#except the ones with my dad. he was the good bright spot in it and the world is darker now without him

[vvyrmwood]

u know that trope were a child throws a birthday party and no one shows up. that happened to me but twice as a child

[s-i-ll-y-w-i-ll-y]

Murder Dads

Hannigram x Child!reader

(Platonic Ofc)

Summary: Y/n had a good home life, that was until they found out it was all a lie. Fortunately, they had two people who treated them well and gave them the life they wanted.

(Nah bc I acc love the idea of this sm and I am PRAYING you all love it too-)

TW! Implied/Mention of kidnapping, mention of drugging, death, description of death/dead bodies, passing out, mention of/implied murder-suicide and mention of infertility.

~~~~

A loud crash from down the hall caused you to jolt upright in your bed. The cool air seeped through the thin cloth of your shirt as you stepped out from under the covers and locked the door across from your bed.

You jumped out your skin as footsteps raced up and down the hall, the slim line of light under your door slipped into your room, the faint shadow of two sets of shoes lingered outside. Heart racing quickly, you rushed to your wardrobe and hid between the tops and trousers piled in each corner.

A loud crash echoed throughout the room, the yellow candle light from the hallway chandelier leaked into the room, letting the dressers and cast aside shoes and toys bask in the beautiful glow.

“Search the room.” A tall man in a black jacket barked at a group of soldiers, giving them orders as they raced to check every spot in the room. Under the bed, behind the curtains, beneath dressers. Anywhere and everywhere.

But fear jolted through your body as one walked over and reached for the handle on the wardrobe. The bright white light of their torch as it flashed in your eyes made you flinch.

“Found the kid.” The soldier yelled over to the man, making the man in charge race over as they pulled you out.

You kicked and squirmed to get out of the soldiers grasp but couldn’t. The man in charge looked down at you, urging you to be calm.

“My name is Agent Crawford of the FBI. You have nothing to worry about, you’re safe now.” He smiled softly, not expecting the harsh kick to the stomach you gave him.

A single gunshot echoed down the hall as well as two thuds.

“Mama?” You called out.

Enough squirming finally became useful as the soldier loosened his grip to much and you ran off. Panting like a dog, you rushed down the hall until you got to the master bedroom. You came to a halt, seeing blood cover the hard wood floor and the body of your Mama and Papa sprawled out. A knife lay in your Papa’s hand, his grip slowly loosening and his eyes briefly glancing at you before softly gazing off into the distance.

The colour drained from your face as realisation set in.

As you tried to run over, a hand caught the back of your shirt. Tears spilled out your eyes and rolled down your cheeks as you fought against whoever was holding you back. You yelped quickly as they pulled you into their embrace holding you tightly against their chest. The slow rise and fall of their breathing calmed you slightly as they held you in place, not letting go no matter how hard you struggled.

Pain stung your soul as you were dragged away from the scene, watching everyone else allowed in. Everyone was able to see them except you. Their child.

“I’m going to set you down now, can you promise to not run?” The voice hummed through your body as they kept their hold on you. Their voice was soft but rough, round yet pointy, like the sharp end of a dull pencil. An accent as well. Not one you had heard before- or ever. It was pretty though.

A small nod was all they needed to trust you.

They gently set you down with a grunt and watched as you turned to face them. He was a well-dressed man, in his mid 50’s with greying hair and nice brown eyes. You gazed up at him and saw him reach for your face. Worry set in and you reacted the only way you knew how.

Fear and acceptance.

You clamped your eyes shut and braced for him to strike you. Instead he tussled your hair, his touched moving down to hold your shoulder.

“Theres no need to worry.” He started, bending slightly to be at your level. “You’re safe with me.”

You felt tears run down your face as you opened your eyes. Staring at him, a look of happiness settled as well as a soft smile as you hugged him. You clung to his midsection, feeling his arms embrace you, one hand tangling in your hair and the other rubbing your shoulder.

Someone gently cleared their throat from behind you, causing you to begrudgingly let go and turn. Another tall man, thinner framed than the one behind you, with casual clothes on, messy brown hair and thin rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

“Dr. Lecter, can I speak to you over here?” He asked.

A soft hum left Dr Lecter’s lips as he stepped around you and walked away with the other man.

Curiosity got the better of you as you spotted most police and FBI agents trying to get press away from the windows, giving you the opportunity to see your mama and papa.

Quickly and quietly, you waltzed into their bedroom, under the crime scene tape. You saw the blood that rolled from your mama’s lifeless body. Gallons seemed to have drained from the wound in her chest. Her eyes were cold, desolat of any feeling or emotion. She was half covered in a black bag, yellow pieces of paper with numbers in bold surrounded the cornered off area.

The floorboards screeched under your weight as you knelt next to her, brushed the bloodied hair off of her face. A sob left your lips as you looked at her. She always said she’d never leave you, not after the deal of issues she and papa had went through to get you. She made sure you knew she wouldn’t leave your side.

She hadn’t lied fully. You were beside her. She just didn’t know.

You hadn’t realised the river of tears sinking into your shirt and the amount of sobs that echoed in the room.

Heavy boots raced to your spot, grabbing you under your shoulders and dragging you out of the taped off area. Your body began trembling. The adults surrounding you watched and began trying to help you as you shook like a leaf in the wind. All their words blurred as you fell into someone’s arms.

~~~~~~~~

Your eyes opened slowly, analysing your surroundings. The soft beeping of a heart monitor, machines huddled around the twin bed, dull walls empty of anything other than scattered motivational posters.

A hospital room.

“Good. You’re awake.”

A gasp left your jaw agape as your gaze shot over to the speaker.

“My Name is Will Graham, this is Dr. Hannibal Lecter. We both work with the FBI and wanted to speak with you about your abductors.”

“Abductors.?”

Dr. Lecter folded his jacket and placed it on a chair beside him. He stepped forward and placed a hand on the guard on the edge of the bed. “The people in this drawing.”

He placed a sheet of brightly coloured paper on your lap. A crudely scribbled sketch of a family of three stretched across a plain sheet of paper with your name on the bottom left corner. The family was your mama, your papa and you.

“The perfect, happy family.” Your papa always said.

You listened closely as they began to explain who your ‘parents’ were.

Drug smugglers. Human traffickers.

Mafia boss father and mother who dabbled in modelling. They had wanted kids with each other since they met, but found out your mama was infertile.

That’s where you came into the equation. They saw you at the park with your family and just knew the three of you would be perfect together.

So, of course, they stalked you and your family. They found out your school, when your parents went to work, when you’d be alone with a nanny. Apparently, one day your old nanny went ‘missing’ so your parents hired a new one.

Dr. Lecter suspected that you were either unconscious when your parents were killed or suppressed the memory. You couldn’t remember it if you tried your hardest.

Your face contorted as you heard your mama and papa had drugged you with each meal to keep your their little angel.

Oblivious and innocent was what they wanted.

It was what they needed.

Your heart sunk as Mr Graham spoke about how your father had lost all their money in casinos and splurging on stuff he wouldn’t need.

To save himself and his wife from their investors hunting them down and spending hours torturing them before killing them, he decided to commit to a murder-suicide plan.

Turns out that Mr Graham had been the one to shoot your papa right as he had plunged the knife deep into your mama’s chest.

Your breath hitched as you thought about how horrible that must have been. Life of both yourself and your wife’s fading in front of you as an agent drags your child away. No chance to say goodbye. No nothing.

You sobbed into your palms as you held yourself still, threatening to tremble once again.

Dr Lecter placed a palm on your back, rubbing gentle circles into your skin and assuring you that ‘Everything would be okay in the end.’

For weeks you waited for that good end.

You were cooped up in that small hospital room for what felt like years until you were finally permitted to leave under supervision.

That supervision was, of course, Dr Lecter and Mr Graham.

When you were out they would take you to cafes and restaurants you liked, as well as clothes shopping and toy shops. They gave you everything you wanted.

Dr Lecter brought you to his house at some point too. He cooked for you and let you hang around his kitchen and watch. After some time Mr Graham came to the door, surprised to see you answer.

Will threw you over his shoulder, delivering you to Dr Lecter. He gently placed you down next to him before closing the oven door.

“Could you two set up the dining table for me? I forgot to do it earlier.” He said softly, going back to chopping up vegetables.

You and Will grabbed some cutlery and began placing things down where you were kinda sure they went. Needless to say, Dr Lecter had to rearrange them all.

After a lesson on how to set a table properly, you were allowed to start eating.

Hannibal smiled as he saw you happily chewing away. He hadn’t seen you smile properly before and he thought it was adorable, especially due to the fact that it was at his cooking. Such a small creature that had been through so much yet still had a smile on its face.

Will had taken notice as he watched you guzzle down your food. His gaze focussed on you before glancing at Hannibal, as if communicating with him. Hannibal looked back and smirked softly.

You looked at them as you finished your food, seeing that had been done for a while. A gentle apology left your mouth before Hannibal swiped yours and Will’s plates away.

Will walked towards you and took your hand in his, saying he had an amazing surprise for you. He guided you upstairs and to a door with a white sign on the handle,

‘Y/n’s Room’

You looked up at him, eyes shining with wonder and he opened the door.

The door rolled open with a loud creak and stopped just before hitting the wall. Will flicked on the light and presented a room- your new room. You quickly stepped inside and began to explore but stopped at a burgundy desk pressed up against the wall below a window.

On the desk was a paper with lots and lots of writing you would never read. You heard Hannibal’s footsteps come upstairs and stop at the doorway, watching with Will as you read the title of the sheet.

‘Adoption Papers for Y/N L/N’

~~~~~~~~

Finished Sunday 14th of January 2024 3:01 AM.

[cakesunflower]

lovelorn (and nobody knows) [rafe cameron au fic] chapter 8

Summary: Isla Carrera had planned for the summer before college to be focused on three things: helping out at her family’s restaurant (the helpful daughter), preparing for college (the good student), and having fun with the Pogues (the loyal friend). But one fateful night, where her car breaks down and her rescuer is none other than Rafe Cameron, seems to send her summer down a path she didn’t see coming–one teeming with a secret, illicit romance with the last person she expected. And if her friends and sister found out, Isla isn’t sure they’ll be so understanding, no matter what her feelings are.

Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7

A/N: Slightly shorter chap, but I promise the next one makes it worth it hehehe

The sun is bright in the cloudless sky above, the occasional seagull soaring and squawking by. With sunglasses covering her eyes, Isla gets away with gazing absently at the sky, the sounds of her friends around her bleeding into the background as she basks in the warmth of the sunlight, letting out a breath. Except Isla can’t bring herself to enjoy much of anything, at the moment, because her mind has been preoccupied with her conversation with Rafe back at the country club. It settles in her stomach like a rock, unmoving and sending a bad taste to her mouth, and she knows the only way to make it better is to talk to Rafe and apologize to him.

As expected, when she and JJ showed up to the Chateau, their friends had been indignant at the sight of his black eye, demanding to know what happened. To Isla’s secret relief, JJ had told them the truth about his dad, but she did note the hint of shame that weighed his tone when he spoke. She hates that he feels as though he needs to be ashamed of the abuse he suffers from because of Luke, and more than anything, Isla hates Luke for laying a finger on JJ. Anytime he gets hurt at the hands of his dad, JJ just laughs or brushes it off, never wanting his friends to worry. But they’re family, more than they are friends, and of course Isla and the others are pissed on his behalf. There’s a reason JJ has his own room in the Chateau. JJ is a lot of things, but he will never be abandoned by his friends.

And Isla is certain if she ever lays eyes on Luke Maybank again, she’s going to call the cops on the spot.

Sighing, Isla props herself up on her elbow, grabbing the can of beer sitting on the floor of the boat and taking a long sip of the cool drink. Pope sits at the front of the boat, reading, while the others are in the water, swimming around the boat.

She lays back down, the surface warm under her back, loosening another breath as she lets her eyes fall shut. Except Pope suddenly says, “That’s the third time you’ve sighed in two minutes.”

Isla raises herself up on her elbows again, arching an eyebrow at him. “Why are you keeping track of my sighs?” she counters.

“Why is your vibe so melancholy?” Pope shoots back without hesitation, pulling a glare from Isla. He puts his book down on his lap, the brim of his cap shielding his eyes from the sun. “Seriously. You’ve been a little off since you got here. Everything good?”

Isla’s chest tightens because she knows Pope means well, but she also knows she definitely can’t tell him about why she’s been so in her head. Her lips part, trying to think of something. “I—”

“Is it because of Luke?” Pope carries on, not hearing her, but it’s the perfect excuse for Isla to latch onto—especially because it’s partially true, anyway.

“Yeah,” she nods, clearing her throat lightly as she sits up, back to the water as she leans down to grab her beer. 

Pope shakes his head, his gaze drifting towards the water. She follows his gaze to watch JJ, Kie, John B, and Sarah playing chicken in the water as Cleo both referees and records it on Sarah’s small pink digital camera. “Is it too much to ask for him to disappear out of JJ’s life for good?” Pope mutters as they watch the grin spread on JJ’s face, his hands gripping Kie’s thighs as she sits on his shoulders.

“Probably,” Isla mumbles into her next sip of beer, her gaze dropping to her phone sitting next to her.

Her fingers itch to reach for it, to send a message to Rafe. But what could she even say? I’m sorry for assuming you punched one of my best friends? She is sorry, but from the way Rafe had looked at her—with disappointment, hurt, and maybe even a little resignation—Isla has a feeling that simply words weren’t going to work. With the way her and Rafe’s relationship was rapidly changing—hell, from going to being nonexistent to whatever it is now—it never should’ve even been a thought to cross her mind. But it was, and she feels guilty about it and makes a mess of her already befuddled feelings.

One thing is for sure: Isla doesn’t want this budding change between her and Rafe to be ended before it even has the chance to begin.

“Hey—don’t stress out about it,” Pope says, cutting into her thoughts. His words have her blinking rapidly behind her sunglasses, bewildered, before quickly realizing he is, of course, talking about JJ and his dad. Because that’s what Pope thinks is bothering her. Pope shoots her a smile. “JJ’ll be alright. He’s got us, right?”

Isla smiles, somehow both forced yet not. “Right,” she agrees, and it might be the only purely honest thing she’s said in this conversation that doesn’t have a braid of lies hidden underneath.

Because, of course, her situation with Rafe isn’t one she can talk about with any of her friends. This is one problem she’s going to have to solve on her own. 

Finishing the rest of her beer, Isla gets up and walks to the other end of the boat, opposite of Pope, and steps up on the ledge. The water glitters under the afternoon sun and a second later, Isla dives in, the water blissfully cool against her skin as she is submerged.

When Isla breaks through the surface with a gasp, she wipes the water away from her face, slicking her wet hair back as she stays afloat under the warm sun. Unfortunately, the cooling dip did nothing to wash away the thoughts of Rafe and how she no doubt upset him, and Isla sighs as she floats on her back, arms treading water as she slips her eyes shut. 

All she sees is the hurt in Rafe’s eyes, and Isla knows she needs to figure out how to make things better sooner rather than later. 

*****

Isla fiddles with the thin chain of the gold bracelet around her wrist as her mom’s SUV pulls into the parking lot of the country club, tall lamps illuminating the area under the night sky. The blast of the air condition raises goosebumps on her arms, the skin exposed due to the gown she has on. It’s satin, like Kie’s, except while Kie’s is a pale lavender with spaghetti straps, Isla’s is a dusty pink with a sweetheart neckline and is off the shoulders, the thick straps hanging around her biceps, and a slit going up her right leg. And while Kie’s hair is done up and a flower crown adorns her head, Isla’s hair is styled down in waves, locks of hair threaded together in a braid to pull them back behind her head with tiny white daisies woven into them.

It had taken her and Kie a few hours to get ready for Midsummers, but while Kie had bemoaned looking like a bourgeoisie pig, Isla had quite liked what she saw when she looked in the mirror. For the first time in a few days, she actually felt good and her sister’s hatred of Midsummers wasn’t going to dampen her mood. 

Because for the past couple of days, Isla hasn’t gotten the chance to talk to Rafe, and that had fucked with her mood more than she had expected it to. Her messages to him remained unread, and she hasn’t seen him around that much, either, over the course of the last few days. The whole situation is strange because, God, only a little while ago if she had insulted Rafe, she wouldn’t necessarily care; she definitely wouldn’t lose sleep over it. But embarrassment and guilt constantly have her up in knots, unsure of what to say to Rafe other than apologize to him. Which she has, multiple times, in their messages, but he hasn’t responded. 

Isla hopes that he’s going to be at Midsummers tonight and somehow, someway, with Kie and Sarah and Pope all there, she can find a way to get Rafe alone and talk to him. Face to face, so he can’t ignore her.

The back garden area of the club is decorated beautifully for Midsummers, with string lights illuminating the place, waiters wandering around holding trays of flutes of champagne, and a live band set up on the side playing music that doesn’t overwhelm the atmosphere. The first half an hour or so is spent mingling with the other guests while Isla’s eyes keep darting around in search of Rafe yet never catching sight of him, disappointingly enough.

Even when they meet with the Camerons, it’s only Sarah, her dad, and step-mom that Isla sees, and she tries not to frown too obviously at the fact that Rafe is still missing. Holy hell, why is it so difficult to track him down when she needs to? They’ve been constantly running into each other, and the one time she needs to talk to him, he’s nowhere to be seen. Frustration mounts, but Isla pastes a smile onto her face, even when Kie grabs hers and Sarah’s arms and pulls them along to go to Pope.

The grass is soft beneath Isla’s heels as she lets her sister pull her, though that doesn’t keep her gaze from wandering, searching. “Don’t you three look snazzy,” Pope comments once they get to where he’s standing, grinning at them.

Kie’s face scrunches. “We look like sacrificial pigs,” she drolls with a roll of her eyes.

Trying to focus on the conversation, Isla bumps Kie’s hip with her own and says, “We do look snazzy, shush.”

“And it’s the one time we can drink without our parents giving us shit for it,” Sarah adds with a twinkle in her eye, grinning.

“Speaking of which. . .” Pope says, smiling as he looks over their shoulders.

Isla and the girls turn, watching JJ approach them in a classy waiter uniform that he no doubt refers to as a penguin suit, carrying a round tray of champagne flutes. Despite his own Kook related irritation, JJ grins, his bruises fading, and holds the tray out. “Drinks for the ladies?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Isla mutters, taking one of the glasses and immediately taking a long sip, only becoming aware of her friends’ surprised and amused expressions when she pulls the glass away from her lips. “What?” she asks, slightly defensive.

Pope arches an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Isla says with a laugh, hoping it doesn’t sound as forced as it feels. “Just here to enjoy the night.”

“This feels so pretentious,” Kie remarks, eyeing the glass she holds in her hand.

Isla rolls her eyes. “Just enjoy the free alcohol, Kie,” she says, her patience wearing thin as she takes another sip.

Fortunately, her sister merely shrugs and drinks as prompted. The group of them stand and chat for a few minutes, before JJ has to get back to work and Pope’s dad returns and they need to work on the oysters. Isla sticks with Kie and Sarah for the most part, more often than not tuning out of their conversation as she searches for Rafe. She can’t help it, and it’s driving her crazy. Part of her wonders if Rafe is pointedly ignoring her, which she wouldn’t blame him for. But then the other part tells herself she’s likely giving herself too much significance in Rafe’s life. Maybe the reason he hasn’t talked to her is because he doesn’t want to; maybe he already grew bored of whatever the hell had been brewing between them and moved on.

Admittedly, the thought of that makes a knot form in the middle of Isla’s chest, her grip on her emptying champagne glass tightening in response. A pit of dread even forms in the bottom of her stomach, like she is on the verge of losing something that’s slipping through her fingers too quickly. There’s a nagging voice in the back of Isla’s mind telling her to let it go, that cutting off whatever had been happening between her and Rafe at the legs, before it even had a chance to begin, is the right call. Less complicated when it comes to her friends. 

And yet, the idea of it leaves a bitter taste in Isla’s mouth.

As she finishes off her champagne, her gaze catches on some people walking out onto the porch across the dancefloor, and the breath hitches in Isla’s throat when she finally spots Rafe. He’s dressed in a summery, beige suit with a white button down underneath, a no doubt expensive watch on his wrist as he chats with Topper and Kelce. Rafe leans one elbow against the porch railing, holding a glass, and it’s as though in that moment, he can feel Isla’s gaze on him, because his head turns just so until their eyes lock across the way.

Isla’s heart launches itself to her throat as she watches him watch her and even from where she stands, she sees that mask of his break. The indifference cracks for a split second, but her sharp eyes catch it, the way his gaze softens and lips part before he forces himself to school his features. But Isla caught it. Even from where she stands, with all of these people in between them, she caught it, because it’s impossible to look away from him. And she has been thinking about him too much, these last few days, to not take note of every single detail about him.

She watches as he opens his mouth, free hand reaching up to massage his jaw as he cuts his gaze away from her, but Isla can see the sudden rigidness of his shoulders. Seeing her is having some kind of effect on him, possibly the same effect seeing him is having on her, and she knows that without a doubt, she is going to find some way to get them alone so she can talk to him.

Because there is a truth that dances on the tip of her tongue, and the first person Isla wants to admit it to is Rafe, not even herself. He is, after all, the first one who should hear it.

Isla knows it’s not going to be easy to try and find a moment alone with him—not with her friends, and his, around. She’ll need to find the right opportunity, and hope that he isn’t intent on avoiding her.

[quack-quack-snacks]

Flaming Hearts

My Navigation and Masterlist

Pairing(s): Void Stiles x Phoenix!Fem!Reader Summary: You were always treated like an outcast by the pack. When the nogitsune takes over Stiles's body, he shows you how good being the outcast can feel Warnings: smut, pwp, mean McCall pack, EXTREME OVERSTIMULATION, fingering, cunnilingus, praise kink (tehe), eye contact, vaginal penetration, masochistic Void (kinda for like half a scene), sweet Void, commentary during the deed which is lowkey cringe in some spots my bad y’all, cervix fucking, unprotected sex, reader is not on birth control, Void lowkey baby trapping reader, a lil manipulation but like not bad, updated to have no use of (y/n), I think that’s it lmk if there's more. MINORS CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK. YOU KNOW THE WARNINGS YOU’VE READ THEM A THOUSAND TIMES. Word Count: 10,086

This was a very self-indulgent fic and I’m not sorry.

Pt 2 will be linked here when done.

BRO IS BEAUTIFUL WHAT

(GIFs are by @scuddish thank you scuddish for your wonderful contribution)

Life was cruel, but it made up for it with gifts.

You were new in town, a transfer student, living in a single bedroom apartment that was provided for you by your mother as well as helped by the government of Beacon Hills. You’d felt a calling to be here for the longest time and you were relieved your mom let you go. All throughout the first two weeks of your time attending the new school, you were desperately searching for friends or somewhere to fit into with no luck. On one extremely anxious day, you escaped your class to go to the girl’s locker room and break down there.

Until you saw two boys in there. The shock of two boys being in the Female locker room was enough to shake you out of your panicked state and make you wipe the tears from your eyes. With your vision no longer blurred, you could see the claws on his hands and the intense sideburns and fangs.

When once brown eyes turned a bright glowing amber, your body decided that was too much.

And you fainted.

The pack took you in after that - almost as an apology for making you faint - and allowed you to join their group since you knew about the supernatural now. They let you sit with them, invited you to sleepovers - Allison and Lydia mostly but Scott and Isacc surprisingly asked once. You were so happy to finally find a place that you fit in.

Except they never really let you join completely. No trust other than friendly-non supernatural related matters trust was placed in you despite the continuous ways you proved yourself. Being human, you were outcasted in the group of outcasts. Stiles was human but he was the brains. He discovered things no one else could, he was the detective of the group.

You were more like an emotional support human that was only needed like 2% of the time.

Noah Stilinski, the sweetheart that he is and despite his son’s deepest complaints, took over your living situation and let you stay with them for the year while you attended school at Beacon Hills.

Perfect fucking precious Stiles. He was infinitely the worst one in the group. At first he just avoided you at all costs until his dad decided to room you in the same house as him. Ever since, he’d been sending you glares anytime you were in his visibility and would blame you for the simplest of things despite obviously being the cause of them. He was so hard to get along with. Seeing how he acted around everyone else besides you and how everyone else acted around each other made everything worse. You knew you couldn’t leave because of Noah’s insistence to stay here and your mother not paying for housing anymore since she knew of your improved situation.

You also didn’t want to leave. You didn’t want to leave these people. The only friends you can remember having. Those who, despite how they cast you out, have treated you decently well, at the very least sometimes, and took you in at your most vulnerable moment.

Stiles just seemed to hate you for whatever reason.

You sighed as you walked through the front door to the Stilinski household. A sigh escaped your mouth as the door closed behind you.

You called out into the house to let anyone home know of your presence. “I’m back!”

The house was eerily quiet and no response hit your ears. You shrugged it off with the thought of all occupants just being out and were a bit relieved you could have the house to yourself for a bit. They barely let you off on your own. Even now when you spent your time out of the house, you were accompanied by Lydia.

You shrugged your rain coat off your shoulders and took off your muddied boots, not wanting to track it into the house and have an excuse for Stiles to hate you even more. Your bones ached from the long day, having been running around all day trying to do whatever you could to help find Stiles. He had been missing for a while and the group barely filled you in on what was happening, just giving you the quick and vague summary about a nogitsune and a missing Stilinski.

With a sigh, you plopped down onto the living room couch and leaned your head on the back cushion. Your eyes closed and you took a moment to just listen to the quiet around you, the only sound the pitter patter of the pouring rain on the roof and windows. It was calm, peaceful even. You couldn’t remember a time where your life wasn’t a chaotic mess since meeting the pack. You sunk more into the cushions and pulled your knees to your chest while grabbing the TV remote and switching it to your favorite channel.

It was all so dark. So dark yet so comforting. Calloused fingertips caressed your forehead and brushed the hair out of your face. You could feel yourself being brought out of the heavenly ignorant bliss the darkness gave you and groaned in complaint. The fingertips stilled on your hairline, slowly retracting and you let out another sound of complaint.

A soft chuckle that sounded familiar but just out of reach for your sleep hazed brain echoed through the room. You felt yourself slipping back into the darkness when the familiar voice spoke.

“They don’t treat you very well do they, dove?”

Your eyes opened almost hesitantly and when you saw the voice’s face you gasped.

There he was. Stiles Stilinski in the flesh, and yet he seemed so different. His skin was paler, his eye bags sunken in and were a light purple. He looked… hot.

You shook that thought away the moment it popped into your head.

His hand, now resting on your cheek with a gentle grip, was feverish, almost to the point of uncomfort, but not quite.

And then you realized.

It was Stiles.

“Oh my god! Stiles what the hell?” You shot up to sit straight but his hand holding your cheek quickly traveled to your throat and he forced you back down, not holding enough to restrict air flow or hurt, but enough for you to get the message not to move. That and the glare he gave you. A sound of surprise sounded from your mouth unwillingly. “Um.” your eyes traveled from his unnaturally dark eyes to the wrist of the hand wrapped around your neck. “Okay, haha, you’re really funny but you can let go now.” You tried to laugh it off and deescalate the situation despite your growing weariness.

“Now why would I do that, when you look so pretty wearing my hand as a necklace?” He tilted his head and his eyes ran over your body slowly, seeing you shift under his gaze and his smirk growing with each movement.

“Wha- huh?” That was about all the words you could say, nothing coherent coming out of your mouth as you weren’t sure if you were flustered, annoyed, or turned on.

Maybe it was all three.

“Stiles, stop messing around. Everyone has been worried sick about you, they’ve spent the last 2 days searching for you nonstop. We need to call Scott and let him know you’re here and okay.” Although ‘okay’ doesn’t seem like the correct term. Sure, Stiles seemed unharmed, despite the obvious lack of sleep showing on his face - although that was relatively normal for him and his insomnia - but his tone, posture, and manners were way different. It almost seemed as if he had become a different person overnight.

He chuckled again, even his voice seemed deeper. Darker. “Oh I’m sure Scott knows exactly how I’m doing, considering I was at school earlier today. Oh… wait, they didn’t tell you, did they?” His face shifted into a mocking pout. “Poor little dove, outcast even in a place surrounded by people of supernatural abilities. The outcast of the outcasts. A fitting title don’t you think?” His words stung a little but it was nothing you yourself hadn’t already thought of. Him saying it just confirmed your thoughts.

“I mean, they don’t trust you at all. Despite everything you have put yourself through to prove yourself to them, they’ve just pushed it all to the side just because you’re different.” You were getting sick of him taunting you, just approving everything you’ve been telling yourself for the past two months. You rolled your eyes in annoyance and, fed up, you raised your hands to his wrist and tried to pry it off your neck. As soon as your fingers touched the skin of his hand - with a speed you barely saw - he removed his hand from your neck, using both hands to grab your wrists and pin them above your head to the couch’s armrest. He smirked at your dumbfounded expression and shocked stutters.

“You see, I’ve been watching it for a while now, the faltered smiles when one of them would make a comment to the group and cast you out. When they talked about their plans at lunch when you weren’t sitting with them yet and immediately shutting up when you got into ear shot. The way when even you don’t know, they are always following you, always watching. Making sure you were being a good girl.” He smirked once again and shifted your hands to be held by only one of his. The, now freed, hand forced your curled up legs to straighten and then he moved to straddle above you. You were pretty sure your eyes could just pop out of their sockets by how wide they were. His face dipped down and he pressed his nose to your jugular, his lips just barely touching your skin and lightly brushing against it when he talked again.

“But you’ve always been a good girl, haven’t you?” Your breath caught as his teeth lightly skimmed over your neck, canines feeling more elongated and sharper than normal. A shiver went down your spine as his tongue peeked out and slid up your neck until he was right next to your ear.

“Will you be a good girl for me now, dove?”

A whimper almost escaped your bite swollen lips at the pet name, your cheeks heating up and a warmth swirling in your core. “S-Stiles, what’s gotten into you?”

He growled and bit down on your neck harshly, making you release a yelp before it transformed into a muffled moan as he smoothed his tongue over it. “Don’t. Call me that.”

“Call you what? Your name?” You asked, so confused by everything that was happening. Confused on why Stiles was acting this way, confused by why he wouldn’t call Scott, confused on why now of all times your attraction to Stiles had to come out.

You’ve always thought Stiles was attractive. The muscles he hid underneath his baggy flannels, the short glimpse you would see whenever he took his lacrosse jersey off after practice or a game before heading to the locker rooms, and that pretty face that haunted your dreams. Now, it seemed the attraction was even worse because of this new arrogant, cocky, full of himself, and confident attitude. He wasn’t pretty anymore, he was bewitchingly hot.

It also didn’t help that something unmistakable was poking your lower stomach.

“That’s not my name.” He said before quickly positioning himself to be kneeling on the couch in front of you between your legs, your thighs wrapped around his waist and his clothed erection so close to your heat a soft whimper escaped your mouth against your will. He grabbed your neck again, forcing you to look him in the eyes as he smirked and jutted his hips forward.

A gasp that quickly turned into a moan left you and you struggled against his grip on your hands as your cheeks heated, embarrassed by the sounds you were making. You didn’t necessarily want him to stop, you just wanted to cover your mouth so no sound would come out.

As if he could read your thoughts, he spoke. “Oh no no. You’re not going to hide those pretty little noises from me. In fact,” he leaned his face in close, your noses touching and lips inches apart. “I’ve decided I’m going to make you unable to stop making them.” His lips met yours as he thrust his clothed sex against yours again, swallowing the moan that left your mouth. He grinded against you, teasingly slow and you could feel his lips turning into a grin as you tried to quiet your whimpers and moans.

Just as his hand managed to unbuckle your pants, your phone rang from the kitchen counter. Stiles broke the kiss and stared at you with an outraged and lust filled look. He let you get up to go answer the phone with an eye roll.

It was Scott.

“Hey Sco-”

His frantic voice panically calling your name cut you off. “Where are you?”

“Uh, I’m… at home? Or- shit, not my home, the Stilinski home.”

A short sigh of relief was heard through the phone. “Okay, good. Stay there. Lock the doors and windows, do not let anyone in. Absolutely no one, do you understand me? No one! Not until we tell you it’s safe.”

“Scott, it's a bit late for that. Stiles came home a while ago, I’m not sure when bu-”

“Stiles is with you?” Scott’s voice yelled through the phone and you winced before replying.

“Yeah we’ve been… in the living room for the past 20 minutes or so.”

“Get the hell out of there,” Scott said sternly with a bit of fear and anxiety mixed in.

“What? Why?”

His voice broke a little as he spoke your name with a fearful tone. “That’s not Stiles.”

A hand landed over your mouth just as you were about to say something else while another gently took the phone from your grasp. The shock and slight fear of the situation took over both your flight and fight senses, leaving freeze as the only option. Stiles, or not-Stiles, brought the phone up to his ear as Scott shouted through it, his every word stated clearly despite being heard through the phone when not on speaker.

“Sorry, Scottie. Why don’t you call back later? Your girl's a little busy right now.” With that, he hung up.

You turned around slowly only to have Stiles, or not-Stiles, standing inches away from you with a massive evil grin shaping his face. You took a step back only to realize you had no room because of the kitchen counter. Not-Stiles took a single step forward and then grabbed the counter on either side of your body, trapping you. He stuck his face into your neck again, breathing deeply before speaking.

“And here I was wanting to drag it out for a while longer.” He leaned back and looked you straight in the eye with the most genuine smile you had seen from him all night, if not ever. “But alas, not today.” He raised his hand and swiftly brought it down to a pressure point on your neck, knocking you out instantly and catching you with a soft grip as you fell. “Until next time, dove.”

A violent shake and iron tight grips on your biceps violently woke you up, Allison standing above your lying position on the Stilinski couch and looking at you with frantic panicked eyes that calmed when she saw you awaken.

“Oh thank god. You had me worried for a moment there.” She grabbed your hand and lifted you more harshly than you would have liked and you rubbed your wrist when she turned away. “Something’s going on. We need to go to Scott’s house, everyone is already there waiting for us.”

You knew better than to ask any questions. They would tell you what they would tell you and nothing more.

Looking around for your phone, you noticed it was nowhere to be seen and you remembered the events of last night.

Last night…

It had been a whole night since you had seen him. Since Scott had called.

Did they really take a whole night to come see you? To make sure you were okay?

The car ride there was silent and you could feel your anxiety rising the more the silence dragged on. A breath of relief left you as you saw Scott’s house pull up. Allison rushed straight into the house, leaving you behind without a second thought and you rolled your eyes to hide the pain it caused you.

When you entered the house, the chattering from the pack in the kitchen stopped abruptly and they all looked at you. Scott hesitated before he took a few steps toward you and brought you into an awkward hug.

“I’m glad you’re okay. We were all worried.”

You looked around once he let you go and almost scoffed. Oh yeah, they all look really worried. Didn’t have enough time to send someone over to make sue I was alive but they’re so worried.

Over time, they casted you out more and more and became more distant. You were completely left in the dust. Not even just for supernatural matter. Lydia and Allison stopped inviting you for sleepovers; Scott and Isaac stopped having lunch with you outside underneath the apple tree near the lacrosse field; Stiles, funnily enough, was the only one who stayed the same, if not lessened up on the glaring.

You heard a soft speaking from behind you and whipped around to see a sight that made you gasp.

There was Stiles. He was sitting on the couch with a piece of black tape covering his mouth with Melissa sitting next to him, her head in her hands. His eyes shone brightly when he caught sight of you and he tilted his head slightly to the side in a way that made you shift. It was like yesterday’s events were playing on repeat in his eyes and you couldn’t look away.

“I think it’s time we filled you in.” Scott said from behind you and it brought you out of the trance like state Stiles/Not-Stiles had you in.

“Yeah, you’re goddamn right it is.” You said and crossed your arms over your chest. Scott looked slightly shocked at your behavior and scratched the back of his neck. Just as he was about to open his mouth, you interrupted him. “Don’t even. I am getting so sick of how you all treat me. I have proven myself over and over again and you all just refuse to believe that I am on your side. What do I have to do for you to trust me? Do I need to sacrifice a lamb for you to trust me, oh my Lord Jesus Christ?” The last sentence was uttered with as much sarcasm as you could muster. Your outburst left everyone temporarily paralyzed in shock - as you had barely ever raised your voice at them - before a loud, albeit muffled, cackle interrupted the odd silence. You didn’t even have to turn around to know the Stiles imposter was looking at the show with mirth filled eyes.

“We- we never meant-” Scott started.

“Oh shut up, now is not the time for your excuses. Not to mention you practically left me for dead last night after you called, Scottie.” You spat his name out with a venom coated tongue as you interrupted him again and rolled your eyes. “Just fill me in on whatever the hell has happened to Stiles so we can all move on in our lives.”

He nodded and started to tell you everything about the nogitsune, how he had taken over Stiles, how he had stabbed Scott, how he almost killed Kira. By the end of the story you were surprisingly not even phased, whether that be because your mind was used to everything being crazy in your life while involved with the pack or how you just didn’t care. It’s not like they ever treated you that well, sure they were your friends but they were your friends by convenience and force, not choice.

And Void, that is what the nogitsune possessing Stiles’ body was called, well, he was just something else. The events yesterday may be shifting your bias but it was undeniable. You had felt an attraction like never before during those short and blissful moments. It didn’t even feel like Stiles. You know that even if Stiles had ever done something like that, he would never have had the confidence like Void did. And it was a feeling that made you squirm in your seat on the kitchen stool.

The hairs on the back of your neck prickled and you risked a glimpse behind to see Void already glaring into your eyes, his eyes darkened by a feeling you could only describe as complete and utter desire.

He wanted you. And if the chance were to come, who were you to deny him?

After 10 minutes of trying to figure out a plan and speaking in hushed tones to avoid Void hearing, Lydia had given in and called someone, you didn’t know who but it seemed everyone else did.

Once again they left you out. Even after you lectured them about how much they did that.

More waiting happened until the bang of the front door being slammed open interrupted your increasingly anxious thoughts. With a too gleeful expression for the situation on his face, the one and only Peter Hale stood in the doorway with his arms opened in a grand gesture.

You all gave him a deadpan stare.

He rolled his eyes and walked up to all of you, more specifically, to you. He tilted his head as he noticed your eyes. You turned your head to control yourself. When you were anxious, or just feeling any strong emotion, your eyes seemed as if the irises caught on fire. They were frighteningly beautiful.

And you hated them.

As your heart steadied and you raised your head back to the group again, Peter’s interested gaze had shifted away from you and to Lydia with a knowing look before walking to Stiles. As he crouched in front of him and inspected his state of being, he spoke. “He doesn’t look like he would survive a slap across the face, much less the bite of a werewolf.” You assumed Lydia already filled him in on what the situation was and what the plan was.

“You don’t think it would work?” Scott asked anxiously as he picked at the skin around his fingers.

“This is more a war of the mind than the body.” Peter stood back up to his full height. “There are better methods to winning this battle.” The mischievous glimpse in his eyes made you worried about what these ‘better methods’ were.

“What methods are you thinking of?” the veterinarian, Deaton, asked, his expression also showing concern.

Peter turned to face the rest of you. “We’re going to get in his head.”

As soon as he said that, he walked toward Lydia and roughly grabbed her by the elbow. With her being right next to me, you instinctively reached out and grabbed the wrist attached to the hand holding her. Peter’s loud unbridled yelp of pain made you rip your hand off him and he cradled his wrist as you caught a glimpse of it.

It was completely scorched.

Your face morphed into one of horror as your eyes flicker between the burn marks on his wrist that were, thankfully, already healing and the ashes on your palm.

“Oh my god! What did you do?” Lydia screamed at you and panicked as she grabbed Peter's arm, careful not to touch the wound.

“I- I didn’t- I don’t-” You kept trying to speak but your mind was panicking and your body was overwhelmed with shock and fear. Fear of yourself.

“It’s quite alright Lydia.” Peter said after a second when his hand had healed for the most part, it seemed the wound looked much worse than it actually was and all that remained was a red handprint and some ashes.

“I-I’m so sorry, I-I don’t know what happened.” You held the hand you used to your chest as if to protect everyone else from it. Deaton walked up from behind you and put his hand on your shoulder before flinching away.

“Your skin is burning. Scott, get her some ice.” Scott rushed to the fridge and brought out an ice pack. He practically shoved it into your hands before pulling his hand away quickly. He tried to hide it but his eyes showed fear.

It hurt, seeing them all looking at you like that. They tried to hide it but they looked at you the same way they looked at Void. They looked at you like you were a monster.

The ice pack in your hands was such a contrast to your burning skin that it forced your brain to focus on its contrasting temperature until you realized it was melting through your palms. You quickly hid your hands and the melted plastic of the ice pack in your pockets before anyone could see.

Anyone besides the boy sitting on the couch that is.

Peter reached for Lydia again, slowly this time and much gentler than before. You didn’t even look at them as they walked away, choosing instead to just stand there with your eyes focused on the hand you burned the man with.

After a while, they came back to the group and you all migrated to the couch where Stiles sat. You avoided his eyes like the plague, knowing they were zoned in on your every move and smiling in delight when he knew he’d gotten to you with just his mere presence.

Lydia was seated on one end of the couch, Void the other, with Scott standing behind the couch in the middle of them. Peter moved Scott’s fingers to align with the correct place to connect them all into Stiles’ mind palace.

“So what do we do if we do find him?” Scott asked.

“You’re going to have to guide him out somehow…” Peter replied vaguely which caused Scott and Lydia to both become increasingly annoyed and you rested your elbows on your knees before holding your head in your hands.

“Could you elaborate on ‘somehow?’ It’s not feeling very specific at the moment.” Lydia sighed with a slight roll of her eyes.

Peter shrugged, “Improvise.”

“Mm. Improvise he says.” you muttered under your breath but everyone ignored you.

Everyone except the murderous brown eyes burning a hole through your skull.

“What if this is just another trick?” Scott worried.

The grown wolf groaned in annoyance and exasperation. “When are you people going to start trusting me?”

You scoffed, thinking the exact same thing.

Scott’s eyes flickered between you and the hyena before he said, “I meant him.” And pointed to the possessed body on the couch. You finally raised your gaze to watch the scene unfold and felt your heart settle into your lower region when you saw Void. His head leaned against the back of the couch, tilted to the side as his eyes were focused on you, an enchanting and hungry look settling in his eyes as they gazed at you. He gave you a slow once over and everything around you tuned out as you felt your body heat up and pool in your panties. You could tell, if the black tape covering his lips was off, he would be sporting a very arrogant smirk.

A synchronized gasp from all three members near the couch broke your gaze with him as his eyes closed and his head fully fell against the back of the couch, face now facing the ceiling.

You almost stood up to go to him before a sigh from Peter faltered your movements and he spoke.

“Now we wait.”

And wait you did. It seemed like time was not in your favor when everything your life had become to know as normal was at stake. It couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes, but to you?

It felt like hours.

Blood dripped down Lydia’s nose and Peter ran up to her, shaking her as he screamed at her to concentrate and that she was stronger than this.

Personally, you couldn’t draw your eyes away from Void. His breathing was soft, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down when he swallowed and chest rising and falling with each inhale and outhale.

Meanwhile another Hale was pissing you off.

Just as you were about to call him out for being too loud, A collective gasp from the two non-possessed members near the couch once again interrupted you.

Melissa rushed toward Lydia to help her and Scott took a few deep breaths before focusing all his attention to the Stiles look-alike. “Did it work?” He asked frantically. You sighed and rested your head against your knees, arms wrapping around your shins to hug yourself in disappointment, the anticipation disintegrating into the thin air.

“What happened? Why didn’t it work?” Lydia stood up quickly and rushed to Peter, demanding answers he evidently couldn’t provide.

“Because it’s not science, Lydia, it’s supernatural.” Peter sighed before grabbing her arm and pulling her toward him menacingly and they spoke in hushed whispers before Void shot forward onto his knees to the floor.

Like a circus act, a seemingly unending length of fabric spit from Void’s mouth and he used both hands to pull it out. Unnerving moments went by as everyone watched before all the scarf-like material was out of his mouth and he scrambled back to sit on the couch again, panting with his head resting against the cushion and his eyes closed.

There was clattering and yells to the side but you just stood carefully and walked to where Stiles was sitting on the couch. You sighed in nervousness before touching his shoulder softly and attempting to comfort him since all the others of the pack were focused on the clump of fabric behind you.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay, everything will work out. Just calm down.” You went to pull your hand away as his breathing slowed but he reached up and grabbed it with a speed non-human. Your heartbeat started rising again as the realization dawned on you.

He opened his eyes and looked at you with a smirk and heavy lidded eyes. “You’re right dove.” He tugged on your hand and you fell forward into him, his free arm wrapping around your waist aggressively. Or was it possessively? “Everything will work out.”

You awoke in a cold concrete walled room, the only warmth over you being your clothes and a soft woven blanket that did a surprisingly good job at staving off the chill. A soft padded queen size mattress with no support laid underneath to separate you from the frigid floor. You couldn’t remember passing out but you knew exactly where you were.

Or rather, who you were with.

Getting a sense of deja vu, calloused fingertips traced over your forehead to your hairline before going back again in a figure 8 pattern.

Your heart beat rose and his fingers trailed from your forehead to your neck, right over your pulse. You opened your eyes and looked at him where he sat; he looked genuinely happy, in a sick, twisted way. Despite how comforting the smile was, it sent shivers down your back that you couldn’t tell were pleasant or not.

“Hi dove.”

His voice broke you out of the trance his hypnotizing eyes put you under every time. You sat up quickly and scooted away from him, falling off the bed - luckily not falling down far because of how low the mattress was to the ground - and looked at him with conflicted thoughts and emotions.

He looked faux surprised and hurt by your actions, standing up and walking toward you as you scrambled to your feet to get away from him. “What’s wrong? You were so enthusiastic about it earlier, what changed?” You gasped as your back hit the concrete of the wall and he cornered you, one hand going to rest against the wall next to your head and the other holding your waist under your shirt. His fingers against your skin felt incredibly hot compared to the cold seeping through your shirt from the wall. He leaned in to speak again and his breath hit your lips with every word. “I promise I won't bite.”

Liar.

He leaned into your neck but didn’t touch you, only letting you feel the heat emanating from his body but not the skin. He took a deep breath in and you had to bite your lip and clench your eyes shut to stop yourself from falling to his feet.

It hadn’t gone away. The undeniable urge to just jump his bones and feel more of that pleasure he seemed so willing to offer.

“But of course, it's no fun if you don’t consent…” he leaned back and the hand that was previously on the wall next to your head traveled to your neck which he tilted upwards to lengthen your neck and looked at you with a smirk and hungry eyes ready to devour you. “So why don’t you be a good girl and tell me how much you want this,” he leaned in and his lips brushed against your ear as he spoke, “I can practically hear you throbbing.”

A soft whimper left you when his hand on your waist drifted to tug your pants down the slightest bit but never went farther without you answering. A few moments of silence passed, only interrupted by your soft pants, and he sighed in disappointment, his grip on your neck and waist slowly being removed.

Your eyes shot open from their closed state, you didn’t stop to think about when they had closed, and you grabbed his hands before they could leave your body. He looked at you expectantly and you opened and closed your mouth like a fish a few times before answering him with a soft and whispered: “I want it.”

His grip returned to your skin but his hand tugging your pants traveled back to your waist to draw little shapes there, tickling you just the slightest bit. “Oh dove, I’m proud of you for trying, but that’s not what I want.” His hand around your throat tightened pleasantly. “I want you to beg.”

Your eyes widened and you forced your cheeks to cool and swallowed your pride.

“Please?” You tried, weakly.

“Oh I know you can do better than that. Try again.” He didn’t say it as a suggestion.

With a deep breath and your hand, still around the wrist grabbing your neck, tightening, you did what he wanted.

You begged.

“Please, please I want it. I do, please, just… just do something, please! Anything! Please… P-please.”

He had a pleased smirk on his face as he leaned in so you were only a few inches apart. You could feel his breath on your neck with every exhale.

“How much do you want?” He taunted.

“Everything. Whatever you'll give me.” You told him with a tone of desperation.

He smirked and looked at you approvingly before crushing his lips against yours in a brutal kiss that sent you to cloud 9. Your hands traveled to his hair and you pulled on it roughly as you kissed back with just as much fervor. You felt him groan into the kiss and you grinned, but it soon faded as a moan formed when he pressed his fingertips to your core through your pants.

“My, my. All this just from kissing? You flatter me.” He spoke against your lips in a low tone. You knew exactly what he was talking about. You were absolutely soaked. The moment he started walking toward you, you felt the warmth in your core building and it hadn’t stopped since. Your head fell back against the wall and Void kissed down your neck to your collarbone, leaving bruises and hickeys in his wake. Applying more pressure, he dragged his hand up your core, pausing momentarily to draw tiny intense circles to your clit before using his hand to skillfully undo the buttons and pull your pants down. He broke the kiss to kneel down before you and look you straight in the eyes as he dragged the pants down your legs excruciatingly slowly. You hadn’t noticed previously but now realized your shoes were gone.

Who would’ve thought Void wouldn’t want dirty shoes on the mattress. Huh.

He stood back up to his full height and looked down at you as he rubbed your heat over your panties. He studied every expression you made and committed them to memory. His expression soon changed to one of annoyance, angry at the lack of skin to skin contact between the two of you. He ripped the undergarment into pieces before taking a step back to strip off his shirt. He paused just as he was about to step to you again.

You squirmed under his gaze as he gave you a long once over and his eyes stopped on yours. Another emotion in his eyes, one you couldn’t quite recognize, clouded over his lust temporarily. “What?” You asked self consciously and moved your hands to cover yourself, thinking he didn’t like your body.

Before your hands could even reach past your hips, he reached out and grabbed each wrist, ignoring your shocked gasp and pinned them against the wall beside your head. “Don’t ever fucking do that again. You’re insecure? You don’t think you’re attractive?” He taunted angrily. He pressed his lower body into yours, his rather large, clothed, erection pressing to your bare clit as he grinded it into you. You moaned and he leaned into your neck again, being much rougher than he was a minute ago. “Ya feel that? That is all you dove. You fucking did that to me. You do that to me wearing baggy clothes and no makeup. You do that to me fresh out of bed in the morning with your hair in knots. You’re doing that to me right now, trapped between me and the wall, a silly shirt covering your divine breasts and nothing else.” He bit down on your shoulder hard enough to draw blood and you let out a loud moan. “You’ll take responsibility for it soon enough.” He arranged your hands to touch and he grabbed them both with one hand, the other sliding down, spending time to caress your breasts and pinch your nipples through the thin shirt fabric. He moved lower and lower until he reached your heat and thrust two fingers in with no warning. Without even letting you adjust, not that you really needed to with how wet you were, he started pounding his fingers into you. You started moaning uncontrollably and struggled to get out of his grip to hold onto something. He humored you and released your hands. Immediately they fell to his shoulders and then wrapped around his neck to pull his face into your neck where he started to leave his love bites. He grabbed the back of your right thigh and lifted it, wrapping it around his waist which allowed him to hit deeper. With every thrust, he curled his fingers and they hit you right in your pleasure spot.

Soon enough you could feel a knot forming in your stomach. It built and built and you warned Void about what was incoming.

“Oh that’s right, cum on my fingers dove. Let me know who makes you feel this good. Stiles could never fuck you like this. He could never bring you to such pleasure. To the point where your every bone quakes and sings in an overwhelming amount of pleasure that I alone am giving you.” His grip on your waist tightened to the line bordering between pain and pleasure just as his thrusts sped up to a pace faster than you believed even possible.

“Cum.”

And you did just that. Your bones really did quake and sing with pleasure. Your body writhed and you thrust yourself against Void’s fingers, grinding yourself through your orgasm despite him not slowing down and riding you through too.

Your orgasm slowed down to a stop and you took a deep breath before another loud and unrestricted moan released during your exhale and you noticed Void had yet to stop or even slow down.

“Ah, st-slow do-down-! It’s-ah-it’s too much!” You begged and yet he just smirked and increased his pace.

“Oh sweetheart, isn’t this what you wanted? You told me you wanted everything, you wanted all of it.” You swallowed in a lust filled fear as he smirked even wider. “So darling, you are going to take all of it.”

He led you on to another orgasm by his fingers alone. Your puffy clit was begging for attention after being neglected for so long. When you reached your high, he slowed down and pulled his fingers out. You bit the inside of your cheek to stop from whining at the emptiness. He brought his fingers to his lips and stared you straight in the eyes as he brought them into his mouth and moaned at the taste.

You blushed and tried to look away until his free hand came up to grab your jaw roughly and force you to face him as he licked and sucked at his fingers, prolonging your embarrassment.

When he was satisfied with how much embarrassment he could feel radiating off you, he pulled his fingers out of his mouth with a pop before he grinned. His hands gently placed themselves on each of your hips and he leaned in until your lips barely grazed each other’s.

“That little taste just makes me want to have more. Which reminds me, I haven’t had my dinner yet. Do you mind?” You tried to lean forward and kiss him but he just leaned his head back until you gave an answer. You nodded your head no and he grinned.

“There’s my good girl.”

He leaned in and kissed you softly, so softly it distracted you from the hands on your hips traveling to your butt and quickly lifting you to wrap your legs around his waist. Without moving his feet an inch, the wall behind you suddenly disappeared and he threw you down onto the queen bed mattress. You landed with a small bounce.

You looked at him in shock and confusion but he just grinned and winked.

Teleportation. Huh. Must be a nogitsune thing.

He kneeled down in front of the bed and ripped your shirt off before grabbing your thighs to bring you to the edge. You yelped and stared as he lifted your legs over his shoulders, the backs of your knees curving over them. He gave another little wink before diving in.

You moaned as his lips finally gave attention to your clit and a shock of pleasure swarmed through your veins. Your head fell against the mattress and your eyes clenched shut when the euphoria became too much to your, still sensitive, core.

A loud slap and the stinging on your outer thigh caused you to flick your eyes open and look at the man between your legs.

“The next time you look away from me I will edge you for three new moons.” He spoke right against your cunt and you could feel the vibrations surging through your clit. With a moan, you nodded and adjusted yourself to lean on your elbows and look at him. He brought his tongue out to lick a long stride up your cunt and collected your slick in his mouth before going straight back into his meal.

You had no doubt he would stay true to his word if you looked away, so you kept your eyes firmly on him, despite every protest in your veins to close your eyes when it became too much.

When the coil in your gut built up again, he could feel you approaching your orgasm and looked you right in the eyes. You blushed and were so tempted to look away but he tightened his grip on your thighs in a warning.

You came again for the third time. You tried your best to keep your eyes on him but they fluttered shut every few seconds as he kept licking and sucking at your overstimulated clit.

When he seemed satisfied two mind blowing orgasms later, he climbed up your body, one of your legs falling to surround his waist while the other he kept suspended over his shoulder.

“You did so well. You’re such a good girl, following orders with no questions.” He kissed you and you could taste yourself on his tongue. “They don’t deserve you, they never did.” He murmured against your lips before his head traveled to the curve of your neck and shoulder.

He took his pants and boxers off in no time, rubbing the head of his cock through your slick folds and over your clit.

Your mind was racing with too many conflicting emotions to comprehend: want, fear, lust, panic. You looked down and saw him.

He was big. Bigger than any guy you’ve ever seen, not that that was many considering you were a virgin.

“I am going to ruin you. No one else will ever be able to make you feel the way I do. Every time you cum from this point on will be from my body, no one else's.” He spoke menacingly while he watched in awe as your overstimulated clit twitched whenever he ran the head of his dick across it. The mushroom tip of his cock caught along your entrance through every glide up and down until he stopped and pushed it fully in.

“Wait, wai-ngh!” You tried but got interrupted by your own moan when he thrusted all the way in to the hilt, his tip pressed against your cervix in a mind blanking way. The sting of the stretch was there but was completely oversighted by the immense pleasure that came with it. You gasped at the feeling and wrapped your arms around his shoulder to scratch at his back. His back quickly covered in nail marks and marks of ash and burned skin.

You gasped in horror at the unwilled release of your fire until he moaned loudly - filled with both pleasure at the pain and entrance of your slick walls. Any sounds he had tried to hide completely spilled out. “Shit, keep doing that d-dove. Mark me all you want. Make me yours. F-feels so good; you’re so tight. Are you a virgin or something? You’re squeezing me to death, I don’t know how much longer I can take with you so tight around me.”

You froze at the accusation and turned your head the opposite of his, not answering his question.

A sigh escaped you when he started leaving kisses on your neck, slowly dragging out of your entrance before entering back just as slowly. An elongated moan left your mouth when he hit a certain spot on his way back in.

“Oh it’s alright my sweet girl. This just means I’m able to take another thing Stiles has been longing for. If only I was able to take your first kiss too.”

You almost missed what he said when he snapped his hips into yours harder and you sputtered unintelligible words at the movement.

“He-agh-he what?” You asked him as he left a soft bite on your clavicle.

“Oh yeah, I don’t think there was a corner of his mind that wasn’t filled with the idea of you. Poor little Stiles couldn’t stop imagining you like this.” He mocked. “He would’ve fucked you with your chest to the bed and you ass sticking up all nice and pretty but I don’t think you’d like that, would you sweet girl?”

Your heart skipped as he rose to look into your eyes. “No, I don't think you would.” He roughly snapped his hips to yours again before putting on a mock sympathetic look. “You want them to look at you as you’re getting pleasure you’ve never before received.” Another harsh thrust and you moaned loudly which he silenced by sticking two fingers in your mouth and pressing down on your tongue. Your lips immediately wrapped around his and you grazed your teeth along the sensitive skin. He tasted like salt and your cum along with a hint of blood. “You want that skin to skin contact as they bring you within an inch of your life and back.” Another thrust. “You want someone to make love to you, no fucking around.”

You moaned especially loud at that. You didn’t want to lose your virginity for something that wasn’t going to mean anything. You’ve known Void for less than two days and yet you feel more connected with him than all the McCall pack combined. It seems he feels the same way from how he’s talking.

“I'm the one who took your first time, and I will be the one to look into your eyes as you receive the pleasure I am giving you; I will be the skin you feel against your own as I move inside you;” He paused for a second as he leaned down and took one of your nipples into his mouth, biting softly on the nub, and smiling as you whimpered in return. “I will be the one to make love to you.”

You grabbed the hand thats fingers were in your mouth and pulled them out before grabbing his cheeks between and pulling him into an aggressive kiss. You whimpered and moaned as he sped up, reaching deeper and deeper with every thrust. The hand that was once in your mouth traveled down your body slowly, smearing your saliva across your nipples as he played with them before settling against your clit. Just the slightest graze from his fingers made your spine arch up into his chest in anticipation and pleasure. He started rubbing figure eights into the pleasure bud, matching them with the pace of his thrusts.

Your lips opened in a moan and Void took the opportunity to shove his tongue against yours. He took control of the kiss instantly and rubbed his tongue along every inch of the inside of your mouth, exploring it like looking for treasure marked on a treasure map.

You tried to speak and warn him about your upcoming orgasm but you couldn’t drive his mouth away from yours, needing to breathe in through your nose every minute or so so you didn’t pass out. He pressed the fingers against your clit down harder as if to encourage you to cum and and you came beautifully. It was the most intense orgasm you’ve experienced tonight if not ever. Your body was shaking in exhaustion after the multiple orgasm you’d received within the last 30 minutes, or was it closer to 2 hours? You weren’t sure but honestly didn’t care. You could feel by the way Void broke the kiss and pushed his head into the crook of your neck along with the tensing of his back muscles that he was nearing his orgasm as well.

Then it occured to you, this whole time he was using no protection.

And you weren’t on birth control.

“N-no-agh-you gotta pull o-out. ‘Might get pre-ngh-pregnant. I’m not on birth c-control.” You focused all your energy on speaking despite the overwhelming overstimulating feeling of him driving his dick into your cervix and his thumb making you lose every thought that came to your head with his torturous but amazing touches.

He suddenly came to a complete stop inside of you. His dick twitched as the only sounds heard were your heavy breath and whines of complaint despite your better judgment.

“You’re not on birth control?” He asked into your neck, skimming his lips along your carotid artery.

“No.” You whispered.

You felt him grin that same evil grin you’ve seen before against your neck before biting down hard on your neck and withdrawing his hips from yours. You cried out at the feelings of pain and emptiness overflowing your senses.

“You don’t wanna have my babies, is that it?” He whispered into your neck with a tone that sounded almost heartbroken. You knew it was fake yet something in you just wanted to comfort him.

“N-no that’s not-”

He sat up abruptly, his cock now only half an inch in your entrance. The leg that rested on his shoulder fell to surround his waist with the other one and he sat back on his heels while grabbing your hips. His face looked so sad as he gazed down at you and yet his eyes seemed to hold a completely different emotion.

“Why not, dove? I’d give you everything.” His grip on your hips tightened and he slowly pulled your hips into his using only the strength of his arms. He slid back into you easily and his tip settled against a spot that had your eyes rolling into the back of your head and mouth opening in a low moan. Void grinned as he saw your reaction before returning to the pitiful look as he drew his hips back out again. His lips quirked up the slightest bit as you whined out. Pulling your hips into his roughly, he kept you there as you moaned louder. “I mean, if you really want me to stop…” He slowly started retreating out of your warmth as he trailed off before your arms wrapped around his neck.

“No!” You yelled before whispering almost like an echo, “No.” You breathed heavily in his ear, sputtering as you tried to get the next sentence out with his tip prodding against your cervix ever so delightfully. “Please don’t stop, y-you just can’t c-cum inside.”

He thrusted roughly into you again and your arms lost all strength as the mind blowing pleasure took over your mind. He repeated that cycle. Slowly pull out, roughly snap back in. Over and over and over. It made you whimper and cry out every time, wishing he would just bring you to the ecstacy you’ve been nearing instead of leaving you teetering on the edge of relief.

“Oh you feel so good baby, gonna cum, gonna cum, gonna cum.” He repeated like a mantra as his hips fastened and he pushed into you even harder.

Your mind was fogging over as you finally got the pleasure you needed to reach your orgasm. You barely had the strength to move your tongue and speak out your protests that were weakening by the second, you actually wanted his cum. You want it to be spilling out as you stand up, soaking your underwear as you walk around. You just were so scared of being pregnant. Your sister got pregnant when she was around your age. Your mother completely freaked when she found out and banished - yes, banished - her from the house forever.

Would Void stay? You still weren’t exactly sure what his intentions with you were. Was he going to kill you after this? Was he going to make you pregnant and leave you alone to raise the child on your own?

Apparently, Void could sense the onslaught of fear and panic creeping into your mind because he shoved his face into your neck and dug the pads of his fingers into your hips even harder. There was surely going to be a bruise the next coming day.

“Oh you’re going to look so good pregnant with my kids. God it just makes me so hard thinking about it. I wonder what they’ll look like, will they have your eyes or mine? God I hope they have yours so I can stare into them all day no matter where I am. This is the one thing I need to do to make you mine. You gonna let me make you mine, Dove? You gonna let me cum inside?” His pace slowed to a comforting, intimate pace. It brought you even closer to the edge just thinking he liked you enough to stay, maybe even loved you from how he was thrusting into you now.

You took a few moments to think about it before your mouth outran your thoughts. “Yes! Yes, Void, please. Please fill me up.”

He kissed your neck softly as his pace fastened again but still kept the intimacy from before. He pushed back the hood of your clit and started rubbing harshly on the overstimulated puffy bud of pleasure, making you lose all coherent thoughts and abilities to do anything but moan out his name. With a stuttered thrust, he pushed in all the way and came inside you. The feeling was enough to make you fall over the edge right with him. You both laid there in each-others arms while you tried to catch your breathing.

Void caught his a lot faster.

With a chuckle, and his dick as hard as when you started, he grabbed both of your legs, raising them so they were resting on his shoulders and he had you in the mating press and pressed your thighs against your breasts as he thrust into you with no reprieve. He pulled out of you before pushing back in, a torturously slow pace that made your body writhing and squirming. You gasped at the feeling and squirmed in his hold from the overstimulation. This new position made it so he hit your g-spot on every thrust in with no effort. As he brought one hand down to your clit again and rubbed so deliciously hard and slow, just like the pace he had set for his thrusts into you, you couldn’t take it anymore and came yet again. He had brought you to another orgasm in less than 2 minutes.

“Oh, you didn’t think we were done yet, did you, Dove? We have to make sure it sticks, don’t we baby? Gotta get you nice and knocked up with my kids. We can’t just stop now.”

With each slow thrust and the overstimulation, it didn’t take long before you came again and Void had the biggest smirk on his face as he watched you.

“V-void! P-ple-I can-can’t take anymore. I can't, I can't, I can't!”

He just laughed at you and your protesting words, capturing your hands that were weakly trying to push him away and forcing them to stay above your head where they were restricted of all movement. He pressed down even harder on your clit and you let out a yelp of a moan as you could feel another knot forming. “Darling, you don’t get to decide what’s too much. I'm in charge here, Dove, and you’re done when I say you’re done. You’ll take as much as I give you.”

His words turned you on so much more which surprised you as you didn’t think you could be any more turned on. You came once more and could tell by how Void’s face scrunched up in pleasure that he was reaching his limit as well. His dick pulsed inside of you, each vein had a throbbing heartbeat that struck so painfully good against your walls.

“One more, just one more, Dove. Give me one more.” He groaned out as he held his own orgasm back and rubbed rigorously at your clit while his pace increased to an unfathomable level. Finally, as you came yet again, Void released inside of you again.

He collapsed on top of you, his head landing on your chest, pillowed by your breasts. He sucked one of your nipples into his mouth as his slick fingers resumed their torture of your extremely overstimmulated clit. They rubbed slowly but it felt so much more intense than all the previous times that he had brought you pleasure. It burned in the best way possible.

“One more, come on, I know you have one more in you.” He encouraged, again. It seemed like he would just never stop.

He was utterly insatiable.

You came once more for the final time of the night and Void rewarded you with kisses scattered all across your chest for all of your efforts.

With your eyes barely able to remain open. and your limbs drained of any energy, Void looked at you with a soft look and gathered you in his arms. He grabbed the blanket that had been kicked off during the time of your… activities, and covered the both of you with it.

With his cock still deep inside of you, keeping everything he spent trapped within you, he whispered, “Good night, Dove,” and pressed a kiss to your temple. That night, you fell asleep wrapped in his arms, feeling more safe and at home than you have ever been before.

[callmedaleelah]

— Pinnacle [ tsukishima kei university au series ]

— and all i did was bleed as i tried to be the bravest soldier (father daughter moment)

author’s notes : no mention of (y/n), written in second person pov, semi alternative universe, timeskip!tsukishima, college life, not proofread, english is not my first language

[ masterlist ] | [ ask daleelah go to box box 🐭 ]

You wait in front of your dorm building, the early afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees. Your backpack hangs loosely from one shoulder as you check your phone. Just as you’re about to text him, you spot your dad’s familiar car pulling into the parking lot. His suit jacket is crisp, his tie slightly loosened from the day’s work.

He steps out of the car, his face lighting up as he sees you. “Hey, sweetie,” he greets, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and kissing your forehead with that same familiar warmth. His cologne lingers faintly. “Just finished class?”

You nod, tossing your bag into the backseat, then slide into the passenger seat. “How’s the law firm doing?” you ask, looking at him curiously.

He glances over as he buckles his seatbelt. “Busy as always,” he says with a sigh. “We’re hiring new lawyers, expanding the staff. Seems like every year it just keeps getting bigger.”

You nod, listening intently. It still amazes you that your dad’s firm, built from scratch with his friends two decades ago, is now one of the largest in the country.

“Open the dashboard, sweetie. Your mom asked me to pick something up for you.” You do as he asks, pulling out a small paper bag. Inside, you find an eye cream and lip balm, exactly what your mom always sends along to ensure you’re well-stocked. You chuckle softly. “Did I get it right?” he asks, half-smiling.

“Yeah, thanks, Dad.” You place the items back in the bag and set them aside.

He glances at the medical file in your hand. “Got your medical file with you?”

You nod, holding it up. He smiles approvingly, turning the car toward the clinic. “Good. How about ramen after?”

Your stomach growls at the thought. “Yeah, sounds good,” you say, settling into your seat as the city streets rush past.

---

The clinic is bright, the scent of antiseptic and soft murmurs of nurses filling the air as you and your dad step inside. The receptionist recognizes you and waves you back, and before you know it, you’re in your nutritionist’s office. Dr. Adi greets you with a warm smile, her neatly tied bun and glasses resting on the edge of her nose as she reviews your file.

“Come on, lie down, and let’s take a look,” she says, gesturing to the examination bed. You follow her instructions, the cold surface making you shiver slightly as you settle in.

She checks your blood pressure first, her hands firm but gentle, and then moves to check your pulse, brow furrowing slightly. “Your anemia still affecting you recently?” she asks, keeping her tone light but focused.

You nod slowly. “Yeah… I’ve been staying up late a lot, so when I wake up, I’m dizzy and tired. It fades after a while, but I still feel exhausted sometimes.”

Dr. Adi moves closer, examining the pallor under your eyes, her fingers lifting your eyelid gently to check for paleness. She frowns slightly but says nothing for a moment, focusing on your condition. “Have you been taking anything for the dizziness?” she asks, her voice soft but firm.

You shake your head. “No, I just let it pass.”

She nods thoughtfully, writing a few notes in your file. The room is quiet except for the soft scratching of her pen on paper, the air punctuated by the hum of the overhead lights. “Did you get the flu or a fever this month?” Dr. Adi asks again, looking up from your medical file.

You shake your head while pulling on your black sweater. “No.”

The doctor nods. “Good, that’s a sign your immune system has improved significantly.” She offers a small smile.

Your dad sits across from Dr. Adi, his expression calm but concerned. You can see the subtle furrow in his brow as he watches the doctor’s movements closely.

“Thanks to the ginseng tonic her mother keeps forcing her to drink,” your dad chimes in, his voice filled with light humor. The doctor chuckles softly, nodding in agreement.

“And your mother’s careful monitoring of your diet has helped as well,” Dr. Adi continues. “Your weight has stabilized at the ideal level we set for you, which is a huge accomplishment.”

You nod, feeling a small sense of relief. Then, she glances back at the file, her expression turning more serious again. “Unfortunately, your anemia still seems to be a challenge.”

Your dad shifts in his seat, his voice concerned. “And that means?”

Dr. Adi adjusts her glasses, leaning forward slightly as she speaks directly to you. “The exhaustion and dizziness you’re feeling—especially in the mornings—are signs that your body is struggling to maintain a balance. After checking your latest results, I noticed your blood pressure and oxygen levels are quite low from the time you wake up until lunch. That dizziness you’re feeling? It doesn’t just disappear, it lingers—you’ve likely just gotten used to it or are too busy to notice. It’s your body’s way of telling you that it’s under too much stress.”

You nod, feeling a bit uneasy now, realizing you’ve been pushing yourself harder than you thought.

The doctor’s gaze softens. “We all know how to eat and digest food, but not many of us know how to ‘digest’ exhaustion,” she says, using her hands to emphasize her point. “Your body is sending you signals—every time you pull an all-nighter or skip rest, the dizziness is that signal. You might think you can just power through it, but how long have you been doing this? When was the last time you actually took a break and listened to what your body was telling you?”

You sit there, suddenly at a loss for words. You hadn’t considered it from that perspective before.

Dr. Adi continues, her tone empathetic but firm. “Everyone’s body has limits. It’s completely normal to feel this way because you’ve been pushing yourself too hard. You’ve done an amazing job in so many areas, but now it’s time to focus on regulating your tiredness. A consistent sleep schedule is key. Skipping sleep might seem necessary to get things done, but think about it—how long have you been running on empty? You need to listen when your body says enough is enough.”

You nod slowly, her words sinking in, your mind swimming with thoughts of all the late nights, skipped meals, and ignored signals. You glance over at your dad, who offers you a reassuring smile, his hand reaching across the table to give yours a comforting squeeze.

The room feels heavier now, but also filled with a sense of clarity. You realize this isn’t something you can ignore anymore.

After the appointment, the drive to the ramen restaurant is quiet. You lean against the window, curled up in your seat, lost in thought. Your dad glances at you, and just before entering the restaurant, he rubs your back gently. His touch is soft—reassuring—but it does little to ease the turmoil in your heart.

Once seated, you focus on the menu, but your mind is elsewhere. Your dad starts, “Do you need help with tracking your sleep time, sweetie?” His voice is calm, but there’s a subtle worry underneath.

You force a smile. “No, Dad. I’ll just fill out a new tracker in my phone.”

He watches you for a moment, as if gauging whether to push further. “Are you having trouble sleeping, like insomnia or something?”

You hesitate, feeling the weight of his concern but also the growing frustration inside. “Sometimes, I’m just so caught up in assignments that I don’t realize it’s late. I have to re-read things so many times to understand them... And by the time I try to sleep, my brain won’t stop. It’s like I can’t turn it off.”

Your dad’s face softens with sympathy. “I’m sorry you’ve been struggling, sweetie. I know you want to do well, and I’m proud of you for trying so hard... But if it’s hurting you too much, you need to tell us.”

His words are kind, and you feel a familiar warmth in your chest—the love he’s always shown you, the softness he offers that’s so different from your mom’s tough exterior. But as much as you love him, there’s a bitter part of you that recoils. You look at him, the man who’s always been gentle, but too passive. The man who never stood up to your mom when it mattered most.

“I told you from the start, Dad... I’m not naturally smart in this,” you whisper, avoiding his gaze as the resentment begins to rise, unspoken but heavy between you.

There’s a silence. He sighs, leaning forward slightly, his shoulders slumping. “I know, baby, I know. But your mom and I— we just want the best for you,” he says, but his voice lacks conviction. He knows it too. He glances at you, but your eyes are distant. “But this isn’t about the major anymore. It’s about your health now. No matter what you study, you push yourself hard, but I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

You want to lash out, to say what’s been building inside you for so long, but instead, you just press your lips together tightly. “I can take care of myself, Dad. I’m twenty now. Being sleep deprived is normal for students. No one else at my university goes to a nutritionist to monitor their deficiencies or sleep schedules.”

His eyes narrow slightly in concern. “But not everyone at your university had a near-death experience before they got there.”

The air between you freezes. His words are soft, but they cut deep, bringing you back to a time you’ve tried to forget.

Two years ago, just as you were about to graduate high school, you had a fever—what seemed like a minor illness at first. But it grew worse. Your body ached, and soon you couldn’t move without help. Eating became impossible, even speaking was difficult. One night, everything escalated. You had a seizure, and your parents rushed you to the hospital. That night, you were diagnosed with stress-induced encephalopathy. You remember the doctor explaining how many factors has damaged your brain function, and how long-term treatments was the only option. Those months were a blur—nights spent in the hospital, your body so weak you couldn’t stand without assistance. Your dad was by your side every day, never leaving. And when you finally recovered, your parents vowed to never let your health slip again.

It was why your mom had pushed for the nutritionist, why she had insisted on watching every aspect of your life, as if by controlling it she could shield you from ever coming that close to death again. But you hated it. You hated how they controlled every part of you after that. Most of all, you hated how your dad—your kind, gentle dad—just stood by and let it happen.

“You know your mother and I are just trying to keep you safe,” he says quietly, but you can hear the unspoken tension in his voice. He never pushes back, never challenges her decisions.

You stare out the window, the memories stirring something painful inside you. “I can’t live my life like this forever, Dad,” you whisper, the weight of two years of silent frustration pressing on your chest. “I survived. But I’m not fragile.”

Your dad says nothing for a long moment. He just looks at you, his eyes soft, but filled with something you can’t quite place—regret, maybe. Or guilt. Maybe both.

“I know, sweetie. I know.” His voice breaks slightly, and he reaches across the table, placing his hand gently on yours. “But we love you. And I—” he hesitates, his grip tightening just a little. “I just don’t want to see you go through that again.”

You want to believe him, but the memory of him sitting silent as your mom dictated your future flashes in your mind, and you pull your hand away gently. “Then don’t let it happen again,” you whisper, your voice thick with emotion.

The tension hangs in the air as your ramen arrives, and the conversation shifts, but the unspoken words linger between you—both of you feeling the weight of what’s been left unsaid for too long.

sorry i woke up and chose the drama 🤧 i’m running out of plot development so i’ll give you guys some angst 🥹

tagslist (free to mention) ; @theweirdfloatything @snowthatareblack @ilovemymomscooking @nayiiryun @knightofmidnight @kozumesphone @scxrcherr @thechaosoflonging @monya-febrjack

[malfiora]

Good Enough

Bruce probably wasn't meant to hear it, but his heart squeezes all the same. His fingers clutch at his chest and his throat works around the lump suddenly lodged in it.

"I'll have to ask my dad," Dick had said. The words belong to another child, one Bruce has never met. But that voice – its tone, its warmth, its certainty – is Dick. Undeniably, unmistakably Dick. He's talking to one of his teachers (Mr. Mather, he recalls only because he had to deal with Dick's insistence that his biology teacher be called Ms. Sciencer for weeks) and he grins when he spots Bruce stalled by the door. "Oh, speak of the devil."

Bruce stumbles his way through a conversation about Dick's exceptional grades and aptitude for abstract concepts and how he has real potential as a mathlete, but his brain is humming with wordless excitement at the word "dad" and eager to hear it tickle the air again. He floats on that feeling all the way home, even elongating their return to tell Alfred to pull over at that fast food joint Dick likes, the one with the milkshakes.

And then he crashes. Dick disappears into his room to allegedly do homework (Bruce is eighty-five percent sure he's actually hopping onto his computer to IM Barbara Gordon), and with him vanishes the warmth of being considered a father. Left in its wake is a coldness injecting nausea into his gut.

He can't be a – he doesn't know how to – when did Dick even – and why him? The past three years flash by in reverse: Dick dancing through a spray of bullets, tears streaming from Dick's mask as he watched Batman fall from a snapped line just like they did, Dick standing proudly before a mirror in his brand new costume, a gleam of murderous intent staring up at him, a broken boy swallowed up in an EMT's blanket while his world lay shattered at his feet. What has he done? How could he think that drawing this bright kid into his dark roost was a good idea? And now Dick thinks of him as a father figure – it's too late to go back, isn't it?

He isn't John Grayson, will never be, doesn't want to try. He hears the whispers among polite society speculating why he won't adopt Dick, but none of them come close to the truth. It's rooted in fear (inaction always is). Fear that he'll be seen as the fraud he is, and then Dick will leave and regret ever calling him "dad."

He's not even Thomas Wayne, not for lack of trying. His memories of the man are faded around the edges but he knows he devoted himself completely to any and all that he loved: his career, his wife, his son. Thomas Wayne didn't do anything by halves. But Bruce Wayne is constantly torn – one foot planted in civilian domesticity fumbling his way through raising a child, the other firm in Gotham's underbelly hellbent on redeeming the damned while keeping his kid partner safe from the danger that he throws him into in the first place.

"Sir," Alfred calls, his voice soft. "If you're done drilling a hole through the carpet with your eyes, I've put tea on."

Bruce blinks and looks up at Alfred. "Tea sounds great, Alfred."

He plods after Alfred and into the tearoom. Alfred deftly sets out cups, saucers, and bowls of cream and sugar before pouring the fresh brew. Bruce murmurs a "thanks" before sipping his. Alfred lowers himself into the seat opposite his at the small table.

"Master Dick seems to be doing well at the Academy," Alfred says. "I can't imagine that that caused your dour mood."

Those who call Batman the world's greatest detective just haven't met Alfred. "Dick called me 'dad' today," he explains calmly. "Not to my face. I overheard him say it to his teacher."

Alfred hums. "Could mean nothing."

That's...true. Dick may have used the term as shorthand. "Dad" is easier to say than "legal guardian" and more specific and personal than "Bruce." It could have been a Freudian slip, Dick's mind supplying him with a cognitive shortcut subconsciously. Bruce sets his tea down and stares into the liquid.

"Or," Alfred presses on (Bruce hates the way his heart lifts a little), "he is starting to see you – us – as his family." Alfred sips and watches him.

"That's what I'm afraid of," he admits after a while. "Alfred, I'm not – Dick deserves so much better than –"

When it's clear that Bruce won't finish the sentence, Alfred clears his throat gently. "If I may, I'd like to share a secret with you." Bruce nods. "There was a time that I considered leaving you."

Bruce's eyes widen. "What?"

Alfred nods. "I thought that after your parents, I was the last person who should raise a child, especially one who needed his world put back together. Surely the Kanes would have made better surrogates. Perhaps a foster if a suitable one could be found." He smirked. "I almost considered the Queens before that awful accident."

The blood is rushing in Bruce's ears. Alfred, his most loyal and longest friend, had wanted to leave him? "What changed?"

Alfred takes another sip, contemplates. "I don't think anything has. Everyday I wonder if I made the right choice. If I am being selfish staying in your life simply because I love you too much to let you go."

Again, Bruce's chest squeezes. Alfred, his Alfred, has the exact same fear. That somehow he'll fail his charge, will lose him. And all this time, Bruce has never considered going anywhere, can't imagine his life without Alfred in it. Maybe – is that how Dick feels? That Bruce is his? God, if that's true then...then Bruce as he is just has to be good enough. Because he's not going to let Dick go.

"My son," he says, testing the word. It tastes sweeter than the tea on his tongue.

[unicyclehippo]

flew for the first time in a very long time, since well before covid started, & oh i missed it so much. first, how remarkable an invention a plane is, how clever, how world changing!! it can seem so normal but actually we are FLYING. i looked down on the clouds that look down on me. the sun rose & everything was brilliantly incandescently white. i stared out the window for the entirety of the admittedly too-short flight & cloud spotted—i saw lions & palaces of cloud & a fleet of dolphins breaking out of the waves. mostly it looked like quilting wadding. i love to fly. i love to people watch, i love to cloud watch, i love the clouds, i love the captains & the cabin crew. when i fly i feel like i will never run out of things to love about humans

a short list of things i loved about the two flights i took:

- special shoutout to the cabin crew, ground crew, they’re incredible. literally all the crew i interacted with had the biggest smiles & were so so friendly & helpful. if ur a crew member out there, i love you. huge shout out to the mid 50s (?) hostess on my first flight—short, super sharply put together in the “im a modern witch” kinda way—who had a quip for almost every comment directed her way. the only one i rmbr was when an elderly passenger called her love she replied “how’d you know my name is love? you must be a psychic!”

- all the passengers i saw were calm & unruffled at the least & sometimes very nice! all around me i could hear people meeting & passing with those small human courtesies repeated & repeated—pardon me, d’you mind if i duck past, hey do you need help with your bag, oh mind their head there, where are you headed, can you get by do you need some room, thank you, thank you, thank you, can i help you, can i help you, can i help you

- special shoutout to the passenger w the crying baby. he was such an upset baby & the only thing that calmed him was being walked up & down the aisle over & over. every time he came down the aisle, i saw heads turn toward him & people smiling their baby smiles—exaggerated, kind, often accompanied by a scrunch of the nose or a tiny wave. ‘he doesn’t sound happy poor thing,’ i heard a lot, or things like it, as his dad bounced him in his arms, & then, invariably, help was offered. ‘my mother swears by this trick‘ — ‘my husband does this to calm our kids” — ‘my wife always does this’. the flight was delayed by nearly fifty minutes. no one was allowed out of their seat as we idled on the tarmac except for this unhappy baby & his dad, walking up & down the aisle.

- special shoutout to my seat buddy, who had a wonderful bright yellow backpack with rainbow straps. i have a matching one & told her so. she said it was a whim, on account of the yellow & rainbow. i told her it’s a very durable bag & one of my favourites. there’s a softening that comes with a compliment, a small comment when we meet—it’s an invitation from then on to say whatever little something pops into our heads. are you listening to music? what book are you reading - oh it’s a library book! good on you mate! we gotta use them more. do you know how to get the headphones working—ooh i figured it out. mind if i use your charger, mines not working. hey the refreshments are headed this way did you want anything? are you headed home? my family is in the row in front & she smiles every time they twist uncomfortably to chat through the gaps in the seats. later, as we are waiting to disembark, she confesses she was on the flight before but it was cancelled . you mean i could’ve had more space, i teased. she laughed, apologises. i could have had far worse company…but not by much, i teased a little more, & she laughed harder. get home safe, we say to each other—i don’t know her name, she knows mine just because my mother whispered it through the seats (are you too hot back there? do you have enough leg room? i can’t move the seat but - oh your sister wants me to recline my seat onto you, im going to squish you!). get home safe, i hear echoed by ten more people to their seat buddies as i hurry off the plane. the last is from a smiling crew member (refer back to my first point. i love you crew members).

- a turbaned man held his baby up at the huge windows looking out to the planes. she clung to him for a minute then tried to dive out of his arms, her own spread wide like the wings of a plane, laughing.

- the women having dinner in the food court as we waited for our plane. i was facing away from them & somewhat half heartedly eavesdropping but every now & again they said something so familiar that it may as well have been my own sisters sitting behind me. ‘—don’t hate her but some of the things she says-‘ ‘i know, i know. can she even hear herself? it’s like. so self-centred.’ ‘and she THINKS she’s being the nice one or she wants us to think it? i don’t even KNOW anymore. like, either she’s so conceited she thinks we love everything she does or she knows she’s behaved badly & is enjoying, i don’t know, us not knowing what to say?’ ‘i KNOW. and, like, we have to be honest,’ ‘absolutely,’ ‘but at the same time it’s like. she should know.’ ‘she should KNOW.’ ‘but she doesn’t or she’s pretending not to and im so done.’ i don’t know who you ladies were, i never saw your faces, i wish you all the best with your friend.

- the Intensely Cheerful & Organised Mother who was my seat buddy on flight 1. you were corralling three teen daughters &, from the glimpses of your notebook i caught, were studying for a test on medicine or maybe nursing. i know you were all on your way to see taylor & you were Determined that it was going to be the perfect trip. i have never seen someone work so hard at getting their luggage to fit in the overhead compartments but you managed to find a space for all of it & i applaud you now

i know there’s more but im for bed. basically i love to fly & im so happy to have done it again

[a3risbaby]

what we whispered in the dark [m]

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 stardew valley : sam x afab!reader (no pronouns)

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Between the sneaking around and him nearing cumming in his pants from a heated kiss, you don't feel like a pair of twenty-somethings who are three and a half seasons into their relationship. And something about that makes your heart soar. He always finds a way to make you fall in love like it's the first day all over again.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 smut (minors dni), fluff, established relationship, face-sitting, vaginal fingering (barely), cross-posted on ao3 | 1.9k words

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 my first x reader smut! i was going to continue, but i figured that this was a good stopping place. let me know if you liked it :)

On your first day in Pelican Town, you tried to greet everyone, introducing yourself as the new farmer taking over your grandfather's dilapidated farm. The reactions varied from the gruff Get the fuck out of my face (Shane, your favorite grouch) to the stand off-ish Oh...you're not what I was expecting (Jodi, who's warmed up a little) to the pleasant Nice. I'll see you around (Alex, one of your fastest friends).

And Sam? Sam was sweet, you realized immediately, and your impression hasn't changed since. With his bright hair and even brighter smile, he always passes you with a chipper wave, kicking off on his ever present skateboard, and you find yourself saving all of your fished-up Joja Cans just to see his face light up. Sam is sweet and kind and nice and just a little dumb and funny and currently doing a really shitty job of sneaking out of his house.

"Can you be a little quieter?" you hiss from the bushes, wincing as his knee hits the windowsill for the second time.

You're not worried about Kent. In fact, he's watching the two of you right now from his usual spot underneath the front yard tree, the smallest frown marring his features. The last time you were rushing to avoid the 2AM fine, you made a point of stopping and asking Kent for his blessing. Less because it mattered and more because he often sat here until late, and you weren't sure if you could avoid both his insomniac habits and the town's curfew.

"His mom leaves the house around ten," Kent murmurs. "Make sure to set an alarm before you get distracted with playing your video games."

"No worries, sir, I'm up by sunrise," you say, eyes not leaving your boyfriend. He's finally making his way down the makeshift rope ladder. "Can you please teach him how to sneak out properly next time?"

Over your shoulder, Kent snorts softly. "Sure."

It's been years since either of you were a teenager, but Sam breathes a youthful energy back into you, taking your hand as soon as he hits the ground and running off with one last glance at his dad. You keep up with his long strides, the wind whipping at your straw hat and clothes, and have to suppress a giggle as he nearly trips over a rock. He's really bad at this. You slip an extra glowstone ring onto his thumb.

"That's the first time I actually made it out undetected," he says, a laugh bubbling in his chest. "I need to tell Seb tomorrow."

"How does it usually go?"

"Well, I barely get out the front door—"

See? A little dumb. You bite back a silly comment, shooting him a smile that he returns instead.

The journey from his house to yours isn't far—go past Leah's cozy cabin, take a right at Marnie's expansive ranch, follow the newly laid stone path until you see the telltale stable—but it's long enough for your floating moods to sink into something akin to anticipation. At the stoop, you drop your keys once, then twice. It doesn't help that Sam's trailing his fingers along your sides, dropping kisses along your shoulders.

"You should just leave the door unlocked next time," he suggests when you finally get the key in. You barely managed to pull together the plan for tonight, and he's already talking about next time. "No one's out here this late."

"Except us."

"Except us," he echoes.

You kick your shoes off, but you're not sure where they land because Sam has you pressed against the closed door, lips moving against yours, clumsy in his haste. His hands are tight on your hips as he pulls you into him. You're tempted to lose yourself in the urgency.

"Sam, wait," you manage. He hums in acknowledgement, moving to brush his nose along your jaw. "I need to take a shower first. I've been foraging in Cindersap all day."

"You could be covered in slime goop, and I'd still find you hot," he says with so much sincerity your knees almost buckle.

"Thanks, but it's not a matter of whether or not I'm attractive." You push his shoulders squarely. He yields. "I feel gross. It'll take five, ten minutes tops. You can wait upstairs for me."

"And what if I get lost?" He raises his eyebrows. "I feel like I should follow you to the shower."

You roll your eyes. "Heel, boy. I'll be right there, okay?"

His excitement is endearing. Between the sneaking around and him nearing cumming in his pants from a heated kiss, you don't feel like a pair of twenty-somethings who are three and a half seasons into their relationship. And something about that makes your heart soar. He always finds a way to make you fall in love like it's the first day all over again. As promised, you're done washing off in seven minutes. For a second, you entertain the idea of walking into your bedroom with only a towel, just to gauge his reaction, but you throw on a tank top and shorts instead, foregoing underwear since it'll all be gone anyway.

You find him on the edge of your bed, sorting your mail into two piles on your nightstand. He looks up with a smile.

"JojaMart's having a sale on seeds," he reports. "You can use my employee discount and get a little more off."

"Yeah?" You step between his open legs and brush blond hair away from his forehead. Your beautiful, radiant boyfriend. "How much off?"

"I don't remember. Like 10%, I think?"

"Just ten?" You shimmy your shorts down an inch. He follows their journey like a hawk. "I thought it was more than that."

"Maybe it was twenty, I'm not sure."

"That's all? A shame." You push them down further, exposing your hips, and his eyes light up as he catches on.

He wets his lips and says, voice strained, "No, it was 100%. Definitely completely off."

You let him tug your shorts down, and when they pool around your ankles, you kick them off. His gaze flickers between your exposed skin and your face, impossibly reverent. He doesn't pray to Yoba like his family, but his expression, here and now, is one of a worshiper. Devoted and devout until the end of time.

He pulls you in for a kiss, mouth open to swallow your moans, and falls back onto your sheets. Your legs straddle his hips, and you whimper as he ruts his growing bulge against the apex of your legs. The material of his sweatpants drag against you—you definitely need to throw it in the laundry before he leaves.

"This wet already, baby? The night's barely started," he mumbles against your lips. Under normal circumstances, the stain on his pants would embarrass you, but anticipation thrums in your veins. The hands on your waist force you to still, and it's pathetic how close you are to begging him to keep going. "As much as I love it, I'm not going to last long like this and I want to finish in you tonight. Okay?"

"Okay," you manage, "but you better keep your word."

He laughs. "I always do. Now how much of a discount do I need to promise if I want you to sit on my face?"

.

.

You're a sight that Sam can never tire of. He isn't the wordy kind of person, but if he was, he'd likely wax poetic about how beautiful you look right now. Something about how the crescent moon spills from the open window and falls over your skin like liquid silver.

Huh. That actually wasn't bad. Maybe writing lyrics for the band has made him better at this sort of thing. He settles on the pile of pillows on your bed, murmuring encouragements as you shift forward and straddle his face.

"Are you sure?" you're asking for the third time, and he has to hold back from rolling his eyes.

He tries his best to look you in the face, which is hard considering everything else tempting his gaze. Yoba, this is a perspective that he needs to get more often. "Babe," he says, trailing kisses along your thigh. "Seriously. I already said it before, but this is exactly what I want. You're stunning. Amazing. Perfect. I'd rather die between your legs than anywhere���" And the rest of his argument is lost on his tongue as you finally take a seat and Sam considers quitting his day job at JojaMart to do this forever.

He inhales the dampness of your pussy, flattens his tongue, and basks in the way you keel forward, fingers curling around the headboard to keep steady. A shaky breath from you and he sets out in earnest, one hand digging into your ass, the other skimming its way up your body until it lands on your chest. He's not the type to curse much either, but fuck, your tits are amazing. He grasps at them firmly, just how you like it, until you yank your top over your head and he can finally get a full view.

His hands move again, this time to spread you further apart as his tongue laps at your dripping cunt, and if your growing cries are any indication, he's proud to say that he's gotten good at this lately.

Can you be a little quieter? he's tempted to echo the complaint you had at his house earlier, but he holds back from teasing for two reasons. One, he actually hates it when you bite back your moans. Your volume is exactly why you can't do this at his place, and he relishes in the way your noises go straight to his dick, currently straining to be freed from his sweats. And two, truthfully, he doesn't think he can separate from you long enough to say anything.

So he expresses his pleasure with guttural groans and pants as you grind down into his face, your clit clipping his nose in a way that has you squirming in his hold. You're fucking amazing, and he hopes you know this. He feels like he doesn't tell you that enough.

"So good, a-ah, Sam, fuck...just like that. Keep goi—oh my—"

Your pace stutters when his lips finally suction around your clit, and his name becomes a breathless mantra on your tongue as he unravels you on his. You rock against his face, previous hesitation forgotten as you chase after your high.

"'m so close," you whimper, your hands kneading your chest desperately. "So, so close—Sam, please—almost there."

Without warning, he sinks a finger into you, the metal of his glowstone ring cold against your flushed folds, and it's enough to send you over the edge. A flurry of broken curses spill over as you ride it out, and Sam swears he can drown in your pussy, lapping at your orgasm until you push off of him and slide onto your back.

"You're too good at this for a newbie," you insist, voice petulant as you catch your breath.

He wants to kiss you so bad, make you taste yourself on the slick that runs down his chin, but he cleans himself up and waits beside you patiently until you tug at his hand. A sign that you're ready for him to make good on his promise.

[scary-grace]

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 16) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside-down world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 16

The knock at the door comes as you’re putting on your shoes to leave, bright and early when the sun’s barely risen. Your mom calls out for you to go get it, since you’re closest, and you open the door just in time to get one of the nastiest shocks you’ve ever gotten in your life. “What are you doing here?”

“Good morning to you, too,” Hizashi says. He’s wearing a leather jacket with spikes on the shoulder pads and horrible triangular sunglasses, tinted yellow. “As to why I’m here at your parents’ house, I wouldn’t be if you’d stayed in your hotel like you were supposed to.”

Tomura did this. Why did Tomura do this? You hear footsteps down the hall and your mother almost knocks you over in her attempts to get a look at who’s at the door. “Are you Tomura?”

As pissed as you are that Hizashi’s here, the look on his face when he realizes he’s been mistaken for Tomura cracks you up. You lean against the doorframe, wheezing, while Hizashi tries to recover. “No, ma’am. I’m one of their neighbors.”

“Oh,” your mother says, puzzled, while you pray to every deity you can think of that she hasn’t realized that “they” refers to you and Tomura. You and Tomura, living together. “You’re a ways from home.”

“I’m on a mission! See, my husband’s a novelist – Aizawa Shouta, best of his generation – and your daughter agreed to take a research trip up here for him! But it looks like there’s going to be a lot more research than we thought, so Shou sent me up here to help out!” Hizashi gives your mother a smile that would probably be winning if it wasn’t so sharp. “Plus, I’ve got a car of my own. That way we can get back to the neighborhood tonight!”

You can only see your mother in profile, but you see her face fall. “You were supposed to meet the neighbors –”

“Oh, we can stay for that,” Hizashi says before you can say a word. “We won’t leave until after the party! Isn’t that right?”

He’s looking at you. You look back, wondering if he knows just how badly you want to kill him right now. “Right,” you say. You put your hand on your mom’s arm and she looks at you. “I promise I’ll stay for the party.”

She smiles at you, but there’s a line drawn between her brows, and you don’t know what to do about it. Not reassure her, that’s for sure. Hizashi clears his throat from the front step. “We’ve got lots of paper to go through. Let’s rock and roll!”

Your departure’s interrupted by your dad, who’s spotted Hizashi’s goddamn sports car and wants to ooh and ahh over it. Because your parents are both on the curb, you have to wait until you’re around the corner before you unload on Hizashi. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Ask your boyfriend,” Hizashi says. His smile’s gone. He looks just as pissed as you feel, except you’re a human and he’s a way-too-powerful former ghost who really doesn’t like you. “Two seconds after you left, he started putting the screws to every ghost in the neighborhood, trying to make somebody follow you.”

“Why?” you ask, baffled. “Nobody out here is looking for me.”

“They aren’t looking for you, and they can’t sense you at a distance, but if they come across you at close range they’ll know exactly what they’re looking at,” Hizashi says. He taps the horn at a moped and nearly scares the driver into a crowd of pedestrians. “Your weak human senses won’t let you see them coming, either, which is why I’m here. Call me your early warning system.”

“Okay, but aren’t you going to attract a lot of attention all on your own?” You really don’t like the fact that you’re in Hizashi’s car right now. As far as you can tell, the two of you are still headed for the museum, but you could veer at any moment. “You’re the most powerful one in the neighborhood next to Tomura. People can probably spot you from miles away, and when they come looking for you, they’ll spot me.”

“Not until they’re up close, and I’ll know they’re coming. Plenty of time for me to hide you somewhere.”

The way he says that, it sounds like he’s talking about hiding your dead body. “Why are you doing this? You don’t even like Tomura. Why would you do what he says?”

“So he’d stop trying to bully Shou into it.” Hizashi’s grip on the steering wheel is white-knuckled. “That, and one other reason. If anything happens to you away from the neighborhood, he’ll blow that house apart and come looking for whoever did it.”

And all Hizashi cares about is making sure Tomura stays in the neighborhood, stays a ghost. “You’re manipulating him.”

“As if. If anything, he’s manipulating me!” Hizashi scoffs. “I told him to send somebody else – somebody without kids, somebody who’s got free time on their hands – and he wouldn’t. Of course, his other option was Dabi, so that was never going to happen, even though Dabi owes him for sheltering Keigo during the Garaki thing – I swear, nobody does dick-measuring contests like live ghosts who are insecure about their humans –”

You’re pretty sure Dabi’s not insecure about Keigo. You hope Tomura’s not insecure about you, and even if he was, you’re pretty sure he could beat Dabi in a dick-measuring contest. Every time the two of you hook up you’re a little taken aback by how big he is. This isn’t a great time to be thinking about that. Luckily, Hizashi’s not paying attention. “But no! Instead of sending the neighborhood’s least favorite burnt marshmallow, he sends me. He must be really worried about you if he thinks it’s worth trapping us together in a car.”

You scrunch down in your seat, more than a little pissed off at Tomura. He might not know what Hizashi said to you the day of the fight with Garaki, but he knows it hurt you, and even if Hizashi’s changed his tune towards you, you doubt Hizashi actually cares whether you live or die. What Hizashi cares about is his family. His family, who will be under threat if Tomura destroys his house and leaves. His family, who Tomura will almost certainly kill if Hizashi lets anything happen to you.

There’s only one thing that can be said about it. “This sucks.”

“For once we agree.” Hizashi’s fingers drum against the steering wheel. “What’s the point of going to this museum again?”

“It used to be an asylum. The conjurer’s younger brother was there, and he died under questionable circumstances,” you say. “But he was there for a while before that. There are lots of records of him, and I want to see if he had anything to say about his brother.”

“Sneaky,” Hizashi remarks. “What are you hoping you’ll find?”

“I don’t know. Something. Anything I can use.” You scrunch further down in your seat. “I was useless fighting Garaki, but the stuff I found out about him helped us get ready. This is the only thing I can do that might help Tomura win.”

“You could always die. He’d be so mad about it that his conjurer wouldn’t stand a chance,” Hizashi says. “Of course, he’d probably take half the city out along with him.”

You decide not to dignify that with a response and resign yourself to an hour and a half of Hizashi picking on you, trying to get you to lose your temper. Your phone pings and you pull it out of your backpack to find Tomura’s contact number. He’s texting you. Is he there?

He’s not even pretending he didn’t do it. My parents thought he was you. You hesitate a moment, then send another text. I don’t need a babysitter.

You didn’t need to leave, either. Tomura discovers the emoji keyboard and sends you twelve in a row, none of which make any sense. Tell me if he does anything to you. I’ll kill him.

It says something about you that you honestly think it’s sweet of Tomura to offer, but it’s long past time for you to fight your own fights with Hizashi. You interrupt him in the middle of a lengthy digression about why Tomura chose poorly when he chose you as his human and drop the conversational equivalent of the atomic bomb. “You know, I used to wonder if you forced Aizawa to marry you.”

Hizashi nearly drives off the road. “You what?”

“Yeah. The way your meet-cute went, it sounds like he didn’t really have a choice,” you say. Antagonizing Hizashi is a stupid move, especially when you’re stuck in the car with him, but you’re tired of being his punching bag. “Did you ever wonder about that? Do any of you ever wonder if your humans really wanted you?”

“Watch it,” Hizashi warns through clenched teeth. “If you keep running your mouth off –”

“You say this kind of stuff to me all the time,” you point out. “Except you say worse things about Tomura than I’d ever say about Aizawa. I’m not taking it lying down anymore. So either we keep going like this and I give as good as I get, or we accept that we’re stuck together for the next eighteen hours and call a truce. Your choice.”

Trying to be reasonable with a ghost who doesn’t want to understand is like smashing your head repeatedly against a brick wall. But you can see that Hizashi’s thinking about it. He doesn’t like having his bullshit turned around on him, and he knows he can’t retaliate worse. And you are stuck together for the next eighteen hours. “Tell me about humans, then,” he says finally. “Since you know so much.”

“Can’t you ask Aizawa about humans?”

“There are things he says I won’t get. That he knows I won’t get, because my frame of reference is wrong.” It sounds like it bothers Hizashi. Like it bothers him a lot. “I’m two hundred and nineteen years old. My frame of reference is pretty fucking broad. But apparently it’s not broad enough to get it.”

“Get what?”

Hizashi doesn’t answer. “Here’s the deal. I’ll tell you everything you want to know about ghosts. The kind of shit your stupid brat ghost won’t say. You tell me what I want to know about humans. That’s our truce. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” you say, wondering what Hizashi thinks Tomura won’t say about being a ghost. “What does Aizawa think you don’t get?”

“Sacrifice,” Hizashi says. You blink. “If he had to save me or the kids, he’d save the kids, and he thought I’d say the same thing. Like it’s a no-brainer. Why?”

“I don’t have kids,” you remind him.

“The way he reacted, it’s not a parent thing. It’s a human thing. You’re supposed to choose the kids,” Hizashi says. “Why?”

“Um –” You really don’t want to wade into this, but you also don’t want to spend the rest of the day going back and forth with Hizashi to see who can be the bigger asshole. “It’s – when you have kids, they’re here because of you. The only reason they’re here is because you wanted them to be. So a lot of people think your responsibility should be to them over everything else. Over you and over your job and over the stuff you own – and over your spouse.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hizashi says flatly. “I love my kids. I’d do anything for them. Except let my human die.”

With Hizashi’s conjurer and Eri’s conjurer both dead, this little hypothetical is probably never going to come to pass. But you’re thinking of something else, something Aizawa said about how to convince ghosts to change their behavior. “Think about it this way,” you suggest. “If you saved Aizawa and let the kids die, he would never forgive you.”

“If I didn’t, he’d be dead. It wouldn’t matter.”

“Nobody knows what happens after you die.” You shrug. “It might be nothing, but you might see him again.”

Hizashi glances sideways at you. “It’s not nothing,” he says. Your stomach lurches. “The world we come from is called the world between for a reason. It’s our entire world, but it’s nothing more than a pathway for your kind. Sooner or later, you all pass through.”

You’ve seen into the world between. It’s horrifying. “Pass through to what?”

“We don’t know,” Hizashi says. “I’ve followed those paths. Most of us do, if we stay there long enough to grow up. We can’t cross over, so we don’t know for sure. All I can tell you is there’s something there.”

You think of something Tomura said a long time ago: They embodied themselves so they could follow their humans. Wherever they go. Even after they’re dead. Hizashi laughs quietly. “One of these days I’ll find out.”

He sounds pretty unconcerned about the possibility. Then again, he’s never said he’s scared of dying – only of outliving Aizawa. You don’t want to talk about the afterlife anymore. “Did I answer your question?”

“Close enough.” Hizashi merges onto the freeway and accelerates. “Your turn. Got any ghost questions for me?”

Just one. “What happens if a ghost kills their own conjurer?”

“Nothing good,” Hizashi says. Your heart sinks. “First of all, it’s hard. They’ll draw on their other ghosts to fight back, and you’ll have to blast through those ghosts, too. If you’re permanently embodied, it’s not possible. They’ll just kill you. If you aren’t embodied and you take out your conjurer personally, you’re breaking your link to this world.”

Aizawa told you there was only one way out once a ghost has been summoned. Probably because he never expected things to go like this. “It sends them back?” you ask. “Every time?”

“Every time I’ve seen, which isn’t many.” Hizashi shrugs. “Theoretically he could fight it. If he took out the other ghosts, drained his conjurer, and embodied himself, he’d have a chance. But he’d have to want it. More than –”

“He’s ever wanted anything else, in all his existence.” You don’t need to fill in what you and everybody else in the neighborhood have figured out already: Tomura doesn’t want to be human. “This is more important than I thought, then. If you want him to keep protecting the neighborhood, the rest of us have to figure out how to kill his conjurer.”

You and Hizashi spend the rest of the drive to the asylum talking about conjurers. As the oldest ghost you know of, Hizashi’s seen a lot as far as conjurers go, and he even met some of the other ghosts Tomura’s conjurer summoned. You ask him what they were like and watch his expression turn grim. “By human standards, I’m a monster,” he says. It doesn’t weird you out even slightly to hear him admit it. It’s more of a relief than anything else. “Compared to those ghosts, I’m nothing. We’re lucky none of them are left.”

“If none of them are left, then what’s Tomura’s conjurer going to bring as backup?” you ask. “There’s no way he’ll come alone.”

“More Nomus, maybe?” Hizashi runs a red light and waves cheekily at the semi-truck he just cut off before roaring into the museum’s parking lot at full speed. “Let’s hope this place helps us figure it out.”

The old asylum looks exactly like what it is – a place built hundreds of years ago to imprison people who just needed help. You don’t pick up anything at all from setting foot on the property, but Hizashi hesitates to get out of the car, and once he does, his face goes pale. “You’re not getting that? Damn. I guess if his aura didn’t put you off, this wouldn’t either, but – damn.”

“No, I feel it.” You do, not on the grounds, but with every step you take inside the museum. There’s something about this place – not scary, but sad. From your research, you know this was the kind of the place where people locked up their family members and threw away the key. You imagine being dragged through these doors, never to come out alive, and feel your stomach lurch. “It’s – not good in here.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Hizashi leans against the wall and takes out his phone, only looking up when he realizes you’re staring at him. “This is your party, not mine. Get to work.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you mutter. Of course he won’t make himself useful. You square your shoulders and head for the front desk alone. “Hi. I’m here about Shigaraki Yoichi.”

“Yes, the curator warned me you’d be coming.” The docent looks you up and down. “What’s your interest in this former inmate?”

“I’m, um –” You should have thought of an excuse ahead of time. “I’m –”

“Sorry, she’s a genealogist. She doesn’t get out much.” Hizashi’s there, suddenly, his arm slung around your shoulders and his mouth running a mile a minute. “We’ve got this client, see – old family, not much to go off of, but he’s pretty interested in his family history. It took us a lot of legwork to find this place! We think this Shigaraki guy might be the missing piece in our client’s family tree, so we’re here to check into it. How about we get started?”

In spite of his bizarre outfit, the docent clearly finds Hizashi a lot more credible than you. It bothers you. “What happened to ‘your party, not mine’?”

“The faster we get this done, the faster I get back to my husband and kids.” Hizashi is all business as the two of you step into the archive room and stare down at the table full of documents that awaits you. “All right. Divide and conquer. I’ll take everything on the left, and you can –”

“I’ll take the left side,” you say. The right side has a lot of photos, and you don’t want Hizashi hovering over your shoulder while you’re trying to read. “It’s still my party.”

You’re expecting Hizashi to bitch about it, but all he does is ask you for a pen and one of the notebooks you brought, which you’re happy to provide. Shigaraki Yoichi’s files don’t have an organization system, or if they did, it vanished sometime in the two hundred years since he died. You resign yourself to starting from scratch, pull on the mask and pair of gloves the docent provided, and get to work with the first set of files.

You were worried there’d be nothing useful, but it turns out that this asylum was pretty on top of things as a function of serving mostly rich families. The Shigaraki family was absolutely loaded for the time period, and if Akira’s managed to hang onto even a little bit of that wealth through the ensuing centuries, interest rates will have turned it into a fortune. With this kind of money, Shigaraki Akira could erase his own identity and recreate it a thousand times over, pay off anyone he needed to pay off, make anything that could be traced back to him disappear. With this kind of money, it’s a miracle you found anything about him at all.

But you’re not focusing on Akira right now. You take a few notes based on his brother’s admission paperwork, then open the folder containing the medical chart.

Shigaraki Yoichi was ill almost from birth. It looks like tuberculosis. That’s what the autopsy report says, anyway, and you’re not a doctor, so you can’t come up with another reason why his lungs might bleed. His mental health looks like it was normal for the first few years of his life, with an episode of some kind occurring when he was eight. When he was eight, and his brother Akira was sixteen. Yoichi is described as being tormented by nightmares, even in waking. He’s quoted as raving about cold places in his home, of unseen things touching him, of feeling constantly, unceasingly watched. Reading over it sends a faint chill down your spine, and cold certainty settles in the pit of your stomach. Yoichi might have been crazy. But he was definitely being haunted.

He had a pet – it doesn’t say what kind – that died, withered into a husk as it slept next to him on the bed. The family appears to have seen it as a small sadness, nothing worth crying over for more than a day or two. Yoichi saw things differently. He swore up and down to anyone who would listen that his older brother killed his pet. His older brother, and his friends.

The doctor or worker or whoever was taking Yoichi’s history took the time to point out that all of Akira’s friends, and Akira himself, were confirmed to be elsewhere on the night in question. But not all of Akira’s friends, you don’t think. At least one stayed behind. At least one couldn’t leave.

Your first big shock comes when you learn that Yoichi begged to be sent to the asylum, that he was happy to be there. He kept a journal during that time, too, and you turn the ancient pages carefully, reading the words of a long-dead man who, for the first time in his life, sounds completely sane. It doesn’t take you long to realize what must have happened. Yoichi figured out at some point that the ghost his brother summoned to haunt him was tied to the house. All he had to do to escape it was to leave.

Yoichi lived in the asylum for seven years before anyone from his family came to visit him. The notes say that after a visit from his brother, Yoichi’s mental health degraded significantly. It shows in his journal, too. He draws things – shapes in the shadows, in the smoke from a candle, in the steam – and with every page you turn, he sounds more and more desperate, more and more hopeless. He writes about marks that appear on his body, marks only he can see, and the slow, suspicious deaths of every friend he’s made. In the notes, he’s described as paranoid, fixated on his brother. In his journal, he’s perfectly clear: I will not survive much longer. I want it known to whoever reads this that he did this to me. But I will not go quietly. I will resist him for as long as my spirit holds out, in life and in death. For all his power, he cannot touch the souls of the dead. It is my turn to haunt him.

You tap Hizashi on the shoulder, and he looks up, annoyed. You ignore it. “Can humans stay behind?”

“What?”

“After we die,” you say, and understanding crosses Hizashi’s face. “Can humans stay behind?”

“In theory,” Hizashi says. “Why do you ask?”

You slide Yoichi’s journal carefully across the table to him. Hizashi reads over it. “It’s possible in theory,” he says again. “In practice, your kind’s souls leave this world like they’re being fired out of a cannon. It would take an insane amount of willpower to hang on without a living body as an anchor. I’ve met maybe two humans – ever – who could pull a move like that. Did this guy really want vengeance that much?”

“Not vengeance, I don’t think.” Your eyes catch on one word in the journal entry. Resist. “He knew what his brother was. He wanted to stop him.”

You look around the archive room, a thought crossing your mind. “Do you think he’s still here?”

“Doubtful. If he really stuck around, he wouldn’t have been tied to this place the way a ghost would be,” Hizashi says. “If he stayed behind and if he went anywhere, it was probably after his brother. Or after anybody who could deal with his brother.”

Somebody was dealing with his brother – Mr. Yagi and his master. Hizashi glances over at the journal again. “How does it say he died, anyway?”

The entry you just read is the last entry in the journal. You reach for Yoichi’s chart again and come face to face with the causes of death: Starvation and dehydration, both severe, with no other complicating factor. You recall a coroner’s report saying Yoichi starved himself to death, and the chart says he stopped eating, but one of the people who cared for him added a note of their own. They said that Yoichi ate and drank as normal, but it didn’t matter – He withered away before my eyes into a shell of himself. Withered. Just like the pet that was killed by the ghost did.

You don’t realize you didn’t answer until Hizashi leans over your shoulder and reads for himself. “This whole thing smacks of Tomura,” he says aloud. You glare at him. “No, I know this wasn’t him. But Shigaraki here has a type of ghost he prefers. They don’t just kill, they torment. They destroy.”

“Isn’t that what you did?”

“Artfully,” Hizashi says. He slides the notebook he’s been sketching in across the table to you. “There’s nothing artful about this.”

You take one look and recoil. “I did this off a sketch in there, since we can’t take photos,” Hizashi says. He turns the page quickly, but the image of Shigaraki Yoichi’s twisted, shriveled corpse is going to stick with you for a long time. “Check this out, though. Shigaraki Yoichi, age twenty-five. Who does he look like?”

Tomura. He looks sort of like Tomura. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing,” Hizashi says innocently. “We’ve got no control over what we look like when we materialize, by the way. It just happens, and not everybody gets blessed with my good looks.”

“Why mention it, then?”

“It’s just funny,” Hizashi says. “How Tomura’s the only one who didn’t go completely fucking batshit crazy, and how he’s also the only one who looks like his conjurer’s crazy little brother.”

“He doesn’t look that much like him,” you say. You pull your phone out of your pocket, realize that you get approximately zero reception in the archive room, and stand up. “I’ll be back. I have to make a call.”

Hizashi shoos you off, and when you glance back over your shoulder on your way out, you see him peering at your notebook. Fine. It’s not like there’s anything in there you aren’t planning on telling the entire rest of the neighborhood once you get back.

The instant your phone gets reception back, you get a truly insane pileup of texts – from Magne, Himiko, Spinner, Keigo, and even Aizawa. But even all their texts together are still dwarfed by the sheer number of texts you’ve gotten from Tomura. You can only stare in horror, and as you watch, another three texts come in.

Two of them are from the ghost friends groupchat. Aizawa’s direct-replying to Keigo. What on earth possessed you to use that word?

It’s just a word! How was I supposed to know it would make him worse? Keigo’s indignance is leaking through the phone. ‘Dead zone’ is metaphorical! It’s not –

You stop reading and call Tomura before he can text you again or blow up the house. “I’m fine,” you say the instant he answers, and before he can say a word. “There are places where phones don’t get good service and the room the documents are in is one of them. That’s why your messages weren’t going through.”

“Then why is it called a dead zone?”

Tomura sounds stressed. You haven’t heard him sound like that since the time he conference-called the ghost friends while you were sick. “It’s just a turn of phrase,” you say. “Humans use ‘dead’ a lot to mean that something doesn’t work. Like something being dead in the water means it’s stopped working. Somebody being dead weight means they’re not helping as much as they should. The slowest runner in a race is dead last. Does that make any sense?”

Tomura’s quiet for a moment, then renders his verdict. “Humans say ‘dead’ too much.”

“Maybe,” you say. Tomura makes an irritated noise. “Hey, can you relax? I don’t know what you were doing to the house, but whatever it was, it probably scared Phantom. She doesn’t like loud sounds.”

“She’s fine. I wasn’t being loud.” Tomura still sounds guilty, which means something got damaged, and based on the fact that the entire neighborhood was texting you, it probably had something to do with the lights. You wonder how many lightbulbs you’re going to have to replace when you get back. “You should have told me about the spots with bad service.”

“I would have if I’d known you were going to freak out.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Tomura snaps. “Did you learn anything? Was there any point to you going?”

“Yeah, I learned some stuff,” you say. “I’ll know more once I call my boss.”

“Is that why you looked at your phone? To call him?”

“I was going to text you, too,” you say. Tomura hasn’t been this clingy in a while. It’s getting annoying – except last night you were upset because he hadn’t called, so you’re clingy, too. “I didn’t come here to get away from you, Tomura.”

“I know,” he says. “I didn’t think you ran. I thought – I don’t know. He didn’t pick up, either. I thought –”

He thought something happened to you. “Nothing happened,” you promise. “I’ll be home late tonight or early tomorrow. Everything’s fine.”

“I should have gone with you.”

Your stomach clenches. “Don’t be stupid. We wouldn’t have anywhere to live if you’d gone with me.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Tomura doesn’t follow up with what he’s actually saying, which is good, because you already know. This fight’s been brewing for a month, and you don’t want to have it over the phone. “Just go call your boss.”

“Okay,” you say. “I’ll message you when me and Hizashi are done. I –”

You cut yourself off one word into the slip-up. You haven’t come that close in a while. “What?” Tomura asks.

“I miss you. Bye.”

You hang up the phone, cursing the near miss. You have a rule about telling Tomura you love him, which is that you don’t do it. You call Mr. Yagi instead, and even though it’s Saturday, he picks up right away. “Sir, did you and your master ever encounter a spirit? A human spirit?”

“A human spirit,” Mr. Yagi repeats. “In what sense?”

“Something – friendly,” you say. “Or maybe not friendly. Just not harmful. To you.”

The instant you say it, you realize how similar it sounds to the way you originally thought about Tomura. Dangerous, but not dangerous to you. “I would not have called it human then,” Mr. Yagi says, “but for a time, early in our hunt for Shigaraki Akira, a presence accompanied my master and I. Neither she nor I had words for it. It was not something either of us had encountered before.”

Hizashi said it would be rare, if it was even possible at all. Mr. Yagi’s voice is wary when he speaks. “Why do you ask?”

“Shigaraki Yoichi. In his last journal entry, he swears to stay behind after his death and oppose his older brother,” you say. You hear Mr. Yagi suck in a breath. “Could it have been him?”

“If it was, the strength of his spirit must have been immense,” Mr. Yagi says. “Human souls were not made to dwell here without bodies. To remain with us as long as he did would take a tremendous act of will, and to provide any kind of strength – he aided us in our battles on more than one occasion.”

“So he had power.”

“Great power. Human souls aren’t fragile the way the souls of ghosts are,” Mr. Yagi says. “They cannot be blasted apart. In our early battles, this spirit – Shigaraki Yoichi, if you’re correct about this – shielded me from errors that would have killed me otherwise. Instead I was able to learn from my mistakes. By the time the spirit departed, I was more than able to fight for myself.”

So Yoichi’s mission did succeed. He was able to resist his brother. “Do you know why he left?”

“I assume that once we no longer needed him, his will to remain in this world was no longer sufficient to resist the pull of the world beyond,” Mr. Yagi says. “To resist as long as he did was miraculous.”

“How long ago did he vanish?”

“That will take me a moment. My memory is not what it once was.” Mr. Yagi speaks up again after maybe two seconds. “Between a hundred and a hundred and twenty years ago.”

“Okay,” you say. “Did he ever say anything to you? Were you able to communicate with him at all?”

“I was not, but my master was. I’ll check her journals and let you know what I find.”

You thank Mr. Yagi and hang up the phone. Before you go inside, you text an apology to the ghost friends groupchat for whatever nonsense Tomura pulled. And then you sit there for a second, trying to figure out how to respond to the pileup of crazy texts Tomura sent.

You try to put yourself in his shoes, think about what this looks like from his side. The person you care about has left. They gave you a phone so you could talk to them, only they’re not answering, and the person you sent with them to protect them isn’t answering, either. You know the world’s dangerous. You’re worried that the person you care about will leave you for good. You don’t understand enough about the outside world to come up with alternate explanations for the undelivered messages. Thinking about it like that, it’s not a surprise that Tomura panicked.

It's not your fault, but you still want to make him feel better. Feeling twenty kinds of crazy, you snap a quick selfie and send it to him. Then you send a message – thinking about you – and add a heart emoji to go with it.

It’s not a lie. You are thinking about him. The heart emoji isn’t a lie, either. But it feels weird. This is the kind of thing you’d do with a boyfriend, and Tomura – you remember last night and wince. The two of you defined the relationship. He is your boyfriend. Which makes it not weird at all, except for the part where your boyfriend’s a ghost.

Ghost boyfriend. You have a ghost boyfriend. The thought’s so absurd that you’re still giggling about it when you get back to the archive room. Hizashi looks up, scowling, as you step through the door. “What’s so funny?”

You put your mask back on and make an effort to get your shit together. “I talked to my boss. He says that there was a presence following them – helping them – from the time they started fighting Shigaraki until about a hundred and twenty years ago. After that it vanished. He said he thinks its will just ran out.”

“Huh,” Hizashi says. He doesn’t look convinced. “You know what else happened a hundred and twenty years ago?”

“You got an ear piercing you regret?”

Hizashi’s scowl deepens. “I know you’re not this stupid, human. What happened a hundred and twenty years ago that’s relevant to you, specifically?” You get the answer, but not fast enough for Hizashi’s liking. “If you’re right, if Yoichi stuck around, if he was helping your boss and his master, and if he fucked off purposely a hundred and twenty years ago, where would he have gone except straight to that house?”

“What would have been the point of that?” You look at your notes, then at the pile of papers left. Then at your watch. “Let’s just copy the rest of these word for word. We can go through them when we get back.”

“Fine by me.” Hizashi picks up his pen again.

By the time the two of you leave the museum for good, you’ve copied down everything including the photos, courtesy of Hizashi’s apparent skills as a sketch artist. You’ve also got a bunch of texts – from the ghost friends groupchat accepting your apology for all of Tomura’s nonsense, from your mom wondering what time you and Hizashi will be back, one from Spinner that’s just a list of crazy things Tomura’s been naming his Pokémon. One from Mr. Yagi, telling you that he and Izuku are compiling every mention of the spirit from his master’s journals. A bunch from Tomura that are just pictures of empty space, in various spots in the house, occasionally with Phantom in the background.

It’s so weird that you eventually have to show it to Hizashi, who takes one look and cracks up. “Idiot,” he cackles. “He’s trying to take a selfie.”

Live ghosts don’t show up clearly on camera, even when they’re embodied. Tomura figured that out about twenty photos in. Hizashi, who’s still got your phone and is refusing to give it back, reads the texts aloud. “I’m materialized so it should work. This is stupid. You’re gonna forget what I look like.” Hizashi howls with laughter. “It would be cute if it wasn’t so pathetic.”

You snatch your phone away from Hizashi before he can read any more of your texts. You read the remaining messages from Tomura in silence. Phantom misses you. She keeps going from room to room and crying. That’s not a surprise – Phantom’s barely been away from you since you adopted her. It makes sense that she’d be worried about where you are. You said you were thinking about me. What are you thinking about?

A lot of things. You’re not sure how to break them down, but somehow it feels easier to talk to Tomura by text than in person. He can’t see your face like this, read what you’re feeling from it. He only knows what you tell him. Different things. What you and Phantom are up to. What we should do when I get back. Whether you and Tomura have been sharing space with the spirit of Shigaraki Yoichi all this time. If it was really necessary for you to send Hizashi up here after me. That kind of thing.

It was necessary. So you’d be safe. Tomura types fast. Are you coming home yet?

In a couple hours. I have to meet my parents’ neighbors first so they’ll know my parents weren’t lying about having a daughter.

That was mean. You shouldn’t have said that, but you’re tired and stressed, and you wish more than anything that you were already home. Tomura responds. When are they coming to meet me?

You almost choke on thin air. You don’t want to meet them.

I’m supposed to. That’s what happens with boyfriends in those dumb romance movies.

It’s been a while since you wished you’d been more careful about what you let Tomura watch. You didn’t miss the feeling, and you’d love to never put your parents and Tomura in the same room – but your parents know Tomura exists, and they want to meet him, too. We can talk about it when I get back.

Tomura’s only been texting for twenty-four hours, and he already has some bad habits, like hopping subjects whenever he feels like it instead of in any way that makes sense. Send me another picture.

You’ve created a monster. You sigh and send another selfie, and in the driver’s seat, Hizashi snorts. It bothers you for some reason. “Do you have a problem? How did you get pictures of Aizawa?”

“Took them myself,” Hizashi says with a shrug.

“Did he know you were taking them?”

Hizashi waves one hand. “Technicality.”

“No, it isn’t,” you say. “What did he say when he found out about you?”

“Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my hospital room?” Hizashi says, and you muffle a snicker. “But I’d just saved his life. That bought me a whole lot of goodwill. How did your gloomy brat introduce himself? Flopping face-first in your lap and begging for attention?”

“No,” you say. You’re not about to say that your first official introduction to Tomura occurred in your bathroom right after you stepped out of the shower. “A coyote broke into the yard and attacked me and Phantom, and he saved us.”

“Huh,” Hizashi says. It’s quiet for a second. “People are going to ask how you met him. If you want them to like him, tell them that.”

You sit there, your mind blank. “Say it was on a walk or something,” Hizashi continues. “Don’t tell them he was in your yard.”

“That’s good advice,” you say after a moment. “Thanks.”

By the time you get back to your parents’ house, their party is in full swing. You knew that they invited you for a reason, and that the reason was to prove that they definitely weren’t lying about having a daughter. You know that. And still, it’s – nice. It’s nice that your parents want to brag about you, to introduce you to their neighborhood as their daughter who’s got a job and a boyfriend and a house of her own. It’s nice to hear them talk about you like they’re proud of you.

You’re conscious of Hizashi lurking at the edges of the party, and Hizashi’s words never really left your head. Mommy and Daddy didn’t love you enough. Maybe they didn’t. There’s nothing you could have done to change the way you grew up. But you’re okay now. You’re happy now. If they want to be proud of who you’ve become, that’s fine with you.

It’s fine with you, but you’re still glad to be out of there when it’s time. Your parents are worried about you and Hizashi driving home so late, but Hizashi’s wide awake, and you don’t think there’s any way you can fall asleep in his presence. You’re pretty sure he won’t kill you, but still. “Here,” your mother says, pushing a travel mug full of coffee into Hizashi’s hands. Hizashi protests that she should keep her mug, and she shakes her head. “I’ll pick it up later. We’ll be coming down for a visit soon.”

It’s a good thing you’ve already said goodbye and gotten in the car, and that Hizashi’s car has tinted windows. You’re pretty sure all the blood drains right out of your face.

Even if your mom didn’t see it, Hizashi does, and he spends the first fifteen minutes of the drive laughing about it. “You should throw a party just like they did. Let them meet the whole neighborhood at once, and maybe they’ll be so distracted by the cute kids and what Dabi looks like that they won’t notice what a crusty goblin your boyfriend is.”

You scrunch down in your seat like a twelve-year-old. “I’ll just tell him to stay invisible. And I’ll tell them he’s out of town.”

“Good luck convincing him to stay invisible. They might be the two people in the world he’s actually interested in meeting.” Hizashi gets his snickering under control and sobers up slightly. “What is it with you humans and wanting to hide us from your families, anyway? We’re important, but you all do it. Why?”

“We’re used to you guys. They aren’t,” you say. “Even when you’re embodied, there’s something a little – off. More than just your eyes.”

It’s hard to explain what it is, but there’s something with every ghost you’ve met other than Mr. Yagi. Maybe if you’d known about ghosts before you met him, you would have been able to spot it with him, too. “Besides, I don’t get the sense that a lot of us have families we want to introduce anybody to.”

“That’s sort of a theme. Shou’s theory is that most people who end up hanging with ghosts have had some pretty bad experiences with humans.” Hizashi flips on his turn signal, hops in the high-speed lane, and floors the accelerator. “Your parents aren’t bad. A little cold, maybe. Definitely not bad enough to make hanging out with Tomura the better offer.”

He’s throwing out bait, waiting for you to jump on it. You’re not going to. You sit quietly as five or six miles zoom past, and Hizashi speaks up again. “What, you’re not going to defend him?”

“Nothing I say is going to change your opinion about me or about him,” you say. “Nothing you say is going to change my opinion about him, either. So there’s no point.”

“Stubborn, huh?” Hizashi chuckles. “I like that in a human. You probably could have done better than him, but he could have done a hell of a lot worse than you.”

Any compliment from Hizashi’s sure to have a backhand to it. You’re just tired enough to take this one at face value – ignoring the fact that the person giving it hates you, ignoring the fact that Tomura’s never going to embody himself permanently, ignoring the fact that you’re most likely walking into a fight you’ve been putting off for a month when you get home. You give up on scrunching down and roll your seat back instead. “Thanks.”

[bibbityboppitybillyharvgrove]

Unlikely Friends - S.Harrington

Summary - Lover’s lake was her favorite lake to skate on during winter break, usually only running into older men ice fishing. However, one night she runs into the captain of the hockey team, Steve Harrington. They become unlikely friends within the span of a night.

Word Count - 792

Warnings - Female reader, use of Y/N, Munson!Reader no physical description is given, foul language, not proofread

Author’s Note - Welcome to day 19! 6 more days left! This is one of my favorite pairings ever, hockey player and figure skater.

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Feedback is welcomed and encouraged!

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not my gif

not my gif

There was one lake in Hawkins that she liked to go to in order to practice over the winter break, that lake was lover’s lake. Usually it was vacant except for some ice fishers but not this night. No, this night there was a boy who was skating around with a hockey stick. She had recognized him, the captain of the high school hockey team, Steve Harrington.

She went about her usual routine however, unbothered by the new presence around her. That was until she was hit square in the back with a hockey puck which sent her flying onto the ice. 

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! Are you okay?!” She heard his voice approaching her, panic lacing his tone.

“Holy shit that hurts! Goddamn Harrington! Do you have to hit that thing so hard?” She groaned out as she sat up, his hand reaching out to her to help her up to her feet, she gladly accepted and accepted the help.

“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” He repeated, still panicking.

“I’m good, I’ve had worse but damn those things are hard as shit. Now I understand why so many hockey players are missing teeth.” This made Steve chuckle, tension leaving his shoulders at her foul language and realizations. “What are you doing on the ice on Christmas eve?” She asked him, rubbing the spot on her back gently.

“I could ask you the same thing. Coach wanted me to practice my slap shots, obviously they need work since I completely missed the goal and whacked you in the back,” Steve rambled.

“I need to practice my new skills before my next practice. My coach wants my routine to be perfect, said my skills were average at best.”

“Your coach sounds like a bitch.” This made her laugh as she agreed. Steve offered to step off the lake for a bit so she could feel safe enough not to get hit with a puck again and they’d switch off every 30 minutes so they could get breaks. 

Steve watched her, mesmerized by the leaps and twirls she was able to do without effort. She too, was mesmerized by how brutish Steve was on the ice but was an absolute sweetheart off of it. They continued switching who was on the ice for hours, chatting in between and getting to know one another. By the end of their turn taking, it was pitch black outside, the moon shining bright and the star glimmering. They sat on a boulder beside the lake and talked, and they talked. 

They talked for hours, about everything and nothing at all. Venting about their coaches and some of the people on their team. As they both took off their skates and put on their shoes, Steve asked her, “How did you get here if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I walked, I don’t live too far away, I live in the trailer park with my dad and cousin,” She replied.

“Do you want a ride home? I don’t mind, the trailer park is on my way actually.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

On the walk to his car, Steve asked about her family and who her cousin was. “Eddie Munson, super senior, school freak. He’s my favorite person, he’s a great guy, just misunderstood.”

“I’ve never talked to him before but I know he doesn’t like jocks very much.”

“God no, most of them bully the shit out of him. Once he gets used to someone, you get to see the real side of Eddie.”

They talked through the entire car ride, which was short and hadn’t stopped until he pulled into the driveway of the trailer, two men sitting on her doorstep with cigarettes in their hands and waiting. She kissed Steve on the cheek before thanking him and leaving the car.

“Where the hell have you been? We’ve been worried about you!” Eddie exclaimed, pulling his cousin into a protective hug.

“I was practicing for a while, met Steve and we lost track of time. I didn’t mean to scare you guys. I’m sorry,” She admitted.

“No need to apologize sweetpea. We’re just glad you’re home safe. We will be talking about that boy though,” Wayne butted in, kissing his daughter on the head before ushering the two teens inside. She waved at Steve one last time before the front door had closed behind her. She hadn’t left the area of the front door until she heard Steve’s car pull away and down the road. With a goofy grin on her face, she made her way into her room for the night. Happy she had the chance to get to know Steve Harrington. Happy that he wasn’t the asshole everyone said he was.

[dollywheeler]

September 27th, 1996

Dear diary,

I fumbled.

I fumbled and almost made the wrong turn and I could have died.

I could have died on the spot and it would have been less awful.

It's so embarrassing I can barely think back on it, but I can't stop. It keeps playing through my head again and again.

Everything started so great - the gymnasium was loud and colorful and bright, and everything I love about game days.

The gymnasium was crowded too - every student and teacher, and even some of the girls that graduated last June. Hell, mom and dad were there. Of course they are there when I mess up! I wanted them to see how good I was getting, not fumbling around like a complete idiot!

I really don't know what happened; I've never made a mistake like that ever. I'd been so looking forward to it, working so hard to make sure I knew the routine by heart. I should have been able to do it in my sleep.

I just managed to keep it together until the game started up again and I could sneak out into the hallway. I'm sure at least one of the girls saw me leave, but they know I usually do this when I fuck up so they let me be. I haven't needed to since Freshman year - I've been working so hard exactly so this wouldn't happen again.

I still don't know why I do it. Obviously it's better to hide, where no one can see me until my skin stops itching and I stop feeling like everyone is staring at me. But I also know it's counterproductive. I know it just makes me sink deeper into my failure, know that I'll just be miserable and alone if I run away. But I can't stop it - I just can't stand being around that many people anymore.

The last time had been at an away game - some school closer to Chicago that I can't even remember. The best I could do there was some alcove in a dark hallway. At home I knew where to go. It had been a while since I had gone out there, but the bench on the far side of the building was still there, far enough from the gymnasium that it was always quiet and empty. No one wandered far enough from the game to find it.

It was starting to get dark, the sky a deep purple, which was nice but also strange. Usually it's already fully dark out, and it feels like there's more cover. I still felt too exposed now, even sitting there curled up with my arms wrapped around my knees. I'd forgotten my jacket.

"There you are." I jumped at the sudden voice, not expecting anyone to have followed me. Even if I had, the last person I would have expected to see was Mike. He was slightly out of breath as if he'd had to run to catch up to me. I hadn't even noticed he was at the game, though it stood to reason he wouldn't have sat with the other teachers just yet.

He came to a stop in front of me, suddenly slightly awkward as he looked me over. "Hey."

I honestly didn't know what to say so I just stared at him, baffled he was there in the first place. No one ever followed me. And suddenly Mike had appeared out of nowhere, blipped into existence when I had spent the last few years trying to forget he even exists. He's not supposed to exist - just a negative space in the last seven years of my life.

"I know you're not a fan of me but-," he started, fumbling over his words as he inched closer to the bench. "I just wanted to check up on you."

"I didn't even know you were here." I frowned, swallowing against the knot in my throat, my voice shaky even to my own ears. I wanted him to leave. I didn't want to be alone. "I thought you had plans this weekend."

"Uh, yeah - the party's back in town. Well, everyone except Dustin because he has some conference or whatever, but... uh, yeah, we were planning to come to the game. We wanted to come see your show. El and Max are here too. Lucas tried but he's not really a fan of basketball anymore so he left early..."

He rambles a lot, I noticed, sounding nothing like he does when I overhear him talking to just Will. In class, he rambles a lot too, but at least there he's doing so with purpose, knowing what he's saying and when to stop. It made him look awkward and out of place, as if it's me that's making him nervous. As if I'm not just the little sister that's nine years too immature for him, shoved into the corner of the room with a pile of dolls so I'm out of the way.

"Great," I told him, my misery finally making me cave and scooting over to make space for Mike on the bench. He seemed surprised, hesitant still to join me, which I had to admit was kind of funny. Still, I sobered up again quickly enough, a shiver running through me at the memory. "At least one person that didn't see me completely humiliate myself."

"Come on, Holzie." Mike nudged my shoulder, and I was thrown off guard by the new nickname, pulling my attention away from my spinning thoughts. "It really wasn't that obvious. I noticed at least two girls that were out of step the entire routine - you made one tiny mistake that no one will remember."

"It's that I made the mistake at all," I corrected him, and to my dismay and complete mortification, my voice cracked. "I'm not the best if I make stupid mistakes like that. And if I'm not the best I'll never make cheer captain and I'll just be one more girl on the cheerleading team that no one really-" cares about is what I was going to say, but luckily I cut myself off before I could finish. I know it's stupid. Know everyone is important. There's not a girl on the team I wouldn't miss - but that's because they're my friends.

For once I want people to notice me for me. I want to make a mark to people that don't know me at all. Want people to see me, notice me, because of me, not because they already know about me.

Worse, I started crying in front of the last person on earth I wanted to cry in front of. The only person in the world who I've spent my entire life trying to convince I'm not a baby anymore. There's just something about Mike that always makes me feel younger than I am. Inadequate.

"You will," Mike assured me, "no one works harder than you."

I was confused what made him think that. How he would know. It's not something I like to advertise, and it only made me cry harder. Because that's the point - I have to work twice as hard to be half as good as everyone else. Everyone else gets it with the six hours practice we have a week - they're flawless, make no mistakes at all. It's just not fair.

And I'm so tired of trying to catch up.

I desperately tried to wipe my tears away as quickly as possible as we sat in silence for a while, Mike leaning closer and handing me a tissue he pulled from his pocket. For some reason, it always helps me stop crying once I can wipe my face dry, physically putting myself together, so I was grateful even if I was completely embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, I used to be good at this," Mike chuckled, trying to lighten the mood as he nudged my shoulder again. "It's been a while."

If he were, I don't remember it.

I told him we should get back inside, even though that was the last thing I wanted to do. But Daniel was still playing, and I couldn't stay gone from the team forever either, so I sucked it up. I just hoped I could stop by the bathroom to make sure I didn't look like a complete nutcase - which was a terrible idea because of course I did, now I just knew exactly how fucked I looked.

Before we entered the gymnasium Mike stopped me.

He told me he'd seen me practicing on the field sometimes.

After everything I seriously couldn't be any more embarrassed so I just shrugged and confirmed it, even though I was confused as to where he was going with it. I also hadn't considered anyone showing up early being able to see me, so it was good to know for the future.

"I know I can't tell you what to do but... please don't practice without the team - at least not the crazy gymnastic jump things." I blinked at him in surprise, perplexed at his request. It's not like I was in anyone's way or bothering anyone, but he explained it was dangerous and didn't want me to fall and get hurt with no one around to get help. And it didn't feel like a scolding - I mean I felt stupid for not having thought about that myself, but for some reason i didn't care about any of that.

I promised I wouldn't anymore, and as we entered the gymnasium I automatically searched out mom and dad. Dad was watching the game, but mom is usually bored by the game itself, so it wasn't a surprise that she'd been looking out for me, immediately noticing us by the door. It stood to reason she'd already deduced Mike had been at the game too, but she seemed content to wait for the dinner to talk to him again because she just smiled at us before looking at the game now she knew we were okay.

Mike asked if I wanted to come sit by him and his friends for a bit. Now I knew to look for them I found them easily enough in the left top corner of the bleachers on their side of the court - Max was the most obvious with her bright hair, and from there it was easy to find Will and El sitting on either side of her. I know El the least out of all of Mike's friends, which I've always found strange because I'm pretty sure they dated at some point and before Mike and Will had moved back, she'd been the one hanging around Hawkins the most often. Even from that far away I could see her expressive features, and she hadn't had those pink streaks in her hair the last time I'd seen her. They suited her.

I'd like to talk to Max again, thank her in person for helping Mike pick out my birthday present, but of course, even if I wanted to take Mike up on his offer, I couldn't, having to go sit with the rest of the team. I could already see Dylan smiling at me and beckoning me closer, so I just dismissed Mike. I thanked him though, because even though he hadn't been much help in making me feel better, it had been nice that he'd followed me. That he'd sat with me.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get my sense back.

For now I'm too worn out to be angry.

At least I think writing has helped me calm down enough from my embarrassment to sleep.

Love, Holly

[onestormeynight]

Meeting The Canales

It was one of those rare days where everyone's schedules aligned and Rosie took the opportunity to take the twins to Oasis Springs to meet their grandfather, uncle and aunt. Rosie was nervous about how Ellie would treat them, but she steeled herself to follow through. Despite her efforts, Ellie just wasn't interested in a relationship with her except on the most surface of terms. Rosie suspected that if Ellie didn't adore Penny, she herself would not have been tolerated.

Uncle Sam, however, was more than happy to meet the girls now that they could properly remember him. He wiped at his nose and sniffed, hoping no one would notice.

"Hey Nellie, Ida," He said, nodding to each one.

"You got it backwards," Nellie said. "I'm Ida."

"I'm Nellie," Ida said.

"You're both tiny liars," Sam laughed. "I've known you your whole lives, I can tell the difference."

"Drat!" Nellie said.

"Come on, munchkins," he said ushering them towards the playground.

Rosie greeted her brother with a quick kiss on the cheek as he took her girls over to the space ship to play. Ellie gave him a judging look over her glasses as he went past.

"It's so good to see you," She said, grabbing Ellie's attention back. "It's been so long."

"Uh, yeah, I guess," Ellie said.

"Ellie," Ricky hissed. She rolled her eyes with a sigh.

"And how are you, Rosalie?"

"I'm good," She answered, slightly nervous now. "How have you guys been? How's school and work?"

"It's like, fine, or whatever." Ellie pulled her phone out and started typing away to someone.

"Things are going well," Ricky said, taking over the conversation. "I got the corner office I wanted last week."

"To our left, General!" Ida shouted to Nellie.

"That's your right, Captain!"

"No, that's left."

Sam jumped up with a roar and both girls screamed in glee. He pretended to shear off part of their ship and hustled off to "hide" in the bushes while they repaired. Captain Ida left her post to brave the outside of the ship, repairing the arm that held one of their engines.

"Oh, you don't really play chess?" Rosie said. "That's okay, I can teach you. I learned from my Grandfather Darion."

Ellie made a choking kind of laughing sound. "Um, like, okay? This is like, nerd shit, though."

"It's actually really good for your brain. I play with Sam when we hang out, too."

"Yeah. He's a nerd."

Rosie dropped her cheery demeanor. Minding the mean streak her husband and mother so recently pointed out to her, she stayed firm but without malice. Very calmly she moved one of her pieces.

"You don't like me," she said.

Ellie looked stunned to be called out so directly. "You're just not my vibe," she offered.

"That wasn't a question. You don't like me."

"Fine. You're right. I don't like you."

"Can you even give me a valid reason or is this your mother still talking?"

"Her reasons are valid. You more than likely are not Dad's. You're not my sister. You and your mother just wanted their relationship to fail and you got what you wanted."

"So," Rosie said, sitting back. "To be just perfectly clear, it's me and my mother's fault your mom decided to pick up strange and throw her marriage out the window? It's our fault that she said with her own mouth she hated being a mother and wife?"

Ellie paled under the bright sun. Clearly, Ricky had never given her the full story. Why would he? She wasn't an adult. It was complicated and heavy stuff. There was a way her body language changed, like Rosie had found the soft spot in her armour.

"Oh, I see. Well, I will say, that was really kind of Dad to spare you from," Rosie continued. "But, since we're having a heart to heart, I'll tell you. Your mother abandoned Sam because she didn't want the responsibility. My guess is that she favored you while you were small and malleable, but now that you have your own mind, she doesn't like you quite so much. She liked having a doll, she does not like having a daughter. Did I get that about right?" She looked her sister up and down. "Yeah. I think I did. One last thing, Ellie. It's fine if you want to be a heinous bitch to me, but if I see so much as a fucking sneer in my children's direction..." At this, she leaned over the chess table and made direct eye contact with Ellie. "I will solve the problem. "

"Are you threatening me?!"

"Directly."

((prev)) ((next))

[m1d-45]

— To Bennett.

I see that you've been trying a lot to hide your emotions lately, as your explorations like always...don't go as planned. I know it's frustrating, I can see that you're trying your best to not give up, I admire your determination.

But, don't forget that bottling up your feelings is not the best way out for everything. It's okay to feel sad, to feel depressed. It's one of the things that makes you human.

I can't physically be by your side by now, I can't help you with your bad luck...But you can cry all you want. I'll make sure to watch over you in my own ways.

I have a gift for you, I hope you like it.

The letter has with it a handmade silver bracelet with little red jewels on it's intricate design, it looks resistant and not so easy to take off the moment you put on your wrist. A perfect fit for an adventure like him, there is also a little chibi drawing of the woman who wrote the letter, she's smiling.

bennett picks his way through the whispering woods carefully, making sure he doesn’t trip on anything. his expedition went horrible, if you could even call it that, and the last thing he needs is any dirt on his wounds. he’s already wrapped them—somebody as unlucky as him always keeps bandages on hand—but knowing his luck, they’d probably get dirty anyway.

his arms ache and his legs are sore, but he continues to trudge on, kicking aside a rock to fry and silently vent off some of his anger. unfortunately, he slips on some mud just beneath it, the scrapes on his hands stinging as he catches himself on a tree.

his eyes blur, the light from nearby lampgrass twisting and warping, but he wipes away his tears. now isn’t the time, not when it’s getting so late and he’s still not back at the city. the last thing he needs is to worry his dads…

except when he looks up, there’s still a bright spot in his vision. he worries, for a brief moment, that he’s somehow injured himself horribly, but when he lifts a hand to bat at it on instinct, he hits something.

the small star falls apart as he watches, dropping a letter, folded in thirds. when he opens it, a silver bracelet waits inside, shimmering stones inlaid on its surface. it’s hard to see with the dim lighting, so he looks around before sitting besides some lamp grass, slipping the bracelet on his wrist as he reads.

oh. you’ve… seen him.

he’s a bit embarrassed as he thinks over all the times frustration has caught up to him—at his luck, at the situations he finds himself in, at himself—and bleeds out through his eyes, all the times he’s forced himself onward because that was what all the good adventurers did, and maybe if he was like them some of his luck would dissipate. at the very least, maybe stop affecting those around him.

but you…

he clutched the letter tightly, eyes locked on the little sketch on the bottom of who he could only assume was you, giving him an encouraging smile.

maybe you couldn’t be with him. not yet. but he would always have you at his side.

[twistedtalking]

🤩 anon here.

May I request an interaction with Mayuu and the light magic trio (silver kalim and rook)? Or just Mayuus rhoughts on them is good as well! Nicw to hear Mayuu likes my compliments. She really is a hero huh?

I see them. Oh how I long to be with them.

"Good afternoon, Asim."

His joyous greeting overwhelms me. So bright, like the sun. It burns. He waves goodbye and continues on with his day.

Yet I stay rooted in my spot. I urge myself to move, but my feet were glued to the floor. I have to go, I still have work to do.

I cannot break. Not now.

I am not sure when I entered the bathroom. Nor do I know how long I've been in here.

How long have I been here?

Jamil hasn't overblotted yet, so winter break hasn't started yet. It's probably been 6 months. Mom and dad must be so worried.

I wanna go home.

But I can't. I have to save them. It is my duty.

I want to play. I want to run around. I want to be odd and goofy and laugh all the time. I want to complain about school and worry about homework. I don't want to make plans until past midnight. I don't want to train until my legs hurt just so I could walk all the way back to scarabia. I don't want to juggle school with an enormous amount of part-time jobs. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't wanna lead. I don't wanna be strict.

I'm just a child.

Why does he get to do all this? Why does he get to play and laugh and joke around? Why does he have to be so carefree!?

We know better than most that his life is not good as it seems! That he is often betrayed! We've never been betrayed. Not once. Be grateful.

I know. I don't hate him. Not even a bit. On the contrary, I think we'd make good friends. Maybe, in another life.

But I just miss me. And he reminds me so much of her.

We did use to kin him. Yeah, we did.

My ears perked up. I hear Ace calling for me. Suddenly, I remember professor Trein's homework. Or at least, I remembered it was due today. I'm gonna get a scolding. For some odd reason, a little chortle came out of my throat. How nice. Wiping the tears in my eyes, I get ready to meet Ace. To meet this day.

Bonus:

Somehow, my mind kept drifting back to Kalim and what could've been. I'm sorry Professor Trein. I dream about what we could be doing together. Probably singing in the light music club. In that other world, I'd definitely join it. Maybe he'd teach me to add sugarcubes in tea. And maybe I'd teach him to add coffee to his rice. Maybe we'd be laughing right now, while onlookers look on in horror.

Maybe, in another life.

How to get Rook in our team? A problem I've been trying to solve for the past few days. I definitely need his expertise.

Should I just unofficially appoint him <read: not tell him he's in the team and just drag him around "accidentally">, like I did with Trey? No. Can't do that. I need him on the spying division.

Maybe I could send photos of Leona to him? Nope. He probably has way too many of those. Probably better quality too. Anyways, How would I even get my hands on those?

Let him pet Jack's ears? No! Absolutely not! I won't let anyone harass any of my team members!

Maybe permission to hug me at any and all times? Nah. No one would want that. Except me. Maybe Kalim.

Poetry competition where loser gets a wish? Did you just combine a manga oneshot and a Rook fanfic, both of which you haven't read in years? Seriously, Mayo?

Should I court him with a ballad as he watches out of his window? That's just a Rook fanfic again, Mayo. Well, to be fair, it was Rook doing the courting.

Maybe I should just kiss Riddle. And how would that help!? Yep, we're way too tired to think. Let's take a walk.

Don't we need to feed Grim though?

He'll eat the grass while we walk.

You're horrible.

I'm you, idiot.

I'm not an idiot.

-And Mayuu proceeds to forget about Rook for almost a month-

"Silver? I'm quite close with his father. And I think Silver is a good person. He defends people. And he doesn't think bad of others easily. I like him. Very much so. Enough to try avoiding Malleus's overblot instead of speeding it up. I don't want the baby to cry."

An excerpt from "The life of Mayuu: The interview"

[blackberry-bloody]

11. hiding from pursuers for Zeke and Omen? :3 -@emmettnet

Omen fidgeted in his seat, feeling cramped in the glorified metal box of a ship. His eyes drifted around the cabin. Eventually they landed on the display window again, showing the path ahead of them, the stars and sky whirling by, and the vast nothingness between. His wings involuntarily twitched. To be moving through space l, but not by his own power? It felt eerie... It felt... Itchy.

He shook his head and looked over at Zeke, silently focused on his instruments as he piloted his deathtrap ship. "Zeke how much -?"

"Omen. How many times do I have to say. Don't distract the driver..." Zeke didn't even bother looking at Omen this time. Only leaned over to mess with one of the many do-hickies and do-dads on the dashboard that Omen couldn't even begin to understand.

Zeke's hand paused as he looked at one of the screens. "Hm... That's interesting."

"Interesting? Good interesting, or bad interesting?" Omen perked up.

"Potentially bad..." Zeke's eyes were focused on the screen. Omen followed his gaze. "See this dot here?" He pointed to a colored dot on the black screen. Omen looked, and nodded. "That's us. And this-" he pointed to another dot just at the very edge of the screen. "Is someone trying hard not to be noticed by us..."

"Uh-oh... What should we do?" Omen suddenly felt very vulnerable in Zeke's ship. He couldn't do much of anything from inside.

"I'm gonna try to lose them. Hang onto something." Zeke bit his lip, a nervous habit Omen had picked up on. Omen held onto the arm rests as best he could. Zeke however, set to work.

Zeke looked over his dashboard a moment, seemingly coming up with a plan of action, before deftly making use of the many instruments. Zeke started speeding up. Way up. He'd worry about having to refuel sooner that expected later.

The other ship, apparently realizing they had been spotted, sped up to try and catch up. Zeke grinned. With a bit of a showy flourish, he waved his hands and sparks of blue electricity jumped between his blackened fingertips. He looked over at Omen, who looked thoroughly horrified, and smirked. "You have no idea how many times I've done this to you."

He placed his hands against two indented spots on the dashboard. An inky blackness spread from his hands and rapidly engulfed the ship. Zeke's eye were fully black now, without any of his bright pink irises. The dot registering their own location blinked out, leaving behind only the rapidly approaching pursuer. Then, without warning, the ship came to a screeching halt, making Omen accidentally band his head with a thud. Zeke was too focused to notice, and Omen did not want to distract him, so he kept quiet. Only to be flung forward and hit his head a second time, as they were now going backwards just as fast as before.

Zeke's whole body was trembling with the effort it was taking to control the ship. They approached the incoming vessel and ducked under it, letting them get ahead. Zeke slowed the ship down to it's original speed. Letting the threat continue speeding on by. He steered the ship to the side, deciding to take an alternative route.

"There we go." Sparks flew from his mouth, making his voice sound grainy. Slowly the darkness enveloping the ship slunk back in towards Zeke's hands, which only stopped sparking when he finally lifted them from the console. His eyes returning to normal except for his blown out pupils. He was still trembling slightly. "We'll-" he started but a full body tremors wracked through him. "We'll have to stop to refuel. But that should take care of that."

---

@emmettland I've had this in my drafts since August 😅 I hope you enjoy

I have no idea where this prompt came from at this point, sorry. If someone knows please let me know and I'll link it.

[flickynightdarkness]

Two Clowns Are Better Than One (CTCD OC Fanfic)

[CW⚠️ DEATH, CLOWNCORE, CLOWNS, DARK HUMOR JOKES, CURSING]

[Characters: Barry(OC), Olive(OC), Jingles(OC), Courage, Jingles' friends(OCs)]

[When Barry has gone lost in order to get back home, he goes to a caravan and sees his old friend Olive and he seems to brought another who looks like a clown though not a demonic clown like him]

The stars in the dark night sky where all shining across in the middle of Nowhere. There it cuts to the young black cat known as Barry, running around in the dark, in panic and out of breath 'Oh god... I cannot find my way to go home to see my mom and dad!' The poor black cat felt disappointed. But then he heard something, something really fun like from a party and a bright light that he sees. He runs over to check to see and there he sees... a big circus tent! In between it are two caravans, one in green and one in red and gold. 'Whoa' says Barry with his eyes sparkling. Then it interrupted him by the sounds of chatting, coming from the red caravan. Curious but worried to enter, Barry walks to the caravan and pulls through the red curtains and what he sees surprised him.

It appears to be a demon of Greed sin and one of his allies, Olive talking to an another who looks similar except their features were more clownlike and had a colourful look. As the two clowns were chatting all about, Barry sneakily tries his best to not be spotted by the other clown. Barry starts to crawl his way into the bedroom, just until... hearing the melodic of Pop Goes the Weasel plays on a Jack in a box. Barry slowly and cautiously moves away from it, and... POP! Barry jumped in fright and clings onto Olive's clown hat, which makes the other clown point out to him as he snickers 'Olive, why have you got a cat on top of your hat?" He let out a snort. "Get it? Cat In The Hat" Olive laughs to the joke as he takes Barry off of his hat, Barry gives out a surprised look and so does Olive when the two saw eachother in silence.

'Hey Barry! Long time no see mate' Says Olive with a jolly smile to Barry 'Hehe, hey Olive' replied Barry laughing nervously a bit and waving to him. "Wait a minute, Olive... You... know this cat?!" Says the clown surprisingly to Olive. Olive, holding Barry in his two arms as he turns Barry around to show his clown buddy to him 'Yep thats him' When Barry saws his face, his body couldn't help but shake with an anxious look on his face. The clown places two of his fingers onto Barry's cheeks and when he moves them, it makes a sound of a dog toy. The clown laughed by this and smiles so big 'Oh, aren't you just adorable' he then holds Barry from Olive's arms with a big smile on his face at the black cat. 'Olive... who's that' asks Barry, nervously. 'This is my best pal/companion/best mate ever! Jingles! Jingles, this right here is my lil cat buddy Barry' replied Olive to Barry then to Jingles

'So Barry, I have heard your name from Olive and the same goes to that pink dog who gets scared all the time. Kinda like you Barry, heard you get scared all the time like the dog.' Says Jingles, curiously. 'Yeah– It's because I have... Well something known as... anxiety... huh' responded Barry, anxiously but then confused as he looks at Jingles in a white coat, 3D glasses and a stethoscope and he is holding onto a clipboard in which what he appears to be acting like a doctor. 'Mmhmm yes, yes, good... hmm yes, i knew it' Then he throws his clipboard away 'it has been confirmed yes boy, that you indeed have anxiety' responded Jingles to Barry 'but don't you worry" he said, giving him a pat on his small head. "Your jolly uncle Jingles is gonna make you the happiest little kitty cat ever to life." As he picks up Barry with a pleasant smile

Next morning came and first to get up was Jingles, he was jumping out of his room and then onto Barry's room, carrying an airhorn with him, shouting 'Rise and shine Barry!!' He releases the airhorn, making a really loud noise which wakes up both Barry and Olive 'Why are you using an airhorn?!' Responded Barry 'To wake you up boy.' He releases his airhorn again. Then he puts on his 3D glasses and holds out a list and reads 'Ok so... Tasks to do today. Get my pals up, check! Cook them a breakfast, I'm doing that! Aaand then, show my new pal my circus! I'm doing that too!' He throws his list away. In the kitchen, Jingles is cooking fried eggs for Olive, Barry comes along to the table, he grabs a bowl, box of cereal and milk for the classic cereal breakfast complete with his glass of milk. 'G'day mate! How you slept?' says Olive. 'Alright!' replied Barry while eating his cereal. 'Right after he used an airhorn at me!' He said annoyed at Jingles. 'Well gotta tell you kid, that he does this every morning we wake up' said Olive.

The three eat their breakfasts with Olive and Jingles going at it with theirs while Barry eats his breakfast with a normal expression on his face.

Then Jingles takes Barry to his own circus. Inside it is brightly coloured with a bunch of balloons, banners, lights. 'Here we are! Welcome to my very own circus!' Says Jingles, showing Barry the entirety around it. 'I bet your gonna love everything we can do with me and some interesting friends I have in here!' 'Friends?' Said Barry, confusingly. 'Oh right, one sec.' As Jingles claps his hands and shouts out to the dark side 'Ok!! My fellow circus friends!! Come on out cuz' we got a guess joining us today!!' Then a bunch of eyes appear at the dark, which made Barry flinch his body. Then they all appear bouncing and sprinting around in joy to see their good, old clown friend. 'Hey Jingles my man, long time no see' says the one who is also a clown. They all laugh and chuckle at each other one another. Then Barry encounters someone who says to him 'Hi!' 'Hi!' Responded Barry, but he isn't aware that this one has another head who asks him 'How are you been? Good, alright.' 'Whoa!' Barry said surprisingly. 'Y-You got two heads?!' 'Well yeah cuz' we're conjoined twins.' Says the one twin then the two together. 'Y'know, two heads in one body' says one twin. Barry looks at the others anxiously and asks them all each 'Who are you all?' What are you guys exactly?' 'Alright let's calm down over here little guy' said the white rabbit who wears vintage 50s cartoon outfit. 'You see we are all his circus companions and close friends/pals/best friends. And we do stuff we like going on an adventure or do scavenger hunts or... any kind that she thinks of.' 'She? I thought Jingles was a he.' Said Barry, he looked at Jingles with a confused look on his face, which made Jingles shocked and laughs nervously to Barry 'Ohh— Hoho~ I may have forgotten to tell you Barry boy. I use all pronouns. Whether it's he, she or they or whatever' With Jingles saying that, this somehow made Barry stood silent.

Then it cuts to Barry sitting on the sofa with the white rabbit one, the clown one and the third one who has a balloon as his head. The three talk to him with some jokes. 'So there was our other clown pal who goes by the name of Karlos and he asked me 'Do you have a pet?' And I said; Yeah I got a cat that is like you right' said the clown one, telling his joke. Barry replied 'Yeah, what was their name?' The clown one continues 'Biscuit Crumbs. He was like a son that i would've had. I loved him so much just until i shook him way too hard out of excitement but then his body looked crumbly so I thought of giving him a load of cake that I had, in which I poisoned him.' 'YOU DID WHAT!' Said Barry, shockingly 'WHAT THE HELL!!!' 'HAH! HAHAHAHA!!! Pretty funny ain't it gang' said the clown laughing. 'Dude, what the f##k!' Said the balloon head one in a serious manner, 'WHY WOULD YOU JOKE ABOUT THAT TO A CHILD, DUDE!?' He says in a angered tone as he stares at him. But then that clown got something on his back with a sinister smile on his face, he pointed to the ceiling 'Hey man, look! Hot air balloon!' 'Where?' Says the balloon head, he looks at the ceiling, well unfortunately his gullibility left him out because he is now unaware that his clown fellow is holding a sewing needle. 'OVAL! NO!' yelled the white rabbit, she orders Oval to not pop their balloon friend. But Oval didn't listen and messes himself around with the needle. The rabbit sighs and facepalms "I really hate what Oval is doing now." "Oval? So you guys got names?" Barry said confusingly then the rabbit corrects him on that 'Why yes, we all have names that we may forget to tell Jingles that. So for me, my name is Ivory' 'Ok. Then what about the balloon one?' Barry said pointing to the balloon one 'His named is Henrium' said Ivory, 'Henrium?' Barry said confusingly 'Yeah it's like a combined/punny name of Henry and helium. Cuz' he has a balloon as his head' Ivory correcting to Barry about Henrium. But then, next minute their faces and their clothes are covered in red paint, the two are extremely shocked but Barry is the most shocked since he looked at his hands. 'Kid, are you... ok?' Ivory responds to Barry but he isn't responding back due to seeing the paint all over him. 'Okay— Why don't we go off somewhere to wash that off and then we'll have to find a new head for Henrium' says Ivory as she scoots Barry off the room

Then it cuts to Barry washing off his face and sighs when he rubs a towel to dry his face, he puts it back on the rack. But little does he not know that when he sees his reflection, it seems fine but the thing he doesn't realise was that his reflection is moving on it's own as it waved to him. Barry responded by shock 'Huh?!' His response made him see his normal reflection. He gets closer to his reflection, when looking at it, his reflection creepily smiled at him and grinning at him. Barry jumped with a yelp and backed away from this monstrosity of himself as he saw it laughing maniacally while breaking the mirror which brings them out of there. It then first appears as Barry's body melting off to their actual appearance of a... shapeshifter, with black horns with thin white stripes and white angel wings. They joyfully yelled "HAHAHA!!!" They snickered. "Oh my god, HAHAHA!!! Man look at your little shocked face!! Pfft– Man" They added until it rubs a tear of his eye. "You been scared sh#tless for that one, right?" Barry was silent a bit but then he hits his face, stretches his eyelids, shouting at them 'YOU WERE MY REFLECTION THE WHOLE TIME?!?!' 'Hey, hey, hey, take it easy kid. I was just goofing around like the rest over there.' Said the shapeshifter calmly. In a tone of a masculine young adult. 'You guys like to... goof around?' Said Barry, he even calms down for a moment. 'Yep–' Replied the shapeshifter while he is texting on their phone. 'I uh– gotta go to the clown now' said Barry 'Yeah ok, you can go ahead for now' said the shapeshifter while looking at their phone as Barry sprints off

As Barry runs across the entire circus, he hears a load of loud screaming coming from the main area. Barry thinks to his head on who would be screaming like that, when he thought it might be Courage, his face changed shocked that he might be in danger so he runs much faster to get to him and shouts out 'Hold on Courage! I'm coming for you!' Then it cuts to Jingles and some of his other clown friends staring down at the cowardly dog, shaking in fear while looking at each of their looks, appearances and their creepy faces, he covers his eyes. Then one of the clowns sees Barry rushing and says to Jingles 'Oy' mate! That uh cat over there you talked about is charging right at that dog' Jingles heard, he looked at Barry and said 'Ahh Barry my lil buddy. Do you see what me and my friends found looking at our circus-' Jingles cuts his speech 'Wait a minute.' He looks at the dog again 'Barry' Barry responds 'Yes Jingles' 'Wasn't that dog the same dog you talked to me about last night' Jingles asks him back to 'Yeah–' Barry replied back. 'Oh. My. JELLY BELLY ON A POPSICLE ICE CREAM SUNDAE!!! Jingles looks at Courage with a excited expression on their face, he picks the small dog up, twirls him around though it makes him feel dizzy. The clown giggles 'I'm so excited to see you adorable lil puppy! Awww!' As he's squeezing Courage. 'Say Barry boy, does your dog friend have a name?' He asks to Barry in which he replies "Courage" "Courage?" Jingles responds confusingly which the same goes to his clown friends too. 'What kind of name Courage has to do with him kid?' Asks the thin clown with yellow-green eyes. So Barry explains to him about his name 'It's because he fought many monsters whether they are talking snowmen, bad eggplants, moles that can turn others into them, sirens who live in puddles and... whatever monster that I can think of.' 'Ahhh I see, I see' the thin clown says in a confident manner. 'Yeah but what is he like to you, as in your relationship with the dog' asks the chubby clown wearing a dark blue clown suit with red poms poms. Barry explains to the blue clown 'Courage and I are very close but we got one thing in common, which is that we both get scared at anything. But despite all that, we are very close and good for me to have someone who I can look up to' Barry hugs Courage in which the latter hugs him back with a smile on his face 'Awww' Jingles and the thin clown respond with starry eyes, even the blue clown responds to that 'Ok, now that's just pure and its making my soul warm'

THE END!