#colors are dull sounds are all annoying everything is just white noise and I’m just sitting here in it waiting for it to change

[existential-ghosts]

I hate not being able to enjoy anything. And in a way I can’t even bring myself to want to enjoy anything. I just don’t like this endless void and the persistence of existing. I have to keep breathing even though every breath I take is a drag, every bite I eat tastes like dust, and for every moment I sleep I wake feeling more agonized.

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden Ever After: Prologue

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Should you feel even just slightly lonely after this story is over, by all means, go see the anime’s Violet. Even if the storyline is different, your Auto-Memories Doll will be there. —Akatsuki Kana

Tears spilled down the eyes of a beast. Shedding large teardrops, it wept.

Why was he saying such things now, at this moment? The beast was incapable of understanding. It could not fathom the meaning of those words or his reasons to be uttering them.

A slow-acting poison. The beast had been given it little by little every day, and the effects of said poison circulating its whole body were currently showing. The beast’s crying was proof of that. Never had it known such painful tears.

He whispered repeatedly. It was an attempt to tell the beast words that it had not heard before. This conveyed that they were extremely important, but the beast could not accept them. It did not want to comprehend them now. They were most certainly against the very meaning of the beast’s existence. Should it accept them, the beast would no longer exist for the sake of emerald eyes.

——I hate not being able to protect you. My only wish is to keep you safe. It’s all I can reciprocate. Don’t be saying these things now; I want you to give me orders.

And so, the beast howled while wailing. It howled at its one and only Lord. The most hardly replaceable thing in the world for the beast.

   Roses and the Auto-Memories Doll: Prologue

   Blue eyes opened.

The beautiful, golden-manned beast had just awoken. Showered in morning light, it sat up without hesitation. Moving its small body, it smoothly came down from the top of a tree and set its legs on the ground. Swallowing the morning dew that had accumulated on its teeth, it picked fruits from the tree to eat. It ate one and, after staring fixatedly at the other for a second, the beast held onto it and started walking.

It was morning. A comfortable morning.

In the environment where the beast lived, there was neither right nor wrong. It might eventually die if it stayed there. It might live on forever as long as it was there.

The beast, which could easily sense and deal with invaders, felt neither desperation at the fact that morning had come to it, nor hope toward the day called today. It did not know such things. As it had never been taught about them, it was not capable of embracing them.

In certain aspects, the beast was overly superior, and in others, it fell so far behind that it was unbearable to look at. It had tremendously menacing fangs and was beautiful to an uncanny extent. It was that kind of beast. It was still that kind of beast.

Silence.

The beast strained its ears. It could hear the sounds of ocean waves from the coast. And also the voice of a man who appeared to be cursing. It then headed toward the sea.

The sky still bore colors that were a mixture of daybreak and nightly shades. The temperatures were warm and perfectly suitable for putting oneself in motion. Spotting the back of the man, who was sitting on the beach, the beast approached him slow and quietly.

Had he been trying to catch fish? Victim to his irritation, a broken, long tree branch was being flung away. A single small fish lay on a leaf as proof of his efforts.

Something heartbreaking must have happened for the man to be in such a situation. He did not seem to have the strength for cooking or eating the fish. With the man in front of it, the beast offered him the fruit.

He was the man who the beast had cognized as its “master” the other day.

Adults were necessary for the beast. Adults who could designate it instructions of some sort. The beast was able to live on its own, yet it needed adults to give it directions. It would be a problem if he died.

After leaving the fruit there, the beast distanced itself a little and sat on the sand. It was waiting for orders. While it did so, something hit its head.

“You monster.”

It was a fruit. He had apparently thrown away the fruit that the beast had gone through the trouble of giving to him. Even though he was hungry.

The man glanced its way. His green irises and raven hair glistened amidst the break of dawn. He was a beautiful man.

“I want to kill you,” the man whispered with a tone that would make one think this was his true intention.

It was a cruel statement, but the beast displayed no reaction. The white noise of the ocean waves drifted between the two of them. As the beast could not talk, the place was quiet when the man did not speak.

An island of one man and one beast. There used to be a mountain of corpses as well, but they had long been buried.

“But if I were asked whether you’re wrong or not, I don’t know,” the man, who would later be identified as Dietfried Bougainvillea, simply talked to it with an exhausted face. “If I were in your shoes and felt danger from those men... from that man who came towards you all of a sudden, then I would’ve probably done that.”

The beast merely turned its ears to the voice of the man. Not that it could understand anything. It was a wild beast and the man was a person. They were unable to establish communication. However, whenever it was spoken to by the person, the beast would look back at him with its unclouded eyes.

“That and whether or not I can forgive you are two different things. I can’t. In the end, I do want to kill you.”

Having met in the worst possible way, they had not initiated anything yet, but an encounter was a beginning in itself.

“Still, I have some room for pity too... Just what are you? Were you abandoned? Why’re you by yourself in a place like this...?”

As an announcement for a chemical reaction of sorts that was about to occur.

“No, you killed my men. I actually don’t have room for pity... Anyway, just stay quiet and listen.”

This was the start of a grandiose fate.

“I’m thinking with myself about what to do with you. I can’t stand you. I despise you.”

That meeting had served as its cornerstone.

“For now, I need you so that I can survive. You know this territory and can ensure food supplies as my tool to prepare for an escape... to go from this remote island back to Leidenschaftlich. And I really do feel a burning anger for what happened before, so want to punish you. But I have a strong sense of duty, so if we manage to leave this place without problems and if I get a chance to see my little brother’s face at least one more time, he might take interest in you if you do something. I won’t. I myself won’t. I’m complicated. A complicated man. You can’t handle me and I can’t handle you either. If I continue using you, I’ll get fed-up for sure and would indeed feel like killing you, but actually doing that would probably be impossible. You’re tough. I’d lose. No matter how I look at it, I can’t kill you. I don’t know why, but you need me, right? You’re trying to keep me alive and you kill things for my sake. Seems like you can be useful. After all, we’re in the middle of a war. It’d be fitting of someone like you to be used, used, used, used, used, used and used down to every last bit, till you become a worn-out mop cloth. That’s right, it definitely fits you...”

The man continuously spit out outrageous statements for a long while. The beast picked up the fruit that had been thrown away again and left it in front of him.

“Try to save me, monster.” The man bit the fruit, and with an annoyed face, he threw it at the beast.

This time, the beast dodged it. The fruit formed an arched trajectory line, overlapping with the sunrise lights. It was radiant enough for the beast to feel like its retinas would char, and so it closed its eyes as if bringing down a curtain.

   Blue eyes opened.

The beast was inside a large sack. It did not know for how much time it had been there. Long had passed since the last time it had been taken to the toilet and told to finish its business. Its throat was dry and it was tired from recurrent battles. While in the bag, it had repeatedly closed and opened its eyelids, falling into a doze, and now it had opened them again.

It could discern the voice of its master. As well as the stench of some burned food that he and the people who followed him were daring to put into their mouths. The beast did not like the odor. It dulled its sense of smell.

When would the master use it? There was no meaning to the beast aside from being put to use. The beast wanted to be used. It had no other way to prove itself.

There were surely people who found it strange. Why was this doll-like beast, who did not show any emotion, so keenly obsessed with being a tool? That was very simple. So simple it was ridiculous, so commendable it was ludicrous.

The beast wanted to be with humans.

It could live by itself. The beast had enough strength for that. It was fine even without anyone around. Yet, it wanted to be with people. It hated being on its own. That much was obvious. Nobody wanted to be in solitude. In true, complete loneliness. That was the desire of people whose mental state had grown tired of interacting with people, but no one who was actually alone wished for it. The beast wanted to be with someone, but could think of a means to do so other than offering itself for use. Which was why the beast was doing so.

It had lost the memory of its parents’ faces, its recollections from before a certain time, everything – yet it knew all but the surge born from servitude and violence. This was the only thing engraved into the modus operandi of the beast’s short life history. It could also be said that it “wound up” being engraved there. If it had been taught any other method, it would likely not have turned out the way it was.

The beast did not yet know what it was about to meet.

“I haven’t named it. We’d been calling it ‘you’.”

As the sack was opened, the outside lights, which were coming in contact with the beast for the first time in a while, shone on its eyes. The beast closed its eyelids once.

And then, it wished to be given an order.

   Blue eyes opened.

It was completely dark. Their field of vision was pitch-black, the air cold. However, the body of the beast was swelteringly hot. A slushy heat enclosed its whole body, giving it the sensation of turning into a huge lump of lead.

“Violet.”

Suddenly, light shone amidst the darkness.

That was because the person who had spoken to it had lit a lamp, but also because said person seemed to be shining, as he was the beast’s one and only light. His large hand touched the beast’s forehead, and then caressed it as if to unknot its sweat-drenched hair. A sizzling sound could be heard oozing from the beast’s chest.

“Major...”

The beast had been granted a name, known protection and learned how to speak.

“The fever... hasn’t gone down, huh. Can you drink water?”

Which gave rise to an attachment.

“My apologies.”

The beast had absorbed many new things from its new lord, and they built the beast’s values.

“There’s nothing to apologize for. You gave too much in the last battle... It was my mistake.”

Without its lord, even breathing would be difficult for the beast now.

“I am a tool, after all.”

It wanted to live for him.

“I believe you should use, use, use and use every last bit of me, until I break.”

And to die for him.

“Therefore, repairing me is unnecessary.”

Such tempestuous dependence was gnawing at its body.

“You’re human. We need rest if we’re down with a fever, and some also need to be nursed. That’s always been the way I’ve supervised you, ever since we’ve met. So of course I have to look after you.”

Everything was the lord’s fault. He had recognized this golden-manned, blue-eyed beast as a “girl” first of all.

“Do you not have any requests? Something I can do in this state.”

The object of his safeguarding, the wild beast he had to oversee, his weapon. While keeping these categories separated, the lord made use of the beast.

“For you to get well, Violet.”

And out of all things, he grew to love it.

   Blue eyes opened.

Tears overflowed from the eyes of the beast. Its visibility was distorted. It closed and opened its eyelids, attempting to expel the salty sea that it was birthing, to no avail.

“Violet, stop.”

The beast wept. Shedding large teardrops, it wailed. Even though it had never cried before, it was doing so.

“...e you.”

Its lord had been severely injured. It had failed to protect him. It had executed its orders, but because of that, it had been unable to protect him.

For the beast, the lord was more important than this mission.

“...ove you.”

As it cherished its lord, it had wanted to succeed in the mission. Since its life belonged to its lord, it had made the mission into a priority. But this rendered it meaningless.

“I love you! I don’t want to let you die! Violet! Please live!!”

There was no meaning in it. No meaning at all. There was no significance in the beast’s life either.

“I love you.”

Besides, why? Why was he saying that? Why was he saying such a thing, now, at this moment?

“I love you, Violet.”

The beast attempted to digest the words its lord had just whispered. It did not comprehend them.

“Violet...”

The beast did not understand. It could not fathom the meaning of those words or his reasons to be uttering them.

“Are you listening, Violet?”

——Are they not, most likely, something special? Those are most likely not words that I should be told. They are most likely not something that you should say to me. If you must say them, then why?

“I like you.”

——Why did you use me? Why won’t you let me save you?

“I love you.”

——Why, why, why, why, why, why, why?

“I love you, Violet.”

It did not understand. It did not understand anything. Not its lord, this world or the words confessed to it.

And so, the beast howled while wailing. It howled at its one and only Lord. The most hardly replaceable thing in the world for the beast.

“What is ‘love’?”

Ironically enough, it was then that the beast accepted love for the first time and became a person.

[e1ana]

a drabble for the broken reality au lmao

before i even start talking about this: stop pestering your faves to join! if they wanna they will, if they don’t they wont. i am literally in the discord and i have a whopping total of 24 followers on here, but i’ve already been asked 3 times. i can’t imagine how annoying it must be for someone with a large following.

that being said, take this trippy little thing.

(also for reference, this is what vocal fry sounds like. it starts at :52, so like that but a little less musical).

It’s very dark.

The definitive feature of this place is just - dark. Muted. Hazy.

Empty. 

It feels bad. It crawls up his skin, bloodies the undersides of his nails and the skin of his neck where he tries to scratch away the oppressive weight of it. Everything looks just like it’s supposed to, but the air is grey heavy and thick and it makes him want to slip right out of his skin.

His room - but it’s not, because his walls are white, not shadowy grey - is exactly as he left it. The posters are still on the wall, his window is still ajar, his phone still lies upturned on his desk, there is someone lying in the bed.

...There is someone lying in the bed? In his bed. There’s an intruder in his house, and their first thought was to sleep in his bed.

Maybe It’s the reason it seems like all the colors are off. That his world has turned into a grayscale hellscape.

He approaches slowly, carefully, lifting his knees high and away from the dull carpet. The slow rise and fall of a rib cage becomes heavy breathing becomes the dampening of sheets below a set of nostrils. He reaches out with a trembling hand, hovering above the blanketed figure. He wants to wrap his fingers around the fabric, yank it back and reveal the intruder, but-

The chest heaves, sucking in the dusty air, but it doesn’t seem to settle in the lungs of whatever breathes it. No, the figure jolts up, one arm sweeping in a wide arc to cover a ducked in head while the other stays firmly gripping the washed out covers. He can see a mouth opening wide, shoulders shaking, a chest rapidly expanding and contracting, but the motions he knows to accompany a fit of screaming make no sound. The only indication of any noise at all is the muted ringing in the back of his head.

He stumbles back as It jumps to standing, tripping over the curled up lip of the rug and falling backwards onto his ass with a dull thud. The figure ducks out of the room before it sees him - before he sees It, so he gives chase. 

It runs so much faster than he can, and he finds himself falling over nails and bumps that he knows don’t stick out of his floorboards. He doesn’t feel the splinters quickly gathering in his palms, nor does he feel the hot ache of rug burn against his knees, nor does he feel the gust of wind that sweeps back his hair when the It throws the door wide open and keeps running. He follows, chest heaving and eyes blinking away tears of exertion that drip down his numb cheeks, unnoticed and un-wiped.

He follows, running as fast as he can to try and catch up with It. The thing goes on for blocks, never stopping or showing any indication that It hears the thundering of his footsteps following not too far behind.

Finally, after what feels like it could’ve been miles, the figure slows to a stop in front of a large house. It keels over, bending at the waist like It’s had the top half severed. Its knees lower to the pavement followed by Its hands until it kneels on all fours in the middle of the sidewalk. He stops springing too, falling into an ambling walk until he towers above It.

With the strain of the darkness shrouding the air, he hadn’t seen clearly the features of the thing. It had covered Its face anyhow. There was no way he could’ve seen the head of pale hair, the skin too smooth, the large stain of sweat dampening the back of a black tank top. His hands shake, clenching and unclenching, because the designer of that skull pattern is-

Slowly, It raises its head. A bead of sweat - or perhaps a tear - rolls down its nose and splatters on the concrete. The splotch of wet is darker than the rest of the grey. Grit teeth, drooping blonde spikes, glassy red eyes rimmed in the same color as the iris.

He hasn’t seen those eyes glossy with tears before. He hasn’t seen them in a long time.

“Kuh-kh-” His mind supplies him with a word, a two syllable sound that his throat will not cooperate in producing. “Kah- K-kkuh-kkkk-”

The letter slurs into a vocal fry that he can’t push past. Why can’t he say it? Why can’t he hear it? Those red eyed don’t blink, they make no indication that their owner hears the repetition of the harsh “kkkkkkkkk,” that he sees or hears him at all.

He takes a deep breath, dropping his head before stumbling to his feet. The word is caught in his chest, blocking his airway and choking him just enough to stop the rest of the sound from leaving his mouth. No, he thinks as the broad back turns on him. I’m here! I’m right here, look at me look at me - LOOK AT ME! He stumbles forward but he isn’t fast enough because the blonde hair and unblemished skin disappear into the dark wood door. The eyes go last, peering out of the dark one last time before the door clicks shut.

He collapses against it, head knocking against the wood painlessly. Kacchan. His mind supplies the useless phrase a final time before the numbness and damp greyness of the world crashes over his head and pulls him under once more.

[knittingdreams]

Fireheart - Chapter 5

Hello, hello, hello!! :D

Dropping a new chapter today ‘cause why not? *-*

I can’t believe how far this story’s got, I mean, I feel like I wrote this so long ago D: 

If you want to read more, head onto my A03 were you can read up to chapter 20-something, and I update there at least weekly n_n

Otherwise, stick around, and here are the previous chapters in case you didn’t read them:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 5

Kickstarting phase 2

It only took Celaena a couple of days to figure out the patterns of Lysandra’s moves and get in position to play the next part of her plan; infiltrating the school’s hive. There was no better way to do so, than by going after the queen bee herself.

She had looked up Lysandra’s schedule on the ghost program she had running on her computer, which meant she had all the information about every student only one click away. Once she knew where Lysandra was meant to be at all times, it was easy to figure out the places she was hanging out in between classes. Every day, like a clock, Lysandra went to the bathroom closer to the cafeteria between the second and third period, usually on her own.

On Friday, Celaena made sure to be in that bathroom five minutes beforehand. She was standing in front of the mirror touching up her burgundy lipstick as the queen bee walked in, just as expected. 

Lysandra walked in confidently, checked her perfect hair in the mirror, adjusted her headband so it was placed just at the right angle, and then looked to her side, noticing Celaena standing there. Celaena’s chin was held high as she perfected the last touches of her own makeup and looked into the mirror, staring at her own brown eyes. She was still not used to them, they seemed so dull, but it had been fun to play with eyeshadow colors that would have normally clashed with her turquoise irises.

“Hey,” Celaena said as she finished up and looked at Lysandra. She used the same sweet tone she normally used when asking Arobynn for a favor.

“Hi,” Lysandra replied, looking puzzled for a second, but then turning around to fully face her. “I like that lipstick color you’re using; may I?” She added, extending a hand towards Celaena.

“Sure.”

Lysandra grabbed the lipstick off her, rolled it over in her fingers, and then tapped her thin lips with it making their cream color turn almost the same shade as Celaena’s.

Celaena knew it was now or never, she had to swallow her pride and do whatever was needed to make things work, to get closer, to get inside the inner circle. As repulsed as she felt about being one of the popular kids, it was a needed part of her plan.

“I hear tryouts for cheerleaders are next week, are there any openings available?” Celaena asked, playing with her hair and trying to look as innocent as a sheep... As far from reality as possible.

Lysandra looked her up and down before replying.

“You look decent enough, do you go to the gym often? Or were you on the squad in your old school? This is no joke, we take cheering seriously in Adarlan Elite,” she said with a stern voice, but there was a small smile tugging at her lips.

“Give me the chance, and I will prove worthy,” Celaena replied, making sure to say as little as possible. The best way to keep up a lie was by omission, and saying as few untrue facts as possible always helped keep up charades for longer. Being in Adarlan's school was certainly going to be the longest time she had spent as someone else.

“Are you a base or a flyer?” She asked, her emerald eyes still looking Celaena up and down.

“Whatever you need, I can be either, but I will rather be a base.”

“Okay,” Lysandra said, and a little smile made the side of her lips tug up. “I’ll see you there next Tuesday, don’t be late, and don’t disappoint me. We actually really need new recruits, most of our best graduated last year,” she finished as she turned around to walk away.

“Won’t,” Celaena said under her breath. There was no way she could disappoint. It was going to be harder to keep her performance on the down-low and not bring too much attention to herself than it was going to be making it into the squad. She had absolutely no doubt that she’d be wearing a cheerleader's uniform by the time training officially started. 

As Celaena was left alone in the bathroom, she pictured herself wearing the uniform. The skirt was similar to the everyday uniform, but about half the length of it; and bright yellow with a black waistband instead of the dull grey. She could do that, showing her legs was no issue, she could always attribute the few thin scars to falls, make up a little story here or there about her years cheering back in Terrasen. 

No, that wouldn’t be a problem. The problem was going to be the top. The cheerleader’s tops were too short, and leaving her lower back exposed wasn’t going to be an option. Standing there alone, she wondered if there was a way to alter the uniform, or if she could wear a cardigan on top of it until she got enough information and excused herself from the team. After all, she didn’t need to be in the squad when the games came around, she most likely only needed to be there at training for a few weeks; she could always claim a sprained ankle after that.

Smiling to herself, Celaena walked out into the hallway and she heard the second bell was ringing. Annoyed with her own distraction, she started walking faster towards her math class. Her scholarship could get compromised if she got in trouble for being late. She could have paid for the fees and avoided the trouble of applying for the scholarship altogether, but there was no point wasting any of her hard-earned fortune on school. Arobynn would have never accepted paying for it, and she didn’t want to ask either. So she depended on her brain, her good grades, and her good behavior. 

She hid behind a locker as she watched a teacher walking around a hallway, hoping not to be seen. She needed an idea, and she needed it fast. There was no way she’d be caught in the hallway when classes had already begun, and she couldn’t really sneak into the classroom unseen. Her brain pulled up the blueprint of the school, and she came up with a plan in less than a second. 

Once the teacher was out of view, she jumped out and made her way to the end of the hallway as fast as possible, her feet barely touching the floor and making no noise. She looked to both sides before running through another corridor and making her way to the door of the infirmary. She sneaked inside as silent as a ghost and laid on a bed before the nurse would even notice she was there. She closed her eyes, propped an arm over her face, and  waited. 

It was only a few moments before she heard a surprised gasp, and opened her eyes, moving her arm down and making her eyelids flutter. She looked around confused, making herself blink slowly.

“Where did you come from?” the nurse asked, sounding a little jumpy.

“Sorry,” Celaena said in a pained voice. “I suddenly felt awful, I thought I was going to pass out. A freshman helped me here, I don’t know where he’s gone….” she trailed off, making her eyelids drop, and then reopening them slowly. “I think I just need some rest,” she added.

The nurse was already rushing around her, checking her pulse and putting a hand against her forehead to make sure she didn’t have a fever.

“Your temperature is fine,” the lady said, and Celaena concentrated on her breathing, making her heartbeat as slowly as she could. “Your pulse is a little weak,” the nurse said soon after, walking around to a little table and searching in the drawers.

“Let me guess,” the nurse said. “Is it that time of the month?”

Celaena opened her eyes a little as if hearing the greatest news but being too tired to do something about it. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it, you’re completely right. It’s meant to be tomorrow,” she said, wiping nonexistent sweat off her brows.

“Here,” the nurse said, giving her a glass of water, a painkiller, and a lolly. “The sweet will help get your blood sugar back up. You girls nowadays with your diets, you don’t ever eat enough! I will write you a slip so you can take it to class once you feel better. Stay here for now as I go over to inform the office of your whereabouts.”

With that, the nurse left the room, her wide hips swaying from one side to the other as she entered the room in the back. Celaena looked up at the white roof and sighed. It would be embarrassing to get to class too late, so she thought she might as well fake it till the bell rang. She wouldn't miss much as she probably knew everything in the math curriculum already.

There was still fifteen minutes left when the door to the infirmary opened up, and Chaol Westfall walked in. He didn’t look surprised to find Celaena there, and she wondered if she was the sole reason he had come around.

“Celaena,” he said as a way of hello.

“Chaol,” she replied, making her voice sound as flat as possible.

“Ms. Doranelle sent me over to check on you, she’s going to take the last ten minutes of class to do a surprise test and she’d want you to be a part of it if you’re feeling better,” he said as he stood with his back against the open door.

Celaena lifted her brows, not being able to believe that they would send over for her for something so trivial. She let her eyelids half drop, making her look tired again.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to go back,” she replied in a weak tone. Chaol didn’t look convinced as he took a step towards her.

“You shouldn’t fake sickness, what’s even wrong with you? Your stomach? Do you have any kind of illness?” He asked, taking another step towards her as if daring her to lie to his face. Celaena had wondered before about the weirdness of this nerd being Dorian’s best friend, but she could now see they shared their clear stubbornness. 

“I’m not that kind of sick,” Celaena said, a little smug smile tugging on her lips.

“Then, what’s wrong with you?” Chaol asked, his eyebrows raised again.

“It’s... That time of the month, you know,” Celaena replied, containing the laughter.

Chaol’s expression changed, his brows lifting higher up, and then dropping all the way down. He took a step backward and almost tripped as his cheeks flushed red and his lips went pale. 

“Oh, yeah, that... sorry,” he muttered as he took another step back and turned around, almost tripping with the doorframe as he bolted out of the room.

Celaena laughed then, a real laugh, and had to cover her mouth not to startle the nurse, who was still inside her little office.

The rest of the day passed in a breeze, and Celaena found herself content at the end of the day, realizing she had survived her first week of high school. She reminded herself that she was strong, that the years on the streets had taught her everything she needed to know about the world, and that if she could survive Arobynn, then she could certainly survive school.

When she jumped up on her bike at the end of the day, she was grinning from ear to ear. The ride to the mansion would only take a few minutes, so she took a detour and rode around town for a while, letting the wind mess up her hair. She was glad for the thrill, for the rush of adrenaline that made her feel alive, for the freedom of being able to ride the roads without worrying about prying eyes.

Once she made it into the mansion, she was surprised to find Arobynn and Sam in the foyer. Cortland still had his school backpack hanging from a shoulder, and his posture seemed a little tighter than normal. Celaena had learned to read his postures and expressions after spending so much of their time training together, and she could tell something was going on, something had happened.

“Afternoon,” Arobynn greeted her as she reached them in the middle of the foyer. She composed her face into a pleasant smile and stood a step behind Sam.

“You’re not one to wait by the foyer, what’s going on here?” She asked, her brows rising slightly.

“I was just sharing some developments and news with Sam,” Arobynn announced. Sam’s back was straight, and his chin was tilted up, looking right into Arobynn’s grey eyes.

“Spit it out, and tell me what’s happening, Arobynn. Does it have anything to do with my parents and my mission?” She asked, unable to keep her cool any longer.

“Nothing to do with you Celaena,” Arobynn dismissed her with a shake of his hand. “There’s a tournament coming up in a few weeks, and I know Sam here is ready to step up.” He said as he looked back at his subordinate. Arobynn’s stern posture wasn’t giving anything away. “Sam will be joining the guild.”

Celaena’s heart leaped, and she glanced at Sam without even thinking about it. His posture was still rigid and his jaw was clenched as he nodded once, his eyes fixed on Arobynn’s. She looked back to the older man, who looked barely a few years older than them with his long auburn hair, and she forced herself to smile. 

“Congratulations, Cortland,” she said.

Hope you enjoyed it! And thanks so much again for popping by! I’m loving all the support of this amazing community! :D

[burntmcnuggies]

A Hopeless Fight

Yandere Levi x Reader

Warning: this story contains blood, gore, and suggestive themes such as kidnapping, murder, non-consensual touching, forced sex, and drug usage. You guys have been warned! Now all of you who wanna read! Please enjoy! :D

Chapter Three: Hell

Everything was dark.

My ears were ringing wildly and my body felt so cold. The ground was hard and chilly, almost as if I was laying on straight ice. My head was throbbing, and a rush of blood was shot through my body in a sudden moment. I could hear the faint sound of a deep voice that rumbled in my ears, and some high pitched noice that made my body shiver. My eyes slowly began to crack open and a flash of white and red filled my blurry vision. It was only until I saw more red, and the familiar color of skin, my body became fully awake and aware of what was going on. A scream forced past my lips while my eyes shot wide. The light hurt, but the horror before my eyes was just too captivating and terrifying, I couldn’t look away.

There, chained to the cold plastic tarps was a man. He had no head, but it was unmistakably a man due to the missing part of his genitals that used to hang between his legs. Stringy organs were hanging from his stomach, and multiple chucks of his flesh were carefully carved out. His head was laying in the floor, the horrified expression forever etched onto his youthful looking face. His dull and lifeless eyes would forever haunt me. However, it was only until a bloodied black glove came into my view, I became aware I wasn’t the only living being down here. My back slammed against the wall while my lungs clawed at the air for a lick of oxygen to pass them. My chest was heaving so hard and fast it felt like I had just ran a marathon. A silvery sheen twinkled, and my heart dropped seeing the eyes of the killer. There was an unmissable glint in his eyes.

Murderous intent.

The carnal hunger to spill blood.

A sadistic shine of amusement.

Disgust.

Pity.

Possessiveness.

It was Corporal Levi Ackerman. The man put in charge of the investigating the murders. That feeling in my gut was right. There is something sinister about him that unsettled me, but now, I’m seeing his true colors. I’m seeing him for the monster he really is. “You’re up. Bout time, brat.” Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I jerked harshly to the right towards a small staircase, but a painful tug came at both my wrists. I cried in pain and looked down in terror to see my wrists cuffed and chained to the wall. Before I knew it, a searing hot gloved hand came in contact with my throat. My head came in contact with the cold wall and I could slowly feel my airway beginning to be blocked. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It’d be a shame to kill you. You could prove to be quite valuable. Since shitty glasses owns that hospital she can’t really help me out, but an aspiring med student? I suggest you choose not to be a shit for brains and corporate with me.”

I couldn’t raise my wrists to try and pry his hands from my throat, I could only pull on them helplessly in hopes that somehow they would break. His other hand slowly came, gloved and dark, dripping with the same liquid that courses through both of our veins. “Tch, cat got your tongue? Where’s all that happy spunk I saw before at the hospital?” His already narrow eyes sharpened and narrowed further, creating quite a scary image. It was like he was the devil in the flesh. A real life boogeyman. No emotion showed on his face, but his eyes spoke a million words. This man was truly a monster. Suddenly his hand lunged towards my face and his palm crushed my nose, his strong fingers gripping tightly onto my skull. The irony smell filled my nose and a metallic taste invaded my mouth involuntary, making my stomach churn. “Tell me, brat. Are you scared?”

“LET ME GO YOU DISGUSTING MONSTER!!!!” I screamed against his gloved hand and squirmed my hands to no avail, tears steaming down my face while the raven haired man continued to grip my face. That proved to be the biggest regret of my life. A pissed off look crossed his face and he took his hand away dripping with blood and he planted his foot and in a flash, his other foot collided with the side of my face. My head throbbed aggressively and I could feel something warm running down my nose and the side of my head. Bloody tears fell from my eyes as the salty tears cascading down my face and collided with the thick crimson substance. Another kick came straight into my stomach, and my eyes widened. Blood spewed from my mouth and onto his black apron, it coated the cement floor below me. It felt like I was just ran over by a car. “Tch, you’re the one that’s disgusting. You got me all dirty you shit head. You need to be punished.” He raised his foot and smashed my arm harshly, smirking at my screams.

This was truly hell.

.

.

.

What was it I felt when I first saw her? I’ve never felt anything like this before. Tch, a shitty new emotion to keep up with. That look in her eyes. Determination, sadness, and the look of desperation. Hanji has mentioned she was a med student. Why? There had to be a reason. My silvery eyes slowly moved down to the wad of cash in my firm strong hands. I was tasked with killing her, but I couldn’t bring myself to embed a blade through her slim throat. She was unconscious, laying there painfully from the sedative. Her smooth skin reflected against the light, and if I focused hard enough I could hear her soft breathing. “Ugh... uh...? UH?! AHHH!!! WHERE AM I?!?!” I sharply clicked my tongue and turned towards my next victim. I had him stripped down naked to humiliate him. Serves the bastard right for annoying the shit out of me. “Well, well, look who finally decided to wake up.”

I taunted the man while I stalked over towards my table of tools. Each one screamed for me to choose it, ready to taste that satisfying flavor of blood. A faint noise came to my ears and I looked down noticing this fucker pissed himself all over my damn clean tarps. I scowled in anger and disgust and picked up a butcher knife, a classic horror cliché from books and thriller movies. But it was the best tool to use in this moment. The silver blade scraped against the metal table weeping in ecstasy I had chosen it to mutilate this filthy scum bag. “What’s wrong? Not enjoying the feeling of exposing yourself to a stranger?” I walked towards him expertly twirling the blade in my hand. Oh I loved seeing that horrified look in his eyes. I stopped a few feet away and looked back to my prisoner who still happened to be unconscious. “Don’t you know it’s rude to do that in front of lady?”

“NO!!! I-IT IS RUDE!!! VERY RUDE IM SORRY!! PLEASE ILL DO ANYTHING YOU ASK!!” Tears were already hitting the tarp harshly, snot running down his nose and salvia pouring from his mouth. Disgusting. I cocked my head to the side and feigned sympathy for the perverted man before me. I sighed and stepped closer, lowering the knife. Once I was in front of him I placed my hands on my hips and nodded. “Fine. I’ve got something for you to do.” A spark of hope dwindled in his desperate eyes. Fool, in this world the strong prey on the weak. I harshly grabbed his genitals and gave a firm tug before I leaned close to his ear and whispered lowly. “Stay quiet. While I chop you up.” And in one swift motion, he was no longer a man. Just a breathing pile of flesh screaming and bleeding, crying for his life. “Hey, I thought I told you to shut up.” I shoved my fist into his face, breaking his jaw instantly on impact. Quiet whimpers and disfigured pleas for his life fell upon my deaf ears as I grinned and raised the knife again.

“See you in hell. Scum.”

[unlockthelore]

Hurt

When they were kids, Cloud always tried to keep a stiff lip and Tifa always came to his rescue. Now, everything seems the same and different.

Beneath leaf-filled gutters dripping water into barrels set against a damp brick wall, a white cat blinked iridescent blue eyes at a glowing orb set precariously on a pile of debris. Its tail flicked and curled as it crept around shallow puddles shimmering flourescent green across a rippled surface. Gravel presses into its paws as it crept up the pieces of broken wood, sights trained on the orb’s surface, its light particles drawing the attention of cat’s dilated pupils.

Seconds from claiming its prize, the cat lunged only to be batted away by a hand. Tumbling backward down the pile of scrapped wood into a heap in the dirt, a small cloud of dust arising. It took a moment to shake off the initial shock. Slitted pupils and narrowed eyes focused on a blond haired child kneeling on the other side of the pile, snatching the glowing orb from the cat’s view. Hissing with a puffed out tail, the cat stalked forward attempting to lay eyes on the orb but the child blocked its view every time.

“Shoo, shoo…” He urged, waving his free hand mere inches from the cat’s nose. A few mere inches which would be his downfall. Rebuffed and vindictive, the cat lunged with a loud grating hiss, claws flashing and the boy recoiled with a startled cry. Bringing his hand close to him, fresh angry reddened streaks along the back of his hand gives the cat a sense of triumph as it scampered away, racing out of the alleyway before the boy could retaliate.

The blond grumbles softly, nursing his hand close to his chest, eyebrows knitting together in pain with a flicker of annoyance at the cat’s retreating form. “Ouch…”

Dull throbbing pain etched around the thin scratches. Blood beading around the wound staining his pale skin a light scarlet with a few dunks of his hand in a small basin beside the larger water barrels. Cradling the orb in his free hand, he carefully shifted it to eye-level and turned it over in his palm admiring the glow.

There was no question of why the cat would want it but if he’d lost it, that would be worse than a couple of scratches. His body ached and muscles protested his shuffling to the wood pile, dropping down against the dilapidated fence separating from the main road. Ambient voices and footsteps of the other towns goers both filling him with dread and concern. The longer it took him to figure out how to use this, the easier it would be for someone to stumble across him. Word traveled fast in Nibelheim, and would no doubt reach the ears of one Claudia Strife.

When glaring a hole into the orb didn’t work, Cloud tried any manner of “magic words” including “please” although he took a quick glance toward either side of the backalley to ensure no one was listening. The other kids would never let him live it down if they heard him pleading to a ball of energy — or was it magic? He couldn’t quite remember what his mother had told him before and recalling her words was difficult at a distant shout of his name.

Scuffling in the dirt, a sharp pain to his back and sides nearly tore free a pained groan. His hand clamping over his mouth to stifle it as the sound of his name grew nearer. Bouncing off the brick walls, interrupting the ambience and nearly drowned out by his hammering heartbeat. He knew that lilting voice anywhere — having heard it call out to him most of his life — but he didn’t want to face her.

Not yet, and definitely not like this.

“Cloud, are you back here?”

Tucking the orb close to his stomach, he clasped his injured hand over his mouth tightly, trying to control his breathing and make himself as small as possible. In the dim, it would be harder to pick out where he was exactly. And for once he was grateful that he was so small and unassuming. If he just stayed quiet then perhaps —

“Y’know, even if you try to keep quiet and hold your breath, the cat and the materia you took from my dad gives you away.”

Wrenching his eyes open, Cloud felt dread pool in his stomach. He knew when he was caught. Carefully lifting his head, his gaze traveled from the dirt scuffed at the tip of his boots to unblemished legs. Powder blue strapless sandals, that were always getting caught on cobblestone or causing a ruckus during a free run, on a pair of shifting feet matching the cream-colored dress and the drape of dark hair barely masking concerned and annoyed ruby eyes. While he was dirtied from head to toe, Tifa was pristine and — to his relief — unharmed.

Though, she was no less upset. Thick dark brows furrowed and rose pink lips pinched together, her balled fists jammed into her hips as she shook her head at him. “Really, Cloud. How were you gonna hide a glowing green ball in a dark alley?” Her gaze dropped somewhere near the hand that fell from his mouth, resting against his chest with nowhere else to go. Pain flickered in her eyes, quickly blinked away as determination interlaced with concern in her pinched expression. “And patch yourself up at the same time…?”

Cloud swallowed thickly. He didn’t want to explain to Tifa what happened but he was caught red-handed and she wouldn’t let him off easily. Fiddling with the orb, it felt cool against his heated skin. Shame burning deep in his chest as Tifa looked him over with a dawning look of realization. Her head dropped with a heavy sigh.

“You don’t know how to use it, do you?”

Wincing and averting his gaze, Cloud grumbled bitterly. “I was… gonna figure it out.”

Tifa’s disappointment is palpable but so is her concern. Cloud, chafing beneath both, had little energy to fight back against her snatching the materia from his hands.

“Before or after you got my hat back from the monsters?”

He half-expects her to turn around and go marching back home or chastise him for being reckless. When neither comes, he glances up at her as she shuffles in the dirt. Gravel and muck staining the hem of her dress when she crouches at his side, her eyes much closer and hold tight on his arm. It would’ve been painful if not for the cooling rush of energy fluttering from the materia into his skin, numbness ebbing at pain’s biting sting, racing through his body. If Cloud didn’t know any better and Tifa’s hold on him wasn’t so tight, he would’ve thought he was floating.

“Everyone else ran for the hills, I mean…” Tifa’s voice is soft and distant, a hint of bitterness souring the air between them as they watch the scratches begin to close. “So did I…” Quickly, she added. “Just to get my gloves so I could whack them myself.” Once the scratches healed, she eased his hand to his lap and loosened her grip enough that his wrist didn’t ache. Still, she refused to let go and Cloud knew better than to pull his arm away.

“And then I see my hat on a post and you were nowhere in sight.”

The slightest tremble to her hand made Cloud ease his own back and clasp it with hers. Tifa’s pinched expression breaking, a faint glimmer to her eyes as relief floods where anxiousness had been. She squeezed his hand and a hushed silence lulled between them, Nibelheim’s ambience filling the quiet as they were lost to their thoughts.

Quietly and with no small amount of hope, Cloud asked. “Did you get it back?”

That hat was one of Tifa’s favorites. Although she had so many, that didn’t matter. It was hers and he wasn’t going to allow some monster to trample over it. Tifa startled at the question then sighed raggedly, waving the materia inches from Cloud’s nose, his eyes almost going crossed as he tried to keep his gaze on it .

“That’s not the point, silly.” Tifa huffed, pulling the materia back, giving Cloud precious time to refocus his sight. His vision dotting a bit as he tried to level his gaze with hers. Almost wishing that he hadn’t when he sees the guilt and apprehension in her eyes. “You could’ve gotten really hurt, you know? Then what would I do?”

A loaded phrase and one Cloud isn’t quick to answer. Tifa’s care for him always leaves his stomach in knots and he hates seeing her face like that. Tired, concerned, anxious, guilt-ridden, those were emotions she didn’t deserve. With how helpful and strong Tifa was, she deserved to smile everyday. And he hated that he was the one who made her look like that.

Say something. Anything that’ll make her not worry so much.

Opening his mouth and closing it as he tried find the words, Cloud grumbled. “Take your hat, go home, and ask your dad how to use a healing materia… I guess?”

Weighted silence lingers between them before Tifa groans, shoving his shoulder lightly with materia in hand. “Oh, so now you’re a funny guy?” She asks dryly, but her smile is there and that’s all that matters to him. Slowly rising from the dirt, smatters of gravel cling to her skin and Cloud is hard-pressed not to remind her of them. Staring up at her steals his breath away, the light reflecting off the gutters haloing her in a gentle golden hue.

“One of these days, Cloud Strife, you’re going to get yourself into something you can’t get out of trying to play hero.”

Cloud closed his mouth, his lips dried from hanging open for so long. With Tifa’s help in pulling him to his feet, he held onto her hand a bit tighter as she tried to pull away. Her eyes squinting in confusion.

“… Then you’ll rescue me.”

“Huh?”

Cloud felt his face warming, his hold on her hand loosening for a second to allow her to pull away. When she didn’t, he tried to summon all the courage he could muster to keep speaking. Looking everywhere else but at her, trying to focus on the dripping water and the chattering beyond their little pocket of existence. Ignoring Tifa’s efforts to try and catch his eye, his head turning this way and that to avoid her gaze. “I promised I’d come rescue you once I’m a SOLDIER…” He cleared his throat when she ducked her head in his line of sight, meeting his eyes curiously. A startled noise and his head whipped to the side, too quick for him to play it off. “So, you have to rescue me too… if I mess up with playing hero.”

Tifa giggled after a short pause, squeezing his hand. “You don’t have to tell me that,” she said to him, pulling him to her side, not minding the slight stumble as he tried to regain his footing. Her eyes twinkling and the soft golden hue seared into his memory.

“It’s a promise, Cloud.”

 ・・・・・・ LOADING

Cloud opens his eyes to the darkness of his room in Stargazer Heights, the sounds of Nibelheim melting away along with Tifa’s voice and the warmth of her hand. Gazing down at his gloved hands, he carefully pulled one of the leather garments from his hand and set it in his lap. Brushing his fingers along the unblemished skin — feeling the ghost of the scratches and the ache in his bones from Tifa’s tight grip on his wrist. It was silly. He’d grown a lot since then but the sensations were still as real as they were that day.

An ache settled in his chest when he heard a door creaking open from down the hall along with the tell-tale footsteps down the rickety staircase. Pushing himself up to his feet, Cloud grabbed his fallen glove and tucked it over his hand. Hesitantly glancing between the Buster Sword propped up against the wall and the doorway where the footsteps were growing fainter to his ears. Quickly holstering the weapon, Cloud pulled open the door and darted to the railing, grasping it with both hands as he leant over.

“Tifa?”

Gone was the childish roundness to her face and the wide-eyed optimism and unbridled determination. He never noticed until Tifa was looking away from him, but shadows haunted behind that glimmer of hope. And the spark was steadily going out. Without missing a beat, she turned her head up to him and stopped at one of the lower steps, her hand on the railing and smile showing a sliver of teeth. Her face lighting up and temporarily blinding him from the shadows and all else around him.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“I… um…” Words gathered and died on his lips as he tried to piece together why it is that he wanted to see her now. A dull pricking pain, barely worth mentioning, drew his attention to the cloth bracers missing from his arm. Several thin scratches wrapping around his forearm, angry raised skin presenting both a hollow memory and an opportunity.

“Could you… patch me up?” Cloud asked, raising his arm hesitantly, the cool air stinging the fresh cuts. He thought that they would heal in his sleep but perhaps he hadn’t used his materia properly. Healing wasn’t exactly his thing after all.

Tifa leant up on her tip toes, likely attempting to see what he meant. A startled gasp escaping her as she raced up the stairs in record time.

“Cloud, wh—“

“You promised,” Cloud interjected, noting the exasperation and confusion in her eyes as she rifled about in the small pouch at her hip for a healing materia, glowing a familiar green between them. When her eyes met his, there was a brief flicker of recognition and the exasperation melted into a fond smile that stammered his heart’s beating.

“… Guess I did. Now, hold still, okay?”

Laying his hand in her own, he almost wished that he left his glove off so he could feel the warmth of her hand. But for now, this would be more than enough.

[minijenn]

Universe Falls, Chapter 80, Part 3

Alsdkajsldkajdlasd I’m dying, Dimensions is done, I’m dead, I’m Dead MiniJen, my opus is complete and I’m Suffering from feels, enjoy this massive fucking painfest that you are NOT ready for enjoy (read it on ao3 or ff.net pls for formatting purposes) 

Previous: https://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/623372505375277056/universe-falls-chapter-80-part-2

***

Chapter 80, Part 3: Dimensions

EW YLLVLT XUUR, VG OACC IWEOVU SD QGKU WZCT'H PQNG WG VRJPK CAIMTL PPX BUDL'U LTJF QF WG YAXX RWE PGTE CSI BUDL CRR 9 LMA BSWPES XTM QRGT 

The very moment they fell into the Nightmare Realm, Stepper knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he’d been here before. His brief, yet awful time there had been, like most of his memories it seemed, completely locked away from the forefront of his mind. But now, upon getting so much as a single glimpse of the endlessly shifting spacescape that echoed with an unintelligible void of constant noise, it was as though a handful of sparse, somewhat distant recollections filled him as to what happened to him here. Here… in the place where Bill Cipher had cracked his gem, stolen his shield journal, and stripped him of any sense of who he was truly supposed to be. 

As for his gem, it was still pounding substantial pain through his body with every passing moment. He couldn’t suppress an agonized cry as he was tossed forward by the force of the portal closing up behind him, Mabel clinging tightly to one of his lower hands as they were essentially thrown through the weightless expanse around them. Neither of them had any time to gather their bearings, however, as they were both stopped almost immediately upon abruptly crashing into the group that had entered the portal just before them. 

Ford, Stan, and the Gems all reacted in apt alarm, spinning around with their weapons drawn to confront who they initially believed was Bill himself. Only to find the very pair they had been dead set on keeping out of this horrid place to begin with. 

“Stepper!? Mabel!?” Pearl gasped in obvious shock. “W-what are you kids doing here?! We told you to stay home!”

“W-we couldn’t…” Stepper huffed as he moved one of his shaking lower arms to cover up his damaged gem, even though that did little to stem the searing pain originating from it. “We… I-I had to come… I-I have to get my journal back…”

“Yeah, and I’m with Stepper,” Mabel brazenly agreed, tightening her steadying grip on his hand. “No matter what.”

Despite the resounding ache still reverberating throughout his body, Stepper managed to glance down at Mabel to offer her a genuine smile of gratitude, one that she readily returned. An affirmation of their shared resolve to get back what the fusion had lost, even despite the danger they both knew they might face in doing so. 

“N-no, you shouldn’t be here,” Lapis countered anxiously. “We need to get both of you back now.”

“We can’t,” Ford noted with an exasperated sigh. “The machine is set on a timer back in our dimension; it won’t reopen another wormhole home until about 24 hours in our time.”

“24 hours?” Stan asked incredulously. “You mean we’re stuck in this oversaturated wacko world for a whole day?”

“A day in our time, Stanley,” Ford corrected, annoyed. “Time moves differently here, remember?”

“Uh, so are we able to send these two home or nah?” Amethyst asked, pointing a thumb over at Stepper and Mabel. 

“At this point, it doesn’t seem as though we really can…” Pearl mused with a worried frown. 

“G-good, because we wouldn’t go back anyway!” Mabel proclaimed with an air of defiance in her tone. “Right, Stepper?”

Stepper could only nod weakly, his vision blurring as his gemstone unleashed yet another wave of unbearable anguish upon him. The stone flashed brightly, a strangled cry escaping him as he failed to keep himself upright, ultimately prompting Garnet to rush forward to catch him before he could fall into the empty space ahead of him. 

“There’s no time for arguing,” the Gem leader said staunchly as she kept a close, protective hold on Stepper’s trembling body. “They’re here now, which means we have to do our best to protect them. And to get his journal back as quickly as possible.”

A beat of fretful silence passed at this as everyone spared a concerned glance Stepper’s way, his condition seeming to worsen more with each passing second. The color of his gem was a dull, almost gray kind of pink, even as it flashed with a bright, warning white light almost constantly.  His skin was pale between the pink cracks torn across it, his eyes tightly shut against the chilling pain pounding through his veins. Pain that the others knew there was only one way to stop, or at least, a way they hoped would stop it. 

“Did I hear someone was looking for a journal?” An all-too-familiar voice suddenly boomed across the Nightmare Realm, catching the entire group starkly off guard from the very first word. Several of them gripped their weapons tightly, tensely glancing around the surrounding void for any sign of the dream demon they’d come here to confront. Only to find that Bill himself was hovering high above them, far out of anyone’s immediate reach. “Well, it’s your lucky day,” he remarked casually as he reclined coolly in the air. “I recently got my hands on a real page-turner that I might be willing to lend out… for the right price.”

The reaction to Bill’s unexpected, yet largely informal arrival was sharp and immediate on all sides. The Gems lashed out first, Pearl and Amethyst pushing themselves through the gravity-free air with their respective weapons drawn to land a starting attack against the dream demon. Before either of them could even get close, however, Bill swiftly disappeared, only to rematerialize seconds later not too far away from the group still positioned down below. 

“Hey, now! How about we-” Bill protested, only for Ford and Lapis to lash out simultaneously, the former with one of the several blasters he’d brought along and the latter with a series of successive waves of water. Even though Bill evaded these attacks just as easily, Garnet, who had just handed off Stepper’s safekeeping to Stan and Mabel, was next, rushing at him furiously with both of her gauntlets ready to land a devastating strike. Yet even so, Bill easily rebuffed her, sending her flying back toward the other Gems with a mere wave of his hand before he came to calmly hover above the disgruntled group of visitors to his realm. 

“Yeesh, have any of you ever heard of manners before?” he asked with a harsh scoff, his hands on his edges. “You don’t just barge into someone’s house and start throwing hands without a single, solitary hello, do you?”

“We do if it’s your house, chump!” Amethyst yelled, tossing her whip out as Pearl swiftly tossed her forward in another bold offensive. However, Bill managed to catch the end of her whip, carelessly flinging it behind him to send the purple Gem flying before deflecting the spear Pearl had sent his way in retaliation. 

“Boy, you all sure are riled up,” Bill noted with faux innocence. “I wonder what’s got you all so upset that you’d go through all the trouble of coming here to see me personally…?”

“You know exactly why we’re here, Bill!” Ford shouted, his blaster still trained on the dream demon.

“Return Stepper’s shield journal now,” Garnet demanded briskly, both of her gauntleted hands clenched in tight, unyielding fists. “Or else we’ll make you.”

“Ha! Make me?” Bill laughed mockingly, sizing himself down to a much smaller scale as he circled the group mirthfully. “Do any of you really think you stand a chance against me here, on my home turf? C’mon, get real. All you need to do is take one look at your ragtag little group of LOSERS and you’ll see why this whole thing is a very bad idea…” At this, Bill focused on the Gems, all three of whom had their weapons raised on a defensive guard as they eyed their old foe with mutual distrust and disdain. “First we’ve got the Crystal Chumps, who always THINK they save the day, but when they think they do they always find a way… to mess everything UP!” Easily provoked by such a cruel remark, the trio reacted aggressively, swinging their respective weapons in the hopes of landing so much as a single hit on the malicious dream demon, though as usual, he slipped away before they could get the chance. “And Sixer, it’s a no brainer why you’re here,” Bill remarked rather teasingly as he appeared just in front of Ford. The author wasted no time in firing a blast at him, though the dream demon disappeared before it could even come close to touching him. “I always figured you’d come crawling back here sooner or later. Still got some… unfinished business with me, don’t ya?” 

“I certainly do,” Ford remarked immediately, offering the dream demon a relentless glare. “And this time, I’m not about to let you get away with-”

“Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, vengeance, blah, blah, I ruined your life, blah, blah, blah,” Bill mocked callously, only serving to aggravate the author even more. “You’re really starting to sound like a broken record at this point, Fordsy. Speaking of broken… Water Wings! Nice to finally meet ya face to face! Especially since I’ve heard so much about you from poor little Pine Tree.” Bill’s tone was cheery and bright as he glided over to Lapis, who had no qualms about launching another heavy wave of water at him right off the bat. 

“You!” she shouted, furious as she continued trying to pin him down, only for Bill to steer clear of each of her onslaughts. “You’re the one who hurt Dipper and Steven, you… you monster!”

At this, the blue Gem unleashed just about all of her raw fury upon the dream demon, calling upon her aquatic wings to supply her with plenty of water to send a specifically-targeted tidal wave his way. But as usual, even this incredibly powerful attack did little to daunt Bill, who simply dispelled the water completely with a quick, flaming barrier. 

“Monster? Aw, Water Wings, you’re too kind!” Bill quipped brightly, all but ignoring the intense glare Lapis was offering him as he turned his attention to Stan instead. “And wow! Looks like we’re meeting in the flesh for the first time too, Fez! Not that you’re a total stranger, I did go on a casual little romp through your mind a while back. Good times, good times.”

“You… what?” Stan asked, completely lost before he shook his head of this apparent distraction, raising his brass knuckles in preparation for a fight instead. “Whatever, who cares? You heard Shades: give the kids their magic book back and then get lost, freakshow!”

“Ohoho! So quick to the point! That’s what I like about you, Fez,” Bill remarked as nonchalant as ever. “You don’t waste all your time on tears like some people do.” He pointed back to Ford and the Gems, all of whom were on the verge of trying to land another hit on him, though they all ultimately took pause, realizing just how futile that would be. “But while we’re on the topic of useless crybabies…” In an instant, Bill disappeared, only to show up right alongside Mabel, who was in the midst of desperately trying to keep Stepper conscious, an effort that seemed to be all but futile as the fusion struggled to keep himself awake, much less aware of what was going on around him. “Hiya, Shooting Star! How’s Pine Bud doing? Looks like he’s realizing life’s not all it’s CRACKED up to be without his pretty little journal, huh?” Bill joked, catching Mabel off guard completely. For her part, she reacted quickly, throwing herself between the demon and Stepper, determined to protect him from sustaining any further harm. 

“S-stay away from him!” Mabel shouted as brazenly as she could manage, the others all rushing over to offer her some much needed support at a frightening moment like this. 

“Aw, it’s cute how you always try to act like you actually care about Rose Tree when you and I both know you DON’T, Shooting Star,” Bill accused with a twisted chuckle. “None of you do, you pretty much proved that by letting him come back here. But boy, am I glad you did…”

Without any warning, Bill vanished once more, but this time, he didn’t seem to reappear, at least not in anyone’s immediate field of view. Because instead, he showed up right behind them, or rather, behind Stepper, not saying a single word until he had the listless fusion right where he wanted him. “After all, I know you’re all just DYING to see how this whole thing is going to end!” 

The entire group spun around in an instant, freezing up in mutual shock at what had happened far too quick for any of them to even try to stop. Bill had returned to his towering size as he floated over all of them, but by far more alarming than that was what, or rather who he was tightly gripping in his massive hand. Stepper lay largely limp against the secure, unrelenting grip Bill had him in, his gem reverberating with pain that he’d largely gotten much too used to by this point. Pain that didn’t seem like it would ever really go away, no matter how much he desperately wished it would. 

“S-Stepper!” Mabel cried, trying to rush forward to get to him even as Stan pulled her back just in time. 

“Release him immediately!” Pearl shouted fiercely, her spear aimed directly at the dream demon. 

“Haven’t you already hurt them enough?!” Lapis added, just as desperate to keep any further harm from coming to the now-captured fusion. 

“Hurt him? Now what makes you think I’d do that?” Bill asked almost flippantly as he eyed Stepper almost cordially. “Rose Tree and I reached an understanding last time he was here; it was a pretty fair trade, all things considered. I let him leave with his life, and in exchange, he gave me THIS!” 

The shield journal flashed into existence, hovering lightly over the dream demon’s free outstretched hand and haloed in an unsettling golden glow all the while. The moment it appeared, Stepper weakly managed to glance over at it, a ripple of immediate desperation rippling through him at the mere sight of it alone. He could sense it, he could practically feel that book was what he’d been missing, what he’d been longing to get back for what seemed like his entire life, or at least what little he could remember of it. The missing piece of himself that he knew would finally tell him who he was truly meant to be, the key that would finally unlock the mysteries that were Steven and Dipper inside his mind. 

A tight gasp of pain escaped Stepper as he tried reaching for it, his upper arms fortunately free from the heavy grip Bill had around his midsection. As soon as the dream demon noticed him struggling for it, however, he was quick to pull them both even further apart than they already were, widening the gap of distance between them that, as far as Stepper was concerned, felt far too great. “Whoops! Sorry, Pine Bud, but I can’t let you go running off with this and all the precious memories tucked away in it,” Bill remarked, ignoring Stepper’s continued attempts to wriggle out of his hold. “Mostly ‘cause I wanna show you this really neat trick I came up with first! See, I thought reading up on every teeny tiny juicy little tidbit about each of your halves would be a blast; so many embarrassing, hilarious moments to pour over, all your doubts and insecurities and fears laid completely out in an open book. But see, after awhile, just reading about it all started to get sort of… boring. Turns out you were right before, Rose Tree; I already did know everything that’s in your journal. So… I figured instead of reading it, maybe I should just have a little fun with it instead…?”

Neither Stepper nor any of the others knew what Bill meant by this, until he happened to flip the shield journal open and, in a moment so quick no one could even think to try and stop it, he swiftly ripped several successive pages clear out of the book entirely. A shared gasp of horror from the group below was overtaken entirely by a sharp, intense scream of agony from Stepper, a scream that only grew louder and more anguished as Bill suddenly ignited the torn pages in his usual blue fire. For the fusion, it was an unbearable kind of pain, almost as though something had been ripped out of his very soul along with those pages, whatever that something was burnt to an unsalvageable crisp just the same. All memories he’d yet to uncover, yet to reclaim; and now, it was uncertain if he’d ever get the chance to reclaim them, even if he somehow managed to get his journal back at all. 

“Who could have guessed a magical fusion-formed journal would make such good kindling?” Bill quipped, only to narrowly pull the journal away just in time to avoid the spear Pearl had finally thrown at him. 

“How dare you do something like this to him, you… you despicable, awful, wretched-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bird Brain, keep on squawking,” Bill rolled his eye. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“W-what happens to Stepper when you tear pages out of his journal like that?” Mabel dared to ask, clinging tightly, tearfully onto Stan’s leg. “Why does it hurt him?”

“Great question, Shooting Star!” Bill exclaimed, pulling another random page out of the shield journal, eliciting yet another anguished cry out of Stepper in the process. “See, at the moment, this book is all that’s left of who Pine Tree and Rosebud are since their empty headed fusion here clearly has no idea. So, whenever one of those pages has a little… accident,” With this, Bill swiftly burned that page completely out of existence, much to Stepper’s and everyone else’s distraught alarm. “That’s like a piece of one of them is being erased clean out of existence. Isn’t that one swell of a discovery? One that poor Pine Bud didn’t have a clue about, otherwise he might’ve thought twice about just forking it over like he did!”

“T-that’s because you tricked him!” Mabel protested with a newfound wave of fury as she pushed herself forward. “You tricked him and lied to him and didn’t give him a choice because you cracked his gem and left him with no other way out! W-why…?” she asked, choking on a tight, yet absolutely livid sob as she glared up at the dream demon hatefully. “Why would you do this to them?! What have they ever done to you?!”

Bill took pause at this, his eye narrowing specifically at Mabel so he could return her scowl much more icily. “I’ll tell you what they did, Shooting Star,” he began, his tone cold and dripping with malice. “They’ve gotten in my way one too many times. And unlike you and your dumb family and even dumber friends, I make it my mission to get rid of anyone who tries to stop me! Which is EXACTLY what I’m gonna do to every trace that’s left of Rosebud and Pine Tree, leaving THIS,” he shook Stepper violently at this, exacerbating just how sore the already battered fusion was even more. “Behind as nothing more than a dull, empty shell of who they used to be!” Despite the fact that Bill was growing red with obvious fury, he strangely cooled down quite quickly to resume his former casual tone. “Unless… one of you has something you’d be willing to trade in exchange for his journal that’s worth even MORE…?”

Bill’s sights settled directly on Ford at this, and in that moment, the author had no doubts in his mind about exactly what the dream demon’s endgame was with this entire scheme. An endgame that he wasn’t about to let him achieve, both for the sake of the boys and for the sake of the very universe as a whole. “O-oh?” Ford asked tensely, lowering his blaster just the slightest bit. “A-and what might that something be…?”

“I’m pretty sure you already know, Sixer…” Bill countered just as knowingly.

Ford did his best not to falter at this, especially as he realized Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were all offering him the same sort of scrutiny Bill was. At the same time, Mabel, Lapis, and Stan, as out of the loop as they were, all looked to the author in complete confusion, none of them having the faintest idea about the momentous trade Bill was basically forcing Ford to make. 

“Well, Ford?” Stan asked his brother harshly, expectantly. “Give this creep what he wants so he’ll give the boys their book back and we can get the heck out of here and finally put an end to this whole disaster.”

Ford hesitated, not wanting to reveal anything too direct about the rift, even though it was exceedingly clear that was what Bill was after. “I-I… can’t,” he said tightly, shifting a wary glance toward the dream demon. “I didn’t bring it.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Bill scowled, clearly disgruntled. “Why am I not surprised? Anything to keep it as far away from me as possible, huh, Sixer? Well, that’s A-OK! I’ll get my hands on it sooner or later, and until then, maybe I’ll just keep taking pages out of Rose Tree’s book instead!”

With this, Bill let out a cruel, sadistic laugh as he prepared to yank yet another handful of pages out of the shield journal, which was clearly starting to run low on them by all accounts. And while everyone else continued adamantly throwing their weapons at him in the hopes of somehow prying the journal from his grasp, Mabel found herself distracted by something else instead. Stepper had his sights set directly on her, pain still wracking his expression, yet there was a hint of hardened resolve there too, particularly as he subtly pointed down at the grappling hook in her hands. Mabel frowned in confusion, unsure of what he wanted her to do until he silently nodded over to his shield journal, forcing himself to remain quiet even as Bill carelessly ripped another page out of it. Finally, he pointed back at himself, his intention made clear, a plan that Mabel understood and was more than ready to carry out, especially if there was a chance, however small, that it could put an end to this madness once and for all. 

She made sure to take aim carefully, making sure Bill was thoroughly distracted with brashly taunting the others before she even thought about firing. And when she did, everything seemed to happen all at once, in a moment that passed both far too fast and nowhere near fast enough. 

Mabel’s aim struck true, her grappling hook latching onto the edge of the shield journal from its spot hanging above Bill’s hand. As she yanked her hook back hard, Stepper used every ounce of his waning strength to push his lower arms against Bill’s other hand, catching him off guard enough to finally break his steady grip on him. From the moment he was free, Stepper wasted no time, lunging for his now-freed journal, anxious, fearful, desperate to get his hands on it, to reclaim what was rightfully his. He strangely felt nothing the moment it fell into his grasp, but even so, he gripped it tightly the moment he did, refusing to let it be stolen from him again. Unfortunately for him, however, Bill wasn’t about to let him get away with it so easily either. 

“ROSE TREE!” he snapped, furious as he lashed out, latching onto the book’s back cover with a forceful hold. Even so, Stepper didn’t dare release the journal, even as Bill began pulling both him and the book back up toward him. A burst of raw, righteous anger flooded the fusion at this, over just how much damage this demented demon had done to him, just how much he’d taken from him, just how much he’d lost from it all. Which was why he had absolutely no qualms about lashing out as Bill yanked him upward, throwing his languished body up hard to land a direct, brutal kick right in the center of the demon’s singular eye. Bill reeled back in immediate pain from this, but still his hold on the journal didn’t give, and neither did Stepper’s as he was thrown back. Under that severe amount of stress on both sides, it wasn’t long before the journal, even as magical as it was, ended up giving way entirely. 

And in a sickening, sudden second, the shield journal was brutally ripped apart, clean down the spine, right through its center. 

An electrifying jolt of energy rushed through every single one of Stepper’s senses at this, his mind empty and his breathing completely stilled as he found himself falling away from Bill. From the other half of his shield journal, now torn entirely apart. The chaotic cries of alarm from everyone around him were practically deafened as he tightly hugged onto the half he still had, his gemstone completely engulfed in white as that glow began to spread across the rest of his form. And as he continued to fall through the empty void of the Nightmare Realm, a single, stark memory rang through his mind, through his heart, as clear as a bell. A memory of only half of who he used to be. 

“S-Steven…” he gasped, just shy of falling apart completely. 

The others were all stunned into silence as they watched Stepper split, the very sight of Steven and Dipper finally separated once more enough to shock them all. Both boys floated unconsciously near each other, their forced unfusing taking a heavy toll on them physically. Even so, the Gems wasted no time in rushing forward to catch them, Garnet being the first to retrieve their listless forms and pull them as far away from Bill as possible. Ford made sure to put even more distance between them as he fired a momentous blast at the already quite distracted dream demon, sending him flying with an enraged scream across the vast scape of the Nightmare Realm. Right along with the other half of the shield journal he still somehow possessed. 

In the brief moments of tentative peace that followed, no one wasted any time in checking on both of the boys to ensure that they hadn’t sustained any long-term damage. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were all closely gathered around Steven, the Gem leader holding him close as they all reeled from just how miraculous it was that they’d managed to get him back at all. Especially since just a few short hours ago they’d been wondering, fearing that they never truly would. 

“Steven!” Pearl shouted frantically, tightly gripping one of the young Gem’s hands. “Steven, can you hear me!?”

“Yo! Check out his gem!” Amethyst exclaimed with a bright, newfound smile. “It’s totally fixed!”

Sure enough, Steven’s gemstone was in pristine a state as ever, not a single hint of the formal brutal crack torn across it remaining it. His skin was also clear of its remnant pink scars, and his breathing was steady, even if his eyes were still closed as his body tried to recover from what it had just been through. “He’s whole again,” Garnet smiled, tears streaming down her cheeks as her visor disappeared. “That means Rose’s fountain did work on his gem, but its magic was delayed until his mind was healed. And now… it is.”

“S-so… will he-” Pearl was cut off as Steven began to stir in Garnet’s arms, letting out a soft, tired groan as his eyes slowly opened. 

“G-guys…?” he muttered, his vision largely bleary as he looked between the trio. 

“Steven!” all three of the Gems exclaimed in immense, tearful relief. 

“Are you ok, dude?” Amethyst asked, extending out a hand so both her and Pearl could help him properly sit up. “Do you, like… remember who you are again?”

Steven nodded slowly, still largely leaning against Garnet for support. “Yeah… I… I think so?” he replied, confused by the question. 

“Tell us your name, just to be sure,” Garnet said, her tone steady as her visor reappeared. 

“Uh… Steven Universe?” he answered, still trying to make sense of their concern. 

“A-and who were you just a moment ago?” Pearl pressed, fearing his short term memories might be lost. 

Steven paused for a long moment at this, trying his best to focus his scattered thoughts on what had happened and how they’d gotten here, to a place he recognized all too well: the Nightmare Realm. The very same place where Bill had cracked his gem and taken their journal and started a chain of events he couldn’t remember clearly, at least not on his own. “I-I was fused…” he said, a hand pressed against his aching head. “I was fused into Stepper with-”

“Dipper!” Mabel’s distraught cry echoed starkly through the air, startling Steven and the Gems in the process. They all turned to see the frantic scene beside them, where Mabel clung tightly onto her still-listless brother with Stan and Ford and Lapis all staying very close by his side. “I-I don’t understand!” Mabel shook her head, lightly shaking Dipper by the shoulders again, only for his head to dully loll forward instead. “What’s wrong with him!? Why isn’t he waking up?!”

“S-Steven’s fine!” Lapis tightly agreed, briefly sparing the alarmed young Gem a somewhat relieved glance. “So Dipper should be too, r-right?!”

The other Gems all gasped, Steven joining their wide-eyed stares of shock as they all gathered around Dipper as well. The young Gem’s heart sank with worry when he saw him, still completely out of it and unmoving, though that was probably the least concerning thing about his condition. His skin was frighteningly pale, and somehow still marred with the faint pink cracks that had been torn across Stepper’s. And to make matters even worse, his entire body was remarkably cold still, and he barely even seemed to be breathing, barely even seemed to be alive at all. 

“He should be, but…” Ford trailed off, entirely unsure of what to make of his nephew’s comatose condition. 

“C’mon, kid, you can’t quit on us after all this!” Stan urged, taking over where Mabel had left off in trying to physically rouse Dipper into waking up. Tears were clearly starting to well up in the conman’s eyes, tears that Mabel already had in hers and were just starting to find a place in Ford’s. The same mutual dread rising up in all three of them over a thought far too horrific for any of them to bear; the thought that Dipper might already be too far gone for them to save. 

They were all caught off guard, however, as Steven suddenly reached forward, his hand sparkling with telltale healing saliva as he gently placed his palm against Dipper’s cheek. His magic shimmered just as much as it usually did as it settled on his skin, and yet it did absolutely nothing to clear away the cracks covering it, much less awaken him. Steven drew his hand back, his eyes wide with emerging fear as he tried and failed to understand what might have gone wrong, why Dipper wasn’t recovering when he already had, what had led to this awful moment in the first place. 

“D-Dipper…” he whimpered, silently pleading with him to open his eyes, to move, to say something, to show any sign of life, however small. “I-I can’t… y-you have to-”

“Well, well, well, isn’t this an interesting turn of events…?” 

 The entire group jolted in genuine fear as they all turned to see Bill hovering over them once more, fully recovered from the previous attacks launched against him. The Gems were all immediately on high alert, with Ford joining them in forming a defensive line to keep Bill away from all three of the immensely vulnerable kids. Yet even so, the dream demon largely ignored them to keep his focus set on Steven and Dipper instead. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Rosebud!” he greeted the young Gem with a faux friendly wave. “It’s a shame Pine Tree didn’t seem to make the trip back with you. I wonder why that could be…? Something’s missing here, I know it is, but what…? Let me think… Oh! I know!” 

With a simple snap of his fingers, the other half of Stepper’s shield journal appeared hovering above Bill’s hand, still somehow intact despite how violently torn apart from its other half it had been. Steven in particular gasped in awe when he saw it, a sudden flood of memories striking him all at once, though as scattered and faded as they were, far too few of them came together cohesively. 

“I-is that…?” he tried to ask, unable to even finish the question before Bill blithely answered it. 

“Sure is! Its Pine Tree’s half of your fusion’s journal!” he exclaimed, tossing the book up into the air casually. 

“B-but… how?” Pearl asked, incredulously. “Steven and Dipper aren’t fused anymore, how can their journal still exist without Stepper?”

“I’ll tell ya how,” Bill began in clearly rising anger as he continued glaring down at the boys. “SOMEBODY had to mess up the windup to a perfect pitch, the ideal deal. You and Pine Tree just couldn’t just let yourselves die nice and peacefully, huh, Rosebud? You twerps ALWAYS refuse to die! Even when I had you cracked and on the ropes, even when you were both on the verge of being wiped out of existence forever, neither of you EVER know when to quit! Well, FINE! If I can’t get rid of both of you, then at least I can have the pleasure of watching ONE of your miserable lives burn out ONCE AND FOR ALL!” 

“N-no…” Steven gasped, not even needing to think twice about what Bill was planning. Panic surged up in him as he threw himself forward, summoning a shield and tossing it in a last-ditch attempt at trying to stop this, and knowing he couldn’t stop it all the while. “NO!” 

His shield accomplished nothing. None of the others even saw it coming. And it happened so quickly that there was nothing any of them could have done about it if they had. 

In an instant, a mere, momentary second, the other half of the shield journal, Dipper’s half, went completely up in flames. 

“No!” Mabel screamed, hugging Dipper tightly as she watched Bill burn every trace left of who he was. Along with every trace that might have saved him. 

For his part, Dipper remained completely still and silent, the only shift being the cracks in his skin finally fading, his body maintaining its deathlike pallor as all his memories were reduced to nothing more than mere ashes in a matter of seconds. Everyone else’s reactions were immediate, grief and outrage overtaking them all as they lashed out, each of them, from the Gems, to Stan and Ford, to Lapis, rushing forward to launch a full-scale attack against the dreams demon out of sheer fury alone. Acting on the same mournful, maddening impulse, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl swiftly came together to form Alexandrite, her towering form scaling up to roughly the same size as Bill’s current shape. She threw her first punch just as Bill was finishing discarding the ashes of the journal, letting them scatter aimlessly across the Nightmare Realm before he got to work deflecting the fusion’s assault. At the same time, Lapis flew high, creating watery platforms to give both Stan and Ford a boost as they threw themselves at the demon with mutually furious shouts, any and all regard for their own safety forgotten in light of what they’d just lost. Surprisingly, Bill had no taunting quips to tease them with as this chaotic brawl unfolded, largely since he was beside himself with gleeful, sadistic laughter over the devastation and despair he’d just caused, and over the innocent life he’d just effectively put to an early, empty end. 

As this chaotic brawl unfurled, Mabel continued to cling onto Dipper, awash in perhaps the worst grief she’d ever felt in her life as she poured it out in an endless round of loud, agonized sobs. Between those sobs, she kept whispering heartbroken pleas to her lost brother, begging him to somehow come back to her, to not leave her behind, to stay with her… even though he was already so clearly gone. 

At the same time, Steven also lingered close by the twins, completely shellshocked as he stared down at Dipper and nothing else. His own tears were completely silent as they streamed down his cheeks, his mind numb and racing all at the same time. He almost made another attempt at healing Dipper, until he realized it wouldn’t do any good, it wouldn’t be enough to bring him back. Nothing would… save for the very half of the shield journal that now was no more. 

Steven only barely managed to glance up to see Bill land a heavy blow on Alexandrite, enough to split the livid fusion up and send all three of the Gems flying back. Another swift, violent blast did the same to Stan, Ford, and Lapis, though fortunately the blue Gem managed to erect an aquatic shield to keep any of them from getting badly hurt. By now, it was apparent that Bill’s jovial tune had shifted into annoyance with the ongoing onslaught, and he had a plan in mind to put a succinct stop to it. A plan that was particularly cruel even in the aftermath of what he’d just done. 

Much to everyone’s surprise, Bill disappeared, without making a single remark in edgewise and leaving them all to land their attacks on the now empty space he’d just occupied. As lost to their mutual despair as they were, neither Steven or Mabel noticed him pop up behind them, at least until he suddenly reached right past them both to abruptly grip Dipper by the front of his shirt. The pair screamed, startled and scared as Bill harshly yanked his prone form away from them, pulling his body far out of their reach before either of them could so much as think to try and stop him. 

“Dipper!” Mabel cried, desperate to see her brother, whatever was actually left of him now, finally be safe and out of the dream demon’s malicious range. 

“Put him down, Bill!” Ford shouted, absolutely livid despite the tears still brimming in his eyes. 

“Nah, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll hang onto Pine Tree for a bit,” Bill remarked, holding Dipper by the back of his vest as he hung loose and limp from his hand. “After all, it’s not like he’ll be waking up anytime soon, so why don’t save you the trouble of figuring out what to do with his cold, empty husk here? After all, I’ve been wanting to take one of my favorite puppets for another go, for old time’s sake.”

A harsh, shared gasp escaped Steven and Mabel alike at this, a whole host of incredibly unpleasant memories filling them both as they realized exactly what Bill intended to do. Mabel reacted first, acting in impulse and panic alone as she lifted her grappling hook with shaking hands, hoping it could somehow manage to pull her brother’s body away from him. Yet before she could even hope to fire it, before any of the others could even try to stop him either, Bill swiftly did the unthinkable. And, with essentially nothing to stop him and no deal needed to grant him access, he easily slipped into Dipper’s lifeless, seemingly empty body, callously taking it over to use as his own again, just as he had once before. 

Suddenly “Dipper” moved, and yet everyone instantly knew it wasn’t him. Because when his eyes opened, they were merely thin black slits against a garish, glowing yellow, every bit as eerily unnatural as the wide, demented, leering grin that split across his face as he beamed down at the horrified group below him. “Ah, now isn’t this nostalgic!” Bill smirked as he looked over his stolen form. “Pine Tree’s every bit as stringy and pathetic as I remember him being. Would’ve thought that him learning how to swing that dinky sword of his around would have gotten him at least a few more muscles, but ah well. Once a wimp, always a wimp, I guess.”

As shocked and distraught by this horrendous turn of events as everyone was, no one really knew what to say or do outside of the silent, shaken tears they were all shedding over the downright sadistic way Bill had found to twist the knife even further into each of their hearts. Mabel practically fell apart at the mere sight of her possessed brother’s body, knowing that if Dipper was actually aware of anything that was happening, he’d hate what Bill was doing to him, just as he hated it so much before. Lapis was the first to actually try to do something about it, however, flying fast to get up to Bill’s level with an infuriated shout. She had a massive, downright deadly swath of water at the ready to attack him, an immediate threat that the dream demon made not a single move to try and block or evade as he simply smiled at the blue Gem, his hands held behind his back as he addressed her evenly. 

“Whatcha gonna do with all that, Water Wings?” he asked coyly as Lapis’ bombardment was brought to a grinding halt mere inches away from his puppet’s face. “Drown me? That’d be fun! I didn’t get to have a taste of that action the last time I took Pine Tree’s body for a ride; stabbing and broken bones, sure, but no drowning! Can you believe it? What’s the fun of playing with a puppet if you don’t get to watch it go limp face-down in a puddle of wa-”

“STOP IT!” Lapis shouted, sobbing heavily as her aquatic attack fell apart completely. “Just STOP it and get out of him and leave him alone! Just…” her wings faltered as she covered her face, unable to bear so much as even looking at “Dipper” like this. “J-just leave him alone… please…”

“Sorry! No can do, Water Wings!” Bill said simply as he allowed himself to drift back away from the blue Gem. “Like I said, I’m hanging onto Pine Tree for a bit. But… I might be willing to let him go early in exchange for a certain little… trinket…” 

The dream demon’s stolen smile widened, his golden sights landing on Ford once again. The author wavered under Bill’s--under his nephew’s--focused stare, and even moreso under the tearful, tense glances the Gems all sent his way. Once again, he’d found himself at an impossible crossroads, in a deadly trap that Bill had so carefully set for them all that had no way out; or at least, no way out that would result in all of them leaving with their lives. “I-I already told you…” Ford said as steadily as he could possibly manage. “I don’t have it.”

“Then get it,” Bill deadpanned, his smile turning into an irritated scowl. “I have all the time in the world to wait for another random rift back to your dimension to open up for you to go grab it. And now,” his icy smirk returned as he perched a patient hand under his puppet’s chin. “So does Pine Tree.”

Ford shuddered, the weight of this disastrous situation falling upon him all at once. He knew well what was at stake here, a fact that Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all knew just as well as he did as they all looked to him expectantly. Bill had them all exactly where he wanted them, he had perfectly plotted this entire sinister scheme out right from the beginning and was set to see it through all the way to the end. And in the end, he’d given them all a terrible ultimatum: to risk the rift and the very fate of their world itself… or never even have so much as a chance at saving Dipper’s life, however small that chance might be now. A choice that none of them even began to know how to make. 

It was a weighty choice Steven was well aware of too, even if several of the others present weren’t. His eyes were wide as he looked over at Ford and the Gems, inferring that his guardians had somehow found out about the rift too, even if he didn’t know how. Even so, he remembered well just how the author had warned him and Dipper about the rift’s power, about how devastating it could be if Bill ever got his hands on it. And he had no doubt that was exactly what the dream demon was playing at now as he forced them to essentially pick between someone they all cared so much about and the very world they all shared. It was an awful proposition, one that had no real right answer in any regard. One life or many. Both equally as precious, and both equally at risk of annihilation. 

There has to be another way… Steven’s thoughts echoed in his grief-stricken mind, his heart aching as he looked back to Dipper, or “Bipper”, as Mabel had called him once before. There had to be something, anything he could do to stop this, to save Dipper, to save the world. And, as he happened to lift his shirt up a bit to take a peek at the stone on his stomach, he instantly came up with a way to do exactly that. 

“So, Sixer?” Bill asked casually, clearly assured of his victory. “What’ll it be?”

Ford shook his head, his mouth dry and his heart racing as his mind frantically searched for a solution he simply didn’t have, not this time, not to something like this. “I… I don’t-”

“Wait!” Steven’s sudden call startled just about everyone, even catching Bill off guard as he glided forward. “W-wait! Stop, I-I…”

“What is it now, Rosebud?” Bill scoffed as he rolled his eyes. “Can’t you see the grown-ups are bartering here?”

“I think I know something you’d like even more than what Mr. Ford can give you,” Steven said quickly, sternly as he stared the dream demon down. 

“Oh yeah?” Bill perked up in sudden, knowing interest, his gaze already drifting toward the young Gem’s stomach. “And what might that ‘something’ be…?”

“...This,” Steven lifted his shirt up, revealing his newly-healed Gem glistening upon it. 

“Steven, no!” the Gems all shouted in frightened unison. However, Steven himself was the one to stop them from approaching him by erecting a large, pink bubble around himself and Bill alone. 

“S-Steven?” Mabel whispered, her tearful eyes wide with fear as she looked to him in apt alarm. 

“Kid, what are you doing?!” Stan asked just as incredulously. 

For his part, Steven offered none of them any answers, even as a few of them began beating against his bubble in a fervent, desperate attempt at trying to stop the young Gem’s risky plan. “You do want it, right?” Steven asked Bill, his tone and his manner alike unwavering. 

“You know I do, Rosebud,” Bill grinned cordially. “But are you sure you wanna give something that valuable up for poor little Pine Tree here? That’s basically like--wait, no it is trading a priceless gemstone in for a comatose corpse. Doesn’t really seem all that fair when you think about it.”

“It is fair,” Steven insisted firmly. “T-to me. I want him back. I… I need him back.”

“Really? After all the terrible things he said to you?” Bill asked with a small, amused chuckle. “I don’t get you, Rosebud. You always put your neck out for people who don’t care about you.”

“That’s not true!” Steven protested resiliently. “Dipper does care about me! I know he does...” He placed a gentle hand against his heart, remembering the very moment that Dipper had proven just how much he did care. The moment he’d vowed to stay with him, even with a practically fatal crack torn clear across their gem. Even when they were both falling apart at the seems. He’d stayed, he’d cared, he’d refused to let go of him, to hold on to him, no matter what the cost. 

Which was exactly why Steven knew it was his turn to return the favor. To refuse to let go of him, to hang onto whatever was left of Dipper, in the hopes that it could somehow save him after all. 

“Whatever you say, Rosebud,” Bill rolled his eyes dryly. “But fine. Who am I to turn down a good bargain, especially since you’ve made such a generous offer? Besides, I’m sure it’s bound to lift at least a little guilt off your shoulders seeing as how you were basically the one who got Pine Tree into this whole mess by asking him to fuse with you in the first place…”

“Y-yeah…” Steven’s confidence finally faltered at this, remorse welling up in his expression as he admitted the truth to this awful fact. That if he’d never asked, never begged Dipper to form Stepper with him in the first place, then at least he might have found a way to spare his life instead of gravely endangering him, his memories, and everything else in the process. “I know…”

“Oh well, no use in crying over a chopped Pine Tree!” Bill quipped enthusiastically as he extended a hand out to Steven in offering. “So what do you say, Rosebud? Your gem in exchange for his empty shell. Do we have ourselves a deal?”

Steven hesitated, for just a moment as he looked to hand Bill was presenting him with, somehow covered in the dream demon’s telltale blue flames that never seemed to actually burn. At the same time, he could hear the others just outside of his bubble, still pounding against its surface with everything they had in the hopes of keeping this terrible transaction from taking place. 

“Steven, please!” Lapis cried, lashing out against his bubble with successive water whips. “Don’t do this!”

“Yeah, man! Don’t listen to him!” Amethyst added just as desperately as she punched the side of the bubble brutally.

“You can’t trust him, you know that, Steven!” Ford practically pleaded as he floated alongside Pearl, who strangely said nothing amidst her tears, both of her hands tightly pressed against her mouth as she shook her head fearfully. 

“Steven,” Garnet spoke up, her tone tight and rigid to the point that it was practically shaking. “We’ll find another way to help Dipper. Do NOT give Bill your gem.”

Steven finally glanced back at the group at this, wanting to tell them he had to, that there was no other option, that it was either his gem, the world, or Dipper. And that really, between those three things, only two of them actually mattered in the grand scheme of things. But he stopped when he caught sight of Mabel, her face nearly pressed against his bubble, her eyes shining with mournful tears as she wept softly, her attention fully focused on him instead of her possessed brother this time around. 

“S-Steven… please…” she begged him in a tiny, frail whisper, so soft he only barely managed to hear it at all. “I-I… I can’t lose you both…”

He stilled at this, a small, terse breath escaping him as he realized exactly what he was about to do here. Exactly what he was about to give up and exactly what that might cost him. True, he didn’t know what would become of him if his gem was taken from him, but given just how agonizing it had been for him when that gem was cracked, he had a hunch that its absence would likely do him far more harm than good. And even more than that, he still had no idea what Bill planned to do with it when he did get his hands on it, much less why he even wanted it to begin with. Indeed, what he was about to do was an incredible, potentially deadly risk, and Steven knew that, he was prepared for that outcome, no matter what.

And yet he still couldn’t shake that same resounding thought from before:

There has to be another way.

There had to be another way… and as another sudden memory dawned on Steven, the very memory of what had nearly torn his friendship with Dipper apart in the first place at the start of this entire disaster, he knew he’d found that way. He could only hope it’d be enough to keep them both alive in the end. To make sure that Mabel wouldn’t have to go home without them. 

“Yes,” he said unflinchingly as he turned back to Bil. “It’s a deal.”

The shared cry of alarm that rose up from the others was lost on Steven as he reached forward, ready to do whatever he could to set things right and knowing well what might happen if he couldn’t. Yet even so he stayed the course, remaining calm and steady as he took Bill’s outstretched hand and shook it squarely. 

The moment he did, he shut his eyes tightly, digging deep inside himself for a power he knew he had access to, a power he’d never really tried to use intentionally before now. For a split second, he silently pleaded with his gem for it to work before Bill could catch on, and miraculously enough, his gem seemed to hear and heed him just fine. Because in an instant, a connection was made, one that he could feel overtaking both him and Bill alike as their hands remained intertwined, even as he turned their deal completely on its head. 

As he began to embark upon his other way entirely. 

When Steven opened his eyes again a second later, the swirling colors of the Nightmare Realm were gone, replaced with a dense, dark, colorless forest. Each of its trees were dead and decaying, their lofty branches stripped of every single leaf as they creaked amidst the dull, dry breeze sweeping through them. By all accounts, this forest was lifeless and empty, just about the last thing Steven had hoped to see in what he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be Dipper’s mindscape. But even so, the fact that his mindscape still existed at all was a reassuring sign in and of itself. A sign that pointed to the possibility that maybe he wasn’t as far gone as Bill had claimed after all. 

“WHAT IN THE--ROSEBUD!” Speaking of the dream demon, his outraged shout echoed through the entire mindscape, rumbling through the trees as Steven spun around to face him. Here, he was back in his usual triangular form, his momentous size scaled down considerably as he glared at the young Gem relentlessly. “What did you DO?!”

Steven flinched but quickly regained his nerve, knowing that he couldn’t back down now that he’d already managed to make it this far. “I-I-”

“SHUT UP!” Bill snapped, his form flashing red in raw fury. “I know what you did! What, did you really think dragging us both into Pine Tree’s empty head here would change anything? Cause it WON’T! You still owe me one gem, Rosebud, so PAY UP!”

“H-hold on,” Steven advised as calmly as he could. “Just… hold on a minute. I-I… I want to make another deal with you.”

“Ha! You really think I’d be dumb enough to let you pull the wool over my eyes TWICE in a row?” Bill scoffed harshly. “Forget it, kid! You ain’t getting squat outta me!”

“B-but you’ll like this deal even more than the other one,” Steven pressed, earnestly and anxiously. “Just hear me out. I-I know Dipper’s still in here somewhere; I can… I can feel it,” he lied, knowing that he couldn’t, at least not clearly. Still, that wasn’t something Bill needed to know about, especially not at a moment like this. “Give me a chance to find him. If I do, if I can bring him back somehow, then you don’t get my gem; and you have to get out of his body and never, ever possess it again.”

“Yeah, alright, whatever, Rosebud,” Bill deadpanned, hardly phased by these terms. “What’s in it for me when you fail? Which you will, by the way, just saying.”

“I-If I can’t find him…” Steven took in a deep breath, knowing he was about to put everything on the line with this lofty contract. And yet if he succeeded, if he really did somehow save Dipper after all, then it would all be worth it. “Then not only can you have my gem. Y-you… you can destroy my memories too, all of them, just like you did with his.”

“Ohohohoh! I like the sound of that!” Bill exclaimed brightly as he circled the young Gem. “I get the rock I’ve been after AND I get to kill two pesky twerps with one stone, while inevitably breaking the hearts and spirits of all your friends and loved ones in the process! Great thinking, Rosebud! I’m in!”

Steven watched as Bill’s outstretched hand lit up in blue fire once more, in offering of another deal he couldn’t quite see the outcome to. Yet as afraid as he admittedly was, he knew he couldn’t let that fear stop him now, not when he knew who was counting on him. He also knew exactly what the cost would be if he did fail, a high penalty that could ultimately snuff out both his and Dipper’s lives in one fell swoop. Yet despite that cost, if there was still a chance, still hope that he could succeed, that they’d both come back alive and well, then that hope alone would be more than enough. 

And so, Steven found himself reaching out to shake Bill’s hand once more.

“Great! Then you better get looking, kid!” Bill exclaimed cheerfully as their handshake came to an end. “Oh, by the way, Rosebud, you should know that this whole thing is basically a fool’s errand since there’s just about NOTHING left of Pine Tree’s consciousness for you to find. So good luck! You’ll need it.”

With that, Bill disappeared in a bright flash, no doubt going to wait in the wings and watch to see what might happen next. Steven seized up in sudden anxiety the moment he was left alone, realizing that he had essentially no leads to speak of when it came to finding Dipper. The woods surrounding him were lonely and dark, without a single trace of anyone else around amidst the inky shadows between the trees. Even so, he pressed forward through them, unsure of exactly where he was going as he began a search that both his and Dipper’s very lives depended on. “Uh… Dipper?!” he called, his own voice echoing back at him through the trees. “A-are you in here? Oh, wait, of course, you’re in here, this is your head, but uh… c-could you maybe come out? I… really need to find you… please…”

Steven trailed off with a small, sad sigh, stopping in the middle of another empty clearing to look around. Once again, a familiar bout of fear filled his mind, though that fear wasn’t for his own potentially grim fate in any way. Instead, it was for the possibility that Bill was right, that there really was no trace left of Dipper to be found, even inside his own mind. Guilt welled up inside of the young Gem’s heart viciously as that thought permeated his mind, the same sort of guilt that had prompted him into essentially gambling his very own life to save Dipper’s. Because if he couldn’t actually find a way to bring him back to himself, then at the very least he deserved to share the same kind of demise. After how he’d put them both in such a horrible position to begin with, it was only fair. 

He was prepared to continue his search when suddenly, a sparse speck of light peeking through the nearby trees caught his attention. As dark as this forest as a whole was, it was a surprising sight to see, which was why Steven curiously, cautiously approached it, only to find that it was something akin to a tiny firefly hovering just a bit above the ground. Even from a distance, Steven could feel a sense of comforting warmth emanating from its glow, and he couldn’t help but smile hopefully as he slowly reached out to gently cup it in his hands. 

“D-Dipper?” he whispered wonderingly. “Is that you…?”

It wasn’t, of course, but Steven soon discovered what this light actually was as his hands carefully touched it. Because in the blink of an eye, the dark forest disappeared, replaced with a sun-drenched, grassy hill as a familiar scene played out before him.

“I’m Steven, by the way. You’ve already met Lion, of course. And this is my friend, Connie.”

“Nice to meet you! Even if it was by accident.”

“I’m Dipper and the girl losing herself inside your, uh… lion’s mane is my sister, Mabel.”

Upon this simple greeting, the boys exchanged another brief, yet kindly smile, the first of many they’d share as their close-knit friendship only grew from there. 

And just like that, it was over. Steven gasped as he found himself back in the shadowy wood, silence echoing around him on all sides once more. He stared at the flickering light before him in amazement as he realized what it was: a memory. A memory of the very day they’d first met back at the beginning of the summer, to be exact. A bright, joyful recollection that filled the young Gem’s heart with hope as another newfound thought struck him. Dipper’s memories weren’t gone after all; sparks of them still remained, however small and dwindling those sparks might be. All Steven had to do was reignite those sparks into a flame bright enough to bring Dipper back, to help him remember who he really was.

And fortunately, he happened to find yet another spark of memory floating just a few feet away. He rushed to it, reaching for it eagerly to find both of them embracing on a mountain in the aftermath of a battle that had never happened. After both of them had figured out how to be strong in the real way together. 

“Dipper! I’m so glad you’re ok! I was starting to think something happened in there!”

“I’m fine, Steven. Well… physically, at least…”

“What happened?”

“I couldn’t do it. You were right; turns out the Multi-Bear didn’t deserve it at all. I beat him and everything, but when it came down to killing him… it didn’t feel right… I guess this really does make me a wimp, huh?”

“Are you kidding? Not at all! I think deciding not to go through with it makes you even braver than if you actually had done it!”

Steven smiled, remembering well how proud he’d been of Dipper at that moment. That pride turned to relief as he received yet another recollection just a bit down the forest’s unformed path. A memory that came from the aftermath of a battle they’d only narrowly managed to win, one of the first few of many decisive victories they’d see over the summer. 

“Well… I’m not gonna lie. Pretty much everything hurts. In fact, I’m pretty sure I probably have a concussion and might need stitches in a few places. But I’m sure it’s nothing Steven and his, uh, healing spit can’t fix, right?”

“Of course, Dipper! I’d be more than happy to heal you up!”

“Ok, ow! Like I said, everything still hurts, Steven! You haven’t healed me yet!”

“Oh, sorry!”

He’d always heal him, anytime he might need it. Even now, when he needed healing most inside his own mind. The next memory he found was a moment he deeply treasured,, a moment of true, earnest understanding between them both, the moment he believed they had gone from mere friends to best friends. 

“It’s like we said… we’re really different. And… maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Steven, holing myself away from everyone just to research stuff and forcing myself to spend all my time alone for it… really isn’t a good thing… If there’s one thing fusing with you taught me, it’s that.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. I mean, being fused and essentially sharing a mind and body was really weird and uncomfortable and overwhelming, but… I think I finally understand what Garnet meant when she told Maven that fusion turns you into something greater than yourself…”

“I-it really does… It’s like you can feel everything that you’re feeling and everything that the other person is feeling. And when both of you are feeling good, its… it’s incredible. It feels like there’s nothing in the world that could bring you down from that. And…. that’s what I wanted for us, I guess…”

And then… once what had been damaged between them was finally repaired, that’s exactly what both of them got. 

“Well… I do know of a certain fusion who might be able to do an even better job of lending them an extra hand, or two, or four…”

“Oh, Dipper! Do you really mean it?!”

“I do. But only if we’re both on the same page about it this time.”

“Right. Well, I guess we better—whoa!” 

Then they danced, they fused, the harmony between their hearts flowing freely, openly, just as it was really meant to. Just how fusion was supposed to be. 

Tears filled Steven’s eyes as he let the warmth of that memory fall over him, cherishing their fusion, cherishing their friendship and all that it meant to him. The sweetness of that memory stood in stark contrast, however to the next, one that had happened in a moment of uncertain desperation. A moment when something important had been taken, and neither of them knew if they’d actually have a chance at getting it back. 

“Steven, wait. I-I don’t know if I’ll ever get this chance again if… if something goes wrong out there, so…  I just wanted to let you know that I’m so sorry… This whole mess is my fault, and I should have been the only one to suffer the consequences of that stupid deal! But then you got dragged into all of this, even though you had no parts in it at all! Bill’s been making you absolutely miserable all day just because you’re trying to protect me, which is something you shouldn’t even have to worry about in the first place!”

“Why not? Dipper, you’re one of my best friends, of course, I’d want to keep you safe! I wish none of this had ever happened just as much as you do, but I’m glad I was at least there to know about it the moment it happened instead of not knowing how much trouble you’re in at all! And don’t worry; now we have Connie and Mabel to help us! With all of us working together, we’ll have you back in your body in no time, I promise.”

“R-right… Well then… good luck. I’m sure we’ll all be needing it…”

He’d kept his promise to Dipper once. And as far as Steven was concerned, he was determined to do it again now that the stakes were higher than ever before. And, even if he couldn’t actually save himself in the end, at least he hoped he’d find a way to save Dipper. At least he hoped to finally set everything that had gone wrong between them right before it was too late. 

He was in tears in the next memory, awash in guilt that felt all too similar to what he felt now. Guilt over the realization of just how much he’d hurt him, just how much he hated hurting him whenever he did. 

“Dipper, I-I’m so sorry! I finally understand why you were so upset with me and Mabel about what happened yesterday! It’s because we didn’t trust you! B-because I didn’t trust you, a-and that’s why I almost erased your memories back when we were dealing with the society! I thought you couldn’t handle it all but I was wrong! I was only thinking about how bad I felt then, about how scared I was yesterday that I didn’t even t-think about how… about… about anything else! You’re right… I-I… I’m selfish… Just like my mom was…”

“Y-you guys didn’t… I was just… I… I was wrong. About Stan, about the portal, about… well, just about everything. In fact, when it comes to the big things this summer, there’s probably about only a handful of times when I’ve actually been right. And I guess I was just so tired of being wrong about everything all the time that I wanted to blame it on someone other than myself so… maybe I sort of just… pinned it all on you two. Which is something else that’s wrong, when you think about it, because you guys totally don’t deserve that. You did what you thought was right. And… in the end, it turned out for the best. I mean, it brought Great Uncle Ford back to where he belongs, it led to us finding the Gems’ memories—for better or worse—it gave us the answers to so many of the questions we had this summer. So… I’m sorry for holding it all against you guys. What happened yesterday… it changed pretty much everything. But the one thing that it shouldn’t change because of any of it is us.”

They’d found a way to fix what had been broken between them then. But it hadn’t mattered in the end, it didn’t matter now, because Steven knew he’d thoughtlessly, carelessly torn open that rift between them again, with a mistake that had been so foolish and selfish. A plan that had he had only really come up with to ease his own worries and woes instead of Dipper’s, he realized. No wonder he’d said he was just like Bill… he was right in so many different ways. 

Yet in so many others, he wasn’t. 

Because another memory showed them fusing again, no words exchanged between them as they danced, literally lighter than air, their smiles warm and mutual as that cherished harmony flowed between them again. They laughed lightly, their hearts easy and free together, until they reached the point that those two separate hearts joined to become one. As their bodies and minds came together, as the line blurred between them until there was no space, no separation left at all. 

Until Steven and Dipper became Stepper. 

Then they were Stepper again, a frightened fusion lost in a horrendous, hateful place they had no chance of escaping. Their gem was cracked, their mind damaged, their lives both in grave danger. Yet even despite all that, they held onto each other, onto their bond, for everything it was worth. And what it was worth to both of them was something far more than mere words could have ever expressed.

“I don’t want to break away from you. Our friendship means so much to me. You mean so much to me!”

“Y-you… stayed with me… s-so I’m staying with you…”

“Steven…”

Steven gasped, his eyes wide with alarm as he was pulled out of this most recent memory. Suddenly, he could sense something behind him, a break in the massive, seemingly endless forest as another wide clearing opened up within it. The sparks of memory had led him here, to the forest’s largest, most distinct feature: a large, lofty tree, one that surprisingly bore signs of life in the sparse, yet fading leaves hanging limp from its branches. Several of those branches curved inward, converging on each other to create a small enclosure toward the top of the tree. And, floating unconsciously within the center of that enclosure, was none other than Dipper himself. 

Steven froze at the mere sight of him, a sharp, stunned gasp escaping him as he kept his focus on that spot in the tree high above him. Just as he’d been before, Dipper was completely out of it, his eyes closed and his expression listless as he hovered in what almost seemed to be a peaceful sleep. He looked faint, his colors dull and faded as silence echoed in the area all around him. At least until Steven made an attempt at breaking through to him from far below. 

“Dipper! Can you hea-”

“Ah, ah, ah, Rosebud!” Bill chastised as he suddenly appeared out of thin air right beside Steven. “You wouldn’t wanna wake Pine Tree up, now would you?”

“Y-yes, I would!” Steven retorted brazenly. “I found Dipper, which means you have to keep up your end of the deal. Now get out of his mind and leave us alone!”

“Now, now, Rosebud, if I remember correctly, the terms YOU laid out were that you had to find a way to bring him back,” Bill pointed out, glancing up at Dipper. “And as far as I can tell, Pine Tree’s still completely out of commission. Which means your gem and your memories are still on the line.”

“Y-yeah, but-”

“In fact, you know what? Why don’t we speed this along a little…?” Steven flinched as a bright blue flame ignited over Bill’s palm, one that was large and devastating as it flickered with a thirst for destruction. “I’ve got places to be, space rocks to cash in, so let’s clear the slate, permanently!”

“No!” Steven shouted, leaping high off the ground at the very same time Bill launched his deadly flame toward Dipper. The young Gem floated as fast as he possibly could, essentially racing the dream demon’s sadistic fire and twisted ambitions all at once, all in the hopes that he could stop them both. In the desperate need to finally save Dipper, even if he couldn’t save himself.  

The flame was gaining, his own heart pounding as he summoned a shield to jump off of as a springboard to gain some extra speed. Somewhere far behind him, he could hear Bill’s demented laughter echoing through the woods, his flames drawing nearer and nearer to Dipper’s unmoving, unknowing form. Steven cried as that flame passed him, knowing that he wasn’t going to make it in time, that he was already too late to stop this, knowing that he couldn’t be too late to stop this, that he had to save him, he had to bring him back, he had to, he was going to-

And he did. 

Somehow, with speed Steven didn’t even know he possessed, he soared through the air toward the top of the tree, his gem flashing as it provided him the strength he lacked to succeed. He cut the fire off just in time, reaching their shared target just before it could. And as soon as he did, he formed a sturdy, steady bubble around them both as he crashed into Dipper, throwing his arms around him and locking him in a tight, tearful embrace. As the flames slammed into it and abruptly burnt out on contact, Steven still hung onto Dipper for dear life, leaning his head against his shoulder as he offered him a solemn message, one that, while soft in its delivery, managed to speak volumes all the same.

All it took were three simple words Steven whispered gently into Dipper’s ear. Three simple words that were more than enough to get Dipper to finally, finally open his eyes. 

“NO!” Bill practically screamed in raw, intense fury as he watched his devious plans unfurl all around him. The once-dead mindscape began to bloom back to life, lush green needles sprouting on the pine trees dotted across it, its black sky dawning with newfound sunshine as the memories that had been ripped out of it were restored. Amidst this swift restoration, Bill found himself being ripped out of the mindscape instead, bound by the very deal he had agreed to, especially as an all-new blinding, purifying light began to spill across the forest. “ROSEBUD! PINE TREE!” the dream demon shouted hotly, unable to do a single thing as he was forced out of the mindscape that was in the midst of being harmoniously joined to another. 

“ROSE TREE!”

Everyone took in a shocked, startled gasp as something suddenly shifted, a stark change taking place amidst what they’d been anxiously watching for what felt like ages now. During that time, both Steven and Bill had remained completely still, their eyes shut and the young Gem’s bubble still erected to keep each of them out so they wouldn’t interfere. None of them knew what to make of it, and they were even more at a loss for words as Steven suddenly pulled Dipper’s supposedly possessed body forward into an unexpected hug. The very moment he did, Bill was abruptly tossed out of Dipper’s body entirely, flung far across the Nightmare Realm with an intense amount of force and an infuriated shriek. At the same time, a telltale warm glow surrounded Steven and Dipper, the bubble around them dissipating as that light overtook them both and brought them both together again. 

And brought Stepper back together again. 

He opened his eyes with a small, startled gasp, confusion filling his mind first and foremost as he looked around his inexplicable surroundings. “W-what… where…?” he trailed off, glancing down at all four of his hands, his bewilderment only increasing as he looked himself over. “Wait… when did we fuse--” He cut himself off with a sudden sob, one of his upper hands covering his mouth as his lower arms held onto each other tightly. “Y-you… you’re back…” He smiled warmly, joyful tears streaming down his cheek, even if half of him didn’t understand where those tears were coming from. “Back? Back from where?”

“H-he’s back?” Mabel suddenly spoke up, tears brimming in her eyes as she floated forward a bit, the others all hanging back as they stared at Stepper in apt awe. 

“He’s back!” Stepper nodded happily, though that happiness soon shifted right back into a puzzled frown. “Mabel? What’s going o-” 

Once again, he was interrupted as Mabel threw herself at him, hugging his midsection tightly as his lower arms readily returned it. The others were all quick to join her, each of them engulfing the fusion in a unified, delighted embrace. As overwhelmed with relief as they all were, none of them had a single word to say, only soft, contented smiles and silent, satisfied tears over the realization that somehow, some way, Dipper and Steven were both back, their memories mutually restored. Finally, their boys were safe; finally, they were whole. 

“O-ok, not that this isn’t really sweet and everything, but I’m confused,” Stepper said with a small, uncertain chuckle as everyone finally released him, though the hug his own upper arms had locked him in still remained. “What’s going on?”

“PINE BUD!” 

As this absolutely outraged shout rattled the entire Nightmare Realm, Stepper jolted, a rush of stark realization striking him, even as Stan, Ford, and the Gems all rushed to take up a protective stance in front of the fusion. But as soon as he spotted Bill rushing across the shifting spacescape toward them, all of his questions were abruptly, immediately answered. 

“Oh… I remember now…” he scowled, all four of his hands curling up into tight fists as he glared up at the towering dream demon firmly. 

“Out of my way, chumps!” Bill seethed, wasting no time with any of the others as he swiftly shoved all of them aside to get to Stepper. “YOU…” he growled, his form a bright, blood crimson as he offered the fusion a look of absolute hatred. “Do you have ANY idea what you’ve just done!? You cost me a gem, you cost me your dimension-”

“And you cost us our memories,” Stepper countered sternly, not showing a single sign of fear against the dream demon, not this time. Not after everything he’d done. “You almost cost us our lives. I’d say this makes us more than even.”

“NOT EVEN CLOSE!” Bill shouted, his hands aglow in blazing blue flames. “I was ready, I was THERE, set to wipe both of you miserable twerps from out of existence once and for all, and then you just had to go and turn the tables and CHEAT to get your way!”

“Oh, I cheated?” Stepper asked with an incredulous scoff. “I cheated?! Did you just forget about how you pinned us down and cracked our gem!? Or how you LIED to us, how you gave us no other choice but to give you our journal, our memories, our identities?!” The fusion was absolutely livid by this point, to the point that even Bill seemed surprised by just how intense and outraged his tone and expression alike were as his anger flowed out of him freely. Anger for just how much torment this monster had put both of his halves, his family and friends, everything and everyone he cared about through as a whole. “All you do, all you’ve EVER done, is cheat and lie to get what you want, all because you can’t get enough of tearing innocent lives apart just because you think it’s funny.  News flash, Bill: it’s NOT funny and it NEVER has been! And that’s why I’m DONE watching you use, and manipulate and hurt me and the people I love! It’s over, Bill,” Stepper finished firmly, Mabel, Stan, Ford, and all of the Gems regrouping by his side so they could all face the dream demon together. “We’re not letting you get away with it this time.”

Bill surprisingly said nothing as the group before him pulled their weapons back out, their resolve renewed now that they were all truly back together again. By all accounts, the dream demon seemed caught off guard by such a united, unflinching resistance against him, but even so, he wasn’t about to back down that easily, especially when he still had the home advantage on his side. “Oh, you wanna bet…?” he hissed darkly, launching his first round of fireballs at the group. Lapis quickly deflected them with a powerful burst of water as Garnet and Pearl rushed forward amidst the resounding steam, both of them hitting Bill at just the right angles in attacks he hadn’t been ready for. As he was distracted, Stan and Amethyst teamed up as the conman tossed the purple Gem at the dream demon, her whip spinning around her all the while as Ford kept up his own line of steady offense with his powerful blaster. Stepper himself was more than ready to join the fray, yet just before he could try to summon his shield journal, a sudden hand taking his stopped him. 

“Hey,” Mabel said, looking up at him with a soft, hopeful smile. “Got room for one more in there?”

“Always,” Stepper laughed warmly, not hesitating to sweep her up into a wide, lighthearted spin, one that was more than enough to bring Mabel into the fusion. 

Dipevebel let out a steadying, contented sigh as the light faded from their form, though their focus was quick to shift back to the battle raging before them. “Ready? Ready,” they grinned, the now-replenished shield journal appearing about one of their hands while Maven’s grappling shield materialized in one of their others. “Let’s do this.”

And with that, they rushed ahead to join the fray, using their third arm to end a shield flying at Bill point-blank just as another one of Pearl’s spears struck him. The dream demon reeled back with an aggravated shout, but he was quick to retaliate by shooting a widespread laser blast that the others made sure to block or evade the best they could. Garnet and Stan both rushed in with the intent of landing a simultaneous pair of punches, though Bill easily avoided their blows by disappearing out of the crowd persistently attacking him. He wasn’t able to get too much distance before Dipevebel’s grappling shield struck him clean in the eye, knocking him back a bit until Amethyst held him back by latching her whip around one of his arms. Bill wasted no time in setting fire to that whip, forcing the purple Gem to release her hold on it, though while he was distracted, he failed to notice the blast that was coming at him from behind until it struck him squarely in the back. Ford grinned as he poised his blaster for another round, though by then Lapis had taken over, bombarding Bill with a heavy dulgue of water while the others all continued their steadfast assault. 

“I can’t believe it!” Ford exclaimed with an incredulous laugh as he regrouped with Dipevebel for a brief moment. “We’ve got him on the ropes. If only I’d brought my quantum destabilizer, then we’d have a sure-fire way to finish him off for good.”

“Well… there’s gotta be some other way to really defeat him… right?” Dipevebel asked with newfound curiosity. 

“...I suppose,” Ford noted as he readjusted his blaster. “But I’m hard-pressed to think of one at the moment. For now, just fending him off until our portal home reopens will have to do.”

With that, the author took off to rejoin the fray, leaving the fusion behind to think on what he’d just said. While they certainly seemed to be doing an adequate job at holding Bill off by working together, a part of Dipevebel couldn’t help but feel as though that wasn’t good enough. Not as long as they had the opportunity, however small, to finally put an end to Bill’s chaotic ambitions once and for all. 

Amidst the heavy, unified resistance he was facing on all sides, it wasn’t long before Bill turned from mere aggravation over such resistance to outright outrage. While he hadn’t been pulling his punches before, as intensely provoked as he was, the dream demon’s attacks steadily became more violent and vicious. He lashed out at the Gems first, clearly with the intent of poofing them, if not something even worse, based on the intense, wide-reaching blast he launched their way, one that they were only narrowly saved from thanks to the large shield Dipevebel cast over them just in time. Even so, Bill wasn’t anywhere close to finished yet as he unleashed another powerful burst of flaming energy at the entire group, and while it fortunately didn’t substantially harm any of them, it did manage to knock them all back to give the dream demon some space to recover and gear up his next onslaught. 

From the force of this attack, Dipevebel suddenly split, though only partially. As she reoriented herself, Mabel was admittedly confused as she realized Dipper and Steven had somehow remained together, almost as if they had thrown her out of their fusion intentionally, though she highly doubted that was the case. Even so, Stepper remained steady, still upholding his shield journal as the others all prepared themselves for whatever Bill might have in store for them next. 

“ENOUGH!” Bill shouted, clearly furious in tone and form. “You’re all way more trouble than you’re worth for a bunch of dumb old space rocks and useless humans! I’ve got MUCH better things to do with my time than take you chumps down a peg.”

“Oh, sorry, Bill,” Stepper taunted with a brazen scowl. “We didn’t mean to inconvenience you even though you’ve more than inconvenienced all of us by now!”

“Can it, Pine Bud!” Bill snapped, not hesitating to launch another fireball the fusion’s way, one that he easily deflected with a timely bubble. “You know what? I’m sick of looking at all of your stupid faces. I think it’s time to do what I SHOULD have done a LONG time ago and take care of you chumps FOR GOOD!”

Strangely, Bill didn’t make a single move to attack the group immediately. Instead, he brought both of his hands up high above his tip, his eye going completely blank, pupil-less and white to match the practically blinding glow forming over his raised hands. A glow that only seemed to be growing stronger and more powerful with each passing second as the dream demon continued to build it up. “W-what’s he doing?” Pearl asked in apt alarm. 

“No idea,” Amethyst said tensely. “But I don’t want to stick around to find out.”

“It looks like we won’t have to,” Ford smiled, relieved, as he spotted a spark of sudden energy appearing afar in the distance behind them. “Look!”

That spark soon split into a portal, none other than the very one that would lead them back to their home dimension. On the other side of it, Peridot anxiously waited, still maintaining the machine that had created it, though it was clear from her frantic tinkering that it would only remain open for so long. 

“It’s time to go!” Garnet shouted, leading the way to leap through the spacescape back toward the portal. Seeing as how they’d certainly gotten what they came here for, no one protested this plan of action as they all began an urgent race to the portal, hoping to get out of Bill’s destructive range as soon as possible. Yet strangely, for his part, Bill didn’t seem to notice their escape at all, instead completely focused on feeding power into his next attack, whatever that mysterious attack might actually be. 

However, in light of his lack of focus on them, one among the group suddenly stopped short, something that wasn’t lost on Mabel as the hand that had been clinging onto hers suddenly fell away. “S-Stepper, what are you doing?!” she exclaimed, noticing that not only had Stepper stopped heading for the portal; he’d strangely turned his attention back to Bill instead. “C’mon! We gotta get out of here!”

Stepper largely ignored Mabel’s futile attempts at pulling him along by one of his lower arms. Instead, he remained focused on Bill, focused on the opportunity right ahead of him, a chance he knew he wouldn’t get like this again anytime soon. It would be so easy to run full speed toward the portal just as the others all currently were, so easy to go home and put this mess behind both of his halves. And yet…

There would still be the inevitable risk of Bill returning, the risk of the dimensional tears the rift was causing giving way to someone else falling into his nightmarish home just as he had. And of course, the risk that Bill could get his hands on the rift and use it to unleash destruction and devastation untold upon the world. No one was safe as long as the dream demon still lurked somewhere; not Stepper, not either of his halves, not Mabel, not the Gems, not Stan and Ford, no one on Earth was free from his twisted, relentless treachery. Even as confined to the Nightmare Realm as he currently was, he was still free to spread his lies and deception to anyone who would listen, still free to subtly, quietly ruin the lives of innocent people by taking away what they loved most. Bill was a monster, no question or doubt about it. A monster who, Stepper knew, Stepper remembered had put him through so much suffering, so much unnecessary pain just for his own demented amusement. A monster who had ripped away every shred of who he really was, who had burned half of his very identity out of mere sadistic pleasure alone. A monster who had left so much ruin and anguish in his wake for the endless string of atrocities he’d committed, both past and present. Atrocities that, for the sake of himself and his friends and family, at least one half of Stepper refused to let continue any longer. 

Even if that meant he might not make it back in the process.

“Mabel…” he finally spoke, glancing back at her with the faintest ghost of a bittersweet smile. “I-I… I’m sorry…”

Mabel didn’t get a chance to say a single word before Stepper bolted forward, jumping off a shield he’d summoned to give him some extra speed as he rushed back in Bill’s direction. “Stepper!” Mabel shouted, her distraught cry catching everyone else’s attention as they drew close to the portal. 

“What the heck is he doing?!” Stan exclaimed, completely baffled. “Have they both gone nuts?! We’re trying to get AWAY from the psychotic, bloodthirsty triangle, not run right back to him!”

“He’s going after Bill…” Ford said with a gasp of terrified realization. “The portal could close up again at any minute; we’ve got to stop him before it does!”

“On it!” Lapis said, calling upon her wings to give chase after the fusion. 

At the same time, Stepper continued speeding toward Bill, who was still completely captivated in charging up his own power. The fusion had forgone his shield journal in favor of attacking the dream demon head on, letting sheer, unbridled rage overtake him as he remembered every horrible thing his foe had done. Amidst that rage, Stepper didn’t even realize the vibrant pink glow that had started brimming in his usually dark violet eyes, pink that steadily spread out from his face across his entire body, to the point that he was glowing with it. At the same time, the entire Nightmare Realm had begun to rumble from the immense power Bill was pulling from it, his devastating attack nearing completion as he still seemingly ignored Stepper’s furious approach. For his part, Stepper was set to complete that approach as he drew from his own power, or more specifically, his gem’s, the countless momentous emotions running rampant between both of his halves fueling the fire of that power into a grand, uncontrollable blaze. 

And, working on every ounce of unspeakable anger within him, Stepper unleashed that blaze upon Bill at full force. At the very same time Bill released his own. 

Titanic waves of white, destructive energy violently clashed against a pink, purifying flash. The moment these two completely opposing forces met, the reaction was stark and immediate. An incredible explosion rocked the entire realm, rippling through every part of it in searing shockwaves. Those shockwaves split over the group in the midst of escaping from the Nightmare Realm, energy from them blasting their way through the very same portal that led back to Earth. And from that portal, that energy continued spreading in swift, largely invisible flourishes, engulfing all of Gravity Falls itself in a brief, inexplicable flash of what almost seemed like lightning. 

A single moment was all it took, a show of power far too immeasurable to contain. And just as quickly as that power flooded between both dimensions, it was all over, leaving everything seemingly exactly the same. And yet, in the process, leaving a sudden shift in the very fabric of reality itself, one that would practically change everything.

Both Bill and Stepper were thrown back by the brunt of this blast, hard enough that the fusion briefly lost consciousness altogether. When he finally did manage to open his eyes again, his ears were ringing, his vision blurry and his skin no longer beaming pink. He was flying backward, not on his own accord, but by something else entirely: by Lapis and the steady, unrelenting hold she had on both of his upper arms as she carried him back toward the wavering portal. 

As another wave of the explosion’s fallout shuddered through the Nightmare Realm, Stepper forced his bleary vision focus ahead of him, hoping that he’d see not a single sign of Bill anywhere in sight. And yet, his worst fears were realized as the dream demon suddenly rose into view afar in the distance, shaken by the impact of the explosion, but hardly no worse for wear because of it. 

“N-no…” Stepper choked, his eyes wide and distraught as he realized his plan hadn’t worked. Still, he refused to let it not work, it had to work, he had to stop Bill somehow, he was going to stop Bill right here and now and he wasn’t going to stop until he did. 

“D-Dipper! S-Steven!” Lapis grunted as Stepper started aggressively struggling against her firm hold. “What are you doing?!”

“L-let me go!” he shouted hotly, his lower arms reaching up to pry his upper ones out of Lapis’ hands.

“Are you crazy?!” Lapis retorted, incredulously. “There’s no way I’m letting you get anywhere close to him again! We’re getting both of you home where you belong, NOW!”

 “Please! Lapis, you have to let me go finish him off!” Stepper practically pleaded, knowing that they were nearing the portal. Which meant that his time to act was running out. “I know I can! I-”

 “Forget it!” Lapis snapped, infuriated by his stubbornness. By his incredibly self-destructive behavior above all else, especially after everything he’d just been through. “You are NOT doing this! We almost lost you once, I’m not letting that happen again!”

Stepper continued resisting her hold, wanting to argue back with every bit of palpable fury he had left in him. Yet he stopped just shy of them reaching the portal, which itself was on the verge of sealing up completely after everyone had already safely made it through to the other side. He stilled briefly, just to hear Bill offer him one final vindictive word of farewell. A bitter reminder of once possible chance that had just slipped out of his hands once and for all: 

“Nice try, Rose Tree, but you can’t get rid of me that easily! I’ll always come back! And I’ll ALWAYS BE WATCHING YOU!”

The last thing Stepper heard before Lapis dragged him through the portal was the dream demon’s haunting, malicious laughter. Laughter that had always tormented his mind and heart from the very beginning. And now, as long as Bill would continue to survive and thrive and carry on with his ceaseless conquest of chaos and destruction, it always would. 

The portal sealed itself up in a blinding burst of light, closing up the connection between the Nightmare Realm and Earth just in time. The moment it did, Garnet wasted no time in plowing her gauntlets into the machine that had made it, knowing that the risk of keeping such a device around was far too great. In light of their harrowing escape, most of the group took the time to recover their lost breath on the floor of the author’s room, save for Stepper, who, as soon as Lapis finally released him, made it a point to get up and vent his immense frustration right off the bat. 

“Why?” he asked harshly, turning on Lapis in particular as she also rose to stand. “Why did you stop me?! Why didn’t you let me go back and finish what I started?!”

“Finish what?” Lapis shot back just as severely. “Trying to get yourself killed?! You’re lucky to even be alive right now after what you just went through, and you were just... ready to throw the life you only barely managed to get back away without a second thought!”

“That’s not what I was trying to do!” Stepper argued fiercely. “I was trying to beat Bill once and for all. I could have done it too, I was right there-”

“And then what?” Lapis countered, refusing to back down. “Even if you had destroyed him, which you didn’t, either you would have been stuck in there forever or you would have wound up destroying yourself at the same time! You weren’t thinking about what you were doing, Dipper!”

“I was thinking!” Stepper shouted hotly, ignoring the fact that she had been spot on about who had actually decided on such a deadly course of action to begin with. “I was thinking that I had a chance to finally, finally stop him and I took it. Unlike the rest of you who just ran as soon as you had the chance.”

“We had no choice but to run, Stepper,” Garnet interjected, her tone surprisingly even. “Even while working together, we all only barely managed to hold Bill back. We didn’t go to the Nightmare Realm to pick a fight with him in the first place. We went there to recover your memories, which we did. We had no reason to risk staying there any longer.”

“Yes, we did!” Stepper rebuffed resiliently. “If we’d all worked together, we could have taken Bill down easily! We could have won! And if we had, if you had all just let me take my chance and stop him, then we’d never have to worry about him hurting anyone else ever again!”

“Stepper,” Ford spoke up with a weary sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Believe me when I say that no one wants to see Bill’s downfall more than me. But that was not the proper time and place to launch such a haphazard, desperate, reckless-”

“Reckless?!” Stepper interrupted with an appalled scoff. “You think I was being reckless?! I knew what I was doing in there! I was ready for whatever might happen as long as it might work. Defeating Bill-”

“Is NOT your responsibility!” Ford cut him off in newfound frustration. “You’re both just kids! Children who shouldn’t be anywhere near Bill, much less trying to bring him to an end!”

“But I could have done it!” Stepper protested. “We’re strong enough, I’m strong enough to face him! A-and… and even if I hadn’t made it back, wouldn’t it have been worth it to finally get rid of him, to finally keep everyone, the entire Earth, safe from what he’s planning for it?”

“N-no…” Mabel muttered on the outskirts of this intense fight, her voice barely audible as she clung onto Stan’s leg for support. “It wouldn’t have been…”

“Stepper, just… chill already!” Amethyst advised anxiously. “We all want to see Bill go down just as much as you do-“

“No you don’t!” Stepper sharply shouted, all four of his hands in tight, shaking fists. 

“Yes, we do,” Pearl countered as calmly as she could. “Bill has hurt all of us in so many different ways-“

“Ohohoh, yeah, Bill’s really hurt all of you,” Stepper scoffed, an air of bitter mocking in his tone. “The worst he ever did to any of you was trick you or possess you. Well guess what? He did BOTH of those things to me! But I guess you’re right. I mean it’s not like he took away every part of who any of you are and just... burnt it to ashes like it was nothing, RIGHT?!”

A long, heavy bout of silence filled the room at this, one that was only permeated by a heavy, angry sob from Stepper himself. He could tell just from the pity-filled glances they were all sending his way that no one was on his side with this, not really. Instead, they were all seeing him for exactly what he was: a pair of largely broken boys hiding behind a fused facade that was falling apart at the seams every bit as much as each of his halves were. And under their scrutinizing stares, Stepper quickly realized he could scarcely bear the immense weight of his own mounting mistakes, of his own failure to finally stop Bill’s tyranny once and for all. His failure to take back everything the dream demon had stolen from him and then some.

So he sighed, wiping away his tears as he turned to leave entirely. “Yeah…” he muttered as he walked out of the room. “That’s what I thought.”

Mabel was the first to move to follow Stepper, awash in worry for his wellbeing on several levels after everything that just happened. Yet before she could get too far, Garnet happened to stop her with a sudden hand on her shoulder. “Let him go,” she advised with a small, tired sigh, clearly sharing Mabel’s concern for the troubled fusion. “He needs space to work through this on his own. To work through this together.”

Shield after shield was flung off the top of the temple hill, with no real regard given to where they might be going until they inevitably disappeared into the distance entirely. Stepper knew he was essentially throwing a childish temper tantrum as he tossed them haphazardly, wishing he could throw away all of the anger and resentment he was feeling just as easily. Though his tears were gone, his frustration had hardly diminished, even though that palpable fury was only really coming from one of his halves all while the other one stepped aside to let them both feel it. After all, pain like this simply demanded to be felt. 

“It’s not fair!” Stepper shouted, letting another shield fly loose over the edge of the cliffside. “We finally had the chance to beat Bill for good and they just… took it away from us! And now he’s still out there, still after the rift, after all of us! It’s like none of them even understand that! I-I know…” he sighed sadly, his less furious side finally peeking through the cracks a bit. “But… there is an upside to all this. Really?” he scoffed, finally letting his shield journal disappear as he crossed his upper arms. “Because as far as I can see, there is none. There is,” his lower hands gently found a place against his upper ones. “We made it back; both of us remember who we are again… I know it’s not the same as actually defeating Bill but… at least we managed to win that much from him… That’s something... right?”

Stepper took pause at this, his gem and his birthmark briefly flashing with the same mutual thought: at least you’re ok if nothing else is… 

And on that thought, the fusion let out a long, exhausted sigh as he allowed himself to fall back into the soft grass, the bright morning sun casting a sort of welcome warmth he couldn’t quite feel. Instead, he felt cold on the inside, cold and sad and empty. A feeling both of his halves were far more used to than they should have been by this point in their lives. 

“I-I just… wanted to stop him…” he whispered, covering his eyes with his arms to block out any tears that might come. “I wanted to never have to think about him or what he did to me again… I wanted to finally learn how to feel safe again…” He could feel a morose sob begin to escape him, but his other half managed to stop it as he wrapped his lower arms loosely around himself. “You are safe… with me…”

While there was so much he could have said, so much he wanted to say at a moment like that, he let that gentle promise sink in, allowing himself to accept it as a much-needed momentary comfort. He let out another deep breath as he closed his eyes, simply letting himself lie there in solemn silence to reflect on everything that they’d been through. Everything he’d been through. 

His halves could remember everything their fusion had gone through, even when their own memories had been torn away from him. They could remember how lost and scared and alone Stepper had felt, how much he’d wanted to become his own person instead of being torn apart into either of them. It was a jarring recollection, to say the least, but even so, neither of his halves could fault him for it. Because in losing both Steven and Dipper, Stepper had lost who he really was too. 

And now, both of them were back, Stepper, Steven, and Dipper were all properly restored in body and mind. But it had been a narrow, almost hollow victory, one that they had barely managed to snatch away from Bill in a moment when all hope had essentially been lost. And in the end, Bill had really been the one to win, his wicked ways allowed to survive and thrive another day despite the fusion’s very best efforts to put an end to them. Because in the end, those efforts hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t been enough. 

Stepper didn’t know how long he’d been lying there when he finally caught onto the sound of approaching footsteps in the grass. A brief glance to the side told him Garnet was coming, and while he didn’t acknowledge her outside of that, he did sit up, pulling his knees to his chest as he glanced down at the wide view of the town before him. 

“Mind if I join you?” Garnet spoke up, though even so, Stepper refused to look her way. 

“I thought you were mad at me for being ‘reckless’, just like everyone else is…” he muttered crossly. 

“I’m not mad,” Garnet clarified, taking a seat in the grass beside him. “In fact, I’m very happy that both of you are safe and sound. We all are.”

“...But you still think what I tried to do was wrong… don’t you?” Stepper asked, finally briefly glancing her way. 

“Actually, I think what you did was very brave. And warranted. For the safety of our entire universe, Bill does need to go down, but the way you tried to go about doing it… that’s not how it was meant to go.”

“Now you tell me…” Stepper deadpanned, disappointed. 

“To be honest, I can’t see how, when, or even if Bill will ever be defeated,” Garnet said, adjusting her shades. “He evades my future vision every step of the way; that’s why what he did to the two of you came as such a shock. I could have never seen it coming; but if I had…” The Gem leader paused to wipe away the tear that had happened to slip out from under her visor. “I would have done anything in my power to keep both of you from suffering the way you did. Stepper is something that’s so special to both of you; the way you both have grown and bonded together through him is inspiring, even to me. But Bill turned your fusion, your bond, into a prison that you were both powerless to escape from. And that’s something I’ll never forgive him for.”

“Well… at least that’s something we can all agree on…” Stepper said, managing a weak smile at this. 

Garnet, on the other hand, said nothing, her focus set on the fusion before her and her expression unreadable all the while. Still, it didn’t take her long to speak to that scrutiny, noticing Stepper’s sudden confusion over it. “Stepper,” she began calmly, evenly. “Both of you have your memories back… you’re both whole again. Which is why I can’t help but wonder why, now that everything’s said and done, you’re still fused.”

“Wait… what?” Stepper frowned, looking over himself in newfound surprise. Or at least, surprise for one of his halves. “Oh my gosh, we are still fused. I-I mean, of course I knew we were fused, but… between everything else, I-I… I guess I didn’t really think about it until now…”

“Steven,” Garnet addressed the half of their fusion that was truly behind this. “You should tell Dipper the truth of why you’re still together. He deserves to know.”

“Know… what?” Stepper asked, only for his own shared thoughts to answer him as his gem and birthmark flashed once more. Tears had already started welling up in his eyes as he covered his mouth, both parts of him reeling from exactly what that answer actually was. “Y-you… you’re scared?” he whispered to himself worriedly. “Why? B-because!” he choked out a tight, sudden sob. “I don’t want to lose you again! When I brought you back from inside your mind, I-I didn’t have a clue what I was doing! I just thought fusing would work somehow, a-and it did! But… i-if we split up, then… I don’t know what’ll happen! I don’t want you to just… disappear all over again! Whoa, whoa, wait!” he stopped himself, trying to keep both of his halves steady despite such a frightening thought. “I-it’s ok! I won’t disappear. ...Will I?” he asked, looking to Garnet. 

“I… don’t know,” Garnet shook her head fretfully. “I can see several outcomes but… not all of them are good. Not all of them are absolute either.”

“So… what you’re saying is… there’s no telling what could happen?” Stepper asked, aptly anxious. Garnet only nodded in response to this, leaving the fusion at even more of a distraught loss than before. Especially when he realized what the alternative might be to staying together, an alternative with far more permanent consequences than he could really see at the moment. “Then… what should I do?”

“That’s your decision. One both of you have to make together,” Garnet advised as she stood, placing a consoling hand on Stepper’s shoulder as she did. “But whatever you choose, we’ll all be there for you. No matter what.”

And with that, the Gem leader left Stepper to ponder the momentous decision before him, the outcome of which could impact his life, or rather, the lives of his halves far more than any other decision either of them had ever been forced to make. Even so, the bittersweet irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him. They’d come so far and fought so hard to get themselves, their memories, every piece of who they actually were as individuals, back from Bill. Only to realize that they still very well might have to end up trapped in their fusion all the same. Yet even so, neither of them saw that fusion as a prison, they never could. If anything, Stepper’s very existence meant more to them now, after all they’d gone through together as him, after how they’d managed to stay by each others’ sides through it all while being him, more than ever. But to be that fusion for the rest of their lives, after only just regaining their own identities… it was something Stepper wasn’t sure he could allow either of them to commit to. 

Which meant that once again, he found himself facing yet another incredible risk that he had no choice but to take.

He decided to unfuse in front of everyone, deciding it was better that they weren’t alone in doing so, just in case. There was a bit of convenient coincidence beyond that, since Ford had also spread the word that he wanted to gather everyone together for the sake of sharing some “important information”. But that information was largely the last thing on anyone’s minds as Stepper stood before them, preparing himself to finally split apart once more. He hadn’t told anyone else about the risk he’d be taking in doing so, and as far as he knew, Garnet was the only other one to know. And yet even so, she offered him a supportive nod to proceed, though he still hesitated, at least until he met Mabel’s practically pleading expression. He knew he’d kept her waiting for both of them for far too long now. It was time to give her brother and her best friend back. It was time to allow Dipper and Steven to rightfully return. 

A sense of calm washed over him at the same pace as the white, gentle light that enshrouded his form. It only took a second, it always took a second, but soon enough, there they both were, standing apart from each other, on their own, their hands still intertwined all the while. Steven opened his eyes instantly, only to notice Dipper starting to sway forward, his eyes still shut, his own return still completely uncertain. He panicked, rushing to catch him just before he could hit the den floor and Mabel hurried to join him at his side as he lay still for a long, unbearable moment. A moment in which Steven couldn’t help but think the unthinkable: that he really had just fortited Dipper’s life at the expense of his own after all. 

And yet nothing could have described the young Gem’s incredible relief when Dipper suddenly started to stir, a soft, tired moan escaping him as he slowly opened his eyes. He met the pair hovering over him with a small, warm smile, one that they both returned with a tight, tearful hug. The others were all quick to join in on that hug, the Pines and the Gems all folded together into a momentary blissful embrace… but one that ultimately did little to fully heal the heavy rifts that this dire ordeal had torn between so many of them. 

Even so, everyone settled down, taking a seat across the den to listen to Ford’s most recent findings in light of their frantic escape from the Nightmare Realm. Steven and Mabel sat with Dipper sandwiched close and comfortably between them both, all three of them quite cozy under the light blanket Pearl had draped over them. Despite that, they were just as on edge as all the others were as Ford began to divulge what he knew, his own tone and manner rather grave and serious as he reported his latest research to them. 

“So I have some good news and some bad news,” the author began as he flipped through his notes. “The good news is that after a thorough scan of interdimensional activity, I can safely say that Bill is still confined to the Nightmare Realm, as he should be. He didn’t manage to slip back through our own portal home. But… there’s still an entirely new problem altogether. It seems as though there have been several small, randomly-forming gateways to the Nightmare Realm appearing in the area in and around Gravity Falls due to… some u-unexplained phenomena.” Ford hesitated at this, exchanging a brief, knowing glance with the Gems, confirming that all of them knew the rift was to blame for those gateways. “It was through one of those gateways that Steven and Dipper first wound up in the Nightmare Realm to begin with, correct?”

“Yeah…” Dipper answered, bitterly glaring away as Steven nodded fretfully. 

“So… are these random portals something we should be worried about?” Lapis asked, aptly concerned. 

“I-I think they should be, especially if Cipher can manage to sneak his way through them!” Peridot exclaimed tightly, fearfully. 

“Well actually, he can’t!” Ford pointed out with something of a relieved smile. “Largely since those portals won’t lead to the Nightmare Realm, at least not anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Pearl asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow. 

“It seems as though the fallout from that last attack exchanged between Bill and Stepper had a certain… effect on the ongoing interdimensional instability,” Ford said, clearing his throat as he looked away from Steven and Dipper in particular. The pair exchanged a confused glance all the same, completely oblivious to whatever impact their shared power could have had at large. In fact, the only thing either seemed to know of that incredibly strong, momentous attack was that it hadn’t worked as they’d intended it to. “That fallout slipped through our portal back and rippled across not only our dimension, but… from the looks of it, several others. It severed the existing connection between our world and the Nightmare Realm, for now, and instead opened up passageways between our dimension and countless worlds existing parallel to it! I’ve never seen anything like this before, it’s-”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s ‘astonishing’,” Stan deadpanned, annoyed. “Mind explaining all that mambo-jumbo in english for the rest of us, poindexter?” 

Ford returned his brother’s scowl at this but even so he complied. “Simply put, the randomly-occurring portals that once led to the Nightmare Realm will continue to show up, but instead, they’ll lead to parallel dimensions to our own.”

“Well… that doesn’t sound too bad,” Mabel piped up. “At least nobody else can get sucked into the Nightmare Realm again, right?”

“While that is true, these dimensional gateways still have me concerned all the same,” Ford mused. “Regardless of where they lead, they’re still holes torn in the very fabric of reality itself. And the more holes we let rip their way into it, the weaker that fabric will steadily become.”

“Then that makes those portals a problem,” Garnet said firmly. “Possibly even more of a problem if Bill somehow finds a way to use them to his advantage.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Ford staunchly agreed. “That’s why I’m already in the process of readying a device that can not only scan for these portals, but close them up completely. But it’s going to take some time. For now, the best any of us can do is keep an eye out for any unusual dimensional anomalies, especially anything akin to a portal. Where exactly these gateways could lead is mystery; as far as we know, the worlds they connect to could be hostile and dangerous. So until we can find a foolproof way to keep them at bay, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

A murmur of solemn agreement passed throughout the room at this, everyone understanding just how much of a problem these newfound portals could really pose. But at the same time, Steven and Dipper both remained silent, their shared role in changing where these portals led not lost on either of them. Because in the end, their last-ditch, desperate attempt at stopping Bill only did more harm than good. 

Just as everything either of them did always seemed to do.  

The night air was cool and crisp and refreshing, complimenting the dark, moonless sky well. The natural silence filling that air was calm and comforting, an aura Dipper tried to let wash over him as he sat on the shack’s roof platform alone. In general, being alone was suddenly a strange sensation to him, even outside of no longer being fused with Steven; Mabel and Stan hovered over him with immense concern (or as much concern as Stan was actually willing to show) for the rest of the day, and while Lapis and Ford both kept their distance for obvious reasons, he still caught them sending several fretful glances his way all the same. He’d assured them several times over that he was fine, that there was nothing more for any of them to worry about, but of course that worry still came all the same. 

Only now, in the very late hours of the night once everyone else had finally gone home or gone to sleep, was Dipper able to find a spare moment of solitude. Yet even still, that solitude felt strangely… wrong somehow. He frowned as he glanced down at his hands, only two now instead of Stepper’s four. The longest he’d ever been part of a fusion before was for a few hours at most; but the course of several days as Stepper, both when Stepper remembered he existed and when he didn’t, had left him feeling oddly out of place on his own. While he didn’t necessarily feel the need to be fused, he still felt wrong somehow. He felt like something important, essential even, was missing. 

Above all else, he felt alone. 

Or at least he did until the very person he wanted to see most suddenly came to join him. 

“H-hey,” Steven greeted with a small wave, landing on the roof from the floating leap he’d taken to get up there. 

“S-Steven?” Dipper started, though he was quick to ease up as Steven came over to take a seat next to him. “What are you doing here so late?”

“I… I couldn’t sleep,” the young Gem admitted. “Not after… well, you know.”

“Yeah…” Dipper sighed, pulling his knees to his chest as he perched his chin upon them. “Same here…”

Silence lingered between both boys for what felt like hours, both of them knowing there was so much they could have discussed in light of what they’d just been through together yet neither of them knew where to start. Eventually though, Dipper was the first to speak up, a very vague, distressing thought filling his mind, a memory he only really had at all thanks to Steven sharing it with him while they were still fused. “I… I really was gone… wasn’t I?” he asked, his voice barely even above a whisper. 

Steven shuttered, hating to even think about what had to have been one of the absolute worst moments of his entire life so far. Even so, he knew he owed Dipper the truth of the matter. “Yeah…” he admitted anxiously, glancing away. “You were…”

“But… you brought me back… didn’t you?” Dipper asked, glancing over at him. 

Steven nodded, finally managing to muster a small, fond smile at this. “I would have never been able to do it without your help.”

“My help? What do you mean?”

“Your memories,” the young Gem’s smile widened just a bit. “When I was inside your mind, they were what led me to find you.”

“...You were inside my mind?” Dipper asked with a light frown. 

Steven gasped, his eyes widening as he realized the unintentional slight he’d made against Dipper in doing so, memories of their bitter argument flooding his mind with guilt and dread. “I-I’m sorry!” he exclaimed anxiously. “I know you don’t like me using my powers on you, b-but it was the only thing I could think of to get Bill out and save you, a-and I-”

He was abruptly cut off as Dipper engulfed him in a tight, unexpected embrace. The tears that were well on their way stopped, for Steven at least, though for Dipper, they were only starting to arrive. “Please, please don’t be sorry,” he begged him, remorse racking his tone as he sobbed against his shoulder. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who should be sorry! I said so many terrible things to you! I-I can’t believe I said you were anything like… like him! You’re not! You’re nothing like he is! What was I even thinking?!”

“Y-you were just upset,” Steven tried to sooth him as he gently returned his desperate hug. “I’m not angry about it; I never was.”

“You should be!” Dipper protested, tears streaming down his cheeks as he pulled away from the young Gem a bit. “You should be furious with me, not risking your life to try to save mine like you did! W-why… why’d you do that?” his volume diminished entirely at this as he closed his eyes, looking away in unspeakable shame. “Why didn’t you just let me go…?”

“Because,” Steven comforted him, placing his hands against Dipper’s arms in the hopes of calming him down. “When my gem was cracked, you didn’t let go of me. And even if you had, I still would have done anything I could to get you back.”

“B-but why?” Dipper asked, still mystified by the young Gem’s sheer, incredible sense of loyalty.

“Because you’re my best friend, Dipper!” Steven laughed warmly, tears brimming in his own eyes now. “I’d do anything for you!”

“A-anything…” Dipper repeated, letting out a small, incredulous chuckle of his own. That levity soon faded as he slowly wiped a few of his own tears away. “Even agree to sacrifice everything just because I wanted to defeat Bill, huh?” 

“Of course,” Steven nodded earnestly. “I could tell that’s what you wanted more than anything. I knew how much you thought that would help you, and all I wanted, all I’ve ever wanted, is just to help you. And I guess… I listened to you for a change to figure out how.”

“A part of me wishes you hadn’t,” Dipper sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “As much as I hate to admit it, the others were right; if our attack had worked, then… there’s a pretty good chance neither of us would be sitting here right now. I almost got us both killed, all because I was obsessed with finally getting even with him for every awful thing he’s done to us. But… it didn’t work. Of course, it didn’t…” he sighed again, shame creeping into his tone once more as he hugged himself loosely. “I was wrong… just like I always am.”

“N-no, you weren’t, it’s just…” Steven frowned, unsure of what he really wanted to say. “It’s like Garnet said; now just… wasn’t the right time. But… when we finally do stop him, and we will, then we’ll do it together, just like before.”

Dipper faltered briefly at this, wanting to believe such a hopeful idea, that Bill really could and would be brought to justice someday. And yet, in light of him so easily escaping that justice yet again, he knew that finally bringing him down once and for all would be far easier said than done. 

Yet for the moment, at least, he allowed himself to smile, grateful to be alive after everything they’d both been through. Grateful for his memories, now revived and restored in full. Grateful for Steven, grateful for his support, his selflessness, his kindness in every instance of this ordeal. And most of all, grateful that their friendship had managed to weather the worst of storms it could have ever gone through, grateful that the rifts torn between them had, at long last, finally been repaired. 

So he still smiled, knowing that even if Bill was still out there and their problems were still plentiful, there was still so much to be grateful for. Still someone who stayed right by his side through it all, who was ready to stay by his side, right up to the bitter end. 

Someone he knew, without a single question in his mind, was nothing less than the absolute best friend he could have ever asked for. 

“Yeah… Together.”

Next:

[moonlightstars16]

Chapter 13 ~ Two Doors Open, One Shut

AN: Hey so I know I put out a schedule not too long ago. However I’m loosing inspiration(s) for this story and yes I will finish it. But I might just do it when I can. I’ll try to stick to the schedule.

The rain from the outside continue to pour down. Tapping the 'glass' on the window. The time was about midnight, as the clock struck and chimes echoed all over the place. The fireplace was barely holding onto it's light; as the tiny sounds of cracking wood revealed the small ember inside. However the candelabra's illuminated the area where two people were sitting near the warmth of the fire. Smiling and well deep into a good book.

Steven found himself clinging to Connie's every word. Not just because the story was well written, but for the gentle voice that spoke the words. It was unique to say the least. Being soft one minute and the next doing a crazy tone for every character. He found it to be quite enjoyable. Which was odd because he hadn't found any interest of stories being told to him like this before.  At least not in many years.

"And this concludes chapter five." Connie spoke putting a bookmark on the page and closing it as a yawn escaped her lips.

"So we are stopping there?"

"Oh? Does his highness want more?" Her teasing tone made him roll his eyes.

"Well things did end when it was just getting good. Everything seemed so dull at first."

"A good build up and backstory is perfect for any story and it's characters!" She scoffed putting the book back on the small table beside her.

"Not if it takes three of those chapters to get there."

"With certain books I agree. But this sets everything up so well and leaves even more details in mystery! Besides I like the friendship between our two main leads. But it takes time for them to get there."

They both sighed out in exasperation. Obviously neither of them will agree fully to one side. But that didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. Connie was proud of him for at least giving this a chance. Though she doubted her own vision and thought it to be an hallucination, she saw the twinkle in his eyes. Something she only ever seen only once before.

"You're smiling?"

"Oh" Lifting up her hand she braised passed her lips and cheek. Sure enough they were pointed upwards, exactly like a smile. "I suppose I am."

"Am I to suppose you've find it pleasurable reading out loud to me?" A malicious look in his eyes (playfully so).

"I-...I wouldn't say pleasurable... I guess I would say...perhaps it was...nice. Yes it was very nice to do something like this."

" 'Nice', hm... Well I shall take that as a compliment. After all you wanted me here to see if this helps me reconnect to my humanity. Or is it because you actually like spending time with me?"

"You know it might be both." The words slipped so casually in the conversation that she covered her mouth quickly while looking away. This wasn't going to pass by him so easily. Her words took him aback as silence fell while he registered the meaning. A smirk appeared across his face as he took the opportunity to tease her so.

"Do my ears deceive me? Or that's your way of telling me you like me."

"That's not what I meant-"

"Oh that's not what I heard. Plus you also stated that our time together was nice. Am I wrong?"

"No, but I...ugh!" She buried her face in her hands as a roaring fit of laughter emerged from within briefly before fading away.

"Oh Connie what am I going to do with you?" Standing up he extended his hand with hers. Waiting as she slowly accepted it. Feeling something inside her stir as her hand touched his. Though separated by a piece of leather fabric, the warmth from inside radiated off him. With a pull, slightly more forceful than normal, he pulled her up as she stepped closer to him to keep her steady. The boots she wore almost tripped her up. The mid-sized skirt tied to her by a corset and off the shoulder blouse, swayed gently in the brisk breeze that appeared when she stood up.

His eyes found hers as he looked into the beautiful doe-like eyes. One of her most unique features to her beauty. The tiny locks framed her face so elegantly. Even if to some it was all messed up and not so neat. His hand still clinging to her own as they did nothing else but gaze into one another's eyes.

The loud crack from the logs in the fireplace snapped them out of it. Both clearing their throats, hands still intertwined as he began to walk away, leading her out the door. Her pace matched his to the point they were side by side as they stepped through the hallways and up staircase's to her room.

"I shall expect you with Pearl tomorrow morning. Since you need all the information you can get." Connie nodded her head, slipping her hand away from his and opening the door and stepping inside. Pausing to turn back around as her curious nature took hold. Well more needing confirmation as of late.

"How long till the project is underway?"

"Only nine months."

"I-....I never realized how long it's been...only three months since I-...." Sighing, her hand slid slightly down the edge of the door.

"Humanity will survive... Rest well Connie." With that he turned away, returning to his own chambers as she watched him walk down the hall and disappear. The sincere gentle tone she heard filled her with warmth inside. Closing the door she leaned her back against it. Placing one hand over her middle and the other right above her heart. Closing her eyes as she breathed in and out.

"You too Steven."

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

The castle's midnight screeching came from one hidden area deep down below. The sound echoed through the walls just barely. It was similar to a ghost and so the residence inside dubbed these hours, the haunting. At least those who understood the concept of souls and spirits. Connie was laying in bed when it began, her thoughts of the previous few hours invaded her mind. The ghostly wales brought her back to the present moment. Glancing out the window she caught a glimpse of the Zoo. Briefly wondering if the sound originated from there. However the noises faded and she slipped back into her dreams.

Steven was sitting by the fireplace with his hands folded. Ignoring the world around him other than the flames that seemed to dance in his presence. He too thought about the hours prior with her. How natural it all came to be. The comfort of just being around her and the satisfaction of listening to the story she spoke out loud. Not realizing it, a smile graced his lips as a longing gaze began to form.

'See? What did I tell you.'

'She only read a book.'

'And you listened to her every word'

'It was a good story.'

'Then why is your heart pounding every time you think of her or the mention of the name...Connie?"

'I-....'

His other half was right. Clutching his chest he felt it. The pounding of his heart. A look of realization about what was happening took over. Eyes widened as his hand went to his mask and gulped. It was hopeless to dream of such things like this.

'Keep allowing her to be in your heart. You'll see-'

'Shut-up'

Steven told her before about who he truly was. She has seen it himself...

'Why is she willing to help me? Why hasn't she given up yet?'

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

Another slash across the skin. Another scream. Another victim. Topaz had brought a new human from the zoo into the torture chamber. Ruby held the scared and confused specimen down while Aquamarine used a syringe full of sedatives to paralyze the next test subject. Getting annoyed by how much it squirmed as it seemed to her eyes Ruby wasn't doing the job very well. Finally after she hit the human's head with her wand and they stopped resisting, finally able to inject the elixir of sorts into the blood stream.

"Okay, let's inform Spinel that this one is ready for the torment."

"What does this sedative do?" Ruby asked chaining up the human by the wrists and ankles. Aquamarine looked into the empty syringe which held just a drop of it's contents from before.

"It's suppose to be all that we've tried so far."

"You mean immobility, unable to speak, and the memory loss?"

"Precisely, however the heightened senses of feeling pain is new. If this is a success, then everything will soon be ready for our final phase in the plan."

"Well we certainly won't know until I give this a test run." Spinel walked into the dimly lit cell from the shadows.  A cloak wrapped around her shoulders, inside her whip, a sharp blade, even darts just for fun. Behind her was a dozen more cells filled with other test subjects. Some in 'better' shape than others, some worse.

She needed to find the perfect torture technique. One that will make a certain hybrid very impressed. Enough to have him draw blood on his own volition. To have him become the beast he was before. Unleashing all his destructive powers. Only she would have complete control over him. They would rule together and soon she would be the only one holding all the power in her hands. He needed to only be reminded of what he is.

A monster.

"Leave me." Spinel commanded pointing towards the cell door. Both gems complied without hesitation. Turning her attention back on her victim as she shut her eyes and laughed inwardly. Shoulders moving slightly as she took off her cloak.  Pulling out the small dagger with one hand, the other with a whip. Advancing towards the human with it's back turned to herself. Slipping the sharp metal between the back and the belt. With a flick of her wrist she snapped it apart.

The blue vest now hanging open enough for her to lift it up with the blade. Tearing it apart from the body. Only the white cloth pieces remain. That she left alone, for blood that was so contrasting in color would surely grasp the attention. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the bare skin. So smooth with veins protruding from underneath. Tempting her with the promise of blood just a deep scratch away. Her vision became clouded with the promise of blood. Her eyes narrowing as she licked her lips.

It began centuries ago. Pink became Rose Quartz. The Diamonds had dismissed her entirely about earth an it's beauty. White 'punished'  her by manipulating the form Pink held against her and began to cause her pain. The cries from it all rivaled Blue's power as she begged and pleaded for her to stop. Apologizing for her actions and formed back into a much submissive state.

Spinel had watched it all along with Pearl. Something inside her snapped as she tried to stop all this. However Peal held a firm grim on her, almost to the point where she could poof out of her form. Glancing up she saw the pain through her eyes she held. It was becoming more and more clearer that Pearl had deep, hidden feelings for Pink.

But to outsiders, they were blind to it all. Moment's like this made her ache in pain and anguish, wanting to help. Spinel knew that very well. However she knew that it had to be this way. She had to wait and watch. Not only for her survival, but for keeping Pink safe from any further torment.

Spinel watched in confusion as her Diamond cried out in pain. For the first time seeing her so weak, pitiful and defenseless. Whatever this was, she didn't like it coming from her. So when Pink bursted through the walls to meet them, having the appearance of Rose Quartz fully, she hugged her tight in her arms. They were best friends after all and nothing would change that. Rose smiled and gently embraced her with a hug in return.

A year after the rebellion and themselves hidden away on earth, Spinel felt the distance between her and Rose. From time to time they would 'play' together, but it felt more like a chore, a check on a list instead of something really meaningful. Spending less and less time together as Rose hung out with the human, Greg, more and more than herself or even Pearl.

One day while walking on the cliffs overlooking the sea, she found Pearl sitting on a small boulder, watching the sun set. She joined her without a word spoken. Both shared a similar feeling of being forgotten. Spinel glanced down and saw Pearl still holding onto the human brush Rose found long ago. Then into her eyes as she saw a certain wall forming around her. Closing off any emotions that she felt for Rose. Perhaps maybe entirely.

"She soon won't exist."

"What do you mean? You're not going to poof her are you?!"

"What- No! I would never Spinel! I meant-" A gasp escaped her suddenly, an expression of worry took over for just a brief moment. Regaining her calm and orderly composure she looked at her with a sympathy that almost looked fake. Almost. "She didn't tell you, didn't she?" Her tone more factual than a question.

"Pearl, what's going to happen with Rose?"

"Rose is...going to have a baby. I don't-... The best way I can describe it is that she will give up her physical form and pass her gem to her half human child."

"Half human?" Spinel looked down with a puzzling look before continuing. "That Greg Universe is involved somehow?" Anger rose within her voice.

"Yes"

"And you're just going to let this happen?!"

"It's what she wants. I...can't stand in the way of her happiness. According to human physiology since she has human organs and such formed within, she has about six more months-"

"I can't believe this!" With that she ran off to find her. Ignoring Pearl calling out her name. Anger rose inside her. If she had any blood, it would be boiling by now. Tears mixed with hatred, sadness and frustration overflowed her. Something inside her was changing and she didn't even do anything to stop it. 'She told Pearl and not me... She made her choice without consulting me?! Her best friend?! I thought... I thought we had a chance to reconnect....'

Finding the temple she broke through the door. Not even bothering to notice that Garnet and Amethyst were around. With her gem she opened up the door to her room and rushed inside. Finding Rose's room in an instant with her sitting on the clouds. Hands over her pronounced mid section right above her gem and sighed.

"How could you?!" Rose turned immediately to see an upset gem with tears over her cheeks.  Eyes widening in realization as a pained expression appeared on her face. Walking forward she knelt down and sighed.

"I'm so sorry Spinel. I didn't mean to keep any of this secret from you. But it is my fault I didn't tell you sooner."  No matter how angry she felt, all her emotions poured out ash she wrapped her noodle-like arms around her giant friend and cried into her shoulder. Feeling Her hand upon her back as she soothed with her with a soft lullaby. One that she had sung to her whenever the day wasn't so fun. And today of all days was one of them. Whatever was inside of Spinel, calmed down....for the time.

Hours had passed and they talked about everything that was going to happen. How things were going to change but her love for them all will remain. So when the day finally had come, she sang the lullaby to her one more time. Easing her into the next chapter of their story. With a soft 'I love you' the bright light came into the room and faded into a baby's cry.

Spinel soon had a new best friend to play with and talk too. Someone she could be herself with. They soon became the best of friends, watching over each other, being almost joined at the hip together. Sometimes, Spinel found herself wondering if this was someone knew or just Rose reformed. whatever the case she felt happy.

Until ten years had passed when everything changed once more. It all seemed like a blur to her memory. The ships blocking the clouds view, a burst of light as they all poofed away. Waking up she found herself in a holding cell. A large Jasper guard stood in place. Watching them all as they reformed one by one. Moments later, even before she could say anything to them, a huge blue hand picked her up away from them all.

The Diamonds gave her the ultimate punishment as they threw her into a zoo. A human zoo. One they had created ever since the gem war in hopes that Pink would return to them. Now a symbol of what her rebellion had created. Seeing that Pink was now the half human boy, they thought it would be best to separate them for awhile. The others were held in a cell. Greg was also with Spinel in the zoo like herself, trapped. Pearl was put in a solitary confinement for Pearls like herself. To reform and be 'better' Pearl servants than before.

Spinel wondered why she was put here with the other humans. But her wondering didn't last long as a few saw her as an instant threat. Acting like animals while others stayed hidden away from her. They feared and hated her for being a gem. Greg tried his best to help keep her safe, but even he suffered greatly at the loss of his son taken away from him. The promise he made Rose was broken. Spinel hid away from it all. Only finding tree's to conceal herself and the branches to use a a defense.

It was brutal. Whenever they found her, they would beat her to the point of poofing. Thankfully they were not intelligent enough to know that shattering was murder. So she reformed over and over as they repeated the process. Spinel thought Steven would come to rescue her. To save them all like he did with Lapis from Jasper. But he never came.

The feeling of abandonment flowed through her once more. Anger rised inside her deeply, something was changing from within and she welcomed it with open arms. If Pink had only stayed like herself, she would've saved them all from this. She wouldn't have had them all captured and locked away. They could be hiding from the Diamonds if she didn't run away and give up existing. Her powers would've save them all, just like before.  They could've lived happily ever after. But that didn't exist. Not anymore.

'It's her fault.... It's Her Fault.... IT'S HER FAULT!!!'

Her mind screamed over and over. Finally it was her snapping point. No longer wanting to hide, she began fighting the animalistic enemies within her prison walls. At one point, while fighting she stabbed a human in the shoulder with the sharp point of her branch. Watching as he fell over and began to reveal a red liquid trickling from the cut she made. Something about it unlocked a blood lust inside. It reminded her of the pain Pink went through, the cried of torment from the memory to the sounds she heard now became music to her ears.

With a laughter so maniacal and sadistic, she began to do more. Have more cuts, see them bleed. Listen to the sounds of pain and agony as she stabbed, hit and murdered every human in that fight. Soon the rest became even more fearful of her. Those who tried to poof her now, didn't get a chance to even breath their last word.

Upon seeing the bodies covered in blood she smiled and laughed and laughed louder and louder. A bright light overtook her as she transformed into her new form. A black dress with pointed shoulders and ripped up hems, black boots instead of clown shoes. Hair in an upwards, messy twin tails like horns. Her tears formed black lines like masquera on human women running down the cheeks.  The heart -shaped gem, turned upside down as her eyes were more blood-red.

She soon began to kill just for the pure enjoyment. Nothing would stand in her way. Anyone trying to defy her would be long gone. However this wasn't the only thing she found fascination in. Hiding in secret for her next victim, she heard sounds of what seemed like a mixture of pain and pleasure. Finding the source, she peaked through the bushes and eyes went wide. The two humans were moving on top of each other. Their clothing pushed to the side as their lower halves connected in a way that was quite astounding.

Spinel only heard about this once from oh so long ago from Rose. Apparently what she did with Greg to make their child. However instead of getting angry from it, she decided to understand it more. The entire event stirred something within her. So she watched and listened. Gathering up all the information she could.

A year had passed and Spinel was growing tired of just watching and causing bloodshed and fear upon others. But what she never had imagined was being placed by Steven's side once more. It was a way for him to be 'tortured' to bring back Rose's form. During which she saw a beastly side of him she never could see before. It was a glorious site.

One she needed to see once more.

With one final gash to the human's side she pulled back with what appeared to be heavy breathing. Seeing that she went a bit to overboard and attacked  so much that the spine was shown and the subject was dead. Shaking her head she dropped her weapons and stood up straighter.

Removing the blood from her form as she sang a simple lullaby and wrapped the cloak around her once more. A song she heard Steven compose one evening. One that stuck with her ever since she heard the haunting melody. Waking away from the cell as Jasper waited for her outside with her arms folded and back against the cold wall, like his demeanor. Spinel's voice echoing through the walls.

'Your eyes see but my shadow My heart is overflowing There's so much you could come to know You're content not knowing Tenderly You could see My soul'

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

It was another successful day of the Zooman Rehabilitation project. Pearl decided to make an appearance this time around to help things really become more organized. It seemed a bit odd but intriguing to see Bismuth trying hard not to blush. Connie noticed her emotions instantly and smiled to herself about it.

Once all was said and done, Pearl went to go with Steven for a chat with Blue Diamond on the Diamond line. The others went back to their own duties. Connie placed a hand on Bismuth's shoulder with a smile and a whisper.

"Why don't you go talk to her?" Gesturing to Pearl the rainbow haired gem's blush became bigger and bigger.

"I-I don't-"

"Save it. I know what I saw. Why haven't you said anything to her?"

"It's not that easy Connie." Bismuth sighed before walking to a stack of books to put back on the shelves. "There are many times I could've said what I wanted to say. But I blew it. Now it's too late."

"What do you mean?" Connie asked grabbing a few books from the stack and helping her out.

"Long ago, before Steven was born, I saw Pearl going up to the cliffs above the ocean. Watching as she sat for what seemed like forever. In solitude. I knew she was thinking about Rose and her time spent with Greg. How distant she had become. I knew it broke her heart to have her relationship so apart in that moment." Connie remembered her training with Pearl when she asked about Steven. How she could stay at his side no matter what evil he done. The look of sorrow and rage from within as tears brimmed her eyes. She was still hurting from loosing Rose not just physically, but emotionally.

"What do you mean all the time's you could've said something?"

"Well one evening as the sun was setting, I was walking up the cliffs to talk to her and finally say something. But I heard her scream Spinel's name as the little gem ran right past me. Pearl reached out for her when she saw me walking in her direction. Awkwardly so I continued and sat by her. I asked her what had happened and she told me everything. I saw her holding an item that Rose gave her long ago. She was clutching to it so tightly, I knew I couldn't say what I was feeling. Not then especially."

"She hasn't let go, hasn't she?" Connie stated more like a fact than a question as Bismuth nodded.

"I did the best thing I could do. I just sat with her in silence. At least this way, she would know I'm here for her. That's the best thing I can do. Just be there whenever she needs a friend."

[izaswritings]

all that’s left in the world | chapter eight

Title: all that’s left in the world—

Synopsis: —is me.

Neku’s been shot and Shibuya is threatening to go the same way as Shinjuku, but just because the first Game is over doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten how to play.

Or: Neku deals with a nightmare city and his most annoying (and mathematical) partner yet; Shiki and Joshua commit an escalating number of illegal moves, Beat and Eri hunt down a stray Reaper, and Rhyme watches and waits for the counter-attack. Shibuya refuses to go down easy.

Fandom: The World Ends With You | TWEWY

Warnings: cursing, referenced current character death via Reaper’s Game, references to past character death, friend drama, and self-worth/self-esteem issues. If there’s anything in the chapter you feel I missed, let me know and I’ll add it on here!

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AO3 Link is here!

Previous chapters are here!

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part eight: eri

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Eri and Beat’s first day of casing Shinjuku—what’s left of Shinjuku—goes poorly.

They arrive late, and search until the sun starts going down and turns all the buildings into gothic, spooky silhouettes, and if Beat had his way, would probably have continued searching after dark if Eri had not loudly and firmly put her foot down. (No matter what Beat says later, it was not because the moment the lights went out, Eri had gone stiff and pale and jumpy at the slightest noises. It was not. Eri doesn’t believe in ghosts, not even in the apocalypse, and she is, most certainly, not afraid of the dark. So there.)

Night falls fast and quick, and in the end, they find an empty shell of a café stand and settle down for the night. When the talking finally dies down, and Beat gone to sleep, Eri lays there in the dark for a long time, feeling young and stupid and missing her bed, because it’s the petty things that keep her mind from the frightening things—how hollow Shinjuku has become, how cold, how Shiki hasn’t answered any of her texts at all… how none of Eri’s texts have reached her.

Here are the cold hard facts: Eri has no idea what’s going on.

Beat had tried to explain—Reapers and Games and UGs and whatever—but she suspects he doesn’t really understand it fully himself, and no wonder. There’s so much Eri feels like her head is going to explode, this rising scream in her ears like an instrument out of tune, and if she focuses on it too long she thinks she might cry. That first night, she curls up with her Mom’s old brass knuckles clenched tight in one fist, and doesn’t sleep well at all. In the dark nightmare city, her dreams have turned faint and blurry, almost feverish, a distorted echo of her room and her father opening the door, his face fallen in grief, saying, “Eri, honey, I’m so sorry... Shiki is...”

When the sun finally rises—or at least, when the ash gray sky gets a little lighter— Eri wakes up with her eyes dry and aching, and Beat leaning down over her with a frown. “You okay?” he says, when he sees she’s awake. “You were making noise.”

Outside the café stand, the sky is pale gray and dim; the light barely reaches inside at all. Her mouth feels cottony and her throat tight; dust drifts in the air like snow. Even Beat, brash and bold and bright like a really annoying flare, seems faded here—his pale hair near colorless, his clothes greyed and the colors turned weak and subdued.

Eri sits up, and scoots away. She doesn’t dislike Beat, mostly; doesn’t really know him, besides the fact he’s part of that weird group of friends Shiki picked up from nowhere and then couldn’t be separated from. “Fine,” she says.

She’s not. There’s dust in her hair and smearing all across her pretty green skirt—the one Shiki stitched her—and the night has left a crick in her neck, her side, the back of her leg. Eri stretches out her leg and takes a breath. “Fine,” she says again, stronger now. “Day two?”

Beat doesn’t look like he believes her, but he leans back, and that’s good enough for Eri. “Yeah,” he says. Hesitant, maybe, and looking like he wants to ask, but in the end, he just shakes his head. “Day two, yo. Ready to go?”

“In a minute.”

“Alright.”

She watches him wander off to repack their stuff and check the surroundings, or some other survival shit she should probably be thinking of, and exhales shakily. Day two. Ugh. She’ll say this for the nightmare-land Shinjuku: if nothing else, it’s convinced her that whatever’s going on, it’s very, very real. Bizarre monsters aside.

Eri works on getting up, stretching out her arm, and tries not to shiver at the memory. Noise, Beat had called them, and Eri still isn’t sure if that’s meant to be ironic or something, because frankly those things hadn’t made a sound. She hasn’t quite mustered the nerve to ask. Those monsters were just…

They would have been beautiful, Eri thinks, in any other circumstance. Those swirling designs and colors, the bold strokes. Even their resemblance to animals… but maybe it’s the resemblance that makes them so unnerving. Their limbs too long, proportions all off, eyes blank and fuzzy like the white static on broken TVs. God. It still makes her shake to think about.

The fact Beat has fought them before—that Shiki has probably fought them before—doesn’t help matters at all. What happened that month, when Shiki was ignoring her? How could Eri have missed this? Her best friend was fighting for her life while Eri… what, sat and moped at home?

It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t fit. She knows they had that fight, but… surely Shiki must have known Eri would have come to her side in a heartbeat, right? Even if their phones didn’t work or whatever, couldn’t she just have told Eri straight? Shiki must have known Eri would help, right? …Right?

(Her fingers curl tight over the brass knuckles. In her head, her dad’s voice echoes. Eri, honey… Shiki is—)

Eri hates this city. Shinjuku: officially on her shit list! Forget the creepy apocalypse aesthetic, ignore the blood-red clouded sky and the cloying taste of ash. Damn the broken rubble and everything. Eri could handle all of it, but these stupid Games and stupid monsters, and all the questions they bring with them… yeah, no. That, Eri can’t forgive.

And the silence—god! The silence. It hadn’t bothered her too much at first, but the longer this ordeal goes on the more it itches at her. The Noise, too… their bright colors all dull and ashy like everything else in this ghost town, and as Eri had watched them stalk the streets, the lack of—anything—click of claws or snarling or even static—had made something knot in her throat. This place. Just, this place.

Café-man should have sent Mom here instead of me. Her mom would laugh and laugh if she knew Eri was getting freaked out by the quiet; deafness, an automatic defense mechanism against the apocalypse. This place and its creepy silence would barely phase her, though the sheer destruction would probably still make Mom look twice.

Ugh, and now Eri’s thinking about her parents, and missing them, and missing home all over again. Stupid brain. Mom isn’t here, and even if that absence of her—of anyone— aches more than even the silence, Eri just has to deal.

She finishes stretching out her arm and moves on to rolling her shoulder. Ow. Café stand floors are so not comfortable resting places. Which, speaking of…

“I can’t believe I slept on the floor,” Eri mutters to herself, rubbing at her neck. Shiki owes her for this. Shiki owes her… a reply and a call back, maybe. It’s not her phone, Eri’s pretty sure—she’d called her parents last night, said she was staying at a friend’s place, and learned in the ensuing conversation that according to the rest of the world, Shinjuku had never existed in the first place. What are you talking about, Eri? Ha, ha, ha.

This is so not how Eri wanted to spend her summer.

She takes a moment to cover her eyes and breathe, and then she rises to her feet and smacks the dust off her skirt. That’s probably as good as she’s going to get. It’s time to face the day.

Beat is waiting by the entrance, rubbing absently at his wrist. Eri comes up beside him. He eyes her. “You ready?”

She shrugs, and fusses a little with the bangle on her arm. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

He frowns at her, a little. Eri stares coolly back.

“If you say so,” Beat says finally, and hands her a protein bar before heading out the door.

Eri takes the bar with a grimace, and follows after him. As they walk, she peels the bar open, chewing it glumly. Second worst thing about this endeavor. She’d been so shaken by, like, everything... she’d forgotten to prepare. No supplies, no food… no water.

Or so she’d thought, anyway. She’s still not sure what to make of the backpack of supplies they found when they stopped to rest, or of the way Beat lit up and went “Thanks, Coffee Man!” but like. After yesterday? It’s fine. It’s whatever.

She checks her phone—no messages getting through to Shiki, okay, okay—and then crumples the wrapper in her hand. Go time. Maybe she isn’t the fondest of Beat (or Rhyme, or Neku, but—) but, Eri can do this. She can. For Shiki, if nothing else. Eri’s feelings on the matter don’t mean shit in the face of yesterday: the way Shiki had gone dead white, the way her eyes had gone lifeless and blank and far-seeing at that phone call. The way she’d stared right through Eri— right through her, like she wasn’t there. Like nothing was there. Like for a moment, for Shiki, the whole world stopped turning.

And yeah, thank god, it hadn’t lasted long. Shiki had hung up the phone and gone scary intense instead, before running off to do—whatever it was she was planning. But Eri... Eri doesn’t think she’ll forget that look anytime soon.

And that matters too. Eri isn’t the fondest of Neku, but she’s never wanted him dead, and—and if that’s what Shiki looks like when Neku is gone, if that’s what taking Neku away does to Shiki... then yeah. Eri’s here. She’ll play this weird fucking murder game for dead kids and she’ll help skater-boy track down the cutesy girl with the gun and Eri is going to do whatever she can. Whatever it takes. Whatever’s needed to make sure Shiki never has to make that face again.

It just. Galls, a little. A tiny bit. Neku. Beat, Rhyme, etcetera. Why them? Eri knew Shiki longest. Eri has known Shiki for like, ever. Where did these people even come from? And why—why are they so—?

It’s not jealousy! Eri tells herself, now out on the streets proper and squinting up into the glaring white foggy day. Eri isn’t jealous. She’s not. It’s just weird, is all. It’s just— it’s always been just her and Shiki, before. She’s not sure where these strangers fit into that. She’s not sure why they have to.

She kicks a rock, somewhat vindictive. It bounces away very pitifully. Eri tilts back her head and sighs. Ow, daylight. Burning her cornea. Another thing she forgot: sunglasses.

She can’t see the sun, but this dead Shinjuku is bright anyway; it’s like it is reflecting the light tenfold. Makes sense, in a way. Empty buildings and blank screens—what else is it supposed to do if not reflect? It’s not like it’s got any image of its own to show.

Eri kicks another rock. It doesn’t even make a sound. God, this place is so creepy.

“Hey, uh...”

She resists the urge to sigh at him; her fingers clench. “What?”

Beat is walking with her, now, fallen back to match her pace. He rubs at his shoulder like he’s trying to press out an ache, and squints at her like she’s the sun. “You, uh... you sure you okay? ‘Cause like—”

“I already said I was fine.”

“I mean, yeah, but—”

“Look,” she says, losing her patience. “I’m in a nightmare city in a nightmare place looking for fucking Neku Sakuraba and we’ve been here for hours and nothing’s happened and so far I think I’ve been holding together pretty damn well, so could we just—” She throws up her hands. “Can we not!”

She pauses, breathing hard. Beat looks away first. “Whatever, yo,” he says, a little stiff, and takes off down the street. “I won’t ask again, alright, I got it.”

There’s a brief flare of shame—he hasn’t even done anything, and here she is, yelling at him like he’s the cause for everything—but Eri is tired, and she’s just woken up, and she’s thinking of Shiki now, Shiki with Beat and Neku and Rhyme, the way Shiki smiled. And suddenly she doesn’t feel sorry at all. “Good.”

He shakes his head but doesn’t say a word, just checks in another building. Turns away, and heads to the next one. Conversation apparently over. Well, that’s just fine with Eri.

Beat heads over to another ruin, though, and Eri lingers back, hand on her hip, starting to frown. He’d done this last night, too, before it got dark; Eri makes an incredulous noise. “Are we really checking every single building for this Reaper girl?” He’s not even checking them properly—one glance through the windows and gone.

Beat’s expression sours a little. “Yeah? So? Man, why aren’t you lookin’?”

“I don’t think we’re going to find her like that,” Eri informs him. “I mean—isn’t she—that’s too easy.”

“You got a better idea?” he says, but it seems rhetorical, because barely a second later he shakes his head hard, fists clenched and says, “Bah, figures,” which makes no sense at all, and then he makes a sharp, angry noise in the back of his throat, puts down his skateboard, and starts rolling away.

“I—you—what?” Eri stares after him. He gets further away. What the fuck? “Seriously!? Where are you going!”

He ignores her. “This is taking too long, yo!” He puts down his foot and stops with a jolt, and shakes his fist at the bleeding morning sky. “OI! Reaper girl! Coco! Get the fuck out here, man!”

Holy shit. He’s—he really just did that, Eri realizes. He left in the middle of her talking. He’s speeding away on his damn skateboard and yelling for the murderous Reaper with a gun while she—

Ugh.

What does Shiki see in these people?

“What are you doing? Stop that!” Eri cries, ineffectually, and jogs after him. He’s stopped, thank goodness—staring up at the sky with a scowl, hands curled to frustrated fists. His lip is getting worried through his teeth. His foot is tapping. “Oh my god. What were you thinking? What if she—and you—do you ever slow down?”

He blinks at the clouds and then turns and blinks down at her. “Nope,” he says, though he sounds a bit sheepish about it. His shoulders slump a bit. ��Sorry. Didn’t mean to leave in the middle of the convo, just… ah, it’s just getting to me. Phones used to— anyway, sorry about that. I just thought...” He trails off. He stares with a furrowed brow over the city, and makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Man. You really don’t like Phones, do you?”

Eri has to mentally rewind their conversation for a few minutes until she gets it, and then she flushes a dull red. In a nightmare city in a nightmare place looking for fucking Neku Sakuraba… possibly, maybe, a bit obvious. Whoops. “I— look, I’m just frustrated. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Beat only shrugs. “Alright. If you say so. Rhyme always says I jump to conclusions…” He trails off again, and then shakes his head. “Well, anyway.” He takes a deep breath. “OI, COCO—”

Eri muffles a scream behind her teeth and lunges at him, dragging him back. Beat yelps. “Come on! You’re just drawing the attention of all those monsters to us! There’s obviously no way that’s actually going to w—”

Their phones ding at the same time. Eri chokes.

There’s a long moment of stiff silence. Beat reaches for his phone first.

“Don’t—”

He’s already opened it. Eri covers her face.

“…Damn,” Beat says, finally. The anger has fled from him; he sounds tired now, worn and a little frustrated. He presses a hand over his eyes. “She’s just messing with us.”

Eri warily reaches for her own phone—first café guy, and now this murderous Reaper, how do these people keep getting Eri’s number—and flips it open.

Her hand tightens at once. This is… what even is this? Eri has a set font for her phone, meticulously installed settings and everything, and somehow this text message has defied all of them. Coco has mangled the look of the kanji something awful; Eri wants to strangle her partly for the poor aesthetics and partly in revenge for her eyes.

Next to her, Beat shakes his head. “Argh, this doesn’t make any sense to me, yo. Hey, can you read this shit?”

Eri doesn’t grit her teeth, but it’s a near thing. Damn, she knew he’d ask. She flits her gaze back to the text message—big and ballooned and pink-lettering like the writer was trying to be cute, with so many hearts it makes the designer in Eri wrinkle her nose and sniff, tacky. Plus, she thinks—is that short-hand? Oh, fuck.

If she’d had better sleep, if she wasn’t exhausted, if there wasn’t a headache pounding behind her eyes, then maybe Eri would have some success parsing through it. As it is, she flips her phone shut. “No,” she says stiffly, but when Beat just nods and sighs and turns away, she relaxes a little. “Can you?”

He mutters. “Game… welcome… I think she’s asking us to play? Definitely from that damn Reaper girl, though.” He scowls, and flashes the signature at her; COCO, written out in English with a big and scrawling font.

Eri looks back to her phone with a clench to her gut.

Beat groans and snaps the phone shut. “Whatever, yo. Who cares what shit she has to say. Probably just a stupid game. Reapers love that stuff.”

Eri bites her lip and opens her phone again. No. Language still not computing. Still... “If it’s from the girl we’re tracking down, there might be a clue. Shouldn’t we—”

“Nah, it’s cool.” She frowns at him, but Beat grins back, wide and a little brash, and punches his fist into his palm. “Look, trust me on this one. I’ve got this, yo! They want a game, I’m not gonna play. Works every time.”

That doesn’t seem quite right to Eri. “Um.”

His smile falters a little. He rubs the back of his neck. “...Look, I—I, um, I’m not the smartest, I don’t get things sometimes, I get that, but— I dunno, it’s worked before, alright? People like Miss Chiff, you know, they want... they need people to play. And when I was in the Game...”

He makes a noise, waves his hand, as if trying to find the words. “I mean, they erase you if you don’t do the missions, sure, but shit like this is different, yo! When you don’t play, turns out they end up coming right to you. Get them mad, and then hit ‘em when they’re distracted, and bam! Reaper down!”

There’s a pause. Beat trails off at Eri’s stare, turning red, and looks away. “It, uh, worked for me and Phones, so I... never mind, you’re probably right, it’s stupid. Let’s—”

“Erase you?” Eri echoes, hollow, and Beat stops mid-word and blinks at her. “What do you mean, they erase you?”

Beat blanches. “Uh.”

Eri’s mind is whirling. “Do you mean—if you fail a mission, they kill you?” But then… “No. No, that doesn’t make sense, then why would it be erasure? That’s just murder.”

“Well, yeah, it is,” Beat says, looking uncertain. “But we were kind of already—”

He stops. Eri stops. Beat’s eyes go wide. “Oh,” he says, and then he starts waving his hands, laughing loudly and nervously. “Never mind, yo, t-that’s not—anyway, what about this weird-ass text, right—”

Eri isn’t listening anymore. “Already,” she says. Neku, shot dead by the murderous Reaper—he’s in the Reapers’ Game, a contest to come back to life, isn’t that what that weird café guy had said? And on second thought, with what she knows now: isn’t that odd? Isn’t that strange? Doesn’t that mean…

“Already,” she says again, and her breathing picks up. Oh no. Oh no. “But then—if that means—you have to be dead to get into the Game? But you were in the Game. I don’t understand. If Neku is—and you—but then, that means—”

The dream comes back to her. Eri claps a hand over her mouth. She falls to her knees.

“Woah, woah, woah, I— Eri— yo, you okay!?”

She should have realized this sooner, Eri thinks. She should have connected the dots as soon as Beat explained the Game to her, as soon as he’d said he was a Player too. That awful echo of a dream. All those questions about where and how and when Shiki met Neku, met Beat, met Rhyme.

“Shiki died?” she asks, and her voice is very small.

“Oh, shit,” Beat says, and kneels next to her, hands fluttering over her shoulders like he doesn’t know what to do. Eri has the same goddamn tick. Somehow that hits her hardest of all; she starts hiccupping. The alarm on Beat’s face deepens to panic. “Oh man, no, I— she’s not! Anymore! We got out, yo, we all came back. Good as new!”

And now, at last, she has a better idea of why they all called it the Game. She thinks she might be sick. She wipes at her eyes. “Y-you won?”

“Well, that’s... y-yeah.” Beat looks away. Then he looks back at her. “Shiki’s alright. And she’s strong. Whatever she’s doing now, she’s probably kicking ass. Maybe even beating us to Phones, or the Reaper girl.” His smile is weak and false, but it stretches wide on his face. “I don’t— I don’t know much. Sorry. But she’s okay, yo, I can feel it. And when this is done you can go and yell at her all you like.” He awkwardly claps her shoulder. Eri presses her hands against her eyes, the sudden crying fit fading as quickly as it started. “You... uh...”

She exhales, slowly. Her head pounds. “F-fine. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” She brushes his hand away—kinder, this time—and rises unsteadily to her feet. Games and Reapers and Shiki dying. She supposes she understands why Shiki went so blank in the eyes, before. It feels a little like getting hollowed. “Let’s... let’s talk about something else.”

“Uh... well, okay, but—”

“Plan,” Eri tells herself, and rubs at her cheeks. Ugh, makeup smeared everywhere. She rubs at it harder. It’s already faded from the night—and who cares how put together she looks right now? It’s the damn apocalypse, or something. “You said you had a plan?”

“Well... nah, never mind it, it was kind of stupid—”

But Eri remembers it now, and she rubs at her face one last time and takes a deep breath, thinking. “Don’t play their games. Anger her into coming to us.” She exhales carefully, and swallows down the last stray sob in her throat. “That... that could work.”

Beat brightens at once. “Yo, you think so?”

“…Yeah.” Her breathing is settling. She blinks and shakes her head and straightens. “Y-yeah. If we—I mean, this message... she responded to you. She’s paying attention. She’s trying to make us do something. and if we don’t do it...” If they just ignore it entirely, or do something so out of bounds ridiculous... this is a girl who was willing to kill someone for this, whatever her goals are, right? So she’s taking this seriously. She’s got plans.

The more she thinks about it, the more it clicks. Because really, Eri thinks. What better way to draw the mastermind to you, than to treat the mastermind in question as irrelevant? She’s pretty sure she saw it work in a movie once, or something.

And hey, even if it doesn’t work... at least they tried. One option down.

She feels a little more settled now. She tugs at her skirt hem and gives Beat a weak smile. “Hey, works for me.”

“Really? Aw, hell yeah!” He punches the air. His face tightens, a brief flash of pain, but Eri blinks and a second later its gone. Beat shakes his head and laughs it off. “Man, I was worried for a second there. I know you don’t like me, so I thought that you’d—”

“—What?”

“—shut me... what?”

“It’s not... I don’t... I don’t dislike you,” Eri says, and feels it burn in her cheeks like heat.

He frowns at her. “I don’t mind it,” he says, slowly. “But you think we don’t see the looks you give us? Me and Phones?” He rubs at his hat. “Now if it was at Rhyme, that’s nuts, but it’s whatever, I guess. Can’t like everybody. We’re cool, man.”

Some part of Eri is horrified. “You—” They noticed? Oh god. Had Shiki noticed? Oh no. “I don’t hate you,” she says, and she means it, but she’s bright red anyway. Ughhh. “And I—I wouldn’t shut you down even if I did. I wouldn’t. You have some pretty good ideas sometimes.”

Beat looks back at her with raised eyebrows like she’s said something silly and it actually hurts, a little, to see that. “You do. I mean it. Maybe you don’t think things through, and maybe you rush ahead a lot, but that’s—that’s not—” She doesn’t have the words for this, the language, and she bites her tongue hard and shakes her head. “I actually kind of— can I tell you something?”

He blinks at her. “Uh… ‘course.”

“Thanks.” Eri takes a deep breath. “I want, more than anything—I’ve always wanted to be a designer.”

He nods. “Like Shiki!”

“Yeah.” The reminder of Shiki warms her. She imagines Shiki’s smile, her quiet encouragement, the way she took scribbles and half-hearted dreams and turned them into something real, something Eri could hold in her hands and look at and really, really see. I can do this. With you, I can do anything.

She wonders if Shiki will ever know just how much that moment meant to Eri. Maybe not.

“Yeah,” Eri says, more decided now. The things Shiki gave to Eri… maybe she can pay it forward. Give it to Beat, too. “But some people—I mean—trends are fickle. So is design. And, and I’ve had people tell me… that I’m an airhead, I’m vapid and s-self-centered and fake because I like clothes and I like how they make me look and wanting to make clothes isn’t—isn’t—well. You know.” She makes her voice high and mocking. “It’s a bad idea.”

Beat is staring at her. “What, seriously? Why? Look, trends don’t make much sense to me, but staying on top of them—making shit that a whole lotta people wanna wear—” He shakes his head. “That’s amazing, yo!”

“I know,” Eri says, and smiles a little. “I… um, confession time, I guess? But I’m not too good at math. And… I— I have a lot of trouble reading. Um, anything. It’s just brain stuff.” He’s watching her, intently, and her eyes drop and skitter across the ground. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I get it. Not… getting things. If that makes sense. But that doesn’t make me—doesn’t make you—we’re not—” She struggles for the words. “I’m never going to just… Argh!”

“Nah, it’s okay.”

“It’s not, I—”

“I hear you,” Beat says, a little quieter, and Eri shuts up and looks at him fully now, scanning his face, trying to make sure he means it. He grins at her. “Rhyme says it too, and they’re plenty smart; if both of you are telling me, I guess there’s gotta be some truth to it, huh?”

“Guess so,” Eri echoes. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t just shut you down. I’ve been listening. I promise.” She hopes so.

Beat shakes his head. “Yeah, I know. Sorry, yo. I didn’t mean it like that. I know you wouldn’t… just, I don’t really have something I’m good at. Not like you and Shiki, or even Phones. And Rhyme, man, you should see them go, they’re good at everything. But me…”

He pauses. “I haven’t found… what clicks for me, yo.” Beat stares at the ground. “Never did, even before this whole mess. Guess I’m just a little nervous I won’t ever find it.”

“Well, I can tell you one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Listening,” Eri says, awkward, and shuffles on her feet, thinking back to last night. “Really… really hearing people. I think you understand what’s important, Beat.” She offers him a weak smile. “I’m sorry for earlier. I’m not mad at you, I didn’t mean— it’s not you. You’re fine. I just, I don’t know. Shiki cares a lot about you guys. And you always make her... she always smiles so much.” The way she trusts Neku. The way Beat will say one thing and Shiki’s eyes will light up, bright with fondness. The way the very sight of Rhyme is enough to make Shiki smile. “I wish I could do that too.”

“Understandin’ what’s important, huh?” He rubs the back of his head, looking almost bashful. “Y-you think so?”

There is a memory in the back of Eri’s mind—faint, distant, watery as a dream. You aren’t meant to be a designer and the way Shiki’s face had fallen flat, like Eri had stabbed her instead. If Eri could have listened better, maybe she would have seen it earlier. Maybe she could have understood why it hurt Shiki to hear that. And maybe, just maybe, she could have known what Shiki needed to hear instead.

“Yes,” Eri says. “I absolutely do.”

Beat smiles at her, bright and beaming. Eri looks back at him, quieter now, and for a moment she tries to see him fully. Tries to see what Shiki must see in him. He’s a kind listener. He’s brash and bold and loud. He’s got a good heart, even if he fumbles with it.

Maybe she’s got this all wrong. Maybe she really hasn’t been listening, or seeing him, the way she should. Maybe Eri can do better, be better, and take a chance to know this person who has found his way into Shiki’s life so perfectly, and see how maybe he can start fitting into hers too.

Maybe, she thinks. Maybe.

But for now, she loops her arm with Beat’s like she does with her friends, and offers him a more genuine smile. “Let’s give that Reaper girl hell,” she says, and when Beat throws back his head and whoops in agreement, fist raised, Eri taps his fist back with a grin stretching ear to ear.

And just maybe, she thinks—maybe she can do this after all.

[artificialqueens]

And Now, We Wait (Branjie) - SnowBun

A/N: This took two weeks, at least ten cups of coffee, a visit to my best friend I haven’t seen in three years that lives eight hours away, and a fantastic beta (thank you and bless your soul pink-grapefruit-cafe) to write. Sorry to keep everyone waiting for this one since I announced I was writing this WEEKS ago, but it took a lot of planning and visualizing. I hope I do your Branjie dreams justice. If you have anything to message me or want me to write stuff, message me on holymolypestoaioli!! Xoxo

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Break-ups aren’t supposed to be this amicable. Not that he would know. To be honest, he’s really just guessing at this point.

The words and the bright white smile plastered on Jose’s face makes him think it’s not so bad, but then he sees the pain in his eyes. It isn’t like a knife that he plunged straight into his chest. No, it’s more like a flesh-eating disease.

He isn’t sure which one of them starts crying, but he knows he’s the first one to start laughing. His soft chuckle blends with his cackle, a cacophony of sound that paints the taupe hotel walls with miserable irony.

The smile on Jose’s face fades away with the laughter, and he thinks he’s never seen anything more heartbreaking before in his life. It’s all that is good and beautiful in the world, and he’s tearing it apart with his bare hands.

He opens up his arms, and when the shorter man melts into him, he realizes how unfair life is. The tears soaking through his grey t-shirt don’t belong there. The pained, heaving breaths don’t belong there. The only thing that belongs are the arms wrapped around his waist, tight like a corset.

Don’t leave.

He means for the thought to pass, but it lingers in his brain a little too long, just enough to make him wonder if this is the right thing to do. It’s just enough to make him wonder if this is what freedom should feel like.

There’s a final sob and shake to the fragile body with its skin like papers slipped under hotel room doors. He pushes away the thought, stores it in a filing cabinet that he might look at one day.

Jose pulls away from him, and he searches for the disease that dulls the glimmer in the brown eyes he’d started to call home. He hides them well enough for him to let any thoughts of taking it all back fade away.

He places a kiss on his forehead. There are words there, just floating around in the air, but he doesn’t say them. He leaves them there for Jose to find in the morning.

He loves him, he’s sure. He wouldn’t leave him if he didn’t.

December is easy enough to get through.

The number of whispers that she’s on season 11 are proportional to the gigs that she’s offered, and the ache in her chest decreases exponentially. Reducing everything down to simple mathematics makes the time pass by faster.

She’s finishing up a gig in Texas when she meets a man whose skin turns purple under the lights of the bar. When she pushes him against a wall outside the club and smears her lipstick on his mouth, she remembers that his name is Charlie.

The hook-up in her hotel room is so fast that she doesn’t even take off her make-up. She crashes onto the bed, sated and spent, and turns over to watch Charlie throw his legs off the edge. He laces up his shoes and takes a bottle of water out of the fridge.

All of a sudden, she feels too naked. She covers her lower half with the sheets, but she knows that it has nothing to do with skin.

She looks out the wide windows overlooking the city and wonders what the city below sounds like. Does it sound like stumbling out of clubs in Chicago, drunk on kisses and tequila? Does it sound like blaring car horns in New York when the cab can’t get her to a gig fast enough to calm a petite queen’s nerves?

“Hey.”

Charlie’s voice breaks her out of her reverie. As she watches him scribble something on the notepad on the desk, she realizes that he’s really not her type. He’s too tall and clean cut. Not to mention his ass is flat.

She feels nothing when he kisses her goodbye.

The walk from the bed to the desk feels nothing short of mechanical. She takes a seat and looks in the mirror she’s left there. The lack of a wig and the sullied /;/makeup only vaguely remind her of Brooke Lynn. It seems about right because she isn’t sure if she feels like herself anymore.

One wipe after another erases any trace of Charlie from her lips. She watches herself scrub at them, but she doesn’t stop when it starts to sting.

She looks at the notepad and sees that he’s left his number behind. She rips off the piece of paper, balls it up, and throws it in the bin along with the string of numbers she’d encrypted in her head five months ago.

When all the makeup is gone, he goes to the bathroom and lets the shower run for a minute. He thinks he needs a cigarette. Or maybe two. Maybe a pack if he’s really being honest with himself.

He allows the scalding hot water to turn his skin red. The colour doesn’t make him think of flushed chests with cat tattoos after too many shots. He swears it doesn’t.

It’s the last Saturday of 2018 when she decides to call her.

“Hey!”

Her voice is bright, like LA sunshine streaming in through windows over pancakes for breakfast. She tastes the ghost of the sweetness of real maple syrup, none of that weird synthetic stuff, on her tongue when they fall into bed together.

“Hi.”

The word comes out as a shaky, tired sigh. She doesn’t realize how exhausted she is until she hears it. The past month has been nothing but work, and if she’s doing it to distract herself from how lonely she feels, she let it happen anyway.

“How you doing?”

I just smoked a pack of cigarettes because I wanted to breathe in air that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you.

“I’m doing good. You?”

“I got a gig here in Sacramento tonight.”

It’s 2000 miles too far away. She wants to see her, to just look at her to remind herself that she’s real, that those four months of happiness weren’t just a dream that she conjured up to keep herself sane.

As if on cue, she hears someone remind Vanjie that she has half an hour to get ready. She chuckles when she hears her reply with the requisite, “Yeah, yeah, I got it, bitch.” She misses it more than she wants to admit.

“Keep me company while I get ready?”

“Sure.”

She stays quiet, thinks of how she probably looks doing her makeup. The way she scrunches up her nose when she puts on the translucent powder, the way she squints her eyes when doing all the little details, the way she smiles when she thinks the contour is just right.

In contrast to the now blurred lines of her overdrawn lips after a night of performing and making out with trade, she thinks she must look perfect.

“Sooooo,” She drags the word out like a cigarette. “People suspect you’re coming back?”

“Bitch, I don’t gotta say a damn thing, all them hoes already know.”

She shrugs, feels the latex stuck to her shoulders as it shifts against her skin. “Well, no one deserved to come back more than you.”

“Awww, thanks B. Now, don’t make me cry or Imma head over there and whoop your ass.”

The banter is nice, normal, routine. It isn’t the game of pretend she was expecting. It’s friendship, and it’s a good one. She realizes it isn’t so bad after all.

“Shit.” She hears something fall. “Sorry, dropped my palette.”

“Damn, is it okay?”

“Broke an eyeshadow.” There’s a groan and she holds back a bemused laugh. “No worries, you’re going to get me a new one with that Anastasia money anyway.”

“You don’t even know if I’m going to win.”

“Ha!” She says it so loudly that she’s scared that she’ll lose hearing in her right ear. “You kidding me? I know you gonna win.”

She raises a sculpted eyebrow; ignores that she can’t see it on the other end. “What about the Dreamgirls, then?”

“Bitch, those hoes ain’t gonna give me shit if they win.”

The banter goes on, and if either of them remembers that the last time they spoke was when they woke up from drug-induced comas after being addicted to each other, they don’t mention it.

“You’re the only pussy I’ve ever fucked.”

She almost spits out her drink on the vanity. When she’d invited him to come to one of her gigs in LA, she wasn’t expecting him to be so distracting; but she doesn’t complain. He’s welcome to annoy her anytime, if she’s honest.

She spins around, throws a glare at the tiny Puerto Rican man cackling like his jaw has unhinged. His whole body laughs with him, his legs and arms flailing.

The laughter dies down into small chuckles, and she turns back to the mirror. She doesn’t remember putting that much blush onto her cheeks earlier.

The noise coming from the bar outside creeps its way into the dressing room, their safe haven. She wants everyone to shut up, wants everyone to respect how comfortable she is as she sinks into the blend of laughter and silence.

She’s called him every single day over the past two weeks, almost at the exact same time. She wants to be his friend, wants to be everything that she can to him without the commitment she knows she can’t afford. If it’s anything more than a desire for companionship, she overlooks it.

When she hears him humming along to American Boy, she stops begging for the music outside to stop.

She stares at herself in the mirror, all perfect lines and blended edges. She isn’t the best at painting her face, but as she watches the way her cheekbones shine under the fluorescent lights, she convinces herself that she’s damn good at it at the very least.

The material of her literal catsuit feels like a second skin. She looks at him through the mirror, watches as he scrolls through his phone and unconsciously bites his lip, and ignores how much she wants him to peel the layers away.

“Hey,” She turns to him, two lipsticks in her hands. “What color should I do?”

He taps a finger against his chin, and her eyes drift to the lips he’s puckered like he’s sucking on a Sour Patch kid. She’s mesmerized by the way his eyebrows furrow, the way his eyes narrow, the way he can’t stop making him look anywhere but fuck, stop it.

“The red one.”

Of course, he picks the red one. It’s his colour, and she knows it. He owns it, owns the ruby running through her veins, owns the plush velvet her feet rest on in her favourite hotel room, owns the sangria that goes straight to her head on Sundays with friends.

“Thanks.”

She draws his name, his body, his soul onto her lips. She sketches the sharp, precise lines, observes the way they turn into pleas stuck in the back of her throat because she’s too scared to be anything other than free.

“Good?”

He shoots her a smile and a thumbs up, and she wonders why she was expecting more.

There are three different moments where he thinks about refusing Jose’s offer.

The first is in the dressing room, when she takes off her mask and watches in the mirror as the one underneath smiles. He asks her if she wants to keep drinking at his place, laughingly says that it’s drinks and nothing more.

The second is when they’re walking, and all he can feel is the heat of LA, even in January. He sees the orange light of a streetlamp highlight the twinkle of Jose’s eyes in the absence of stars in the sky. He can’t really say no to that.

The third is when they’re at his front door, and Jose’s trying to dig his keys out of his pocket. “Shit, fuck, bitch,” He says under his breath, and he thinks he looks quite cute when he’s all frustrated.

He steps into the living room, and it hits him that everything is the same. Everything from the picture of Jose and his mom on the coffee table to the crease in the couch that he falls into when he gets home from the airport is the same.

By 3 AM, he has his long legs folded up onto the couch and his head set on Jose’s lap. There’s a hand playing at his curls, the colour of sunlight at noon. They listen to the sound of cars and steady breaths. It’s cosy, like sitting in front of fireplaces during winters in Canada.

“Remember those cream puffs we got that one time?”

“Mhmm.”

“Shit, I miss ‘em.”

He chuckles. He can still feel the alcohol coursing through him, even if it’s been half an hour since they’d last taken a shot of tequila that someone gave Jose for his birthday.

“You scared of anything?”

“What?”

“Anything.”

He thinks about his fear of showing too much emotion, his fear of failure, his fear of hurting people that fill the void that sucks everything up. They flash through his mind like a scrapbook, reminding him of all the things he pretends to not be afraid of.

“Spiders.”

“What the fuck?” He wonders briefly if the neighbours ever wake up in the middle of the night to that voice. “I was not expecting that.”

He laughs, and one of his curls is twirled around a finger. It’s intimate, but not romantic. It’s what they both need in a world as cold and cruel as the one they’ve signed up for. Not enough feels better than nothing.

“I have a flight at 10.”

There’s a groan, and an arm is thrown over his body before he can even make an attempt to get up. “Just leave your long log body here, we don’t gotta move.”

He looks up, sees the head thrown onto the back of the couch, and knows that the decision really isn’t his to make.

When Promo week rolls around, she suddenly feels the weight of thousands of eyes on her. They’re so heavy that she thinks that they might not even allow her to board the plane to LA.

They go to shoots and interviews, some of which she doesn’t even try to feign interest in. Her ears burn at the sound of questions repeated by different people who will never get to know who she is by asking her what filming was like.

The only thing that makes it better is drinking in Nina’s room at the end of the day. She’s sprawled out on the bed, Vanjie sitting on the edge beside her. Somewhere, she can hear Silky’s banshee laughter at one of Nina’s spot-on impressions.

The world stops in the small hotel room, too picturesque to be disturbed by the shitstorm that the rest of the universe is experiencing. As she lets the exhaustion from the first day seep into her skin, she feels the alcohol go straight to her toes.

“I’m going to stop drinking.”

She looks up, sees the eyebrow Vanjie’s raised so high it might just hit her wig line. Her eyes ask the question she can’t quite verbalize in the midst of Silky’s yelling. She shrugs at her, doesn’t bother to answer when there’s no judgment to answer to.

“Hey, you two.”

Their eyes travel to Nina who’s already out of drag and sipping on a drink.

“Did you answer each other?”

“What?”

Brooke’s eyebrows furrow together in puzzlement at the question. She looks to Vanjie, face blank like it always is whenever she doesn’t know the answer, and tries her best not to laugh out loud.

“When they asked you who the trade of the season is.”

“They didn’t ask me that.”

She watches Vanjie fold up her hands in her lap as her eyes fall. Her heart stops in her chest, suddenly petrified that pursuing this line of questioning would be too awkward for them, for this beautiful little thing they’ve built.

“Honey, we all know that I’m the true trade of season 11.”

Silky’s hands are on her hips, and she stares all three of them down. Laughter washes over the room, and the mood becomes infinitely lighter again. Brooke sees her shoot a quick wink at Vanjie when she thinks no one else is looking.

It dawns on her how delicate and fragile this all is. The rapport is perfect, probably the best thing she’s ever had since Steve came into her life. She can’t let it be destroyed by the world beyond the four walls.

She takes a deep breath, feels all her worry deep in her lungs. It slowly consumes her, devours her. She wastes away on Nina’s bed as notes of laughter and shouting harmonize all around her.

A hand starts to pat and stroke her wig, and she resolves to request that no interviews be done with them together.

The first thing she does after the episode airs is do a livestream with her.

They’re both de-dragging, making jokes in front of an audience like the history that they have with each other doesn’t run deeper than a friendship built off of competition. It’s acting, and they’re terrible at it.

She can’t help it that their dynamic is a mix of flirting and caring, the way it always has been. They joke about their comments on each other being trade, ask if they’re doing good, ignore the elephant in the room.

Her heart beats a little too fast each time she spots a comment saying that they look cute together or that they should hook up. She wants to shout, yell, scream at the top of her lungs that they’ve already tried.

It’s only then that she realizes the gravity of the situation she’s gotten herself into, the danger of putting a love that she never expected to have on display for people starved for it. She wants it for herself, can’t even have it for herself.

When the live ends, she picks up a pack of cigarettes and steps out onto the balcony. She looks out over the streets of Seattle, watches the people walking below- wondering what they’re thinking about, making up stories in her head for each one that strikes out to her.

With the first drag, she imagines that the man in the suit is coming home from the office to a wife whose beauty he no longer sees. He doesn’t really look at her anymore, aside from when he guilts himself into not starting an affair.

With the fifth drag, she imagines the girl, no more than 18, go to clubs that she should and shouldn’t be at. She takes shots, lets the fire burn down her throat, and dances with a guy that whispers empty promises.

With the tenth drag, she imagines the child, surprisingly still awake past midnight, arrive at his mother’s house. He asks why his dad can’t be there, asks questions with answers that get stuck along the way, and he’s rocked to sleep as tears fall onto the pillowcase.

Her phone pings. She looks at the message and returns to pretending that her story doesn’t exist. When she blows out the smoke, she asks it to take the parts of her soul she doesn’t want any more with it.

J: i’ll call u 2morrow

The first time he sees the story, a word flashes in his mind like bright red neon lights in the dark of night.

Shit.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. He isn’t supposed to feel so invested, so concerned and so utterly relieved that she’s posted a song, their song on her story. He wants to take a red-eye just to ask what it all means.

Instead, he settles for Facetiming her in the back of the club he’s at. He’s received about ten different texts from Courtney about how she ever so casually and drunkenly mentioned him at her show, but he tries not to think too hard about it.

Which, knowing him, takes up way too much energy that he doesn’t have.

When she picks up, he can’t stop himself from thinking that she looks gorgeous. She is dark colours and skull dresses and everything he forces himself to believe he doesn’t want.

“Hey, you okay?”

She shrugs her shoulders at him, eyes throwing the question right back. Everything around him starts to fade away. Under the bright lights of the club, all he can see is the dejection on her face.

“You want to talk?” He almost has to yell over the music, tries his best to be coherent.

“Look,” She starts, and he knows that this isn’t going to go the way he wants. “I just had a few drinks. You know how I get all set—semti—all up in my feelings and shit.:

He opens his mouth to speak, but she shakes her head. This is not a subject to open up in a club, separated by cities and feelings that they haven’t come to understand quite yet. She tries her best to smile at him, and his heart clenches.

“You promise you’re doing okay?”

“Mary, I’m fine!” Her voice is joking again, no trace of the pain or hurt that he knows that they both still feel. “You don’t gotta worry about me.”

Someone goes in and out of Vanjie’s dressing room, and he’s suddenly conscious that he’s in public. He lowers his phone, tries his best to hide her from everyone else. Not that she’s his, anyway.

“Well, drink some water.” He says, and she laughs at him. “And uhm, can you send me that picture?”

She looks at him questioningly, and he feels like she’s right there, staring him down. Her eyes see straight through him, and he’s so terrified that he wants to hide behind the crowds forming all around him.

“Alright.”

Spending holidays with one of your best friends in the world is supposed to be normal. They’re times to be grateful, to express love. They’re supposed to be days straight out of Hallmark cards that he stuffs in a drawer because who the hell still buys cards?

He doesn’t consider that his best friend is an ex he’s still in love with.

They have brunch with Gia, go to a club with an old friend of theirs, and return to Jose’s apartment at half past eleven. He crashes onto the couch without a thought and doesn’t even think about how much it feels like a home away from home.

“So, you’ve never watched The Office?”

Jose shrugs, and hands him a bowl of chips. “Everyone’s been telling me it’s a show for white people.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not funny.”

He spends the rest of the night with Jose, trains his eyes to shift subtly between the TV and his face. He laughs whenever he does, and he tries to hide his lack of focus by crunching the lime-flavoured chips.

“I got something on my face?”

“Hmm?”

“You keep looking here, bitch.”

He’s supposed to feel even the slightest bit embarrassed that he’s gotten caught, but he can’t bring himself to care. He laughs lightly, and sits up - becomes aware of how he’s close enough that he can feel the heat radiating off of the other man.

“Just making sure you’re here.”

“Nowhere else I wanna be, baby.”

He knows the last word is an accident, a relic from a long time ago, but it isn’t taken back. He turns his head, looks at him with no shame. Jose bites his lip as he stares at the screen, but he can tell that he isn’t really watching anymore.

“Brock?”

“Yeah?”

“You gonna keep me waiting forever or what?”

There’s a laugh, and he’s suddenly lost in Jose’s lips. They taste like lime and tequila, but there’s something else there, something unique and familiar that reminds him of what happiness should feel like.

Before long, they’ve pushed their way into the bedroom, and he’s on his knees. It isn’t the best idea. Shit, he knows it’s a terrible idea to fuck their unspoken problems away, but it feels good; good enough that they don’t stop.

When he falls onto the bed, eyes closed and breathing heavy, he tries to kill any thought of consequences. He chases them as they run around his brain, and throws them out. They bang on the door, try to remind him that they’re there, but he begins to drift.

Jose’s arm drapes over his waist, and he is home.

He wakes up the next morning and untangles himself as quickly as he can so they don’t have to talk about the things he doesn’t know how to say.

The night before the finale is all hushed whispers, an attempt at cutting away the nerves that have turned into vines that wrap around his neck. Jose holds him, goes no further, and tells him that he’s going to be amazing.

They film the reunion a few days letter, and she sees the pain in her eyes when they act like she didn’t need her arms around her when she’d accepted that she’d lost. It’s all a game of pretend, and neither of them are winning.

When she finally says that they’re no longer together, she tries to soften the blow by saying that she loves her; but in the fantasy that they’ve built for themselves, she doesn’t know if Vanjie will recognize that that one thing is true.

She starts to wipe tears away from the corners of her eyes, and she comes over for a hug. She’s addicted to the smell of her cologne and the feel of her skin against hers, and she does everything to hide it from Ru and the rest of the world.

They’re all ushered back into the dressing room when it’s all over, and all the tension from the stage disappears. All the girls return to kiking with each other like they’d done for months after filming as they start to de-drag.

So, why does she feel like guilt blocks her airways each time she looks at Vanjie?

She grabs her wrist, and pulls her aside; but when she looks down at her in the corner of the room packed with queens, she loses all her words. All she can see is disease ridden eyes and the ghost of a smile that she wants back.

“I love you.”

Vanjie winces, and she wants to burst into tears. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s no fucking fair. Freedom should taste sweet like candy on Halloween, but all it tastes like in her presence is blood she draws from her lip in worry.

“I love you too.”

The words are strained, but she knows she means it.

They hug, and all the queens whoop and aww. She wants them all to shut up because this moment is theirs. It’s pain and pleasure and it’s theirs.

A fire starts in Jose’s apartment. It burns bright and scorches his skin, but he can’t take his eyes off of it. It’s all chaos and splendour, and he almost forgets that it has the ability to kill him where he stands.

“What the fuck do you want?”

The question is asked for the nth time. He stopped counting after the fourth time, when he realizes that he doesn’t really know the answer. It’s too abstract, too complex for him to try and explain.

“I don’t know.”

“Then what are we doing?”

He gulps, all the words falling into the pit of his stomach. It’s almost ridiculous that he’s scared of someone so much smaller than him, but they’re holding each other’s hearts hostage. The consequences could destroy them.

“We’re just friends.”

Jose huffs, and he throws up his arms in defeat. He wants to hold those hands that fit perfectly in his, but he’s too busy using them to burn it all down. The worst part of it all is that he knows he can’t blame him.

“Friends don’t fuck, say ‘I love you,’ then pretend it didn’t happen.”

The words are spit at him like venom, but he doesn’t mind. He knows that he deserves it after the hell that he’s put him through. Maybe they’re both willing participants, but his reasons are so selfish that he expects the pain.

He asks himself if anything is supposed to hurt like this. Maybe this is what breakups are supposed to feel like. Maybe they’re supposed to feel like someone throwing his heart into a blazing flame.

“I can’t fucking do it.”

The way he says it makes him cry, and he wipes the tears away. He sees something in Jose’s eyes, something akin to pity, and he wants to scream that this is everything he was afraid of from the day he’d fallen in love.

Jose walks to the door, opens it for him. He doesn’t move, at least not for a minute. He doesn’t want to. This is a refuge, a retreat, a goddamn home, and if he leaves, he knows he might never come back.

He thinks about begging for a moment. He thinks about falling to his knees and pleading for the forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve. He thinks about asking for an infinite chance because God knows how many times he’s hurt him before.

“I need you to go.”

It’s stern, and he knows that he has no choice. He carries his feet, and each step feels like breaking promises that he wants to make. Freedom is so close that he can taste it, but it still tastes like metal.

“I’m sorry.”

The door shuts behind him when he says the words, and it’s all over.

When he sees his tweets the next day, he crawls into bed and wishes for arms to hold him tight.

She almost backs out of their show together, but Nina holds her hand. She convinces her that Vanjie deserves better than a disappearing act that rivals their magic show. Brooke nods her head and does her best to smile.

“I’ll be right here if you need me, okay?”

Nina’s all warmth and love, and she thinks that she might be the luckiest person in the world. She squeezes her hand before she leaves her in the crowd to go to the backroom of the club.

When she opens the door, she’s greeted by the smell of her cologne. It assaults her senses, and she’s suddenly dizzy. The world starts to spin, and the tiny queen who doesn’t even bother to look at her as she finishes her makeup is in the center it.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

She still doesn’t look up, and Brooke thinks she might just throw up. The quiet makes her uneasy, so she shuffles her feet as Vanjie applies her lipstick. She hopes that she doesn’t hear her heart thumping against her chest.

“If you’re gonna say something, you better say it.”

One deep breath. The words make their way from her heart to her head. They shoot upwards, and it takes her a moment to comprehend them. They’re too vulnerable, but that’s what Vanjie’s demanding from her.

Two deep breaths. The words make their way from her head to her mouth. She says them in a rush, like a waterfall that she’s always wanted to visit with her, but knows that they’ll probably never see.

“I’m sorry. I love you, and I fucked it all up. I told you I wanted to be free, but I can’t be free when I spend my every waking moment wishing I could take it all back.”

Three deep breaths. The words make their way from her mouth to Vanjie’s ears. She sets down the lipstick on the table and purses her lips together. The minute of uneasy silence feels like forever to Brooke, but she doesn’t dare keep speaking.

“I can’t do it, y’know?” She turns her head, and Brooke sees that the disease is killing her slowly. “I’m not ready for a relationship with you right now, if that’s what you want.”

“It’s not.” It is. “Maybe one day. Right now, I just want us to be… us again.”

She walks over slowly, delicately breaches Vanjie’s bubble. Her heart races even faster, and she prays to every single god that Silky doesn’t burst into the room to ruin the moment that they’re having.

“Hi,” She holds out her hand and her hopes. “I’m Brooke Lynn Hytes.”

Vanjie regards her for a moment, assesses her as if they’d never met before. With a sigh, she shakes her hand.

“I’m Vanessa Isabella Vanjie Mateo.”

DragCon passes by in a flash. She hugs all her fans, takes pictures with other queens, and smiles proudly when she sees the queue for Vanjie’s booth grow infinitely longer.

They barely talk for the whole weekend, far too busy and tired to make any meaningful conversation. All they manage is a few photos for the fans, and texts reminding each other to drink water.

The season 11 tour starts, and they find themselves playing along with Asia’s light-hearted jokes. If it stings a little to have a love that she still feels be the butt of a joke, she tries her best to ignore it.

The morning of the second show, he catches wind from A’keria that Vanjie can barely get out of bed. Without thinking, he buys about eight different medicines and a Gatorade before rushing to his hotel room.

When he knocks on the door, he hears a groan come from the other end. “It’s me!” He calls out, and enters the room. The curtains are drawn, making the room dark enough that he can barely make out the person wrapped up in the blanket on the bed.

“What you doing here?” Jose’s voice is barely a croak, but he finds enough energy to sound pissed. “You’re gonna get sick, you idiot!”

“I’ll be fine.” He brushes off his concern and takes a seat on the bed. He places a hand on Jose’s forehead and grimaces at how hot it is. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit, what do you think?”

He laughs lightly  and pulls out some medicine. It takes a small argument for him to convince him to drink it, and he smiles when he notices him hold the Gatorade bottle with both hands like a child.

“This is what happens when you work too hard.”

“You do it too.”

Jose sticks his tongue out at him, and he wonders if the childlike behaviour is because of the fever. There’s a voice in his head telling him that this might not be the best idea after agreeing to just casually get to know each other, but he cares too much to listen.

“Now go to sleep.”

“No way, hoe. I gotta get ready.”

It requires little force for him to get Jose to lie back down. “Oh no, you are not going to do the show like this.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” He replies, but he’s already started to hike the covers all the way back up to his neck. Brock chuckles, and he thinks that maybe the warmth he feels is more than just from the fevered body next to him.

“Shut up.” He says lovingly. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

Brock strokes his hair, and when he stays a minute or an hour longer than he’s supposed to, he doesn’t mind.

He gets sick a few days later, and he gets a call from miles away.

“Bitch, I told you so.”

June is a hazy mix of cities and bars. They return to their routine of texting every day, checking up on each other whenever they can. He hesitates to start each conversation, wonders if he’s pushing it too far. The smile he gets with each Facetime is worth the worry.

In July, he sees him again for the tour.

He stares at the floor as Jose gets ready, doesn’t look up to watch him cover up the flaws that he thinks make him so beautiful.

“You’re thinking too loud.”

Brock laughs under his breath and sees him walk over to the couch. He sits down beside him, and he can’t stop the love in his eyes from shining through, even if he knows he needs to be more subtle.

“Yeah? What was I thinking about then?”

“I ain’t no mind reader, Mary.”

He picks up Jose’s hand and locks their fingers together. It’s almost imperceptible, but he sees the smile on his face. It reminds him of roses and rain and the colour orange. This is freedom, he thinks to himself.

“Baby,” His voice is soft, a whisper lost in the wind. “I’m not ready yet, okay?”

When Jose doesn’t let go, he squeezes his hand. A promise, perhaps? He isn’t sure, but it’s something. Hope is better than having a gaping hole in his chest.

“It’s okay, I can wait.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Open prompts, yay! How about anything with tsum tsums in it? I love them! Soulmates AU where you are born with your soulmate's tsum? Or tsums are like daemons? The little guys are the ones to fall in love first? Anything goes, really!

Come Up to Meet You

The Asset called the creatures 'Soft Pills', because he had to take pills often enough that he recognized the shape. He knew there was another name for them, something like 'Sum', but no one ever told him.

He liked the soft pills. They were warm and nice to touch and made pleasant noises. He didn't have one of his own, but that was reasonable. He didn't have a soul, so how could he have a Soulmate? The little creatures appeared for humans; not weapons. But sometimes, if he'd done very, very well on a mission, one of his Handlers would let him hold their pill for a little while.

On AO3!

"That's interesting," Steve said, "Bucky'schrysalis was doing that too."

"Hm?" Tony blinked up from his Starktab andglanced at the cocoon next to him on the end table of the couch.

(It was, in fact, a cocoon. 'Chrysalis' was themetamorphosis—supposedly—going on inside the cocoon, but 'chrysalis' soundedprettier than 'cocoon', so everyone used it. It did give a sense of somethingactually happening in there, though, which Tony appreciated.)

The cocoon was about the size of Tony's hand from wristto fingertips, and the sad gray color of old trees. Tony had recently replacedthe padded pickle jar with a lighter, less breakable plastic container, butotherwise it looked exactly the same as it had for the last 44 years. "What'sit supposed to be doing?"

"That. Look," Steve said completelyunhelpfully, pointing. His Tsum lifted zirself onto zir back legs, waving zirtiny forepaws like Tony needed encouragement. "Can't you see that?"

"See what?" Tony said, getting a bit annoyed.He put his tablet aside and leaned closer, finally just taking off thetranslucent lid. The cocoon lay on the neatly-folded baby blanket that had oncebeen Tony's and probably hadn't been washed since his mom gave it to him. Blueblanket, dull gray cocoon and nothing else, as always.

Or not. "Wait…is it…." Was that a spec of white? Tony gasped, then looked over his shoulder at Steve,close to panic. "Do you see white? Is it petrifying?" He whipped hisgaze back to the container before Steve could answer, lifting it closer to hiseyes. Oh, God, that was white. It was too late. His Tsum haddied, and—

"Hey, no! Tony, it's all right. Zie's not dead! Zie'snot dead, okay?" Steve got out of the armchair and came over to him."Zie's alive. Zie's still alive. I wanted you to see that zie's moving." He pointed again, this time with his largefinger hovering right over the whitish spot. "Look."

"Zie is?" Tony leaned so close his nose nearlytouched the cocoon, his eyes fixed on the white spot. There was almost…maybe….

Yes. That was definitely something: a tiny little lumpforming and smoothing out again.

(More after the break!)

"Oh, that." Tony let out a deep breath ofrelief, then carefully put the container down again. He dragged his trembling fingertipsalong the cocoon's skin, smiling wistfully at the familiar smoothness. It wasroom temperature, just like always. "Zie does that sometimes. Never meansanything." He shrugged. "'Haven't seen it in at least 20 years,though, so that part's kind of neat." It had been a couple days before hisparents died, like some kind of awful prophecy. "But, yeah. Once in awhile zie moves like zie's going to come out, but nothing happens."

"Oh," Steve said, crestfallen. "I'msorry."

His Tsum made a soft little 'meep' from zir perch onSteve's shoulder. Zir barely-existent little face looked sad.

"Eh. It is what it is." Tony shrugged again;he'd become an expert at feigning a nonchalance about it he didn't actuallyfeel. (He'd tried. God knew he'd tried to stop caring. It never stuck.) He gavethe cocoon a last, soft pat, then put the lid back on. He sat, picked up histablet, put his ankle on his knee and then gave Steve a big smile that wasn'tentirely fake. "I'm used to it. It's been that way my whole life. Istopped crying over my agoraphobic Tsum decades ago."

"It appeared like that?" Steve asked,dumbfounded. He sat down on the couch near Tony, instead of reclaiming hischair. His eyes were huge, like Tony had just confessed to somethinginconceivably awful. Well, maybe it was if you weren't used to it. "Youmean, it's always been in a chrysalis? You never…."

Saw it? Petted it? Played with it? Lovedit? Tony shook his head, nothing real in his smile now at all."Nope." And boy, was he sick and tired of getting the same reactionall the time. He was extremely aware of what freaks he and his Tsum were,thanks.

He patted the container's lid, thinking suddenly it'dbeen a bad idea to swap out the jar. The rectangle was too much like a coffin."Good old Dad always said it proved something was wrong with me, if Icouldn't even make a 'magic, fuzzy space worm work right'."

"He really said that?" Steve looked even moreshocked, which was nice of him. "But, the Tsums…unless you hurt them…howcould he think this was your fault?"

Tony leaned back and stretched his arms along the top ofthe couch, leaving his tablet in his lap. Steve's Tsum was on his shoulder, soit was easy to reach out and scratch the top of zir head. He quirked somethingnearly like a grin when zie chirped happily and headbutted his finger. At leastwhen it came to his dad he'd perfected pretending he didn't care.

"Well, I guess since he pretty much figured everythingwas my fault, no sense in not adding this to the list, right?" Tony wincedinternally at how bitter he sounded, then did his best to make his voice light,even added a chuckle for verisimilitude. "Makes sense though, right? Imean, who the hell would want me as their Soulmate anyway?"

Steve let out a breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose."I swear, sometimes I really wish I could go back in time and punch yourdad. He was a different man, then. I don't think I would've liked who hebecame."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, well. Join the club."

"I'm sorry," Steve said.

"Thanks," Tony said, his attention was onSteve's Tsum, though, as zie made the laborious journey from Steve's shoulderto the couch.

Zie nearly got to Steve's elbow before zir legs gottangled in his shirt and zie tumbled the rest of the way to the cushions. Zierolled upright, gave a quick shake, then waddled the rest of the way to Tony.Zie lifted up on zir hind legs and began climbing Tony's jeans.

Tony scooped the Tsum gently into his lap, thenobligingly petted zir belly when zie rolled over. Zie was still mostly white,though parts of zir downy fur were slowly changing into a mix of gray, blackand red. There were two tiny gray and red bumps on zir back that Tony joked werean extra set of arms. Steve was sure they were wings.

Tony enjoyed teasing Steve about his Soulmate being anairplane, but given their line of work, it was likely Steve's Soulmate was somekind of winged vigilante. Certainly the Tsum's normally adorably featurelessdot eyes now looked kind of like they were wearing adorable goggles.

Steve smiled fondly at the little creature while Tonypetted zir. There was a saying: Don't trust anyone your Tsum doesn'tlike. It was good advice in general, but it wasn't quite accurate.Yes, Tsums were friendly to pretty much everyone—and if they shunned someoneyou should run like hell—but that didn't mean they likedeveryone. Tony knew what an honor it was, that Steve's Tsum had asked to be heldthe first time they'd met.

Hell, Tony knew what an honor it was that he'd been thefirst one Steve brought his newly-hatched Tsum to, after zie had finally comeout of zir cocoon.

"I thought your Tsum was in chrysalis because ofwhat happened in Afghanistan," Steve said quietly. "After you'd beentortured, and what happened to your heart." He lifted his head, givingTony the full earnestness of his stare. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't haveassumed."

"Don't worry about it." Tony rubbed his chestwith his free hand, absently feeling out the scars where the reactor had been.It still hurt sometimes when he breathed deeply, but he'd take that over theconstant worry and pain. Steve's Tsum was still on zir back, nibbling on hisfinger; it felt like a minnow kissing him. "Almost everyone assumes that.A Tsum going into chrysalis because of their human's trauma makes a hell of alot more sense than a Tsum appearing in a cocoon but never emerging or petrifying."He rubbed the Tsum's belly and zie chirped again, stretching zir legs like atiny, stubby cat. "I used to hope it meant I'd really get a Soulmatesomeday." He grimaced. "That's probably selfish, worrying about mewhen it's my Tsum who never got to hatch."

Steve's hand landed warm and solid on Tony's shoulder."It's not selfish to want that, Tony. We all want to find our Soulmate. Iknow what it's like to grow up thinking there was no one in the world foryou."

"Yeah." Tony swallowed, then forced himself tolook up. "Howard told me how you and Bucky's Tsums were stillundifferentiated when he met you."

Steve nodded. "That's right, they were." He smirkeda little at his Tsum, reaching out to pet zir belly too. "And after 26years of my Tsum being plain white, I'd just assumed I didn't have a Soulmate.I mean, nobody else I'd ever met still had a white Tsum after that many years.Most of them had gone into chrysalis in high school."

"Smaller world, back then," Tony said."These days it's more common to be in your 20s or older."

"I guess. Maybe the War made a difference too. Idon't know. But, the only other person I'd ever met with an undifferentiatedTsum was Bucky." Steve grinned, chucking his Tsum under zir chin. Ziewrapped zir arms around his finger like zie was trying to give him a hug."Our Tsums adored each other, right from the beginning. Hell, the wholereason we met was 'cause Bucky's Tsum jumped out of his belt pouch to get tomine. A couple bigger boys had grabbed zir, and thought it was funny to holdzir out of my reach. Bucky kicked their asses and gave zir back to me. Then wespent the next hour trying to go home without our Tsums screaming blue murderabout it." His laugh was layered with old pain. "They loved each ofus, too. My Tsum treated Bucky the way zie treated Ma: like we were allfamily."

"That must've been nice," Tony said. Hecouldn't remember ever seeing his parents' Tsums together, though he didn'tthink they'd fought. Then again, his parents weren't Soulmates. Howard hadsneered at anyone who 'let their love life be governed by 'barely-sentient sausagesdumped here by aliens', which meant he sneered at pretty much everyone.

Howard's Tsum had been in a tiny corporal's SSR uniform,with a pale face and plain brown hair. Tony had always figured it wasn't Howardrailing against destiny so much as wanting somebody prettier.

Maria's Soulmate had died in the war before she couldmeet him. Her Tsum had a smart gray suit and glasses, with a tiny yellow staron zir chest. Tony never saw zir much. Tony thought zie would have liked him,but his mother wouldn't let him touch zir. It took decades for Tony to realizeshe didn't really think he'd hurt zir; just that she couldn'tbear the risk of losing her only link to a man she could have loved.

"It was nice," Steve said. He didn't mentionhow sad it was for Tony that he'd never experienced it, which was kind of him.Steve watched as his Tsum crawled onto his palm. "Maybe it was stupid, butit'd been…comforting, knowing my best friend was in the same boat as me. We'djoked about growing old and Soulmate-less together. How we'd be buried next toeach other, with our Tsums' petrified cocoons."

Tony cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he said,meaning it. Tony had flown into the desert with Yinsens' wailing Tsum down thefront of his shirt, because that was the only place he could keep zir whilewearing the armor. Zie had been a sweet-looking thing, with dark brown hair anda dress with bright patterns. Zie was in chrysalis by the time he crashed, andhad turned to stone by the time Rhodey found him. It wasn't that he'd imaginedhim and Yinsen growing old together or anything, but….

Yeah. Tony could understand.

(He kept Yinsen's Tsum next to his parents'. Their Tsums'petrified cocoons had been in the ashes of the car.)

"Thanks," Steve said softly. His Tsum mewled alittle and nuzzled his palm. "Bucky never took his Tsum on missions,unless he had no choice about it. He couldn't stand the idea of zir gettinghurt. He asked Jim Morita to take care of zir before we ziplined onto Zola'strain. His Tsum had always been a reckless little thing, getting intoeverything and breaking stuff. Zie liked riding around on Bucky's shoulder, andwas always peeking out of his belt pouch to see what was going on. Bucky wasreally worried zie would get out of his belt pouch and be blown away in thewind. Later I always wondered if he knew…." Steve swallowed. "If heknew he wouldn't be coming home from the war. Maybe he figured somehow that ifhis Tsum wasn't with him when…when it happened, zie'd be all right." Stevesniffed, swallowed a couple more times. It was painfully obvious how hard hewas trying not to lose it. "Zie…zie was in chrysalis the next time I sawzir, after. I spent two days just staring at it, barely daring to breathe incase I missed it turning to stone. But it never did."

"I know," Tony said, then had to clear histhroat. He put his hand on Steve's shoulder, then slid it around to the back ofSteve's neck. "Dad, ah, hypothesized it must have been because the body would'vefrozen fairly quickly. Which doesn't really make any sense," he added,because it felt ghoulish and insensitive to be talking about Bucky's corpse at all.

"Yeah. Howard told me that too. I almost hithim." Steve's smirk had no mirth in it. "Peggy thought that maybe hisTsum didn't want to leave mine alone, so zie stayed, in the only way ziecould."

"That's…." Tony floundered for somethinghopeful. "Really sweet." It was also really, really sad, but Tonywould rather bite his tongue off than say it.

Steve nodded. "At the time I was grateful that Ihad…anything left of him at all, even if his Tsum was still mostly gone. I keptthe chrysalis in the same pouch with my Tsum, because zie refused to be awayfrom zir. Not even for a minute." Steve gently patted the breast pocket ofhis polo shirt, where the cloth bulged from holding the cocoon. "Zie wouldlikely be wrapped around it right now, if you weren't here." He gave Tonyanother of those miserably humorless smirks. "The agents who found me hadno idea which of the two frozen chrysalises was actually mine. But my Tsumnever hatched, even after I was awake." He petted his Tsum, running threefingers along zir back, over and over again. "After that, I startedwondering if it had something to do with us. Me and Bucky, I mean. Like, thesame kind of quirk that had ended up with our Tsums never differentiating alsomeant they stayed in chrysalis forever."

"And then zie came out," Tony said.

"Yeah." Steve smiled, and it finally lookedreal again. "I couldn't believe it. I honestly thought I was dreaming, orit was a prank. Or someone accidentally switched the chrysalis at thehospital."

"Any idea when you're going to meet them?" Tonypetted the top of Steve's Tsum's head. He couldn't not; it was like trying toignore a kitten. He didn't bother admonishing himself for the small flare ofjealousy, that Steve's Tsum had differentiated and Tony's never would. Tony feltjealous of everyone for that, but he'd never begrudged them their happiness. "Normallythey emerge differentiated about a month before you meet your Soulmate, but Idon't think you count as 'normal'." He grinned, making sure Steve couldtell he was just ribbing him, trying to lighten the mood.

Steve chuckled. "Fair enough. All I can tell you isthat my Tsum's been in chrysalis for nearly three years. This guy had better be spectacular."

"Well, you're probably going to meet him inWashington," Tony said philosophically, "you might want to lower thebar a bit."

Steve laughed and shook his head. "I visit you allthe time, Tony. He could easily be a New Yorker."

Tony's grin spread to wicked. "Better make that bar real low, then. Especially if he's from Brooklyn."

"Asshole," Steve said fondly, still laughing,but then his expression slipped back into something serious and sad. "Thisis the first time that Bucky's Tsum moved in zir cocoon. I don't know what itmeans." He hooked his thumb under his chin with his fingers splayed overhis mouth, staring at Tony's plastic-boxed chrysalis as if it could lend himinsight via serendipity. But whatever it might have told him just made Stevewince and drop his hand. "I'm worried," he admitted. "What if ziecomes out differentiated? What do I do then? Or…Oh, my God." Steve jerkedupright, as if something horrible had just occurred to him. "What if Bucky'sTsum comes out looking for him? What if it's because Bucky hasa Soulmate somewhere? He's dead! He can't…." Steveswallowed, and his bright blue eyes went red-rimmed and liquid. "Oh, God.What if it's because he has a Soulmate? What do I do?"

"Hey, hey, it's all right. It's all right, Cap. It'sgonna be fine." Tony moved closer so he could pull Steve into a sort ofsideways hug, making sure not to squish the chrysalis in his pocket, or tumble theTsum off Steve's thigh. "First of all, zie's probably not going to evencome out, okay? I mean, mine's done that before, right? Like, at least a dozentimes. It's never meant anything. And if…if it does,then…I'll take zir. Zie can live with me. I'll look after zir." he said,ignoring how badly the impulsive offer made his heart clench. Steve had justtold him how his and Bucky's Tsums were BFFs, back in the day; why wouldBucky's newly-hatched magic space worm want Tony instead? Hell, why would Steveeven trust Tony enough to look after Bucky's Tsum, when he'dnever looked after his own?

"Actually, never mind. That was stupid," Tony saidquickly, feeling like an idiot. "Forget everything I said after 'it'sgoing to be fine'. I know you wouldn't want me to look after Bucky'sTsum." He tried to laugh and hit somewhere around a rattled squeak."I mean, my own Tsum didn't even want me, so—"

"Tony," Steve said, and Tony shut up so fasthis teeth clicked. Steve pulled back so they could see each other's face."Bucky's Tsum and mine were family, just like Bucky and me. And thatchrysalis is all I have left of him. I couldn't bear—" He swallowed again,wiped his eyes. "I can't give zir to anyone else. I'm sorry. But if itwasn't…." He took a breath, then managed a smile that was only a littlewet. "If it wasn't for that…I've seen you with my Tsum. I know how wellyou'd look after Bucky's."

"Oh," Tony said softly, blinking. "Well,thank you."

"You're welcome. It's true," Steve said.

As if to prove to Tony that Steve meant it, Steve's Tsumrolled zirself off Steve's thigh back onto the couch, then climbed Tony's jeansuntil Tony picked zir up again. Zie headbutted his fingers, then leanedexpressively towards the chrysalis inside it's plastic box.

"You want to say 'hello', Goggles?" Tony askedzir. His voice was a little thick now as well. He obligingly put the Tsum onthe end table and opened the plastic container, then helped zir climb inside.Zir chirped happily and wrapped zirself around the chrysalis.

Tony's Tsum moved beneath the soft armor of zir cocoon, likezie was trying to hug zir back.

The rest is on AO3. :)

[wilwywaylan]

From the closet

Fandom : Umbrella Academy

Probably after the apocalypse, or during, I don’t know, Klaus & Five, 3091 words

Just some brotherly fluff mixed with a hint of crack

Also on AO3 !

It's because of the weird silence that Klaus first notices the noise. It's not unusual, of course ; even when they were still all living there as a (family) group, the place wasn't bustling with the usual ruckus and mayhem that comes with seven active children (but where they even children ?). Heavy doors and stern commands confined all the noise made by their training and non-existant games to the rooms, leaving halls and corridors in a deep silence where any noise resonated like a gunshot. Every one of them had memorized each crack of the floorboards, each whisper and moan of the rafters, the bang of a window and the shuffle of a carpet. Soon, they all knew the song, Mom's clicking steps and Father's heavy pace, Luther's stomp or Allison's bounce. The melody of the place they came to call home because it was all they had.

Even now, after years of living away and coming here only now and then, when he can't find a roof and the pain and the loneliness and the craving are too much and - even after all those years, Klaus can still recognize each crack, each small sound. Even after all this time, his feet instinctively fall back in the dance, they find the path they designed to reach the kitchen in complete silence, to raid the fridge, when they - Ben and him, when Ben was still alive and a set of steps Klaus knew as well as his own, not -

He still knows the song and the steps of the dance, even if it's a little older, a little heavier. So when he hears that particular crack, he knows which verse it is, and what it means. Someone is where they shouldn't be. Klaus makes his way through the gallery, his feet silent on the thick carpet as they always were, Ben following behind, going through the walking motions even as he doesn't need it anymore.

Klaus reaches the door of his room, and slowly pushes it open. Nothing to see. Then a shirt crosses the room to land on a heap at the bottom of the bed, where three other shirts, a pair of jeans and a mesh jacket already lie. He steps in, catches the next thing coming at his head - a lace blouse with so many ruffles, that he doesn't even remember getting - and turns towards his closet.

- What the fuck ? he says eloquently.

Five turns to look at him, not troubled in the slightest.

- Do you even own one decent pair of pants ? he asks.

- Excuse you, all my pants are decent.

Five holds up the ones in his hands - his favourite, the ones he spent a whole hour carefully slashing with a cutter - then throws them at his head, where they hang like a very weird headband.

- You call that decent ? They look like they endured the apocalypse.

- I don't see the problem. All the bits are covered, everything's held in place.

Five's glace effectively conveys everything he thinks about Klaus' pants, bits, and everything they have to do with each other. He dives back into the closet, and pieces of clothing start flying again. Klaus just leans back. Ben sits on the bed, clearly amused, and they both watch the show.

Soon, Five emerges, a little out of breath. He's holding a small box in his hands. A small box that Klaus doesn't want to think about, had almost forgotten. He jumps to rip it out of his hands, but Five teleports away out of his reach - of course he does, the little shit.

- Hey, give that back ! he tries, even if he knows that it's useless.

Five's smile is way too big.

- Why ? What's in there ?

- Nothing !

He dives again, but Five ducks, and he crashes on the bed. Ben moves out of the way, looking quite amused by the situation.

- What ? Five asks again. Is there something in there I'm not supposed to see ?

To Klaus' horror, he starts opening it.

- Don't do that !

There's a hint of panic in his voice that makes Five pause for a second.

- You know I know what a dildo is, right ?

- That's great for you, brother, and I'm glad that your time after the apocalypse was so rich in teachings and discoveries, but I still have two objections : first, I don't need my 13-years-old brother (Five's smile disappears, and Klaus quickly amends) my 13-years-old-looking brother talking about dildos, or sextoys, or sex in general. It's a very interesting topic, yes, my favourite even besides drugs, but let's wait until you're fourteen... looking.

Ben mutters something sounding like "like it disturbs you" and Klaus hisses at him.

- Second, he goes on, it's not a dildo. I keep mine under my pillow, close to my heart.

Both of his brothers make a face, and Ben hastily moves from the bed. Klaus takes advantage of the reaction to try and grab the box a third time. Five teleports again. But the box, damaged by the years, can't endure that treatment. The cardboard breaks, and the contents spill on the floor. Klaus watches the papers and pictures slide endlessly, farther and farther, like they want to cover the whole floor. But they stop, at his feet. He looks up. He can't, he doesn't want to look at them again. He's done it so much that he can still feel them under his fingers. The pictures, cracked after being folded so much. The drawings, smudged and stained. The bright colors that don't want to fade, the smiles that linger... He blinks, trying to get rid of the prickling sensation at the corners of his eyes.

When he looks back, Five is holding one of the pictures and peering at his curiously. On the glossy paper, a young Ben and a - happy, young, innocent - Klaus grin at him, holding each other's shoulders. Klaus knows it by heart, the cut on Ben's forehead, a plaster on his hand that Grace insisted to put on, the crease going between them like a reminder of - Klaus feels the familiar itch in his fingers, the need to drown everything in the comfortable silence of the drugs.

- Hey !

He doesn't know who talked, Ben or Five, they are both looking at him ; Ben seems worried, Five's expression is just bemusement, but maybe that's how he shows worry too. He wipes his eyes, staining his hand with his eyeliner.

- You okay ? Five asks.

- Yeah, sure. Perfect.

Five's face clearly shows that he doesn't believe him, but he doesn't say anything, instead thumbing through the papers gathered in his hand.

- You kept Ben's pics ? he asks.

- Yeah, well. Someone had to, right ?

- And the others ?

Klaus shrugs. Maybe the others would have done the same, he doesn't know, he doesn't want to think about it. He kept them all, hoarded them and hid them for himself because it dulled the pain a little. He was selfish, he always was selfish when it came to Ben, and he didn't care, he still doesn't. He was the closest to Ben and Ben was the closest to him, and when he died, it left a hole that he tried to close as he could.

He doesn't say anything, just takes the pictures and drawings from Five's hands - all those smiles, those happy faces, forever lost - and stuffs them in a drawer. When he turns back, all traces of sorrow have been carefully pushed down, hidden under the smile and the make-up.

- So, boys ! he chirps, clapping his hands.

Five's only answer is a raised eyebrow.

- Say, what were you doing in my closet ? Looking for a fashion sense ?

- As if I wanted yours.

- The remnants of my heterosexuality, maybe ?

Ben mouths a "what the fuck ?" at him and he blows him a kiss. Five follows the gesture, frowns, looks back at Klaus.

- I know you don't have any left since you were eleven, I think, he deadpans.

- Aow, that hurts, Klaus mock-whines.

- Everyone knows, Five insists.

- And I'm loud and proud.

- Especially loud, Ben adds.

- Low blow. Now, that brings us back to square one : what were you doing in my closet ?

With a sigh, Five gestures vaguely towards his clothes.

- I only have this to wear, and I'm starting to get hacked off with having to dress as a college boy.

Klaus bites off his answer about him being a college boy.

- But you're so cute in them !

Five glares at him, and for a second, Klaus thinks that he's going to teleport away. But he just says through gritted teeth :

- It's extremely annoying.

He looks down again.

- Also, I'm freezing. They aren't really appropriate.

- You should have said something ! Let your big brother help you !

He grabs Five, hoists him to his feet and drags him out of the room. He expects the arm under his fingers to disappear, but it stays there, and despite his protests, Five follows.

~*~

- What are we doing here ?

- Shhhh !

Klaus looks at Five, then at Ben who followed and seems vaguely curious. He carefully pushes the door open. There's no real reason, It's been a long time since Diego has used that room, but old habits die hard.

Once sure the path is clear, Klaus slips into the room and walks to the wardrobe. He opens it, peers inside.

- Well, our Diego certainly loved a little variation in his clothes.

He pulls out a few leather outfits, strictly identical to the one he's been wearing those last days, only a little smaller. He holds one to Five, who makes the most amazing disgusted face.

- I am not wearing that, he warns.

- Oh, so sad. You'd look amazing in it ! Cutest little dominatrix !

Ben groans and shakes his head. Five growls too, but more like he's very much wanting to bite him.

- Okay, I'll take that back.

Five's stance relaxes a little.

- The cutest little Village Person, he can't help but add.

- Screw you, Five hisses, and walks out.

- You can't help yourself, Ben remarks.

- I'm not even trying.

Klaus grins at him and follows Five in the hallway.

~*~

Compared to theirs, Allison's room is a cozy little nest, with comfortable pillows, white curtains at the top of the bed and white furniture. Pics are still stuck to the mirror, and everything is bathed in a soft, almost dreamy light.

- I'm not wearing Allison's clothes, Five says.

- You're not wearing leather, not wearing a skirt... For a 58 year old, you're awfully conservative, you know. You should live a little. Ditch the old rules. Do what you want, you don't think ?

Five looks ready to protest, but something, maybe the acknowledgement of his real age, holds him back, and he merely rolls his eyes. Klaus grabs a boa hanging from the dresser, throws it around Five's neck and uses it to drag him forwards.

- C'mon, let the real you talk. Who knows ? Maybe Delores would like it !

Five's expression changes at the mention of Delores. Klaus doesn't know if he crossed a line or not, and he doesn't dwell on it. He frolicks to the closet, starts digging through it. He soon pulls out an armful of clothes that he all but showers Five with, muttering to himself :

- Not that. No, not your color at all. And this doesn't flatter you in the slightest.

Five looks more and more exasperated, and Ben more and more amused. Klaus stops with a very low-cut purple dress held almost up to Five's head.

- This one ? Yes ?

- If you make me put this on, I swear...

- Hmm no. Not your style. I would wear it way better.

He throws it over his head, slides it on. Five starts saying something, but Klaus cuts him but doing the same to him, sticking him in a yellow twin-set. He jumps on the bed, starts bouncing on it, watching his brother fight his way out of the gaudy cotton.

- Don't be shy, he yell-sings, let your flag fly !

Five finally gets free, and glares at him. Klaus immediatly stops jumping and steps back down.

- You're right, I'm not sure you can pull it off. But I know what's perfect for you.

Five's expression clearly shows that he doesn't believe a word of it, but he lets himself be pulled along. Ben follows, grinning from ear to ear.

~*~

- If Luther knows you've been in his room.... Ben mutters.

- What Luther doesn't know can't harm me, Klaus retorts, and he'll never know I went in his room.

- I don't know who you're trying to convince, Five answers, but he'll know because you're a disaster.

- That hurts, brother.

The closet door hangs open, and Klaus only has to cross the room to grab the nearest pile of fabric.

- What the fuck is that ? A circus tent ?

- Are you that high, Five groans, that you don't even recognize a sweater ?

Klaus looks at the thing again. It is a sweater, thick and sturdy and big enough to fit an elephant, with a zipper the size of a railroad or almost. He glances at Five, who takes one step back.

- Don't even... he starts.

But already, Klaus has stuffed him in the sweater and pulled his arms through the sleeves. Five pushes him away, trying to find his way through what seems to be acres and acres of cotton and... is that fleece ? Luther certainly likes his comfort.

He finally emerges, and Klaus promptly falls on the ground, holding his ribs and howling with laughter. Ben smiles, too. Five seems ready to burst, but he looks at himself, the sleeves falling to his knees, the sweater looking more like some kind of weird dress on him, and even he cracks up.

It takes him a few more minutes to get out of the thing, during which Klaus keeps digging through the closet.

- None of our siblings has the slightest sense of fashion.

- Neither do you.

Klaus ignores the remark.

- If Vanya was still living here, you could certainly borrow some clothes your size from her. If you like grey, grey or grey, of course. But she only left her academy clothes here, and we've ruled out the pleated skirts. Even if you'd be lovely in them.

Five seems to have understood by now that Klaus delects in the faces he makes, and just slightly frowns at him.

- But I'm not one to back down from a challenge !

Ben and Five both snort.

- Back to square one ! ... Again !

He grabs Five again, drags him again, past Ben's room without slowing, and back to his room.

- I'm still not wearing those rags you call pants, Five says.

- They don't really flatter you.

Klaus looks at the clothes he gathered from the others' rooms, now lying at his feet.

- Then again, I may have an idea...

Five shivers.

~*~

They all come home - because it's home, in a way - at nightfall : Luther grunting, Allison calm as ever, Diego bustling with energy, Vanya shuffling around discreetly. As usual, they gather to discuss their progress, which is, none at all, and muse about Five and Klaus' absence.

Allison is the first to notice the weird shape hanging from the ceiling in front of the hearth, like some kind of... sheet ? It's dark, moving slightly, and the glow of a fire in the chimney can be seen through. Or maybe it's the start of something worse. Immediatly in alarm mode, Diego grabs one of his knives and starts edging forwards on the left, Luther takes the right, fists drawn. They close on the thing, ready to strike whatever is invading their houe.

- Fancy meeting you here, Klaus quips.

Diego and Luther can only blink at them.

- Welcome to Castle Klaus ! And Five, he adds. Klaus-Five. Klive.

- That sucks, Five remarks without looking up.

- What are you doing here ? Diego hisses.

- Devising a new gravity theory, why ?

He leans back, grabs his glass and toasts his brothers before emptying it.

Allison and Vanya join the boys and look at the decidely weird picture in front of them. Klaus and Five pushed the pricy couch aside to pile as many cushions as they could in front of the chimney, and are currently lying on them, under their decidely weird tent. Five is now wearing a pair of Allison's leggings with the legs rolled up twince, one of Klaus' hideous tie-dye shirts and a worn-out leather jacket ; the handling he's been victim ofhas left his hair mussed, far from his usual hairstyle, and his shoes currently lie under a dresser. They are both holding glasses of colorful drinks, and Reginald's old swords with which they are roasting marshmallows.

Luther opens his mouth to condemn what he probably sees as an affront, but Klaus is quicker.

- Marshmallow ? he offers, waving the bag in front of his face. We also have margaritas. Or coke, if it's not your jam. Grab a glass and a sword, big guy.

- Stop playing with those ! Luther finally growls. They're not toys.

- Aren't they ? And here I thought they were just some fancy sticks to grill marshmallows with my son !

Five jabs him sharply in the ribs with the hilt of his sword.

- How the hell am I your son ?

- What ? My dear little one rejects me ! Oh, how my fatherly heart is breaking !

- Shut your mouth or I'll shut it up for you.

- His first words of rejection ! How cute !

- He's kinda right, Diego remarks.

Five sends him a glare that could melt steel. Diego doesn't flinch.

- You're just two inches of eyeliner away from being a mini-Klaus.

- Which is very scary, Allison adds.

- You're so mean with me. All of you. I should keep my marshmallows for myself and not share with you. Including you, ungrateful son.

Five hits him with his sword again, and grabs the package from his hands. Klaus whines and dramatically falls back, under the gaze of his not very concerned siblings.

Allison is the first to shrug and sit with them. She takes one of the swords on the rack, sticks a marshmallow on it, and puts it in the flames. It's enough to convince Luther to join, with a few grunts. He's still disapproving, and glaring at them all he knows, but he shuts up and it's all that matters. Vanya and Diego join them too, and soon, they are all sitting together, chatting, laughing sometimes, needling Five about his new looks, bringing back the song of old times for a few moments.

(Until Luther looks up and asks :

- Wait, is that my sweater ?

And all Hell breaks loose.)

[a-common-haitian-name]

The Legend of Little Jane

Please do not distribute my work to other sites without my permission. This was a small assignment for school that is mainly for the purpose of getting feedback. It is a bit long though so please keep that in mind.

On November 19th, at exactly 11:24 at night, detective John Lynch was asked by his friend Nick to come over. The night sky was dark and dull, not a sole star in sight. The only sources of light were from the old, dim street lamps, flickering on and off repeatedly and revealing the secret city below. The lights revealed the dirty streets that was filled with tired men trudging through the streets, worn out from work or yelling on their phones, or soccer moms coming out of bars after breaking their sobriety, or addicts wandering around aimlessly, looking for their next fix, their clothes old and torn. He adorned a long brown trench coat, with black slacks, and black leather gloves before he went out into the night. John felt the cold, winter air hit his face as he left his old, and deteriorating motel room. It was only going to get colder, John remembered, and groaned as he walked to his car. His feet made splashes in the puddles from the rain, and he shivered as the icy water hit and seeped into his pants. The once shiny blue paint on the car was now chipping off on the sides. Scratches and dents aligned the right side of his car, ranging from long to short, deep to shallow, and the word destroyer was keyed jaggedly on the left. John couldn’t afford to get it fixed. John opened the door and watched as a few beer cans fell onto the pavement with a soft thunk. Some were empty and crushed, while others were half full and spilling onto the concrete. He could smell the old beer coming from the floor of the car. It was putrid and filling John with disgust. John promised himself that he would clean his car. John moved the trash and paperwork out of his way (he couldn’t tell which one was which) and started the car. While he waited for the car to warm up, he took a small, black, leather notebook the size of his hand out of the glove compartment and opened it up. The notebook was old, and John couldn’t remember how long he had it, or who even gave it to him. The edges of the book were curled in, and the once white edges of the book were now brown and crumpled. The cover of the book was bumpy and rough, like sandpaper. The words methane and fire were the first words he saw written in the book, next to acid and smoke. Some of the words were either scribbled in the book, almost to a point of unreadability, or they were written neatly and with care, perfect enough for Catholic school. John liked to write in the book. It kept him sane, and grounded. It was a way to avoid the dreaded reality of his miserable existence. John wrote 11:24 and went to see what his friend needed. At 11:45, John arrived at Nick’s house. It was an old Victorian house, bought because his wife was richer than both of them combined. The outside was a light blue, with many windows and white borders. They had once bright plants in the front of their yard, that wilted and lost their color, and had yet to be replaced. Nick was an old friend of John’s. He was a nurse at the hospital across their small town, and has a wife and 3 kids, 2 boys and 1 girl, all 3 years apart. John could barely remember what they looked like. A part of John wished he could have something like that. Nick was standing on his porch, pacing back and forth, his bare feet hitting the wood at a fast rate. The red wood under him squeaked like an old mattress as he walked. Pit pat. Pit pat. Pit pat. The rhythm replayed in John’s mind until he approached Nick, and Nick stopped pacing. Fast flashed through John’s mind, and he made a note to write it down later.

“John!” Nick’s voice sounded panicked, and he looked somewhat disheveled. His dirty blonde hair was all over the place, and his gray robe was opened slightly, revealing dirty gray sweatpants and an old, tight-fitting t-shirt.

“What is it Nick?” It was the first time he spoke in hours. His voice was almost gone, and his breath smelled like cheap liquor and breath mints.

“I need your help! There’s this girl who might not be safe! Her parents aren’t answering the phone when we try to call them, I’m really worried because it’s been a few hours, and... and...” Nick was talking too fast for John to understand, and John asked him to slow down. “Nancy, my wife, has been tutoring a little girl around Susie’s age,” Susie was his daughter, about 6 to 7 years old, John remembered. “Nancy gave the girl her number to call us whenever she needed something, like to be picked up or if she needed food, and she called tonight, well I think it was her because no one was talking on the other line, and I don’t know if she’s alright! She might be hurt or in danger or worse-” John stopped him from saying anything else. Nick tended to ramble when he was nervous. He would’ve talked for hours if John hadn’t stopped him.

“Nick, tell me where she lives.” John ordered slowly, as to not push him into another tangent.

“It’s in the woods, 20 minutes east of Old Al’s pitstop.” John thought back, trying to remember where that place was. Old Al was long dead, and with him went the pitstop. No one has taken care of it in years. The place was surrounded by overgrown vegetation, and its only visitors were kids going to drink and vandalize the place, or animals passing through. John wondered why anyone would want to live near t///here. Despite his skepticism he got into his car and drove to the house, though in the back of his mind, a voice was telling him not to go.

When John arrived at the house, an eerie feeling passed through him. The entire area around the house felt empty. There were no trees around the house, no animals making any noise, not even a car in front of the house. The house felt out of place, like someone just picked up a house and placed it down at a random spot. The outside of the house was a plain creme color, and vegetation crept up the sides, clinging onto nothing before falling back down, only to repeat the same process over and over again. Growth flashed through his mind. Write it down later, John reminded himself. John knocked on the giant, white door and watched as it slowly slid open, with no one on the other side. John peeked inside, checking to see if anyone was there.

“Hello?” John called, but he received no answer. His feet hit the fluffy blue welcome mat, and he wiped the mud off his shoes as he stepped inside. The house was as empty on the inside as it was on the outside. To the left of him was a kitchen, where everything was white and clean. No dishes in the sink or any leftover food on the counter. To the right was a living room with one small couch against the brown wooden floor. In the middle was a long hallway with three white doors. Probably a bathroom and two bedrooms, John guessed. There was nothing on the walls. There were no family photos hung up, nor where there any Christmas decorations put up early. There were no undecipherable drawings from children of houses or of their family, or any annoying toys that make noises that ring throughout the house. The walls were the same crème color as the outside, and the furniture wats the same shade of white. The house was completely silent except for the drip drop of the water from the sink, and the low murmur of the tv in the living room. In the middle of the living room there was a little girl. She sat with her knees up to her face and her eyes glued to the tv screen, not blinking even once. The child had wispy black, curly hair, which was cut into different, and choppy lengths. Her eyes were black, unmoving, and caught in a trance. She was wearing a pair of blue fairy pajamas that were old and seem to be becoming too small for her and had a bandage on the inside of her right arm, from a scratch or a fall, John guessed. Bruised, John thought briefly, before walking up to her. The girl was shivering intensely, and John couldn’t blame her. The house was freezing, and John didn’t spot a heater anywhere. He squatted down to her level and waved a hand in front of her face. She still didn’t move. John’s eyes flickered from her to the tv. She was watching an old black and white show, one that John couldn’t remember the name of. The same scene was playing repeatedly. A woman, pale and doe eyed, running through the halls, away from the fast approaching shadow that was going to consume her whole. John walked to the tv and turned it off. When he looked back at the girl, he saw that she was now staring back at him. “My name’s John. What’s your name?” She only blinked once and shrugged her shoulders. “Where’s your parents?” John asked her. She stared at him for a few seconds, still not blinking, and stood up slowly, stumbling as she got up. John noticed Jane written poorly on her leg, the lines jagged and rough. “Jane? Is that your name?” John asked again but got no answer. The girl walked past John, into the hallway, and stopped in front of the first door on the right. Jane (John guessed that was her name) stood there for a few seconds before turning the shiny yellow knob and opening the door. John pulled Jane aside and walked into the room. John then faced the unholy sight of two dead bodies on the bed. One man and one woman. They both had black hair and had olive skin. Their eyes were closed, and they both looked so peaceful. They weren’t dressed like they were ready for bed. The man was in pair of basketball shorts and had a t- shirt on, while the woman had on a bathrobe, which was slightly open, revealing the lingerie under it. The only thing that were alike between the two were their golden wedding bands. Husband and wife. John concluded. Parents. John looked behind him to see Jane just staring at the two on the bed.

“Nothing’s alright in the end...” Were the only words Jane spoke. John quickly grabbed Jane and left the room, spotting a propane heater on the way out. John called the police, and sat with Jane until they, and the paramedics, arrived forty-five minutes later.

“Propane poisoning, I’m guessing.” The paramedic told him, watching as someone took the now empty tank of the propane heater out of the house, two body bags following close behind. “We’ll be sure once a full autopsy is done... Is that the daughter?” The paramedic tilted his head to Jane, who was sitting quietly on the ground right in front of the tv. John nodded. “So sad to see someone experience something like this at such a young age.” John decided he would drive Jane back to the police station. John led Jane to his beat-up car and opened the back door for her. Jane moved the liquor covered papers and beer bottles to the side and sat in the car. John closed the door and went to the driver’s side, where destroyer was waiting for him. John got in his car and looked back at Jane one last time before driving off. Fast, growth, and bruised ran through his head, replaying over and over until the loud sound of the rain drowned it out. John was brought back to reality when he heard the low rumble coming from the back.

He looked at Jane through the dirty mirror and asked her, “Are you hungry?” John received a small yes in response, and John decided to visit a small diner nearby. Betsy’s, John thinks the name was. The diner had been there even before John was born. It was a small diner, big enough for 10 tables and a kitchen. It was white and always smelled of cleaning supplies, cheap food and cigarettes. It was starting to rain when they arrived at the diner, and they had to run inside. They sat at a small booth in a corner. “What do you want to eat?” John asked Jane. She shrugged. John ordered her french-fries. He ordered himself a beer, which arrived quickly. The two were quiet while they were waiting for Jane’s food, until John decided to break the silence. “Jane do you know what happened to your parents?” He asked.

“They died...” Was her answer as she shifted in the plastic red chair. Pit pat. Pit pat. The rain became louder as it hit the window and dropped to the ground. Jane’s food arrived, and she started to eat it slowly.

“Do you know how?” It was a long shot, and John didn’t know why he was asking her these questions. He blamed it on the liquor.

“They were fighting,” She started, tearing a fry into 3 tiny pieces with her little hands before eating it. “I’m not supposed to move when they fight.” There was a tinge of sadness in her voice. Pit pat, pit pat, pit pat. That eerie feeling from earlier was back now.

“Did you move?” John asked. Jane only nodded her head, looking down at her plate.

“I didn’t want to hear it anymore. They were so loud, all the time. I wanted it to stop.”

“What did you do?” John asked. His beer was gone now, and he was starting to become anxious. A tear rolled down her face, and she made no room to wipe it away.

“I took the tank... I remember father telling me not to breathe too much of it because it could hurt me, but I saw father using it all the time, so I thought I could do it too.” John took notice of how she said father instead of dad or daddy. Formal pounded into his head. “They came into the room and pushed me out. They were still fighting. The tank was still on.” Jane stopped eating and was full blown crying now. John could imagine how it played out. The parents, still unnamed, stormed throughout that one-story house in the middle of nowhere. One was probably chasing and yelling after the other. Little Jane was sitting tightly in front of the tv, probably put there to distract her. Later, the tv is turned down, while the yelling continued. For how long, John didn’t know. They had probably taken the argument to the kitchen or outside, close enough for Jane to hear it. Jane, most likely at her limit, took the tank from the kitchen or a toolshed in the back. John wondered how long it took Jane to drag the tank to the room. Four, maybe five, minutes. He imagined Jane turning the gas on, waiting as the gas quietly filled the room. Pit pat. Pit pat. Pit pat. John imagined the parents coming into the room, one of them yanking Jane by her arm and taking her out the room. They were still arguing and probably weren’t paying attention to the open tank. They probably argued themselves to sleep and died through the night. Dark came to him.

“Why didn’t you say something?” The sound of the rain became unbearable at that moment. Jane, her tears now gone, didn’t give him an answer, and only looked out the window next to her.

[glass-neo-alchemist]

Claustrophobia

switched personalities au for @burrpoetry !!!

on AO3

The reputation of Doctor Henry Jekyll definitely preceded him in the talk of the upper class of London, he was seen as rough and impulsive, a harsh temper, and a mad scientist if one ever saw. Messing with things that shouldn’t be messed with was basically his occupation, so his closest friend in college, a Dr. Robert Lanyon suggested to try and open a society to give more people such as himself a chance to practice some of the more risky sciences, if not to help such people then to keep Henry out of trouble and not in jail for his more blasphemous experiments. Henry did proceed to throw his whole heart into the project, although impatient to get to the final product, and on the slower going days, it really was not much of a surprise he started to experiment on himself. A experiment that really has lost the original intent the longer it went on, and two years after he started it, Henry Jekyll did not remember it either, but he was desperate to solve the puzzle he had created. This was probably why he continued to call the experiment a success, not remembering what the original point was in the first place. Remembering the purpose of doing things was not the highest priority anymore, he didn’t have to worry about such anymore.

That was what Mr. Edward Hyde worried about.

Edward Hyde, Henry Jekyll’s blond, short, and stern other half. He was admittedly more focused and patient than the doctor careful, and doing everything in his limited power to keep the society from going up in flames. He helped with appearances and was one to talk to the potential clients willing to invest in the project, kind smile and smart words to keep up with the upper class of london, trying to keep everyone from falling into a hole of debt. He did all this that the scatterbrained Jekyll said made him want to pull his brain out through his nostrils, well he did what he could in the time Henry would alotte him.

So anywhere from three to four hours in a day.

While this seemed to be rather selfish on Jekyll’s part, as the two had previously fought about, Jekyll always insisted that being trapped on the other side was much worse for him, as the body was originally his. Edward had quite a few complaints about that logic. But Jekyll was stubborn, and ultimately the dominant personality between the two, however much more a good person Hyde was in reflection to him. Even with these points, Henry was utterly refusing to give Edward any more time and he got antsy the closer to that time limit they approached.

Which is why Jekyll was almost vibrating out of his skin in anxiousness as it had been nearly four and a half hours since he was in his own skin.

It really wasn’t completely Hyde’s fault, the man had planned to be out of the dinner party nearly an hour ago, however Sir Danvers Carew’s daughter had come in early from her own appointment and the man was dead set on the twos introducing themselves to each other.

‘Just tell her to shut it so we can go already’ Henry knew the request was in vain, and rather rude, the young woman was kind and sociable, as well as having her own interest in science, the conversation between her and Hyde not being dull in anyway. This was made further apparent when she had turned away for a moment to speak to her father and Hyde shot a glare to the brass mirror Jekyll was currently haunting.

“Stop being so rude.” He muttered under his breath.

Another hour passed and Henry groaned as Hyde laughed at another truly terrible joke lady Abigail had told, rolling his eyes, trying to look like it was just an annoyed impatience, in truth he felt his heart thundering in his own ears despite not having a real body at the moment.

“Mr. Hyde! My father wanted to know if you’d like to see our new lights in the garden?” Miss. Carew’s voice chimed once more from her placement near the back door, waving him over with a smile.

Henry felt like he was suffocating, white noise filling his ears as Edward smiled back towards the woman and started heading to her, ignoring Henry.

The garden was rather beautiful in the night, the new implants of gas lights positioned to look mysterious in the moonlight and the bright colors of the flowers crawling up the side of the manor held a gorgeous charm. Hyde enjoyed the view for a moment before his gaze was drawn to the windows of the building, swirls of red smoke was trailing up the reflection and for a fleeting moment Edward thought the building was on fire, but upon inspection, it was Jekyll again, form jumping back from smoke to human rapidly, red glare burning into Hyde. Edward had to step away from the building for a moment, away from Henry, he felt lightheaded and out of breath, despite no harm coming to him and he stared back to the form in the window.

It wasn’t unusual for Henry to lose his temper, but for it to carry over to Hyde certainty was not.

“Mr. Hyde? Is something wrong?” Emma Carew’s voice came from behind his, worried.

“No of course not, your garden certainly is beautiful, but I’m afraid I have to take my leave now, my apologies mam.” Edward said grinning to her. “I will of course talk to Dr. Lanyon about arranging a tour of the society for you, as you requested.” The worried look on Emma’s face fell away at Edwards response and she smiled back to him.

“Thank you so much for coming again sir, and thank you much for the opportunity to tour your society.”

“Ah, well, it really isn’t mine-“ he was cut off by Miss Carew

“Don’t be silly sir! I think you’ve earned the right by how much you do for it, besides…” she hesitated “I’ve heard rather awful things about that Dr. Jekyll man, if you’ll excuse the offense sir, and I was afraid to go near it since, but meeting you has made it clear that I’ve worried over nothing, gossip and all that.” She laughed lightly looking back to Edward, Edward smiled back at her but did not look her in the eye.

“Glad to hear it miss Carew, but if you’ll excuse me, I feel awfully tired and I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“It really is no problem Mr. Hyde!-“

“Have a good night Miss Carew!” Hyde said, heading out the back gate and onto the street.

On the cab ride back to the society, Henry was ominously silent, Edward had originally thought he might have for once slid into the dark spot in the back of their mind like he did on occasion, but the red smoke winding up the windows of the cab told a different story, however when he did go looking for the man, he was out of sight.

The cab stopped.

Hyde’s brow furrowed, there was no way they were at the society, they had barely been in the cab for ten minutes. Doing his best to look out the window tinted red he could spot the wall of a building and a sidewalk but nothing else out of the the side. The street seemed empty, so why were they stopped-

Suddenly the entire carriage heaved.

Hyde let out a yelp and made a break for the door, only to have it jerked open for him.

Suddenly he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Get out.” the muffled voice came from the masked figure, dressed in black rags covering every inch of their body other than their eyes, they jerked their head to the side, as Edward slowly raised his hands to his head and carefully exited, casting a momentary glance to the knocked out figure of the cab driver before looking back to the person currently holding a gun to his head.

“Step away from the carriage.” they said, and Edward obliged, reminding himself to stay calm, or really he was reminding Henry to stay calm.

When they had gotten stopped Jekyll had finally came up in Hyde’s vision, looking a bit pale, but Edward never had the chance to ask, and when they had stepped out of the cab, Hyde’s shadow had grown larger and larger, swirls of shadowed smoke spewing across the wall and Henry begged Edward to fight their current assailant. The shadow version of the man had been clenching and unclenching his fists, as if to try and take over Hyde’s hands and attack the person using him, but to no avail, Hyde didn’t even think Jekyll was capable of doing so. Such a thing had only happened once and it was when Henry had been fucking around with a particularly dangerous experiment and Edward had noticed the burner they were using start to crack and burn before they had properly lit it, and Hyde had taken ahold of Jekyll’s hand and stop him from seriously injuring them both. He had no idea how he did it, and couldn’t give Henry an answer when he asked, which he was still annoyed about, particularly right now.

“Bag him.”

“What?-” a bag was thrown over his head and he was swept off his feet. Henry screeched in his head to fight back, do anything, but at the knowledge of more than one attacker, Edward knew it would be useless and add to injury more than it would help, so he remained quiet and complied with the instructions given by their kidnappers, letting himself be lead to another carriage and was quiet through the bumpy ride to god-knows-where that lasted a good ten minutes, trying to get Jekyll to calm the FUCK down, only to get him to stop yelling and instead muttered under his breath about all the ways they were about to die because of Hyde.

They finally reached their destination and the man was led into a building, through winding hallways and finally thrown to his knees and the bag was pulled off his head.

“Mr. Edward Hyde.” The voice boomed through the room they were in, large and decorated like some kind of throne room, it seemed all the people lining the walls seemed to be woman and Hyde’s breath caught when he found the person the voice belonged to.

“My name is Queen Lucy, I’m sure you’ve heard of me.” She grinned and a couple of snicker sounded from the audience.

“Oh, definitely.” Hyde stared up at the incredible woman in awe, sure she was a criminal, but she was also a criminal mastermind her network of rogues bandits and thieves, the forty elephants was truly something to be feared, and boy, did Jekyll fear her.

The other man in the room, known to no one but the blond, was currently shaking in fear, sure in some cases Jekyll broke the law, but that was always in the name of science, laws about it were just silly and weren’t really hurting someone, usually, but the rogues made up of the forty Elephants were legitimate criminals, people who murdered others, who were barbaric.

‘We’re going to die.’

“Edward Hyde, I’ve been notified by my girls that you are the personal assistant of the Doctor Henry Jekyll.” she said carefully inspecting each of her fingernails to look disinterested, but her eyes gave away her intent on the subject.

‘Oh God she’s going to kill me’

“Yes I do mam, may I ask what you want from him?” Edward asked carefully, sparing a glance over to his shadow, now violently spasming and Shadow Henry gripping onto his own chest in horror. Lusy’s poker face fell slightly, glaring down at Hyde as he bit the inside of his cheek, keeping eye contact.

“Me and my girls have been looking for him and he’s nowhere to be found, so you’re going to be taking a message to him from me.” Hyde raised an eyebrow

“What is the message.” Lucy smiled down at him, a little amused at the small man

“Tell him that I need a favor from him, something I know only a mad scientist like himself could help me with, tell him to meet my girls at the Saint Peter’s church at midnight, tomorrow.” she flashed her teeth, grinning “If he would.”

“I’ll tell him right away Queen Lucy.” Edward said dipping his head in acknowledgement as he started to back away from the makeshift throne.

“Oh and Mister Hyde?”

“Yes?”

“Tell him when you wake up, that this isn’t a request.”

“When I-?” a cloth was pressed against his mouth and Edwards vision swam, as Henry screamed in his ears.

<>

Edward Hyde woke up with a killer fucking headache.

Feeling woozy as he looked around at his surroundings and oh-

They were at their office in the society.

Edward groaned as he recounted the events of last night, stretching and standing to close the curtain, the loathsome morning light being hell on his eyes when suddenly his heart dropped to his feet.

“Henry?” Edward said quietly into the still room, eyes going to the reflection on the glasses on the desk, tinged red, before finally looking at the full sized mirror on the wall.

Hyde didn’t immediately see the man in the mirror, and that made a jolt of dread shoot through is heart when he was able to spot him less than a moment later. Henry was curled up into a ball at the bottom of the mirror, holding his head in between his knees and covering it with his arms, and as Hyde approached him he could see the brown haired man was shaking, badly.

“Jekyll what is it?” he reached for the man but found he was still on the other side of the mirror.

The other side of the mirror.

Oh god

What time was it? Edward glanced again at the window, even with it shut, there was a good amount of light coming through, but the shadows where short, not long like if it were morning, the best bet was that it was nearly noon, maybe later.

Jekyll and Hyde had switched places at roughly two or three o’clock last night.

They hadn’t traded in nearly a day.

Jekyll could barely stand a few hours in the mirror realm without getting anxious, he’s never been stuck in their for so long. Hyde’s concern for the doctor grew as he did not respond.

Even after Edward had mixed together the formula, Henry did not move from his fetal position, god how long had he been like that? Hyde chugged down the formula. After the excruciating pain of switching bodies, Hyde stepped out of the mirror, a talent Jekyll did not share for whatever reason, or he would have used it multiple times by now,and made his way towards the body of the other, laying still on the ground. Edwards green smoke surrounded the brunette and he crouched down next to the doctor.

Henry examined his hands for a moment, clenching and unclenching them, before running them through his own hair and gripping, pulling down hard at his roots and taking a shaking breath before convulsing in on himself and starting to sob.

Edward looked in shock at the other man before carefully reaching out a hand and resting it tentatively on Henry’s back, rubbing circles to try and soothe the panicked man, before he finally choked out some ragged words to Hyde.

“God I’m so sorry.”

[unholyhelbiglinked]

Artifice | Chapter Five

CHECK OUT THE STORY FROM THE START HERE

[A/N: Guys, disclaimer, I know nothing about fencing, I did my best] 

Fencing was something Beca never allowed herself to think about. She didn’t have a desire to tap into a hidden skill that was driven into her mind like an ice pick. All things said and done, that was near impossible when the woman willing you into her yard was Chloe Beale. Those bright blue eyes and cutting stone jaw was enough to lull the young artist into a mess of putty on the floor. Moldable and controllable to anything that was thrown at her.

Just like the techniques she used when she held a brush between her forefingers, fencing was something she learned sparingly in Spain.

Because, even though she hated to admit it to a certain degree, Chloe was right. Fencing was like painting. It was a technique used to learn control and discipline. You needed to know where the tip of your weapon was going to go. Each move calculated and reckless, the damage being done the second you swiped up or down with a metal edged sword.

Though, living on the sea for the past two years had softened Beca to something more. When Pirates are mentioned it’s all about the swords. All about the cannons that shoot softly and blow gaping holes into the side of awaiting ships. Hell, it was even about the treasure that you could find buried under a red “X”. At least, those were the myths.

Now, Pirates had guns. They had guns and maybe the occasional pocket knife used for gutting fish or working away at a rope that couldn’t’ just be cut with expertly placed scissors. It made Beca stronger and weaker all at once, her sword skills staying so far behind her that she regretted putting on the guards that usually came along with fencing.  

Beca Mitchell was uncomfortable. She stood awkwardly in the yard, sweat already beginning to soak through her inner layer of clothes. Everything was too white; the jacket that stuck too close to her throat, the contrast in the gloves that covered her grip (Something the girl found quite important), the chest protector that was plastic and cutting into her circulation. This was all Chloe’s element. Not hers.

She swore that if that stupid mesh mask wasn’t covering the woman’s god-like features than a big taunting smirk would be visible. Art was Beca’s expertise, but sword handling was her vice. Something she hoped was like riding a bike. Fencing too stuffy and uncontrollable for her. At least that’s how she felt about the French.

“It’s simple, really.” Chloe rolled her shoulders back, Beca struggling to hear her over the sound of her own labored breathing. “You don’t have to look so frightened.”

“How can you tell I’m frightened if you can’t see a damn thing through this mask?” Beca griped, not happy at her wire view of the world. It made her feel like she was in a large terracotta cast, the Sabre heavy and weighted in her hands.

“Body language, my dear.” Chloe stated matter of factly. “Relax.”

Maybe she was right. It would have been easier to focus on the actual sport of it all if she could cast away the thought of Stacie and Aubrey staring through the patio windows. Of course, she and Stacie had done the same thing when the blonde was out here instead- but they were skilled, and Beca had the sinking feeling that Aubrey kept her nose pointed up just waiting to see her fall on her ass.

“We stay above the waistline,” Chloe instructed, standing a few feet from Beca. “Once I say go, I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore Miss Mitchell.”

“Oh, is that so?” Beca tightened her grip on her blade. “What a shame, I wasn’t aware we had moved to the friendship level of our interactions.”

That’s exactly what they were at this point, interactions sprinkled with an odd sexual tension. There was, of course, that one moment out by the swamp. The one that kept drawing Beca back. If it were anyone else she would have forgotten the commission and the money, and of course the housing. None of it was important. But Chloe was.

She had her feet splayed at two angles, a fighting position that Beca knew would spring her forward with expert craft. She held most of her weight in her back foot, the girl lulling her shoulders as she lifted her weapon- the tip staring at Beca like it had its own iris that was silver and cold.

“En Garde.” Chloe barked out roughly, having enough of the teasing today.

Beca drew in a careful breath as she stilled her own stance. Raising her blade so it was a mere centimeter away from Chloe’s, if her hand shook, they would have clanked together loudly like wind chimes during a summers day. A swampy day like this one.

“Allez.”

Beca knew that Chloe would advance first, this was her element. Her left foot would spring forward, the tiny brunette moving her right one back as she avoided the pointed tip like the plague. It was almost like dancing, the girl swinging her blade under Chloe’s, metal making a loud noise as it scraped against one another. She moved her arm expertly, pushing Chloe’s blade down to the soft soil. Chloe stalled a bit in her movements- knowing Beca had a bit of experience- but this was meant to be an easy match.

Chloe raised her sabre once more, swiping it down, only to be blocked once more by her opponent, an annoyed growl emerging from the woman’s throat.

“I thought you didn’t’ know what you were doing?” Chloe said, voice breathy.

“Oh, I don’t,” Beca spoke. “Maybe you’re just that bad.”

The taller woman let out a dark breath as she lunged forward once more, this time with more contention. Beca wasn’t fast enough to block the attempt, but she pulled her left shoulder back, all the same, the redhead not grazing her skin in the slightest.

“La verdadera Desterza” Beca said, pressing the shaft of her sabre against Chloe’s once more, sliding it fast enough to create sparks if the metal was heated enough. “You were taught with Linear footwork?”

Chloe stilled her movements for a moment, a quick and quiet second. “Of course, were you not?”

“Mm,” Beca hummed softly “Moving directly towards your adversary is dangerous and Reckless. You must move for an angle of attack, Chloe. It’s favorable if you ever intend to win.”

“Oh, I have full intent.”

“Good,” Beca lifted her chin “Than I suggest you focus on the degree and strength of your blade instead of the target you wish to strike.”

That was basic sword fighting knowledge. Something told Beca that the girl in front of her had studied under Lecole Francaise d’escrime. It was the historical way of fencing, something that was driven by tradition. It reminded Beca of stories from the American Revolution, the British ultimately falling to its demise after forming straight lines to walk into gunfire. It was fruitless, Beca could almost predict Chloe’s every move.

“Fencing seems like a far cry from sword fighting.” Beca took a small step to her side, beginning to circle the girl like prey. “And you’re pretty well versed in fencing, aren’t you Chlo?”

Beca had to admit, she wasn’t too confident in her own skills. Sure, she had blocked a few shots, but it was all about the confidence. She had plenty of that, and by the way Chloe whipped around, blue eyes undoubtedly following her every move, Beca knew she had the girl.

The sound of steel against steel was quickly heard as Chloe swung her blade under Beca’s feet, the girl lifting a brow as she quickly jumped into the air, letting her boots hit the soft soil with a dull thud, Chloe’s chest heaving up and down as she let out another lycanthrope growl. It almost sounded inhuman, the competitive nature of the woman showing through her mask.

“Ah, we said above the waist, remember?” Beca stated clearly “Those are the rules.”

“Screw the rules.” Chloe huffed.

In a way, Beca was trying to get a rise out of Chloe. She had seen many aspects of the girl at this point. The calm and collected version that kept her poised stature about her. The playful side that reminded the young artist of the color yellow (Reckless, but joyful). Hell, she had even seen pink, a vulnerability in a soft mess of color. But now Beca wanted to draw out red. A fire filled anger that came with beating an heiress at her own twisted game.

“I thought you loved to play by them?” Beca kept her Sabre raised, anticipating anything.

Instead of answering Chloe sprung forward, Beca nearly missing her cheap shot by a few seconds, adjusting her touch on the grip as she and Chloe began to fall into a strange pattern. The taller woman would step forward with haste, Beca falling behind in her step almost like a maliced tango. It was fast paced and fueled by annoyance; a thick brine of sweat had collected under Beca’s clothing, her arm guard pinching at tender skin as she worked with confidence.

She drew in a sharp breath as the back of her heel hit the base of the oak tree, she had nowhere to back into- nowhere but down. In a sharp twist of fate, Chloe had her pushed into a corner, swiping the tip of the sabre towards her inner shoulder. Beca let out a yelp as she ducked down quickly, the metal edge creating a long and unforgiving gash in the tree’s bark.

The girl quickly sprung back up, not finding her baring for a few seconds as Chloe skillfully got the right angle on Beca’s touch, knocking the only weapon the woman had to the perfectly groomed grass, Beca’s chest burning with activity as she stretched her fingers for a few seconds before flashing her stare back up to Chloe. She could make a dive across the yard and get her weapon back. But something told her that with the fire in Chloe’s disposition, she would never make it.

The redhead panted slightly, her own weapon straight in front of her as she tilted her head to the side, even with the mask, Beca could imagine the look on her face; determined, tired, maybe even a little lustful. Not for her, at least she didn’t think so, but for the sport. For that very control that she wished she possessed.

Despite her eagerness, Chloe took one simple step forward, Beca holding her hands up in surrender as she stared the girl down. She was slow with her movement, extending her arm until the metal tip of the sabre pressed lightly into Beca’s shoulder, barely noticeable against the guards and quilt-like uniforms.

“Point,” Chloe said in a husky voice, finally dropping her hand to the side, her shoulder more or less a sore jumble of nerves at this stage.

Beca nodded softly, almost accepting her defeat as she placed her gloved fingers under the edge of her mask, pulling it over her head. Even though the air was soupy and thick, there was a slight breeze. One that quickly cooled the girl's cheeks as she brushed her hair from her forehead. Watching carefully as Chloe pulled her own mask from her face.

“You don’t play fair, Mitchell.” She grumbled, tucking the sabre under her arm as she raised her wrist to her teeth, tearing away at the Velcro that secured her gloves. It was reckless and almost seductive in the messy kind of way.

“Yeah, well.” Beca panted, pulling her own glove off without unlacing it. The air felt cool against her fingers as she stretched them out. “I had to get a read on you.”

“A read on me?” Chloe cocked a perfect brow. “Is this another art thing?”

“Maybe.” Beca shrugged her shoulders, instantly regretting it as a sharp ache pressed against her spine. She flinched, lungs pulling in a quick breath. Averting her gaze as Chloe cocked her head to the side.

“I’m guessing some ice would be in order?” Chloe ignored the eye roll that she received in response. Beca was never one to admit her pain, or revel in it. She almost cursed her features for betraying her as they scrunched up in pain. “I think one half of our audience could help you out with that.”

“I don’t see how you do this all the time.” She finally admitted, bringing her ungloved hand back up to her adjacent shoulder, digging her fingers into her sore muscles.

“Like I said, Beca” Chloe smirked, “It takes patience and precision.”

[switchydragon]

Hypnostory: Legend of the Hypnoslut Dragon

This is an MC story I did in mid-2017. CW: Contains fictional hypnosis with triggers and the like. Be careful if you're easily affected by such, also contains bimboization, mind-breaking/addiction, penetration, human/dragon relationships and more! Have fun, and let me know your thoughts!

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The Legend of the Hypnoslut Dragon!

Once upon a time, in a cold, small little town in a besieged, cursed valley, there was a witch. Not an evil one; she was quite benevolent, with her light brown hair and fair skin, her kind words and actions would please many who found her a lovely presence. Harmless and cute, but somewhat eccentric, they’d say. And with her, does our story begin.

‘Twas a dark and stormy day, when the witch was awoken by a loud flapping in the distance. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, the noise driving sleep from her body. “Oh...Tisaala’s back…” she said with a disparaged sigh. The big, green dragon would come, bringing death unless the villagers sent her their finest virgin! Alas, so many of her victims would turn into crazed madpeople, unable to feel the same satisfaction the dragon had given them when they returned. Moments later as she was preparing tea for herself, Candace watched the emerald-colored lizard fly off with another, before crossing her arms. “Hmmmph! Why, I ought to bring that dragon to justice!” She said, feeling squeamish...how would she, a lowly little witch with...no actual magic, ever face a great beast like Tisaala and live, let alone vanquish her?

The wingbeat shook her unstable little home like a mighty breeze, and the answer landed directly on her head: A tome, bound in red vellum with a white spine landed on Candace’s head from above, disturbed from its shelf. Candace grumbled softly and rubbed her head, looking at the tome. “Arts of the Mind: Controlling Others with Hypnosis”  Huh, thought Candace, maybe I should read more...maybe that’s why I have no spells...Regardless, with a title like that...it had to be a book of power in some way! Maybe it held the secret to stopping the dragon! She quickly turned to the cover page, stating the author as someone named “Yuki” Hm. Wonder if that’s important or something.Candace was eager to get into this “Hypnosis” thing!

Several hours later, the witch was getting fairly annoyed. She’d powered through the book within a fraction of the time she’d thought she would. Yet, not a single magic incantation was in the book! Just things about “Hypnotic pleasure, mental orgasms, blanking 101, total hypnotic obedience...” the list went on. How was she going to beat a dragon with a “Mental orgasm”? Whatever it was, she bet it couldn’t pierce the dragon’s indestructible scales.

Slamming the book down onto her table, Candace sighed. She looked out the window into the dark and stormy eve, night had not quite set in yet. The witch gulped upon looking at the storm outside. She had to do something before it got too bad...after all, the dragon’s lair was a few hours away. Candace closed her book and stuffed it in her backpack, then put her wide-brimmed black hat on, setting out. Villagers waved, some catcalling as usual, some yelling friendly words of encouragement. The witch ignored them, walking north as the rain pattered down her hat, soon soaking her clothes as she trekked onwards.

The road to Tisaala’s lair was a harrowing one. Candace saw dead trees decaying all around the path, skeletons lying off to the sides of the overgrown road, and worst of all, horrible-sounding crows cawing as they circled above her while she journeyed across the darkened, dead grass and wasteland-like soil. How could any creature live here, especially a giant dragon who probably needed lots of food? Candace took a few deep breaths and sighed, trying to focus as the maw of Tisaala’s cave drew ever closer, while a crow departed a nearby a hollow tree-trunk, flying off into the distance, letting out an uncanny caw as it winged off into the horizon.

Candace arrived at the dragon’s lair soaked, cold and thoroughly annoyed. As she approached the massive cave that was the entry point to Tisaala’s home, Candace shivered...it was was so cold! Taking the first few steps in, she gulped and began to look around...the cave appeared normal, but Candace felt like she hadn’t even entered the worst part of her journey yet. She took her first tentative steps in, her black boots making a squishing noise as she did. Unfortunately, said squeaking was loud enough for the dragon to hear.

“Who dareth enter the mighty Tisaala’s lair and think to return unmolested?” Said the dragon’s massive voice, bellowing through the cave as Candace hurried behind a large rock, letting out a terrified squeal as she heard the dragon’s steps start to draw closer! “Thinking to avenge the virgin I have stolen from your town? ‘Tis in vain, for he has already fallen victim to my lust, as shall you~!” The dragon prowled through the cave while Candace tried to look around, hoping to spot Tisaala before the she-drake saw her. Moments later, Candace succeeded in that. She saw the vibrant green scales and the verdant hues of Tisaala’s eyes as she drew closer and closer, the mouth of the cave just big enough for Tisaala to stand on all fours in. With no other option but to move now, Candace walked in front of the dragon.

“Hey, you big lizard! Look at me!” She managed to say despite the fear pressing into her from every angle.

“What’s a human doing in my lair? And a beautiful one at that too, you are indeed a gem, mortal…” Candace saw how Tisaala’s eyes were already sizing up her soaked, dripping body and clothes. Candace inhaled deeply, and Tisaala laughed, a mighty noise that shook the whole cave. “Aww, whimpering with fear? Do not worry, you’ll be making other noises soon enough.”

Candace mustered all her willpower, then in the most soothing, relaxing voice she could, remembering the book’s instructions as she stared the dragon in the eyes: “I want you to focus on my words, focus hard on them. Focus so they can help you, my Tisaala, the dragon, relax so much, so deeply…” She didn’t know how, but her words were working! Within moments, Candace saw the dragon’s eyes start to droop, then gulped as she remembered what the book would suggest at this point...physical connection...she quietly approached, and inhaled deeply.

Walking forwards despite the fear wracking her body, she placed a hand on Tisaala’s snout, and continued talking. “So good, so nice to just let all that stress of being awake, being conscious, to just fade away, my hand helping you to let it all flow away, moment by moment, second by second…” She saw Tisaala’s eyes start to close all the way, YES! Candace shouted in her head as she finally commanded: “Aaaaaand….Sleep~!” and saw the giant dragon’s jaw touch the ground, her eyes closed tightly.

Candace quickly shuffled through the pages in her book upon seeing the dragon go under, thinking back to those things about domination, mind control….she had to protect her village and make sure this dragon never hurt anyone again! Candace cleared her throat and got to work, starting first with that “Mental Orgasm” thing. Whatever it was, the dragon would think again before hurting her village!.

“And, 5,4,3,2,1! Awake up, fully relaxed, remembering everything I’ve told you, and ready to obey!” Candace smiled upon seeing the dragon awake up, starting to shake herself off...before said dragon jumped on her, grabbing Candace into a tight, scalebound hug.

“Nrrraaa, Mistress, it’s so good to see you! I’m so eager to obey, please command me as you see fit, my divine Goddess, beautiful Mistress~” Candace felt like she was going to be crushed, and fought against the dragon’s warm grasp.

“Nnnggh, come on! Let go!” When she said the word come, something amazing happened. Tisaala collapsed on her back, letting out a vast moan as she closed her eyes.

“Nrraww..My-Mistress is a goddess, sh-she can make me cum with just words….I AM Mistress’s eternally enslaved hypnoslut...” Candace heard Tisaala mutter as she stared up at the ceiling. So she had gotten the better of the dragon...Candace tried to remember one of those phrases from the book, and smiled.

“Come on, you big, dumb dragon, just blank out for me! That’s it, go blank!” She said, happy as she saw Tisaala’s eyes turn a hazy, dull color and her tongue loll out, mouth wide open...the dragon was helpless now! “Hmph! That’ll teach you! And DON’T ever come back!” Candace said, walking deeper into the cave, hoping to find the virgin the dragon had abducted earlier.

As she entered into the much larger inner chamber, Candace gasped. The room was fully lit, somehow. She saw the horde and couldn’t stop her mouth from gaping all the way open, as she let out another yelp. The witch took one more look around and found the ex-virgin, a nobleman’s son, sleeping on a massive pillow in the far corner of the room, snoring the day away.

Candace didn’t see any chains or evil instruments around the giant cavern of glistening artifacts, gold and other luxurious items...she giggled, with the dragon vanquished this was all hers! Now, she just had to get the victim to safety. “Hey! Wake up! You need to get out of here!” Candace yelled at him from across the room, and he sleepily rubbed his eyes.

“But I dun wanna...” the prince muttered, as Candace took off her hat and growled. No stupid man was going to steal HER loot!

“NOW! Get out NOW!” She asserted, and the man sprinted out, pulling his underwear up in the process. Candace smirked, watching him run before turning to the hoard. The dragon-vanquishing witch quickly went about exploring her new wealth, from the gold cuffs studded with diamonds, to all manner of gems and crystals in the sea of glistening gold, she felt enthralled, till a massive shape struck her from the side. She felt like she was being crushed. “W-who?” She choked out, something was holding her tight, something massive was hugging her...she looked up and saw the dragon’s lustful, deranged eyes. Tisaala must be hers too,

She inhaled deeply before saying, slowly and carefully: “You obey me?”, making sure to phrase it like both an order and a question at the same time. The dragon nodded fervently, bobbing her head up and down quickly.

“Yesss, I serve Mistress Candace, who gives the big dumb hypnoslut Tisaala the dragon so much pleasure! I’ll do anything for the powerful, divine Mistress Candace!” Candace giggled, feeling content. “That’s right! And you’ll always be my big, dumb hypnoslut!” She said, repeating and reaffirming what the dragon had just said as a way to confirm it...whatever that meant, Candace felt the control surge through her...she was in charge, and she was going to make this dragon pay for hurting her village! She looked up at Tisaala, who hadn’t released her yet, then firmly ordered her to let go: “Tisaala, my  hypnoslut, I order you to let go of me!” As she looked straight into her eyes. Tisaala complied immediately, leaving Candace to fall gently down onto the firm pillow below her.

Candace nodded, seeing her orders obeyed so fully and immediately, and then issued another one: “Tisaala, I order you to change into a form more appropriate of your Mistress!” With a flash of magic, the dragoness changed into the form beautiful, green-haired woman with scales down her arms and legs, wings and a long tail. The now transformed dragoness looked at Candace knelt at the foot of the pillow, looking up at Candace.

“My Mistress, does this form please you?” Tisaala asked, smiling at Candace. Indeed, the emerald dragon was quite the beauty...Candace smiled and began to undress.

“Of course, and you must please Mistress now, with your body. You need to repay her back for all your awful actions.” She said, and laid down on the pillow.

Tisaala nodded, and dived onto her, hugging Candace as she asked her: “Mistress! Where should I please you first?”

Candace hadn’t felt her breasts played with in forever...in fact, she hadn’t really done anything like this before. “W-well..hypnoslut, I want you to use your tongue on my breasts.” She said quietly, experimenting.

“Yes Mistress!” The dragoness immediately started licking, trailing her long, warm tongue along Candace’s left breast, to her right. Candace gasped in pleasure, the warmth of her tongue plus the wetness felt so amazing, it was like liquid heaven across the neglected tit-flesh.

“Now, kiss them.” Candace got out despite the pleasure clouding her mind already. The dragon wordlessly obeyed, laying a nice wet, sloppy, and warm kiss on her nipples, before pulling off them with a pleasing Pop! as she would move to the other. Candace’s body shook with each touch of her dragon’s lips on her ample C-cup breasts.

Then Candace’s mind went to her needy crotch, the area she hadn’t even touched in years..., panting in pleasure, seeing herself already dripping all over; she felt eager to grant it some attention. “Slut, I want you to please my…” she scrambled through what little words she could remember in her head, heavy with arousal..”M-my sex..” she managed to choke out, then without a moment’s warning, she felt the dragon’s tongue start to lick all around her needy, dripping genitals, the pleasure from her snatch a raging inferno compared to the pleasure from her tits, and Candace felt herself losing control more and more with each passing moment.

As the pleasure inside her began to peak,  another thought came into her head...Tisaala’s tail waving back and forth dreamily…”My little dragon hypnoslut, I want you to use your tail i-inside me.” She said, and panted slowly as the dragoness looked her in the eyes.

“R-really Mistress? I get to put my tail inside Mistress?” She asked, looking jubilant beyond belief. Candace examined the rhythmic, swaying motion of the tail, and another idea popped straight into her head.

“Yyess, pet. In fact, when I-I...mmm…” she tried to remember that word from the book… “O-orgasm, you’ll find yourself feeling that pleasure too, as though it’s linking us together even  more...and when I say that word come I want you to have that-that orgasm with me…” She said, hastily tripping over words as she saw her new pet’s eyes light with the pleasure she was already feeling.

“I love Mistress, I’m her hypnoslut forever!” Tisaala said, then loudly, and Candace felt herself invaded by the tail. It felt warm, just like the rest of the dragon’s body, but it was so big, Candace felt filled in a way she’d never felt before. Then, Tisaala started thrusting. The in and out motion, so quick and hard was overwhelming to say the least, and she yelled out the phrase, letting the pleasure take her so hard in a climax the young woman could barely comprehend. She screamed with pleasure till her lungs couldn’t take it, then collapsed into a hazy mess, her body weak as she felt Tisaala snuggle into her side.

Eventually, the young witch woke up, the dragoness still attached to her side like a puppy clinging to its mother, and Candace sighed with relief...hopefully, the effects of whatever magic she’d done on her little dragon slut would stay forever, meaning she’d never have to come back to this place...but as she looked around, seeing the gold and jewels once again, she sighed. How was she ever gonna get this all home?

“Mistress is awake?” She heard the dragoness’ voice break the silence of the giant cave as she turned her eyes to Tisaala, groaning. As she sat up to gather her thoughts, Candace was hugged again by Tisaala, who was currently staring into her eyes deeply. “Please Mistress, hypnoslut Tisaala needs Mistress! She’ll be a good girl for Mistress and leave her village alone! Pleeeeaaasseee?” She begged Candace, and the witch sighed, pressing her face into her hands…

Candace thought about it...back home all she had was her old books she never read, and it was always so cold there...here, she had a beautiful, magical dragon who bowed to her every whim, and all the wealth one could ever need. Plus, the dragon’s warm body made her feel more comfortable than she ever had at home. Maybe living here would be okay enough. Maybe living here would even be great! She smiled, and then hugged her new loving slut.

“Of course, now get to giving your Mistress another one of those orgasm things. That was so good~!”

Tisaala happily obliged, and they lived happily ever after in the dragon’s cave, licking, kissing and cuddling in each other's embrace. Long after that day, the village would tell tales of the powerful witch who had given her life to slay the mighty dragon plaguing them, and the young boy who ran home to tell the tale so courageously, clad only in his underwear!

Occasionally, some would even say they could hear her moans of inhuman power echoing through the valley, remnants of her battle and victory!

The end.