . A few minutes of moping was more than enough to at least ease the pit in her stomach.

Itchy with drying sweat and guilt, Josie decided a shower was the first priority… after a handful of pretzels. She fished her phone out of her bag, ditched by the front door and forgotten, on the way to the kitchen.

(11:19 AM) Gabi: hey

(11:19 AM) Gabi: do u have hulu

(11:23 AM) Gabi: [photo of tv screen with hulu pulled up and on a show called Escaping the Backrooms ]

(11:23 AM) Gabi: we should watch this

(11:31 AM) Gabi: [screenshot of advertisement for Escaping the Backrooms ]

(11:31 AM) Gabi: wait ur at that dumb class u didnt want to go to

(11:34 AM) Gabi: hopefully u didnt kill ur friend

(11:34 AM) Gabi: reiner knows a cop if u need bail

A fond, if not exasperated, smile worked itself onto her face as she skimmed the messages. She thumbed over to her browser and did a quick search of the show; it wasn’t like they hadn’t watched absolute garbage in the few weeks Gabi had been hanging out at her place.

I don’t know if bail works like that but I appreciate the offer :Josie (12:19 PM)

And I don’t have Hulu, but this show sounds fun. I like Darius Art :Josie (12:19 PM)

(12:20 PM) Gabi: who

He’s the main actor in this backrooms show lol :Josie (12:20 PM)

(12:21 PM) Gabi: oh ok

(12:21 PM) Gabi: reiner says we can use his hulu account

(12:21 PM) Gabi: glad u didn’t go to jail

Was that ever a question… :Josie (12:22 PM)

Actually don’t answer that :Josie (12:22 PM)

(12: 22 PM) Gabi: ok i wont but reiner is also glad u didnt get arrested

Josie thought about responding with a string of key smashes. She thought about walking next door to ask Gabi why she was such a little shithead. She thought about Reiner, plain black tee stretched across his chest and face scruffy with stubble shooting her a confused smile. She put her phone down and went to take a shower.

Escaping the Backrooms was a four part mockumentary style show with a surprisingly fleshed out set and actors, like Darius Art with his adorable head of curls and killer smile, who were actually pretty good.

Josie couldn’t tell you a single thing about the show otherwise. Because she was in Reiner’s apartment.

She didn’t realize ‘Reiner says we can use his Hulu account’ translated to ‘hey you can come over to our place to watch the show’ . So she found herself inside her not so mysterious neighbor’s apartment, without him, on a Tuesday evening. Freshly showered, dressed in a respectable pair of leggings and an oversized graphic tee, and armed with a takeout bag from the deli inside Paradis Mart, she knocked on the door.

It was weird to see her apartment but… not her apartment. The space was laid out the same, opening right into the living and dining space with a half-wall leading into the galley kitchen. A short hallway seemed to lead to the bathroom, a bedroom, and a linen closet. She didn’t knock on the door with any expectations but was surprised by the space, regardless.

Like most twenty-something dude’s place, it was furnished in shades of black and a deep burgundy. A deep set fabric sofa (black, naturally) was positioned around a dark rectangular coffee table, top only housing a gaming controller, a few coasters, a sticker-bombed water jug not on a coaster, and a lit candle–something sugary and warm. A fuzzy red throw blanket was tossed over the back cushions. The TV was a little larger than hers but not unreasonable, sitting on a media stand that seemed to match the coffee table. There was a large framed black and white photo of some mountains mounted behind the television, but the walls were otherwise bare.

Where Josie had a tiny bistro set was what she assumed to be Gabi’s space. Not wanting to breach a sensitive subject, she never asked about the sleeping arrangements at Reiner’s place. She assumed it was a 1-bedroom unit, like hers, but didn’t think too much more about it out of necessity. It was clear that Reiner did think a lot about it, though, and went out of his way to make sure Gabi had her own area.

A twin sized bed with built in storage beneath the mattress was tucked against the wall. The bed was sloppily made, a fluffy comforter with a rainbow ombre pattern wrinkled with one edge flipped up to show the neon pink sheets. There were at least a dozen stuffed animals lined against the wall: a shark with a missing eyeball, bears in 3 different colors and sizes, a handful of Squishmallows, and a tattered looking cat rounded out the bunch. A slim nightstand, wide enough to hold a lamp and not much else, tucked against the bed. A phone charger wrapped around the lamp base. Beside the nightstand was a three shelf bookcase cluttered with what she assumed to be Gabi’s things–nail polishes, piles of bracelets, brimming craft bins, a few board games, and a remote controlled monster truck Gabi enthusiastically demonstrated for her later in the evening.

So maybe it was a little difficult to focus on the plot of a cheesy, yet well cast, mockumentary when she was nestled up on the couch, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket that smelled like Irish Springs and something distinctly male. And maybe when she looked over and saw Gabi fast asleep on the other side of the couch Josie let her eyes close instead of turning the TV off and walking the short distance back to her apartment. Could anyone really blame her? She dreamed of yellowing backrooms, of warm hands and a broad chest.

“Josie.”

She tugged the blanket up to her chin, groaning at the new chill at her feet, and tried burrowing into the couch further.

“Josie… Josie, hey. Wake up.”

“Mmm. No. Go away.”

There was a low chuckle. “I’ll go away in a minute. First I need to get you to bed.”

“Bed?” She mimicked, scrunching her face as she rolled a little towards the voice. The couch was nice; she was warm and cozy, but not all that comfortable. There was already a slight kink in her neck from laying at an awkward angle, and Gabi’s leg was stretched out and wedged under a cushion so that one of her feet was jammed into Josie’s side. “Bed sounds good.”

“Yeah?” A gentle touch to her shoulder had Josie melting deeper in the couch. “I bet. Come on.”

The warmth around her started to disappear. She reached for the top of the blanket only to grasp at air. Josie made a pathetic languid noise and forced her eyes open a crack, just enough to squint at… wait… to squint at…

“Reiner?” She mumbled. It was him, alright. The room was dark but she could still see him, backlit with some kind of angelic fucking lighting as he kneeled next to the couch. He was warm and close and God, he smelled so good. So she was still dreaming, then? A dopey smile lifted her lips a little, and she struggled to open her eyes more. “Reiner, hi.”

“Hi, Josie.”

“You’re in my dream.”

“Ah, man.” His hand was on her arm–her bare arm. (Dream Josie was so lucky.) When he laughed, it was a tiny abashed noise that melted into the darkness. “You must be a deep sleeper. Okay… shit.”

A new determination to not let the dream version of herself have all the fun settled in her sleepy, Reiner-addled brain. Her arm was as heavy as Excalibur, but she lifted it enough to press her palm against Reiner’s chest. The warmth she was missing from the blanket came back, and then some. She curled her fingers into the fabric, humming at the hard wall of muscle that greeted her.

“Bed?” she asked Dream Reiner. Legs stiff but somehow tingling, she scooted her body to a half-upright position using his chest as an anchor point.

He sucked air through his teeth; the hissing noise echoing through the otherwise still room. It reverberated through her bones. Even this version of Reiner was hesitant, if not bashful. Maybe it was a trick of the light–or lack of light–but through the sleepy slits of her eyes, she watched a blush bloom down his neck. Any and every version of Reiner was handsome, she decided, no matter what universe or dreamscape he landed in. Luckily, this version was close enough to the real thing that Josie’s heart ached at their closeness. Her fingers twitched; she wanted to be closer, curled up in his warmth with that blush beneath her lips.

Reiner covered her hand with one of his own, fingers looping beneath hers. Her name was a soft breath. “Josie.”

This was the part where Dream Reiner would swoop her into his arms and carry her to bed.

This was the part where… Dream Reiner… pulled her hand away, his hold moving to her shoulder, and helped her to her feet. Okay. She could get behind this. The fuzzy blanket that was now way too warm and sticky feeling fell to the couch as Josie took a wobbly step past Reiner. The hand on her shoulder tightened as she swayed on her feet. The bedroom was only a few steps away; she quite literally could make the walk in her sleep. Her next attempt at a step was slightly more productive than the last, but she didn’t make it very far. Reiner’s hand flexed then loosened on her shoulder, still holding her in place. Her shirt must’ve rucked sideways at some point because a few of his fingers pressed against her bare collarbone. Was that her heartbeat she felt or his?

Bleary-eyed, Josie looked over her shoulder (well, over and up – did all versions of Reiner have to be this tall?!?) and mustered enough energy to furrow a brow. She parroted. “Bed?”

A few things happened all at once.

Reiner’s expression went from disconcerted to tormented back to disconcerted before softening into a smile. His hand slid down her arm, fingers leaving streaks of warmth Josie hoped never faded. Voice tender and guiding, he said, “Josie, wake up. You’re at my place still.”

Josie squinted at him for one of those impossibly long seconds that bled into another impossibly long second. The haze holding her somewhere between dreamworld and reality vaporized, and she realized with a painful clarity that he was right–she was at his place still. Which meant her whole roaming hands act was perpetrated on Reiner, not some fantasy dream version of him she cooked up in her brain. Her brain that was now short circuiting as she tried piecing together bits of her weird dream that maybe definitely wasn’t a dream. If Gabi wasn’t still dead to the world and snoring lightly on the edge of the couch, Josie would have screamed.

She settled for a wide-eyed harshly whispered, “Oh. Cool, um, yes. I am awake. Hi.”

Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness (the vent light casting a fluorescent glow from the kitchen helped, she was sure), and now without sleep crusting the corners, she could see Reiner more clearly. He was dressed in his standard black work tee–now visibly dirty–and a pair of jeans, blonde hair unusually disarrayed and sticking in every direction. A stubble that seemed permanent curved around his jaw, around the amused quip to his lips–an almost smirk. And even though he looked exhausted, there was something bright and searching reflecting in the hazel sparks of his eyes.

“You’re a heavy sleeper, too, huh?” He waved a hand towards Gabi. “She sleeps like the dead. When she was younger my mom and I took her to one of those Christmas rock orchestra shows. She fell asleep during one of the first few songs–not even the pyrotechnics woke her up. I carried her three blocks to the parking garage and strapped her into her seat before she even made a noise.”

Josie thought of a teenage Reiner sitting dutifully in the audience with his mom. She wondered if Reiner took after her or his father. She wondered if they were around, if they still talked to him, if he still went to Christmas shows with them. She thought of Reiner hoisting a tiny Gabi, probably still stressed loudly and definitely, over his shoulder and carrying her through the streets. She thought about what it would be like to have family like that–to have family, at all.

“More a deep sleeper than a heavy one,” she said, fighting and failing to keep a yawn at bay. She hid it poorly behind her hand. “Sorry.” Was she apologizing for the yawn, falling asleep, or groping him? All three, probably. She took a step towards the hallway. “I’ll just um, head to bed. My own bed.”

Reiner gave a half-snort, half-laugh. “You might want to go the other direction. Out that door, a few steps to the right.”

“Right, yes, totally!” Josie was too tired not to scowl at him. She started walking in the correct direction, then double backed to grab her bag from beside the couch. Her keys were undoubtedly buried near the bottom of the mess. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“Goodnight, Josie. Thank you for hanging out with Gabi.”

“One, anytime. Two, goodnight. Three, please forget I was here.”

She felt more than heard his laughter through the closed door. Josie waited until she face-planted in her bed to scream.

Reiner (11:41 AM): Are you home right now?

Kinda :Josie (11:42 AM)

[photo of the shared apartment laundry room – a dingy linoleum lined dungeon with cracked concrete floors, standing water pooling by a drain near the door. half the room was shroud in a yellowy hue, the other half dark – the flimsy plastic cover over the strip lights left dangling] :Josie (11:42 AM)

Might get murdered down here… or accidentally gas myself. I think one of the dryers is venting into the room? [frowning emoji] :Josie (11:42 AM)

There weren’t any messages waiting for Josie by the time she finished loading her laundry into a washing machine, scowling at every quarter she jammed into the shitty piece of equipment. An “are you home” text was just as bad as “can we talk” . Had she not woken up and immediately remembered the mortifying circumstances of her existence, she wouldn’t be worried. But she’d basically groped the man, for fuck’s sake, so the lack of a text back sent a spiral of anxiety through her.

Josie’s shoe scuffed against the second to last stair on the way back to her apartment, and her heart dropped to her stomach. Reiner didn’t message her back, but he was waiting for her in the hallway; leaned against the wall between their units, his eyes shifted from his phone to Josie. He slid his phone in his pocket all while aiming a measured smile in her direction.

“Hey.”

She adjusted the laundry bag under her arm as she approached him, mimicking a “hey” back. It was unfair how good Reiner always looked. There was almost always a scruff clinging to his jaw and a smudge of darkness beneath his eyes, his hair a little wild. He was wearing a bright white shirt with some athletic company logo printed across the chest and a pair of black sweatpants. Until that point, she was pretty confident his wardrobe was filled entirely with shades of black.

“I thought I’d just run down to the laundry room instead of texting. Made it out the door before I thought it might be weird to just drop in on you,” he admitted sheepishly. “Waiting by your door is just as weird, I guess.”

The itchy anxious feeling in her stomach gave way to a bubbly sensation. Josie laughed as she unlocked her door. “Well stop being weird, then, and come in.”

Even though Josie spent a majority of the past few weeks hanging out with Gabi in her living room, she’d yet to have Reiner over. There’d never really been a reason. Josie tossed her bag onto the couch and, in an effort to keep pretending like she wasn’t maybe totally freaking out at Reiner being in her space, she tilted her head towards the kitchen and asked, “Do you want any coffee?”

“Sure,” He said after a moment of hesitation.

“It’s a fresh pot,” Josie explained, happy to let her nervous jitters fill the quiet, as she pulled down two of her favorite mugs. A ceramic mushroom-themed gnome house, rim shaped to be a bulbous red head with white spots and a painted on front door and shuttered windows, for herself and for Reiner, a promotional item for a random crab shack–a white and blue checkered pattern wrapping the cup behind a cartoon crab waving from the front seat of a pink cadillac. “I have a caramel creamer and milk.”

“Just black, thanks.”

“So,” she reached for the fridge, holding the door with the side of her foot so she could quickly add a splash of creamer to her cup, “We’ve established you’re definitely not being weird by sending cryptic texts and lurking outside my door.”

“I wasn’t lurking, ” Reiner puffed to her back, the linoleum floor crinkling as he stepped into the kitchen.

Josie raised an eyebrow, turning to hand him the steaming crab mug. “Okay. You weren’t lurking.”

“I wasn’t,” he said again.

Josie would’ve made fun of his pouting a little more, but their fingers brushed as he took the cup and she short-circuited, a memory of her palm scratching into his chest stuttering behind her eyes. She curled her fingers into her palms and turned for her own drink.

“You weren’t lurking,” she repeated, grinning at him over the rim of her cup. “So you’re here because…”

The tips of Reiner’s ears were red. She told herself it was from the heat of the coffee.

“I know it’s short notice, but Sunday I’m taking Gabi and her friend Falco to the State Fair. I wanted to invite you to go with… us.”

“Oh.” That was absolutely not what she expected. The State Fair? She went once in high school with some of the girls from the basketball team. They spent too much money on ride tickets and fried foods, flirting with strangers and getting too competitive over carnival games. It was one of those classic, all American teenage nights that was a core memory for her.The thrill she felt was short-lived, though, when she remembered there was a reason she didn’t go to the State Fair more often–it was a few hours away by car. “I um, would love to go, but I really don’t have a way to get there.”

A twitch of disappointment, then confusion, pulled at Reiner’s face. “I know. I’m offering to drive.”

She found herself once again saying, “Oh.”

“What type of asshole would invite you somewhere almost three hours away and not also take you?” He asked with an impish edge. She caught the edge of a smile before his cup covered it completely.

“I don’t know!” Josie whined.

“To be clear, I’m offering to pay, too.”

“Reiner,” she protested, whole body going flush.“That’s too much, no. ”

“It’s not though. Consider it a thank you for your help lately.”

“It’s not… I’m not–”

“I know.” Reiner put his cup down and looked at Josie with what was undoubtedly fondness–a type she wasn’t quite ready to face head-on. “I know you’re not. I just.. I just want to do this for you, Josie.”

She didn’t want to face it, but she found it impossible to look away. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“It’s been years since I’ve had the chance to go to the State Fair. It sounds like a fun time.”

Over the past few weeks Josie learned that Reiner had all sorts of smiles. Exasperated ones, often directed at Gabi. Self-effacing ones and relieved ones and ones that stayed trapped between his teeth. There were cordial smiles in the hallway and appreciative ones on the other side of her door. Smiles for baked goods and smiles for bad jokes.

This was probably her favorite smile, though, if she had to pick. Hazel eyes twinkling with affection and a row of teeth peeking from behind widely stretched lips.

“Same. One of my coworkers mentioned it started last weekend. Gabi’s never been, so I asked if she’d want to check it out.”

“Like any twelve year old would say no to deep fried Oreos and carnival games.”

“Yeah,” Reiner laughed a little, “I didn’t even get the whole question out before she was inviting Falco.”

“That tracks.”

“It’ll be good for them. They go to the same school, but they haven’t seen each other a lot lately,” he confided, fingers curling around his mug. “The Grice’s were my neighbors almost my entire life. Falco and Colt are like family, honestly.” His shoulders slumped a little. “We had Gabi a lot. Her dad wasn’t around, and her mom was working two jobs. My mom had a part time gig so she was able to help with Gabi. But she left my dad my senior year, and we moved in with my grandparents in Arcadia. Val–Gabi’s mom–doesn’t get along with their parents, so she stopped asking my mom for help.”

“That’s a dumb reason… sorry.”

Reiner set his empty cup in the sink between a cluster of unwashed silverware and her unwashed oatmeal bowl from breakfast. “No, it’s okay. I was getting carried away, anyway.”

“Can I ask you something that’s probably too personal so feel free to say no?”

“Sure.”

“Why isn’t Gabi with your mom now?”

“Ah. Well,” He smiled, and it was one of those tender-eyed ones that made Josie’s heart do somersaults. “She remarried last year, and they just moved a few hours away for Ron’s job. Val only agreed to get help if we kept things as normal as possible for Gabi. Staying with me seemed like the best option all around.”

Agreed to get help. Both Reiner and Gabi were rightfully tight-lipped about the situation with her mom. It wasn’t like Josie was prying, anyway. She knew how complicated and messy family could be. She wasn’t going to ask him to clarify what kind of help – this was already plenty of information to fill in the gaps.

“I agree,” Josie said softly.

“Speaking of Gabi, I should probably get back over there. We have some errands to run before my shift, and I promised her we could stop at the craft store while we’re out.”

“So I should be prepared for slime and or a lot of yarn tonight?”

“She said something about making soap, actually,” Reiner chuckled.

“Got it. Soap making, I can handle.”

He raised an eyebrow playfully. “Were you worried about yarn?"

“Yarn is a very dangerous item, thank you very much. A lethal weapon in some places.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do my part in keeping yarn out of the hands of our youth.”

“My hero,” she drawled sarcastically.

“It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.”

“Okay,” Josie snorted. She placed her empty mug in the sink with a lot less finesse than Reiner, cup clattering with the silverware. She felt bubbly enough to ignore the voice in her head that said touching him was a bad idea. She bumped her shoulder lightly against his arm. “Thanks for your dedication and vigilant service.”

“You know, something about that doesn’t feel all that genuine, Josie,” Reiner tsk-ed, eyes bright.

“I’m being nothing but genuine, Reiner,” She said back.

They were by her door, neither seemingly overly eager to say goodbye. A few seconds of silence stretched comfortably between them.

“I’ll let you know more about Sunday when I actually figure out what the plan is. I think I saw online that they do a fireworks show every weekend. Gabi and Falco will definitely want to stay for those, so it will probably be a long day.”

“Fireworks, huh?”

A wistfulness settled into Josie. She wanted to drink a ridiculously sugary lemonade with a bendy straw. She wanted to listen to a kind of really good local cover band play alternative music from the 90s. And she wanted to watch fireworks with Reiner.

“Yeah, fireworks.” Reiner smiled at her from the open door. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Have fun with your errands. Don’t let Gabi bully you into slime.”

“Or yarn,” he added.

“Or yarn, right.”

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Josie closed the door to her apartment and promptly fell into her bed face first. She groaned a pathetic noise into the sheets. She was in deep. Too deep, probably. Fuck.

When she went to flip her laundry a half hour later, the light was fixed–fluorescent bulbs changed and secured behind the plastic screen, there was a handwritten ‘out of order’ sign on the questionably murderous dryer, and the stagnated water puddle was gone.. Josie moved her clothes to one of the non-life threatening dryers with a smile on her face.

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