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concealeddarkness13 · 4 years ago

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A New Dawn Part 17

In which the gang goes to Neo Dallas to meet Lily, Ivy, and Craw, and she experiences social anxiety and bad dreams. Tagging: @ratracechronicler and @merigreenleaf! Here is the post with links to the other parts!

No dreams overnight. I hadn’t had a dream about my past since we left Farsia. And I still didn’t know who that boy was in my previous dream. But everything was fine. I was with my new found family. I just had to not think about aliens. Everything was going to be fine.

Breakfast was amazing, as usual, and Rat complained again that I ate more than her, as if it was a competition. I still didn’t understand that. Afterwards, there was a call for Rex, so he went into another room to take the call. I just eyed the video game console while Rat, Eli, and I waited for him to return.

Noct was barking at the console as if she wanted to play too when Rex returned. He opened the hatch and stepped into the doorway, his forehead wrinkled. “So, uh…news. That was my gran who called. She wants me over by hers, stat. That usually means I get sucked up into some project—er—I can’t explain. It’s important, though.”

“Is she okay?” Rat asked.

“Yeah, yeah—it’s a good thing! Well, except it’s a sticky thing, see, cuz I can’t drag you along and we can’t stay around here for too long.” He sounded tough, but he looked nervous. This didn’t sound good, no matter what he said. What did he mean by “we” anyway?

“That’s okay—as long as it’s not an emergency or anything,” Eli said. “I’d like to meet her someday, maybe. You’ve got a nice family, Rex.” Rex snorted and shrugged at that. “We were planning on getting going soon, anyway.” We were?

“We’ll just have to hang out again some other time,” Rat added. Rex brightened, and he smiled. “We haven’t even gotten through half of your game collection, and I’ve got a big need to know what I missed throughout my childhood. All of us did, in fact.”

“Thin mash!” Rex grinned, but I frowned. What did that even mean? “You lot gotta catch up! It’s an important life skill you’re lacking, it is. You’d come back? Really?”

Eli nodded. “Absolutely.”

I looked at the console one last time. There went my hope to play more. But then I looked back at Rex with a smile. He was awesome. “It was great to meet you. Thanks for letting me play games with you.” Noct barked at him, as if she was thanking him too.

He leaned down to pet Noct as he spoke. “Thanks for joinin’, P2!”

I sighed in relief when Rex turned on the console, and we all played Galoshlimb one last time. I almost won once. It was good to get my mind off of the aliens. At least we didn’t have to leave yet.

While we were saying goodbye to Rex’s family, they kept dumping more and more food into my arms. I didn’t mind (actually their food was really good, so it was awesome), but I couldn’t see after they were done. Rat and Eli laughed and helped me stuff the food in the trunk, with some food going in the backseat for a snack. We all got in, Rat revved up the car, and we sped off to our next destination.

I immediately started munching on food. “Where are we going next?”

“Northwest-ish towards Neo Dallas, I think,” Eli said, looking through a street map. “That’s where the other twins are.”

Rat nodded. “My dearly beloathed nemeses,” she said pleasantly. “Lily and Ivy. We’ve tried so hard to kill each other. Failing that, we wound up joining forces. Lily’s more bark and Ivy’s more bite when it comes to strangers. No matter how sweet or innocent or sad she looks, it’s probably best not to trust Ivy. I still don’t. Not a millimeter. Not as far as I could throw her. Into the ocean. Affectionately, of course.”

I snorted. More nemeses. “At least, for once, we’ll be meeting your nemeses and not mine. Should I expect a fight?” My hand brushed over my knife concealed in my pocket.

“In Neo Dallas? Probably.” Rat winced. “Probably not from the sisters, though. I think. Uh. You any good with guns? Just in case.”

I shook my head. “Nah. Never used one. Maybe I could figure it out with my machine?”

“Knock yourself out, but you probably can’t learn it that fast. And I realize I don’t have any, anyway. We’ll have to wing it.”

Brilliant. I gripped my knife instead. She was being awfully non-expositiony as we got closer to the city we were headed to. “Any of your customary info dumps for this Neo Dallas?”

“My what?”

I rolled my eyes. She always had a lot to say about a city, but now she was being quiet? Eli spoke up, however. “I don’t think either of us have been there, and I haven’t heard much of anything about it except some bits of the accent when Lily lets herself use it.”

“I just know there’s tons of guns out there,” Rat said. “Lily and Ivy are smugglers, by the way, mostly for weapons. Well, Lily’s trying to be a surgeon, which’s just creative use of knives, anyway, and I don’t know what Ivy wants to be except maybe the last survivor of a zombie apocalypse or something. Eli, can you look up some interesting factaroonies on that screen thing?”

“I can check.” He paused as he looked at the map screen. “Huh. There are some skyscrapers, I guess. Not as cool as Fre Jac-Mac’s though.”

She laughed. “Filthy easterner. Alright, pals. Looks like we’re going in for a cold open. Brace yourselves.”

I shook my head and stared out the window, waiting to see the city. “Oh boy.”

It was certainly different from the other cities I had seen. Not as impressive or big as the others. There were even farms around the city! And it was dusty, not a lot of shade. It all looked older than the rest of the cities. It looked awesome!

While I was staring at the city, Eli took out his beacon and called Lily, by the look of the reflection of the screen on the window that I could totally read. She picked up and spoke. “Oh, check it, it’s the punk. Thought we shook your dust off our boots, we did. What do you want, eh?”

Eli was taken aback, and I had to stifle a laugh. I liked her already. “It’s Eli. And Rat, actually, but she’s driving. And—well, regardless of where we all stand about the extermination, I wanted to let you know we’re in Neo Dallas and wanted to ask whether you had any advice on the area for us. If you don’t want to help, I understand…”

After a pause, she snorted, but then a completely different, smoother voice spoke up. “Okay, you got me, officer. I can talk like her, but I don’t know thing one about this city, yet, either. I just got here a couple days ago—sounds like I’m not the only one who got bored of solo cruising!”

“I haven’t really tried it,” Eli replied, not seeming fazed at all. “Rat and I have been toge—you know, road tripping since the extermination and—”

“My eyebrows are dancing in a way that begs to question the suggestiveness of this—”

“—AND, we also have a new friend with us, and we’re all exploring the country together,” Eli interrupted back, and they kept interrupting each other for a little bit. I could just imagine Eli’s blush, and I couldn’t help but smirk that I wasn’t the only one who thought they should be a couple.

Craw tsked. “Well, I think it’s fantastic that you already figured out that we were supposed to stick together, plus I think we’re illegally obligated to welcome you to the posse. The sisters are out right now, though—please assume I’m guarding my dearly beloved’s beacon and that I haven’t stolen it for any purpose. You folks inbound off of Rue 8? Stay on that and you should come right upon the Westwind where we’re at. Hundredth floor. You’re welcome to join us if you’re loaded enough.”

Rat grinned. “We got the money. Luxury hotel time! I like the sound of this! Road trip’s about to get stylish!” My mind wandered to the things I could steal at a luxury hotel.

“And what’ve you been up to all this time?” Eli asked.

“Oh, crime,” he, she, they (?) answered pleasantly. “The usual. Causing civil unrest, fomenting rebellion, conspiring. Bit of theft here and there to keep things interesting.”

“Ah,” Eli sounded like he didn’t know what to say. “Good.”

“So much for that big, fancy, expensive reform exercise we had to go through,” Rat snickered.

“See you soon?” the person on the other side of the beacon said.

“Right,” Eli replied. “Take care.” He pocketed the beacon and looked back at me. “That’s our friend Craw. That’s his…”

“Guy voice,” Rat explained. “So his pronouns’re he—him and stuff right now. He’s genderfluid and outside of that he holds an identity like most of us can hold a wet bar of soap. Better at taking names than wallets, so you should be fine, but he will flirt with anyone vaguely humanoid, so be ready for that. So cool that he’s here too! Anyway, you got all that?”

I nodded. “He sounds cool.” I mean, if that intro was anything to go by. But I wouldn’t really be able to brace for flirting. It would just confuse me anyway. Oh well.

People stared as Rat drove through town, and I grinned as I looked around. This felt like home. Dusty, sunny, weapons that weren’t concealed. We stopped at a tall building, and Rat parked and ushered us in. She checked in, and we took the elevator up to the hundredth floor. I had to shove my hands in my pockets to keep from stealing something right away. It was just so…fancy. I had only seen something this fancy when I was pretending to be a rich person to steal from other rich people. Even Taeo’s apartment wasn’t this fancy.

We checked into our room, which actually had two rooms, so I had a room to myself, and while we were getting settled, there was a knock on our door.

I poked my head out of my room as Rat walked toward the door, but before she could open it, the person on the other side opened, and a person with dark, curly hair that went a little past his shoulders and tired eyes that I didn’t know the color of walked in. He was wearing baggy clothes that weren’t flashy, except for a black scarf around his neck. “You made it!” he gushed, and he hugged Rat, so he must have been their friend Craw.

“Intruder alert!” She pushed him away with a grin, and he moved on to shake Eli’s hand. Eli looked like he had been going for a hug, but he awkwardly shook Craw’s hand instead.

“Glad to see you all in one piece.” Craw smiled crookedly, but then his eyes flicked toward me, and he leaned against the doorframe. “And you must be the new friend. One I don’t recognize. Rat, how far did you have to go to find a gem like this before I’ve had the pleasure of making her acquaintance?”

Gem? Pleasure? Rat was right about him. And I still wasn’t prepared. I tried to introduce myself, but the words wouldn’t come out right. So, I just kind of fumbled and fell silent, not looking him in the eyes. He was intimidating.

“You can make her acquaintance from two meters away, smoothie.” Rat tugged at the back of his coat. I silently thanked her. “She doesn’t go in for fire. Cut the cute stuff.”

“It’s just how I talk,” he protested with a smile. “I’ll do my best. Narry a wink, even. I’ll even reign in the charming dimples.” He rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall, angled away from me a little more. He looked over at me, still a little intimidating. “Can I have your name?”

“None of that fae shit, either!”

He laughed and buried his face in his jacket lapels. “You got her breaking out the old language! For saints’ sakes. Does the newcomer have a tag I can know? Do I have to get all of my information through her lawyer here?”

Rat looked over at me, and I ducked my head, fiddling with my hands. “I’m—I’m Kai. I’m not from around here…”

“Enchantée. Surely, these two have gossiped all about me by now. But yeah, I’m not from around here either.” He glanced over at Rat. “My, my. Is this getting too personal? Too saucy for your taste?”

“What’re you doing here, anyway? I thought you lived out east,” Rat said.

He shrugged. “Teaching some local geezers some pidgin. Standard revolution stuff.” He looked back at me, and I stiffened. “Can’t quite catch your dialect, by the way.”

“Classified,” Rat said haughtily.

“Guys! Someone left us snacks!” Eli called from another room.

Snacks? Awesome and a good excuse. I took a step toward Eli. I didn’t know how much Rat wanted to disclose anyway, but I might as well explain a little. “But I’m not really from around here. Tersatellus in general.” I walked over to Eli but still stayed in sight just in case they started discussing something important.

He held up a basket of vegetables with a grin. “I think I haven’t eaten, like, half of these…”

I smiled back but didn’t take anything just in case I chose one he hadn’t tried. “Craw’s intimidating.”

Eli looked thoughtful. “I can see how you’d feel that way. You haven’t even heard him imitate your voice yet.” That was cool but surprising. “That’s always startling, too. He’s very talented…” He looked up suddenly. “Do you think I’m intimidating at all?”

I shook my head immediately. He was always so kind and considerate. “No. You’re awesome.”

He relaxed. “Alright. Do you need us to do anything about Craw?”

I frowned. “I think Rat has it covered. Would he really back off if I told him I was aromantic and asexual?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure. Notice how he doesn’t try it on me.” Eli messed with the basket wrapping. “I’m…new to a lot of this, but as far as I understand it, well—it’s different from most of the rest of the world, too, but the vast majority of us—Tersatellans—are asexual. Including him, I think. He, uh, just goes in real big for the romance. A lot of cutouts do. Again, though, I’m not exactly an expert or anything.” He was blushing.

I nodded and relaxed. I didn’t need to be intimidated by him. He would back off if I could just find the words to explain myself.

We waited in the commons area of the hotel room, just talking, waiting for Lily and Ivy to arrive. I mostly didn’t talk because I still felt a little intimidated by Craw, but he was a cool guy. I just wasn’t the best at interacting with people.

There was a knock on the door, and Rat jumped up with Craw to open it, and Eli followed a little slower. I just poked my head out of the room to watch. I didn’t want to be too intimidated again like I was with Craw.

Craw opened the door, and two women who looked similar were standing there. One of them had long, dark gray hair and violet eyes, and she was a little taller than the other one. They had said that would be Lily. The other woman had shorter more silver hair, and lavender eyes, and I had an ominous feeling about her. So, this was Ivy.

Both Rat and Lily stiffened and frowned when they saw each other, and I frowned too. Weren’t they supposed to be kind of friends?

“Look what the cat dragged in. What kind of cheap tar here’s polluting our good streets?” Lily said.

Rat snarled back. “If these streets were ever good, your feet’d burn.”

Lily snorted and then laughed, full and happy. Oh. So they were acting. “You just come up with this on the fly, eh?” she whooped and walked inside. “Hope you don’t mind me breaking and entering.” Ivy walked in after Lily and closed the door behind her and just hovered in the doorway. That was a mood.

Lily’s eyes landed on Eli. “And you’re here. That’s fine.” She sounded a little awkward. Eli mumbled something as Lily’s eyes landed on me. She frowned. “Uh…”

I sucked in a breath and shuffled into the hallway, fully into view. I wasn’t going to sound as nervous as I had around Craw. “I’m Kai. And—and I’m not from around here. Rat and Eli picked me up and took me along on their roadtrip.”

“Oh, huh.” She looked a little baffled. “That’s jazz for you, isn’t it? You do any crime or what?”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “I’m a thief.”

“Oh, good.” Lily sighed. “Well, in case you haven’t heard, I’m Lily, and that’s my sister Ivy.” She gestured behind her where Ivy was still hovering near the door. “We’re mostly into smuggling, but if you need a fence, we can figure things out.”

I nodded as a smile tugged at my lips. Cool. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I do.”

Lily hopped on the couch and sat with her boots up. She glanced over at Eli, who looked shocked. “You fishes look lost. Dirt gets around out here. First rule: feet stay anonymous.”

I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but I wasn’t going to ask. “She’s got a bunch of knowledge of the area,” Craw said appreciatively and sat down beside her. She made a face at him and snatched her beacon back.

“I hope the second rule’s got to do with food,” Rat said as she took off her boots and socks. I agreed with the food part. I was already hungry even after I ate some snacks.

“You are a vile little snake and I appreciate it,” Lily sneered. Rat made a heart with her hands back. This was an interesting relationship. “So you’ve really just been road tripping, huh? That innocent?”

“I’m a rehabilitated lady,” Rat said sweetly. I snorted.

Lily seemed to have the same opinion of Rat’s statement that I did. “My tail,” she scoffed.

“I think she’s at least committing a little less crime lately,” Eli pointed out. “But that might just be because of me. Or because we have less time.”

“There’s always time for crime,” Rat said. “I’ve just been doing too much partying instead. It’s the new year! Live it up! And I’m seeing as many of you ungrateful jacks as I can.” Lily pretended to be stabbed at that last sentence. “Yeah, yeah. I kind of imagined we’d all go buy a castle with our winnings and live together. I couldn’t believe you all had independent goals and dreams. Like—med school? Did Craw say that right?”

“I never misspeak.” Craw sounded offended.

“Yeah, but you gossip and lie.”

“Got me there, officer.”

“I said that’s what I’d be doing.” Lily paused. “…Did some camping and soul-searching awhile first. Got lost in a weird swamp. Fought off gritty creeps. Real good young adult experience.”

“Oh…good,” Rat said, and then she looked over at Ivy. “Hey, and how’re you, Ivy?”

“Fine.”

“………Well, fabulous.” They fell into an awkward silence, and I didn’t really know what to say to help out.

And after a few uncomfortable minutes, Noct decided to bark and trot in as if she knew how to break the silence. And everything slowed down as Lily pulled out a gun. I instinctively rushed forward and scooped Noct up in my hands before turning around and biting my lip. “Don’t shoot. I made her a few days ago.”

Lily lowered her gun, staring at me with a shocked expression. “That’s a…dog?”

I nodded, and I hunched down as I felt everyone’s eyes on me. Great. “Yeah. I made her from scraps at Steele’s house…”

“Oh? Oh! Are you his, uh, apprentice or something?”

I glanced over at Rat and Eli. Did he even have apprentices? “No? I just met him for a few days when we went to Farsia.”

“She’s just real smart and knows how to make stuff, too. Bit of a tinkerer,” Rat said. Eli smiled and nodded. I just flushed at the praise and sat back down.

Lily scoffed. “Pah, we got enough o’ you ought here. Wicked good on you for stealing from Steele, though. Knock that one down a peg.” She nodded at Rat, and I frowned at both of them. What, did she think I stole from him? That would be scary to actually try. “Decent dog, I’ll admit. On a thieving tour, are you?”

Pause. Rat responded. “No, we’re just kinda sightseeing—”

“Okay, this ducky ain’t much for conversation.” Lily sighed. And I just frowned. Ducky? “I got it. You and Ivy, you two’re gonna get along just fine.” She turned to Rat. “Want some grub?”

“Is that a date?” Rat raised an eyebrow.

Lily shrugged. “Figure you, me and Craw can be fun, hit the streets, knock some dust off some shelves while the shut-ins sit in their corners and entertain themselves.” She smiled a radiant smile, and her voice got all sweet like syrup on top of sugar. “Heaven knows I love nothing more than splitting us up into sides.”

“I’m fun,” Eli protested. “And so is Kai. You’re just confusing her. And she didn’t steal anything from my brother. We just visited. For fun. It was a good time.”

“Oh, for sure. Enough fun to knock the stains off the walls, I bet.” Lily stood up. “Anyone actually interested in gambling or grub? It’s getting dark, and I sleep from 4:00 to noon, no sooner. Who’s in?”

“I’ll check out the scene,” Rat said. She stood up and locked an arm around Lily’s with a dark smile. And Lily’s smile faltered. “And I’ll keep you in check.”

“There’s food here,” Eli said, eying both me and Rat. “I’ll stay with Kai.”

I smiled over at Eli and nodded, resisting the urge to eye Lily’s pockets. She had been rude to Eli, so I was going to be petty. “Sounds fun.”

“It’s a nice hotel—I think you’ll like it here,” Craw said as he joined the others.

“Babysit Ivy for me,” Lily added.

Rat glanced over at Ivy. “Hurt either of them and I eat your mainframe.”

“You are the sweetest monster I have ever met,” Ivy said faintly, a ghost of a smile on her lips. She slid onto the couch Lily left. Eli glared at her.

“If anyone asks, I was here all night,” Rat told Eli, holding up her beacon. “And if you ask, I’ll be back in minutes.” They smiled at each other before she turned to me. “And don’t go hunting without a buddy, sis.”

The aliens. I smirked back at her. I had learned my lesson by now. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

They headed out, and I leaned toward Eli. “Do you know what room Lily and Ivy are staying in?” I had decided against trying to steal directly from Lily’s pockets, so instead I was going to steal something unimportant from her room.

Eli shrugged, and Ivy looked over at us and tilted her head. “You’re going to steal from her, aren’t you?” Crap. She figured me out. After a pause, she pointed. “1017. Five doors to the right. She hides her special bag behind the curtains in the washroom.”

I grinned over at her and gave her a thumbs up before I ran out of the room while Eli stared after me with a bewildered expression. Lily had insulted both Eli and me. I wasn’t about to let that happen without payback.

I put on gloves (since I didn’t know if Lily somehow had fingerprint identification abilities) before I picked the lock to 1017, and I slipped in and found the bag right where Ivy said it would be. I shuffled through various wristwatches (she sure had a lot) and picked out a nice digital one that I could work on so that it would say a dumb message.

I put everything back where it was and slipped out of the room and back to ours. I ran back into the commons area and sat backwards in a chair as I started tinkering. Ivy was staring off into the distance while her eyes glowed, and Eli was playing fetch with Noct, using a paperclip as a stick.

I looked over at him, frowning. “I’m sorry that you stayed behind because of me.”

He looked up at me. “Oh. That’s alright.” He smiled. “It’s something I chose to do, so that makes it good, right?” He grimaced. “Well, that was vague. Sorry—I don’t always have the best words for things…”

I shrugged, thinking back on meeting Craw and Lily. “Me neither. But thanks for playing with Noct. I know she appreciates it.”

He smiled, and I looked back down at the wristwatch as I got into the wiring. I was getting close to changing the message that would show up when she turned it on. I had decided to make an inside joke. It would say “Alien malware detected”.

When Eli didn’t say anything, I looked back up, and the smile was still frozen on his face, but it wasn’t reaching his eyes. I frowned. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Nononono,” he said quickly, blinking and raking a hand through his hair. “It’s fine. You’re fine.” He gestured at Noct. “It’s just…interesting…to…think about…Never mind.”

“Great. You’ve got him questioning him humanity,” Ivy sighed. I frowned deeper. Crap. I didn’t mean to make him feel bad.

“I am not. I’m just…waxing philosophical. Which is a perfectly fine and normal thing to do.”

Ivy shot him a doubtful look as her eyes stopped glowing. “You’ve got enough liquid lightning in your body to power this skyscraper for days. Nothing you do is normal.” She shrugged as his fists clenched, and I tensed. She seemed to say things that made the others unhappy so casually. “But yes, that’s still fine. It’s the perfectly normal people you have to be suspicious of, anyway.”

I decided to ignore her comment, since it had upset Eli. I set down the wristwatch and clasped my hands so that I wouldn’t fiddle with them as I turned completely toward him. “I’m sorry. If it makes you feel better, I didn’t program these emotions. She developed them all on her own.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re welcome.” He paused and nodded to himself. “I’m not entirely sure what opinion to attach to that fact, but I think it’s a good one. And I’m really impressed.” He smiled. “Just don’t tell my brother. Or my sister-in-law.” His smile fell. “Or Vastate. I wonder if you’ll meet him.”

“Why does it seem like Rat has free tickets to visit that freak show any time she wants?” Ivy frowned.

“Rat’s sneaky enough that it’s like she has free tickets to visit anywhere whenever she wants,” Eli said loudly.

“Are you burying something, punk?”

“It’s Eli. And are you digging for something?”

She stared blankly at him for a little bit before standing up. “That was me tactfully electing not to make a very cruel joke. I’ve spent the last of my social energy. Rat’s teaching you how to win conversations. I’m really impressed.” She glanced at me, and I frowned back. She seemed a little unnerving. “Nice meeting you.” A ghost of a smile crossed her lips before she walked off back to her own room.”

Eli watched her go then turned to me. “That went well, I think.”

I shrugged. “I guess. I’m…not sure about her.”

“That’s an appropriate judgment.”

We were mostly quiet the rest of the night as I finished up the wristwatch and waited for Rat to come back. She came back still full of energy and loud, and she told us about her time with a grin on her lips. But then she crashed quickly, and Eli and I went to our separate rooms, with Eli bringing Rat along to his room.

I fell asleep almost instantly, and of course, I had to have another dream.

“My dear, come with me.” Tila smiled and gestured for me to follow her, and of course I had to. I just followed at a distance so I wouldn’t have to feel the emotion dampening.

She led me to one of the rooms where they held their tests on us, and I froze. He was there. I couldn’t recall his name still, but that didn’t stop the rush of emotion. He was crumpled on the ground, bleeding from multiple cuts from their knives. There were already bruises forming on his face too.

I ran up to him, tears streaking down my cheeks. I was supposed to protect everyone. But I couldn’t. And the aliens knew it and loved it.

I looked him up and down when I reached him and searched his pockets for bandages I could use to wrap his wounds. I had to stop the blood flow. As I found them, Tila walked up behind me, but not close enough to affect my emotions.

“My dear, you should know by now that you are alone. They can’t save you, and you can’t save them. All that will happen is that they will get hurt because of you. You aren’t able to protect them. You are alone. Embrace it.”

I sucked in a breath and clenched my fists. “You don’t know anything! I won’t listen to you. They’re the closest I have to family.”

“They aren’t your family, and they never will be. They’re happy you’re taking all of the punishment for them. They might pretend that they feel bad, but they’re relieved they don’t have to get hurt. They aren’t appreciative. They’d rather you be hurt.”

The tears fell faster, and I probably tied one of his bandages too tight. “You’re—you’re wrong…”

“You’re alone, Kaira. And you always will be. We’re the only ones who will stay. The others would leave you in a heartbeat.”

A sob escaped my lips. I didn’t know what to believe. They would all be hurt because of me. It would be better if they left me and I was alone. I turned away from him, but he grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight.

“Kai. We’re here for you. Don’t believe her.” He smiled weakly up at me, but Tila stomped up, close enough to affect my emotions. I sighed, and the tears stopped falling, but there was still a dull ache.

“Shut up,” she snarled and kicked him in the ribs. I flinched as he cried out in pain. “You’ve gotten too used to my powers anyway. You should be punished.” Her knife flashed, but I instinctively moved between him and her, and she caught me in the arm. I screamed, and she laughed.

I snapped awake, sitting up immediately as I tried to slow my breathing. Tears streaked down my cheeks, and my pillow was soaked from them. Alone. I had always been alone, at least from what I could remember. If these dreams were real, I had friends in the past. But I had left them, forgotten them. They probably hated me now. I was alone…

I shot up and opened the door of my room. I didn’t want to bother Rat and Eli, but I needed to see them. The thoughts and fragmented memories were weighing down on me too much.

I probably should have knocked on the door just in case they wanted some privacy, but I didn’t. I just slipped in. I didn’t want to wake them, just in case.

They were already awake though, and they both looked up when I slipped in. I sucked in a breath and clasped my hands. “Is it okay if I stay with you for a while?”

Rat nodded, her eyebrows raised, and Eli spoke quickly. “Yeah—please.”

I hated intruding, but… I slinked over to the bed and perched on the edge near them, but not too close. I kept trying to keep my breathing sounding normal, but it was still too heavy. I didn’t want to worry them. “Just a bad dream. I didn’t want to be alone…” I mumbled. Eli nodded, and Rat looked between us like she wanted to say something. I frowned. “I hope I’m not intruding on anything. Why were you two up?”

“Can’t sleep,” Eli whispered. Oh. Eli also needed someone right now.

“I’m still buzzing from my spin on town,” Rat said.

Eli hugged his knees tighter against his chest. “You don’t have to lie for me.” He fell quiet, and Rat put a hand on his arm. His hand trailed along his elbow, where I could barely see, through the machinery, a dark red glow through his skin. Also what looked like a scar. “Did we tell you why I’m…like this?” he murmured.

I frowned. Something about being dead? “I think so, if you don’t want to talk about it.” I didn’t want to talk about my dream yet, so I understood.

He nodded. “When I was…asleep…” His voice caught on the word. “It was dark. It was so dark all the time, and I couldn’t—I had to stay hidden. And it’s been months. But every time I try to sleep—every time I can’t see light—it feels like going back. To not breathing. It’s been months, but I still…” He looked around the darkened corners of the room, and he shivered and buried his face in his hands. Rat put an arm around his shoulders. “I understand the bad dreams. I understand not being alone.”

“And you’re not,” Rat said quietly.

My heart ached, and I moved over to the other side of Eli and half hugged him tentatively just in case he didn’t want to be hugged. “We’re family.” He gingerly returned the hug but didn’t say anything. Hopefully, that helped. I bit my lip. I didn’t want to make it about myself, but if he was willing to share, I should share too. “I’ve been having dreams about my past, most likely. And it seems that the aliens pursuing me have always been trying to convince me that I’m alone. And they were pretty successful in this last dream.” I flinched at the memory and hugged Eli tighter. They were wrong. I had a family, even on a different world.

“Since we’re right here, I’m guessing it’s the kind of alone that’s got nothing to do with who’s physically around but—the kind of alone in here?” Rat put a hand over her heart. “Feels like you can’t really be safe with anyone, can’t know them, can’t get known? Too dangerous, too risky, too hard and futile because there’s always something that’ll come between you? And it’s like…glass walls. Between you and the rest of the world, and you can watch and people can never really know or be there. That kind of alone?”

I nodded. “They said that anyone close to me would get hurt because of me.”

“That’s the worst.” Rat sounded genuinely sad. “I’m sorry, Kai.” She reached across Eli, her hand outstretched toward me.

I took her hand and closed my eyes. I actually felt safe. “Thank you for not leaving me alone.”

We just sat in silence like that for a while, and I leaned against Eli. I fell asleep next to them.

#writeblr #A New Dawn

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lilaclovestowrite · 5 years ago

Text

Arcade Chaos (Katsuki x Cheerful!Reader)

“ Bakugo oneshot with cheerful!reader at arcade plz? ”

Type: Request from Quotev

Words: 2556

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing: Katsuki x Reader

Genre: Hint of fluff, lots of Katsuki rage lol, and mainly humor

Summary: Somehow, you’re able to drag your crush, Katsuki Bakugou, to an arcade for the day. Of course, this creates chaos, since the Bakusquad happens to be there as well. But maybe, after all the chaos, you’ll finally be able to confess your true feelings to him!

Warnings:

None

💥💥💥

“Why the heck are we in this lame place!?” questioned an irritated Katsuki.

“Cuz arcades are fun!” I answered, leading him in by the hand. He was very resistant—but he was no match for my nonexistent strength.

“Fun? This place is for nerds who live in their mom’s basement. Just like stupid—”

“Deku, yeah, yeah,” I finished for him with a blasé attitude. “I’ve heard it all before. Why don’t you just focus on something else besides Midoriya?”

“Pfft, like what?”

“Uh, something that actually matters. Video games, obviously.”

“I’m leaving.” Just as he tried to escape, I pulled him back.

“Get yer hands off me!” He flicked his wrist away from me, and huffed as he scanned the arcade’s interior.

“Come on, please stay with me for just an hour? PLEEEEEAAAASSSEEEEEE~!?” I forcefully smiled, holding my hands together in a purposely pathetic pose.

“Well, you already kidnapped me so—whatever. And what’s the difference between these games and the ones on my phone? Only geeks play these chunky, 8-bit fossils.”

“Trust me. You’ll see,” I vaguely left as an answer.

After I dragged Katsuki around the building, I asked him if anything caught his eye. “So, do you know what game you wanna play?”

“’Nuke the Zombies’ didn’t look too trashy, I guess.”

I blinked once. “Uhh, how about something more child-friendly?”

“Fine. How about ’Blow up the Bunny’ then?”

Why did I ever think this was a good idea?

“Let’s not.”

But what we didn’t know, is that our other friends happened to be here as well! Eijiro, Denki, Hanta, and Mina approached us all at once.

“Wow! Hey, guys! Nice to see you here,” Eijiro greeted.

Hanta laughed. “Didn’t really expect to see you two here. . .specifically, together.”

“The heck you mean by that!?” Katsuki nearly erupted, but I held him back.

“Oh, y’know—just figured you’d be at home plotting your revenge for Midoriya or something.”

His response only earned him a snarl from Katsuki. But Mina, on the other hand, decided to push all of Katsuki’s buttons without thinking.

“Maybe they’re on a date!!” she gasped. “WAIT, ARE YOU—”

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!! This isn’t a heckin’ date!” Katsuki debunked. “She bugged me nonstop about coming to this trash hole, and finally got on my nerves, so I came.”

By the smug look on my friend’s faces—they were obviously not buying it. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have minded it if were a date. Considering I’ve always had a thing for Katsuki. People may have thought I was crazy for liking someone so spastic with anger management issues—but there was more to him than just his atrocious personality. He had a lot of admirable qualities like uh, well, I’ll think of some later.

“Alright then~” Mina giggled.

“Guys, when can we play some games?” asked Denki.

“Right now!” Eijiro made an immediate beeline for Whac-A-Mole. “Bakugou, you gotta try out this game! I used to play it when I was younger, and it’s so much fun.”

“The heck is it?”

Katsuki stormed over and studied the attributes of the vintage game, while Eijiro explained the rules of it to him.

“And when the mole thing rises up, you just hit it with this mallet!”

“Pfft, sounds like a baby game. Pass.”

“Aw, c’mon!” I joined in, trying to convince him to try it out.

Hanta agreed, “Yeah! Don’t be such a wet blanket, man.”

After all our nagging, he eventually gave in and reluctantly picked up the game mallet. “Gross, a thousand brats probably got their diseased germs all over this thing.”

“They’re not as diseased as your attitude, that’s for sure—”

“COME AGAIN, KNOCK-OFF PIKACHU!?!”

“Hey, hey,” Eijiro tried calming. “Just try one round at least!”

“Ugh, fine.”

Once the game started, the plastic moles slowly rose up from their holes, and each one was hammered by Katsuki. He displayed his obvious boredom through stance and expression.

“This game is about as fun as watching paint dry.”

“Oh, it gets harder,” I snickered.

“This is about as hard as using Deku as a football.”

But he was soon showed otherwise—as the game’s difficulty increased. The moles now only stayed up for half a second now, and even Katsuki was having a hard time keeping up.

“C’mon, dude! Whack them!” Eijiro cheered.

“THIS STUPID MALLET ISN’T WORKING!!!” he screeched, causing the rest of the people around us to stare. It was a bit embarrassing. But that’s my penalty for going out in public with Katsuki. “DIE, RATS, DIEEEEEE!!!!” So, he dropped the mallet, and just started exploding the moles with his hands.

And of course, the result was he melted the arcade machine. All the moles were now nothing but liquefied plastic, which was totally uncalled for compared to the games standards.

I walked back to my friend’s table with Katsuki by my side.

“Alright, I just called Katsuki’s therapist and he was able to, er—scream out his issues. So, I think we’re good!” I informed with a thumbs up.

“My therapist can bite rocks.”

I let out a sigh of disappointment at his rude response.

“Hey, (Y/N)! Did you see any games that caught your eye?” Hanta wondered.

I answered with, “Hmm. . .well, I did wanna play Whac-A-Mole. But now it’s melted into the flooring, so. . .”

“It wasn’t even fun,” Katsuki downplayed. “I have more fun beating Deku. Wait—they should make a game called Whac-A-Deku. Now, I’d play that.”

We only stared at our friend, mildly disturbed.

Hanta said, “Pac-Man it is, then.”

After playing a few more games, we headed to the eating area. We ordered some pizza and soda, so we just chatted as we ate.

“You guys, what do you think is better? Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man?” asked Mina.

“They’re the same thing, Raccoon Eyes.”

“NO, PAC-MAN IS A MAN, AND MS. PAC-MAN IS A WOMAN.”

I awkwardly nibbled on my pizza, watching the conversation between them take a nosedive for the worst.

“Guys, is butter a carb?” Katsuki asked us.

Denki replied, “I don’t know—I don’t watch Gordon Ramsey.”

“Whatever, I’m getting cheese fries.” He launched his pizza in the trash can (which he carelessly missed), and headed back to the ordering station.

Just as Katsuki got out of earshot, Mina immediately began interrogating me.

“So. . .ya sure you two weren’t on a date~?”

I went red with total shock and embarrassment. “What? No way! He doesn’t like me like that.”

Hanta chuckled. “He liked you enough for you to literally drag him here. That’s like, a deathwish for most people.”

I knew he had a point.

Eijiro said, “Plus, he needs a girlfriend. He needs someone to keep him fairly sane.”

All their talking had me blushing. Yes, I liked Katsuki a lot—but I never thought it’d go any further than that. However, you never know about these kind of things.

“So. . .should I ask him out or something?” I hesitantly questioned.

“Go ahead! I mean, there’s not a line of girls trying to date him, that’s for sure.”

I took it into consideration. Maybe today, I should try to make a move. I mean, YOLO, amirite?

“Alright, I’ll try next time I see him,” I gulped.

They all smiled uncontrollably, but instinctively stopped once Katsuki returned to the table.

“Why’re you idiots all staring at me like a bunch of idiots?”

“Oh, uh—well. . .” I mentally prepared myself for rejection. I knew all my friends were bursting at the seams, waiting for me to confess my feelings to Katsuki. But it was just so awkward. So, I chickened out. “I uh, wanted to know if you were gonna share your cheese fries with me.”

“What does share mean?”

I could hear Eijiro facepalm. So, I ended the awkwardness with, “Nothing! Just eat your fries—”

Later, we all continued searching for what else to play.

So, I cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention. “Ahem. How about we do something that’s multiplayer?”

“You mean like a competition?” Katsuki wondered, a psychotic smile forming on his face once the idea of winning first place entered his mind. Now, we were all scared.

“Uh, you’re smiling like a psycho again—I MEAN, uh, yeah! We just need to find a game that allows two players. . .and one that isn’t taken.” As I examined the room and every one of its consoles, I found one that caught my eye.

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).

“Hmm, I know! That one!” I excitedly pointed to the one I was referring to.

“OMG, that one is so cool! I used to play it when I was younger!” Mina beamed.

“Oh, great. Dancing? I thought you’d pick something that would actually hold my interest. Like no-scoping zombies or something.”

I crossed my arms and said the thing I knew would make him do what I wanted. “What? You think you can’t beat me? Think I’m gonna win instead~?”

“Pfft, in your dreams. I’d beat you at any game at any time of the week. You’re a lame gamer.”

“You think so, eh? Well, let’s just find out!” I skipped over to the DDR machine and patiently waited for the two children to finish up their round. However, patience wasn’t an idea Katsuki could process in his arrogant brain.

“Hit the road, punks! I’ve got a game to win!” He shoved the two kids off, and cleared the platforms for both of us. I tried mouthing an apology to the two schoolboys, but they had already escaped to find their parents.

Katsuki extended his arms and stretched out his fingers. Eijiro and Hanta approached me, asking if I was sure this was a good idea. I knew Katsuki was unhealthily obsessed with winning, but that only made it more fun being his opponent, at least in my opinion! (Plus, seeing him fail was ten-times funnier).

“Go easy on her, dude,” Denki tried helping out.

“No way, Calamari. I’m not a braindead loser like you.” Finishing up his mini exercise, he stepped onto the dance platform. “What’re you waiting for, girly?” Katsuki snarked at me with a confident smirk.

I stepped on mine as well, and scrolled through the list of songs to perform. “We could start with easy mode,” I offered.

“No way. Go for the hardest mode you can find.”

Someone was going to break their legs, and it wasn’t going to be Midoriya this time around.

“Oh. . .well, uh—alright!” I landed my finger on this Vocaloid song called The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, which was apparently the most challenging one on this menu. “Alright, there’s the modes: Beginner, Intermediate, Pro, Master, and uh, Death.”

“Choose Death then.”

With a cloud of anxiousness looming over my figure, I pressed that option. I didn’t know what to expect—but I was scared.

“How bad can it be?” chuckled Eijiro.

Oh, but it was pain. It was the most torture I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

When the gameplay started, it wasn’t too hard in the intro of the song. But when the fast part came, it was like we were dancing to save our lives. People in the building came to spectate us and our anguish—but our friends cheered us on the entire time.

“REEEEEEEEE, END MEEEEEEEEEE!!!” Katsuki screeched as he barely managed to touch the flashing tiles on his platform.

I felt as if I was jumping across a room full of nails sticking straight up. I could barely keep up with the beat of the song, and I was already exhausted. But we weren’t even halfway into it.

“BEATING ALL FOR ONE IS EASIER THAN THIS TORTURE MACHINE!” roared Katsuki.

“You’re almost to the beat break!” Hanta reassured.

Finally, the first verse of the song ended. So, our legs could take a break for a few seconds. Katsuki and I were desperately trying to regain oxygen, since it was such a rush. When we looked at our current scores—I saw that I was luckily five points higher than Katsuki.

“WHAT THE HECK!? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE!?” he raged.

“HA.”

Everyone cheered for me at the moment, but Katsuki wasn’t having it. He was more than determined to beat me now.

When the gameplay resumed, we continued to push ourselves to dance on the correct tiles. Our scores were nearing closer together, and it was only a matter of time before one of us passed each other for good and won.

“ALMOST THERE,” Katsuki spoke to himself, as he glimpsed at his own score.

But just the moment before it was all over, Denki accidentally activated his Quirk due to the hype building up in his system—and it shot out at the DDR machine, causing it to short-circuit and die.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Katsuki bellowed out, as he fell on his knees and placed his hands on the now black screen. “I’M GONNA KILL YOU, STUPID PIKACHU!!!”

However, it was pointless because Denki already fried his brain and went dumb. “Wheyyyy~”

Eijiro couldn’t help but laugh hysterically, along with Hanta and Mina. It only made Katsuki’s blood boil—and frankly, I couldn’t help but giggle too.

“I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS PAIN.” Katsuki stood up and stalked out of the arcade. Of course, I followed him.

“Katsuki! Don’t be upset. It’s only a game.”

“I WAS SO CLOSE TO WINNING!” he fumed. “I COULD HAVE BROKEN THE STUPID RECORD—”

“Shh, just relax! They’ll probably fix it, and we can always come back later.” I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, which he surprisingly didn’t flick off.

“Hmph. I’m never playing that demon game ever again.”

I laughed softly. “Well, there’s plenty of other games. But other than the fact Denki shut off the game—did you have fun?”

He turned his head to me, and for I moment, I swear I saw his eyes soften by a fraction. “Maybe a little—but not that much.”

I’ll take that as a yes, coming from him.

But now that we were together with no other distractions, I decided to take a risk and slide my hand into his. He widened his eyes—since affection was probably a concept far removed from his unfriendly mentality.

I looked down at the floor and smiled, saying, “I was thinking, Katsuki. Would you uh, would you consider being my Player Two?”

I didn’t even care how cheesy I was being at this point.

“The heck does that mean?”

Our friends screamed from a distance, “SHE’S ASKING YOU OUT, GENIUS!”

Katsuki stiffened up, since he was struggling to find a riposte to throw back in my face. But it was relentless. Instead, he let out a sigh and told me, “That’s the sappiest and most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard—but sure. You’re not as annoying as the others.”

I strained my cheeks from smiling so much, and I threw my arms gleefully around Katsuki. The others were probably afraid he’d blow up or something, but thankfully, he didn’t. Instead, he returned the favor by awkwardly rubbing my head.

“They’re so cute together~” sighed Mina.

“Yeah, Bakugou better not screw it up,” Eijiro added with a smile.

“It’s Bakugou, he screws everything up.”

“True.”

Maybe coming to this place was a good idea after all~

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totaldramafan-lauri · 5 years ago

Text

RPing and me

This is gonna be a vent post about something that happened today, and it gets into stuff that happened in the past, so if you don’t care about that, don’t read.

As I’ve alluded to in a few past posts, I have an RPing background (it’s where my typing style came from, heheh XD). I used to RP all the flipping time when I was a teenager, and was a part of many groups over the years, RPing characters in a few different fandoms. But, after a certain incident, that I’ll get into later, I....haven’t done it in years. I was super discouraged to, and....kinda afraid to, to be honest. I-I know it sounds stupid, but....yeah.

But recently, thanks to the Discord server I’ve endlessly gushed about, I’ve been kinda easing myself back into it.....m-mainly for indulgence purposes, sure, but that’s kinda the point of the server.....And I’ve even become interested in diving into the stuff....I, er, never tried before....And so far, I’ve had a pretty good time. They’re not serious RPs, and usually they aren’t all that long, but the fact that my new friends are willing to....i-indulge me like that, even a little....m-makes me very happy.....>/////<

So, last night, a friend on Discord had started an RP with me. And.....it was getting really good....like, it was going in a direction that I really....was excited about. But.....then, they stopped it. All of a sudden, with no warning....they gave a reason for it, and sounded really sincere, so I’m not mad at them at all, but....it still stung. Getting excited over something and then very suddenly being let down has aaaalways been a weakness of mine.....and with this in particular....I cried. I actually, physically cried. And I immediately hated myself for it. I began beating on myself for overreacting, which led to me blaming myself for.....pretty much everything. I thought that maybe they were lying, maybe it was because of ME. Like, I was just THAT boring.

It led to a downward spiral of self-loathing that I vented to everyone about, and they thankfully helped me feel better, but.....geez, what a way for that to happen. What a stupid flipping thing to be the catalyst for a breakdown, right? XD

Well....it also reminded me of why I stopped RPing. Because I was scared of stuff like this. Not just RPs I like being dropped, but me reacting like THAT. I know all too well about being so invested in an RP, the feelings for a character being so overwhelmingly strong that you just want it to keep going, and then everything screeching to a halt so fast that you can practically hear a record scratch in the background.....and then finding out that you were the only one having fun.

The last RP group I was in, when I was 17-18....I won’t give away the fandom or the website cuz I wanna keep details vague, just in case some of the people somehow ended up here....I was absolutely in love with this group, and the story we had created. I spent so many nights with them, RPing or even just talking OOC. We even had a nice schedule where we would RP on a specific three nights of the week. The story was really intense and emotional, and it had took many exciting turns over the year....My OC even ended up in a relationship with the character I was crushing on, and I didn’t even ask for it, it just happened. Sometimes, people would plan out stuff around my character without me to leave me in suspense, and it worked every single time. So, naturally, I was very very content with everything. But then, people started to drift....at first, I thought it was because of school and other IRL stuff, and didn’t think much of it, but THEN....after about a year of fun times....

The mods came to a decision to.....restart the RP from scratch. It was completely outta nowhere, and naturally, I....didn’t respond too well. I BROKE DOWN. I asked, over and over, why, why would you do this, why would you erase everything we’ve built, why would you act like it never happened, there’s gotta be another way to renew interest that DOESN’T involve that.....And the answers I got just made it worse.

To put it simply: People were unhappy with the way things were going. Things had become too dark and dramatic, and they wanted things to be more lighthearted. To rub salt in the wound, everyone else was perfectly fine with this RP reset, despite the fact that it would be leaving the old RP ending on a cliffhanger. It was just ME who was freaking out.

That’s when it hit me that.....yeah, I was the only one who was still having fun.

I....took that part pretty hard. I began thinking back to everything that happened, evaluating the way everyone acted, looking for ANY signs that I should’ve noticed sooner....I recalled a couple instances of me expressing interest in certain plots....and distaste in certain others. I recalled me saying things like “I don’t like that” and thinking it was fine for me to say that because I wasn’t explicitly ASKING them not to do it. I recalled a few times where I would act out or have a meltdown when an RP session would get cancelled. I recalled a few times where an RPer would quit and only come back if certain things became closer to canon, and me making passive aggressive comments toward them....

And I realized.....the problem was me. The reason no one was having fun anymore was me. The reason everything had to be reset was because of me. Everyone had done so much to make me happy, and I hadn’t even considered thinking about how they felt. I had only thought about what I wanted. And the more things went my way, the more invested I got....Everyone was too nice to tell me I was acting like a spoiled brat.

I tried to keep going after the reset, but couldn’t do it. Not only did it leave a sour taste in my mouth, but there were a crapload of new rules put in place (some of which that I just plain didn’t agree with) that ensured the story wouldn’t go to a dark place (which, again, I had liked) again.

And....ever since then, I....I really started checking and double-checking myself for manipulative behaviors. I was even told by someone that it sounded like I was “manipulating” everyone, and having that said to me really hurt. It was never my intention, but....was I really a manipulative person? Was I really.....selfishly forcing people to pay attention to me? Because I got too invested in the RP?...

So...that’s why I never joined another group. Finding out that I basically ruined my last one and I didn’t find out until it was too late hurt too much....There were TIMES I’d try again, but it always had me thinking, over and over, “How does the other person feel? Are they having as much fun as me?” and feeling guilty whenever I’d get invested because of that.

I never want any RP partners to feel bored or uncomfortable with me ever again....Put those worries together with my usual low self-esteem, and....yeah.

Getting back into RPing recently has been good for the most part, but....Now and then, I get reminded of the things that made me stop. The worries of bothering people, of not feeling like I’m worth anyone’s time, of not wanting them to deal with my crap...of people getting sick of me......of not wanting things like that to happen again.....

Last night, I got reminded of the person I used to be, who had gotten so addicted to RPing that she no longer considered that the people she was playing with were actual people with feelings.

I never wanna become that person again.

At least I learned from that experience. I’ll give myself that much.

#venting

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moonstone-writes · 6 years ago

Note

If you're still looking for prompts, how about 93? “I’m telling you. I’m haunted.”

Wow okay, this got... long. Hope you enjoy it

The Ghost of You

Prison wasnot at all to Cyrille Le Paradox’s taste, he had found his incarceration as ayouth a loathsome experience and could only say that the second time aroundthings just seemed worse.

The ghost was certainly not helping.

The hauntinghad been unobtrusive if annoying at first. Small things, like items movingunderfoot and low hanging objects falling or swinging down onto his head, nowit was getting worse. His tray would fly from his hands at meals, more thanonce putting him at risk of severe bodily harm as other, bigger, angrierinmates would find themselves covered in Cyrille’s food. His toes permanentlyached, he missed the simple ability to walk across a room without stubbing themagainst something. His bed shook when he tried to sleep and a piercing noisethat it seemed only he could hear followed him almost constantly.

He’d ignoredthe happenings for a time, attributing the phenomenon to clumsiness and tirednessborn of stress, then he’d seen Cooper standing in his cell behind him.

He lookedmuch as he had the last time Cyrille had seen him, still clutching his cane,his hat pulled low over his eyes but spectral, see through.

There onlyfor a second before vanishing.

At thatpoint Cyrille really had to admit, “yeah… I’m haunted.”

It wascertainly a unique problem, one that Cyrille was absolutely in the dark abouthow to solve.

“It’s a conundrumto be sure Boss.” The lone ally Cyrille had in this nightmare was Forrent, a twitchyweasel with no sense of smell who had cozied up to Cyrille in the hopes ofprotection.

Cyrillerubbed a hand over his face, trying to stay awake. Cooper’s ghost was determinedto deny him rest at night and he couldn’t sleep during the day, guards took umbrageto prisoners napping in the yard and to his fellow inmates, a sleeping targetwas an easy target.

“Heard a…heard a rumour ‘bout someone who might be able to help with your situation.”

“You did?Who?”

“Prison inthe women’s section. Word is she’s been transferred here while she’s waiting on a hearing at the Hague.”

Cyrille’ssnout wrinkled at the mention of a ‘she’ and there was something else botheringhim. “The Hague? The World Court is for war criminals Forrent.”

The weasellooked at him, one bug-eye twitching. “And black magic users.”

Cyrillesighed, how was some hedge witch supposed to help him? Then he caught sight ofCooper across the yard, swinging his cane in vaguely threatening arcs. He paled,“set up the meet.” He told Forrent.

The next dayCyrille waiting by the fence as a gator with stringy black hair and a gauntnessto her that suggested too much weight lost too quickly sidled up to him.

“You theskunk with the ghost problem?”

“I am. Areyou the witch who is going to help me get rid of it?”

“Thatremains to be seen Sugar.” The gator glanced around at the other inmates whohad flanked around her as she’d approached the fence. “Candle.” She saidholding out a hand.

A jackrabbitproduced a black tallow candle, a sow lit it and a broad shouldered doe stoodin front of the group a cigarette held between her fingers aa cover for thethin trail of smoke.

“Hand.” Thegator snapped, putting her own against the fence.

Cyrille didthe same, shuddering slightly at the feeling of her scaly palm brushing his furthrough the chain links of the fence.

The gator’seyes were blank and unfocused as she blew the smoke from the black candle atCyrille and began to mutter a rapid incantation. She abruptly stopped mid-word,snatching her hand back as though Cyrille had burned her.

She fixed abeady-eyed gaze on him, “you’re not haunted Sugar, you’re cursed.”

“What?”

“Cursed.”She said slowly like she was speaking to an infant. “You got the baddest kindof juju following you.”

“Can’t youget rid of it?”

She laughed,“let’s just say there’s history between me and what’s bothering you. And ohthey must really hate you if they don’t realise I’m here. Y’all are going toneed to an impartial third party if you want a banishment, I know better thanto invite that kind of attention onto myself.”

This was nothelpful to Cyrille, “what do you mean?” He demanded, cling onto the fence sotightly he could feel the wire cutting into his fingers.

“Ruby,guard.” The doe warned.

“Hey!” Oneof the women’s C.Os called out. “What are you doing over there? Away from thatfence.”

The gatorcast Cyrille a wink as she sashayed away. “Good luck with your ghost problemSugar. We’re just having a smoke here Officer, nothing to fret about.”

Cyrillesagged as he watched her go, what was he going to do now?

Forrent, asit turned out knew of one more option available.

“I didn’t…didn’t want to suggest him first Boss, cuz he’s… cuz he’s kind of a scary guy.” The weasel wrung his hands, windinghis tail around his feet.

Cyrille waswilling to try anything at this point, “scary how?”

“Well… uh..I mean… You know… y’know about the anti-zombie laws from the Peace Accord in ’71?”

Cyrillescoffed. “School children know about those laws Forrent, what about them?”

Forrentswallowed, looking up at Cyrille with wide eyes. “This guy is the reason theywrote them.”

Two moredays of bruised shins, stubbed toes and minor concussions passed before Cyrillewas able to hobble into the prison library for the meet-up.

Dr Facilierwas a lanky swamp rat whose thin black moustache and dark purple fur gleamed ina way that suggested easy access to contraband. He sat at a table, idlyflicking through a book in the suspiciously empty library.

Next toCyrille, Forrent was positively quaking.“Man up.” Cyrille hissed at him, Cyrille could appreciate some subtleintimidation tactics but he did not appreciate when they were directed at him.

Facilier lookedup from his book at Cyrille’s approach. “Good afternoon.” His voice was smoothand unexpectedly deep. “You’ll be Le Paradox then?”

“I am.”Cyrille sat without waiting for an invitation, behind him Forrent remainedstanding, fidgeting nervously.

“Thought so.I could tell by the smell y’see.” He closed the book. “Henry go watch the doorwould you? There’s a good lad.” The lone prison guard, a young tiger who hadbeen standing by the door stepped outside. Cyrille felt a creeping sense of uneaseat that. This was a man who got what he wanted. “It pays to have friends on theother side.” He offered a toothy smile, he had a prominent gap between his buckteeth. “Now to business, I hear that you have a ghost problem.”

“I do. Ihear you can get rid of it.”

“Perhaps. Doyou know why this spirit is haunting you?”

“I killedhim.” Cyrille said simply. “After going back in time to destroy his familylegacy, kidnapping his girlfriend then betraying him and leaving him on aburning airship with a hole in time-space contained within it.”

Facilier didnot appear phased by this explanation, “I have certainly heard of strangerhauntings. I think we will need to commune with this spirit before I try andbanish it.”

“So you’lldo it?”

“Of course.And all I ask in return is that you owe me a favour.”

Cyrillesneered, “a favour?”

Facilier’swide smile dropped for instant and he looked angry, “how do you think that Igot to the top of this mud pile?” He took a breath and regained his composure. “Whatis power but the strategic exchanging of favours?”

The uneaseswept back into Cyrille, the rat had a point. He could, in theory ask Cyrilleto do anything. Perhaps beingindebted to an infamous old witch doctor who had made himself a lord of amaximum security prison wasn’t such a good idea. Perhaps Cyrille could livewith the haunting.

A row ofbooks cascaded off a nearby shelf and landed, quite in defiance of gravity andphysics one after the other straight onto Cyrille’s had.

“Deal.”Cyrille shot a hand out across the table.

Faciliertook his hand and shook it with deliberate slowness, “the deal is struck.” Hesaid and Cyrille felt a rush of something that ruffled his fur. Taking his handback Facilier hopped up from the table. “Shall we begin?”

“What now?”

“Unless you’drather wait?”

Another bookbounced off Cyrille’s skull. “Now is good.” He said through gritted teeth. “Nowis good.”

They cleareda space, Facilier drawing a salt circle and lighting black tallow candles. “Giveme your hand.” He instructed Cyrille.

Cyrille didso, and the rat bit him! “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Would yourather I’d shiv’d you?” Facilier asked shaking drops of Cyrille’s blood intothe circle. “Now come stand beside me. The last thing we need is a mouthpiecefor the spirit to speak through.”

“Isn’t thatyou?” Cyrille asked, nursing his sore hand.

“I am abokor not a medium. I am here to summon the spirit to us, I am here to keep itfrom ripping it’s way free from the ethereal plane and becoming a wight andkilling us where we stand.”

Cyrilleinclined his head, “very well.” He said and reached over to shove Forrent intothe circle.

The weaselstumbled, pin wheeling his arms. “Buh… Buh… Boss?” He said casting a worriedlook back over his shoulder.

Cyrillefolded his arms, Facilier began chanting under his breath, there was a musical rhythmto the words and Forrent went ridged coronas of blue light shining from hiseyes and open mouth.

Facilier’schant ended. “What name was this spirit know by in life?” He asked.

“Cooper.”

“Cooper whohaunts this man, speak and tell us your purpose. How might we appease you?”

Forrentspoke but it was not Sly Cooper’s voice that echoed through the library. It wasa woman’s. “Return him.” She said.

“What isthis? You’re not Cooper.” Cyrille spat.

“Cooper bychoice.” The woman’s voice said. “Return our son and we will leave you.”

“Return?Son? We?” Cyrille spluttered, how many ghosts were haunting him? “No Cooper isdead I’ve seen him.”

“Not dead,only lost. Return him to those who love him, return him and we will free you.”

“There’snothing I… I don’t even know where he is!”

“Egypt. Inthe valley of the Kings.”

Cyrillelooked at Facilier, “how can she possibly know that?”

“Ghosts aretethered by emotional attachment, what is time to a being which exists beyondit? If her son is her tether then of course she would know where or when hewas.” Facilier made a careless gesture with his hand as though this was themost basic of knowledge and Cyrille a fool for not knowing.

Cyrillegrunted looking back to the ghost, “what do you expect me to do about it? Evenif he is alive, I can’t do anything from in here.”

Forrent madea rattling, gasping sound and the blue light faded. He blinked for a secondlooking around confused. Then with another rush of light a new voice spokethrough him. A man this time.

“Pass themessage to those who love him. Return our son.”

“Whatmessage?” He was being haunted by Sly Cooper’s parents, lost in time and evenfrom beyond the grave Coopers found ways to make his life difficult.

“Tell themhe is after the first, but before the vault.”

Cyrillelooked at Facilier, who shrugged. “What does that even mean?”

“Pass themessage to those who love him. Return him.”

“What, so hecan get a happily ever after epilogue, whilst I am left in here to rot? I thinknot. The sole comfort I have in this hell hole is knowing that Cooper is gone.”

That wasperhaps the wrong thing to say to the vengeful ghosts of Sly Cooper’s parents.An unearthly shrieking filled the room and books began flying off the shelvescircling them like a tornado.

Forrent’spossession swapped again and the woman’s voice spoke, deeper and echoing. “Returnhim.” She commanded. “Return our son or we shall remain. Return him or thereshall be no respite. Return him or you will shall long for the mercy of joiningus.”

Facilierbegan chanting again, behind them the chairs and tables rattled as they roseinto the air. The tornado of books and furniture began to tighten.

“Dosomething.” Cyrille yelled ducking a chair leg.

“Agree.”Facilier yelled back.

Cyrillewarred with that, he could let Cooper stay in lost ancient Egypt because if hedid then Cyrille had still won. But was a victory worth two angry ghoststormenting him for the rest of his life?

“Le Paradoxnow!”

And, cowardat heart, Cyrille caved. “Alright, fine I’ll do it.” The tornado died, itemsfalling back to the ground with a tremendous crash. “I’ll do it. Maybe thatharridan of his will be able to cut me a deal for the information.”

“No.” Cooper’smother spoke. “You will do this and you will ask nothing in return. We freeyou, that is your only reward.”

“You can’tbe serious?!?!”

The fallenitems on the ground began to rattle ominously.

“Take itfrom someone who knows.” Facilier muttered. “Ghosts are single minded entities,they fixate. So if I were you I would. Stop.Trying. To. Argue.”

With effort Cyrilleheld his tongue.

“You willpass the message. You will return our son.”

“After thefirst but before the vault.” Cyrille muttered. “Whatever that means.”

“They willknow. They will find him.” And the woman’s spirit left Forrent’s body with asound like a sigh and a rush of blue light.

The silencehanging in the library was eerie in her wake.

Forrent fellon his tail, blinking and dazed, “is it over?” He asked.

Cyrille andFacilier surveyed the overturned room.

“Almost.”Cyrille said, “almost.”

InspectorCarmelita Fox looked, terrible frankly. Absolutely terrible.

She’d beenskinny the last time Cyrille had seen her, now she looked positively skeletal.She also looked furiously angry but then again she always looked like that.

She sat onthe other side of the glass partition, arms folded, one foot tappingaggressively. “What do you want Le Paradox?” She glowered at Cyrille. “You’vedeclined all my other interviews.”

She’d comeevery week at first, each time Cyrille had refused to see her. Finally she’dgiven up.

“I haveinformation about Cooper.”

That got herattention, her shadowed eyes widening. “What?”

“I havesomething to tell you about where he is, as well as when.”

Her eyesnarrowed. “why are you coming forward with this now?”

“Because Ihave only just come into possession of it.”

“How?”

“You wouldn’tbelieve me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Cooper’sdead parents cursed me and threatened to destroy me by attrition if I didn’ttell you where to find him.”

“You’reright I don’t believe you.”

Cyrilleshrugged, “be that as it may. I am fulfilling my end of the bargain by tellingyou this.”

“And what doyou want for it?”

Cyrilleopened his mouth, ready to ask for more freedoms, the luxuries he craved butbefore he could speak he saw a woman standing behind the Inspector. A raccoon ,in a jumper and jeans staring at Cyrille with such intensity that it felt likeshe was looking into his soul. And behind Cyrille, reflected in the glass wasCooper, except not Sly Cooper Cyrille knew now but Cunning.

“Le Paradox?”Fox frowned at him. “What is it?” She looked over her shoulder followingCyrille’s gaze.

“Nothing.”Cyrille gasped. “Nothing, I want nothing.”

Foxswivelled back in her seat, “nothing?”

“I offerthis freely.” Cyrille said, still staring wide eyed at the spectre of Cooper’smother. “Don’t ask me what this means but I was told to tell you that Cooper isin Egypt in the Valley of the Kings. And he is ‘after the first but before thevault’.”

Thegibberish seemed to mean something to the Inspector because something thatlooked a lot like hope bloomed in her eyes. “Egypt?”

“Yes.”

“Before thevault?”

“That iswhat I was told.”

She leaptfrom her, “guard.” She called and was gone and out the door before the buzzerhad even finished sounding.

And toCyrille’s amazed relief the ghosts stopped staring at him and drifted out afterthe Inspector.

Cyrille letout a breath, he sincerely that this would be the last he saw of any Coopers,dead or otherwise.

A guardescorted Cyrille back to his cell, as he unlocked Cyrille’s cuffs the old wolfleaned down to whisper. “Doctor Facilier wishes to remind you that you owe hima favour.” He offered Cyrille a grin backing out of the cell.

As the doorclanged shut Cyrille wondered, if perhaps he had been better off with theghosts after all.

#sly cooper #sly raccoon #Le Paradox #threw some crossover and a character voiced by keith david in there for you Snap #thanks for the ask dude #ironicsnap

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unproduciblesmackdown · 6 years ago

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so being abused the entire first 2 decades of your life: what’s up with that? Night Posts Edition

- classic when finding some “uh oh relatable!” content abt various Disorderres and there’s some thing like “many symptoms overlap with ptsd” and it’s like ooh which one is applying to me?? i mean spoilers the idea that The Grouping Of Non Nt Traits And Experiences Into Distinct Classifications is not actually...an exact science and for all intents and purposes it makes no difference if i am going “oh god #me” at an informative post about adhd if actually its ptsd acting exactly the same anyways so. but yknow it’s wild n zany being like “am i overstepping my bounds b/c this was caused by coping with trauma possibly? what audacity” and etc when it really....that doesnt matter....

- also ugh @ retaining things that downplay abusers’ responsibility for their actions (in specific things you’re personally dealing with, not like, as a general stance) and shift blame onto yourself like........you have to get so used to treating someone’s Abusive Behavior as something inevitable that you can’t ever expect them to stop doing, and thus pretty much considering someone abusive like a force of nature because they’re just gonna do what they’re gonna do whenever they next get Set Off rather than like.......a person who is responsible for their own behavior and in control of their own choices and like. especially zany when you’re a kid and they’re your parent so there’s the Power Imbalance of them being an adult and the other power imbalance of them being in control of your whole existence. but so like even just the other year i was taking the blame for calmly speaking back to a grownass man close to thrice my age raging at me and saying like, not verbatim but the idea of like “ugh i know it was partly my fault for even saying anything back to him because i knew he’d just continue to yell but unfortunately i just refuse to weather that kind of behavior without standing up for myself at all anymore” but like no!!!! that’s shifting all the responsibility for this other person’s behavior onto myself, like i Made him choose to shout at me at like 4am because he sucks and has some kind of superiority power trip issues. cuz i am well within rights to respond to anyone addressing me and it’s Not my fault at all that he chooses to react the way he reacts.

- also that i was ready to excuse my being blamed for this by others because they were closer to that person than they were to me and i was gonna be like “okay i Get wanting to defend someone who’s closer to you” but no!!!! actually!!!! i may get it but i don’t condone excusing anyone’s horrible behavior in the least just cuz you know them or they’re friends or family or something. in fact that’s terrible. i’m just primed to be Used To It because of the weird situation of parental abuse where there’s other people also trapped in this location and daily life with an abuser and if someone “causes” the abuser to start being shitty then they’ll get blamed / resented for that. me and my siblings seem more like friendly acquaintances b/c we had to be pitted against each other in these kinds of ways for eons until we were all in our teens and got some more Space and kind of realized that we weren’t each others enemies and got closer and my dumb little brother was old enough to stop being a whiny binch and Owed me for helping him with math hw over the phone from 2 hrs drive away lol.....jk, sort of.....we did get along great eventually but then i left thanks to said abuse and us talking via twitter isn’t at all the same as us being able to talk in person :/

- also one thing that sometimes Strikes me is that when i’m like blandly recalling incidents of abuse like “oh yeah, that time” it bothers me less to think about stuff that happened to me specifically than to think about times it was Other people who were being treated that way. the latter was always equally or probably more upsetting and it always felt just as bad in the moment anyways, there was no major distinction in the Abuse In Progress experience if it was directed mostly on you than on other people

- all my life i’ve also been super stubborn which never helped and even Abuse MaGee would have to try to get creative with Disciplinary Systems and there was this golden “punishment” which was eat dinner in your room by yourself and i was like oh my god can i really. the horror of Family Dinner was like, this dark comedic farce playing out in that house for all our lives. christ. speaking of being stubborn this one time my sister cut my toe with a knife (half accidentally) because i refused to stop swinging my legs despite her holding the knife under the table lol and i also refused to tell on her b/c we were All In This Together (that is, Us vs The Abuser, which always took precedence over any internal conflict in our faction lol)

- always remembering how my “’”””””””defining”””””””””” trait was always getting good grades except the only reason i ever felt this pressure was the time my sister caught shit for getting a C, and i wasn’t even getting A - F letter grades yet and was already like jfc guess i can’t like....get a single C ever.....the joke is i’ve always been a godawful student who hates school, i just also managed to get great grades fairly easily, b/c of the devil probably. i’m sorry

- love to wonder what interests i might have been able to explore if i didn’t want to hide anything i was genuinely interested in and other True Thoughts And Feelings from my ‘rents. who knows!!! even now i’m not sure what i like and my vague ideas about it are all mostly In Theory and i don’t have any hopes and dreams b/c of never being able to really consider my own interests and desires and also because when every day of your life is basically spent in survival mode about everything else, that’s not really conducive to having dreams and ambitions. see also: like, being really poor

- The Weird Experience when only one of your parents is abusive and the other parent is also experiencing spousal abuse and so like, even though they’re your parent, you know that they don’t really have equal power as the abusive one because they too are being abused? it’s a complicated thing b/c that’s how every individual experience with abuse is (complicated). and so you’ve got this bizarre situation where maybe someone cares about you but they can’t really protect you from this other person. and like, my dad is crap and in some areas even a crappier person than my abusive mom and also i hate him, but i only hate him for certain things lmao not for being abused or some ways he tried to deal with it. i know what’s trash and what’s not

- the zany experience of No One Will Help You Ever.....lucky for me i eventually figured out on my own that what i’d been living with all the time had actually been abuse for real all along! and yet still i knew that like, there wasn’t much i could immediately do with that information because..........yknow, what do you actually do. i was basically already 18, so. and even if i hadnt been. there’s nothing to do for it!! just sucks to be you, basically. but an exception is that when one day i texted my friend to ask if i might be able to leave my house overnight and crash at their family’s place for a little bit, their parents immediately were like Yes Of Course and they let me stay there for a week and were very nice about all of it. between them and the nice trans lady who gave me some more Housing Assistance by letting me stay in her spare room for like, most of december.....my Allies. plus someone who talked to me via online once i bailed on my ‘rents! if they read this they know who they are and they have continued to be so kind and generous ugh love and appreciate you

- god just individual occasions of “THIS bullshit that i went through this one time” of especially ridiculous incidents.....i could go on for eons

- sort of tangentially related and related to the first point but ugh specific memories of Moments In Which It Continued To Be Revealed To Me That I, Individually, Was Prone To Being Kind Of Socially Ostracized.....like my ass started noticing that shit as soon as i was around other kids aka preschool aka 4 yrs old.......like i’m usually somewhat withdrawn and cautious and quiet in social situations especially what with the association that “misbehaving” = trauma exposure so, yknow, that might be a way that you’re pressured into just keeping to yourself and keeping your head down. but talk about “i don’t really relate to other people my age” lmao like i always preferred interacting with adults really while by and large dealing with the other kids felt like a challenge that i was never gonna actually come out on top of and i still remember individual Efforts i’d make to ~fit in~ and Participate that just fell flat or got me actively excluded....Ugh City........and it’s like, i could make a list of Social Traits i think i have that help make it difficult for people to be interested in interacting with me, or “contribute” to those joyous occasions when you get to sit back and take in the thinly veiled contempt directed at you by various shitheads, but like, even that’s not really the right way to explain it. its kind of more a Greater Than The Sum Of Its Weird Parts sorta combined experience where i guess i just have this kind of Negative Je Ne Sais Quoi that gets ya the social brushoff / rejection. c’est ce que c’est. the joke is i actually like people and socializing In Theory, i just usually don’t get to do it. shoutout to the advanced relatability of alana calling everyone Acquaintances b/c i literally did/do that lmao......like are we friends if we don’t talk all that often? it’s part on me cuz i’m crap at being the person to initiate conversation cuz too often i assume i’d be an annoyance and also b/c conversation with me is like, not great lmao but still......ce’st l’a v’ie

anyways (clip from that fuckin song where it’s like WHO CAN RELATE lmao.mp3)

#long post //////#the entire first quarter (at least lol) of my life being Devastated By Abuse means i get to complain about it whenever i feel like it

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