#cat litter! little pieces of it which you will not be able to avoid walking on will be strewn throughout your house :(

[coquelicoq]

i love catsitting it's got all the important things: 1) hanging out with a cat 2) getting reminded of the reasons i'm glad i don't live with a cat full-time. best of both worlds.

[mallowstep]

Just saying on the whole: I decided on Brackenpelt and Mintfur's personalities, this blogs anon's (and a bit you, no offense) literally decided to kick canon Reedwhisker to the curb, he now looks like Oakheart, and he's a sweetheart and a bit of an idiot who tries his best to protectand tell on Hawkfrost? (I've not read past TNP, so idk if he's actually like this so if he is forgive me.)

oh my god i. i can't.

okay so i have this thing that. is kind of long and convoluted to explain and also i neither want nor have to but i have this thing about repeating work. i can't do it. like i physically cannot make myself do it. if something interrupts what i am doing, and i lose what i wrote for an ask, i cannot make myself rewrite it. the thought alone is enough to make me want to cry.

so. i was. god. i can't even -- even summarizing what i wrote is very difficult for me. so i'm just going to jump in to where i was writing, maybe back up a little, because i was having fun talking about character arcs, and -- y'all can just deal.

(n.b. when i bring this up, people tend to suggest things like drafting responses to asks in software with autosave, or just saving responses to asks as drafts periodically. the answer is always, "i know that's an option, and it doesn't work for me for any number of reasons." while i appreciate the care, i'd rather save us all the time.)

(but to respond as quickly as i can to your actual ask -- i change background characters all the time, and no one has ever commented on it. secondly, while i often enjoy what anons offer me from different ideas, i'd prefer if we don't -- treat them as mine, perhaps? hm. not sure how to phrase that well and i want to move on now.)

anyway, basically, i'm rambling about decisions anons make and why i wouldn't personally make them. because i was in the middle of a thought, i'm going to have to back up a little, but -- i'm going to try to save myself some time and pain and just make one starting statement and then move on.

while i'm about to explain why i wouldn't make the following choices, that does not make them bad choices. in fact, i often enjoy responding to your asks with snippets utilizing these choices. they're just not choices i would independently make, but that doesn't make them bad. i just like to ramble about character arcs, and this gives me an excuse

reedpaw interfering with hawkpaw's dreams of the dark forest

the arc i have planned for hawkfrost revolves around no one knowing about the dark forest. it is essential to tigerstar's manipulation of him that no one knows. it is fundamental to his character arc.

so -- i can't just throw in reedpaw interfering. it would change every character's arc. and i like my arc for hawkfrost. i do not think it is benefitted by reedpaw interacting with it.

(this is kind of what i mean -- i've greatly enjoyed writing the drama that comes of reedpaw interfering, but i would never choose to have him interfere in independent content.)

reedkit being born not long after hawkkit, mothkit, and frogkit

this is the piece i'm most angry to have lost. i had -- guys i had a very good explanation of this one. it's. i will do my best because -- i don't know.

i am very -- the misty au matters to me. unlike the other aus, the misty au is mine. it is not some web of ideas, it is my au, and while i adore seeing everyone play with it, it often feels like -- handing someone a rubiks cube, watching them fiddle with it, and then, when they give it back to you, you solve it in a few moments. (i did speed cubing personal best was 27s, although i doubt i could get anywhere close to that now.)

like, you hand me this idea. mistyfoot has another kit about six moons after hawkkit, mothkit, and frogkit. i nod as you explain, am excited to see you so excited about it, but i cannot simply leave the cube unsolved. it is a compulsion of a sort. you hand me an unsolved cube, and i will solve it. i don't mean to, sometimes. it is simply that i know the patterns so well, and the process of observing and solving a cube is so instinctual, that i look for the best cross without realizing what i am doing, start to solve without meaning to.

and -- in this case, this is me solving the cube, this explanation. i have inserted this metaphor in part to explain why i feel i must try to explain this once again, why i am -- now that the chance, the idea of covering this topic has been raised, i cannot set it down.

so. although it is difficult, i want to tell you why i wouldn't choose to do this. again. there will be less couching this time, as there always is, so review my -- i don't think you're wrong, i just wouldn't make these choices -- above. i mean it.

reedkit being born changes every character's arc inherently. i've mentioned this in passing, but it fundamentally changes every single character's arc. for the main seven, it is a direct and tangible change, and for others, it is a ripple effect, and no stone is left unturned.

but i will use mistyfoot's arc as a catch-all, to explain my reason for not making this choice.

mistyfoot -- okay, if reedkit is born, mistyfoot's primary focus is no longer feathertail. i'm not one for "one child is loved more" stories. i don't like writing them. so. mistyfoot's focus is split between reedkit and feathertail.

and that is a problem. because -- feathertail is the most important thing in the world to mistyfoot. in an unhealthy way at first, but in a healthy way, later on. it is Unhealthy for mistyfoot to base her every action around how it affects feathertail; it is healthy for mistyfoot's top priority to be feathertail. codependency vs being a parent.

so. why is that a problem? well -- because it changes a lot of things, but most importantly, or at least, most close to the main time period the misty au covers, it changes how mistyfoot builds a relationship with hawk, moth, and frog.

because -- well, let's back up for a moment.

mistyfoot does not go in the nursery once. despite the fact that it is feathertail, that before and after this, they are nearly inseparable (unhealthily before, heathily after), she does not visit feathertail in the nursery a single time.

[insert a tangent about mistyfoot being in the nursery with reedkit i cannot bring myself to rewrite]

her interactions with the kits, once they are weaned, are either highly structured, or incidental moments she avoids and escapes from as fast as she can.

but -- feathertail is always there as a buffer. feathertail brings them out to mistyfoot as her kits, as a form of -- presentation, almost. or, mistyfoot and feathertail are talking, and one of the kits approaches momentarily.

because she can't do it anyway.

[insert tangent about mistyfoot being a good mother and how in this instance, that means not being around them]

and as the kits grow up, it is through feathertail that mistyfoot manages to build a relationship with them. the fact that they are feathertail's kits is how she does it. in part because -- it is a degree of separation that she is afforded. if things are too much -- she is not their mother. she can back off. but also because -- they are important to feathertail, and that makes it easier for mistyfoot to want to know them.

this is -- core to all five arcs at hand, here.

she sees hawkpaw seek out feathertail after a nightmare, and she sees a kit, who loves, who feathertail loves. she sees -- it makes it easier to forget his father, if he can simply be a child, sleeping with his mother to ward of nightmares.

hawkfrost is -- will always be the one she has the hardest time connecting to. this has little to do with his appearance (while he looks similar to tigerstar, he is not a clone -- he has more contrasting markings, a white chest, blue eyes, a narrower build, sleeker, glossier fur, and so on), and everything to do with the grief he causes feathertail as an apprentice. she worries over him, and mistyfoot doesn't know what to do.

frogheart is easier, or at least more straightforward. he bonds with mistyfoot when he's carrying feathertail down the mountain. there's -- two levels. first, he's doing a great service to the most important person to mistyfoot. second, this is a very hard time for feathertail, and mistyfoot wants to be with her for it. so -- they walk down together.

mothwing is -- she starts to be more and more responsible for feathertail's healthcare. and -- mistyfoot is. pretty much always with feathertail for that. even something as simple as marigold on a scratch, or getting a thorn pulled out -- mistyfoot is there.

it is an Anxiety Inducing Time. feathertail associates being treated with very bad things, and avoids going to the medicine den, so like -- mistyfoot has to be there to actually get her to go.

so while mothwing is learning to deal with -- a bit of a role reversal, in that she has to take care of feathertail. as a doctor, yes, but feathertail -- requires a lot of patience, cajoling, and creativity. and you know, that's hard. it is hard to see the cat who raised you like that. that's a big theme for mothwing.

but it means she starts to build a relationship with mistyfoot.

so -- why does it matter?

well, putting aside a long list of reasons that mistyfoot having reedkit then is so angst inducing (she's grieving for her first litter, she's not in a place to voluntary have another child, she's still coping with the trauma of a forced pregnancy, etc), if her focus is split between reedkit and feathertail, the weight of all of this is decreased.

not -- by half, or anything. love is not some finite resource. but mistyfoot no longer avoids the nursery, and she has many more early interactions with the kits. when feathertail leaves, she has another kit that means she can't fall apart in the same way. and -- that means that frogpaw, hawkpaw, and mothpaw's initial impression of her never changes.

when feathertail vanishes, they start to gain a deeper understanding of mistyfoot, which enables them to be able to start connecting to her.

other stuff

i'm doing this thing where i try to go to bed before 3am, so unfortunately, not right now.

oh wait i lied real quick

tawnypelt

i think this is because you haven't seen her pov yet, but a lot of asks about her tend to misunderstand her internal thought process. or at least -- they don't characterize her the way i intend to.

[goatpaste]

WC design/headcannon/ect masterlist- Part A

just a list of ALL my designs for headcanons, maybe some design updates, any other comments or AU ideas i have. on main characters and characters with no plot!

These are all the cats who name starts with ‘A’, posting these in alphabetical order to not overload just one list lol

all under the cut >:3

Acorn Fur

my Acorn Fur design changed slightly as she used to be more red saturated and i wanted her to not so much like my Red Claw Design

My biggest Headcanon for her is she absolutely didn’t listen to Moth Flight and ended up giving birth to two kit’s with Red claw as the father. they names are Rain Stone and Oak Stump 

Acornpaw

Acornpaw, ancient skyclan warrior

i like the idea of Acornpaw is a decedent of Acorn Fur and one of the last generations of her family that would remember her name

A warrior name i think would be nice for him is Acorndrop

Acorntail

Acorntail, ancient windclan deputy.

i can imagine he was named the way he was being smallest in his litter, losing his tail to a rabbit trap when he’s older

acorntail stick with being deputy for awhile but i can see either he even after training an apprentice can’t keep up with the duties and once again insist that Morningcloud is made deputy. oR acorntail becoming leader as Acornstar and morningcloud or her apprentice Quickpaw being made his deputy 

Adderkit

Adderkit, starclan kit who used to live in windclan and died by adder bite, named for it and was avanged by tallstar 

I imagine Adderkit was originally named Burrowkit born to Ashfoot and Deadfoot in their first litter with Eaglekit. Adderkit died on Windclans Journey to find a home after shadowclan chased them out.

Adderkit was very young when they died i picture their memory of their living life being EXTREMELY blurry, they know their windclan and they died by an adder. its why they renamed themself, and they barely remember who their mom and dad were.

Adderpaw

Adderpaw, ancient windclan apprentice who was around to the apprentice age limit code

Adderpaw was name for what a good few other ‘adder’ and snake named kits are named for, their tail wiggling around with its patterns look like that of a skinny snake.

Adderpaw Warrior name ideas, Addergrace or Addersnag

Algernon

not much to say beyond i think my design for him looks very funny lol

but my design for him is that he is leucistic

Applefrost

Applefrost, kid of appledusk and reedshine

Named after her piece of shit dad, and raised on one sided stories of him she loved her dad and wanted to be like him as she got older.

She was the first victim of Mapleshade’s hauntings, picking her because she was named after the man who hurt her family and she looks a bit like him. 

(applefrost isn’t normally greying on the bottom naturally, this is a side effect on spending so many years training one on one with mapleshade in the dark forest. My crookedstar design also has this) Applefrost knows the name mapleshade and was skeptic to talk to her at first, but opened up and tries to just take what advice she can get from the spirit. Even coming to sympathies with her through learning the truth of her father. 

Then one day Mapleshade stopped visiting her, thought Applefrost would never know what happened, there is a reason.

Applefrost was full grown, and so kind even in the face of the warrior who killed her father. And she looked so much like him, yes he ruined her life but maybe this was the price she payed for what she did, to forever feel pain over the lose of someone who didn’t love her. 

It was part that, and part..something about the way she looked at mapleshade, and something she said sent her memories flying back to her little petalkit who looked so much like her. 

Mapleshade would stop visiting applefrost and move on to another generation of their family. 

Applefrost would never tell her siblngs of mapleshade, but would come to disown her own father in starclan. even being friends with petalkit.

Applepaw

daughter of breezepelt and heathertail

mostly in here because i needed to up date her design

she hasn’t received her warrior name yet but should be close in the books

but a name like Applebite or Appleleaf

Ashfoot

Ashfoot,  windclan warrior, deputy and mother of crowfeather

i absOLUTLY love ashfoot

i picture her to be a very like ‘badass warrior mom’ she give tough love and you can’t help but totally admire her. She loves her son crowfeather, though if she is honest he tends to disappoint her with how he kinda doesn’t know how to behave

she gets followed around by herds of kits who want to be like her, and her past apprentice’s (which she has many of) call her sheriff (or mom, which is embarrassing but common and crow HATES it) 

Her and Deadfoot are VERY lovey dovey, she loves her sweet husband dearly and was distraught when he died. They were best friends growing up as apprentices together and were both name ‘foot’ in sign they always walked paw and paw, being well synced in battle and in life, they were just perfect for each other. so its easy to imagine when Deadfoot died it was like she lost half of herself

Ashfoot has a very long tail, just oh so slightly shorter than talltail, her family is known for their long tail (a trait passed down through being descended of windstar) Long tails are often called a symbol of power or royality in windclan. its very diserable and only tallstar’s tail was longer than hers. Her son crowfeather, and grandson jayfeather both take after thing ten fold with tails you could trip 10 cats with. breezepelt has a longer tail than average but no were near as long as theirs and it dOES kinda make him mad.

Ashfoot also loVES nightcloud, at first when crowfeather told his mom that nightcloud was having his kit’s she was super skeptical, not of nightcloud but of their relationship. she just saw right through it for what it really was. so she mostly didn’t talk to nightcloud for the two month’s she was pregnant, as to avoid getting involved.

but when Nightcloud gives birth and all of her kits but breezepelt die and she is DISTRAUGHT. Crowfeather isn’t helping and doesn’t seem to find any words that comfort her or not make her more upset, so like a big ol man child he turns to his mom and begs her to calm down nightcloud.

and its this moment that Ashfoot find’s herself completely bonded to Nightclouds side, looking at the dark she-cat crying over her lost kittens with her single son mewling for her. Ashfoot herself has had two litters both that only had one survivor, Eaglekit’s litter (eaglekit only made it to paw before he died) and now all she has is crowfeather. Ashfoot stay’s by the queens side and comforts her new daughter in law. 

Ashfoot and Nightcloud are close, even when her and crowfeather ultimately don’t work out. 

Ashfur

dont have much for him i guess

i hate him lol

i like him more than most other boy cats that i hate lol

he’s just a lil piss baby

iv updated his design a good bit, i thought his old design was really bleh but i havent been able to touch it up till now

i defiantly think him and brambleclaw shoulda been gay

i dont like him with squirrel, BUT if they’de been closer in age i think he and squirrel before ashfur became a fuckin crazy person they would have been better togeather than her and bramble that i don’t understand why she went back to bramble even if she didn’t get with ashfur

alsO i think the only ‘au’ i can like get into is like

Dustpelt mysteriously disappeared, presumed dead by thunderclan and never to be known what happened. Except between him and Ferncloud. id loVe a narrative of Ashfur kills dustpelt after watching the full grown warrior and mentor reefer to Ferncloud as beautiful, finding the behavior absolutely repulsive. Maybe ashfur ends up killing a few other cats who are like this and Ferncloud knows he killed dustpelt but maybe not the others. and it all ends up coming spilling out in the fire, this moment of the three and squirrel learn what he did but now he knows what they did, so their at a stale mate. but ashfur is becoming loser and more erratic in his behavior and hollyleaf kills him before he does something dangerous. 

[chaosride]

A Divine Appointment (x7)

Chapter One

“Anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.” — Fred Rogers

Anders had always been good with children. Even when he was younger, before the Circle, the other village kids had adored him. Sometimes he would see his mother watch him with sad eyes as he carried around whichever smaller kid had requested it. He hadn’t understood until after the last time he would see her that she was sad he was an only child, that she hadn’t been able to give him siblings to dote on or his father the gaggle of children he wanted.

For the first few months of being at the Circle, the other children all avoided him. Before, it would have been something he would have tried to rectify. Especially some of the younger children who clung to the robes of older apprentice mages who clearly didn’t have the patience for them. But at that time he didn’t want to talk to anyone ever again; childishly he had sworn that if they took his freedom, they took his voice too. After his first escape, which earned him a good whipping and a relatively short stay of three weeks in solitary, the younger children had become something of a balm to him. They were trapped here, same as he was, and he could protect them in some small measure while he was there. Every escape after they clambered into his bunk with their blankets and demanded to know the details.

When Anders returned from his year-long stay in solitary many of them were gone and the ones who remained were older in ways he wished he didn’t understand. One of the templars who had escorted him to his personal worst nightmare had taunted him that it was a shame that no one had been around to mind the younger mages while he was away, though the nasty smirk on his face said he thought the opposite. Anders knew that they had taken it out on the children in his place, and any hurts were his fault. He wished he had never started speaking again sometimes.

The children were sometimes the only reason Anders lit the lantern and opened the clinic. The adult refugees of Darktown were able to look after themselves for a day, but the urchins that littered Kirkwall’s underbelly couldn’t. Often there was a pack or two that came by per day, bringing this friend or that sibling who had gotten hurt doing jobs they shouldn’t have to in order to survive. He steadfastly ignored Lirene’s chiding to stop giving all his food away to them; he could figure something out, he was an adult.

Besides that, they had saved his life more than once in a variety of ways. Between warnings about templar patrols, acting as distractions, and fetching aid when he needed it, Anders would have been dead ten times over. Even so he was careful to keep them at arm's length, for their sakes. He had learned from the children he cared for in the Circle and from Karl, he was a dangerous person to love. They deserved that fate even less than they deserved to be living on the streets.

Every week saw a wash of new faces mixed with familiar ones, as well as a lack of others. Some of the groups move on to different cities, but many of them are lost to the grisly beast that is Kirkwall. Though he sees children every day it is rarely the same group within a week if not better when Anders first came to the city. They came to him with teary eyes and gingerly cradled wounds, ate his food and then left again.

Sometime after they returned from the Deep Roads, that changed but only with one group of children. They had a decent number to their little family, and Anders had never seen less than four of them together. They had started setting up near the clinic at night, and he had noticed them a few times coming back late from drinks or whatever fights Hawke had gotten them into that day. He remembered thinking that the youngest of them were no more than babies, still toddlers and hoping that they found a safer place to spend their nights soon.

The first time the children came by, it was before the clinic had actually opened for the day. Anders had been up boiling bandages and washing what few linens he had for the cots. The knock at the door had been so soft that he figured it was a breeze rattling the flimsy door in its frame. If it hadn’t been so quiet, he might not have realized they were out there, but the soft sound of whispers bleeding through the door caught his attention. The second knock was louder and more deliberate.

It took Anders a moment to wipe his hands off and get to the door. When he opened it there was a huddle of kids towards the stairs, having obviously decided Anders wasn’t going to answer.

“What are we supposed to do now?” One of them, a young elven girl, whispered. “Why isn’t anyone answering?”

“It’s early Bree, most people aren’t up yet. We’ll have to find someone else or wait for Delilah,” a dwarven boy answered her.

“But it’s an emergency, Cat’s really sick. Why close at night, emergencies happen at night too. What are you supposed to do?”

“Everyone has to sleep sometime. And you just have to survive and get help as soon as you can.”

Anders stepped out of the clinic towards them.

“Someone’s sick?” Anders called to them when they backed away from him in tandem. “I’m a healer, I can help,” he soothed and held his hands up.

The girl who had been speaking before turned towards him, her little face hopeful.

“You’ll help Cat?”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Anders assured her. “What’s wrong?”

“She had a fever last night but now it’s worse and she was coughing and won’t eat or drink,” the girl told him all in one breath. She went to step closer but the boy held her back. He regarded Anders with distrusting eyes.

“What do you charge for healing?” He asked Anders carefully.

“Nothing, I run a free clinic, it doesn’t cost any money. It sounds like she may have caught that bug that’s going around, I have herbs to help with fever. Come in, let me take a look at her.”

“If we don’t have to pay in coin, what do we have to do in return?” The boy didn’t move closer and didn’t release the girl who had spoken.

“It’s free, you don’t have to do anything in return.”

“Nothing's free,” the boy said with chilling certainty.

“Not much in life is," Anders agreed, "but this is. If you want me to help, come in and let me take a look.”

“We can… we can leave the door open? And leave anytime we want?”

“Of course.”

Finally the boy nodded and stepped forward. He and the other children followed Anders into the clinic. In total there were five children, including the sick toddler the oldest girl was carrying. The dwarven boy was wary, and made Anders eat from the food he offered them to prove it wasn’t poisoned. The oldest girl, Rosalyn was elven as well, tall and waifish. She watched him with sharp eyes as the other toddler, a boy who looked startlingly like the sick girl, sat in her lap. Bree, the other elven girl, had none of the learned paranoia her companions did and followed Anders around the clinic, asking him about what he was doing and if she could help. Anders let her help with small things like linens and rolling bandages. The herbs he gave to Cat helped lower her fever and he sent another piece of bread for the girl to have when she woke up with them when they left.

Like all the children before, they left once he had healed them and Anders figured they too would eventually stop coming around.

They didn’t. After that they came by for healing every now and then, but they all recognized Anders as he went through Darktown. Bree waved enthusiastically usually, and more than once little Cat and her twin brother Cahir ran to him to be picked up. Slowly even Tanner, the cautious dwarven boy, warmed up to Anders.

It was the early hours of the morning when Anders led Hawke, Varric, Fenris and Isabela towards the clinic. Isabela had taken a bad hit to the head and Anders had healed her as well as he could before the finally began the long trek home and to the clinic where he can treat her more comprehensively. There was a potion that would help with the concussion and a lyrium potion that would give Anders the juice he needed to finish fixing the damage.

“Mage,” Fenris called to him from where he had rounded the corner to the clinic. “There are children gathered at your door.”

“Huh?” Anders said, looking at the elf. He and Hawke were supporting Isabela to help her walk and when they rounded the corner together he saw what Fenris was talking about.

There were in fact children huddled against the door to his clinic. As they drew closer, Bree broke from the group and ran to him, her little face alarmed. She was already speaking when she reached their little group, nearly wailing from how distraught she was.

“-and you’ll help, won’t you healer?” she gasped out, and Anders felt bad that all he had understood was the end of her tirade. He was still carefully sliding Isabela’s weight to Hawke when Fenris stepped forward and elegantly knelt to be on the girl’s level.

“It’s okay,” he told her, “tell us what’s wrong and we will help,” the warrior assured the girl.

“Raelnor got hurt really bad today, he’s been working at the dock, his arm’s bent all wrong and he can’t move his fingers, and then he just said it hurt real bad and fell over and we can’t wake him up,” she told him, her breath still hitching with tears.

“I can help him, sweetheart, go with Fenris and help get him into the clinic, alright?”

She nodded. Fenris shot Anders a look over his shoulder, likely for the mage  daring to tell him what to do, but he said nothing and allowed Bree to lead him to the clinic with one small hand carefully holding his gauntleted hand. Anders watched as Fenris bent his head to speak to her ahead of them and as he helped them carry a new boy Anders had never seen before inside to a cot. The sight of the elf swarmed by curious children made something in Anders’ chest ache like there was a festering wound behind his breastbone.

Once Isabela had been healed and given a potion to help her headache, she helped keep the children entertained while Anders healed Raelnor. Tanner had given them all distrustful looks when they pulled the door shut and locked it but once he saw how Anders’ hands glowed with magic as he prepared to heal Raelnor he seemed to understand.

Raelnor was older and the children called him their brother despite how much darker his coloring was than any of the rest of them. Tanner and Bree could perhaps have passed as his siblings with their dark hair if Bree had not been an elf and Tanner a dwarf. Neither Rosalyn, with her almost white blonde hair, pointed ears and pale skin, nor the twins, with their red curly hair, had any resemblance to the rest. Regardless they were clearly a family unit, a package deal.

From what Anders could gather when he asked them about the accident, Raelnor had been working on the docks to make money for them and had come back late the night before with twice the usual pay and a shattered arm. Once Raelnor himself actually woke up, he was reluctant to say more on what had happened.

“A crate fell when we were unloading our last shipment of the day and my boss gave me extra money to see a healer.”

“But you didn’t?”

“We needed the money, and everyone I tried to see charged more than I could afford,” he had ground out and refused to look at them. “Thank you for healing me, how much do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” Anders told him. “Come to me as soon as possible next time, I’ll heal you free of charge every time.”

It was true for him and the children because it was true for everyone. If Anders could help someone he would, but even if he did charge the healer wouldn’t have been able to accept a single cent from children. He had become a healer because he wanted to help people, not because he wanted coin or thanks.

“Yeah, I will,” Raelnor lied, still looking at his hands in his lap.

“Be careful with that arm, it will still be prone to rebreaks even with healing. You broke it pretty badly,” Anders cautioned him. “Just a moment, I’ll get you something to help with the pain, it will ache for a while still.”

Anders ended up sending them with several pain relieving potions and a basket with most of the food he had just bought for himself. He tried to ignore Fenris’ eyes on him, knowing the other man likely thought him a sucker for giving away so much of his food.

“Well, this has all been very exciting but Bianca and I are going home. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Late afternoon at the earliest, Hawke ,” Varric said. He stretched his stocky arms above his head and rolled his shoulders.

“I hear you, I’ll avoid early morning emergencies to the best of my ability,” Hawke replied.

“Greatly appreciated, Chuckles.”

Anders went about setting the clinic to right for the morning, half listening as the others said their goodbyes and distractedly bidding them farewell as they ambled out of the clinic and back into the night. It was only because he looked up to check if they had shut the door behind them that he realized that Fenris had lingered.

“Mage…” Fenris began before trailing off as he struggled to say what was on his mind.

“You think it’s stupid for me to give them so much?” Anders guessed. He had heard others say that about the children he fed.

“No. I think how someone treats the most defenseless among us speaks to their character. I was going to say that I’m glad they knew to come to you for healing. Have a good evening Anders,” the warrior said before turning and leaving. He shut the door firmly behind him, leaving Anders stunned in his wake.

After that, the younger children became something of a fixture in the clinic when it was open. Anders would often open the door in the morning to find them in a puppy pile beneath the lantern, waiting for the clinic to open for the day after Raelnor had gone to work.

Anders learned they had one other older sister, a young woman named Delilah who worked at the Rose most nights. She came by once or twice to try and give Anders food in payment for healing Raelnor, who became a regular patient in the early hours of the morning.

He tried not to worry about them the nights that he spent away from the clinic with Hawke; they weren’t his children, he had no claim over them. If he got too attached, it would only end in tears as it always had before.

That was until they came to find him somewhere besides the clinic.

They had spent a long, hot day assisting Aveline with some slavers out on the Wounded Coast. Once they had returned to Kirkwall they had all agreed to retire to the Hanged Man for their weekly round of Wicked Grace. Not everyone in their rag tag band was able to make it every week, but they had a decent crowd that night. Only missing Merril and Sebastian, the elf busy with some research she was doing and Sebastian with something for the Chantry.

Isabela was just laying her winning hand down for their fourth round of the night with a thwip and flourish of her hand when Norah gave her normal brisk two raps on the door before it swung open.

“Ah, Norah, you don’t have to bring our drinks to us,” Varric said with a grin at the woman. She rolled her eyes at him.

“You can come get your drinks like everyone else unless you order food, Varric. Actually, I came up because there are kids here asking after your healer, tried to tell them this wasn’t the place for little ones but they’re insistent,” she informed them before turning away and leaving.

A cluster of familiar young faces tumbled through the door and Anders rose to his feet immediately, his heart in his throat. A headcount showed that all five of the younger kids were there, though Raelnor wasn’t with them despite how late it was.

“Mage, it would appear your children are here,” Fenris drawled even as Anders lumbered to his feet.

The healer was exhausted, his mana drained, and he had been looking forward to cards. Could just tell them it’s not clinic hours, Anders considered for a split moment. He had already cast the idea aside when Justice chided him for it.

The trust of children is precious, and they have sought you out. Help them, Anders. The spirit urged.

As Anders rounded the table to come closer, little Cat broke free from where she and Cahir were clinging to Rosalyn’s leg. She wobbled towards him, her arms held out expectantly. Anders scooped her up before she could fall without thinking, and tried to ignore how familiar of a weight she was on his hip. She was warm against his side and wound her arms trustingly around his neck.

“We’re really sorry, healer, it’s just- you weren’t at the clinic and Miss Lirene said you may be here,” Rosalyn said quietly. It was the most he had heard the blonde elf girl speak all at once. “Rae is hurt really bad. He just said that his chest hurt, and he was coughing up blood. Please,” she sniffled. Anders didn’t let her say anything more.

“Where is he? Take me to him, love.”

He was already following them down the stairs, Cat still clinging to him like a limpet, when he heard Aveline’s and Isabela’s voices.

“I didn’t realize Anders had kids,” Aveline sounded surprised.

“I don’t think he was aware either,” Isabela laughed. “Looks like we can go ahead and pack it up, big girl. Looks like we lost the rest of our competition to them as well.”

Anders glanced back over his shoulder in confusion at her last statement to see Marian, Varric and Fenris following after him. Isabela and Aveline appear at the top of the stairs together.

“Now this I have to see,” Aveline said. She sounded much too pleased about it.

“It is all rather darling,” Isabela agreed.

They spill out into the dark streets and Anders almost laughed at the sight they must have made; three grown men, three grown women, and a veritable crowd of chattering children.

Rosalyn shifted Cahir in her arms as Tanner told them that Raelnor was still in Darktown. The boy reached for Fenris with a hesitant look on his face even as he leaned nearly completely out of his sister’s grip seeking him. The warrior looked startled and Rosalyn bounced Cahir.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, “he normally doesn’t want anyone to hold him, I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“I can’t carry him wearing my gauntlets, I don’t want them to hurt him,” Fenris said.

Anders realized all of his friends had put their armor and weapons back to rights before following them and Fenris had his staff on his back with his own greatsword.

Rosalyn nodded, pulled Cahir closer to herself and stepped farther from the elf. “So give me a moment to remove them and then I will take him,” Fenris finished.

“Oh, you don’t have to-”

“It is no trouble.”

The girl watched with sharp eyes as Fenris stripped his spiked gauntlets off and tied them to hang from his pouch, still within quick reach. Once he was ready she stepped closer and this time when Cahir reached for him, Fenris met him and lifted the boy into his arms. One of Cahir’s small hands curled around the jutting edge of the breastplate of Fenris’ armor.

Anders forced himself to look away from the display and hoped if anyone saw his stare it hadn’t been as transparently fond as he feared it had been. From the look Varric gave him, Anders had no such luck.

They make their way unscathed through Lowtown and into Darktown. Perhaps because even criminals didn’t want to attack children but more likely it was due to luck and how well all of them were known for their fighting prowess. Raelnor was in their cramped little camp set up against one of the walls. Anders had noticed that the group was moving every night a little closer to the clinic; at the rate they are going, they will take to camping outside his front door by month's end.

The boy was pale, his skin clammy and cool to the touch when Anders carefully brushed fingers against his cheek. From how tense he was, Raelnor was conscious if barely. His breath whistled and gurgled in a concerning way, and his teeth were pink with blood.  He settled beside him and scanned him with trained eyes, assessing the possible causes. Anders was just preparing to start casting diagnostic spells to see if it is a rib puncturing the boy’s lung like he thought when Fenris touched his shoulder.

“Anders,” he said his name carefully. “It is too open here, people are watching.”

Anders scanned the refugees littered around them. He knew many of their faces but not all of them. He swallowed and nodded. The clinic isn’t far but they can’t risk jostling Raelnor too much by carrying him if it is a broken rib.

“We can put together a makeshift stretcher,” Aveline said. “There are beams we can use over this way and we can fix them to the blanket he’s on.”

Under her direction, they find pieces of wood long and sturdy enough to fit their needs. They secure the blanket to it and test it to ensure it will hold. Hawke and Aveline waved Fenris and Anders off when they tried to put the twins down.

“Get the rest of your kids into the clinic, we got him,” Hawke told them. Her grin said that she would not soon be letting this go. Anders decided any teasing was well worth it as he held Cat closer to him and let Bree take his hand to drag him towards the clinic.

He could almost imagine he was someone else, somewhere else for a few moments as he listened to Tanner and Rosalyn ask Fenris questions, followed by the warrior's deep voice answering. As if they were just a family returning home after a day at the market as he fumbled, shifting the toddler in his arms in order to retrieve the key to get the door unlocked and open for them. Cat, for her part, simply ignored the jostling and clung tighter to him.

When he tried to put her down inside and she blinked up dazedly at him Anders realized she must have fallen asleep at some point during the walk. He found a cot to lay her down on before going to get a warm blanket and pillow from his own bed to give her. When he returned, Fenris was carefully laying Cahir next to his sister. The twins curled into one another sweetly, both already stilling. Together Anders and Fenris got the pillow beneath both their heads before Anders tucked the now sleeping children under the blanket.

“Okay, where should we set him, Anders?” Marian asked as she and Aveline carefully navigated the stretcher into the clinic. Anders guided them to one of the larger cots and had them set Raelnor, stretcher and all, on it. Fenris shut and locked the door before he returned to help coral the children away to give Anders room to work.

Anders immediately began to check the boy over. His magic had been crackling beneath his skin as soon as he saw the blood on Raelnor’s lips and it surged forward when he called it.

As he had suspected, it was a broken rib in his lung. Anders pulled the potions he would need to give Raelnor afterward he was done healing him and downed his emergency lyrium potion before he set to work. He forced himself to tune out his companions talking to the children, keeping them distracted so the healer could focus. Once the rib was back in place and his lung healed as much as Anders could with magic, he sent another pulse of magic to check for other injuries.

He found four of his other ribs were cracked and Anders was certain Raelnor had lost a tooth recently. His jaw was still swollen but it didn’t seem to be infected. Anders certainly had a few questions for Raelnor once he woke up. Once the pain had been alleviated, Raelnor had gone limp, unconscious without it or his struggle to breathe to keep him awake. Anders stepped away and found a sheet to cover him with. Having already determined he will have a clinic full of kids for the remainder of the night, he found what blankets and pillows he could for the remaining three children and set them out on cots near their siblings.

“Is Rae going to be okay?” Bree asked once she saw Anders had stepped away from her injured brother.

“Yes, he is,” he assured. He saw all of their eyes turned to where Raelnor was still sleeping deeply, unmoving besides his deep breaths beneath the sheet. “He needs to rest, his body still needs time to recover, but he’ll be right as rain in the morning. Now, it’s bedtime for everyone. Come on, come get settled.”

Bree came over willingly and ran her fingers over one of the blankets he had set out with awed eyes. She arranged it on the cot carefully before curling up beneath it at his gentle encouragement.

“Ros, Tanner, you too, c’mon. Bedtime.”

Startled, the two looked at each other.

“I- you are really okay with all staying here tonight?” Tanner asked, “even after we ruined your evening with your friends?”

“You didn’t ruin anything, sweet thing,” Isabela assured him, “me winning every time was getting boring and this was all very exciting.”

“She’s right. Not about winning every time but about it not being ruined. Of course you can stay here tonight, come lay down.”

“Can… can we stay the night more after this?” Rosalyn asked, her voice so hesitant that Anders felt it hit him like a physical blow.

“Of course,” he told her before he could question himself. “Come lay down, love, get some sleep.”

Once he got them settled, Anders returned to where his friends were watching him with various expressions. They mainly looked amused, Aveline still looked a little gobsmacked and Varric’s smirk and sly glances at Isabela said they were already planning a friend-fiction together about the evening. However it was the almost fond expression that Fenris wore that stole Anders' breath from his throat.

It’s because of the children , he told himself firmly. Fenris was good with them, with most children when given the chance, and he never seemed to run out of patience with questions or demands to be carried. It’s because he is fond of the children.

There was no denying that Fenris was handsome, devastatingly so if you asked Anders, but before when all they had done was snap and snarl at each other their differences had been too great to analyze that too closely.

“It’s clear you have it well in hand here, let me know if you need anything,” Hawke said and clapped him on the shoulder as she passed him to leave the clinic. Isabela pressed a kiss to his cheek before jogging to catch up with Marian.

“You got good kids, Blondie,” Varric teased. Aveline waved at him over her shoulder as she and the rogue followed Hawke and Isabela.

Then he and Fenris were alone, besides the children. “They are lucky to have you, mage.”

“I can be pretty handy to have around,” Anders deflected weakly. “I’m just the only one they know to go to.”

“Doubtful, they appear to be very resourceful. They have chosen you because you are a good man. I will see you later, good night Anders,” Fenris said.

“Be safe, you have a good night too,” he answered lamely, tongue tied by this new, earnest side of Fenris he had never seen. He wanted to call out, tell Fenris he was a good man too but the warrior was already gone, the clinic door closed behind him.

Since the children had come into Anders’ life, since that first night Fenris had seen him heal Raelnor, something had shifted between them. It was something new and fragile that Anders refused to examine too closely for fear of breaking it, but nonetheless it was something. It had softened their fights to just bickering and the elf seemed to stop and truly listen to Anders more than he had in the past. Anders hadn’t felt inclined to pray to the Maker or Andraste since Karl’s death, but he prayed that night.

Please, Maker, keep this little family safe, he prayed. I know they aren’t mine, I know I don’t deserve any of them, but please look after Fenris and the children.

(please leave kudos and comments on ao3 if you enjoyed!)

[og-danny-dorito]

Hellboy Headcanons

it's MY blog and I get to choose the hyperfixation (also it’s yearning hours)

S F W :

- big man big man big man big man big man b

- i love big man v much, and let me tell u smthn it's not for no reason

- so, let's just get a few things straight, the dude is canonically 7 feet tall, meaning that he towers over pretty much anyone. on top of that's he's got horns, a tail, a big ass rock hand thing, and on top of it all a fiery temper. at this you may be asking yourself “danny, if the man hasn't like no redeemable qualities why do you like him so much?” unless you're here because you ALSO like him and know he has a lot of them. let me explain

- so let me start off with some simple facts; he LOVES cats. he loves cats so much so that he actually has a fuckton of them, as seen in the first and second movies (not the one directed by david harbor because i'm not even going to look in that general direction)

- in fact, he loves cats so much that he probably wants to go to a cat café. the issue is that his hulking figure would probably scare away any other patrons at the cafés, so sadly he can't go. as an alternative he just has a whole lot of cats. a lot of the time he'll find himself taking pity on the cats on the street and thus leaving out cans of tuna or cat food in places he might frequent

- he also has a pajama set with cats printed on them but NEVER tell him that it's cute or he may not make eye contact with you for a week

- ah, on that subject matter, he actually gets flustered pretty easily. the only issue is that it's not easy to tell when he does, and when he allows himself to feel like that. it's usually when he's sitting in his room and not really thinking about much of anything (aka: relaxed)

- you can tell by how his face somehow turns a slightly darker shade of red, and the frown and gruff grunt he gives as a response imply an almost evasive nature. he doesn't get how you can say something so innocent about him of all people, but regardless it makes him feel a little bit a somethin

- i know he LOOKS like he will crush your skull, but he's a huge softie. yeah, he comes back to the BPRD base looking like he just fought god bare handed and butt ass naked, but that doesn't mean he's a huge meanie. in FACT, if he really does like you that much he's probably going to treat you like the exact opposite of his stereotype

- he tends to be attracted to anyone who can make him laugh, which is pretty easy considering his biggest weakness is puns. yes, you read that correctly, puns

- catch this dude loosing his shit because you walked in to his room, saw his cats piled up on his torso to absorb his body heat, and said “Wow, looks like you've got a MEOWntain on you, Red.” seriously he won't be able to breathe for a good few seconds

- his laugh is pretty hearty and rumbles in his chest like a washing machine on spin cycle, ending with a dry heave. if you've cracked him up that much he will snort. tiny little piggy snort. and then deny it directly afterwards like a big baby

- he himself is a pretty funny dude, the only issue is that he's selectively funny. usually when he's relaxed and just chillin out he finds himself cracking more jokes than he normally would. making someone he likes laugh motivates him to make more jokes, especially if their laughter is contagious. seriously, he's weak against funny laughs he can't MAKE himself NOT laugh if you sound like a dying horse when you laugh

- he's also pretty affected by other people’s moods even though like 90% of the time he feels shitty. if you're in a good mood then he can't help but feel a little bit better. the positiivty is contagious and not even hellboy can resist it

- thus why he can't for the life of him resist any ounce of cuteness or innocence or impenetrable positivity. like, he just can't help but feel the immediate need to protect

- yeah he likes goth chicks (have you SEEN liz) but have you ever walked around with a literal ray of sunshine glued to your hip? cause big man can't handle the amount of joy it brings him to have someone so happy all the time next to him. it just,,, makes him weak

- that and he's a huge dummy for anyone who's smaller than average but also tends to be fiery and hotheaded like him

- like he doesn't even have a “type” appearance wise but catch him falling head over heels for a positive, firey, and outright goofy person to match his dry and dull attitude towards most things

- he tries to act like he's above it, but the man likes cute stuff. even when he gets caught red-handed petting a litter of kittens he'll just be like “what? never seen a demon before?” and continue with his activities

- if you do end up being his s/o you may very well be the person who has to take care of his wounds because he barely trusts anyone in the med bay to take care of him without trying to experiment or take weird samples without his knowing. that said, he really hates going to the doctor

- you'd be susprized how uncomfortable it makes him, really. so you're probably the one to actually make sure he doesn't fucking die

- it's rare he'll come from work unscathed. in fact, a good portion of the time there's a new scar to add to the count. when asked he'll play it off with some dry humor, barely addressing the fact that his muscles ache like hell and his joints are killing him. you'll have to pressure him into letting you take care of him, which results in a pout and grumbles of protest as he removes his shirt. if he has any injuries near his thighs he'll probably be really hesitant to let you take care of them until you've been with each other for like a month or so

- that and he lowkey would die of embarrassment if you were trying to tend to his thigh wounds and just saw how HUNG he is but i'm gonna save that content for possible NSFW headcanons in the future

- mans super gentle with his s/o, like SUPER gentle. he doesn't want to hurt them, honestly, and just leaving a small bruise from getting frisky or play fighting makes him feel like a fucking monster. in fact, it makes his self-esteem issues worse. he might not touch you for a while if you happen to get a particularly bad injury, on or off the field (implying that you work at the BPRD- if you don't he still feels like shit)

- which means that he probably would like some validation if he does start to feel like complete shit. his skin is thick from his experience over the years, but shit still happens and it always will. he's reminded every day that he doesn't deserve you just by seeing your visual differences. he knows he's a danger to you and the people around him, and it makes him want to avoid everyone. but some gentle words of affirmation and kisses all over make him feel 10x better. it isn't hard to get him out of a funk if he knows you love him too much to find disgust in him

- he doesn't seem very affectionate, but once he knows it's okay to touch up on his s/o like it's no tomorrow he will most definitely release all his touch-starved cravings and be attatched to you all the fucking time

- he's pretty much always holding your hand (although his hands are pretty big so he might just resort to having your and in his without linking fingers) or got his arm around you or, his favorite, having you sit in his lap. he tends to be pretty up close and personal with you if you're all about it

- the only real problems i can see with this are personal distaste or maybe the fact that he's a walking space heater. seriously, hellboy is quite literally hot as hell regardless of the environment, and turns his heater up crazy high. he thrives best in the heat and remains pretty much unaffected by all temperatures. he hates the cold because it makes the tips of his tail and ears cold, but that's pretty much all it does

- you could be in a freezer and the most discomfort he'll feel is that his ears are like a little 👌🏼 bit cold

- so yes, space heater, and it's great if you live in heat like he does. sleeping with him means you'll never get cold again, and since he takes up a lot of space in his bed it's very likely that you'll be sleeping on top of him or at least somewhat touching him. so win win for him, obviously

- he also likes to crank the heater up because it causes you to shed more clothes, probably leaving you in a tank top and shorts while a sheen of sweat forms on your skin and your hair sticks to your face. and if that ain't hot, he doesn't know what is (pun intended). he'll put it down if you ask him to though, begrudgingly. he just likes seeing you breathless is all- ow, don't punch his arm like that

- god forbid anyone look at you like that though. you're wearing something mildly revealing? hell no. there are some bad people out there with even worse intentions and he is not letting some asshole look at you like you're a piece of meat at a butcher's shop

- so obviously he's a bit jealous. well, he's actually a lot jealous, but he won't admit it. just like he won't admit that he was about to kill the guy that catcalled you while you were walking down the street. or that he glared down at the person chatting casually to you about your dress. or that he- you get the picture. he's very protective of you and wants everyone else to know, although it may be because of an inherent self-doubt that says you might leave him

- maybe one day you'll see that you've been dating a demon all this time and be horrified and scared of him, leaving him in the dust for good. it's probably best for you, he thinks, but you'd never do that...right?

- regardless, he's protective of you and thus gets jealous easily. one way to tell is that he tends to become somehow even more attached to you with the person in question nearby. if it gets bad enough he'll just scoop you up and leave, no questions asked. maybe for the sake of your pride and protecting your embarrassment he'll make up some excuse, but as soon as you can tell that he's following you around like a lost puppy it's clear to see that something is up

- if he's getting particularly annoyed though or just wants to tease you, he'll slide his tail up your leg and watch you squeak and jump until pretending he did nothing wrong. the only real way to one-up this is to pinch the head of his tail softly and watch him tense up and give you a look of betrayal because he's crazy sensitive there and gets super unscrewed if you mess with him like that

- of course, looking at him innocently and letting him go once he finally retaliates is always entertaining enough to do again. it may even become a competition between you two to see who looses it and gives out the quickest (spoiler: you're probably going to loose if your relationship is sexual- dude knows his way around the human body and WILL use it against you)

- but it's kind of cute how much he craves your attention, considering it seems he'll do anything to get you to stay by him most of the time. he hates being apart from you and hates knowing you could get hurt at the same time, so it's very likely that you'll have protection wherever you go (if you're in his line of work though he may consider making you his partner, but when he brings this up to Abe the fish man automatically is baffled that a person could bring this kind of reaction out of his stoic and dry-humored friend)

- now for my FAVORITE part; Miscellaneous Headcanons :

   he finds it hot as fuck when you wield weapons of any kind. like yeah you might be his soft precious angel and no one is allowed to touch you but him, but seeing you with a weapon of any sort makes him think about things he's guilty to even know to have though

  oh i forgot to add that he's probably pansexual but is more attracted to feminine body types. doesn't mean he won't fuck someone with a dick, but it does mean that he's a big dom and he likes tiny feminine figures so he's more well-rounded and comfortable with women

   calls you pet names all the time, including Doll, Kitten, Darlin, Sweet-cheeks, and maybe a shorter version of your name or a play at one of your defining traits (for instance, if your hair is red he might call you Little Red as a joke cause he's Big Red ahaha size joke funnyyyy). calling him a nickname in turn that isn't one of the usual like Sweetheart or Honey Bunches gets him blushing like he's got a fever. don't mention that to him though, or he'll get even more flustered (or do, your choice)

   tends to be super flirty with you for shits and giggles, but gets a little riled up if you hit him with an equally witty and flirtatious remark. a little bite never hurt anyone, and he enjoys it more than most

   he really likes spicy stuff, and is currently the champion of "The BPRD Fire-Eating Contest" which didn't involve actual fire from hell (opposed to popular belief) but rather various spicy foods from all over the place and even some from different realms. he won when he ate a concoction Abe made that involved multiple peppers that probably would kill a normal human if eaten all at once but just made Hellboy tear up a little bit and have a runny nose. anything else doesn't affect him at all, and thus why he puts insane amounts of hot sauce in food just to get a tiny sting from it

   his love language is physical contact

- and that's all! hellboy is an affectionate dude with a slew of insecurities. under those scars and rough exterior he can't help but feel his whole day brightened when he sees his s/o and/or best bud, regardless of his mood that day. as a goofball at heart and dad of a thousand cats, the guy is really just misunderstood. take a few minutes out of your day to get to know him over a beer or two and maybe you'll even get a new friend till the end of the line. once he likes you though, there's no way you're getting rid of this big teddy bear

[paperhatcollection]

A Duke and A Dad.

A fanic based solely on THIS picture by @honeycapp

To be fair, it’s not like they’d set out to get along from the beginning.

Which, and let’s continue to be fair here, wasn’t even the beginning from the start. But after years of ignorance and denial and paranoid thoughts that whispered across the mind at four in the morning- you had to start building a relationship back up from somewhere, and sometimes that work began in the middle of the story. Sometimes you had to dust out old cobwebs, and clean out the clutter, and find the cracked frame of a portrait you forgot you even had. Because remembering was painful, and it was the natural instinct of any part-of-a-human to avoid painful situations at all cost... or so you thought. So you thought.

You also thought nobody would ever willingly put another thinking, feeling being in pain when they had the power to help. But repression could be dangerous, and ignorance tenfold.

At first, nobody even knew where Patton had gone until he’d burst from Remus’s room in a full panic, with nothing but the echo of the Duke’s laughter following him down the hall. The idea had been quite simple in the beginning, really. Patton had wanted to meet a side of Thomas’s that he’d ignored and pushed down for far too long, had wanted to understand him in a way that wouldn’t leave him grasping for straws at every intrusive thought that wiggled and wormed its way into Thomas’s head. Remus had been excited at the thought of disturbing someone he’d never gotten a chance to disturb before, a side that (in his mind) had previously sat so ‘high and mighty’ atop a throne of acceptance, no matter what he seemed to do.

But then Patton came back and sat down on the only clean spot on Remus’s bed, ignored the way something was licking his ankles, and asked Remus through nervously gritted teeth where exactly he’d gotten the idea to wear an octopus on his head from, it was really- no thank you, he really doesn't want any blood. Yes, yes… he was very sure.

Patton didn’t know what he’d been hoping for, at the time. Peace, maybe. Of the mind, or the heart, or in general. He didn’t know. He’d been coming to realize he hadn’t known a lot of things, lately. More important things than he’d thought, anyways… Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he’d catch Janus watching him closely, but every time he’d turn his head to look, the snake-boi would have returned his attention to whatever else he had seemed to be doing. Patton had considered approaching Janus and asking him but- whenever he thought about it, his mouth felt dry and his throat felt closed off, and he was positive it had nothing to do with Janus’s own abilities at play. Remus would be… there, too. Not that he ever paid Patton any attention. 

But to be fair, no one gave anyone Remus any attention back. He was there. Always in the background, a consistent chatter to be tuned out, never the focus.

The next time Patton visited Remus, he took a stab in the dark and brought some homemade spaghetti, along with some garlic bread in his other hand. He watched Remus turn the tub of pasta over in his hands, as if trying to figure out what the hippity hoppity Patton had just given him. Then he’d popped off the lid, grabbed a handful of noodles, and shoved them into his mouth while grinning at Patton with far too many teeth. Patton had simply smiled back and remembered the last time he’d given Roman pasta. Sometimes, the twins looked more alike than they seemed to realize. After realizing he wasn’t getting too Patton this time, Remus had huffed and started to pick at the garlic bread, occasionally tossing chunks towards his dresser where they were snatched up by the jaws of… something Patton would rather not get a closer look at. Besides, who was he to go snooping in Remus underwear drawer?

(Remus caught him staring anyways, and figured hey if that’s what you wanna see pops- Patton excused himself while Remus was half undressed, but this time he left at a much calmer pace. He once again came back, at first to ask for the tupperware back, but spent all of five seconds watching Remus through the doorway before telling him he could keep it.)

It was a start, he supposed, and Patton soon turned it into tradition. He brought little gifts with him- first things based on what he knew Roman liked, but soon turning to things he guessed the Duke would enjoy, based on their slowly growing conversations and the things he saw littered around Remus’s room. (And Patton thought he’d been the messy side…). He’d tried bringing him a color book, but Remus had just eaten all the crayons and still somehow colored all the pictures in to be inappropriate images, and he’d tried giving Remus a fidget spinner but within five minutes of him having the thing it was made of knives and had an eyeball in the middle and followed Patton’s movements around the room. He swore it was blinking at him.

Then he tried branching out into a different direction- he brought Remus this newfangled thing he’d found called a ‘squishy’- this one designed for you to put slime inside so that when you squeezed it it came out through the mouth like… you know. And if when Remus squeezed it, it smelled a little too foul to be slime, well, his room kinda already smelled bad as it was. And then, after making a questionable gift decision at four in the morning, he got Remus a coffee mug shaped like a toilet. That very same morning, Remus showed up to breakfast drinking what Patton really hoped was coffee from that exact same mug. He’d also gotten Remus a plush shaped like an octopus with a little mustache, but he didn’t see it again the next time he’d visited, so he figured Remus must have torn it to shreds.

 One day, Patton had an idea that he… really wasn’t sure would work, but he figured it was worth the shot. Instead of bringing Remus something, he’d grabbed Remus and brought him to an empty room with some paint cans. Patton had handed him one- a green can of paint, and told him he’d always wanted to try just throwing around paint and seeing what would happen. So of course Remus threw the can of paint directly onto Patton.

So Patton threw a can of blue back on Remus in retaliation. And then Remus had laughed- dripping with blue paint, pushing it out of his face and winking at Patton, before tipping directly backwards and hitting the ground. Remus had spread his arms and legs back and forth- he was making a paint angel, Patton had realized, and he could only laugh cause… seriously, that was the most innocent thing he’d seen the Duke do up to that point. 

And if the two of them received a couple odd stares when they finally left the room a couple hours later- gosh the time had flown by- covered in more colors than Patton had thought possible, laughing at a joke that only made sense between the two of them... well, it was worth it in the name of mental health. Except… 

Patton wasn’t sure when something had changed.

Maybe it was when Remus had stopped waiting in the shadows of his room, under his bed or clinging to the ceiling above his door. Stopped watching every move Patton made, his eyes never leaving the moral side, morning star clutched a-little-too-tightly to his chest despite the little-too-wide grin he always wore. When instead his door would fly open when Patton got near it, or when Remus shoving a fistful of bugs in his face had shifted from trying to scare Patton to a genuine excitement at the new little… scuttle friends he’d found to add to the collection. Maybe it was the time he’d accidentally walked in on Remus sleeping- and yeah, it was always a surprise to see someone as chaotic and bursting with energy as Remus sleeping- and found him clutching a plush octopus to his chest, stitched up and patched where it had been ripped before.

Or maybe it was those times when Remus would find wherever Patton happened to be- sitting on the couch with a nice book, or stirring something in the kitchen, or at work trying to corral some of Thomas’s more runaway emotions- and suddenly Remus would be curled up at his side, clutching at Pattons arm, or his shirt, and not say a word. And slowly, piece by piece, Patton learned how to help Remus- push Remus too much, and you’d get snarls and scratches and screeching while the lights flickered. But a little nudge here, and a guiding hand here, and somewhere it wasn’t too bright and wasn’t too quiet- he’d found that Remus hated silence far more than he ever hated sudden or apprasive noises- and it would… help. Not magically make everything better all at once, but help.

Maybe it was that day Patton hadn’t been able to make it out of bed- everything had been too heavy. His arms, his legs, his eyelids, his thoughts. All he could do was wear his cat hoodie and fiddle with the edges of the sleeves, wondering if he should be feeling more… more something than the icky, heavy stone settled somewhere deep in his heart. When he’d been screaming at himself to get up, to do anything, as he watched the shadows slowly crawl their way across his wall. And then there had been a knock at the door- a quiet, timid knock, and then there was someone in there with him. A hand on his forehead, and then his cheek, and red eyes looking into him. And arms wrapped around him, and a warmth that made him shutter and cling to it, running his hands down fabric covered in glitter that clung to his hands and made them sparkle like a scattering of stars.

Maybe it was the time Remus had snuck up behind him once, in the living room, and grabbed Patton suddenly to spin him around in a circle. And Patton had just laughed, and called out Remus voice in a voice as cheerful as a bell, and everyone had suddenly looked at him like they suddenly realized something Patton didn’t. Maybe it was the way Remus would act around him- loud noises and sudden movements and grabbing his hands to bolt to the other side of the house just to watch Remus throw himself headfirst into the trash- maybe it was the way Remus never treated Patton like he’d break if he rose his voice a little too loudly. 

Maybe it was the time Patton had casually mentioned that he didn’t really know how to dance, and Remus had laughed, all high pitches and barking, and said that it was easy. That he could teach Patton lickity-split. Then he’d licked Patton’s cheek. And Patton had accepted, cause why not, while rubbing the drool off his face with the back of his hand, and when he’d finished doing that he’d looked up to realize they were suddenly in a ballroom. And Remus had taken his hands, and led him through the basic steps- except Remus had two left feet, probably literally, and Patton couldn’t help but think of an old saying about the blind leading the blind. And Patton had laughed, and pulled Remus closer, and hummed an old disney song as he fell in rhythm. And maybe they weren't the best dancers- maybe they stumbled and occasionally tripped over each other, and had to brush themselves off and start from the beginning- maybe they weren't perfect. But maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe sometimes you’ve cleaned out the cobwebs, and rebuilt the walls, and fixed the frame- and you make something new, and better, and something you cherish so much more than all the old things you miss.

Maybe you can make something magical, between a joke-cracking side and a side-spliting Duke. Maybe

Only one way to find out.

[pbjpuppy]

Walks

I’ve been going on a lot of walks recently.

‘Cause, y’know being in the house all the time isn’t really good for you. Like, y’know, cabin fever and stuff? Plus, we just did this unit in science- through the computer, they’re calling it distance learning- about indoor air pollution, and how the air inside a home can be multiple times more polluted than outside air, and how most people spend most of their time indoors (90%!), which really makes sitting in my bedroom for long periods of time kind of unappealing.

I don’t always like staying in my room anyway. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I spend most of my time in there like any other teenager does, and it’s great! I love my room. I’m even lucky enough to have my own instead of having to share it with a sibling like some people do. But still, even if you live in paradise it’s a prison if you can’t leave, so I don’t stay in there all the time. Sometimes I just wander around my house in circles instead. Or sit in my dad’s room.

Anyway- walks. Lots of them. One every day is the new routine, unless I get lazy, which has happened once or twice and I always regret it. To the end of the block, which intersects the road in a “T” shape, then I turn to the right and walk all the way until the sidewalk ends (Through the old elementary school’s parking lot- I’m always worried security will yell at me, but so far I’ve been peacefully ignored), then I turn back and walk all the way past my block again to the other end of the sidewalk, then home. It’s not the most scenic route; I live in the suburbs of Long Island and all the trees are dead because it’s only just turned April, and all there is to see is houses and road.

I keep myself entertained, though. There’s actually a lot to see if you really look. Nothing extraordinary, but that’s kind of what I like about it. I keep my eyes to the ground a lot, and you see a lot of litter on the ground: Cups, cans, cigarette boxes, packs of tissues, chicken wire, caution tape, strange boxy wooden contraptions that look busted and have been abandoned. Once I even saw an unopened condom. It’s an environmental nightmare, of course, but for the arrogant human on her walk it provides plenty of brain food. For every piece of trash there was a living, breathing human who held it, who used it, who discarded it. I wonder what they’re like and if I’ll ever meet them, what they’re up to. If they’re alive right now.

There’s not much that’s all too impressive in terms of nature, like I said, but it’s still outside, and I’ve seen a bunch of interesting nature-y things, too. On my first walk, I found a chunk of a wasp’s nest, half-rotted. Recently I found a bird’s nest too, and I wanted to go pick it up, but it was in somebody’s yard and I didn’t want to get yelled at for trespassing. Just today I passed right through a murder of crows, kind of. They were perched in a group on the trees and telephone wires, and their croaking startled me out of my daydreaming to admire them. I’ve seen a lot of things that look like bones that aren’t bones, and one time I saw something that looked like a bone that actually was a bone.

The one natural thing I don’t see on my walks is humans. Not one in a week. I would have expected to see at least one person walking their dog or something, or just doing work in the yard. I mean, everybody else has to be as restless as I am inside, right? But no, no people to be seen. That’s okay, though. The sidewalk is narrow, I like not having to share it. It also means I can text while I walk and not worry about bumping into someone. Plus, I guess it’s been kind of yucky out weather-wise. By the time I get home from my walks my nose is usually pink and runny from the cold.

I live with two other people, my dog, my cat, and my two pet rats. That makes seven living things and three living humans. The house is quiet a lot of the time. My brother and I are both teenagers- I’m seventeen, he’s nineteen- and we spend a lot of time in our rooms. My dad is usually working, or out of the house. He likes to go over to his girlfriend’s house a lot, or out to the city for the weekend before… Everything happened, and I’ll take care of myself for the evening and the following day or so. Sometimes it’s longer than that. I don’t hear from my brother those days, he makes his own food. Sometimes I’ll be home alone and won’t even realize until I walk past his bedroom and see it’s been empty this whole time.

My dad’s been away a lot this week, I think. And my brother’s been quiet. I think he’s told me he doesn’t feel well. That’s okay. I can take care of myself well enough and I think I have people online to talk to. My dog barks a lot, that’s kind of like conversation. Plus, I have Animal Crossing, that game where you live on an island with a bunch of little animal people? It’s really cute, I love it. I talk to the animals on Animal Crossing. I don’t mind being alone.

I’m on a walk, and my fingers and nose are cold and pink. I have an umbrella, but I don’t actually need it. It’s not raining anymore, the wind is just moist and cold. It’s dangling from my wrist. I liked playing tug-of-war with my umbrella against the wind, but the wind won, and my umbrella turned inside out, so I stopped. I’m coming back from the right side of the T.

There’s lots of evidence of humans. There’s so much litter, pieces of trash that somebody was holding and let go of and now it’s on the ground. I thought I smelled weed before, which is gross, but that means that somebody somewhere was smoking it, somewhere nearby. There’s graffiti on the street signs.

There’s lots of cars on the road, too. I don’t know where they’re going. Nobody’s really supposed to be going anywhere right now, I think. We’re supposed to be staying home, that’s what I was told. Maybe they’re going to get groceries. You’re allowed to go get groceries. All of them are getting groceries.

Going to school online is a weird and kind of stressful experience, by the way, did I mention that? I’ve never done anything like homeschooling, I’ve always gone to public school my whole life, ever since I went to the old elementary school that I have to pass through on my walks. I’m used to structure. There’s this bell that drones at the end of every class, and when you hear the bell you get up and shuffle to your next class, forty-two minutes every class period. I’m used to that. Now they’re so far away. The classes, I mean, like, the concept of them. It’s just kind of a vague idea that there’s work I should be doing, now. I’ve been doing okay. I set alarms every forty-two minutes and pretend I’m going to class.

I still haven’t seen a single human. I’ve been looking into the windshields of the cars as I walk and I still haven’t seen a single one. I don’t know who these cars are trying to fool, you can’t drive a car if there’s nobody in the driver’s seat. That’s impossible. But I haven’t seen a single human. Super-smart cars, maybe. I think I’ve heard about those on the news, right? Sometime before everything happened. They’re sending their cars to get groceries.

I walk past the cemetery if I want to walk farther than usual. Usually my walk stops me right by the cemetery. I like ghosts and spooky things so I like living so close to a cemetery. It’s a nice cemetery, too. I don’t go in it very much, the only dead person I know wasn’t buried in the cemetery and I don’t want to intrude on anybody who’s grieving their loved one. Walks aren’t that important and I have a different route. I don’t think I would find anybody in the cemetery, but I’m going to go home anyway. I’ve been walking for a long time.

I think a lot on my walks. My mind wanders. I do it on purpose, actually, I put on my music and let my mind wander while I walk. I like to draw and write stories, and letting my mind wander while I walk is good for inspiration. I’ve been thinking about humans and cars and crows. The crows fly away when I walk near them. I wonder if the humans are like crows and that’s why I can’t see them. Maybe I did something wrong and everybody’s avoiding me. Maybe everyone’s too busy getting groceries to be in their cars. It must be a lot of groceries.

My dad has been away a lot this week. I want to tell him about the bugs I caught in Animal Crossing. I don’t know if I’ve seen him in a while. I thought I said goodbye to him yesterday. Yesterday it was snowing, when I said goodbye. It wasn’t snowing yesterday. I wish he’d get back from whatever he’s doing. I hope he brings me back something from the grocery store.

My brother hasn’t been feeling well. He wants me to leave him alone, I think. I think he said that, and that’s why he’s not in his room. He doesn’t want me to bother him, I think. He hasn’t been feeling well for a long time. He’s such a complainer. There’s mold in the food he left in his room.

Online school is so frustrating. I’m really not good at math, and I tried to message my teacher about an exponents question, but he hasn’t been replying to me. I skipped the math problems, I think, and I can’t find the right website we’re supposed to be doing them on. I can’t find the app on my phone I used to text my teacher. I’m so forgetful. I forgot to text him, I think.

This wouldn’t be happening if everything hadn’t happened. If we were in school, I’d be able to raise my hand and ask the teacher in person about my math question. And there would be other students, too. But we have to stay home. Everyone has to stay home.

I don’t know why we have to stay home. I thought somebody told me. I can’t remember. I know everybody has to stay home. The government said so or something. That’s why I can’t find anybody. Everybody’s at home.

My dad isn’t answering his phone. I want to know when he’ll be home. He’s not supposed to be out. I forgot my dad’s number, I think. I’m going to walk to the grocery store. It’s getting dark out now, but I think I need to go. I’m going to see what all the fuss is about. Everyone’s at the grocery store, that’s why I can’t find them.

There’s not much to see in the suburbs of Long Island. The shapes the buildings make are kind of pretty, though. They’re all warped and blackened, like a giant hand smushed them like play-doh. There’s lots of litter. There’s evidence of humans everywhere. The sun is setting behind the ruined buildings and it looks red and burning. It reminds me of something awful. Maybe a movie I watched, I think, about some awful explosion. The sun is too red and it’s scaring me. I’m going to keep walking to the grocery store.

This parking lot is empty and dirty. There’s lots of litter: plastic water bottle casings, old lighters, trampled wet paper bags, turned over shopping cars, shells of cars, the grocery store sign smashed on the ground. I step on the broken glass because it makes a nice sound. It smells like food, I think. The smell of the food is making my throat hurt, I think. There’s smoke rising from the building. They’re cooking, I think. The sun is so red behind the smoke. It looks like fire.

It looks like fire. There’s so much fire. It’s reminding me of something really bad. I’m really scared, something in my brain is really scared. Something happened and I can’t remember. I don’t want to be at the grocery store anymore. I’m walking home now but my legs aren’t feeling very normal. I wish the sun wouldn’t look so red. Everything is red and warm and smoky. It’s only just April and my nose and fingers are supposed to be pink from the cold.

I’m getting lost, I think. Once I find my way home I can get my dad to hug me so I feel better. I don’t know why I’m crying. Something is making me sad and scared but I can’t remember what it is. Reminds me of a movie, I think. A big scary explosion in a movie. The air smells like smoke. I think I might be upset because of cabin fever. That’s it, I think.

I think I need to go on more walks.

[cohenjulia1992]

Cat Pee Under Litter Box Jaw-Dropping Useful Ideas

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Can A Spayed Female Cat Still Spray

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Cat Pee Get You High

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[zach-the-fox]

Furiends Episode 6: Research and Capture

The two girls and fox boy regroup with their friends as they stand on the outside of the chain-link fence surrounding a large, two-story building situated in the forest. Streaks of cracks line the concrete structure. Plants grow through the broken pavement around the uninhabited facility.  

Niji glances at the property and scans around the area. “Look at this place! What a total dump! Probably a home for rats.”

“I don’t find it bad,” says Navy. “I actually quite like it. And I adore rats. They are just so cute!”

Eren turns to the warthog. “Um, Emmy. Why did you tell us to come here? What’s going on?”

“Zach saw an article in the paper that there was some strange figure residing here,” Emmy answers. “And we suspect it’s the demon Carly, Navy, and I summoned.”

“What?!” Navy runs up to her. “You found our child?! Is he here?!”

“Maybe. We won’t know unless we go in and check it out.”

“You want to explore an abandoned laboratory?!” Silus exclaims. “Are you crazy?!”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Carly adds. “Then Emmy brought up a point with Team Rescuers. I don’t want to get in trouble… My mother would kill me…”

“If we’re going to find this demon, we should be quick,” suggests Zach. “There’s a chance Team Rescuers might show up and search this area, given all of the cries from Heroto.”

“Right, let’s not waste anymore time,” Emmy utters. “Let’s get in there and find our demon. Now, how will we get over this fence?”

“I can lift you guys over,” Silus says. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get in, though.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Niji spurts, staring down the opposite direction. The gang all see where he’s looking: A slight tear in the metal fence forms a little hole for those to sneak inside. “We can just crawl in through there.”

“Good thinking, Niji!” Emmy walks down to the opening with the others. One-by-one, they get on their paws and knees to crawl passed the metal chains-links. Silus, being the last one in, gets stuck under with his shirt caught in the edges. Eren and Zach help pull him out of the ditch, ripping his apparel and creating a streak in his shirt, showing his bare chest.

“Oh,” utters Eren, blushing with shock. “My… When we’re done here, we must go to the bedroom.” Silus chuckles. The gang then make their way toward the two, shattered glass doors of the concrete structure.

Carly steps up and attempts to open them by pulling, then pushing. “They don’t budge… Guess we can’t go in…”

Navy grabs a metal pipe laying nearby and swings it at the glass, breaking it into pieces and clearing the way. “You were saying?” The friends then climb through the open spaces in the doors, entering inside. “Okay, now what?”

“I say we split up,” Emmy orders. “We’ll cover more ground that way.” The others hesitate, then they agree before splitting into groups. Niji goes with Emmy and Zach as they head up the stairs while Carly stays with the blue jay, deer, and newt on the ground level.

“I don’t feel very comfy about this place,” Carly comments, paws huddled together as she stays close with her friends.

“Come on, Carls.” Navy puts her wing around the cat. “It’s not so bad. I’ve been watching urban exploration videos Snootube and it’s pretty fascinating to see old structures hollowed out. The vide is quite nice.”

“Maybe for you, but me, not so much.” Carly narrows one eye and puts her paw on her chin. “Though, it wouldn’t be bad to maybe draw some of my characters in the same situation.”

“You’ll have plenty of time when we get back,” Eren tells her. “Right now, we should help Emmy find the demon.”

“By the way, what does he look like?” asks Silus, searching around. “Do you have a description of him?”

“I don’t know,” Navy goes. “He was a fireball when we summoned him at my apartment. I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“Well,” Carly starts. “Zach looked at the article in the paper, and he said it’s a giant, furry, black creature. So, look for something furry and big, I guess.”

“And maybe glowing eyes,” adds Navy. “Demons usually have glowing eyes that pierce through the dark.” Carly gulps, wearing the face of fear with wide eyes.

Upstairs, the boys and warthog enter a big room littered with barrels and tables of broken beakers and equipment.

“Interesting place,” Niji utters, passing the large machines to get closer to Emmy. “Why would people abandon a laboratory and leave some of their things behind?”

“Obviously, something must’ve happened to force the scientists to leave,” Emmy answers. “What that might’ve been, I don’t really know.”

“I know, though…” Zach places his paw on the wall and leans on it. “Ten years ago, when I was eight, we went on a class field trip to this place… We were to learn about the wonders of science and technology for our outing… The whole group and I were in one room when something knocked glass beakers and test tubes over and spilled on the table, causing it to react with the other chemicals; my tail. The entire facility was in chaos… We had to evacuate and exit the building when a giant explosion ripped a hole in the place. The government deemed the laboratory unsafe and shut it down. Our trip only had begun that day, too, but it ended quickly. My classmates all hated me for that and refused to talk to me.” He puts his paws on his head. “It’s all coming back to me… All the kids calling me flawed fox and how awful I just am…”

Emmy walks up to the fox. “Hey… It was only an accident. You didn’t mean to knock over all of that stuff and destroy the whole place. Mistakes happen… We can’t erase them…”

“Funny you say that, Emmy… Considering you’re talking to one…”

“You’re not a mistake, Zach. So, what if Team Rescuers and Heroto doesn’t like you? Their opinion doesn’t matter, anyway. Ours does! And we all like you.”

As the warthog comforts the fox, the rainbow-haired wolf motions toward the pile of barrels situated in the corner. “Weird how scientists would abandon a lab and not take their chemicals with them.” He leans down and squints his eyes to read the label on one of them. “Danger. Handle with care. Avoid contact with skin and fur.” Niji tilts his head. “I wonder what’s so dangerous that they don’t want people touching.” He grabs the lid of one barrel and pulls it off the top. Looking inside, his eyes glisten and his mouth forms a small ‘o’ when staring at the colorful liquid settling in the container. “Oooh, rainbow! Ahhh!”

Emmy takes her hoof back from the fox’s stomach, and turns around. “All right, let’s get back to- Niji, what are you doing?”

“Look, guys!” Niji shouts, holding the rim of the barrel and lifting it up. “Rainbow liquid! It’s so pretty!”

The warthog ambles over to the wolf. “Niji, we shouldn’t be messing around with any of these strange chemicals. They could be dangerous.”

“I’m not messing with chemicals. I’m just looking at it.”

“Listen, we shouldn’t-” As she reaches for him, Niji moves away, holding the metal container in his grasp still. “Come on, Niji. Don’t be difficult.” Her hooves grab the other half of the rim. “Put it down!”

“No! My rainbow! Mine!”

“Niji, stop! I swear, you’re going to-” Emmy yanks hard with her might, which causes the force to pull her back and hit into a stack of metal barrels. “Cause an accident…” The containers tip over and fall to the ground, dumping their colorful contents out all over the warthog before flowing toward the wolf and fox. The three friends are knocked off their feet and swept away by the wave of rainbow fluids.

Back downstairs, the others stop in place as they hear the sloshing sounds above, as well as rushing liquid and their friends screaming.

“What’s going on up there?!” Carly spurts. “What’s happening?”

“Emmy, Zach, and Niji must be in trouble,” answers Eren. “Maybe they found the demon!”

“We should help them, then!” Silus shouts. He leads the three animals toward the staircase, only to stop after a few steps. They freeze to see rainbow liquid rushing down the stairs, carrying their three friends in it as it surges toward them. “Oh crud!”

“Yipe!” Carly turns and runs down the other way. The others are quick to follow, but the chemical flow swoops them off their feet and carries them into the room at the very end, piling the gang into a corner before settling. The friends remain sitting/lying in the puddles for a little bit, soaked by the rainbow water, then they each stand up, one-by-one, shaking off the remnants of the fluids.

“What the hell were you guys doing up there?!” Navy exclaims, looking at the warthog, wolf, and fox. “And what is all of this?!”

“Some sort of rainbow water,” explains Niji. “I don’t see why it’s dangerous, though.”

“Aw man!” Carly shakes off her paws. “Now I’m going to need a shower! Thanks a lot, Niji!” Niji frowns as he looks at her.

Zach, on the other hand, forms a smile on his face while he remains seated in the chemical. “For once, I’m actually quite happy it wasn’t me this time.”

“That was definitely something,” Silus adds, standing tall. He notices the deer staring and blushing at him. “Um, Babe, are you okay?” His husband remains silent, then he sees the others noticing his bare torso, slim and slightly muscular. “Where’s my shirt?” He then sees his apparel drifting in the liquid. Silus leans down to pick it up, only to see it soaked and ripped further. “Well, there goes my good shirt… No point wearing this anymore…”

“Eren, I am jealous,” Zach comments, staring at the shirtless newt. “Now, I really wish I had my own “Silus”. He’s so hot and handsome without his shirt.”

“Really?” asks Carly. “Didn’t take you to be the gay type, Zach. I always thought you were mostly into girls.”

“Bisexual,” he corrects her. “I’m bisexual. I am into anyone regardless of gender.”

“Well, after being completely soaked in rainbow, I still don’t see where Emmy’s demon is,” Niji utters. “In fact, I don’t think he’s even here. We should call it a day.” Everyone’s ears twitch upon hearing the sound of muffled voices outside and branches breaking. “What was that?”

“Someone’s here!” mutters Navy. “Could it be Team Rescuers and the authorities?!”

“Let’s get out of here, then,” Emmy states. The gang all bolt for the door where they came in, but soon halt in place to see shadows appear by the entrance. “Great, now what?”

“There’s an opening in the wall we passed to get in the chemical room,” Zach expresses. “We can go out that way!” He and the others scramble up the stairs and down the hallway to the giant, gaping hole in the wall. Silus picks up Eren with his hands and places him on his back, then he slides down the side. Zach does the same thing, carrying Emmy on his back. Niji falls off after running out. Silus puts Eren down quickly to catch the wolf.

“You’ve got to be joking!” yells Carly. “I’m not jumping down from here!”

“You’re a cat!” Navy tells her. “You’ll land on your feet perfectly!”

The cat turns to her. “What?!” The bird shoves her off before jumping herself and flapping her wings to slow her fall. Carly lands in the bushes nearby, which have cushioned her fall. Navy goes over and helps her up. “Never do that again!” The friends then scurry off, vacating the area and then disappearing into the brushes as a shadow looms over their route.

 ***

 The seven animals make their way through the forest and back into town, dripping wet with the rainbow liquid still soaking their bodies.

“Ugh, that went horribly,” Carly comments. “Not only were we walking around a creepy laboratory, but we also got soaked in some chemical…”

“I’ll need about ten baths a day just to get it out,” Silus adds.

“I’m kind of used to it,” Zach butts in. “I’ve been covered in way worse.” Navy asks him what he means. “Oh, mud, ketchup, tar, sewage water, coal dust… Yeah, the list keeps on going…”

“Aside from being soaked in that rainbow water, I thought it was kind of pretty,” remarks Niji. “The colors and all…”

“Well, the whole “search and capture” mission was all but a fail,” Emmy implies. “I was hoping we’d find that demon…”

“Hey…” Eren puts a paw on her shoulder. “We may not have found anything other than colored chemicals, but at least we all hung out together. That’s all that matters.” He smiles.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to head home immediately,” says Navy. “A little shower and freshening up is what I need.” The others agree before parting. Eren turns to Silus, still staring at his exposed torso.

Silus takes notice of him. “Like the view, Darling?” Nothing comes out of Eren’s mouth. The newt then scoops him up in his arms and carries him. “I guess we’ll be in the bath together, tonight.” He starts walking with the deer in his clutches. “Come along, Zach.”

“Just a minute,” Zach tells them. “I’ll meet you at the house.” As the two boys head off, the fox steps toward the warthog, who remains still and lets out a sigh. “You okay, Emmy?”

Emmy pivots to him. “Huh? Oh, I’m fine… I’m just disappointed… I wasn’t just hoping to catch the demon to stop Team Rescuers from finding him, but I was also really excited I’d get to see the very thing I summoned. I really wanted to get close to him if I could.”

“W-what? Why would you want to be close with a demon? What’s wrong with us?”

“It’s really more of a “not-being-single” thing… Zach, there’s nothing wrong with you guys as my friends. It’s just sometimes, I’m just so sick of being lonely… and I feel like no one wants to date a short, weird warthog like me…”

“I understand…” Zach places a paw on her back. “I’m sorry things didn’t go as planned for you. I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t want to date you, though. You’re not a bad person; you’re a sweet, talented young lady who’s different like me. If anything, I’d say you’re someone I’m glad I’m close with.”

Emmy shifts her head back at him, tears streaming from her eyes with a smile. “You know what, the whole demon hunt doesn’t matter. I don’t need a demon date when I have you and the others. I’m just glad I get to hang out with everyone.” She throws herself forward to hug the fox. Zach smiles as he squeezes her in his arms. When they part, she looks up at him. “Thank you, Zach… Um, I should get back home before my mom and jerk of a stepdad get worried, and wash these chemicals off. Don’t want them getting concerned.”

“Can I walk with you?” Emmy asks him why. “Can’t friends walk together and enjoy each other’s company? Also, I have a feeling Silus and Eren are going to occupy the bathroom for a while, considering they are quite “dirty”.”

Emmy chuckles slightly. “I guess it’s okay.” She walks down the sidewalk with the fox alongside her as they head into further in town. From afar, a pair of glowing eyes pierce through the foliage and watch the friends as they amble away. @emmy-the-absolute-goof​ @carlycmarathecat​ @ask-choro-mama​ @rainbow-strike​ @pink-unicorn-blood​

[exomatseumnida]

Sleep on my lap for the last time

in which Bobby comforts you when you go through a shitty time

I woke up feeling a bit blue than usual. Not sure if it was because today is Monday or because my period is near or because my pet cat, Tommy, had been sick for these past days. I pushed away those feelings and motivated myself to get up from the bed and made way to the bathroom.

It seemed like Monday hates me because one, Bobby doesn’t reply to my text (in which I assume he was busy either in practice or making a new song), two, my class was extended until five o’clock, three, my housemates hate my cat and they send subtle hints telling me to send Tommy away. Me, being the un-oblivious one, decided to brush it off until one day one of my housemates blamed Tommy for scratching her cat and rant on Instagram about it. And what am I supposed to do about it? Scold Tommy? As if he can understand.

Things however started getting out of hands when Tommy started to leave crystals from his litter box everywhere on the floor, peed blood and vomited everywhere. My housemates started glaring at Tommy and treating him like a stray cat. I was well aware of his sudden change in behavior and had been bringing Tommy to the vet every night ever since he showed symptoms of urinary tract infection (as to what the vet diagnosed him with).

One night, I put Tommy inside my bedroom after many nights of not doing so (because he peed on my bed when I didn’t let him out despite his frequent meows) and started studying for my upcoming finals. I was so stressed out because physiology really isn’t my favorite subject out of this course that I am studying. I was at the verge of breaking down and suddenly I felt a heavy furry thing jumped on my lap and started kneading on my thigh.

“Tommy, not now…” I looked down and tried to put her on the floor but she curled herself and slept on my lap. I sighed and decided to just continue to study before my phone lit up signaling that I received a text.

‘How’s Tommy?’ Bobby asked

‘He’s doing fine except that he threw up yesterday and still peed blood’ I typed explaining Lucy’s situation to Bobby. I had told Bobby about Tommy’s condition (minus the housemate part) and he had ever since asked me to update about Tommy.

‘I want to meet that kid before I’m off for tour ’

‘You don’t want to meet your girlfriend?’

‘Aww baby, I want to meet both of you but Tommy can’t text me, can he?’

I chuckled and decided to ditch physiology and just chat with Bobby since to wait him reply to my text sometimes takes a decade.

It was just a normal Saturday evening when I had to bring Tommy to the vet again for his check up. I could hear one of my housemates whining about how messy the house has been these days (ever since Tommy fell sick). Me, on the other hand, ever since she ranted on her Instagram about having Tommy as a pet cat was worse than a heartbreak, have been avoiding human contact with my housemates and locked myself in my room. I know It was not directed at me but somehow, how could she say that to a cat who is just…..living his life as a cat? It puts me in an uncomfortable position when they were all hating on my cat, I mean, what am I supposed to do about it?

Once I was back from the vet, my housemates were all cleaning the house and suddenly said ‘we need to talk about Tommy’.

And I knew it would be something bad. Something that I am outnumbered for.

“We really can’t stand him vomiting and fighting with Lucy (their cat). Once we give Lucy away, we won’t be taking care of Tommy” one of my housemates said while mopping the floor.

“Um…all these while I was the one taking care of him?” I made an obvious statement while still holding the carrier where Tommy was still inside.

“I mean, you have to put Tommy in your room and not let him out in the living room, can you do that?”

I frowned. I hold in my scoff and tried to hide my disappointment but I guess I failed at doing so when one of them tried to back me up, even though deep down I know she was the one who ‘suffered’ the most.

I tried holding back the words that was about to slip out of my mouth but I know I couldn’t just throw away a friendship over a cat, neither can I keep Tommy inside my room until graduation day so I decided to say this for friendship’s sake

“It’s okay, I’ll let go of Tommy” I smiled, although I bet everyone who could relate to my situation right now could hear my heart breaking into pieces.

“Oh, if so, then we won’t let go of Lucy”

And that was it. That was the sentence that made me sick to the pit of my stomach to even call her my friend. Never have I ever felt so betrayed in my entire life.

And being the person who hates awkward situation, I nodded and proceeded to enter my room.

Somehow, I’d like to believe that they were kidding. I know taking care of two cats in small house was a bit overwhelming considering how they’d fight, leave urine traces and sometimes poop, but can’t they just consider my feelings and talk it out smoothly instead of just smashing it to my face?

I let Tommy out of the carrier and watch as he walked towards my bed and curled to sleep. This is going to be an emotional night. I picked him up from the bed and put him on my lap like he always did whenever I’m not looking for a distraction. Tommy jumped off from my lap and headed towards the door.

“Tommy….can you please…this is the last night you will be with me…” my voice trailed off as I wiped my tears off.

The next day, I decided to drop Tommy to the pets’ center for adoption. I picked up my furry friend who had been with me for almost two years that I had to let go over the sake of friendship and held him close to me, taking in his scent before setting him free. The friend that had been with me through my untold tears, through my unspoken happiness, through my stressful days….

“Just fill in this form and you can let him go” the lady said as she handed me a form to fill about Tommy’s details.

I took one last look at him and how his eyes slowly blink while he looked at me sadly in the arms of the lady who handed me the form just now. I fought back my tears and tried telling myself that I was being emotional. He’s just a cat, right? Why would I make a big deal over this?

On the way back home, I failed to hold back my tears and let them fall. My sobs grew louder gaining attention from people around me. I closed my mouth with my hand and sat on the nearest bench to calm myself down. I took out my phone and called Bobby but just to my luck, he had his phone off. God, this felt worse than my last breakup….

One week passed and the void that Tommy left still couldn’t be filled (call me dramatic but I am dead serious). The heavy tension in the house was still hanging in the air and I don’t feel like making any effort to loosen them. I rarely left my room except to attend class and buy necessities.

Bobby had invited me to his practice and to accompany him to work on his new song. I haven’t really told Bobby about Tommy because I don’t think he needs to know when he has much more to think of besides a cat.

“Hey, (Y/N)!” the boys greeted as I entered the practice room. “Hi” I waved back. “You look like you lost some weight” Yunhyeong said as he took a closer look at me. “Am I?” I turned to look at myself in the mirror. I think I look the same though…

“Is it because of college? Damn, I really thought of enrolling but seeing how it stresses you out makes me think twice..” Donghyuk said. I laughed and saying it wasn’t because of college but something else.

“Anyway, where’s Bobby?”

“He’s in the studio, probably still working on the new song” Hanbin replied.

I walked to his studio which was one floor up and knocked before turning the door knob. “Oh, you’re here?” he turned around with his cap covering his disheveled hair. “Yeah, am I disturbing?” I asked before entering. “No no, come on in” he said while placing the cushions on one side so that I can sit. Bobby saved whatever he had done and turned his attention towards me. He opened his arms and smiled while I walk towards him and hug him tight.

“How’s my girl?” he asked while running his hand on my back. “Great” I said but my voice cracked while I lied. I was not even the slightest amount okay. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat after sending Tommy away.

Bobby pulled away and looked at me straight in the eyes. “I don’t think so…” he tilted his head as he furrowed his eyebrows. And that was it. That was the threshold. I broke down in front of him hard. Bobby engulfed me in another hug, “hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he soothed me. However, I didn’t stop sobbing. Yes, that was how much I was holding it in.

Once I calmed down a little bit, Bobby pulled away and cupped my face. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked while wiping the remaining tears that left. I hiccupped before making a sentence and held my breath to calm down.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to meet Tommy…” I said before explaining the whole story.

“Oh babe…I’m so sorry. I don’t really know how it feels to be treated like that and to lose a pet but I’m always here for you, okay? You’re a strong girl, you’ll get through this. I’m sure Tommy understands you, it is out of your control. You’ve given him love and shelter for the past two years, I’m sure he also wants the best for you. Sometimes to love is to let go” he patted my back. “Tommy will be a brave and loving cat to his new master because you taught him that, babe. He’ll remember you for growing him up, although I’m not sure if cats have a great memory, but I’m sure deep down he feels thankful to you” Bobby smiled.

Somehow his words made me feel better and less shitty than I was feeling for the past week. I gave him a weak smile before wiping off the remaining tears that rolled down. “Come on, let’s go get your chocolate mint ice cream from the cafeteria” he held me hand and dragged me out of the studio.

Having Bobby in my life is always a bless.

[masqueradelydia]

Maladjustment

Summary: A continuation of Adjustment. Remus prepares for and delivers a new performance.

Characters: Remus Sanders, Roman Sanders, Virgil Sanders, Patton Sanders, some characters I made up whose names aren’t important (The last names are different)

Warnings: None

Ships: N/A

Words: 5754

(Adjustment is here: https://masqueradelydia.tumblr.com/post/186685098818/adjustment-to-personhood if you want to read it first, but it isn’t necessary to read this piece.

           Remus swallowed. Something in his lower intestine begged to flip his organs inside out as he stood up from the little table in front of his fold-up bed and broken lampshade. Papers were strewn about, carefully kept away from the open cans of preservatives, baked beans, and littered Snickers wrappers, along with several tissues that had hardly been aimed anywhere near the trash can. He’d tried to keep them away from the part where the ceiling leakage would drip to the floor and where that ever-growing mold sliding along the edges of the wall, and away from any cracks where something could crawl through and nibble at them. These papers piled up in droves by his feet and around his ankles like mice waiting to scatter around his apartment, but Remus had meant to keep them on the table as he pored over the notes and sketches written on them, trying not to recite the lines on them loudly enough to receive a haranguing from the man next door, or receive another attempt at a hole being punched through his door. It wasn’t his neighbor’s fault after all that Remus couldn’t ever sit still long enough to be quiet.

           Remus should’ve thrown away all of these old papers, but they were still a part of the first project he’d done that would send him towards the life he’d stayed up all night for. His feet wouldn’t stop tapping as he wrote, as if the light from above some stage was getting ever so much closer to them, wanting them to step forward, despite his worn sneakers having so many holes he could feel the concrete through half of the right sole and his nicest jacket being frayed at the sleeves and the collar of it was almost completely detached from the rest of it. His hands wouldn’t stop moving either as he wrote out extra details to his stand-up routine for the night.

           He didn’t think about the sweat building up so much that he felt like it would drip into his eyes and ears, or the faces his friends made the first time he ran his routine by them, the way that Em’s eyes shifted as she cracked the faintest of smiles, or Cal’s drawn out sight and wide-eyed shake of his head as if he’d sat through a lecture. He wasn’t think about Silas’s hands circling his own beer bottle, his face thoroughly transfixed by its design during Remus’s quips and queries. He was going over his routine as it was right now, with its timing and phrasing, elaboration and cuts just enough to give him time to flash a certain kind of grin, the new stories he’d tell cut to their bare essentials and just enough punchlines where they needed to be. He nodded to himself as he looked up to the door, which was about to come off of its hinges from all of the knocking.

           “Remus! Come on out, our flight leaves in two hours,” Silas’s silvery voice sing-songed from the other side.

           “Finish up your makeup, bitch,” Em called out, a certain twang to her tone.

           She’d probably collapse laughing if she’d ever seen how he’d worn it back in the day, at least, when he still had access to it. She was always insistent on dressing her best, even if that just meant an old tank top and a nice haircut. Silas, on the other hand, preferred to show up exactly as he was with his hair up and the occasional wristband.

           Picking up his last draft covered in coffee stains, different colored pen marks, and a little bit of sweat, more than he’d like to admit, Remus went to open the door and was pulled out of it by his collar. One more tear wouldn’t hurt it. Silas slapped him on the back and started to lead him down the hall, the three of them ignoring the person twitching in her sleep a few feet away from them.

           “Look at you, you actually showered,” Silas chirped.

           “And early, too. If we were late, I would tear my eyes out and eat them, and throw them up with all of my guts!”

           “Eugh, we get it. I guess this is understandable, being nervous or whatever, but your set better not make me regret missing my third beer tonight,” Em added with a grumble.

           “You’ll never want to drink again,” Remus assured her.

           This got him a light chuckle from her as they reached the front door and headed for Silas’s truck covered in key marks and fading paint, and some old food residue by the tires. Silas had hauled the other two home drunk on multiple occasions in it, and Remus would count today as the first in months that he wasn’t told that if he threw up in this thing that Silas would kick him out and he would have to walk seven miles back to his apartment.

           Then again, if he hadn’t been out in the snow on one of the many days Silas had followed through with this threat, he wouldn’t have found Gossamer Scruff, a small rat he had hoped would have been alive for longer than a week had Cal not dropped him down the sewer, but today, Remus did not want to remember mourning a three-day old rat he would have not cared for at all three years ago. Cal didn’t see anything worth bemoaning, and Remus supposed it was strange for him to consider it, especially considering that he’d eaten more than one rat on occasion of a few relentless dares.

           “Did you fix up that story about that actor breakin’ your rib,” Silas asked, poking his chest and bringing him back to the present.

           He winced, still not convinced the pain that came with it was normal.

           “Down to the millimeter,” Remus announced, sitting up straight and crossing his arms.

           “You look like a cat when you smile like that,” Em said.

           “Like the Cheshire Cat? Or those weird hairless ones with the wrinkles—”

           “Like one that couldn’t scratch me if it tried,” she finished.

           Silas didn’t let him reflect on that for more than a second.

           “Hey, what’d I tell you? Took you forever, but look what you’re doing! You’re finally scraping up something I haven’t been falling asleep to.”

           “Don’t tell me that my old stuff didn’t at least give you one nightmare, come on, now.”

           Silas put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in as if telling him a deep secret. The smile starting to creep towards the corner of Remus’s mouth halted itself as Silas declared,

           “It gave me visions of nothing but static. I’d rather have my ass run through with a shotgun. At least I’d have something to look at.”

           Remus sat back and avoided slumping as Silas turned the corner. That old stuff had turned into something that Silas still hadn’t fully heard, although he had a good lot of it run by him. It wasn’t a choice out of nowhere for Remus to follow all of Silas’s advice, and Silas would know from holding concerts that were so popular that it resulted in people lining up at the doors hours before it had started, and why Remus could never get past the middle rows, and why Silas couldn’t hear him cheering him on.

           Silas, of course, wasn’t the only influence. Every minute of each day, Remus repeated parts of his routine to himself, tweaking it according to every rule of comedy and performance he knew that he admitted could be of use to him. He repeated it and kept those rules in his head, even if Roman’s occasional criticisms fell in with it, not letting him forget that Thomas could do better if Remus didn’t try to step on Roman’s toes all the time whenever he so much as looked at a playbill.

           Perhaps in the Mindscape everything seemed so sugarcoated because of the way that they would all tiptoe around everything, but afterwards, the realization that everything was crafted in a curiously particular way for the reason of nuances that he did not quite hold became clear. It could have been much better if he had been more involved, perhaps even more nuanced, but neither he nor Roman were given the gift of subtlety. At least, not when they were still getting their bearings. Roman had learned to grow into it and embody the façade of subtlety over years of scrutinizing himself and participating in Thomas’s acting career. Pretty soon, it started to appear after Remus had been on his own that his insistence on shining light on the heavier aspects of life was just that. Insistence.

           Without the chance to mimic the things that both he and Roman could have used, even separately, if he were able to peer through the crack of the wall that kept him hidden, he found the echoes he could manage to make out of Roman scrutinizing himself in the voices of his own acting instructors, with sometimes a certain flick of their head sending something unpleasant down the center of Remus’s spine and a sickly sweet taste in his mouth. He was different, though, he told himself. He was not using it to create something that people will tell their children as lighthearted bedtime stories. He was using it to grow his artwork into something that would actually stick with people, that would bore itself into their minds in the middle of the night and give them visions in their sleep that would frighten and entertain them in a way that could not be explained away just with words. Remus did not want to create his work based upon cheap fairytales that people would forget about, even if it was easier for most other people, even if those things brought them joy instead of irritation, and even if everywhere he looked since he’d come into existence, he’d seen those who’d chosen that path walk the red carpet and bask in the light of everyone who loved them. Ingenuity didn’t matter to them, did it?

          Remus latched onto every change he made to his routine and diagnosed it for anything that Silas or an esteemed director would so much as blink disapprovingly at in order to polish it up. It required ignoring how much his chest hurt when he turned a certain way to sell a few little pauses, and reciting and experimenting on his inflections was a part of the process until his throat felt raw. Most of everyone he knew wouldn’t be pleased to fall off of the back of their trash truck at work and almost be thrown off of it in frustration minutes later because he was trying to craft nuance on a particular part of his piece, but that is a story for another day.

          Em leaned on the back of his seat, pulling on a piece of his hair as if inspecting it for fleas after looking down at his phone bumping every few feet. It had several cracks in it, but still managed to work. If they were lucky, Silas’s car charger would get it up to fifty percent once they had reached the airport.

           “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you dyed your hair again, didn’t you? I guess I’m getting used to it more since you cut it above your ears.”

           “Grey doesn’t make a massive impression like this does,” Remus told her, gesturing to the two green streaks over his brown hair.

           There had been more grey to cover up since when he’d first moved here, and he’d found himself considering that fact more often than he’d have liked to once he’d started performing his first, for once, growing stand-up routine as the littering of grey over the front of his bangs had started to encroach further and further towards his roots, weaving itself through the sides of his head and down to the hair that grew towards the back of his neck, and was the first of it to reach his shoulders before he had finally decided to get a proper haircut instead of working with a pair of safety scissors over his sink, leaving them in the bowl of it to try again each day over the course of about a week and a half to get it right.

           “It’ll certainly turn a few heads. Keep your head straight and meet their eyes tonight.” Silas added.

           “I’ve timed it all out. I’ll stare at them until they want to run on stage and chop my head off to get me to stop it.”

           This received a “Mmm,” and a low “Hm,” from both of them.

           “Within reason,” Remus tacked on, trying to stare at both of them as he felt his voice drop off towards a bit of a growl.

           They took a short stop at the dry-cleaners to pick up Remus’s suit jacket, made with diagonal, fat green lines running up from the waist to the shoulder and arms. Putting it on, Remus had almost felt like he’d grown into it over the past two weeks. Why this was, he wasn’t sure. He’d come up with the basic idea himself, although Cal and Em had been the ones to help him pay for it. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d been getting a little more used to seeing bigger and bigger crowds at his own shows, and people cheering his name after he’d opened for a few comedians who had already made quite the name for themselves, at least, in the local area. He got used to seeing Silas crack a bright smile and let out a real laugh at more and more of his punch lines, and Cal had even dropped his bottle out of his hand from being a little more enraptured by Remus’s story about the time that he had manage to distract an angry group of hecklers at one of Silas’s concerts by demonstrating his ability to pop his shoulder out and pull a condom through his mouth after snorting it up his nose. Em’s head shakes had turned a bit more playful rather than disdainful as well. While Silas had decided to wait in the car for them, Remus’s tailor prattled to Em and himself.

           “You know, my son wanted to become a comedian when he was little. He thought he was going to be the next Conan or something. Do you two ever watch that show? I think it’s a little bit over-dramatic, but I wouldn’t know all that much about it.”

           “Thanks for the help, Donny,” Remus started. “But if we don’t leave now, my agent is going to have my ass on a stick.”

           “Oh, you don’t have to elaborate any further. I know from my son how important punctual-ness is, he would always get in a tizzy if he wasn’t the first to show up at his improv classes.”

           “We really can’t—”

           “Em, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you before your shift’s usually over, you look nice today. I know you usually do, but today you look like you’ve really put on your face, if you know what I mean.”

           “I do what I can, you know,” Em said with an eye roll as she ushered herself and Remus out the door and back to the car.

           Remus knew that Donny was a little bit chatty, but it felt like it was almost half an hour before he had let them leave. Despite this, he had almost forgotten to be surprised that Donny had not at least told him to break a leg that night, as he usually did whenever they saw him. Must have slipped his mind.

Em had her ears covered at the sound of the jet engines whirring in all of their ears while they climbed the railing, up to a small seating section. The pilot, keeping her eyes forward as she ran her fingers over the many buttons and switches on her control panel, cleared her throat and pointed to the seats behind them and the champagne in their cupholders.

           “We’ll be lifting off in precisely five minutes, so please take your seat, Mr. Morgan. Your stewardess will be with you shortly. Please refrain from using any electronic devices while you’re at it.”

           Remus nodded and followed Em and Silas towards the leather seats. Remus’s agent, Ellis, was already sitting in the front seat, looking over his sunglasses at all of them.

           “I see you’ve decided to bring your little friends along, eh? I guess a little moral support can’t be a bad thing,” he sneered, narrowing his eyes at Em and Silas.

           “Get the stick out of your ass, it’s so far up I can see it through your teeth,” Remus joked, sitting down next to him.

           “You’re the first person who’s made it this far without one up your own.”

           “I can find something more exciting than a stick to—”

           Ellis held up a hand, using the other to adjust one of his cufflinks keeping his impeccable black suit to a standard Remus didn’t even consider before he had met him.

           “Save it for the show, hot-shot.”

           “Fine.”

           “Where do you think they get this leather from,” Silas wondered out loud.

           “They skin cows for it, I think, and then they rip out their organs and bleed them out, and then they turn their skin into leather,” Remus told him.

           Em gagged next to him.

           “How the hell do you know that?”

           Remus shrugged, suddenly wanting to reach into the back of his mind to remember who had particularly taught that to Thomas, and how he had managed to remember it.

           “Some teacher in middle school told me,” he started, gesticulating as he began to elaborate. “I wanted to know all the details, it was—”

           “Remus, shut up for a second, I just remembered something!”

           Silas pointed to Remus’s phone, which had been thankfully charged enough to last him the rest of the night.

           “When you were in the dry cleaners, you got a bunch of voicemails. I think they’re from some people you know. They wanted to talk to you, but I told them you’d talk to them after your set.”

           Remus sat up straight, his face now perplexed as he twisted himself around.

           “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Who called? What do they want from me?”

           “I don’t know, I wasn’t paying much attention, I was taking a smoke when they called. You weren’t going to be able to talk to them anyway, I don’t think it was important. It was probably just some scammers.”

           That got Remus to sit back and lean his head on the seat.

           “Oh. You should ‘a told them to go fuck themselves for me.”

           “You can do that yourself when we land. Don’t hold your breath, it’ll be about six hours.”

           “Eh, I have bigger fish to gut anyway.”

           Em would have corrected him on his phrasing, but didn’t feel like speaking up as she prepared herself for a nice little nap.

           Ellis frowned at the sight of Remus’s routine in his hand, refusing to touch it with his own as Remus tried to hand it to him.

           “Don’t shove that at me, it’s covered in coffee rings.”

           A little scoff from him told Remus that no matter what he did, Ellis would not be convinced to pick it up.

           “Do you want me to read it to you, then?”

           “No, I want you to throw it out the window. Yes, read it! You told me you changed at least half of it last night, I want to hear how you’ve done that. This is your jumping point. If you nail this, I guarantee you will have your own television show and your own Netflix special by next August.”

           The next six hours were spent with Remus reciting his routine from perfect memory, trying to change his gyro graphical stability in the process of the jet’s movements in order to ensure that his own were held the exact place he wanted them, keeping Ellis’ every flick of the eyes in mind. While this caused him to stumble quite a few times and hit his head twice and distract his friends when he’d landed on his ass, this didn’t stop him from getting back up and picking it up again, even if it required repeating a few certain lines over and over again.

             Ellis nearly shoved him off of the jet once it had landed and the door had opened, covering his head with a black sheet. Remus was partially thankful for this as he felt nearly blinded by the camera flashes, and didn’t know which way to look. He was getting a little bit more used to hearing his name said so loudly, but this was the first time he’d heard it from so many paparazzi trying to clamor over them as they squeezed into the limousine waiting for them. He could hear Ellis shouting at Silas and Em as they veered off to grab a taxi. Soon enough, he would get used to this, and it would become some sort of routine for him, wouldn’t it? Maybe in a few weeks he would even take the time to scroll through his phone instead of keeping his eyes on Ellis rapidly repeating directions to the chauffeur.

           After repeating this process, he was led down a small red carpet towards what he assumed to be his dressing room. He almost stopped in his footsteps as he looked down at it and the ropes holding back the paparazzi again flashing cameras in his face. This was just the first step of what he had been looking for since he had come into existence. It was the start of everything he could only hope to hold himself back from really thinking of during his time sitting in a nearly light-less room in the Mindscape, listening to everyone talk over each other and hardly have the energy to pay attention to any of them. He had no time to dwell on this as Ellis pushed him forward and through a door that someone had pulled open for them.

           “Come on!”

           Inside, a small crowd of people all dressed in black carrying makeup brushes, clothing racks, speakers, wires, and set pieces. A gangly woman with a handful of makeup brushes ran towards him and pulled him into a rolling chair towards a mirror, turning him to face her and looking him up and down.

           “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before you go on. Tilt your chin up, you look much too pale.”

           He did as she instructed, finding her hand keeping his jaw shut as she held his face still, smearing his face with foundation, layering it over with bronzer and brushing his eyebrows with a small tool he’d only seen Em use.

           “Jake, come fix his hair,” the woman called.

           It only took about three seconds before a shorter man bustled over and ran a brush through his hair, followed by a fine comb and pushing it so that it stayed out of his face when the hairspray came. He pulled on it when Remus coughed.

           “Sorry, should’ve given you some warning, kid. Give me a second.”

           He gave Remus a few more tugs and another puff of hairspray before bidding him good luck and running off somewhere else. Remus didn’t want to say he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror, because he did, but he still felt a little bit dissonant from his reflection. He knew why he was here, and had been kept up on so many nights wondering what this would feel like, looking at himself backstage of a performance of this scale. He knew not everyone rose to be on The Late Late Show in such a short amount of time, but it wasn’t as if he had just woken up yesterday and thought it would be fun to do stand-up.

           He had fifteen minutes before he was on. He didn’t have time to overthink things, he thought, as he pulled out his phone. Huh. He had three new voicemails, but they weren’t from scammers. Nearly dropping his phone in his haste, he put the phone up to his ear and played the first one. An enunciated voice spoke through.

           “Hey, uh, I’d start with asking how you’re doing, but, eh, it seems I don’t have to! You’re doing pretty well for yourself after all, aren’t you? I heard about you all the way out here in Los Angeles! Well, I guess you’ll be here too by the time you get this, but, uh, I want you to know something. I won’t be there tonight, I’ve got an interview, but I know I never really listened to you back in the day. I don’t even know if this will mean all that much to you, after all of, whatever people call it, sibling bonding, we missed out on. I knew you could’ve done something like this, if you pushed yourself. And you did. You made us all look a bit foolish, didn’t you? I guess we had it coming to us. We had it coming.”

           A pause.

           “But that’s not the point. I’m… I’m proud of you. Break a leg.”

           Thirty seconds passed before Remus could register what he’d just heard. A voice he hadn’t heard since the last time he’d heard Roman screeching at him to pretend they’d never met, to scrape by on his own and taste what it feels like to deal with the consequences of being who he was. And now, this. Something pumped its way back into Remus’s lower intestine as the corners of his mouth reached up for his ears. The word, Proud, sounded almost different when someone said it to him, and he was not prepared for what it would sound like, with Roman’s voice cracking and breathing it into the microphone as if he had been waiting forever to say it. Remus swallowed again and let himself take another thirty seconds to collect himself as he played the next voice mail. It began with a long sigh.

           “So, you’re hot shit now. That’s fantastic, I guess. I got a call from someone telling me all about you being on The Late Late Show or something like that. You went from being a disease to whatever you call this. Congratulations. I’m… I’m rooting you on from Dark Owl Records. It sounds stupid, but I actually have a couple of my friends in here at the bar. We’re watching for you right now.” The voice softened. “You’ve got this.”

           He was surprised Virgil had bothered to call at all, but hung onto his long drawl. Virgil had never claimed to be a nice person, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t be when he wanted to be. And one of those times was for Remus. Maybe a rare moment, but maybe it would be worth it if Virgil could see the look on Remus’s face that even he himself couldn’t see, turned away from the mirror.

           The last voice mail practically had music coming from behind it, a bouncy piano that had before sent Remus running to his room before he was told to stay away from the family.

           “Remus! I can’t wait to see your face on TV! I knew you could turn yourself around if you just put away all of those bad impulses like I told you to! Oh, it took you so long, but you listened! You listened, and look at yourself! Don’t you feel so much better? You should, you should feel over the moon! Give it a ‘moo’ for me! A-hah! You’re going to do great! Remember to take deep breaths before you go on, okay? I’ll talk to you later. Break a leg, K—”

           Patton must have ended the call before he could finish. It didn’t feel quite right hearing such encouraging things from Patton, as if he were just doing it because—he didn’t have time to think about that, Remus thought. He didn’t really know Remus very well despite their time in the Mindscape, not really, but he at least put in the effort. He was doing his best, after all, according to everyone else. The olive branch went out to everyone, Remus supposed. And that was enough for him right now.

           Remus had to focus. He ran over his lines in his head, turning back to the mirror. He didn’t feel distant from his reflection anymore. He was present, grounded, and just a few minutes later his face would be visible to people who he never thought would meet him. Strangers, people who philosophized at night about such things he couldn’t even wrap his mind around who watched this show to wind down. People his age who were studying hard to pursue their college education, high school students in so many clubs that Remus wouldn’t be able to count them all. People his age who would not look at him two months ago because of the bruises on his neck and the gash running down his arm. It didn’t seem like a big deal then, but suddenly now it was. His own ingenuity was coming to the curtain.

           “Remus, you’re on!”

           He stood up, not knowing where the voice was coming from, but was quickly pulled up to the curtain. He breathed deeply and felt it in his hands, the fabric much lighter than what he’d expected, but this was television. It was not a theater stage. He shut his eyes, counted to three, and listened for the host.

           “And now, everybody, you know him already, let’s give a warm welcome to Mr. Remus Morgan!”

           Remus opened his eyes and pushed open the curtain, walking out expecting a microphone and a large stage, and the host sitting at his usual desk against the cityscape backdrop.

           Confetti flew into his face as party favor noisemakers bombarded him, a few of them landing at his feet. He looked above and below himself, finding the floor and walls of a warehouse, and a ceiling stretching up to several fans. He looked in front of himself and saw Cal, Em, Silas, and several people who he’d seen coming to his shows all smiling back at him. They waited for a second to let their noise die down before shouting one single phrase in unison.

           “The joke’s on you!”

           Remus took a step back and looked here and there at all of these faces, looking down again to register that he was not standing on a platform, and there were no bright lights over his head. He wanted to pinch himself. He wanted to say he’d walked through the wrong door to some place he had just imagined, something he’d conjured up in one of his own dreams that he just hadn’t slept through yet. Above the heads of his onlookers was a large white banner, painted in shoddy writing to say, “Joke’s on Remus,” and two plastic wine glasses were attached to each side.

           “Wh—”

           “We did it! We had you eating out of the palm of our hands,” Em cut him off.

           He tried again, but couldn’t get anything out before—

           “All of this is fake! Everyone here is an actor! They’re all paid actors! We got you, Ree! All of your shows were a prank,” Silas shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear.

           Remus stepped back again, gripping the curtain in his hands to keep himself steady, only for it to rip. He’d stayed on his feet, thankfully, as he stared back at all of them with an open mouth and pulse beating upon his ears. That was it. He couldn’t take all of this in at once, and at the same time, his mind had forced him to. His mouth was dry, and he felt something bubbling up in his stomach, choking it back down his throat to keep it from spilling out all over the floor. He tried to say something, anything, but all that came out was air. Just air.

           “You’re wondering why we’re doing this, aren’t you,” Em asked.

           He just looked at her, his eyes starting to blur. He felt like he was going to pass out.

           “Your comedy career is going nowhere, pal. This is the best you’re ever going to get! Oh, and those phone calls? Your other friends, they were in on it! They knew the whole time!”

           He wouldn’t have believed them if he hadn’t checked his phone and found that all of them had still had him blocked. He couldn’t see their numbers, and it was as if they’d never existed in his phone at all as it dropped to the floor. If he didn’t know better, he’d guess his knees were about to buckle right about now, and it was all he could do to keep himself from hurling his guts out all over them. He couldn’t think about whether they deserved to be thrown up on now. One hand was on his face, keeping his head from pounding so hard that he really would pass out, and the other was forming a fist.

           The voice that came out of him didn’t sound like himself. Not really, but he knew it was. He never wanted them to hear it like this, but he couldn’t change it now.

           “What are you all expecting,” he asked, trying to keep his voice somewhat similar to how he’d presented it only last week. “Are you expecting me to fall apart? To cry? To crumble at your feet?”

           A few murmurs rumbled through the crowd.

           “Are you—”

           A sort of… hiccup kept him from continuing. Somewhere in another universe, he wasn’t watching every good vision he’d had of himself fizzling out, dissolving into a melted mess of wax, quickly wrenching itself from all attainability and taking his throat on the way out. Somewhere in another universe, he was not currently denying everything he didn’t want to admit while simultaneously doing just that. Somewhere he was finding his fist flying right into Silas’s face, taking one of the chairs in front of him and using it as a ballista. Somewhere else, he wasn’t currently trying to put his voice together as it fell out of his mouth and rushed to the ears of everyone in the room. Somewhere, someone was proud of him.

A/N: The plot of this is piece based off of the episode The Gang Breaks Dee of Always Sunny. I don’t take credit for the idea since it came from them first.

[scarletxmoon]

Can You Trust A Fox? - Chapter 1

For 8 years Neil had been running for his life trying to escape a fate that had been laid out for him since his birth. He might be a powerful wizard that bad people want to use for their own greed. He might just be a boy who wants to run and disappear. But when he meets a group of adventurers who happened to be part of the Foxhole Court a well know guild full of misfits and possible criminals. He forms connections with them and he's not sure if he wants to run anymore. He might just stand with the Foxes and fight for his freedom.

Dungeons and Dragons inspired fic

AO3

Running. Thump thump. Running that's all Neil had known. Running from his father; running from Lola; running from death. Thump thump. The sound of his feet hitting the ground as he pulled his spell components into his hands. The guttural sound of a monster broke the silence of the forest. Harsh breaths and the quiet patter of his feet against the ground.

He broke into a clear then stopped panting heavily—he pivoted on the balls of his feet turning to face the lumber monestrous mass breaking through the treeline. It ran at him with colossal speed swiping at him.

Neil speed allowed for him to effortlessly dodged it. He ready a fire bolt and aimed it hoping for the kill. It hit the monster square on the chest sending it back a few steps; it swayed as Neil held his breath.

The head snapped up emitting a low threatening growl towards him—it ran at extending it's claws. This time Neil was unlucky and did not move fast enough as it's claws slashed across his stomach. He gritted through the pain as he pulled out more spell components focusing on the spell he released sphere of an acidic substance; the creature dropped to the ground hollering out in pain—the smell of melting flesh filled Neil's nostrils.

Once the screams died down Neil allowed himself a moment to breathe as he stared down at the melt body before him. He went to move but pain spiked up his body quickly looking down at the wound the creature gave him. A parch of blood formed through his tunic; deep red mixed with a black substance.

Neil pushed it from his mind as he rummaged through his satchel fishing out a vial of a red liquid. He removed the stopper place the bottle to his lips—knocking the liquid back. He gave himself a moment longer to breathe; allowing the potion to do it's job.

He stared up towards the treeline looking for something specific—a blur of movement caught his sight as a small creature bolted from the trees towards him. He slipped down to his knees as a the creature stopped in front of him; a cat stared up at him mewing and purring as he rub himself against Neil's hand. He stood turning towards the direction he had just come from; looking down he smile at the cat nodding it to follow. They started their way back to village that he had been staying at the past two months.

It was a tiny village near the border of the Empire. He noticed the presence of a few Empire soldiers; pulling his hood up he tried his best to avoid them as he made his way towards the guardsman outpost.

The guards outpost was a shabby little shack with a board out front—parchment pieces attached to it listing the various jobs that need to be handled. He stopped at the door giving it a gentle tapped and a stern and broad guardsman answered the door looking him up and down.

"The job is done the monster has been eliminated." The guard looked at him suspiciously. Neil knew what he was thinking; how could this scrawny short wood elf take on an abnormally large monster that no one else had been able to defeat. Neil sighed but still look at him expectantly.

"You managed to defeat it?" Shaking his head he turned back inside to grab something. "Well colour me impressed I would not have though someone like you would have been able to that. Well as promised here's 100 gold." He handed a satchel of coins to him; Neil accepted it slipping into one of the pouches on his belt. He gave a quick thanks as he turned to leave.

He headed back towards the inn that he had been holed up in to collect his traveling pack. He didn't know where to head to next but he knew he had to get away. He could sense that something was coming he felt sure it was likely his father or someone who worked for him.

He had been running for the past 8 years of his life; since he was 10 when his mother pulled him from his bed and ushered him out the door towards a horse that was packed with few bags of food and clothing. At the time Neil hadn't understood why they were leaving but as the years went by his mother had filled him in with some facts but it only left him with more questions.

He knew his father was a bad man vicious and violent—Neil bore the scars of that violence. His father had become darkened; his thirst for more power drove him to insanity. And naturally he knew his son was adept with magic and he sought to control his powers and him.

After few years of running his father people caught up to them. They dragged his mother back to his father where it gave the strike that would serve as the killing blow. Before death could take her; she grabbed Neil using the last of her strength she used dimension door to get the them away from his father.

She made him promise with her dying breath to keep running and keep fighting. And he did; he ran—he fought—he tried to make his life the best he could despite the circumstances. But as the longer he was alone the more he wanted to just give in. He was tired but the will to run was much stronger so he ran.

The sun began to drop behind the tall pines; he settled for the night; setting a fire up. The slight chill from the autumn air went through to his bones—pulling his dark green cloak closer to his body trying to keep the warmth from fire within. He ran his finger through his dark hair as he stared at the fire. Sir was curled up at his side purring, his hand dropped down to Sir's head as he scratched behind his ears—pulling quiet mew from him. He settled in closing his eyes to attempt sleep hoping no nightmares would find him.

But as his eyes began to close he sensed something amiss—his eyes snapped open, he attempted to move but he was not fast enough to react as he felt cool metal against the skin of his throat.

"I wouldn't move if I were you." a low voice growled. Fear crept across Neil's features as his eyes widened and he froze. He knew it would only be a matter of time before his father people caught him. How had he been so stupid to let his guard down? He could hear the hissing of Sir beside him as he stood ready to attack the person behind him.

"Andrew!" another voice yelled from in front of him this time; a dark skinned halfling came into view. The dagger dropped and Neil used the chance to bolt. He ran or at least he tried to run but dizziness over took him as he clambered to ground shaking and shivering.

"Shit did you nick him with your knife." a third voice called out as he felt someone hovering over him. He could feel someone touching him; feeling around for wounds. He caught flashes of blond hair and hazel eyes as he slowly slipped into darkness.

"No please." Neil tried to speak but his words slurred.

"He's poisoned." Was the last thing he heard before the darkness finally took him.

Neil opened his eyes as the world came back to him—above him wooden ceiling instead of tree branched and stars. He shot up and noticed he was in a bed in what seemed like an inn. He could not remember getting to a town; last thing he could remember was a knife against his throat, a halfling and then darkness.

His eyes scanned the room—empty potion bottles and bandages littered the table nearby; a fire place emitting warmth from the low fire burning. His eyes shifted to a blond halfling boy wearing light gray robes with a orange fox crest on the front. His eyes were closed his breath was even—sleeping.

Neil looked down; his cloak had been removed same with his tunic. He panicked knowing who ever this person was had seen his scars. He was very self conscious of his scars; they were questions he didn't want to answer—a reminder of his father.

His hands grasped the fabric of the bandages that were wrapped around his torso. Confusion took over; who were these people? If they worked for his father they would have left him bloody and close to death—not save his life.

'He's poisoned' he recalled a voice saying before he blackout; that would explain why he was unable to get away and how he was unable to sense them sooner.

Neil tried to move but pain seeped up his body causing him hiss. Which was enough to startle the halfling boy from his sleep he looked up he pressed his lips tight; shaking his head slowly as if tell Neil not to move.

"You are awake finally" His voice was quiet as he sighed; standing up walking towards him. Neil gripped the sheets his eyes darting from the boy to the door not far behind him. "You must really have a death wish." The boy cracked a slight smile.

"What do you mean?" Finally Neil found his voice even if it was slightly cracking. The boy stood at the foot of the bed staring at him.

"Well that monster you fought it poisoned you. You are very lucky we found you or you probably would have died in your sleep."

Neil looked down at the bandages once more. The reality of the words struck him. He almost died and they saved him. He looked back up to the boy eyes taking in the every detail; blond with hazel eyes. He recalled back to what he saw before he blacked out.

"Who are you?" He finally got his voice under control.

"I am Aaron the healer of my group. I'm a cleric of the Foxhole Court. And you are lucky I'm very proficient in curing poisons." He grinned. "So who are you?" He asked, Neil just stared at him words dying on his tongue.

Neil didn't know if he should tell him; after all he was a stranger—a danger if he said the wrong thing. As he worked to carefully choose his words the door burst open; the dark skinned halfling from before barged in.

"Nicky!" Aaron snapped at him. Nicky just shrugged in response.

"What? We heard talking so we figured he must have woken." Neil tensed at the 'we' part as his eyes snapped back to the door. A mirror in dark clothing the same blond halfling that was in front him—a twin. But the person behind him cause him to freeze.

Tall tanned skinned human male with striking green eyes; dressed in fighter attire—a Fox crest replacing what should have been a Raven. This was someone from his past whom he hoped would never see again. Kevin Day adoptive brother to Riko Moriyama—a family with close ties to his father; his father's boss.

Kevin pushed his way past Nicky and the other twin; he recalled the name Andrew being called before he lost consciousness. Kevin stopped right beside him; eyes searching his—looking at his face then his hair. Neil's eyes widened when he realized that his disguise had fallen when he blackout.

"Nathaniel?"

-----

Author’s Note:

Neil is a Wood Elf Wizard Andrew is a Halfling Rogue Aaron is a Halfling Cleric Nicky is a Halfling Bard Kevin is a Human Fighter The rest will be listed when the chapter they are in is posted. I do have this plotted to the end so this will be a complete fic unlike some of my previous fics.

[galivantingg]

Banshee

There is a legend in my village. A legend of sadness, and of death. It tells of a young girl who was brutally murdered, and her spirit remained on Earth to seek revenge on those she deemed unworthy. Those who spend their lives doing anything that comes from something selfish. Anything ranging from murder to donating to a charity purely to make yourself look good. They say you know she has marked you for death when you hear a young girl's piercing scream. Nobody can prove that she exists, but then again, nobody can prove that she doesn't exist. They say her victims come back after their death and are forced to serve her for all eternity. Forced to wander to earth, wailing at those who are fated to join her rank of death omens. Forced to suffer in silence for all eternity, watching your family and friends move on without you, and sometimes having to go warn them of their foretold death.

   I should have stayed at home. I can hear my pulse in my ears, drowning out even the rambunctious laughter from the pub far behind me. I took off in a random direction, letting my feet guide the way. They knew where to go, they had walked these streets for years. My feet pound on the cobblestone roads, my breaths rattled in my lungs and itched their way up my throat to burst from my mouth.

   Sara started her day off the same as every other day. She feeds her cat, collects her mail and newspaper, and greets the stray dog that seems to have adopted her front porch as home. She revels in the tranquil quiet, knowing as soon as her friends wake up it'll be shattered into a million pieces. They never seem to understand her loathe of their birthday tradition that apparently everyone must follow. No matter how many times over the years she's tried to give them the slip, she never manages to make it far without being dragged back to whatever pub they've chosen that year. Sara was supposed to be the designated driver whenever a birthday or special event came up in the friend group and they all wanted to get smashed, but it would be very hard for her to avoid drinking on her birthday night.

Never before in my life had I been more parched. I felt like my throat was burning, yet all I could focus on was not tripping. I make it to the top of a hill surrounding the village, one of many. My hope almost fizzled out and fear came close to crushing me. I swing my head wildly from side to side, almost spinning around in a circle looking for an escape.  

   After her relaxed breakfast, Sara decided to make some preparations for Future her. She picks up the stray clothes littered around her room, places her favourite mug with a bag of English Breakfast by the kettle, and tosses her favorite chocolate bar on her bedside table next to a water bottle and a bottle of Tylenol. Future her was not the best at dealing with hangovers, and she knew with her friends she wouldn't be allowed to escape one, especially on her birthday. Satisfied with her preparations, she mentally prepared herself for the arrival of her extremely extroverted mess of a group of friends. Taking deep breaths, she reminded herself that her friends were all city folk, despite the fact that they all lived in this tiny village of roughly 400 now. They didn't quite understand her love of quiet, her preference to stay inside and curl up with a good book. Being city kids, they all focus on the more extroverted ways of having fun, all of which involve leaving the tranquility of her house.

My options: the woods, where I might be able to run far enough to escape earshot, or the water, where if I submerge myself I will definitely not hear those horrific cries of death. My decision made, I practically roll down the hill in my haste to get to the small lake.

   Her friends arrived like a hurricane, thankfully not disturbing Sara's house too much. They insisted on her opening gifts the next morning, after their night out. She took that as a hint that at least three of the gifts included something for a hangover, which was nice, she supposed. Then they whisked her out to the car, piled in, and headed to the village centre. Sara stared longingly out of the window, watching the green tumble over itself, rising and falling with the movement of the car. The green eventually led to cobblestone, and she knew her long night had barely just begun. When they reached the grand fountain they blindfolded her, spun her round and around, as per tradition, and when she had stopped feeling like her stomach was trying to force its way up her throat, they marched her forward down the Chosen Street and found the second to last pub. And so, the long night of loud music and alcohol consumption began.

   I can't tell if she is breathing right behind me, hot on my trail, or if it's just my own erratic wheezing. I reach the water, and before diving in, I stop.

   That night felt different to the Sara. There was a cold presence that had washed over her the moment she walked through the pub door. All through the night she felt like she was being watched, and not in a good way. Her gut instinct was proven correct when she finally managed to spot who those eyes belonged to. Across the pub, enveloped in shadows, despite the silver hair and dress, and the death-white skin, was a little girl, staring right at the woman. As their eyes connected, the little girl's jaw dropped and the woman heard a deafening scream, the same kind only heard in horror movies. She didn't hear her glass shattering on the pub floor, or her friends calling after her as she turned and fled from those cold, dead eyes. Sara had been warned, of course, when she told her family she was moving to this village. They told her it was haunted, that an omen of death wandered the streets looking for its next victim, and you knew it had chosen when you heard an inhuman scream. She had brushed it off as lore, but it had always lingered in the back of her mind, that what if?

   I turn around, wondering why I hadn't heard another screech. Only- nothing. I calm. Taking a deep breath, I almost laugh to my-

Nothing.

_______

   I should have stayed at home. I can hear my pulse in my ears, drowning out even the rambunctious laughter from the pub far behind me. I took off in a random direction, letting my feet guide the way. They knew where to go, they had walked these streets for years. My feet pound on the cobblestone roads, my breaths rattled in my lungs and itched their way up my throat to burst from my mouth.

   Sara started her day off the same as every other day. She feeds her cat, collects her mail and newspaper, and greets the stray dog that seems to have adopted her front porch as home. She revels in the tranquil quiet, knowing as soon as her friends wake up it'll be shattered into a million pieces. They never seem to understand her loathe of their birthday tradition that apparently everyone must follow. No matter how many times over the years she's tried to give them the slip, she never manages to make it far without being dragged back to whatever pub they've chosen that year. Sara was supposed to be the designated driver whenever a birthday or special event came up in the friend group and they all wanted to get smashed, but it would be very hard for her to avoid drinking on her birthday night.

Never before in my life had I been more parched. I felt like my throat was burning, yet all I could focus on was not tripping. I make it to the top of a hill surrounding the village, one of many. My hope almost fizzled out and fear came close to crushing me. I swing my head wildly from side to side, almost spinning around in a circle looking for an escape.  

   After her relaxed breakfast, Sara decided to make some preparations for Future her. She picks up the stray clothes littered around her room, places her favourite mug with a bag of English Breakfast by the kettle, and tosses her favorite chocolate bar on her bedside table next to a water bottle and a bottle of Tylenol. Future her was not the best at dealing with hangovers, and she knew with her friends she wouldn't be allowed to escape one, especially on her birthday. Satisfied with her preparations, she mentally prepared herself for the arrival of her extremely extroverted mess of a group of friends. Taking deep breaths, she reminded herself that her friends were all city folk, despite the fact that they all lived in this tiny village of roughly 400 now. They didn't quite understand her love of quiet, her preference to stay inside and curl up with a good book. Being city kids, they all focus on the more extroverted ways of having fun, all of which involve leaving the tranquility of her house.

My options: the woods, where I might be able to run far enough to escape earshot, or the water, where if I submerge myself I will definitely not hear those horrific cries of death. My decision made, I practically roll down the hill in my haste to get to the small lake.

   Her friends arrived like a hurricane, thankfully not disturbing Sara's house too much. They insisted on her opening gifts the next morning, after their night out. She took that as a hint that at least three of the gifts included something for a hangover, which was nice, she supposed. Then they whisked her out to the car, piled in, and headed to the village centre. Sara stared longingly out of the window, watching the green tumble over itself, rising and falling with the movement of the car. The green eventually led to cobblestone, and she knew her long night had barely just begun. When they reached the grand fountain they blindfolded her, spun her round and around, as per tradition, and when she had stopped feeling like her stomach was trying to force its way up her throat, they marched her forward down the Chosen Street and found the second to last pub. And so, the long night of loud music and alcohol consumption began.

   I can't tell if she is breathing right behind me, hot on my trail, or if it's just my own erratic wheezing. I reach the water, and before diving in, I stop.

   That night felt different to the Sara. There was a cold presence that had washed over her the moment she walked through the pub door. All through the night she felt like she was being watched, and not in a good way. Her gut instinct was proven correct when she finally managed to spot who those eyes belonged to. Across the pub, enveloped in shadows, despite the silver hair and dress, and the death-white skin, was a little girl, staring right at the woman. As their eyes connected, the little girl's jaw dropped and the woman heard a deafening scream, the same kind only heard in horror movies. She didn't hear her glass shattering on the pub floor, or her friends calling after her as she turned and fled from those cold, dead eyes. Sara had been warned, of course, when she told her family she was moving to this village. They told her it was haunted, that an omen of death wandered the streets looking for its next victim, and you knew it had chosen when you heard an inhuman scream. She had brushed it off as lore, but it had always lingered in the back of her mind, that what if?

   I turn around, wondering why I hadn't heard another screech. Only- nothing. I calm. Taking a deep breath, I almost laugh to my-

Nothing.

[our-jensen-ackles-love]

Flashes; Chapter Four

Playboy Jensen Ackles is hurting his television show’s image. Every time he promised to get his act together, it’d last for about a week before pictures emerge of him half-drunk with some broad on his arm. Fed up and desperate, his agent decides their only hope to save some face is to write up a contract with a nobody girl who could use the money while getting to play the role of Jensen’s girlfriend.

It was only for a year and it was only for the photos.  But feelings don’t always follow the rules, do they?

CATCH UP HERE

Word Count: 1886

Chapter Warnings: just kinda filler fluff

FEEDBACK IS AMAZING. AND REALLY KEEPS ME GOING!

Chapter Four

Last Week

A half-drunk bottle of wine, the second season of Supernatural playing in the background and several small towers of Home Depot boxes surrounding your coffee table. That was the atmosphere you were dealing with right now.

“You’re joking right?” Olivia asked for probably the millionth time of that evening.

“No,” you shook your head, pulling the packing tape closer to you as you finished up one of the last boxes of your clothes. “I leave Sunday morning to Vancouver.”

“For a year?” This time it was Briana who asked the question while gingerly sipping her only glass of wine for the night. “Like legit a whole year.”

You nodded slowly, trying not to over think the situation you had just gotten yourself into. “That’s where Jensen wants me to be.”

“But didn’t you guys just start dating?”

You sighed knowing that you could only tell them what Henry had said. They were not allowed to know that you had signed a yearlong contract to basically act out the role of Jensen’s girlfriend, if at any point you let that little piece of information slip, you could be sued and basically left out to dry as a gold digging whore who once hooked up with one of the most sought after bachelors’ in Hollywood today.

“Actually,” you started, remembering the lines that you had been practicing in the mirror all morning while you waited for your friends to arrive. “We’ve been dating for a couple weeks, but didn’t want to come out to the world just yet.”

Janet twirled around in your favorite desk chair. “So why the sudden change?”

You shrugged, avoiding all eye contact as best as you could without looking wary. “The paparazzi caught up to us on my birthday last week and we just decided it would be best to let the cat out of the bag that way.”

--

Present Day

It was nearly impossible to get comfortable in your seat. Despite being flown in first class, something you had never been able to do in the past, you were unable to properly relax for the majority of your six hour flight. And now that the pilot had announced that you would be landing in the next thirty minutes, your stomach was in knots.

“You’re going to be okay,” you whispered to yourself, hoping that no one could hear you trying to talk through your anxiety. “You did this for the better.”

It wasn’t a lie. The money that Jensen’s agency had offered you at the end of this contract was enough to make anyone leave their life behind in an instant. But what was going to make this difficult was the acting like you actually liked the man; his attitude towards you was really making you question just how many women he had been with. He treated you almost like you were just another notch on the bedpost.

And from the quick google search you had sworn that you wouldn’t do at the airport, it showed that he had, in fact, been with several random women all throughout the last couple of years. All of them seemed to be random and from the countless articles you could barely stomach to skim, it seemed that they all were just girls that he had brought home from whatever bar, in whatever city Jensen had been in that night.  

Henry had explained that due to the importance of Jensen keeping his role in the show, a show that had threatened, the last three times, that if he didn’t get his act together they would drop him like a hot potato; they needed to keep him in a straight line. Apparently, he had been threatened with this agreement the last time this happened; which according to one tabloid article that was only two months ago.

Again, you had a million questions as to why he picked you up that night at the bar, especially if he knew that this contract agreement would come into play if pictures got out.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” the pilot’s velvety voice came through the speaker above your head. “We are beginning our descent into the beautiful Vancouver, Canada. So please, turn off all electronic devices and place your seat and trays into the upright position.”

You closed your eyes and took several deep breaths while you felt the slow drop of the plane. The deep breaths were supposed to calm your nerves, but they were only reminding you of what you had gotten yourself into because of too much tequila.

The landing had been smooth, probably one of the perks of being able to pay for an expensive, all-inclusive flight, was that you couldn’t ask for a better crew to be aboard your plane. Henry had paid to have all of your belongings shipped to Jensen’s Vancouver apartment, so all you had to do was grab your carry-on bag and exited as needed. When you followed the signs in the airport towards where the pick-up/drop off parking was, you were met with another loud bunch of flashing camera lights and aggressive loud questions.

“What are you doing in Vancouver?”

“How long have you and Jensen been dating?”

“Do you think this could led somewhere long term?”

“Y/N, Y/N, is that a baby bump we see hiding under that t-shirt?”

You held up your hand, remembering Henry and Jensen reminding you that, you were, under no circumstances allowed to speak to anyone about your relationship without him present. Just supposed to smile at and wave when needed – although the comment about the baby bump made you want to flip them the bird and offer some choice words.

A familiar black SUV came into view from behind the blinding lights that kept following your pathway. Just as the vehicle came into your sights, you saw the familiar face of Cliff come around the car and open the door for you, ushering you in quickly and sealing you off from the vultures of your new world.

Cliff hopped back into the driver’s seat, shifting the car into drive. “How was the flight, Y/N?”

Stealing a glance at the crowd you were leaving behind, you let out a breath you didn’t know that you had been holding. “It was long, probably the longest flight I’ve ever been on.”

You heard Cliff laugh a bit. “Just wait until Christmas comes around in the two months, the two of you will be flying down to Austin.”

“You don’t think I’ll have to meet his family, do you?” You blurted out.

Catching a glimpse of Cliff’s concerned look in the rearview mirror was really all the answer you needed. “I would say so, and he’s probably going to have to meet yours.”

The remainder of your car ride had been silent. Well, silent to anyone who wasn’t allowed in your head because on the inside you were dealing with every emotion that was able to pass through one’s body at once. You had told your mother that you were “dating” someone, which of course had gotten her all kinds of excited, but you were hoping that you could get through this year by keeping her in the dark.

She wasn’t the type of person who read the news, she didn’t watch tv and she never left the house unless it was needed. She grew her own vegetables and believed that anything that you could pick up at a store was much more attenable when you made it yourself. To this day, you still remember the fit she threw when you said you were moving to New York City to focus on becoming a writer.

“Miss Y/L/N, we are here,” Cliff had said quietly. You could feel that he felt somewhat sorry for you and the situation that you had found yourself in. “Jensen should be waiting inside for you.”

You nodded, grabbing your bag that you had thrown to your side before opening the door carefully. Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be any lurkers in this neck of the woods, but you were pretty sure that you saw a gate wrapping around these apartment complexes and what you could only assume was a security guard checking people in.

“Thank you Cliff.”

“I’ll be seeing you around.”

Shutting the door, you turned around and faced your new, temporary home. The apartment that Jensen was living out of was a split floor building, with two apartments on the top floor and two apartments on the bottom floor. It didn’t seem to compare much to his New York flat, but you figured that since he was only in Vancouver for filming purposes, this place was nothing other than a roof over his head.

236 was the number of the apartment. As you closed in, you took another deep breath, bringing your hand up and giving a quick knock. Jensen threw open the door quickly, holding it open just enough that you could squeeze by.

“Good flight?” He asked, turning his back to you and wandering into the open kitchen as the door clicked shut behind you. You couldn’t help, but noticed there was an open bottle of scotch on the counter and half-drunk cup sitting next to it.

“Can’t complain.”

He nodded, adverting his eyes towards his glass and then back to you. “Uh, do you want a drink?”

“I think I should probably get a little settled first, don’t you?”

Acknowledging your answer, he placed his glass back down on the counter and walked towards you. “Your room is right down the hall,” Jensen said, walking in the direction of one of the three doors along the wall. “This place only has one bathroom, so we are going to have to share.”

“I’ve had roommates before Jensen,” you stated, squeezing past him and opening the door he was in front of. Before you was a queen sized bed on a black wooden frame and looking bare without any sheets, a dark wooden dresser with a matching vanity mirror placed directly behind it and the room was littered with your boxes that had probably arrived just a few days before you. “You just have to promise not to hog all the hot water.”

He smirked at you, something that he always seemed to do when you knew he wasn’t taking you seriously. Despite not knowing him long, you were slowly picking up on his tells. “Can’t make any promises when it’s fighting day. That fake blood is a bitch to take off.”

You gave a small laugh, not quite sure where to go from here. This was all still feeling like some made up dream your imagination had procured to help get rid of that pesky writers block, but you knew that it wasn’t the case. You had spent most of the last week pinching yourself every so often in an effort to try and wake up.

Jensen shifted his weight on his feet before clearing his throat. “Well, I’ll let you get settled. Come find me when you are ready for that drink.”

With that, he closed your door, leaving you alone to get your life as organized as you could get it. But all you could think about was the fact that drinking was what got you in this position to begin with.

TAGS: @supernatural-bellawinchester @luciathewinchestergirl @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @nanie5 @kbl1313 @wanderer-08 @squirrelnotsam (never lets me tag you :( ) @allonsy-yesiwill @mirandaaustin93 @jerkbitchidjitassbutt

[sp00kybrit]

prtctr: demon!shane fic

[Chapter 1]

“Ryan, that sounds like the wind! How can you not hear that?”

“You’re so quick to debunk, I bet you didn’t even listen to it!”

To avoid more bickering, Shane rolled his eyes and with a huff put on his headphones giving the “sound” another listen. This was not some of the most “credible” “evidence” that Ryan had ever posed to him. It was obvious that there was some interference, of what he was not certain. Shane shrugged and gave a bemused expression.

“Every time you do that, I take it as a win,” Ryan replied full of pride.

Shane gave a small chuckle, letting his friend have this one. Sometimes it was fun to play along with Ryan as he chased whatever “monster” it was that week. Fortunately for Ryan, he had no idea what horrors lurk in the darkness -- and how they can mask themselves as your best friend.

“Let’s go back inside and explore the second floor, I heard there’s some good activity up there.”

For a moment Shane had gotten lost in his thoughts, he mentally shook himself like an old school etch-a-sketch. With a clear head, he was ready to follow Ryan into whatever darkness he dragged them into.

“Right behind you!” Shane called back, adding some enthusiasm.

The duo walked upstairs and were met with a long, dark, forsaken hallway that could make most horror movie sets look like playgrounds. With doors on either side, it reminded Shane of a typical chase scene from Scooby-Doo. He chuckled at this thought, which startled Ryan who jumped in front of him.

“Dude, don’t do that!” He spoke between breaths. “This is the worst time to be giggling like a kid.” Ryan’s camera shone brightly in his face and Shane instinctively moved his arm to block his eyes. This was not the first time this would happen, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. “Roger that. No more giggles.” Ryan pointed his camera at the floor which now lit up the area between them. “Let’s just keep moving, there’s a lot of ground to cover here.”

Ryan began to tell the story of a family that met an unfortunate end at the hands of a crazed ax murderer. The police never caught the perpetrator and there have been several theories as to who it could have possibly committed the act. After reading off a lengthy list of characters, each with their own incriminating backgrounds, Ryan concluded with his own theory.

“I’m just saying, it’s totally possible that it could have been the Men in Black. The family had some shady history of their own. You never know who they were involved with.”

“So you’re saying. . . That Will Smith showed up to this families house. . . and murdered them?”

Ryan let out a wheeze of a laugh. Even he had to admit it sounded crazy, but it all made sense in the grand scheme of things. Shane joined him in laughing, Ryan believed in such wild theories that it was comical.

“I’m just imagining Will Smith, [wheeze], breaking in. . .wait what year was this?”

“It was 1923,” Ryan replied between spurts of laughter.

“Oh, even better! So roaring 20’s era Will Smith breaks in and. . .”

A sharp, high pitched metallic noise pierced the air and stopped the duo in their tracks. Ryan’s expression was that of absolute terror. “What the hell was that?!” he yelled, waving his camera around him. They were still in the middle of the hallway, so it was a guess as to where it could’ve come from. Shane laughed lightly, these kinds of situations happened often. When they did, he was there to add some comedic relief and to possibly prevent Ryan from scaring himself half to death.

“Maybe it was Will Smith?”

“Dude, this is not the time! That was really freaky.”

“It was probably just an animal scurrying in the vents, or maybe a noise outside.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere, dude!”

“Fine, let’s go, I’ll show you it was nothing. Maybe we’ll even find the cute little animals making the noise too.”

Shane walked past Ryan and started to investigate. He prided himself on debunking these little noises that frightened his friend so much. Ryan caught up to Shane just as he entered the first room through a door on the right side of the hallway.

“I almost couldn’t catch up, you walk two steps and you’re there!” Ryan joked in an attempt to ease himself. “I would laugh at that, but you told me no more giggling,” Shane replied wittily. This caused Ryan to roll his eyes with annoyance, but a grin reached his lips. “Let’s see what’s here.”

Their lights shone around the room, illuminating parts of the past. Wallpaper covered most of the walls, some was torn off or in the process of detaching itself. A once ornate desk sat in the middle of the room, papers scattered amongst the top. It was clear this room had not seen life in quite some time.

“That’s a creepy picture,” Ryan said, pointing to one framed piece hung in the center of the far wall. It was an old painting depicting a war. “Huh, nothing more inviting than an illustration of war and death,” Shane spoke. The lanky man moved throughout the room, still hot on the pursuit of that strange sound. After searching high and low, the two moved to the room across the hall.

“Are we going to check every room? There’s gotta be like. .100 doors in this one hall alone.” Shane spoke hyperbolically, he didn’t mind looking, however, it was simply quite tedious.

“I just want to know what that noise was, that’s all.”

“Then I think we’ll cover more ground if we split up.”

“Oh no, none of that Scooby-Doo shit. It never works for them, why would it work here?” Ryan retorted.

Shane couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Ryan never liked being alone in places like this and sometimes Shane couldn’t blame him. These places gave off a major “creep factor”, but it was his job to be skeptical. Skeptics didn’t get creeped out or scared because they know there’s some scientific reason behind everything. Or maybe being an actual demon alludes to that reason as well.

“You’ll be fine, I’ll just be in next room over.”

Shane left before Ryan could continue his protest. He knew he had to find something to explain the noise. Anything that would prevent Ryan from blindly approaching something supernatural. The room he walked into was blasé, it was the typical “scary, dated looking room” in almost any horror movie. Shane made a displeased huffing noise as he scanned around in a lazy attempt at a search. His eyes landed on the corner of the room farthest from him; his camera light illuminated the area and he was met with a dark figure. He was certain it was not his own shadow even though the dimensions matched up perfectly. The figure turned around, suddenly filling out its features. The figure took shape of what appeared to be an older gentleman. While this would scare practically anyone else, it was not unusual for Shane to meet another of his kind. Shane broke the silence with the goal of sending this demon off.

“Alright, buddy. I’m going to give you the quick low-down. . .”

The older gentleman guffawed, cutting off the beginning of Shane’s speech. The man opposite of Shane rubbed his belly in a way that reminded Shane of a TV show Santa Clause. However, the eyes that met Shane’s were dark and hollow. Okay, Shane game face. .Let’s be serious now, he thought to himself.

“Was something I said funny? I don’t remember dropping a punch-line.” Shane edged on taunting as situations like this grew more accustomed. “Watch your mouth, boy. Yer speaking to an elder.” The old man's speech was more of a growl than anything else. Instead of a quick comeback, Shane decided rather on dropping his point and then closing out this conversation.

“Okay then old-timer, what I need you to do is bippity-boppity-back the fuck up to wherever you came from.”

The man was furious at this commandment, but even more so since it was derived from Shane. He jolted himself forward, arms forward ready to strike. Before the man could even come close to bridging the gap between the two of them, Shane raised his hand up and muttered a few words. He watched as the old figure dissipated with ease. Shane ran his hand through his hair as he berated himself silently for not doing that from the beginning. These encounters with others like him were getting slowly more serious. It wasn’t just the sight of his dark being that scared others away anymore. He was having to fight them more often now. He was thankful most of them were on verbal playing fields instead of physical ones.

“Dude, did you find anything? The other room’s clear.”

Ryan’s voice dragged Shane out of his thoughts and back into reality. The shorter man was staring up at Shane with a half-smile0 draped across his face. Ryan made Shane feel more human, he felt like he could be comfortable around him. He felt like he could be himself, even if that self-was a demon.

“Uh, yeah I think there’s a cat living here,” he pointed to a group of boxes and newspaper that littered a corner of the room, “that must be what we were hearing. It must’ve gotten into something it shouldn’t.” Shane added a shrug to end the sentence off.

“A cat. . .”

“Yup.”

“You’re something else, Shane Madej.”

Ryan laughed, turned on his heel, and left the room. Shane watched as his friend’s flashlight bounced along the wall in the hallway, distance growing between them. Ryan had completely disappeared from his view.

“Hey! I think I found something!” Ryan’s voice reverberated through the hall and into his room.

For your sake, bud, I hope not.

“Alright, I’m on my way!”

As he left the room, Shane felt a pressure building in his chest. A tension that he was only able to attribute to one factor. It was getting increasingly more difficult to protect Ryan.

[pbjpuppy]

Walks

A short horror story I liked enough to share!

--

I’ve been going on a lot of walks recently. 

‘Cause, y’know being in the house all the time isn’t really good for you. Like, y’know, cabin fever and stuff? Plus, we just did this unit in science- through the computer, they’re calling it distance learning- about indoor air pollution, and how the air inside a home can be multiple times more polluted than outside air, and how most people spend most of their time indoors (90%!), which really makes sitting in my bedroom for long periods of time kind of unappealing. 

I don’t always like staying in my room anyway. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I spend most of my time in there like any other teenager does, and it’s great! I love my room. I’m even lucky enough to have my own instead of having to share it with a sibling like some people do. But still, even if you live in paradise it’s a prison if you can’t leave, so I don’t stay in there all the time. Sometimes I just wander around my house in circles instead. Or sit in my dad’s room. 

Anyway- walks. Lots of them. One every day is the new routine, unless I get lazy, which has happened once or twice and I always regret it. To the end of the block, which intersects the road in a “T” shape, then I turn to the right and walk all the way until the sidewalk ends (Through the old elementary school’s parking lot- I’m always worried security will yell at me, but so far I’ve been peacefully ignored), then I turn back and walk all the way past my block again to the other end of the sidewalk, then home. It’s not the most scenic route; I live in the suburbs of Long Island and all the trees are dead because it’s only just turned April, and all there is to see is houses and road. 

I keep myself entertained, though. There’s actually a lot to see if you really look. Nothing extraordinary, but that’s kind of what I like about it. I keep my eyes to the ground a lot, and you see a lot of litter on the ground: Cups, cans, cigarette boxes, packs of tissues, chicken wire, caution tape, strange boxy wooden contraptions that look busted and have been abandoned. Once I even saw an unopened condom. It’s an environmental nightmare, of course, but for the arrogant human on her walk it provides plenty of brain food. For every piece of trash there was a living, breathing human who held it, who used it, who discarded it. I wonder what they’re like and if I’ll ever meet them, what they’re up to. If they’re alive right now. 

There’s not much that’s all too impressive in terms of nature, like I said, but it’s still outside, and I’ve seen a bunch of interesting nature-y things, too. On my first walk, I found a chunk of a wasp’s nest, half-rotted. Recently I found a bird’s nest too, and I wanted to go pick it up, but it was in somebody’s yard and I didn’t want to get yelled at for trespassing. Just today I passed right through a murder of crows, kind of. They were perched in a group on the trees and telephone wires, and their croaking startled me out of my daydreaming to admire them. I’ve seen a lot of things that look like bones that aren’t bones, and one time I saw something that looked like a bone that actually was a bone. 

The one natural thing I don’t see on my walks is humans. Not one in a week. I would have expected to see at least one person walking their dog or something, or just doing work in the yard. I mean, everybody else has to be as restless as I am inside, right? But no, no people to be seen. That’s okay, though. The sidewalk is narrow, I like not having to share it. It also means I can text while I walk and not worry about bumping into someone. Plus, I guess it’s been kind of yucky out weather-wise. By the time I get home from my walks my nose is usually pink and runny from the cold. 

I live with two other people, my dog, my cat, and my two pet rats. That makes seven living things and three living humans. The house is quiet a lot of the time. My brother and I are both teenagers- I’m seventeen, he’s nineteen- and we spend a lot of time in our rooms. My dad is usually working, or out of the house. He likes to go over to his girlfriend's house a lot, or out to the city for the weekend before… Everything happened, and I’ll take care of myself for the evening and the following day or so. Sometimes it’s longer than that. I don’t hear from my brother those days, he makes his own food. Sometimes I’ll be home alone and won’t even realize until I walk past his bedroom and see it’s been empty this whole time. 

My dad’s been away a lot this week, I think. And my brother’s been quiet. I think he’s told me he doesn’t feel well. That’s okay. I can take care of myself well enough and I think I have people online to talk to. My dog barks a lot, that’s kind of like conversation. Plus, I have Animal Crossing, that game where you live on an island with a bunch of little animal people? It’s really cute, I love it. I talk to the animals on Animal Crossing. I don’t mind being alone. 

I’m on a walk, and my fingers and nose are cold and pink. I have an umbrella, but I don’t actually need it. It’s not raining anymore, the wind is just moist and cold. It’s dangling from my wrist. I liked playing tug-of-war with my umbrella against the wind, but the wind won, and my umbrella turned inside out, so I stopped. I’m coming back from the right side of the T. 

There’s lots of evidence of humans. There’s so much litter, pieces of trash that somebody was holding and let go of and now it’s on the ground. I thought I smelled weed before, which is gross, but that means that somebody somewhere was smoking it, somewhere nearby. There’s graffiti on the street signs. 

There’s lots of cars on the road, too. I don’t know where they’re going. Nobody’s really supposed to be going anywhere right now, I think. We’re supposed to be staying home, that’s what I was told. Maybe they’re going to get groceries. You’re allowed to go get groceries. All of them are getting groceries. 

Going to school online is a weird and kind of stressful experience, by the way, did I mention that? I’ve never done anything like homeschooling, I’ve always gone to public school my whole life, ever since I went to the old elementary school that I have to pass through on my walks. I’m used to structure. There’s this bell that drones at the end of every class, and when you hear the bell you get up and shuffle to your next class, forty-two minutes every class period. I’m used to that. Now they’re so far away. The classes, I mean, like, the concept of them. It’s just kind of a vague idea that there’s work I should be doing, now. I’ve been doing okay. I set alarms every forty-two minutes and pretend I’m going to class. 

I still haven’t seen a single human. I’ve been looking into the windshields of the cars as I walk and I still haven’t seen a single one. I don’t know who these cars are trying to fool, you can’t drive a car if there’s nobody in the driver’s seat. That’s impossible. But I haven’t seen a single human. Super-smart cars, maybe. I think I’ve heard about those on the news, right? Sometime before everything happened. They’re sending their cars to get groceries. 

I walk past the cemetery if I want to walk farther than usual. Usually my walk stops me right by the cemetery. I like ghosts and spooky things so I like living so close to a cemetery. It’s a nice cemetery, too. I don’t go in it very much, the only dead person I know wasn’t buried in the cemetery and I don’t want to intrude on anybody who’s grieving their loved one. Walks aren’t that important and I have a different route. I don’t think I would find anybody in the cemetery, but I’m going to go home anyway. I’ve been walking for a long time. 

I think a lot on my walks. My mind wanders. I do it on purpose, actually, I put on my music and let my mind wander while I walk. I like to draw and write stories, and letting my mind wander while I walk is good for inspiration. I’ve been thinking about humans and cars and crows. The crows fly away when I walk near them. I wonder if the humans are like crows and that’s why I can’t see them. Maybe I did something wrong and everybody’s avoiding me. Maybe everyone’s too busy getting groceries to be in their cars. It must be a lot of groceries. 

My dad has been away a lot this week. I want to tell him about the bugs I caught in Animal Crossing. I don't know if I’ve seen him in a while. I thought I said goodbye to him yesterday. Yesterday it was snowing, when I said goodbye. It wasn’t snowing yesterday. I wish he’d get back from whatever he’s doing. I hope he brings me back something from the grocery store. 

My brother hasn’t been feeling well. He wants me to leave him alone, I think. I think he said that, and that’s why he’s not in his room. He doesn’t want me to bother him, I think. He hasn’t been feeling well for a long time. He’s such a complainer. There’s mold in the food he left in his room. 

Online school is so frustrating. I’m really not good at math, and I tried to message my teacher about an exponents question, but he hasn’t been replying to me. I skipped the math problems, I think, and I can’t find the right website we’re supposed to be doing them on. I can’t find the app on my phone I used to text my teacher. I’m so forgetful. I forgot to text him, I think. 

This wouldn't be happening if everything hadn’t happened. If we were in school, I’d be able to raise my hand and ask the teacher in person about my math question. And there would be other students, too. But we have to stay home. Everyone has to stay home. 

I don’t know why we have to stay home. I thought somebody told me. I can’t remember. I know everybody has to stay home. The government said so or something. That’s why I can’t find anybody. Everybody’s at home. 

My dad isn’t answering his phone. I want to know when he’ll be home. He’s not supposed to be out. I forgot my dad’s number, I think. I’m going to walk to the grocery store. It’s getting dark out now, but I think I need to go. I’m going to see what all the fuss is about. Everyone’s at the grocery store, that’s why I can’t find them. 

There’s not much to see in the suburbs of Long Island. The shapes the buildings make are kind of pretty, though. They’re all warped and blackened, like a giant hand smushed them like play-doh. There’s lots of litter. There’s evidence of humans everywhere. The sun is setting behind the ruined buildings and it looks red and burning. It reminds me of something awful. Maybe a movie I watched, I think, about some awful explosion. The sun is too red and it’s scaring me. I’m going to keep walking to the grocery store.

This parking lot is empty and dirty. There’s lots of litter: plastic water bottle casings, old lighters, trampled wet paper bags, turned over shopping cars, shells of cars, the grocery store sign smashed on the ground. I step on the broken glass because it makes a nice sound. It smells like food, I think. The smell of the food is making my throat hurt, I think. There’s smoke rising from the building. They’re cooking, I think. The sun is so red behind the smoke. It looks like fire.

It looks like fire. There’s so much fire. It’s reminding me of something really bad. I’m really scared, something in my brain is really scared. Something happened and I can’t remember. I don’t want to be at the grocery store anymore. I’m walking home now but my legs aren’t feeling very normal. I wish the sun wouldn’t look so red. Everything is red and warm and smoky. It’s only just April and my nose and fingers are supposed to be pink from the cold. 

I’m getting lost, I think. Once I find my way home I can get my dad to hug me so I feel better. I don’t know why I’m crying. Something is making me sad and scared but I can’t remember what it is. Reminds me of a movie, I think. A big scary explosion in a movie. The air smells like smoke. I think I might be upset because of cabin fever. That’s it, I think. 

I think I need to go on more walks.