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jayflrt · 1 year ago

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𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝟕𝟖𝟔 40. pledge week

content warnings: hazing (for those who don't know, hazing refers to initiation "rituals" that can be humiliating, degrading, and potentially dangerous. hazing can be physical, mental, or psychological; it can happen not only in fraternities and sororities but also sports teams and social or professional organizations). also they steal a goat (don't do this)

JAY WAS FAST ASLEEP FOR THE EIGHT HOURS ON THE PLANE BACK TO CONNECTICUT, WHICH WAS ALSO A GREAT EXCUSE TO KEEP HIMSELF FAR AWAY FROM YOU.

He had you on his thigh only hours prior to the flight, and he could barely meet anyone's eyes while he spent the entire time brooding at the terminal. No one seemed to notice his strange behavior, though; most people were yawning and rubbing their eyes from the hectic weekend.

Vivid flashes of your face kept popping up in his head whenever he let his mind wander. Jay desperately tried to steer his head to think about more important matters—the mission, for one—but all he could recall was how you moaned his name in a way that set his nerves on fire.

It was a mistake. He wasn't acting responsibly at all about this, and Jay was so disappointed in himself that he couldn't bring himself to tell his friends about what had happened.

If only he didn't let his emotions get in the way of his work.

That matter aside, Jay had been far too distracted this weekend. He was getting so carried away with the glitz and glam of the trip that he had completely forgotten that he was supposed to talk to Chaewon more. She was your roommate, for Christ's sake; it should've been easy for him to strike up a conversation.

But then there was some resistance starting to build up. He didn't want to do this anymore, and he knew that for sure after he had walked away from your hotel room. Even if Jay had to leave Yale forever and never see you again, he would rather do that over continuing with an investigation that would inevitably hurt you.

It wasn't like he had any choice, though—not when Unknown knew the ugliest truth about him that Jay hadn't even told his closest friends about.

He woke up to the overhead announcement about the plane landing. It must have been the early hours of the morning still, and Jay was dreading this part the most. Jennie told them that they would head straight to the Athenaeum first and foremost. She didn't elaborate, but Jay glanced over at Sunghoon, who raised his brows with a grim look on his face, as if to say, We're screwed.

"We're getting hazed to hell and back," muttered Heeseung, who had been standing next to him with two suitcases that he didn't bring along on the way to Monaco.

It took around two hours for everyone to regroup at the Order's house. They had to wait an extra thirty minutes for Giselle, who had been left behind again, to get an Uber from the airport. Jay could hardly wrap his head around the fact that he was in a completely different continent just the other day. Having to go back to school was jarring, even though he appeared to be skipping his afternoon classes today.

They were all gathered in the dark basement with only Jennie standing in front of them. She had them all line up against the wall in order of how everyone's names were listed on the official announcement.

You happened to be first, and Jay was only a few people away from you. He noticed that you sent him a few cautionary glances, but he kept his gaze down, his heart thundering just from the sight of you.

"Alright, you've all had your fun now," Jennie said in a sterner voice than usual, "so let's just get right into it."

The remaining fourteen members filed into the basement in black robes and white masks with faces molded to look like Greek statues. Jennie kicked a box that was set down in front of her; Jay initially thought it was empty, but upon closer inspection, he saw several badges with the emblem of a golden owl.

One-by-one, each Order member took a badge each. Their hoods were up, so Jay had a hard time telling who was who, but he quickly realized that Jeonghan was the one standing right in front of him.

Jennie went around handing each pledge a candle. She helped you light your candle, and then instructed everyone else to help each other light their candles. You shared your fire with Yeonjun, who shared his with Giselle, who shared hers with Jay, and so on.

"I'm going to recite our society's oath, and you guys are going to repeat after me," Jennie said once all of the candles were lit, and she started:

"In the presence of the unseen and the holders of ancient wisdom,

"I—say your name—commit to pursuing the answers from our universe with an undying thirst for knowledge,

"recognizing that the quest for truth is eternal;

"cherishing and valuing the sacred bond of brotherhood in our delegation of fifteen;

"and upholding the principles of what the Order of Kryptos stands for—integrity, unity, and discretion.

"With this oath, I pledge myself as a new member of the Order and devote myself to a lifetime pursuit of knowledge and success."

In broken harmony, the fifteen of them repeated after each of Jennie's pauses, mostly getting all the words she was saying and occasionally falling apart. Everyone was far too jet-lagged to even think straight, let alone recite an oath in a dark basement.

After they were finished, everyone wore sheepish grins and crooked smiles once the older members started clapping for them. Jay, on the other hand, was much too clueless about what was going on. Most of the people here knew of these situations through friends or family who had experienced similar rituals, but Jay didn't grow up in such an environment.

The older members stepped forward and fixed the badge with the owl emblem over their hearts. Jeonghan pinned Jay's shirt rather quickly while Wonwoo seemed to be taking forever to stab his badge through Giselle's coat. Jay peered over at you, and he couldn't help but frown a bit as he watched Sungjin place the badge on your shirt.

"Alright, you guys can go now," Jennie said. She was behind everyone, appearing to get something out of her bag while the rest of the members were filing back out. All of them had given the pledges cheers of support and good luck, but Jay had a bad feeling about all of this. "Let's sit down and go over Initiation Week together; last year we had someone pass out while they were standing."

Jay and Heeseung, with four people between them, craned their necks to check on each other's reactions—horrified, to put it simply. Heeseung bent down to sit with his legs crossed almost immediately after. Everyone else followed suit, sitting knee-to-knee where they had lined up.

"For the next week, you guys will be living here together," Jennie said plainly. Jay met several people's eyes and everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing, which was no way in hell. "You'll all sleep here and share that one bathroom in the corner. You can still attend classes, but you should keep your nights free for the next seven days. We'll be having our, uh, usual practices."

Xiaoting raised her hand. "Can we go back to our places to bring our stuff here?"

Jennie approved the idea before continuing, "As pledges, you also have to do whatever a member wants you to do; if an Order member says they want a coffee, then you need to be there to get them that coffee; if a member wants you up at four in the morning, then you should be awake and ready."

That's so fucking stupid, Jay thought, although he mumbled a "yes" in tune with everyone else.

"You guys need to wear those badges at all times," she continued. "If someone catches you without your badge, then there will be consequences." She then pulled out a thick envelope full of papers, setting it down in front of her. "This packet is full of information on our society. All of the writing here is extremely confidential, and you're not allowed to take pictures of anything or repeat anything here to non-members."

"Are we supposed to memorize that?" Sunghoon asked.

Jennie smiled in response. "Oh, good, you're catching on. The theme for tonight is scholarship, so we want you guys to memorize our history, our oath, our motto, and our roster—names, majors, and birthdays—in order. We won't ask for any more than that since initiation is only a week, but you should be ready for any of the Order members to ask questions during our... activities."

The fifteen of them, still exhausted from the trip, nodded blankly in response.

She went on, "And, most importantly, remember that you can't speak a word of anything that happens to someone outside of the Order or your pledge class. By becoming a new member, you must promise to maintain full confidentiality."

Then, she had everyone sign several forms pertained to joining the Order. The confidentiality form, which Jennie made everyone read aloud, sounded rather threatening in fine print. The punishments ranged from meetings with the society to being blacklisted from every organization on campus.

They were then allowed to head back to their apartments to freshen up and pack anything they needed for the next week. Jennie told them they needed to be back at 8 p.m. for their first event.

Although Jay hardly had a clue of what being hazed would be like, he made sure to prepare himself for this turn of events. After some conversations with Heeseung and a deep-dive into Reddit threads, Jay had a suspicion that something like this would happen. He couldn't say he was glad he was right, but he was relieved that he had separate phones and laptops for his detective work. He would lock those up in his apartment, and then he would only take the phone and laptop he used for school.

Jay made sure to inform his client of the situation he was in. He was very transparent about what was going on; after all, he needed to ensure his client that he was taking his work seriously, and this was something that was crucial for the mission.

He also had to tell his friend group about what was going on. Jay was sure Jake, Jungwon, and Riki would lose their minds if they didn't hear from their friend for an entire week. He figured he could simply go without telling his parents, too, but Jay ended up giving his mother a call before he packed for the week.

"What do you think they're gonna make us do tonight?" Heeseung asked. The two of them were walking to the Order's house together (after Jennie specifically instructed neither of them to bring their cars). It was already dark outside because Jay had to wait until Heeseung's class ended. "I bet this is all fun and games for Yeonjun. He's already been hazed by the baseball team."

"The baseball team hazes?"

"Yeah—beer-boxing, eating a goldfish, the polar plunge—all that fun stuff."

Jay had no idea what any of those entailed, but he hoped and prayed that Heeseung meant the snack that smiled back.

After they arrived at the house, the fifteen pledges were lounging in the basement, passing the time by doing homework or talking to each other while Jennie was thirty minutes late. Everyone was speculating what was going on because there seemed to be a lot of noise upstairs. Jay caught your eye across the room and could tell that you wanted to talk to him, but he begrudingly turned his attention back to whatever Yeonjun and Sunghoon were going on about.

When Jennie finally arrived, the door handle slammed against the wall and the room fell into silence almost immediately. A few nervous murmurs were shared as she descended the staircase and stood in front of them.

"The Order doesn't wanna see you guys yet," she said bluntly. "Maybe later tonight."

Everyone was startled, and you were the first to clear your throat and start, "Oh... so should we—"

"We're going out for dinner, but the house needs cleaning. There's cleaning supplies in one of the closets upstairs and trash bags under the sink. Make sure it's done before we're back." She gave the mortified juniors a pleasant smile before adding, "Oh, and you're only allowed to sleep tonight if you get a secret from everyone here by the time we're home."

Everyone was silent for the first few minutes of Jennie disappearing upstairs. Then came the complaints.

"We have to clean?" Xiaoting whined. "But they already have someone doing it for them!"

"How bad can it be?" Eunseok asked. "It didn't seem like it was messy when we got here. None of them seem like they'd be messy people."

"Jennie was thirty minutes late, remember?" Sunoo offered. "They must've been making it messy on purpose while we were waiting down here."

There was a collective sigh of disappointment. Jay, on the other hand, couldn't be happier. He was under the impression that he would be doing grueling tasks or physical punishments, but cleaning wasn't a big deal. As for the secret part, he was sure he could come up with a good enough lie.

"Should we clean first and then regroup after?" Ryujin suggested with a gleam in her eyes. "I think it'd be fun doing the secret sharing one together."

There were murmurs of approval throughout the circle, and then Chaewon said, "Then we should get started now."

To everyone's dismay, Sunoo was right. After they heard the distant chatter and giggles from the seniors' pregame fade out after the door slammed shut, Jay headed upstairs with Chenle to check on the state of the house. He felt deeply sorry to disappoint everyone with the news that the house was, indeed, a mess.

Not just a mess, though. It looked as if it was suffering from the aftermath of a party. There were solo cups littering the ground, tissue paper everywhere, and most things had been knocked off the shelves and cabinets.

They split into teams to tackle each area of the house. Jay and Giselle were assigned to the kitchen where they discovered they had to throw out most of the expired food. Giselle was insistent on keeping everything back where they seemed to belong, but Jay couldn't see the point of keeping inedible food lying around. He figured that Giselle had a better idea of this activity than he did, though, so Jay trusted her gut feeling.

Afterward, the fifteen of them gathered back in the basement. You and Changmin made a trip back upstairs to put the rest of the cleaning supplies away while Jay finally felt the exhaustion start to settle in.

"Do we know when they're coming back?" Changmin asked, nearly flinching when you opened the door to the basement. "Jesus, Y/N, I thought you were Jennie."

"Not Jennie," you affirmed, "but she could get here soon. There's no way any restaurants around here are still open this late."

"Well, then we need to come up with something now," Heeseung said. "I'd like to get some sleep tonight."

"Secrets..." Yeonjun hummed as he pondered. "I don't know. I don't feel like I have any good ones."

You snorted. "Yeah, dude, you're basically an open book."

"There was the chlamydia incident," Giselle offered.

"Yuna took care of that one, didn't she?" Yeonjun grimaced before leaning back on his elbows. "I'm sure everyone here knows I tried selling coke to a professor, too."

"We did not know that," Yizhuo said.

"Oh," said Yeonjun, pleasantly surprised, "well, that's my secret, then."

Everyone started taking turns from there, thinking in silence for a few moments before springing up to share their secret. Jay didn't think people were going to get too deep, but the amount of oversharing made him nervous. How was he supposed to come up with something that could compare to any of their secrets? A prince from a foreign country paid for a VIP booth and bottle service for Chaewon; Xiaoting lost her virginity during one of Cara Delevingne's Fourth of July parties; Eunseok accidentally crashed four cars in high school; Karina's parents didn't know about her girlfriend; Ryujin slept with a lead singer from a rock band after meeting him backstage; and Giselle begrudgingly admitted that she once bought sneakers that cost nearly forty thousand to impress Jung Sungchan, who apparently didn't pay any attention to them.

Sunghoon, on the other hand, decided to keep his tame. So tame that Jay wasn't quite sure whether it was real or not. Even you and Sunoo looked slightly uncomfortable with the whole activity once the spotlight was on them. Jay didn't let your shifting eyes before Sunoo's turn go unnoticed.

The group started getting anxious about time after Heeseung spent ten minutes reiterating how he blacked out on the deck of a cruise ship. Thankfully, only Chenle and Jay were left to share.

"My turn now?" Jay asked after Chenle confessed to buying over thirty replacements for his AirPods from an Apple vending machine. "I feel like I don't have any interesting secrets."

"Wait!" Heeseung blurted out excitedly. "You should tell them about that one night we went to the bars and passed out in a bush. Remember? Last quarter—right before Dead Week—"

"Oh, no, we all know about that," Ryujin said quickly, waving down the idea. "Yeonjun made sure everyone and their mom saw that picture."

Xiaoting grinned. "Yeah, we need something good for you, Jay. You've gotta have stories from Seattle."

He wasn't sure how to tell them that his life was relatively boring. All the exciting bits that they would have loved to hear were the ones he couldn't tell them about.

But when Jay thought about his one and only secret that he swore to never tell anyone about, his mouth started to go dry. He couldn't think about anything but the way he felt like tar was spilling into his throat, all thick and suffocating. His head started to spin, and he wasn't quite sure how many minutes of silence he had lapsed into. All he knew was that a room full of people were gawking at him while he could hardly speak.

Say something, he told himself, anything!

"I..." Beads of sweat were running down his back; it was no help that there was hardly any proper air circulation in the basement. "I, uh..."

"Wait," you spoke up loudly, looking at Jay earnestly like you were hoping he would play along. "You never told me the whole story but remember that thing with Jake? The car?"

Clearly, you were grasping at straws for some way to get Jay out of the hole he had dug himself in, but your knowledge of Jay's hometown friends was convincing enough for the rest. They all leaned in closer at the mention of the car, which you spouted out off the top of your head, but it thankfully gave Jay enough time to come back to his senses and start lying smoothly.

"Oh, yeah... I didn't know if that was a good enough secret." He smiled sheepishly before turning to the rest of the group. "I, uh, might have stolen a car with my friend, Jake, when we were fourteen. It was his dad's car, but we made it, like, thirty miles before we got caught."

Amidst the chorus of laughter and outbursts from others about how Jay didn't seem like the time to steal a car (he wasn't), Kim Chaewon let out a giggle that sounded rather forced.

"I thought you were gonna say that you and Y/N fucked during our last night in Monaco," she said in a sugary sweet voice.

The basement went pin-drop silent.

Something was bubbling up in Jay's chest, and he wasn't sure if it was anger or plain exasperation. He looked at you first, wondering if there had been some sort of miscommunication between the two girls, but you looked just as outraged at the declaration. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Yeonjun whispering something in Karina's ear, and Sunghoon's hand was tightly curled into a fist.

Amusement twitched at the corners of Jay's lips and he fixed Chaewon with a confused look. "What? Where did you hear that from?"

"I just figured." She shrugged. "You two were the only ones who didn't go out for drinks with us."

"That doesn't mean we fucked!" you exclaimed.

Honestly, Jay wouldn't have been as pissed about the question if he hadn't been part of the group that helped break Chaewon out of jail the night before. This was how the favor was being returned? He should've just informed the embassy about her detainment if she was going to make absurd speculations about him.

"No, I was just wondering," Chaewon complained, reaching over and fussing with your hand when she saw how upset you looked. "You two got so defensive, though."

"Let's just not make baseless assumptions about each other," Sunghoon chimed in, and Jay could sense the venom in his tone as he spoke.

"Yeah, Jay told me he was tired," Sunoo lied coolly, though he gave Jay an odd look, as if he was curious himself. Jay was thankful that his friends were getting him out of such an uncomfortable situation, but he hated that this was being made known to their entire class now. "He wasn't even awake when we got back from dinner."

"Ah." Chaewon hummed, a simpering smile playing on her lips. "My bad, then."

"Friendship, guys," Yizhuo said lightheartedly, nodding along to her own words. "Men and women can be friends without sexual relations. Jay and Y/N are living proof."

Considering you were moaning his name the day before, Jay wasn't exactly sure the two of you were the right candidates for that one. He appreciated Yizhuo's support, though.

Yeonjun held up the Lysol cleaning spray he forgot to put away in solidarity. "To friendship!"

"To friendship," the rest of them parroted in broken unison.

After Eunseok changed the topic to Jay's heart supposedly only belonging to Heeseung (which stirred up an entire breakdown and analysis from the girls), almost everyone had acted like the misunderstand with Chaewon hadn't happened. Jay met your eyes across the circle and swallowed hard when you were the one to turn away first.

Then, they all fell silent upon hearing the front door open upstairs. Chenle clung onto Jay's bicep with trepidation hanging in his brows.

For a while, they overheard the Order talking amongst themselves in complete silence, hoping to catch them hinting at something about their seven-day process. However, they only seemed to be talking about something funny that Jeonghan did before all of them went quiet, too. Jay exchanged a wary look with Chenle.

Jennie opened the door and walked down the stairs to the basement after a couple of minutes. Everyone straightened up and turned their attention to her.

"They still don't want to see you," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "Did you guys have a good talk?"

"Yep," Giselle spoke up. "We learned maybe a little too much about each other."

She clasped her hands together. "Good! You guys can sleep now, but make sure to keep your ringers on. You never know if anyone's gonna need you."

Jay raised a brow. It couldn't be that easy. She wasn't even going to ask them about each other's secrets? There had to be a catch.

Before anyone had time to grouch, the door swung open again and Wonwoo came downstairs with several bluetooth speakers. He placed one in each corner of the basement as Jennie continued to address the group.

"Uh, so what about the cleaning?" Karina asked. "Was that all good?"

"I guess we'll find out," was the anxiety-inducing response they received instead. "Get some sleep. You guys must be exhausted from the trip still."

Although her words were genuine, Jennie didn't sound sincere in the slightest. Jay was already dreading what the night would bring. Would they call them out and make them run errands? Start making them drink until they puked everything out? Hit them with paddles?

When Jennie and Wonwoo walked back upstairs together, everyone let out a collective, weary sigh.

"I think we should have someone on stand-by in case anyone calls one of us," Giselle suggested. "We can take turns. There's fifteen of us, so we can rotate through, like, two-hour shifts."

"Then we should leave all of our phones on the table," you said. "Whoever's on shift should just pick up the first one that rings."

Everyone was in agreement of the plan. They decided to go in order of where they stood when lined up, so you were first to stay awake. After everyone had gotten ready for bed and laid out their sleeping bags on the floor, they turned off the lights and settled in for the night. The only light in the room was from the glow of your phone screen, but you did your best to make sure it wasn't bothering anyone.

About ten minutes in, when Jay was starting to feel the creeping hands of sleep seize him, a song started playing loudly—unbearable in his ears.

Doses and Mimosas by Cherub. Usually a great listening experience, but Jay felt like clawing his eardrums out right now.

"Y/N, please turn that shit off," Yeonjun called out over the noise. "I literally can't sleep like this."

"Dude, it's not me," you replied. "It's coming from the speakers."

Another collective sound from the fifteen of them; this time, it was a groan. Perhaps all that bonding they did tonight really did pay off.

"It could be worse," Heeseung tried. "At least it's a good song."

No one ended up getting any decent sleep.

Moreover, Heeseung's short-lived optimism pissed Giselle off so much that she ended up taking out her frustration on him by whacking him repeatedly with her pillow.

The worst part of it all was that they received zero calls from the older members, so they were clearly just being toyed with. Jay was sure he would bleed from his ears if he heard Doses and Mimosas one more time. At some point during the night, it got to the point where Sunghoon tried to take the speakers and leave them outside the basement door, only to find out that they had been locked inside. They wound up wrapping several blankets around the four speakers until the music was slightly more muffled.

Jay decided he would attend all of his Tuesday classes because he wanted to spend as little time at the Order's house as possible. He and Eunseok spent virtually the entire day together, only separating when they had to go to class. Someone from the Order must have seen them together because Jay received a text that he and Eunseok needed to get Joshua a bagel.

When they arrived at the house later that night, Giselle had her nose deep in her laptop while she typed away furiously, and everyone else was trying to get some rest in before tonight's activity began.

Jay spotted you curled up in your sleeping bag, your hair falling in your face. Since Sunoo was nearby, typing away on his laptop where his sleeping bag and luggage were stationed, Jay went over to talk to him, asking about his classes and schoolwork while his eyes swiftly drifted to your figure whenever he got an opportunity. During a period of silence between the two, Jay reached over to push your hair out of your face. As soon as his hand neared your forehead, however, the door swung open and he pulled back in an instant.

The fifteen of them scrambled to line up in order. Heeseung had to keep nudging Yizhuo to keep her from nodding off.

"So, there's a few conditions for tonight's activity," Jennie started. "The Order wasn't very impressed with your work yesterday, so tonight's activity is sort of a... scavenger hunt, I'd say? You're gonna be working in pairs of twos and threes—some Order members are gonna take your group to a room in the house, or you might have to go somewhere a little farther off. All you have to do is work together to find whatever it is that you're asking to look for."

Jay saw this coming. He knew that there would be some sort of scavenger hunt at some point. Kryptos was Greek for hidden, after all, so it was only fitting.

Jennie had members of the Order walk downstairs to select two pledges for the activity. After their phones were taken, they disappeared upstairs. Somewhere in the middle, Jeonghan entered the basement alongside Minghao, and Jay had a bad feeling that he was going to be selected.

But, oh, if only that was the extent of his misfortune.

He tried not to pull a face when Jeonghan called for him, of course, but Jay didn't expect for Minghao to call for you, of all people.

He gave Xiaoting his seat, so what was this? Honestly, it didn't matter who chose who, but Jay was sure this was the most disastrous pairing they could have gone for.

With little instructions, Jeonghan and Minghao led the two down the hallway. They made light conversation with each other, laughing at the occasional joke, but you and Jay were utterly silent. If the Order didn't kill him this week, then the tension between you two certainly would. It was strange that he hadn't talked to you much despite sleeping under the same roof, but keeping some distance was for the best. If he got any closer after what happened in Monaco, who knows what would happen.

When they reached a room at the end of the hallway, Jay was surprised to see that Minghao and Jeonghan's faces had turned stony and impassive.

Jeonghan, unsmiling, started, "Alright, recruits—"

"Recruits?" Minghao sneered. "Why would you call them recruits?"

"We recruited them, so they're recruits. It's PEMDAS, Hao."

"Recruits makes it sound like we're training them for the military or—"

"Some of us actually have to go to the military, you insensitive bitch."

"You're not even going to the military, dude. You're going to law school."

"That's basically the military with a six-figure debt."

"Okay, we're getting so off-topic right now." Minghao huffed. "Do you have the handcuffs?"

"Handcuffs?" asked Jay, who was having a much better time when they were bantering and not talking about their activity. "You're handcuffing us?"

"Yeah, but don't get up to any funny business in there," Jeonghan said, pulling out a pair of handcuffs that had your eyes practically bugging out of your skull. If he had a paperclip on him, Jay could probably undo the latch within a few minutes, but he knew that it would be troublesome to explain where he picked that up from. "This is a strictly professional activity; don't get kinky."

Minghao was pinching the bridge of his nose. "I doubt they were even thinking about that."

"You don't know that."

"Are you even supposed to be talking to us this much?" you asked.

Jeonghan and Minghao exchanged a look.

"Probably not," they replied in unison with Jeonghan sounding flippant and Minghao bordering on worry.

"Anyway, your task is to find a book for us in our library," Minghao started, "but we won't tell you what book it is."

Jay frowned. "Then how're we supposed to find it?"

Jeonghan took on a more serious tone when he said, "I'll give you one hint for the code: The discrepancy is intentional."

Jay had no clue what that was supposed to mean. He was better off not asking for help.

"What if we get it wrong?"

"Jennie will decide what happens to you after that."

"Also," Jeonghan continued, holding out a bottle of lychee-flavored soju, "you two have to finish this before we handcuff you."

Jay looked from the bottle, to Jeonghan, to Minghao, and then back to the bottle.

"Hell no," he retorted.

There was no possible way he would be able to think properly after downing half a bottle of soju. Jay was well aware that he needed as much brain power as possible if he wanted to figure out that hint Jeonghan gave him.

His senior laughed, taking the initiative to unscrew the cap before he held out the open bottle in Jay's direction again. "Unfortunately, you don't have a choice." When Jay still refused to take it from him, Jeonghan grimaced in a just-do-it sort of way. "Dude, the other pledges are drinking Hennessy. You should actually be thanking us for getting you lychee soju."

Jeonghan simply didn't know the magnitude of the situation. The last time you and Jay got drunk together, it ended with the two of you falling asleep with your limbs entangled. Jay wasn't particularly enthusiastic about repeating history.

"Why don't you go first?" Jay offered, gesturing for you to take the bottle. "I'll drink whatever you can't finish."

"What a gentleman," Jeonghan gushed, nodding appreciatively as he handed the soju bottle to you.

"Yeah, the complete opposite of you," Minghao spat. "You made me drink the entire bottle last year!"

"And you were fine."

"I blacked out and woke up in the middle of a lake."

This time, you tried handing the soju bottle back to Jeonghan, who refused to take it back from you. There was unmistakable fear in yours and Jay's eyes, and Jay was trying to visualize the distance from the Order's house to the nearest lake.

"What Minghao meant to say was that he woke up on one of those inflatable mattresses in the middle of a lake," Jeonghan clarified.

"That doesn't make it any better," Jay deadpanned.

"It was perfectly safe. They even gave him a life jacket."

"You guys aren't doing any of that, don't worry," Minghao added quickly with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I promise that you'll only have to stay in the library."

Jeonghan sounded impatient when he said, "Now drink."

You reluctantly held the bottle up to your lips and started chugging the liquor down without missing a beat. Jay could see bubbles rise to the top, and he was almost worried that you would finish the bottle in one go if no one stopped you. When you handed the bottle off to Jay, he could see that there was a little over half left. Before you could even wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, Jay started downing the rest of the contents. When the last few drops landed on his tongue, he almost felt like his body was in autopilot.

Before he knew it, the empty bottle was taken away from him and Minghao had handcuffed you and Jay together. His left wrist was linked to your right one, and albeit uncomfortable, he was more focused on making sure his fingers didn't brush against yours.

"Good luck in there. We'll check in every hour," Jeonghan said. He opened the door to the dark room where Jay could barely make out the silhouettes of the bookshelves. Before he closed it, he dropped something cool and solid in Jay's palm; it felt like metal when his fingers closed around it. "You're gonna need that, by the way."

"Uh, the lights aren't turning"—before you could finish, Jeonghan and Minghao slammed the door shut—"on."

"Well," Jay started with a heavy sigh, "fuck."

You felt along the wall for a moment before flicking the light switch on and off over and over again before accepting that the lights weren't going to turn on. They must have cut the power before starting, which must have been to replicate how most other pledges were toughing out their tasks outside.

Before Jay could even think about the task at hand, there was something that had been on his mind for the entire day, and he was pretty sure it was the reason why he still felt so awkward around you.

He started, "What did you tell Chae—"

"Nothing—absolutely nothing about that night," you cut in fiercely. It had clearly been bothering you, too. Jay remembered that you and Chaewon grew a little closer during Monaco; you must have felt just as betrayed about the ordeal. "You know I wouldn't do that."

He sighed. It was a clear misstep on his part. Obviously people would draw all sorts of conclusion when you both were the only ones sitting out of a fun event to stay in the hotel. If Jay had known better, he would've just gone along with the rest of the group to avoid suspicion.

"I believe you," he said sincerely, "but what she did was fucked up."

You frowned. "Yeah, I don't know why she did that. She apologized to me this morning, but it still feels weird. Karina thinks she's being fake."

Jay wasn't one to talk about fake people, so he kept his mouth shut.

"You've been ignoring me," you said, averting your eyes.

"I haven't."

"You have. You ignored me at the airport, you ignored me when we landed, and you ignored me yesterday. You think I wouldn't notice?" When Jay didn't respond, you pressed on, "I can handle you not wanting to get into a relationship or whatever—mind you, I've been led on in my own relationship before—but I thought we were at least friends. Are we not?"

"We are, it's just..." Jay trailed off, sighing out of frustration.

He knew it was his own immaturity pushing you away. He knew he was the one who set the rules, but it was too difficult for him to pretend like nothing had happened. Even now, as you were fuming at him, he could only think of how pretty you looked.

Jay didn't know how to go about this. Getting closer to you was hurting you; staying away from you was hurting you. What the hell was he even supposed to do?

"It's just what?"

He couldn't let you know how he truly felt, otherwise he would be letting you in deeper than he'd let anyone else in. Jay had to push it down—push all the feelings and insecurities beneath the sand—and pretend like he was content with friendship.

"It's nothing," he said, but you didn't seem quite satisfied with that answer. "I just didn't know how you'd feel after that night."

"That's for me to decide," you told him. "You don't get to guess how I feel and act on that."

He looked down. "I know, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, just... don't act like I'm invisible. I don't want things to be awkward between us."

"No, yeah, of course not. We're cool."

You decided to change the topic to the task at hand and ask, "Anyway, what are we even supposed to find? And what did Jeonghan give you?"

Jay turned the object around in his right hand before realizing what the grooves on the top were for. He flicked his thumb across it until he saw sparks, and then he did it more forcefully until a small fire was lit.

"Very generous of them," he said dryly. "I think this is supposed to make up for them cutting the lights."

You tried walking in the opposite direction of Jay, which ended up making you both wince from the pinch of the handcuffs. Jay grabbed your forearm with his free hand and pulled you back to his side, which was probably the only comfortable way they could be situated.

Maybe it was the alcohol starting to make your limbs feel like jelly, but Jay had to grab your shoulder to hold you upright when you nearly stumbled into him. He was starting to wish he and Eunseok got a bagel for themselves because he hadn't eaten enough to absorb the soju.

Jay lit the flame again and held up the flickering light to illuminate part of the bookshelf in front of them. Just as he thought, all of the books were ordered alphabetically by author name, so all they needed to do was figure out the title. But how were they supposed to do that without any clues? Well, technically they had Jeonghan's hint, but Jay had no idea what that meant. The buzz he felt swimming through his veins wasn't helping his case, either.

"What did Jeonghan say again?" he asked you, frowning.

"The discrepancy is intentional," you answered. "Whatever that means."

"No, before that. He said something, like... something like hint for the clue? Hint for the—"

"Code," you finished for him. "Hint for the code."

"Code? Why the fuck would he say code?"

While you were more focused on trying to riddle out the hint itself, Jay was still stuck on the senior's wording. Jeonghan could have very well left it at 'hint' but he specifically used the word code along with it. That had to be some sort of clue that he just wasn't seeing.

"Do you think it's related to Kryptos?" he asked. Suddenly, the fuzziness in his head started to clear up just enough for him to make reason out of his thought process. Jay couldn't see your face very clearly (which was probably a good thing because being this close to you wasn't good for his heart), but, even in the dark, he could see your eyebrows draw together. "The sculpture outside the CIA headquarters—the encryption. It has to be some sort of book that references Kryptos or has that line that Jeonghan gave us, which makes sense why they chose it. They wanted us to find something related to the Order."

Your voice came out in a breath when you said, "You're literally a genius."

"You don't have to stroke my ego."

"No, I'd actually be fucked if you weren't here." Then, your excitement seemed to deflate. "But do you know any books that reference Kryptos?"

"I don't."

"We'd have to read through this entire library to find it. There's no way we'll find it by morning." You let out a groan. "I wish we had our phones on us."

They sat in silence for a while. Jay thought long and hard about how he was going to go about this. You were right; there was virtually no way for either of you two to get through every book and find the exact one that Jeonghan and Minghao were referring to.

Frustrated, he willed the gears in his head to start spinning. There had to be something he could do. There had to be something he could work with.

Jay used the lighter again to illuminate the area in front of him, nudging you to follow him around the room. Nothing was very promising, however; bookshelf after bookshelf, desks with chairs, and two computers in the corner.

Next to the table with the computers was a utility closet, and the shelves were full of tools and miscellaneous items when he opened it. There was even a skull, which Jay hoped was a Halloween decoration. When he looked through some of the boxes, some of them were full of various hardware equipment that was probably left as a resource for whoever was an engineer.

There was nothing that could help him read through all of the books in the library, though.

But what if he didn't need to do that?

When Jay looked from the monitors to the closet, an idea started stirring in his head. After handing you the lighter, he grabbed one of the boxes of tools and dropped it on the ground with a thud. He did the same with the box of hardware, pulling you down along with him when he moved to sit on the floor.

"What're you doing?" you asked, but, despite your confusion, you sounded like you had confidence in whatever Jay was scheming.

"You're right; this would be way easier with our phones, right?" he started to explain, and his tone had an edge of excitement that only happened whenever he pieced something together. "But we have computers."

"That are... dead," you finished for him, uneasy.

"Right, but what if we created our own power bank? We only need to make it functional to last us ten or fifteen minutes. If we have the right materials, then we should be able to pull it off."

Jay, realizing that you were still holding the flame, turned to look at your expression, and his heart did a pathetic flip when he saw the grin on your face.

"Now you're making me feel useless," you teased.

"You're not useless," he insisted firmly. "Here"—he moved the two boxes so that they were in front of you two—"we can figure out what we need together. We're gonna need a, uh... any battery strong enough to power up a PC, a battery charger, a, uh... lithium ion batteries, and a circuit board for the battery management system."

"Jay," you said, "I have no idea what any of those are supposed to look like."

"No problem, I'll just show you." He picked up an electrical brick that was laying on top of the other equipment. He pressed a button to see that it still had some juice left. "Portable battery charger. Let's just hope it has enough power."

He rummaged through the boxes, eventually finding a slightly-damaged circuit board and a car battery that must have been someone's senior project at some point. Jay nearly celebrated, but they were still missing the lithium batteries.

"Are they that important?" you asked.

"Kind of. They power the CMOS chip on the circuit board here, and I don't know if it'll run properly without it."

"So... they're in the PC."

"Yeah, but we can't just take it out of the—" Jay stopped once he realized what you were getting at. "Oh."

Your eyes lit up. "We have two, so we could just open up the second one. It should be fine since the power's cut."

"Oh, you're perfect," Jay breathed out, trying not to pay much attention to how you bit your lip at his compliment. "Help me move the computers to the ground."

With your help, you two managed to haul them to the ground, and Jay organized the tools on the ground. With your assistance, he had you hold the lighter for him to see as he attempted to pop open the hardware with one hand. This wasn't exactly his area of expertise, but he wasn't useless in the realm of CPU architecture.

After removing the screws from the bottom panel and detaching the piece, Jay used the edge of his screwdriver to pry open the battery pack. He spotted the circular battery fixed to the circuit, and he grinned up at you as he pointed to it.

"We got it."

"Excellent work," you praised. "You should seriously reconsider your major."

Jay didn't reply to that. Although he was a fairly good liar, there was nothing he could say that would make him sound genuinely enthusiastic about economics.

Once they had everything they needed to build their makeshift power bank, Jay got right to work. He requested tool after tool from you, struggling at times to fit the hardware together. Thankfully, he started to get the hang of it once you two had a working system. You followed his instructions flawlessly and acted as Jay's left hand for him, so it became a much smoother process.

Jeonghan and Minghao knocked on the door at the top of every hour, which was supposed to be to check if you two had completed the task, but all it did was stress Jay out even more. Moreover, without a proper sense of time, the knocks came out of nowhere—so loud and jarring that Jay caught himself from letting his eyelids droop several times.

"I feel so useless," you complained.

"You're not useless," Jay replied, although he could hardly spare you a glance as he was completely focused on the task at hand. "Hold the lighter a little closer please—thanks."

"I'll just sit here and look pretty."

"You're always pretty."

This time, he made sure not to look at you because he knew that the expression on your face would make him lose whatever sanity he had left.

After a few hours of trial and error—or possibly longer, considering they had no idea what time it was—you and Jay finally seemed to have a functional power bank.

"Moment of truth," he muttered before turning on the power button.

The light glowed blue.

"Yes!" you cheered, letting the fire from the lighter die once the screen glowed white in both your faces. "You did it!"

"We did it," he corrected. A knot in his chest undid itself, and Jay could finally feel the tension letting up. "All we have to do is just find that stupid quote."

It turned out that it wasn't a quote. They typed it out verbatim, and after scrolling through several pages, you pointed out something promising.

"Seriously? It was The Da Vinci Code?" He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and sighed. "Okay, good, at least we got something."

"Look! It says here that the coordinates on the back cover is a reference to the coordinates in one of the encryptions on the Kryptos sculpture," you said excitedly. "The degree digit was off by one, and when they asked the author about it, he said the discrepancy is intentional. This is it!"

"God, Y/N, I could kiss you right now."

"You could," you murmured shyly.

"Wait, no, I'm not kissing—you know what, I'm kissing your cheek." He leaned in and planted a chaste kiss on your cheek, getting a sappy smile out of you. "There. Now let's find that stupid book."

Thankfully, Dan Brown wasn't hard to find. You pulled his novel from its spot on the bookshelf, stifling a muffled cry of joy with the palm of your hand, nearly jumping up and down from how relieved you were.

"How long has it been since the last time Jeonghan and Minghao checked in on us?" Jay asked.

"Uh, actually—" You flinched, interrupted by the rapping at the door. "Perfect timing."

"We're done!" he called back this time (which felt great to say after all of the "we need more time" requests), and the two seniors went silent for several minutes on end before he heard the door creak open slowly.

"Seriously?" Jeonghan asked, peeking through the crack in the door. "You found the book already? It's only, like, three."

"In the morning?" you asked, horrified.

"No, three in the afternoon," Jeonghan returned, voice laced with sarcasm. "I thought you guys were gonna need the whole night. How did you guys even find it? We thought we made it nearly impossible." He fully opened the door at this point, and his and Minghao's eyes landed on the mess of hardware laying on the floor. Jeonghan looked concerned for a moment before saying, "I know you guys are having a hard time, but you can just talk to us about how the hazing's affecting you instead of breaking our equipment."

"Uh..." Jay looked back over his shoulder. "I can fix that."

"He wasn't breaking anything," you defended him with a might that Jay didn't even have for himself. "It was, like, the most insanely genius thing I've ever seen. He made his own power bank out of whatever was in the closet."

Minghao raised his brows, impressed. "Actually?"

You nodded fervently. Jeonghan folded his arms across his chest and looked from you two, to the hardware on the floor, and then to Jay again.

Jay flushed under the weight over your praise. "It wasn't that big of a deal. I can clean it up now."

Instead, Minghao held out his hand, demanding, "Book."

You handed over the book. Minghao and Jeonghan looked at it with an unreadable expression on both of their faces. For a moment, Jay was afraid that they did all of this for nothing, but then Jeonghan cleared his throat.

"You two are good to head back downstairs," he said. "Don't worry about cleaning up; we need to replace those computers, anyway."

You and Jay held up your wrists that were still linked together, and he asked, "Can you free us?"

"Oh, right."

After you and Jay were finally separated, you both were permitted to go back downstairs to the basement and get some rest. Jay rubbed his sore wrist, but he was too tired to process the pain and irritation.

Jennie was sitting against the wall downstairs, knees pulled to her chest. She had a clipboard at her side and looked as if she had been fighting the urge to doze off.

"Oh, you guys made it!" She gave you both small, celebratory claps that were quiet enough to not wake the others who were sleeping. "You're the third group to finish. You can go wash up and sleep now."

Jay didn't have the energy to inquire about where everyone else was, and it didn't seem like you were either. Karina, Eunseok, Sunoo, Chenle, and Changmin were in their sleeping bags, sleeping soundly. Jay wondered what they had to do, but he was sure everyone would be talking about their tasks tomorrow.

Jay let you use the bathroom first, but he was exhausted beyond belief. His sleeping bag felt like a bed for royalty once he finally laid down. Normally, he needed a few minutes to unwind before he could fall asleep, but his eyes felt heavy as soon as he laid his head on his pillow.

Sometime later, Jay opened his eyes, still groggy and half-asleep, to see Heeseung and Giselle talking to Jennie. They must have just returned as they were both drenched and shivering. He looked around to see that everyone else was tucked in their sleeping bags and fast asleep, so they must have been the last group to return.

Heeseung allowed Giselle to use the bathroom first and trudged over to his sleeping bag, which was right next to Jay's, with a scowl on his face.

Jay smirked at him. "Lake?"

"Lake," Heeseung confirmed with an incomprehensible grumble, which Jay figured was just a string of curses.

"You swam? After drinking?"

"We drank a little, but we dumped most of it out while they weren't looking," he said. "They made us swim to find a fucking pool noodle in the dark, and Little Miss Swim Team told me to go far out while she looked around the shallow water!"

"To be fair, she was in the swim team in, like, middle school."

"Yeah? Well, I learned how to swim today."

"You couldn't swim? Did you even tell her that?"

"No, dude, I was so embarrassed. I just waited for my survival instincts to kick in."

"You could've died!" Jay whispered harshly.

"Yeah, or worse," Heeseung replied grimly, "failed."

Jay was about to tell Heeseung that his priorities seemed to be very out of order, but then Doses and Mimosas started blasting through the speakers that had been moved to the corner of the basement. Several people started waking up and groaning out of frustration.

Heeseung let his head hang, defeated. "I should've just drowned."

Jay wasn't quite sure if the next several days of pledging were easier, or if he had just gotten used to the hazing after the past two days. He also had a feeling that his sleep deprivation was keeping him from processing how stressful and grueling the entire process was.

Wednesday seemed to be more of a professional event. Jennie told them in the morning that they were supposed to complete and prepare a slideshow about their future aspirations and career paths to present to the Order at 8:00 p.m. sharp.

Throughout the school day, Jay and Sunoo were bossed around by several members; Sungjin had them bring him a coffee (which he didn't like the taste of, so he sent them back to fetch another), Seulgi asked them to attend the gardening club's meeting in her place (where Sunoo kept sneezing the entire time because of his allergies), and Taeyong kindly requested a calculator to use during his calculus exam (which felt less like hazing and more like Taeyong simply being forgetful).

Somehow, they managed to finish their slideshow in the time that they were running around for the members. During that night's event, Sungjin took the reigns and had Jennie sit off to the side while he picked on pledges at random to present.

Everyone was so tired that they were hardly paying attention to each other's presentations, but when the projector displayed Sunghoon's slides, which had a picture of Park Pharmaceuticals, the atmosphere grew incredibly tense. Most of the pledges were looking away or ducking their heads to pretend like they weren't witnessing the two brothers feuding.

After Sunghoon gave his presentation, elaborating greatly on how qualified he was for the role, he received polite applause and uncomfortable coughs from everyone. Sungjin plastered on a mocking smile and clapped rather loudly, waving him off to move on to the next person.

"I'm sure the future of Park Pharmaceuticals will be in great hands," Sungjin said at the end, giving Sunghoon a knowing smile, to which he raised a brow at.

When Jay gave his presentation, he detailed how he was unsure of where he could fit in, but he knew that he wanted to help people, so he indulged in a role as a healthcare consultant to develop strategies that improved patient care and reduced financial burdens. While this was a noble reason, it wasn't exactly what Jay actually wanted to do, but since he knew that the Order could potentially help him get placed in an internship with Mercy Health to work alongside your father, he needed to play his cards right.

Everyone clapped at the end of his presentation and Jay even received plenty of compliments from the seniors, but Jeonghan sat there with a frown on his face. Jay was afraid that he would say something risky, but Jeonghan just stayed silent as they moved on to the next person.

That night, Doses and Mimosas plagued them once more.

On top of that, it was freezing in the basement that night. Jay was sure he would get hypothermia by the morning, and it seemed like everyone else thought the same, too, because Yeonjun was complaining for what felt like an hour. Sunghoon had left the basement half an hour ago after being called on by Sungjin to run some trivial errand, and Jay was honestly feeling jealous that Sunghoon got to be somewhere that wasn't the sub-zero basement.

Several of the girls tried huddling together for warmth with chattering teeth. Heeseung, who had enough, unzipped his sleeping bag and sat up.

"Jay, let's cuddle."

"No," he replied gruffly.

Heeseung shoved Jay's shoulder with his foot. "C'mon, let me in your sleeping bag."

"No. You're cold as shit."

"You're cold, too!"

"You're gonna disrupt the warmth I've generated in here."

"That's disgusting. Just let me inside."

With a reluctant sigh, Jay unzipped his sleeping bag to let Heeseung inside. His friend zipped it up again to the best of his abilities and proceeded to wrap an arm around Jay.

"Gay as hell," Yeonjun remarked.

"We're wearing socks," Heeseung and Jay replied together.

The next morning, Jay found out that no one had been called by any of the seniors except Sunghoon, who had been targeted by his older brother all night. It was unfair, but everyone knew better than to call out the president himself.

Jay's Thursday had been going smoothly until he returned to the house after his classes. It was then when he realized that his badge was missing. Changmin helped Jay look for it all around the basement and offered to go back to campus to look for it. They only had an hour left until they were required to be back, but Jay and Changmin made a run for it.

"We need to retrace your steps," Changmin said. "Tell me all the places you went to today."

"I went to class," Jay started, looking up as he tried to recollect his morning, "and then I went to the food court... then the library... then the golf course... then I went to my other class."

"Fuck were you doing at the golf course?"

"Uh... golfing."

He liked to take advantage of the recreational activities that Yale offered to its students.

They searched each area thoroughly, but there was no sign of his badge and Jay's hope in finding it was wavering. With ten minutes left until they had to be back, they were forced to give up on the search. Changmin offered to back him up when Jay was going to receive his inevitable punishment, but Jay told him that he would take the full blame since it was on him, anyway.

Strangely enough, when he told Jennie about losing his badge, she simply jotted something down on her clipboard and nodded. That somehow worsened the dread Jay felt.

The rest of the night was oddly enjoyable. They had a game night with the seniors, which consisted of several bonding activities and icebreakers that lightened the tension they felt around the Order members. Jay was so glad that he wasn't being ordered around for a night that he forgot about how anxious he was over his missing badge.

To top it off, they got to sleep early and didn't have to listen to Doses and Mimosas throughout the night, too. Giselle even cried tears of joy as she complained about her newfound hatred for the song.

Then, it was finally Friday, but the past four days felt like they were a month long to Jay. He hoped the next three days would fly by, but the day was already feeling long as he and Karina had been nagged by Taehyung and Baekhyun to clean the living room. Jay decided not to go to campus for the day so that he could sleep in a little longer, but he regretted his decision soon after.

He tried to come up with an excuse to head back to campus with Karina, but they wound up cleaning the entire first floor before they could even get the chance to complain. Eventually, the seniors started targeting Sunoo and Chaewon, so Jay slipped away to catch up on lost hours of sleep.

Later, when it was time for their activity that night, Jennie's instructions were so vague that all of the pledges were too befuddled to ask for clarification. Thankfully, Sunghoon took the initiative to question her.

"You want us to find something to impress the Order?" he asked, brows furrowing. "Find what?"

"Anything. You just have to be back in two hours." Jennie shrugged. "We'll split you guys into two groups. How about just the boys versus the girls? Whichever group gets the most votes from the seniors gets to sleep upstairs in the living room."

Everyone knew what that meant: no ceaseless repetition of Doses and Mimosas throughout the night. There was a competitive fire blazing in most of their eyes now.

"So, there's no limitation on what we can bring?" Yeonjun asked.

Jennie shook her head. "Nope, and you can go anywhere you'd like, as long as you're back within the time limit. Jeonghan and Jaehyun have offered up their cars for each team—just don't crash them."

Jay, the self-proclaimed car-stealer, was deemed the driver for the boys' team. They were instructed to leave at 10:00 p.m. at the same time, but Sunoo and Jay were starting to feel nervous because the girls seemed so much more prepared than they were. Apparently, the girls knew exactly what they were going to retrieve while Jay had just been watching Eunseok and Heeseung play chopsticks for the past fifteen minutes.

"I wanna go ask them, but there's no way they're gonna tell us what they're gonna bring back," Sunoo mumbled to Jay. "Maybe we should just bring back ear plugs and pray we can sleep through another night of that damn song."

Jay's eyes went wide for a moment before he glowered. "How did we never think of ear plugs until now?"

'I doubt they'd do much. The speakers are so fucking loud."

"We should just buy hammers and smash them."

"We could do it in front of the seniors, too. That'll be sure to impress them."

When it was time for them to leave, Jay was starting to worry about how eight people would fit in Jeonghan's car. To his relief, Jeonghan owned a 7-seater SUV, so they just needed four people to squeeze in the middle row.

Heeseung claimed shotgun, so Changmin, Yeonjun, Sunoo, and Eunseok took the middle row while Chenle and Sunghoon took the two seats in the back. Still, even though the clock was ticking, no one had even come up with a proper plan on what they were going to bring back for the seniors. They sat in the parking lot and watched the girls drive off in Jaehyun's car in complete silence before Yeonjun spoke up.

"Let's steal a goat," he said.

The rest of them turned to gawk at Yeonjun with incredulous looks on their faces.

"A goat," Sunoo echoed.

"I was gonna suggest a cow, but I don't think we have space for a cow."

"And you think we have space for a goat?"

"Well, we have more space for a goat than a cow."

"I don't think that should be the deciding factor here."

"It is a valid deciding factor. Also, University of Connecticut has goats. Wouldn't it be sick if we stole something from another campus?"

They all stared at each other for a moment before Jay reluctantly put in the directions for University of Connecticut.

Chenle laughed, astonished. "We're actually stealing a goat? From UConn?"

"We'll just borrow it," Yeonjun reasoned. "I mean, who's even gonna notice?"

Despite Yeonjun sounding borderline insane, everyone was on board because, to be perfectly honest, it would be funny if they stole a goat, and they were sure the seniors would appreciate the sentiment. Whatever the girls did wouldn't compare to the entire mission the boys were carrying out to kidnap a goat. But if they failed, it would just remain a good memory, at least.

Since University of Connecticut was relatively close, Jay only had to drive for ten minutes until they reached the campus. They just barely managed to get through three songs during the drive, all of which were being sung off-key by the men. As Jay drove along the edge of campus, he finally spotted the livestock that were fenced in.

Yeonjun, Heeseung, Eunseok, and Changmin agreed to be the ones to bring back the goat. The rest of them stayed in the car and kept an eye out. Jay was glad he stayed in the car because, aside from not wanting to be anything more than an accomplice to this crime, he finally got the chance to rant about how grueling their initiation had been so far.

Chenle was the first one to bring it up, and as soon as he did, Sunoo and Sunghoon started complaining, too. Jay joined in after, but he had been thinking the exact things they had.

Thirty minutes later, they saw the four boys walking back to the car with the animal in Yeonjun's arms. Jay honestly didn't want to know how they managed to get inside the pen, but he ended up finding out anyway after Eunseok gave them the whole storytime.

Then, Jay took a closer look at the animal.

"Dude," he said flatly, "that's a baby sheep, not a goat."

The four of them froze before leaning closer to the sheep to get a better look at it.

"Oh, fuck," Heeseung muttered.

Eunseok shrugged. "I mean, a sheep's still fine, right?"

"No, no, no," Sunghoon warned with a firm shake of his head. "Stealing a goat is funny, but a baby sheep's just fucked up."

"You gotta return it, dude," Chenle said. "Bring back an actual goat."

It took another thirty minutes for them to reunite the sheep with its flock and steal an actual goat, which Heeseung claimed they cross-verified several times before carrying to the car. The goat, which they named Rectangle (because of the pupils), bleated at random throughout the car ride, which they speculated was it trying to socialize.

Since they had a good forty minutes left until they were supposed to return, they tried teaching Rectangle tricks until it was time to head back to the Athenaeum. Unfortunately, the goat did not seem to possess the mental capacity to follow their commands.

When they pulled into the parking lot, the girls were already back. They were all gathered around Jaehyun's car, and the seniors were making conversation with them as they waited for Jay's group to come back. After they parked and got out of Jeonghan's car, the seniors requested for them to present what they brought.

"We wanted to find something that symbolized the Order," you started, turning to pull something heavy out of the trunk, "so, we pulled some strings and made this plaque with the owl of Athena. We designed it ourselves, too, since Yizhuo's dad owns a steel company, so you guys can keep it for the house."

The boys exchanged horrified looks. Their faith in Rectangle was slowly diminishing by the second.

The seniors looked incredibly impressed with the girls' present as they ran their fingers over the pattern and gushed over how perfectly it matched their society. Jennie looked incredibly proud from the sidelines, and Jay could only think about how the boys were gonna wipe that expression off her face once she saw the goat they stole.

"Alright, it's your guys' turn," Sungjin said with a light laugh. "This is gonna be a hard one to beat, though."

"Oh, uh... so," Sunoo started sheepishly, looking back at where Rectangle was chewing on a seat belt. It let out a pathetic bleat that had some of the seniors trying to peer into the car. "We got you guys a goat from UConn."

Changmin picked up Rectangle and placed him in front of everyone, letting it trot around and make low, muttering sounds. For a while, everyone just stared at the goat in disbelief until a few seniors burst into laughter at the sight of the animal. A few of them started petting it affectionately.

While no comments were made to praise them for bringing back a goat, Jay was satisfied that they weren't scolded, at least. The Order turned away to discuss who would be the winning team while the girls started cooing over Rectangle. Jay was certain that their goat was going to be the only real winner tonight.

"Alright, we've made our decision," Sungjin announced. "We appreciated that both teams took different approaches. However, there can only be one winner, and while the goat was funny, we feel that it's only fair that the girls are rewarded for the effort they put into this task."

While Jay was disappointed, he, too, thought it was only fair that the girls won. He would've felt a lot worse if the guys won for something that required much less effort.

Thus, they were sent back to the basement while the girls got to sleep in the living room. Before that, though, they were sent back to return Rectangle. This time, all eight of them got out of the car to say their goodbyes to the goat. Yeonjun was tearful when he realized that Rectangle's friends would never believe what just happened to it.

When they were back in the basement and washing up before bed, Sunghoon supplied, "They technically liked our goat, so maybe they won't torment us tonight?"

Heeseung grimaced. "Hopefully."

As if on cue, Doses and Mimosas started blasting through the speakers, like it was taunting them, and the eight of them groaned in broken harmony.

The girls were sent back downstairs early in the morning, and Jay pressed his face deeper into his pillow so that he wouldn't have to see them and feel jealous about how they got to sleep peacefully.

There were only two days left, and Jay was ready for everything to be over. When they all went out for lunch together, Jennie texted the group chat that they would get to have a free Saturday with no activities planned for the night. It was music to everyone's ears, of course, but they couldn't help but feel that tomorrow would be worse.

The seniors weren't around the house much, either. Jay dragged Sunoo to the library with him in case they came back and started hazing the pledges again, but he never received any texts telling him to head back to the house.

That night, however, Doses and Mimosas was turned up higher than ever before. Jay didn't even think it could get any louder, but the sound was amplified to the point where he felt the bass buzzing through his body, creeping up his legs and traveling to his skull. He felt like his ears were going to split, but it was their last night. He could make it through one more night. He just needed to close his eyes and tune out the noise.

Jay hardly got a wink of sleep, probably passing out for thirty minutes out of pure exhaustion, but he kept jolting awake whenever the bass got louder. He felt like a shell of a person at this point, so he just rolled over onto his stomach and put his pillow over his head.

Sunday was chock-full of the Order members calling and texting them to run useless errands. Jay had to take Sehun's laundry to a laundromat despite the house having its own room with five washers and five dryers. That wasn't even the most ridiculous of busy work; Eunseok, Karina, and Heeseung were tasked to scrub the second floor with toothbrushes, you and Giselle were sent out on a scavenger hunt (to look for items that Jay was pretty sure didn't even exist), Yeonjun had to transcribe a thirty minute long voice recording that was hardly comprehensible with multiple voices overlapping; and Yizhuo, Sunghoon, and Ryujin had to wash everyone's cars.

By nightfall, Jay was just glad that they were in the final stretch. He was ready to be done with the entire process, and he was banking on his body holding out for tonight before he collapsed from exhaustion.

"Tonight should be fast, depending on how well you guys do," Jennie told them with an inauspicious edge that had half of the pledges looking fed-up already. This time, all of the seniors were gathered behind Jennie, too, and all of them wore expressionless faces. "Have you guys heard of a Centurion?"

Before Jay was about to rattle on about its historical context in Rome, Chenle had already answered. Jay was glad that he didn't say anything because it happened to be a drinking game—not whatever Jay was prepared to explain.

"We're gonna be doing something a little different," Jennie continued. "Since there's fifteen of you, we're going to be doing a double Centurion, so you have to drink two hundred shots of beer within one hundred minutes." Before anyone could grouch, she added, "And you have to answer our questions as you drink. I hope you guys have been studying."

He figured Jennie had been referring to the information she gave them a week ago. The problem was, although Jay had memorized everything, he wasn't sure how well his memory would serve him after how tired he was.

Sungjin and Joshua carried over the table that they would be playing the game on. Jennie and Doyeon started pouring beer in the cups that Jisoo and Jaehyun were setting out on the table. Some of the cups looked a little more than a shot, but what worried Jay was if he would be in the right state of mind to answer questions toward the end of the game.

"We should just go in order," you suggested. "That's like—what?—thirteen shots between all of us? One shot per thirty seconds, so we're gonna have, like, an eight minute break between shots. If someone can't drink any more, one of us can drink for them."

It was a solid plan, and everyone was fairly optimistic about it until the game began. As you downed the first shot, Jennie had asked the first question, looking at you specifically for an answer. You stammered for a few seconds, looking at her blankly as you floundered for words. Since you were drinking, you were hardly paying attention to what she was saying, expecting someone else to answer her question while you downed the shot. Eventually, the answer seemed to come to you, but Jennie simply waved her hand to silence you, and she noted something down on her clipboard before moving on to Yeonjun.

Yeonjun managed to get the question about the Order's motto wrong as well, and then they moved on to Giselle without missing a beat, who also got her question wrong. Jay didn't even hear his question, and when he asked if they could repeat it, he was ignored and they moved on to Changmin.

This continued on and on, with everyone getting more and more tipsy with each round. It didn't help that all of them were running on way less sleep than they should have gotten this week, so nobody was in the right state to be answering questions at rapid speed while downing shots of beer.

Closer to the last round, they had gotten under half of the questions correct, but the Order started asking random questions in place of their society's history. They seemed to have run out of things to ask, so they were asking obscure questions that threw the pledges off before they had time to think of an answer.

"What car does Wonwoo drive?" Jisoo asked, rousing snickers from the rest of the members.

("Honestly," Jeonghan muttered from beside Joshua, "I don't even know what car Wonwoo drives.")

"A Mercedes," Ryujin, who had been tasked to clean the cars earlier in the day, answered breathlessly as she was twelve shots deep.

"Model?"

She pressed her lips together. "I don't know."

Incorrect.

By the end of the activity, everyone was spent and tired. All of the pledges were tipsy, holding onto each other to keep upright and leaning their heads on each other's shoulders. You and Giselle had your heads on each of Yeonjun's shoulders, who had his held tilted back and his eyes closed.

"Alright, you're done," Jennie announced loudly, giving them a glimmer of hope for a single moment before her next words had the pledges crumbling apart again. "Time for punishments."

"Punishments?" you asked scornfully.

Jennie started listing off various things that the pledges were getting punished for one-by-one; Heeseung and Eunseok got twenty push-ups for not leaving the floor spotless, all of the boys got fifty sit-ups for losing to the girls, everyone got five sit-ups for each question they got wrong during the Centurion activity, and several other petty reasons that Jay couldn't even find reason in.

"And," Jennie said in a clipped tone, "one hundred push-ups each for Yeonjun, Giselle, Eunseok, Ryujin, Chaewon, Y/N, Jay, Heeseung, and Sunghoon."

Heeseung gawked at her. "For what?"

"For your little run-in with the police in Monaco."

"You knew about that?" Yeonjun asked, his voice pitched an octave higher as he had completely sobered up at her words.

"Of course I did. Now get started, and please do it together so no one has to start over."

They collectively agreed to get the push-ups over with first, which went smoothly for the first thirty or so, but then a few of them were starting to get tired. Jay was glad that Sunghoon, Heeseung, and Yeonjun had been dragging him to the gym every day, but even he couldn't keep up once they hit fifty.

On top of his fifty push-ups over the goat debacle, Jay still had to do another hundred for the Monaco incident, so he had to keep going even after a few of the pledges were finished. His wrists felt like they were burning by the time they were counting off numbers so high that he couldn't think straight anymore. His elbows quivered as he lowered himself to the ground.

Clearly, he wasn't the only one struggling. Giselle was almost crying through her push-ups and he could hear Heeseung's winces of pain from his left.

"I can't do it anymore," Karina rasped once her limbs gave out. "I'm done. I can't do this."

Jennie looked extremely worried, but before she could say anything, Sungjin calmly said, "If you want a seat in our society, you have to keep going."

They pushed on with burning lungs and heavy pants. The only reason Jay knew which number he was on was because Sunghoon was counting them off, but his voice was starting to sound distorted and far-off. Jay just wanted to let his elbows buckle so that he could feel the cool ground against his cheek and let his sore limbs rest.

He then felt someone's shoe wedge itself between Jay's feet to keep them from slipping. Jay looked under his arm to see that it was Sunoo, who had finished his push-ups and was waiting against the wall for them to finish. Grateful, Jay lowered himself to the ground again with trembling arms.

When Jay was finally done, hardly managing to keep himself from toppling over, Jennie fixed him with a curious look and said, "Oh, right. Jay, you have an extra hundred for losing your badge."

Jay's heart dropped.

He already felt like he was going to die. How could they make him do more when he was already on the verge of passing out?

"Another hundred?" he squawked out. His shoulders sagged and his chest was heaving. "I can't—I feel so... there's no way."

"We tried to find his badge, but we couldn't," Changmin tried defending him, but it didn't seem like a reasonable enough excuse for the Order. "We retraced his steps and everything."

"He shouldn't have lost it in the first place," Sungjin replied calmly and unsympathetically.

Jay was getting into position again when you spoke up, "I'll split his push-ups with him. I'll do fifty."

He whipped his head around to look at you, shocked. You looked like you were on the verge of fainting yourself, so why would you put yourself through that? Still, your resolution was unwavering, and the Order didn't seem to have an opposition to the pledges helping each other out.

"I'll split the push-ups, too," Changmin offered. "I was the one who went with him and still couldn't find the badge."

"I'll do it, too," Sunoo said, dragging himself up to get in formation again. "I went to class with Jay and didn't even notice his badge was missing."

A tide had turned. Even though no one had anything to do with Jay losing his badge, every pledge started offering to split the push-ups. Everyone, despite being pushed to their limit, offered to help him with something that was completely his fault.

And Jay felt a warmth in his heart that spurred him to keep going. A dangerous sort of affection, really, because he was touched beyond belief. Never did he think that he would feel such closeness to people he was only supposed to consider as subjects of interest.

Now, they only had to do six each. Jennie hid a smile behind her clipboard as she watched them line up once more to power through their last interval of push-ups.

"Okay, you're done," Jennie called out afterward, and all of them crumpled to the ground at once. Jay felt like his chest was about to explode. "Time for sit-ups."

Jay got seven questions wrong during the Centurion round and several other demerits from the Order members for various offenses, so he had a good number of sit-ups to do, but it would be much easier than the push-ups. However, he was already so exhausted that he was sure his body would give out soon. Sunoo clapped him on the back to signal that they were doing their sit-ups against the wall, and Jay turned around with great effort to lay on his back and press the toes of his shoes against the wall.

Sunghoon counted them off again, his voice no louder than a breath, and Jay heard several grunts of pain as they raised themselves up. Jay's core ached even from the first one. His blood was rushing in his ears and his pulse was so intense that he could feel it pounding in every artery.

Jay thankfully didn't have as many sit-ups than he had push-ups, so he was finished relatively sooner than most. His sweat-matted hair was all over his forehead, and he pushed it back once he was sitting upright again, leaning back on his elbows. Several pledges were still going in slow, painful efforts. Jay got to his feet and went to stand off to the side, but he noticed you struggling and looked over at Jeonghan, who grimaced at him in an if-you-must sort of way.

He then sat behind you, ignoring your bewildered looks, and he placed a hand on the small of your back to help you raise your body with each sit-up. The other pledges who completed their sit-ups decided to help the others, too, after seeing what Jay was doing. At some point, Jay was practically pushing you upright, as if you were some lifeless doll, and you just went along with his motions.

"Finished?" Jennie called out once the last person, Yizhuo (who had the most sit-ups racked up), had finished. "Get up. You guys are gonna do wall sits until you can say our oath in perfect unison."

Jeonghan sent Jay a sympathetic look and a nod that seemed to tell the junior that this was it. They would be done after this.

Jay held onto that.

Everyone was sluggish and exhausted, both physically and mentally, but they all dragged themselves to their feet like zombies and got in position again.

"Man, this is so fucked up," Heeseung got out, moaning feebly from how his muscles ached.

"Support each other, if you need to," Jennie said, looking away quickly when she saw how several of them were doubling over to catch their breaths.

Jay noticed that Giselle put her leg under his to support his weight, so he did the same for Changmin, who was to his left. Down the line, everyone seemed to catch on and get in the same position. Each pledge had a leg under the person next to them to keep them upright, except you, who was unfortunately the first in line.

Each time someone said the wrong word or fumbled over their words, they were yelled at to start over again. Jay felt like they had been there for nearly an hour, and his legs were starting to give out. You and Karina fell to the ground at some point, and they were simply asked to stand up and keep going.

Eventually, by some stroke of luck, the fifteen of them managed to recite their oath in perfect unison with even their labored panting syncing up.

Jennie burst into tears by the end, so Sungjin had to speak up in her place, "You're officially our newest delegation. Welcome to the Order."

Jay heard several of the seniors clapping and cheering for them, but Giselle's leg gave out under him, and he collapsed to the ground along with her. Everyone else seemed to be on the floor, too, and plenty of them were crying with what Jay suspected was partly their joy over being done and partly because they were so spent from the physical exertion.

Jeonghan helped Jay up to his feet and asked, "You good?"

Jay nodded dumbly. "Just glad I never have to listen to Doses and Mimosas again."

Jeonghan laughed, and when he handed Jay a bottle of water, Jay chugged it so fast that the bottle was empty in seconds. His limbs still felt like they were buzzing and sore, but he could at least stand upright without falling over.

Jennie was still sobbing into her hands, being comforted by Jisoo and Irene, who were also secretly recording the sight with amusement drawn across their faces. She seemed more distressed over the whole ordeal than Jay was, but what he hated the most was that he genuinely felt a sense of fondness toward her and the others after the entire experience. As the juniors pulled him in for a group hug, he knew that their one week had pulled them all together so close that Jay was going to feel miserable when he would eventually have to betray their trust.

"I'm gonna sleep forever," Giselle said loudly, mostly to drown out how Heeseung was making fun of her for crying earlier. "I'm gonna go home and sleep forever."

Jay looked around to find you, and then he walked around the others to tap your shoulder. You immediately turned around, and he asked, "Are you okay? You were the only one who didn't get any support during wall sits."

"Yeah, I'm fine," you said with a shaky grin. "My legs feel like they're on fire, though. But, apparently, my dad had it worse when he joined, so I can't complain that much."

Jay didn't see much reason in that. To what extent were you expected to live up to your dad's standards? He knew it wasn't the time to press you for answers, though, so Jay simply mustered a smile for you and rubbed your back in soothing circles.

Now that he was in the Order, your father was his next target.

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SUMMARY ▸ private investigator jay park just wants to complete his mission quietly and move on with his life. you, his new assignment who keeps consuming his thoughts, don't make that very easy for him.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ▸ okay Wow i got a little too ahead of myself here but if you made it to the end, thank you for reading this 15k word chapter !! i did Not expect it to get this long and although it might Feel a little filler-y, it was necessary trust !

TAG LIST ▸ @zdgx1 @smouches @heesdazed @teawithbucky @leep0ems @peachpie4you @niniissus @kgneptun @jaeyunluvr @zerasari @sophiko22 @iselltulips @hoondiors @baekhyunstruly @jays-property @woninluv @heerinnie @fakeuwus @yizhoutv @theothernads @y4wnjunz @dammit-jjk @en-happiness @mari-oclock @soonyoungblr @jakeslvt @taetaenic @jebetwo @fairysungx @hsgwrld @shmooooo @ineedsomezzz @mrowww @enha-stars @seongclb @lockburn-castle @alyssajavenss @enczen @calumsfringe @w3bqrl @luvyev @uhsakusa @luvnicho @wildflowermooon @navsnct @hooniesuniverse @enhalov @enhypens-baby @isawritesss

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merakiui · 2 years ago

Note

mera im curious...what is the most pathetic and desperate virgin concept u can come up with for any boys you choose in twst??

I have so many that I will try to write pathetic virgin concepts for each twst guy!!! >:)

✧ Riddle who gets off to your notes. It doesn't matter how messy or neat they may be, how filled or lacking the page may be, or even how useful they may be if the exam covering that material has already happened. He knows it's wrong to have pilfered your notebook, but he couldn't help it and he assured himself he'd give it back under the pretense of having found it (which isn't entirely a lie). He sits back in his chair and flips slowly through the pages, not particularly reading the material you've written, as he idly fucks into his hand and pictures diligent you, sitting in class and penning notes. There are doodles in the margins of the pages: cute flowers, smiley faces, hearts, what looks to be Grim. He thinks about how you hold your pen, how you might chew on the cap when you're bored, how your hands also touched this very notebook... Great Seven, he's a mess.

✧ Trey who is so strangely fixated on your teeth and mouth. At first it was cute because he's so serious about dental hygiene, what with how he ensures Ace and Deuce brush their teeth properly. But with you it's different. When you smile, he pictures your teeth in his shoulder or your mouth on his neck, pressing kisses or sucking fresh marks into his skin. And when you're eating, he notes the way you lick your fork or spoon clean every time and it gives him such a vivid image of you giving his dick the cutest, most gentle kitten licks. He has to excuse himself before anyone finds out he's painfully hard. >_<

✧ Cater who gets off to the many selfies and photos he's taken with and of you. Sometimes he scours the other students' Magicam accounts to look at the photos they've posted of you and his mind runs wild with thoughts and what-ifs. That photo of you sitting between the twins during their birthday party has him wondering if they fucked you on that very couch after the festivities had worn down. Or that photo of you and Kalim sopping wet after the both of you got caught in the rain... He's zooming in to see if the rain's made your uniform shirt see-through all while thinking about how you and Kalim may have warmed up. Cater can't seem to look at pictures of you without thinking about sex, and it's even worse when he sees the pictures he's taken of you and him. A spaghetti scene you recreated from a popular romance film has him imagining what could have happened had you just leaned in a little closer. Or that one alchemy mishap in which you were turned into a tiny fairy for the day... if he put you in a jar....... :)

✧ Ace who gets off on teasing you. They say partial truths often lie in the joke, and Ace sure does love joking about very specific things when it comes to you. He drives you mad every time, but because the two of you are close friends he gets away with it. He sticks his fingers in your mouth when you yawn to prod at your tongue, all while saying, "If you keep yawning like that, flies are gonna get in your mouth~" Or he'll squeeze your hip after you've eaten sweets just to mess with you. Or he compares your hand to his (for some odd reason) just so he can get away with touching you. Or he shows you a card trick that ends with him tucking the card behind your ear rather than pulling it from that area. His teasing feels more like flirting, but anyone who notes this is earned a swift denial from Ace.

✧ Deuce who gets off to the domestic moments in your friendship. Sharing a mirror in Ramshackle when he spends the night, preparing meals for each other, and even walking to class and talking about very boring things (like the weather). It makes him feel so special, and sometimes he pretends the two of you are a married couple. Deuce gets so embarrassed if anyone points this out, especially the elderly who see the two of you in town and comment on how cute you look together. He adamantly denies it, but later he's in the bathroom imagining married life with you and it gets him so worked up.

✧ Leona who gets off on the power imbalance between the two of you. Realistically speaking, he's stronger, both in terms of social class (after all, he's royalty) and also physically and financially. But that doesn't matter as much as it does when he's around you. Despite all of this, you know how to match Leona's wit, always keeping him on his toes, and you treat him as you would others even while knowing just how much power he has over you should he choose to exert it. Leona just likes the feeling of being number one in your world. Possibly a little too much, considering it never fails to get him excited. :)

✧ Ruggie who gets off on sneaking up on you. At first it was to pickpocket you. Steal spare change for himself or take your wallet just to watch you panic when you can't find it, but he's come to love the way you turn around just in time to catch him. He knows he does this on purpose solely to get caught, but seeing how you huff and glare lightheartedly at him... the way you purse your lips or the way you snatch your things back and laugh softly about how he ought to try again next time... He doesn't even care about your wallet anymore. He just wants to hunt you down and catch you for himself. You're the real prize here. <3

✧ Jack who gets off to your difference in size and strength. At first it wasn't something he thought of, but then you come to him and beg him to help open jars or stuck windows and he does it so easily. He refuses to believe you're struggling that hard with it, but then he watches you attempt to open a jar and it all clicks into place. Oh, you're...really cute and small and so fragile compared to him, who's all muscle and raw strength. Jack knows you have your own strengths and in no way does he think you're weak, but he's always reminded of your size and strength differences whenever the two of you are doing things together: training/sports, lifting heavy things (which are often very light to him), and even standing side by side. He thinks about how much bigger he is and he feels so flustered when those thoughts get him hard.

✧ Azul who gets off to your body language. He knows what it means; he's studied human customs well in advance before coming up to the surface. But oh you tempt him every single time you arch your back when you stretch or when you yawn and make such cute, sleepy sounds. It's even worse when you bend over to reach for something across a table or bend down to grab something that fell. He's digging his nails into his palms to steady himself, but that doesn't mean his thoughts are steady. He may look entirely composed with his usual smile, but in his mind you're getting fucked six ways from Sunday. You can't give this man any gifts because 1) he'll scramble to pay you back and 2) he'll delude himself into thinking it's a courting gesture and that you want him sooooo badly each time you offer him a snack from the school store or give him something you think he could get more use out of.

✧ Jade who gets off to your banter, especially the threats. Great Seven, you tell him you'll gut him and turn him into eel sushi and OOOOOO he's on the edge of his seat like: "yes...... and?? and????? what else will you do to me?????" all with the wildest, sharpest smile you've ever seen him make. He gets so worked up, so flushed in the face, so terribly aroused, every time you threaten him with anything. Yank him down to your height and mutter a threat, whether outlandish, violent, or something as silly as "I hope both sides of your pillow are hotter than hell," and he's saving these interactions in his memory for later recollection.

✧ Floyd who gets off on your praise. Call him a good boy or congratulate him on his test score or cheer for him at basketball practice and he's over the moon with excitement. He eats up your praise like it's his last meal. Say more good things to him! He wants to hear Shrimpy's praise every day, and when he's in a bad mood all it takes is the memory of you saying he's done well and he's back to his usual excitable self. He likes your praise a little too much, as evidenced by how hard it gets him. orz he spends too long thinking about it while he lies in bed, staring at the ceiling while he lazily strokes himself to thoughts of you calling him a good boy.

✧ Kalim who gets just a little too worked up at your proximity. He makes for such good best friend material. It's natural you'd be drawn to him because he's just so sweet and friendly. So it's completely normal when you spend the night at Scarabia and you end up falling asleep beside him in the common room, or when he feeds you outright because that's just how he is! He wants you to try all manner of yummy foods. It makes his heart race faster when your lips close around his fingers or you unconsciously snuggle up to him. He loves you so much. orz

✧ Jamil who loves your obedient nature. It has him horny gripping every time you scramble to do well on a test or in class so you won't upset the professors. You try to keep out of trouble because you're a good student, and he loves every bit of it. He wants to ruin you, take your obedience for the professors and twist it so that you'll only ever listen to him, follow what he says, trust in his words. He could just hypnotize you and maybe a sick part of him wants that. Maybe he wants to experience what an entirely obedient, cock-drunk (Name) is like...

✧ Vil who uses his professional opinions as a way to feel you up. He runs his hands up your sides to smooth wrinkles in your uniform out, all while reminding you to take care of your appearance. He fixes your tie just to get close enough to smell your perfume or shampoo. He loves how you lean into him, trusting his judgement because Vil could never lead you astray. Secretly, Vil's just getting away with every touch under the guise of giving you advice or fixing your uniform or even getting measurements for tailored outfits for school events. It's much too easy.

✧ Rook who, unsurprisingly, gets off on stalking you. He's such a creep! He watches you from afar and gets hard over the smallest things. It's likely because you're so vulnerable and unaware when you go about your daily life and he gets to invade such a secret slice of your life. Whether you know he's watching you or not, it doesn't matter. Just the idea that, on some level, you might be able to feel his prying eyes gets him so unfathomably excited.

✧ Epel who loves a good competition and gets so into it if it's a competition between you and him. Whether it's something athletic or academic, he's always ready to engage in a friendly competition with you. Unfortunately, when you smirk at him and tell him he'll need to give it his all, he gets excited in...other areas. To think all it took was some competitive banter and your smirk to have the blood rushing downwards... T_T if he loses this competition, is the punishment a make-out session? Epel can certainly dream.

✧ Idia who is too scared to talk to you in person, so he codes a Magicord bot he uses as a practice dummy. But then things get a little out of hand when innocent chats turn explicit and soon he's role-playing with the false you. Idia knows it's not real, but it feels real when you tell him all the things he wants to hear. It's shameless e-sex, but it's the best (and only) e-sex of Idia's life. ;;;; he feels immensely embarrassed afterwards.

✧ Malleus who gets off on your smiles. It's such an innocent thing, but then it has him thinking so deeply about it late into the night. You're so sweet and precious. He could picture your smiles all day... Malleus loves you more than words can possibly describe. He thinks about the little things that make you so wonderful, but most of all it's how expressive you are when you smile. Sometimes he has a habit of letting his thoughts stray into intimate fantasies, but it's nothing terrible. He wants to love you wholeheartedly; that includes physically.

✧ Lilia who gets off on surprising you and subverting your expectations. He finds it so darling when you have certain assumptions about him, only to be entirely wrong when he disproves them. Though he's oh-so-cute (a fact he would never deny), there's more beneath that adorable veneer. He's a mysterious who loves popping in to startle you when you least expect it. Be it in the library or in the halls, he always finds you. And your shock is a sight he drinks in merrily.

✧ Silver who is so enthralled by everything about you, so no matter what you do it always makes him feel so in love and fluffy. He's never known this sort of love before, but he's always so honest about his feelings and so his attraction to you wouldn't be any different. You could be napping peacefully in class and Silver's watching you from across the room with the softest, sweetest smile on his face. He thinks about you day and night; you even fill his dreams. Most of it is entirely normal and innocent, but then all it takes is for someone to suggest something less-than-pure about you and suddenly Silver's thoughts are derailing. Oh, he's never thought about sex before. But sex with you? That seems very appealing, so much so that he's feeling much hotter than before. ;;;;

✧ Sebek who, in spite of everything, gets off to the fact that you're human. There's just something so...appealing to you. He struggles to put it into words (and he almost doesn't want to), but you're so soft and sweet and enticing. Maybe Sebek secretly likes your being human because it makes you seem weaker by some strange default? But then he dwells on this and that doesn't seem to be the reason. Truthfully, Sebek likes your humanity because it's charming. Because there's something about you that feels and smells different. Maybe it's because you're the first human to make him feel so aroused that he deems you worthy of his own affections, or maybe he's just hopelessly, pathetically in love with all of the things that make you human and he's trying so hard to deny that.

✧ Rollo who gets off to your scent. Maybe it's a perfume you wear or maybe it's your natural scent. Whatever it is, he's carefully borrowing insignificant items that smell just like you so that he can hold them up to his nose while he masturbates. You're just so perfect and your scent drives him crazy and he feels like a filthy pervert each time he does this, but it's too late to stop. He's already in so deep. Just your scent alone has him shuddering through messy orgasms; imagine what you'd do to him if you were here in person and he got to touch you...

✧ Neige who gets off to indirect kisses. When you share a spoon or bite from the same snack, his pulse is racing at the prospect of having indirectly kissed you. He's so eager and excited that he has to try so hard not to let his face get so flushed with arousal. And you're so relaxed about it! You're so cool... He could admire you forever. <3

✧ Che'nya who gets off on watching you when he's invisible. It gets him hard every time he catches you in an intimate or compromising situation. Whether you're bathing or changing or masturbating, it makes it all the more tempting when he's completely invisible and you have no idea someone else is in the room with you. He's thought about pressing himself against you when you least expect it just to feel you flinch or to hear your breath hitch. And then there's the thought of fucking you when he's invisible, where you'll only see yourself stretching around a cock that isn't visible to your eye. >:)

#twisted chit chat #n/sfw #the pathetic virginification of twst <3 #some of them are far more pathetic and virgin than others (looking at riddle...) but overall everyone is desperate for you to an extent

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mscherub · 4 months ago

Text

Witchy Ways 🕸️

The long awaited part 3?

Reader is gender neutral, referred to as Prefect, Y/N,

Henchhuman(by Grim)

Warnings!:

Swearing

Half proof read

Part 3: “Impending Warnings.”

Previous part here <3

Next part here <3

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Part 3: Impending Warnings

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After having a reasonable and very justifiable crash out session before getting into bed, caused by all that happened within one days time, all because you were just trying to be nice to your friends and help them out and now it’s started up this whole ordeal you don’t even know if you can reverse because the loquacious guys won’t leave you the hell alone and it’s really just eating away at you because they won’t stop asking for the stupid little fucking jar that’s filled with answers to all their problems and hopes and dreams apparently— ok, ok, calm down. You’re fine. Everything is fine. TOTALLY FINE, YESSSS!! As if you weren’t already stressed enough!

You sigh and you roll over on your side, dreading the day ahead as you look at the clock.

2:27 AM

Yesterday was…Monday, and you had to do this for four more days, well, most likely more if the idea stayed around long enough? Interacting with people all because they heard the little birdies(first years) chirp about how they passed the exams and the others didn’t because of the little object. If you could do a freezer spell to stop all this chit chat about you and what you did, you would, it’s sadly, and annoyingly, getting to that point. The game plan is to just ignore it until the thought of it around the school desiccates into just a little something that, hopefully, will be considered a coincidence by most. After all, if the others knew about what you did, about this otherworldly concept of magic, how the hell would they begin to perceive you then?

You didn’t exactly want to out yourself, you were used to keeping it a secret, hidden away from others in fear of, say, ridiculing from some religious groups, hence why not everyone freely admits they do whitchcraft back home. Plus, you were already viewed as awkward and weird anyways for your title of “Magicless Prefect,” and of course, being the “non-magic” user, at least to their standards, in a school specifically for mages is just a completely ironic situation on its own. Anyways, you didn’t need a new label… “Half Magic Prefect that Practices in Weird Magic and is Still not at our Level, Thereofre Still Weird and Not truly a Magic User so is Still Magicless.” You could see it happening…or it could take an opposite turn and they can end up exalting your alien abilities and deem you more powerful, which would be interesting to see happen, but you don’t want to think about that or deal with it. It just sounds like more stress, and you definitely don’t want that. Only fate can really tell at this point.

One thing you do know is that your intentions here are awkwardly much stronger and quicker to act. It’s different, and in all honestly, just slightly concerning. More than just slightly, actually. What, your magic acting effectively and efficiently being concerning? Yes. Yes, 100 times, and that’s for some obvious reasons. What if you mess up a spell and then it happens to backfire on you and now you’re stuck with negative effects of whatever you were trying to do! Now you had to be cautious, extremely cautious, like walking on eggshells around your own practice type of cautious, which keep in mind, you shouldn’t be doing! it’s frightening to think about, and just how much would you have to up your game here?

Grim lays on his back, his belly up as he continues to snooze away, not greatly affected by the increase of attention and popularity, in fact he was eating it up! In his mind people were seeing you and him as powerful now, and damn does that feed his ego. How lucky he is to just…worry about nothing. And that’s exactly what he’s doing, and thankfully so. At least he’s not trying to look too much into what you’re doing.

You roll on to your back again and stare up at the ceiling, your arms crossed as you chew on the inside of your cheek thoughtfully. Bringing back the subject of good luck, you definitely needed some. What was the symbol for that? Horseshoes…

Huh

With the question answered and no other subject for your brain to overthink on at the moment, your mind can finally shut off for the night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Morning rolls around sooner than what you had wanted, the sun not even up to greet you as you sit up, rubbing your eyes and rolling your shoulders to alleviate the stiffness you gained over the night of tossing and turning.

You do your usual routine again, having to pry Grim off of the sheets this time, him mumbling obscenities as he’s still in a half dazed and asleep state. Great, now there’s claw marks on your sheets, thanks, Grim!

Breakfast is an easy feat and soon enough you’re out the door, walking along the path again up to the school.

“Henchhuman…” Grim looks over at you, his eyes narrowed in on you as you two walk up.

“Huh?” You spare him a quick glance before your eyes go back to looking at the patterns of the tiles along the path.

“Im glad you didn’t sell off whatever you did to Azul, now we can keep that for ourselves.” He sneers happily at the air, imagining it was Azul their himself.

“I’m glad you think that…” you nod.

“Since I’m like…family, you should let me in on the secret on whatever are in those little jar thingys.” He adds on, putting emphasis on the family part to sway your favor.

You didn’t exactly see why you shouldn’t give it to him, it wasn’t that big of a deal, again, however, the thought and fear of people finding out about what you do still gnawed away at the back of your mind. Right, it’s not that big of deal, who cares if they find out! No…actually, you don’t want them to. What if they try and abuse these powers out of you. It’s better just to ignore it at this point and maybe double down on how often you practice…that seems the better option. Too many negative things can come out of the positive thing you posses. It’s not worth the risk!

“Henchhuman!” Grim snaps as he continues to eye you.

“Sorry, got lost in thought. I guess I could, I’ll write it down when we get to class and you can try and make one yourself…don’t use all of our money to buy ingredients, Grim.”

“You spoil fun…” he mutters as he pouts and looks up ahead, his ears flattening and his tail lazily swishing behind him.

“I’m just trying to be the reasonable one, here. If your intention is to create and sell them, then we might as well have handed over the whole thing to Azul. And, making them to sell isn’t the purpose, at that point your just being greedy”

“I—“

“Exactly, Grim. Now, we should have what you need, anyways. Now don’t talk about it anymore, it’s starting to get too repetitive.” You sigh and adjust the books in your arms.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So, the thought didn’t leave you the rest of the day, the thought of spells gone wrong and their heightened effects, thoughts of what could happen to you if this little secret you were withholding got out. Yea…you’re not in a great mindset, and the idea of anything wrong or going wrong won’t ease up.

You drop Grim off at Heartslabyul, leaving him with Ace and telling him some half-assed reason about needing to go do this and then go do that and some other things and that Grim just couldn’t come, which had some truth behind it, but most of it was a conjured up lie on the spot to get rid of him for a bit.

You walk around campus, deep in thought as your shoes click against the ground.

Protection spells needed to be doubled, but wait! Didn’t you just say you’d stop practicing as much so people wouldn’t suspect anything and to draw less of a gaze from everyone. Shit, you did, ok…well you can’t just not practice, cause what if negative energy fills up again and really fucks things over? Ok, you have to practice then, protection spells, warding items, you needed it— but you can’t draw attention! This is proving to be more difficult than you had ever even intended. Protection, luck, you just needed it all at this moment.

You shouldn’t be scared anyways, but you didn’t quite know social standards here besides just inside of NRC. Luckily the guys here liked you to a certain extent so you were accepted in enough ways. Say they find out and it does happen to be socially acceptable here, then you have nothing to worry about. But what if your version of magic isn’t socially acceptable, and it’s maybe even against the law? What if they like…execute you or something for it? Great, get your mind off of the Salem Witch Trial thought here. That wouldn’t happen. Magic, in any type of way, shouldn’t be illegal since they’re quite literally practicing their own versions freely at a damn school.

But what if— drop the idea now, it’s not worth it to overthink it. It’s just not! You’ll be fine, everyone will be fine…you just needed some luck here, and look where you ended up.

The stables on campus.

You walk over to one of the fenced off areas, some horses grazing within the grassy fields, their soft neighs and trills moving across the small plain. One comes over to the edge and looks at you, tilting its head curiously as you gaze right back. You walk over to the edge of the fence and you lean against it.

“You animals have it easy sometimes…I wonder what you guys even think of.” You sigh as you put your hand out to the horse. Its coat was in perfect condition and its tail flicked behind it with interest.

It took a big sniff of your hand before it let out a small grunt and pushed its muzzle against your hand, giving you the go ahead to pet away. You do just that and sigh again.

“And you don’t have to pay any taxes…I think that’s a win on its own—“

“HUAMN!” Someone screeches from behind you, causing the horse to get spooked and bolt away. You turn around to the culprit, already suspecting who it was since only one person you were close with refereed to you with that choice of name.

“Do not touch those animals! That one especially, its attitude is not one of kindness, that’s why he is separated into the outer pens.” Sebek states sternly.

“It didn’t seem mean—“

“It is indeed!” His eyes widen and he shakes his head.

“I think you only say that, Sebek, is because the horses don’t like you that much.” Silver also approaches you two, a small smile on his face which is directed to you only. Sebek crosses his arms and lets out an annoyed puff of air before he narrows back in on you.

“Why are you here? Last time I recalled you’re not apart of this club. You should go before Riddle—“

“He wouldn’t kick me out.”

“You say that with too much confidence, Human…”

“Me and him are chill.” You nod.

“You…’chill?’ Odd words to use. Be formal when addressing someone in a higher class than you.” He gripes.

“We’re on good terms…” you correct yourself

“What are you here for, Prefect?” Silver chimes in, taking over the situation.

“I…I have an odd request, I suppose. I mean, it may seem odd.” You shrug.

“Nothing is too odd.” Silver gently reassures, moving his hair out of his face, nodding as to encourage you to speak.

“I need a horseshoe.”

…

“Come again?” He questions.

“A horseshoe.” You say again, prolonging the vowels and looking at him like he was the one to say something wrong.

“Why?”

“Um…You know…erm…aesthetic reasons.”

“Human, you are quite weird.” Sebek interjects, the words sounding judging enough—

“But I suppose we shall not pry into your decorative matters…we may have some old ones.” He sighs

“Oh! No, that’s perfect, actually! Thanks Sebby!” You beam overjoyed…maybe a little too much. He grimaces at the nickname and looks about ready to correct you yet again, but he refrains just this once. You got…lucky.

They go quiet at your excitement for the object and they look back at each other, conveying some sort of silent message between the two before Sebek nods and motions for you to follow him over to the barn.

The barn is well kept but it does have that natural barn smell of wood and of the animal inhabitants. Dried hay is scattered around on the ground and it crunches beneath both of your feet as you walk to, presumably, the tack room of the stable, which holds all of the materials they could need for proper animal care.

“We tend to change out our horses horseshoes every five or six weeks. We just changed some out this past week so we should have a few extra…though I can’t guarantee they’d be in the condition you’re hoping for.”

“That’s fine…it doesn’t matter to me. I just want one, no matter the, uh…appearance. The older the look the better, you know? Adds character?” You awkwardly carry on the conversation.

“I…see. Anyhow, here,” Sebek peers into a rack on the wall and pulls out the item you’ve been looking for. “This one should do…if it meets your standards.”

It’s not exactly pretty, but you are getting it for free, so there’s no real reason to complain. “It’s perfect. Thank you, again…really. Helps me out some”

He crosses his arms and nods. “Off now, Human.”

“Yea, yea, later Sebek. Thanks.” You give a small wave before you walk out and back along the path.

You scored what you wanted to get, so it worked out. All you had to do was red it up a bit, maybe clean it then polish it if you could find any stuff to do that, then it’ll look basically brand new. Voilà!And the most important thing, it should bring some luck in when you hang it above your door with the ends facing up. It’s a small detail, barely noticeable, and could only be deciphered if you really focused your eyes above the door.

Now, just time to get Grim—

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, you slip it out and see Aces profile picture and his caller ID. With a small click of the green button you put the phone up to your ear.

“PREFECT!”

You wince and pull the phone away from your ear for a second to allow him to throw his little temper tantrum before you push it back against you

“Dude…”

“Prefect! Come get Grim, he’s threatening to eat all the tarts that Trey’s making…say maybe I pissed Grim off and that’s why he’s doing that, BUT LISTEN, come get him! He’s gonna push the blame on me! Don’t you like me? Don’t let me suffer….” You could basically hear him pouting on the other side of the phone.

“I’m on my way…tell him he won’t get tuna if he does anything…”

“Awweee, you do care—“

“I only care enough for Grim’s sake.” You cut him off.

“You’re rude, really rude…anyways, Riddle wants to know if you wanna pop by for the unbirthday party.”

You consider and weigh the options in your head. For one, free food to satiate you and most importantly, Grim, and two, a much needed distraction, so the idea sounded plausible.

“I don’t see why not, I shouldn’t have much to do…”

“Niceeee, you help make Riddle a little less irritable so yea, saving me and Deuce here. K, later, and come get Grim.”

With that, he hangs up the phone.

Ok, then…it was a bit redundant to be told to get Grim then basically come back just a few minutes later, but whatever.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Hahaaaa! Tarts, tarts, tarts!” Grim chirps almost too enthusiastically. He dashes over to the table and pulls the plate up from his assigned seat, but he’s quickly stopped by Deuce who reminds him of tea party etiquette, which he manages to forget with each unbirthday party you two attend. He’s very disappointed to find out that there’s quite literally an order to everything. He’ll get over it.

You go take your seat next to Riddle, quietly watching as he goes about checking everything over one last time before he nod and welcomes everyone. He takes the tea pot and pours you a cup of tea first, then Grim’s, and then the rest around the table. The tea steamed and you added in whatever you wanted to your cup and stirred quietly, noticing it was loose leaf tea.

The unbirthday party began, and of course it wasn’t a true experience without the scolding of some other students who decided not to follow the rules, but it was all in good fun. You slowly drank your tea down, sipping quietly and enjoying the arrangements of food all meticulously prepared by Trey, and Grim did exactly the same with his usual fervor.

Your tea cup became empty, and you kindly refused another cup. Barely any eyes were on you so maybe you could pull off a tea reading, but was it really worth the risk?

It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to do one, it’d be useful and provide some insight on some things…fuck it, you’ll do it anyways. Let’s just hope it’s not against a rule or something…

Everyone chats away and you pick up your cup, swirling the small bit of tea and the leaves around before you place it back down and grab the saucer, placing it over the cup. What do you really want to know? Well, obviously what’s to happen in the near future…especially with the discovery of your high tented abilities…good or bad things, that mainly what you wanted, no, needed to know.

By now Riddle was side eyeing you and watching your every move, silently judging. This wasn’t proper…

“Prefect.”

Shit.

“Riddle…” you smile bashfully, pausing in your movements.

“What are you doing?”

“Erm…something?” This is just amazing. You should have stuck with what you set earlier, not drawing attention. You can maybe twist the situation around, no? No, you can.

“I’m just doing something everyone does back in my world after drinking their tea, yeah…called tea reading! It’s really cool…if you’d want to try. You know, I’ve just been missing home and stuff so I decided I’d try to do it a little…but I get it if I can’t, I understand completely.” And perfect, guilt tripping at its finest there….

“No…that’s fine. It sounds peculiar, but I don’t have any disagreements to it, so long as you don’t damage the ceramics…” he sighs.

Ok! This is good…

“Ok…so, first you have to make sure you have a little bit of liquid in your cup, then you swirl it around a bit, place the saucer overtop the cup and then flip your cup over,” Riddle follows along simply out of curiosity, watching your every move to make sure he doesn’t mess up anything. “After that spin the cup clockwise three times…I mean, or counter clockwise, it doesn’t particularly matter, I do clockwise, then make sure the handle faces you again…”

You pivot the cup one last time to the handle is angled towards you, then you give three taps on the top of the cup.

“Tap three times, then lift the cup up. What do you see in yours?”

He peers into the cup and inspects it.

“I see…tea leaves. I don’t understand, what’s the purpose of this.” He huffs.

“You have to…ok, think of it this way, you have to see what images are made with the tea leaves, for instance, mine—“

You look into your cup and see various little symbols, the few standing out the most being a wheel, knots, a cat, and an umbrella.

The wheel for inevitable change and progress, the knot for stress and anxiety…fucking fantastic, the cat for gossip, great because that’s exactly what you need, and, the more concerning one of the symbols, an umbrella, signifying difficulty. It’s a good thing you got the damn horseshoe earlier…with this info, your future could be something else you aren’t prepared for based on this reading.

“Well?” Riddles voice pulls you from your thoughts and you give him a small nod.

“Sorry…yea, so, you see this?” You move your cup and saucer in his direction. “The symbols closest to the handle should signify the things sooner to happen—“

“Most of your…’symbols,’ are near the handle.” He notes.

“Yea, this one here kinda looks like a cat, and this one a wheel…this one here looks like a knot and then that one looks like an umbrella.”

“I can vaguely see it. Do they all mean something?” He questions as he gazes even more at the leaves.

“Yea. They all have their own, but let’s look at yours…what shapes can you make out?”

He tilts his cup towards you and points at the symbols, you can make out some to look like stars and a few squares.

“Don’t overthink it…what do you see?”

“Those look like squares, what’s the meaning? Assuming you know…” he hums, interested in the whole thing now.

“They can mean comfort and peace…have you been feeling that more often?”

“In a way, I suppose…it has been a little less stressful around here for once. I see…this is quite interesting, Prefect, I like the idea…how does this work?”

“That’s a question for another time—“

“It has to work a certain way, correct?” He questions again. “It almost seems like something to be done with magic…”

“Yea, no…it’s just, uh, you know, I guess it’s just like, the tea leaves…resonate?” Good one…

“I…guess.” He nods along. “It’s still quite interesting. Thank you for showing me a ritual from your world.” He smiles softly.

“Of course…”

The Unbirthday party carries on, celebrating, then like all things, eventually coming to an end. You and Grim leave, Trey kindly giving you leftovers which will and can not be rationed around Grim, but you take them anyways.

That tea reading is gonna bug you even more…so much for the unbirthday party being a distraction like you had hoped…

Hey…how yall doing…I JUST WANNA APOLOGIZE FOR HOW RUSHED THIS WAS, but I did it! Also, I’m doing a tag list on this now so if u want me to tag u on the next part just comment <3

THANKS FOR READING AND I LOVE U GUYS TYYYY KISSES TO ALL OF U 💋😘

Master List

Please don’t steal or copy any of my work! You may, however, reblog if you’d want to!

Pictures belong to Disney Twisted Wonderland but are edited by me :)

Tag List <3:

@w0nd3rhoy

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nobodysnowhere · 4 months ago

Text

Late-night carpet ride

A How-To guide to giving poor Jamil a heart attack

Summary: A late-night carpet ride with our favorite sunshine

Cast: Kalim, gn reader

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

You find yourself surrounded by trees, their long branches seemingly reaching out to you.

‘Another dream?’

You continue walking, trying to find whatever this dream is trying to show you. Until you hear a girl scream.

You hurriedly rush over only to find a frightened girl and a Huntsman that’s kneeling in front of her begging for forgiveness.

‘Haven’t I seen this one once before?’

Despite that, you continue watching the scene unfold, having learned a while ago that trying to interact with anything here won’t have any effect.

The Huntsman tells the girl to hide somewhere far away because someone is incredibly jealous of her and will stop at nothing to get her out of the way.

The dream pivots towards the Witch that’s drinking a potion, to change her appearance.

And then you wake up.

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

You drowsily rub your eyes. You look towards the window and see that it’s still the middle of the night. A sigh escapes you as you reach for your phone, four more hours until you need to wake up

You kick your legs off the bed, mindful to not rouse the still sleeping Grim, not wanting to deal with a tired and grumpy dire beast.

The floors of Ramshackle are old and creak with every step, by now though you’ve learned which ones to avoid to not get any unwanted attention.

The last times you were too loud while getting a glass of water in the night you either woke up Jamil, who was ready to send you flying with a spell if he hadn’t noticed who was before him, or Rook who had the silliest old man sleepwear you could have imagined.

Safe to say you’ve learned your lesson and are now more mindful while going out into the kitchen at night.

As you walk up to the Kitchen you see a small light coming from inside.

You cautiously approach, wondering which of your friends decided to get a midnight snack, or more likely a glass of water. Everyone learned that last time a certain three someone tried to do that.

Turns out though it was Kalim. He doesn’t seem to have noticed you yet, so you softly knock on the doorframe to get his attention.

He flinches at the action, behaving like a child that was caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh, it’s just you. For a second I thought you were going to be Jamil.” Kalim says after he lets out a sigh of relief, letting the tension leave his body.

“He might still show up if we’re not careful.” you replied matter-of-factly.

“Good call. What brings you to the kitchen this late in the evening? Or would early be a better way to describe this?“ he asks tilting his head, while mumbling the last bit to himself.

“Oh… uhh I just woke up, Grim‘s talking in his sleep and was moving around a bunch so he woke me up.“ you decide to not tell him about the weird dreams, that would be a lot to unpack as well as something you don’t want to burden Kalim with.

The thought of those dreams scares you. You know those dreams about the great seven only appear if an Overblot was about to happen, and because these dreams were about the Fairest Queen, you could already guess who would be the one to Overblot this time, and you don’t feel ready to confront that reality yet.

Kalim looks at you as if expecting you to say more, after having been left to wait while you remembered those dreams and their implications.

“Why are you out this late?“ you skillfully bridge the gap after your pause.

“Ahh! Well… as the competition comes closer I feel more and more pressure to perform to the best of my ability, and I guess those jitters kept me awake tonight.“ he lets out a light-hearted chuckle as he rubs the back of his head.

“That’s understandable, but you need to properly rest if you want to perform to your fullest potential.“

“I know. The others just make it look so easy.“ he shakes his frustrations off and smiles at you. “They’re really cool right?”

“You guys sure are.” you give him an encouraging smile. “We should probably head back to bed if we don’t want to get lectured.”

Kalim nods in agreement, you grab yourself a glass of water before the two of you head back up to your rooms.

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

Back alone in your room you lie back down in your bed -or tried to-, as a still-sleeping Grim had decided it would be a great idea if he took up a third of the bed.

You gently move him towards the armchair, careful to not wake him. As you move him there he suddenly starts moving, worried that you woke him up you freeze, just to find out that he was settling himself in this new position, before continuing to sleep soundly.

You make yourself comfortable in bed, only to realize that you can’t seem to fall back asleep. You toss and turn, but nothing seems to work.

You start making peace with the fact that you won’t be sleeping any time soon until you hear a knock from your window. The same window that is on the second floor of the building.

Confused you climb out of bed and open the curtain to look who or what could be knocking on your window.

As the curtain gets pulled to the side you realize that it’s Kalim, sitting on his magic carpet.

He excitedly waves at you and motions for you to open the window. You do as you give him an inquisitive smile, letting the chilly air into the room. “What are you still doing up? I thought you wanted to sleep?”

“The same as you, I’d say. I came to ask if you’d like to join me for a late-night carpet ride?” he smiles brightly as he reaches out his hand to you.

“For how long do you plan on staying outside? Have you left a note in case Jamil decides to check up on you while we’re out?” you rightfully inquire before taking his hand.

He hesitates for a moment, seemingly trying to remember if he did put up a note. “Yes, I’m pretty sure I did. So? What do you say?”

You observe that he’s still in his pajamas, so before you step onto the carpet, you reach for the blanket from the armchair and climb out of the window with his help.

He holds your hand tightly as you step onto the carpet, to make sure you don’t accidentally fall off.

As you sit down beside him, he begins to skillfully maneuver the carpet to fly away from Ramshackle.

As you sit beside him you begin to notice the chill of the night air. You decide to drape the blanket over the both of you, but it isn’t as big as you thought it was, so you have to lean in closer to him to get the most out of the small blanket.

Kalim looks at you surprised, before giving you a bright smile. “Thanks! You really thought of everything.” he says chuckling, the tips of his ears turning red.

“It’s no problem. Wouldn’t want you catching a cold so close to the competition.” you answer him with a smile of your own.

He turns back to maneuver the carpet, flying all around the school campus and the surrounding area.

You take the time to get a closer look at him. The moon is illuminating his white hair, letting his smile shine so much brighter because of it.

You can feel the blush creeping up your cheeks, feeling awkward after having stared at him for a while for no apparent reason you decide to divert your attention toward the sky.

You don’t recognize any of the stars in the sky. No North Star guiding you the way or even the Big Dipper. None of those exist here. Another painful reminder that you don’t belong here, you don’t even know the most basic facts of this world.

Kalim seems to notice your distress, as he bumps his shoulder against yours. “Do you recognize any of these constellations?”

You avert your eyes, looking towards the ground below before shaking your head.

Kalim slows the carpet to a halt. “Would you like me to point some out for you? I’m not the best at astronomy but I know the most important ones!”

You take a close look at him, he seems unsure, but willing to try to make you feel better. You give him an appreciative nod, before lying down on your back, to better look up.

Kalim soon follows suit. He starts out a little unsure, but as he goes on he gets more and more confident about his knowledge.

You comfortably listen to him letting his voice and the soft swaying of the carpet lull you to sleep.

It takes Kalim a moment to realize that you have fallen asleep, but once he does he begins to feel the pull of sleep get to him as well.

So he quickly flies the carpet back towards Ramshackle. He steps back into your bedroom through the window.

He gently places you onto the bed, as he turns to leave for his own room, he feels a tug at his sleeve.

Your delirious and more than half-asleep self pulls at the clothing piece to get him to join you in bed.

After a bit of hesitation, he lies down beside you, with a respectable distance between the two of you, he takes the hand that was holding his sleeve into his own while giving you a bright smile.

You give a satisfied smile of your own before finally falling asleep, soon joined by Kalim, who keeps your hand in his the entire night.

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

By morning you are woken up by a frantic Jamil, who couldn’t seem to find Kalim.

He seemingly did forget to place that note, explaining where he’d be.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x you #kalim al asim x reader #kalim x reader #gn reader

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ducksido · 2 months ago

Note

This is my first time making a request, and I've seen a few of your culture!yuu posts. I enjoyed reading them a lot. I was wondering if you could make a post about a polish!yuu, if you have and find the time to do it. Please don't feel pressured to do it!

Polish!Yuu

Crowley

“Did you just bless my office with holy water?”

Simultaneously impressed and terrified by their fearless attitude.

Gets guilt-tripped into letting them cook in the dorm kitchens.

Grim

Lives for their food. "Those pierogi things? Give me twenty."

He learned the word “kurwa” and now says it constantly. They have regrets.

Trein

Very intrigued by their knowledge of Polish history and literature. Gets emotional when they talk about Chopin.

Lowkey touched when Yuu politely greets him like he's an elder relative.

Vargas

Blown away by their stamina and ability to wrestle wild magical beasts like it’s no big deal.

“You wrestled a chimera and said ‘it reminded you of Polish winters’? What??”

Crewel

Obsessed with their bold patterns and Catholic grandmother-inspired fashion.

Secretly takes notes when Yuu shows up in a perfectly layered winter outfit.

Sam

Fascinated by their superstitions and home remedies.

Starts selling jars of pickled mushrooms after Yuu convinces everyone they "heal everything."

Heartslabyul

Riddle

Deeply unsettled by Dyngus Day. “You...dump water on people...for fun?”

Admires their structured holiday traditions. Thinks Wigilia is very charming.

Ace

Teases them by mispronouncing Polish words. Nearly gets body slammed.

Finds them funny as hell when they start cursing in Polish mid-chaos.

Deuce

Thinks their family-centered values are beautiful. Tries to memorize Polish phrases to impress them.

Genuinely loves their food, especially gołąbki.

Trey

Wants all their family recipes. Learns how to make sernik (Polish cheesecake) from them and never goes back.

Cater

Uses “Polish-core aesthetic” for a photo shoot after seeing Yuu in a traditional folk outfit.

Is scared of their blunt comebacks. “Okay wow, that’s a roast and a blessing??”

Savanaclaw

Leona

Totally respects their stubbornness and refusal to bow to anyone. Calls them “Little Lion.”

“You once fought off what in a forest?” “Wild boars.” “Damn.”

Ruggie

Gets along swimmingly. They bond over poverty meals and survival instincts.

Trades fried pierogi for donuts. It's a win-win.

Jack

Likes their no-nonsense, proud-of-their-roots vibe.

Hikes with them and gets annihilated when they start climbing like a goat in the Tatra Mountains.

Octavinelle

Azul

Initially tries to manipulate them. Regrets it immediately.

“In Poland we have a saying: ‘Don’t try to con a Polish grandma, she’ll hex you.’”

Their kompot becomes a Lounge drink special.

Jade

Very interested in their mushroom foraging knowledge. They swap tips like they're trading secrets in a spy movie.

Floyd

Thinks Dyngus Day is the best thing ever. Goes feral with a hose.

Calls Yuu “Little Firecracker” after they sock a guy for insulting their dumplings.

Scarabia

Kalim

LOVES their festive spirit. “You guys make a second Christmas dinner??”

Absolutely throws a Polish-themed party. It’s chaos.

Jamil

Relates to the “eldest daughter syndrome” vibes Polish!Yuu radiates.

Can’t believe how spicy their horseradish is. Sheds a tear.

Pomefiore

Vil

Sceptical of their “rustic look” at first, but after seeing them in traditional Polish dress? Impressed.

“You braid your hair for Christmas? That’s…kinda iconic.”

Rook

OBSESSED. “Ah, mon petit miracle polonais!” Immediately fascinated by their folklore.

Stalks them during Andrzejki fortune telling night.

Epel

Thinks they’re so cool. They wrestled pigs as a kid too?? Besties.

They start cursing together in Polish and Yuu teaches him how to make kielbasa.

Ignihyde

Idia

Is shocked when they’re a walking survival manual and a gamer.

“Wait, you guys made The Witcher? You’re instantly 900% cooler.”

Ortho

Reads up on Polish inventions and gets very excited. “Did you know about the Polish space program??”

Asks Yuu to teach him Polish tongue twisters for fun.

Diasomnia

Malleus

Deeply respects their reverence for family and tradition. Totally gets the old soul energy.

Loves that Poland’s national symbol is a white eagle. Approves.

Lilia

Knows a suspiciously large amount about Polish wars and uprisings.

Duels Yuu in a pierogi cook-off. It’s intense. (Who am I kidding? Its a guaranteed lose for Lilia)

Silver

Thinks Wigilia is beautiful. Falls asleep listening to their childhood Christmas stories.

Sebek

Tries to insult them. They hit back with a Polish proverb so powerful he malfunctions.

“In Poland, we say: ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys.’ Keep your drama, Sebek.”

RSA & Noble Bell College

Chenya

Thinks Polish legends are sick. “The Wawel Dragon? That’s metal as hell.”

Neige

Loves their traditional dance and music. Tries to copy a mazurka. Trips.

Rollo

Mildly frightened by how Catholic they are.

“You sprinkle holy water on people... casually?”

Extras

Teaches everyone the Polish art of passive-aggressive kindness.

Makes the entire school say “Na zdrowie!” after sneezing.

Has threatened multiple people with a rolling pin and no one questions it anymore.

Introduces everyone to Polish ghost stories. NRC sleeps with lights on for a week.

Welcoming Polish!Yuu

First Impressions from the Others

French!Yuu – “Your poetry is gorgeous. So tragic. So romantic. So… death.” Romanian!Yuu – “Tell me your ghost stories. I’ll tell you mine.” Greek!Yuu – “You have gods and monsters too? Slavic folklore goes hard.” Czech!Yuu – “We’re cousins in chaos and trauma. Let’s bond over haunted forests and sarcastic jokes.” Hungarian!Yuu – “Our histories align in pain and power. Let’s not talk about it—just drink and cook.” Italian!Yuu – “You’re quiet… until someone insults your cooking. Then you go full war mode.” Mexican!Yuu – “You honor your dead like we do. It’s beautiful. And kinda spooky.” Brazilian!Yuu – “You guys throw Christmas parties in the snow? I’m not built for that, bro.” Aboriginal!Yuu – “You carry your people’s resilience in your silence. I see that.” South Georgia!Yuu – “Sugar, you look like you’ve seen generations of ghosts. You okay?” Egyptian!Yuu – “I respect ancient strength. Yours comes in the form of grandmothers and folklore.” Pakistani!Yuu – “You’re lowkey terrifying and I love that about you.” Aussie!Yuu – “You say this is fine while surrounded by chaos. Iconic.” Florida Man!Yuu – “You’re quiet but I just know you’ve got the wildest family stories. Spill.” Filipino!Yuu – “You also believe in curses and old spirits? I feel so seen.” Indonesian!Yuu – “Your respect for tradition is so cool. Also, I heard your pickles slap.” Malay!Yuu – “You’re the kind of person who’d laugh during a horror movie. We should hang out.” Thai!Yuu – “Wait, your grandmas throw shoes? Same here.” Vietnamese!Yuu – “You eat soup in cold weather. I eat soup in hot weather. We’re both valid.” Chinese!Yuu – “You have dumplings and tea. I like you already.” Indian!Yuu – “Your spice tolerance is surprising. I approve.” Japanese!Yuu – “You value respect, heritage, and silence. I think we’d understand each other.” Jamaican!Yuu – “You say less but your eyes say everything. I vibe with that.” Sicilian!Yuu – “You have a look that says you know where the bodies are buried. I like that.” Irish!Yuu – “You drink like a legend and curse like a saint. Soulmate.” Scottish!Yuu – “You and I could overthrow a government with two glares and a rolling pin.” Quebecois!Yuu – “You’ve got rebellion in your blood, don’t you?” Welsh!Yuu – “Your folklore is wild. Let’s compare dragons and death spirits.” Austrian!Yuu – “You're the only one I trust to sit in silence with. No awkwardness. Just vibes.” Louisiana!Yuu – “You believe in curses, spirits, and putting butter in everything. Instant besties.” Swedish!Yuu – “We both have terrifying winters and old legends. Let’s bond over coffee and ghosts.”

How Polish!Yuu Fits In

A quiet force of nature. Polish!Yuu doesn’t speak unless they mean it. But when they do? The room listens.

Folklore heavy. They’ve got everything from forest witches to haunted salt mines. They share legends with Romanian!Yuu, Thai!Yuu, and Filipino!Yuu like trading cards.

Food-based love. Dumplings, soups, stews, cabbage rolls—they show love through meals and side-eyes if you don’t eat seconds.

Unshakeable patience. They’ve endured long winters, tougher family holidays, and neighbors who won't return casserole dishes. They do not crack easily.

Soft inside, spiky outside. They'll knit you a scarf and threaten anyone who hurts you. Probably with a ladle.

Who They Vibe With

Romanian!Yuu, Czech!Yuu, Hungarian!Yuu – Slavic solidarity, spooky storytelling, and passive-aggressive baking. Filipino!Yuu, Indonesian!Yuu, Malay!Yuu – Mutual understanding of spirits, superstition, and loud aunties. Irish!Yuu & Scottish!Yuu – Dry humor, darker jokes, and the ability to drink while plotting rebellions. Egyptian!Yuu & Greek!Yuu – Deep roots, reverence for ancestors, and shared chaos in ancient culture. Swedish!Yuu & Austrian!Yuu – Quiet, practical, and able to speak without words.

Final Thoughts

Polish!Yuu may come in like a whisper, but they leave an impression like a storm. They're a solid friend, a brilliant cook, and a source of folk wisdom that ranges from oddly comforting to spine-chilling. Whether they’re telling you a story, feeding you dumplings, or standing beside you in silence when things get rough—Polish!Yuu is the heart you never expected but always needed in the Culture!Yuu family.

#twst x reader #twst #twst wonderland #twst yuu #twst incorrect quotes #culture!yuu #twst headcanons

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fungifanart · 1 year ago

Text

Budget for love

Characters: Male reader, Yuu!reader, Ruggie Bucchi, Grim

CW: Skipping meals, existential dread, money problems

Word count: 2,032

Notes: I heard a voice one night, urging me to write a Ruggie fic...that voice was mine. I just like Ruggie.

---------------------------------------‐-------------------------

Ruggie Bucchi's financial status is, by no means, a secret.

Ever since he enrolled at Night Raven College, he's garnered a reputation for being a money-grubbing cheapskate who can reduce any merchant to their knees through his skill at haggling alone, all due to his lack of financial security.

Growing up in the slums will do that to a guy, he supposes.

Along with that, growing up poor has also instilled in him a certain pettiness and resentment in regards to the more privileged classes, which just so happen to make up a very large portion of NRC's student body.

Joy.

Well, if nothing else, this makes it easy to simply view most of the other students as potential pickpocket targets.

However, this also makes it easy to forget that not all of them are more well-off than he is, meaning it's especially jarring when he comes across a certain Prefect and direbeast having an argument in Sam's on-campus store.

"C'mon, Henchman! You're telling me we can't afford ONE little extra can of tuna?" Grim argues while clutching said can of tuna to his chest tightly.

"Yes I am, Grim. With our budget, we can barely even afford the bare essentials for this week. That 'one little extra can' will push us over the edge for sure!" The Prefect argues back with the look of a tired father trying in vain to reason with his stubborn child, "Listen, I get paid for my work at the Mostro Lounge on Friday, right? I know you've still got some of your secret stash left, so if you can hold out until then, I'll get you a can of the fancy tuna as a reward. How's that sound?"

That last statement causes Grim's face to light up as he immediately drops the can of regular tuna and hugs the Prefect while exclaiming, "Deal!"

Ruggie doesn't do anything. He simply watches, mildly dazed at what should have been a fact he already knew as the Prefect finishes paying for his essentials and leaves the store with Grim as Ruggie continues to stand there before being brought back to his senses by another student telling to him to move out of the way.

Ruggie doesn't see the Prefect again for a few days after that, their schedules never seeming to allow them even a passing glance in the halls, but the memory of what he saw that day still lingers in his mind for a reason he can’t quite identify right now.

The next time Ruggie does see the Prefect is in the cafeteria during lunch.

It's one of the rare occasions where he hasn't been ordered by Leona to get his lunch for him, so he's taking his time, scanning the tables for a place to sit when he notices the Prefect sitting across from his feline companion while said companion munches away at his food.

Seeing no other open seats, Ruggie walks over and says, "Long time, no see, Prefect! Mind if I sit here?" He asks despite not waiting for the other man's answer and plopping himself and his tray down in the spot next to him.

"O-oh! Yeah, that's fine." The Prefect responds before turning his head back to Grim as he eats, but Ruggie can't help but notice the lack of food on his side of the table.

"Dang, Prefect! I wish I got here sooner so I could've seen the carnage!" Ruggie remarks while playfully nudging the other man's shoulder.

"Huh? What do you mean?" The Prefect asks confusedly.

"Oh, come on! YOU finishing your food before GRIM? I can only imagine how much you stuffed your face to make that happen!" Ruggie concludes with a snicker before taking a bite of one of his sandwiches.

The Prefect blinks a couple times before responding, "Oh, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I didn't get lunch." He says, causing the hyena to choke on his food.

"W-whaddaya mean you 'didn't get lunch'???" Ruggie questions after chugging his water.

The Prefect shrugs, "Just what I said. We have some leftovers at Ramshackle that I could’ve brought, but we were in such a rush this morning that we couldn't even eat breakfast, much less prepare any lunch and running back between classes would take too long. Therefore, we had no choice but to buy lunch from here, but I had barely enough cash to get food for one of us and it'd kill me to see Grim go hungry, so I figured I'd be fine if I skipped a meal or two." He concludes nonchalantly.

Ruggie proceeds to sit there, dumbfounded, as the Prefect goes back to watching Grim eat, his face content, but with a hint of melancholy.

Ruggie knows that look. He's seen it countless times in his childhood on the faces of some of the adults in his neighborhood as they forwent their own food just to let their children eat.

He doesn't remember seeing a lot of them around last time he went home.

His mind snaps back to the present as he looks down at his lunch tray piled high with the food he bought using money he'd snuck out of Leona's wallet and then back at the empty space in front of the Prefect, his stomach suddenly not feeling as empty as before.

Wordlessly, Ruggie takes two of his sandwiches and slides them over to the other man, who looks back at him in bewilderment.

"Ruggie? What's this for?" The Prefect asks.

Ruggie clears his throat awkwardly before responding, "W-well, it's just that it turns out I got more food than I'll probably eat, so I thought 'why not', right?" He says while forcing his signature laugh.

Luckily, the Prefect doesn't seem to read into his awkwardness as his suppressed hunger resurfaces on his face and he proceeds to practically inhale the sandwiches after giving a rushed "Thanks!"

In a matter of seconds, the sandwiches have completely disappeared, leaving Ruggie both amazed and...oddly fulfilled upon seeing the Prefect’s own satisfaction from having a full stomach.

Huh...that's new.

Ruggie's been so used to pinching his and other people's pennies at this school that helping out seemingly the only other student that's in the same boat as him, even without getting anything in return, feels...nice.

Nice feelings like this are few and far in between with a lifestyle like Ruggie's, so now that he's felt it, he proceeds to chase it whenever he can.

From that day onward, Ruggie makes a point to help out the Prefect if he has the time, starting with offering him a simple snack between classes or pointing him in the right direction if he gets lost, before slowly escalating into him stepping in to haggle Sam's prices down for him and even taking his hand and physically leading him to where he needs to go, not noticing the increasingly flustered looks on the other man's face.

He doesn't know when exactly it happened, but after a while, that simple nice feeling turned into something more...warm and fuzzy that he feels blooming in his chest as he and the Prefect grow closer, finding more and more time to spend with each other, whether it being studying together or going out to the market, until one night, they find themselves gazing up at the stars on the hill just outside of Ramshackle.

Looking over at the stars reflecting in the Prefect’s eyes, Ruggie can't deny how beautiful they look. And what he also can't deny is the fact that he's grown attached their owner.

He can’t help but imagine what the future could hold for the two of them.

But then he remembers who the Prefect is.

He's an otherworlder. The one destined to leave this world behind in favor of the one where he actually belongs.

The only future that exists for Ruggie and the Prefect is one where he waves goodbye as the other man disappears into the Dark Mirror forever.

But that doesn't mean he has to be okay with it. That doesn't mean he can't still want the Prefect to stay, preferably with him.

"Can I ask you something?" Ruggie questions.

"Sure, what is it?" The Prefect responds, looking over at Ruggie, the serene expression on his face only further solidifying his feelings.

"Just out of curiosity, what would you do if you couldn't go back to your world?" Ruggie asks, noting how the other man tenses up at the question.

"W-well, I guess I'd keep going here until I graduate..." The Prefect responds in a way that doesn't fully answer Ruggie's question.

"Ok? And then what about after that?" Ruggie pushes.

".......................To be honest, I try not to think about it." The Prefect finally answers with a sigh, "People always say that graduating from here basically guarantees success in life, but how many high-ranking, high-paying jobs are actually there for someone like me in a world like this, even as a so-called 'beast tamer'? And that's not even accounting for me not having any official documentation since I wasn't born here! Hell, the most Crowley will do is cover up the fact that he has an undocumented individual among his students, so if I can't find a way to become a citizen by graduation, I'm out of luck!" He concludes while bringing his hands to his face in frustration.

Ruggie...can't say he's ever thought about that. And now he's feeling extra bad for the Prefect as he thinks of ways he might be able to help.

And it's then that he remembers a certain law in the Sunset Savanna and his trademark mischievous smile spreads across his face.

"Y'know, if citizenship's a big issue for you, we could always get married!" He blurts out, breaking the other man out of his wallowing as he chokes in surprise before letting out a laugh.

"You shouldn't joke about that!" The Prefect says with a giggle and a playful push against the hyena's shoulder.

"Hey! I'm serious!" Ruggie responds in a very unserious tone, "One of the laws in the Sunset Savanna says that if you marry one of its citizens, then you'll become a full citizen yourself!"

The Prefect's laughter dies down as he ponders this information, "Wait, really? How did THAT come about?" He asks, genuinely interested.

"Well, since it's ruled by lions, the kingdom's basically viewed as one, giant pride so being accepted by one of its members means being accepted into the pride, no questions asked." Ruggie explains.

"I feel like that leaves a lot of room for exploitation, though." The Prefect says thoughtfully.

"Hey, that works out for you, though. Doesn't it?" Ruggie says cheekily, earning another soft push against his shoulder.

"Don't act like this is set in stone already when we haven't even been on a proper date yet!" The other man argues lightheartedly.

"Well, if we're not counting all those study dates and market dates, then I guess you're right." Ruggie says bluntly, "So I'm free this Saturday if you wanna make it official."

The Prefect’s giggles stop as he looks at the hyena in surprise, who looks back at him with the first serious expression he's worn since the start of the conversation.

"I want you to know that I'm actually serious about this." Ruggie says while looking into the Prefect’s eyes, "I wouldn't throw an idea like that around willy-nilly, y'know."

The other man blinks for a couple seconds before his expression softens, "Alright, fine. How about this: IF I can't go home AND we both feel the same way after graduation, then I'll marry you. Deal?" He says while holding out his hand, clearly not fully convinced about Ruggie's conviction.

"Shishishi, deal!" The hyena says before shaking the Prefect’s hand and turning his head back towards the night sky, satisfied.

"Heh. So you're free this Saturday, huh?" The Prefect says before leaning over and pressing a kiss onto Ruggie's cheek, causing his heart rate to accelerate, "I'll look forward to it."

With heat blooming on his face, Ruggie feels that warm feeling in his chest again, but this time, he's able to put a name to it: Love.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twst ruggie #ruggie bucchi #twst x male reader #ruggie x male reader #ruggie x reader #twst mc #twst yuu #twst grim #why is this mushroom writing fanfics?

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sarcastic-cookie · 10 months ago

Text

|Hannibal Chrollo x Starling Reader| A Strange Occurrence

Special thanks to @skyyletai for the amazing idea and for helping me with the structuring of this piece!!! Make sure to go follow them! Their writing is immaculate <3

Alright, so this is my first piece of writing on tumblr, and first time writing for Chrollo. Meaning he may be ooc. I tried the best I could to not make him too ooc though. The reader‘s gender is up for interpretation in this one, but I did write it with a fem reader in mind due to them being based on Clarice.

Click-clack, click-clack. Your footsteps echoed through the narrow, dimly lit corridor, reverberating off the damp concrete walls. Each step seemed to reverberate louder than the last, barely drowning out the thumping of your terrified heartbeat. As you descended deeper into the maximum security zone basement, the air grew heavier, and the oppressive darkness only seemed to intensify the nerves eating you alive. The dull hum of the flickering fluorescent lights provided the only illumination source, casting eerie shadows that danced along the walls. Amid your spiraling thoughts, you suddenly realized that the security guard had been silently accompanying you, his presence a jarring interruption in the otherwise suffocating silence

"This is as far as I go. Are you sure you want to do this?" the security guard questioned, looking at you with uncertainty. Nodding your head, you watched as the guard unlocked the steel bars separating you from your goal. "This is the limit of my jurisdiction. Are you certain you wish to proceed?" questioned the security guard, eying you with uncertainty. You gave a firm nod as you observed the guard unlocking the steel bars standing between you and your objective.

A few days ago, your superior, Mr. Kurapika Kurta requested your assistance on a missing children’s case. The child’s name was Yuriko Tanizaki. She was a six-year-old little girl who had gone missing three days before when your superior notified you asking for your help. Her mother had called the police in tears stating that her daughter had been missing for several days. However, this wasn’t the only case of missing children. There have been many of these occurrences in the past month. The children would go missing for about a week before they were found mutilated, always missing a multitude of bones. Mainly consisting of teeth and phalanges. It appeared that the perpetrator didn’t see his or her victims as people, but rather as objects that could be tossed aside like trash after they fulfilled their purpose. The very thought of it makes you sick. Especially, seeing how these victims were all young children that could have had bright futures ahead of them.

You gathered your courage and steeled your nerves, pressing forward through the grim confines of the prison. The rhythmic click-clacking of your heels resonated off the cold, unforgiving walls, drawing the attention of the surrounding inmates. Each step sends shivers down your spine as their eyes fixate on you, their stares laden with a mix of curiosity and hostility. Among the cacophony of shouted remarks, a few words pierce through the din, the word "whore" echoing in your ears.

As you continued walking down what felt like a very long hallway, you noticed a woman muttering to herself as she gnawed on her fingernails which looked like they had been gnawed down past the tips of her fingers. You could see dried blood caking underneath. Just as her oceanic blue eyes met yours, you quickly averted your gaze, which just so happened to land on your destination target, Chrollo Lucilfer.

The was an ex-psychologist, who was also a notoriously well-known thief who only showed cruelty and apathy towards his victims. Shivers once more danced up and down your spine, as you locked eyes with the young man. His piercing gaze seemed to dissect your very soul, while the cross-shaped tattoo on his forehead beneath his bangs caught your attention.

Looking away, you force yourself to focus on your objective. "Dr. Lucilfer, may I please speak with you?" You asked, despite feeling terrified. His smile seemed forced as he inquired, "You’re one of Mr. Kurta’s, right? May I see some identification?"

"Of course," you said, reaching into your coat pocket and pulling out your ID while making sure to maintain a safe distance between the two of you. "Don't be shy now, come closer," he said intensely, staring into your eyes. You did as he said and took a step closer, still holding your ID up for him to see. "Closer," his voice rang through the room again as you advanced closer until you were only a few feet away from the glass enclosure, ensuring your protection from the unsettling individual that stood before you. Chrollo nodded his head in satisfaction as if he had confirmed something you still didn't know.

"Please, take a seat," he said, motioning towards the lone metal chair behind him. As he closed his eyes and sniffed the air, it became clear that he was trying to understand you better, to get into your head. After a moment, he stopped sniffing and gazed back at you. "You use coconut shampoo, don't you?" he said with a smirk. Nervously, you nodded and shifted your gaze to the collection of antique books and drawings inside Chrollo’s cell.

"Dr. Lucilfer, do you enjoy classical literature?" you asked, trying to shift the conversation away from yourself. Your superior had warned you about the consequences of letting Chrollo learn too much about you. "Yes, I do. It helps me gain a better insight into the human psyche. I'm sure you're familiar with the saying, 'knowledge is key,' aren't you?" You nodded in response.

"Yes, Doctor. In fact, I was wondering if you would provide some insight on—" You finally tried to state your reason for coming, but you were instantly cut off by Chrollo, who shook his head at you in disappointment. "You were doing fine up until now. Such a shame you had to ruin it. Well, fine for a trainee anyway," he said, gazing back up at you. You nervously swallowed once again.

"Your identification expires in less than a week, so I figured you were either up to something or a student. From our interactions, I deduced you were in fact a student. You only proved my point further when you tried to push your agenda," he said patronizingly.

"Mr. Kurta must be incredibly desperate if he’s willing to send down a trainee," he paused. "But, tell you what, I’ll entertain you by filling out your silly questionnaire if you tell me about yourself. We’ll call it a quid pro quo," he said, never once breaking eye contact.

Trying not to let your fear show, you conceded. "Very well, what would you like to know?" you asked.

"Let’s see… What was your worst childhood memory?" You froze, not expecting Chrollo to immediately start strong. You expected him to start light before going into darker subjects, but you guess you should’ve known better.

You mentally prepare yourself to recount the reason why you were so dedicated to this case in the first place. "Well, Agent L/n, tick-tock..."

"Well, for starters, growing up, I took on the parenting role of taking care of my little brother. Our parents had died in a plane crash a few years prior to this event. Our extended family didn't want anything to do with us, so we were tossed aside and treated like trash.

One night, I was out scavenging for food since we didn't have any money. We would often go around offering prayers in exchange for food, but that particular night was especially rough, just like many other nights when nobody was willing to help us. So, I went to search for whatever I could get my hands on. I never stole, though. I found it wrong, no matter how desperate we were," you said, getting lost in the flashback.

You rummaged through the dirty dumpster, desperately searching for anything that might be edible. To your relief, you found an unopened can of baked beans. "Yes!" you cheered, glad that you and B/n wouldn't have to go to bed hungry. "I hope B/n likes it," you thought to yourself. You quickly returned to the hidden alleyway where you and B/n were staying, only to be shocked by what you saw. "B/n, what the hell are you doing?!" you asked, petrified by the scene before you. B/n looked up at you in surprise, his grip on the rusty scissors weakening.

I found B/n on the brink of killing an innocent animal for food,” you recounted, with tears welling up in your eyes. You blinked them back and focused on the young man in front of you. “Now, please tell me what you know about the Tanizaki case,” you requested. Sending the case file through deciding the questionnaire wouldn’t be a smart move. If anything, it would only offend Dr. Lucilfer, as he seemed to pride himself on his vast expanse of knowledge.

He picked up the case file from the metal slot and started reading through it. "My, my, it seems like you have quite a lively one on your hands," he said, flipping through the pages. As you watched Chrollo scan the documents, you could have sworn you saw a flicker of anger cross his face, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

"Your killer targets children. Why do you think that is?" he asked, his gaze hardened. "He or she has a vendetta against--" You started to respond, but were cut off. "Irrelevant," he said, his gaze still hardened. "What trophy is obtained from each of the victims?"

“Bones,” you said, confused.

“Your killer seems to have a hankering for children. Don’t you think the stolen bones are a recompense for something?”

"Now, tell me what happened after you discovered your brother," he said. Knowing you wouldn't get anywhere by arguing with the man, you began to speak. "After I found my brother about to murder the innocent animal, I quickly snatched the old rusty scissors out of his hand."

"What on Earth were you thinking?" you asked B/n in shock. His surprise quickly turned to shame as he turned away. "If I had known you were that hungry, I would have gone out searching earlier," you said, blaming yourself for what was almost the death of a poor innocent animal.

Remembering what you had acquired, you quickly showed him the baked beans you had found. "I know it's not much, but I did manage to find some food for the night. Although it appears you need it more than I do, so I'll give you a bigger portion. How does that sound?" you asked, trying to forget about your discovery. B/n nodded his head, still ashamed of what he had done.

The next day, we were woken by the sound of footsteps, so we quickly ran and hid behind the nearest dumpster. It seemed to be a dispute over money between two individuals that had gone wrong. I didn't listen to the rest, I just wanted to get my little brother to safety, knowing how dangerous the situation could have become. I dragged him to the nearest public space, which happened to be a park. The park was bustling with many people, as there was some kind of parade going on, with lots of people dressed up in costumes. At the time, I didn't care about the parade, I just wanted to get my brother somewhere safe, but in all the commotion, my grasp on my little brother's hand became slippery, causing me to accidentally lose my grip.

“Come on, b/n we can make it just a little further,” your fourteen-year-old self said. Pushing and shoving through the crowd. “B/n?” You looked over your shoulder only to see your brother nowhere in sight. “B/N!!!” You began to shout in panic.

When I realized I was no longer holding his hand, I froze. I desperately searched around for my brother but could not find him. I searched for hours, only for it to be futile in the end. He had been swept up in the crowd.

You could feel the salty trails making their way down your cheeks as you sobbed endlessly. “I’m so useless,” you mumbled to yourself. “I failed at doing the one thing I swore to never screw up.” You noticed the gazes of multiple passersby: some were filled with pity, others with mirth. They all just blended into one big blur as the reality of your situation dawned upon you.

I remember feeling all alone and realizing that my efforts were fruitless. I curled up on a park bench as everything around me became a blur. I didn't even realize it was nighttime until everyone started dispersing. It wasn't until a few hours later, after the park was empty, that I heard screaming coming from the forest behind the park where the campgrounds were located. Terrified but also curious, I ventured into the woods.

As you took shaky steps toward the woods, you mumbled to yourself, "Maybe this is a bad idea." You quickly shook your head and thought, "No, it's fine. After all, I don't have anything else to live for." Feeling dismayed, you continued, "If my curiosity is the end of me, then so be it." And so, ytadvanced into the forest. After a few minutes of walking, the screaming seemed to have stopped. You froze before continuing forward. Eventually, you came into a clearing, but what awaited you was not a sight for the faint of heart.

Before me laid four mangled children’s corpses. Some looked to have been there for a while as they had already started to decompose. The whole area reeked of death as I gazed around with tears in my eyes. One body that seemed to be fresh had caught my eye. Around its wrist was the beaded bracelet I had made for my brother before our lives went downhill.

You felt the bile rising in your throat as you gazed down upon the mangled corpse of your little brother. Waterfalls fell down your cheeks once more. “B/n I’m so sorry…” You said through gritted teeth, falling to your knees. As you gazed around at all the unfortunate victims, your despair only grew before the logical side of your brain kicked in, telling you to get the hell out of there before the perpetrator came back. And so, with a heavy heart and stinging eyes, you exited the clearing. Reporting the incident to the police. The incident, however, made you realize you did have a reason to live, to protect the innocent.

You could feel the familiar trails down your cheeks as you were no longer able to hold back your sorrow. When you looked up in surprise, you saw that Dr. Lucilfer’s face reflected your own. While not as noticeable, Chrollo appeared to have a single tear trailing down his cheek.

He quickly wiped his face, shaking his head. "I apologize, your story reminded me of something," he said. You wiped your tears similarly. "It seems you're not as cold and apathetic as you like to appear, Dr. Lucilfer. Now I have given you what you wanted, it's your turn to answer me," you said, trying to regain your composure. "What did you mean by 'hankering for children'?" you asked.

“Simple, our killer yearns for a replacement,” he said.

With that, it had finally clicked. “By replacement, you mean a child of their own! We’re most likely dealing with a grieving parent then. Who tosses the kidnapped children aside when they fail to fill the void caused by their deceased child! The mutilations must be done out of anger and the bones must be recompense for their failure,” you said, figuring out the killer’s motivation. ‘Now to find out their identity,’ you thought.

"Thank you, Dr. Lucilfer, for your time," you said, bowing. "And to compensate for your cooperation, I promise to put in a good word to get you transferred to a nicer location," you said, overjoyed with your new discovery. Chrollo looked surprised before nodding, picking up one of his books, and opening up to a bookmarked page.

"I'll hold you to that promise then. Now, fly away back to your superior little agent," he said. "And don’t forget your case file" he informed, sending the file back through. You nodded grabbing the file before beginning your trek back to Mr. Kurta, excited to inform him of your discovery. Your excitement caused you to miss the greed in Chrollo's eyes as he gazed at you, not realizing you had also put yourself in grave peril.

You caught Chrollo Lucilfer’s attention, and that is never a good thing to do…

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere chrollo #hannibal lecter #Hannibal Chrollo #Starling reader #silence of the lambs #hxh #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo lucifer x reader

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ramblingoak · 2 years ago

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The Cardinal's Bride, Chapter 10: Revelations

~~ Please visit The Outlaw Brides Masterpost to catch up and read more stories from this world ~~

Thank you to @tasty-ribz for the wanted poster, @ghuleh-recs for the collage and @gothdaddyissues for the divider! For some more amazing fanart check out: @meowsaidmissy (1 / 2), @snail-shell2335 here, @vahvco here, @ghulehgwen here, @rabidghoul here, @nocterish here, @enjoy-my-swearing here, @blacktie-whitenoise (1 /2), @z-xmyers (1/2/3/4), @foxybouquet here, @delulluart here, _simpera_ on instagram and valkyrieinpink on twitter. Also thank you to @kissingghouls for all her help and emotional support.

Cardinal Copia x Female Reader ~ It's time to leave the only place you've been that has felt like home. With your arrival at The Ministry looming closer and an abrupt change in Copia's behavior you feel more lost than you ever have.

Warnings: angst, swearing, vaginal fingering, nsfw 18+ only, mdni, 9,200 words

The bed was cold when you woke up.

Your arm stretched out over the spot that Copia had occupied every night while you had been at the farmhouse. The blankets were cold enough that it was obvious he had been gone for some time. The room wasn’t yet fully lit up from the sun so it wasn’t that late in the morning yet. Where had he gone off too so early?

With a sigh you rolled onto your back to stare at the ceiling. Your memories were a little fuzzy after getting back to the house last night, something that could be blamed on the whiskey you imagined. But you do remember Copia reassuring you after you voiced your fears over leaving the farmhouse. They were easy words to say but they had immediately put your mind at ease. What helped the most though were the last words he had said to you before you had fallen asleep. Copia had promised to be here when you woke up.

So where the hell was he?

As if on cue the door to the room banged open and Copia came in. You grinned and sat up, about to taunt him for ditching you but the look on his face made the words freeze in your throat. It wasn’t Copia standing in front of you right now, it was The Cardinal. The only thing missing were the black circles around his eyes and the black upper lip. Your eyes were locked on each other for a number of seconds before Copia finally spoke up.

“You need to get dressed and meet us outside.”

“Is everything ok?” When he didn’t reply you swung your legs over the side of the bed and stood up, walking towards him with hesitant steps. “Copia? Did something hap–”

“Nothing happened Principessa, which is the problem.” He scoffed at the confused look on your face and walked over to where you had laid out the traveling clothes Ethel had given you. “We need to leave and you’re holding us up.”

“Oh! I’m…I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to get dressed.”

What was going on with him? He hadn’t talked to you like this since…

“Copia what’s wrong? Why are you acting like this? Hey!” You jerked away when he gripped your bicep and tugged you over to the dresser. “You don’t need to manhandle me.”

“Apparently I do in order to get you moving.” He reached out towards you again but you slapped his hand away. Before you could even flinch he had moved so he was directly in front of you, close enough you could feel his body heat. “Watch it, Principessa.”

The stark change in his behavior from the last few days was jarring. You could feel tears of frustration building in your eyes and you looked down to try to hide them from him. Something had to have happened, there was no reason for him to be acting this way towards you.

“Please, tell me what’s going on.” You took a deep breath and looked up at him. For a second the expression on his face wavered, his features softening as he met your eyes. “What did I do?”

He opened his mouth as if to reply, his hand even reaching out towards yours, but almost as soon as the movement started it stopped. His hand dropped and his mouth set in a grim line. You could feel your features crumbling but you tried to stay steady. Whatever was going on you didn’t want to upset him more by crying. Copia turned around and walked towards the dresser, grabbing your clothes roughly before facing you once more.

“You didn’t do anything.” You both turned towards the door when there was a brisk knock followed by Ethel peeking in. She smiled brightly when she saw you but it wavered when she realized you were upset. Copia mumbled something in Italian under his breath before shoving the clothes into your arms. “Stop crying and get dressed.”

You gripped the clothes tightly in your hands as he stalked away. He didn’t even look at Ethel as he went by, but she sure was glaring at him. As soon as he was out the door Ethel shut it, clicking the lock securely before turning to look at you. You attempted to smile, to tell her good morning but seeing that kind, warm look on her face that she always gave you made your own face crumple.

“Oh sweetheart, it’s ok! Come here.”

Ethel took the clothes out of your hands and tossed them onto the bed before wrapping you up in her arms. You couldn’t help but let her take your weight as the tears that had been threatening finally began to spill out. She started running a hand soothingly up and down your back, continuing to tell you that it was ok, that you could cry if you needed to. It was such a sharp contrast to how your own parents treated you when you showed any emotion that you began to cry harder.

How were you supposed to leave this place? Leave Ethel? She had become so important to you in such a short time, the mother you had always wished for. Before when you worried about leaving you had at least felt better knowing you would be with Copia but with how he acted this morning that didn’t hold comfort like it had been. Would the Ghouls act the same? Would they also start pushing you away?

“Now what did that idiot say to you?” You snorted despite your tears, meeting Ethel’s eyes and feeling at ease at the kind look on her face. She reached into a pocket of her shirt and brought out a handkerchief to wipe your cheeks for you. “Do you want me to kill him?”

“No.” You managed a shake of your head, laughing softly when she wiped at your nose. “No, I’d rather not see him get hurt.”

“Hmm, well we’ll see. I’ll be talking to that cowboy of yours before you all leave.”

“I just don’t know what could have happened, what I could have done to make him act like this.” Ethel gave your hand a squeeze and you smiled at her. “Did he say anything to you this morning?”

“Mr. Emeritus tried to order me around and I’m sure you can guess how that went.” Ethel flashed you a bright grin before continuing, “Then he went to the barn to wake up the others before stomping back inside.”

Everyone was probably ready to go by now. You sighed while you stood up and went over to your clothes. There wasn’t a point in putting it off any longer, but you paused and turned back towards Ethel, your eyes filling with tears again.

“I don’t want to go.” Once more the dam broke and you found yourself overcome with emotion. Ethel rushed over, tugging you into another hug and rubbing your back. You pulled away after a moment, your eyes roaming her face to try and memorize it in case you never saw her again. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

“Like what, dear?”

“Like I have a place here, like I’m wanted.” You squeezed your eyes shut, biting your lip briefly to try and stop it from trembling. “Like I’m loved.”

“Oh, sweetheart...”

“I know it’s silly since we’ve only just met, but you’ve done so much for me. More than anyone else ever has, including my own family.” When you opened your eyes you saw a few tears fall down Ethel’s cheeks. “This is the home I’ve always wanted, always dreamed about. You're the mother I always wished I had.”

“My dear, you listen to me. I’ve felt like you were family since you showed up looking like a drowned cat that night.” She reached up and brushed the fresh tears away that had started to fall down your cheeks. “Like the daughter I never had.”

“Thank you, I won’t forget you.”

“Now why are you acting like we’ll never see each other again? You are welcome back here anytime.” Her hands grabbed yours and squeezed them while she held your gaze. “No matter what’s happening, I mean it. Promise me you’ll come here if you’re in trouble.”

Her demeanor had changed a bit, her grip tight on your hands. She was acting far more serious than you had seen her act since you had met. When she squeezed your hands again you nodded, trying to give her a firm smile.

“I will, I promise.”

“Good. I don’t care if the devil himself is on your heels, my shotgun is always loaded.” Ethel leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, smoothing your hair out when she pulled away. “How about you get dressed and I’ll make sure your husband leaves you alone until you’re ready.”

You nodded, giving her a quiet ‘thank you’ when she handed you your clothes. When the door clicked shut behind her you gave the room one last look around. Despite what had happened that morning you were determined to only keep good memories from here. This was where Copia had first kissed you, had first pressed himself against you. You walked over to the bed and dropped your pile of clothes onto it while you stared at the covers, remembering the first time his fingers had dipped inside of you.

Your skin startled tingling just thinking about it although it was irritating to know he still had this effect on you even when you were upset with him. Hopefully he would snap out of whatever was going on with him. Maybe he was just as scared as you were about leaving. That was the idea you were going to cling to. You needed to hope that Copia would go back to how he had been acting the last few days. The Cardinal wasn’t the man you had begun to fall in love with.

Your fingers paused at the buttons of your nightgown. The realization of what you had just admitted to yourself made your stomach flip. Love? Was that how you felt about Copia? It was something you had never experienced before but you certainly had never felt this way about anyone else in your life. No one had ever made you feel this good, this wanted. No one had ever touched you like he had.

After a deep breath you started on the buttons again, letting the gown drop to the floor. The clothes Ethel had for you were comfortable and perfect for being on the road. They definitely made you look the part, like one of the gang. You hoped that was still in your future, being able to stay with them. There needed to be something more to your life than sitting in a room in some rich man’s house, waiting for instructions.

You couldn’t bear it if there wasn’t.

Copia felt like shit.

He knew it was going to be hard, keeping you at arm's length. Pushing you away. But he didn’t realize how much it would hurt him to see you hurt. It was worse than the damned nightmare. With every word out of his mouth he had seen the light in your eyes darken more and more. It had taken all of his self control not to reach out and gather you in his arms to whisper apologies to you.

The Ghouls had been abnormally quiet when he had gone out to wake them. Copia had figured it was from the whiskey and the late night, but it had seemed there was more than that at play. It wasn’t until he had heard Dewdrop mutter to Aether about wanting to stick around even longer that he realized what was going on. What was making them all move slowly and look somberly at their surroundings.

No one wanted to leave this place.

Copia couldn’t blame them. It had been a long time since he felt at home anywhere, since any of them had. The Ministry was where their things were, where they stayed between jobs, but it had never been home. Their true home was barely recognizable anymore. The only things left were the burned out husks of buildings and a small cemetery.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the door to the bedroom open. Your eyes briefly met his when you came down the hallway, long enough for him to see how red they were, before you focused on Ethel. The older woman and you had built a strong bond since they’d been there. It was another reason Copia felt terrible about making you leave. You deserved to have a home like this, a family like Ethel and Harold. You didn’t need to be dragged around the countryside by someone like him.

“Go on and head out to the barn, dear. I’ll be out there in a moment to help.”

“I’ll help you Principessa.”

Copia took a step back when he was met with the force of the glares from both you and Ethel. You turned to give Ethel another smile before moving towards the door. He tried to meet your eyes when you walked by but you refused to look at him. You refused to even walk close to him, deftly giving Copia a wide berth as you went past. He found himself staring at the door after you left. The regret he was feeling like a living thing in his chest.

“She likes dandelions.”

Ethel’s words made him turn back to the older woman, a confused look on his face.

“Eh?”

“Dandelions. She likes dandelions.”

“Si, I know this.” He sighed, staring at her expectantly for a moment before waving his hand in front of him. “Is there a reason you’re telling me this?”

“You should bring her some. As an apology.” Ethel was evidently not impressed with the face Copia made because she narrowed her eyes and stalked towards him. “She deserves one.”

“Does she?” He wasn’t going to admit that he agreed with her, at least not yet. “And why is that?”

“She was crying in my arms for a reason, Mr. Emeritus. I’m imagining that reason is you.”

“I’m just trying to get out of here, we need to get on the road.”

Ethel snorted in derision and gave him a look he’d only experienced from Secondo before.

“I’m not an idiot so you best not treat me like one.”

“You don’t need to know what goes on between my wife and I.”

“Ah yes, your ‘little meatball’. I’m sure you believe I don’t need to know everything Mr. Emeritus.” She smirked when he briefly gave her an odd look. You must have told her what his endearment meant. “Unfortunately for you I’ve decided that when it comes to your Polpettina I need to make sure you are treating her right.”

“Mi scusi? I have been treating her right.”

“Not this morning you haven’t. I saw the look on her face when you ordered her around like she was nothing important.”

“I am trying to leave. We should have left hours ago!”

“Oh and is that her fault? She was the one at the bonfire demanding that a bunch of cowboys tell her stories well into the night?”

Copia almost said yes but he knew that wouldn’t go over well.

“Ethel, I know you think you know everything going on but you don’t.”

“Just like Harold, more looks than brains.”

“Hey! I am fuck—“

“Don’t you cuss at me Cardinal.”

Copia froze, his eyes widening at what Ethel had called him. How could she…? He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying and failing to think of some way to deny it but it was obvious there was no use.

“How long have you known?”

“Since you and your Ghouls showed up during the storm.” Copia started to respond but she quickly talked over him. “I can’t wait for the day that girl starts running circles around you, but I have to say it’s probably not very far off.”

“Ethel…”

“I rode around causing trouble in these parts long before you did Cardinal.” She pointed at a nearby chair and Copia obediently sat down, still trying to process that she knew who he was. Who they were. “Now I’m not sure what you’re scheming and how she’s involved, but if any harm comes to that girl you’ll regret it. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’ve lost my touch.”

Copia clenched his fists and glared at Ethel.

“That is the point! I don’t want her to get hurt!”

“I don’t mean just physically, Cardinal. You’ve spent the last few days pulling her into every secluded corner you could find so whatever feelings she already might’ve had for you are now even stronger.” Ethel crossed her arms and easily met Copia’s glare. “Although she could certainly do better.”

“Si, I agree. I’m not good enough for her. I will only get her hurt and that's why I need to push her away.”

“No, what you need to do is try harder.” When Copia scoffed and shook his head Ethel closed the distance between them and forcefully grabbed his chin. “For whatever reason she’s chosen you, Cardinal Copia, as the one she wants and I think you’ve chosen her too. Am I right?”

There wasn’t any point trying to lie so he just nodded his head as much as he could with his chin still in her hand. Ethel smirked and let go, briefly patting him on the cheek before walking to the door of the house. Copia slowly got up and followed.

“What do I do now?”

Ethel snorted and opened the door, letting the morning light spill into the house.

“Now you go pick her some fucking dandelions and beg for forgiveness.” He couldn’t help but groan. Picking flowers and apologizing weren’t exactly some of his strengths. Ethel stopped him at the door and pointed a finger into his face. “Dandelions and begging, I think the feared Cardinal Copia can handle that, don’t you?”

He straightened his back and nodded, wincing when she gave him another pat on the cheek.

“I think I can manage.”

Ethel smiled and finally moved out of the way, letting Copia go by and get nearly down the steps before she called out to him.

“Mr. Emeritus!” Copia turned to meet Ethel’s steely gaze. “Keep that girl safe for me.”

“I will.”

“Good.” She smiled down at Copia as she took a few steps towards him, her eyes darkening despite the bright morning light. “Because if you don't, Lucifer himself won’t be able to protect you from me.”

“Has he always been this much of a bastard?” Brizio snorted, nudging his head against your shoulder. “Is that a yes?”

You laughed when the horse snorted again, lowering his head towards your hand that still held a few apple slices. He eagerly took them when you opened your fingers, making sure to keep them away from his teeth. When the slices were gone you wiped your hand on your pants and then reached up to start rubbing his nose. Brizio nickered while he pressed up into your fingers.

“Just as demanding as he is, you two are a perfect match.” His eyes closed when you ran your hand further up, scratching between his eyes and then around his ears. “I’m sorry I used to be scared of you, you’re not that bad I suppose.” When Brizio snorted and stamped a foot you smiled, moving your hand up and down his neck. “Wish I could say the same about him.”

“Say the same about who?”

At the sound of Copia’s voice you winced. Of course he had to walk in at that moment. You turned your head just enough to see him standing in the doorway of the barn, his hands behind his back as he watched you. He looked about to say something else but you turned back around and continued to pet Brizio. You tensed a bit when you heard Copia walk closer, the spurs on his boots jingling softly with each step.

Would he apologize? Ethel had mentioned she was going to talk to him, but you doubted anything she said would actually help. One of the first things you’d learned about him was that he was stubborn. It was doubtful that even Ethel could say anything to change his mind. You felt a hand hover over your shoulder but before you could move away to avoid the contact Brizio stepped forward with his ears pinned back, loudly snorting at his master.

“Hey!” Copia jumped back, a few words in Italian falling from his lips. “Turning my own horse against me?”

“I think he can make up his own mind about things.”

You gave the horse one final pat on his neck before turning and starting to walk out of the barn. Copia moved quickly, maneuvering himself in front of you and holding a hand out.

“Can I have a moment, Principessa?”

“You had plenty of moments inside the house.” He moved to block you again when you tried to walk around him. “Copia please, don’t make this harder.”

His frustration was obvious, but you couldn’t tell if it was with himself or you. He reached up and pulled his hat off his head, holding it against his chest and timidly looking into your eyes. After a moment he took a deep breath and pulled his other hand from behind his back. You glanced down, your mouth falling open when you noticed what he was holding.

Copia had a small bouquet of dandelions clutched in his leather glove.

They certainly weren’t in the best of shape but that wasn’t very surprising. You doubted the man had ever picked flowers before in his life. At least half of them were smashed, the yellow petals flattened and wilting. You looked back up into his eyes, remembering how he had looked the other day wearing that silly flower crown you had made him. The memory made you want to cry but instead you gritted your teeth and took a step back.

“What are those for?”

“Eh, for you.” When you didn’t move he started fidgeting, tapping his fingers on the brim of his hat. “I picked them for you.”

“Why?”

“You know why.” He held the bouquet closer to you but you took another step back. “What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?! Do you not remember how you treated me earlier?” He winced, opening his mouth but you didn’t let him speak. “A handful of dandelions isn’t going to get me to forgive you.”

“Then what will?”

You moved, walking around him and his dandelions. At the door you paused, looking out towards where the Ghouls were waiting. Dewdrop and Harold were carefully strapping the guitar to one of the stagecoach horses the gang was taking with them. The other Sunshine and Ethel were finishing up saddling for you, the both of them laughing together as they worked. The rest of the group was milling around, waiting for you and Copia.

He called out to you again and you took a deep breath before turning to look at him. You had to bite your lip to stop from laughing, Brizio had wandered up and was munching on the dandelions. Copia put his hat back on, relinquishing the flowers to his horse and crossed his arms.

“Principessa, what will it take?”

It was hard to tell if he felt remorse or not, but you hoped he did. You hoped he would share what he had been thinking that morning, what had made him treat you that way. Copia’s mismatched eyes met your own and you offered him a brief smile before you answered.

“An apology.”

You managed to say goodbye to Ethel again without crying, but only barely.

She and Harold had packed up lots of supplies for the final leg of your journey to The Ministry. It seemed like everyone had gotten a small token of their time there. In turn they were keeping two of the horses from the stagecoach and a promise of help if they ever needed assistance on their farm. Your eyes wandered over the land as you walked towards where Sunshine was waiting by your horse.

“Ready to go, kid?” You nodded at Sunshine, laughing when she handed you a small knife. “You can never have too many.”

“Hopefully I won’t ever have to use them.”

Sunshine grinned and then jerked her head towards the horse. You let her help you up, looking over towards the barn when Copia emerged on top of Brizio. His face was unreadable as he went past and you couldn’t help but let your shoulders fall. Maybe you should have just taken the damn dandelions. It might have made the journey a little more bearable. No matter how hard you tried you couldn’t imagine Copia ever apologizing.

“Dear.” Ethel’s voice brought you out of your thoughts and you quickly glanced down to see her smiling up at you. “Remember, you come straight here if anything happens.”

You nodded and tried to give her a brave smile. There was so much you still wanted to say to her but if you opened your mouth right now you’d only let out a sob. Ethel squeezed your leg and gave you an encouraging nod.

“Thank you. For everything.”

“There’s no need to thank me dear, that’s what mothers are for.” When the tears began to fall down your cheeks she held out her handkerchief again. You both looked over at Copia when he called out for everyone to get moving. Ethel gave your leg another squeeze before stepping back to give you room to maneuver the horse. “He’s a stubborn idiot like most cowboys, but he’ll come around.”

You nodded, silently hoping she was right. Sunshine rode up next to you, rolling her eyes when Copia called out again. Reluctantly you encouraged your horse forward, following the others as they began to make their way out of the farm. It wasn’t until everyone had made it to the top of a hill that overlooked the land that you could bring yourself to turn around.

Ethel and Harold were still standing there, watching as you all left. The farm stretched out around them, seemingly glowing in the morning sun. It was beautiful and you let yourself daydream for a moment as you looked on. Copia was there when you imagined coming back to this place, his grin both dazzling and infuriating like usual. You blinked your eyes open when Sunshine called your name and gave the farm one last look.

This was what you wanted. A home like this and someone to share it with.

You could only hope Copia wanted that too.

The first day went by in mostly silence.

Everyone seemed somber about leaving the farm, although you were sure everyone had different reasons as to why. When you stopped for lunch you had attempted to start conversations with a few of them, but no one seemed interested in talking. Even Swiss was quiet and he was usually the most boisterous out of all of them. Copia had wandered off and you assumed it was to scout a bit but when he came back he had his black makeup applied around his eyes and along his upper lip.

It had only been a few days since you’d seen him wearing it but the change was still startling. With that and how he acted yesterday morning it felt like he was a completely different person. The Cardinal seemed to be back and he had no interest in speaking with anyone. When the gang finally stopped to camp that night you found yourself feeling just like you had the first few days after being kidnapped. Lost and alone.

The next day was much better, the Ghouls more talkative as they got closer to The Ministry. Rain had been scouting ahead off and on like usual, exchanging hushed words with Copia each time he returned. No one showed any concern about it so you tried to not dwell on it, there were already enough worries running through your head as it was. You couldn’t help but feel like you had made a mistake not just accepting the dandelions from Copia and hearing him out. He hadn’t even looked at you since you had left the farm as far as you had noticed. It was like a heavy weight had settled onto your shoulders now. You found yourself imagining arriving at The Ministry and being locked into a room until Saltarian paid the ransom and took you away with him.

Copia spent most of his time at the front of the group, occasionally talking to Aether but mostly remaining silent. Sunshine and Swiss flanked you near the back. Their random banter the only thing cheering you up as your destination crept closer and closer. You still had so many questions about their life there and even more questions about what would happen once you arrived. They were currently sniping at each other over something about Montana but when there was a break in their conversation you took your chance.

“What do you all do there? At the casino?”

“Oh shit, all sorts of stuff. All the Ghouls have their own job basically.” Sunshine nodded over to Swiss with a grin on her face. “Although some of us are better at them than others.”

“Fuck you. I’m multi-talented, I can do anything.”

He looked about ready to list off everything he could do but Copia shouted his name and Swiss reluctantly rode over to him. When Copia jumped down from Brizio Sunshine let out a sigh next to you.

“Looks like we’re camping here.”

Everyone dismounted and began to set up for the night. You tried to help where you could but mostly you just stayed out of the way. To your surprise Dewdrop came over and helped you with your horse, taking her over with the others. The only response you got to your thank you was a grunt, but it was something. When he came back over he had his guitar in his hands and plopped down near the campfire with a heavy sigh.

“Hey Dew can you go fill the canteens?”

Dewdrop groaned at Aether’s request while he deftly worked his fingers over the guitar strings.

“I just sat down, man.”

“I will!” You practically ran up to Aether with your hands out. “I want to help.”

“You’re not going alone.” You frowned over at Copia as he shoved Brizio’s reins into Swiss’s hands. Thankfully he didn’t notice the hand gesture the Ghoul threw at his back as he walked over to you. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’s fine, I don’t need any help.” You held tightly to the canteens when Copia tried to take a few of them from your hands. “I’m not going to run off.”

Copia stopped and met your eyes, an unreadable look on his face.

“I know you won’t, Principessa. I just want to help.” He took a step forward, glancing around before lowering his voice. “We need to talk.”

He looked so serious you finally relented, letting him take some of the canteens from you. Copia grabbed your hand and gave it a squeeze, the action making you meet his eyes briefly before you pulled your hand away and turned towards the woods.

“Great, see you guys in a few hours.” You rolled your eyes at Dewdrop’s comment, stifling a laugh when Copia kicked his knee as you both walked by. “Have fun! Rinse your hands off before you fill mine.”

Thankfully no one else said anything as you both walked away. As the creek got closer you kept waiting for Copia to say something, anything but he remained infuriatingly quiet. The longer he remained silent the more upset you became. When the creek finally came into view you couldn’t help yourself. You threw the canteens in your hands to the ground and rounded on Copia.

“You wanted to talk, so talk!” Copia stayed still and silent as you glared at him so you moved closer. “You’ve ignored me for almost two days, why?”

“I was trying to think of what to say.”

“You’ve never been short on things to say to me before!”

“Yes, but this is important Principessa.”

It felt like someone was gripping your heart in their hand, tendrils of anxiety moving throughout your body. Copia looked so serious, so somber that whatever he was building up to couldn’t be good. You dug your fingernails into your palms and tried to control your breathing when you spoke.

“What is? Please Cop–”

“Mi dispiace. I’m sorry.” He held a hand up when you opened your mouth to respond. “I’m sorry for how I treated you the other morning. You didn’t deserve that, those things I said.”

“Then why did you say those things?” You couldn’t stop yourself from sniffling a bit, the horrible feeling that had been living in your chest since that morning finally fading away a bit. “Did I do something that night?”

“No! No, you didn’t do anything.” He took a few timid steps forward, reaching out towards you. Copia seemed worried you would pull away at first but when you remained still he gently grasped your elbows and tugged you against him. You fell into his chest with a sigh, burying your face into his neck as he rubbed his hands up and down your back. “I had a nightmare.”

“About what?”

Your voice was muffled against his skin but you couldn’t bring yourself to move. You had forgotten how good it felt to be close to him, to have his arms around you.

“I thought it was the fire at first, the night my church was destroyed, but it was something else.” He pulled his hands away from your back and brought them to your cheeks, cupping your face as he tilted it up so your eyes met. “It was your wedding.”

“To Saltarian?”

He nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. You reached up and covered his hands with your own, trying to encourage him to continue.

“He knew to use you against me, he was keeping you between us. In harm’s way.” He took a shuddering breath and lowered his head to press a kiss onto your forehead before he rested his own against it. “I can’t let you get hurt, I won’t let you get hurt.”

“Is that why you acted that way? You think pushing me away like that will keep me safe?” He stayed silent, his thumbs slowly beginning to rub back and forth across your cheeks. “You idiot.”

“Hey!” Copia pulled back to glare at you. “I was trying to keep you safe.”

“By being an asshole!” He yelped when you tried to knee him in his crotch, jerking out of the way just in time. “I can’t believe you!”

“I said I was sorry!”

"I thought I had done something, I thought you hated me!" You swiped at the tears on your cheeks, angry that he had made you cry again. "I should have let Ethel kill you."

He burst out in laughter which only made you angrier. When he tried to get close you attempted to pull away, but he was too quick and managed to get you in his arms again.

"Principessa, forgive me. It was wrong of me, I know this. I'm just..." When he trailed off you looked up at him, watching as he bit his lip in an oddly nervous gesture. Copia finally sighed, reaching up to brush the rest of your tears away. "I'm not used to having something...nice."

"Nice?"

"Si, nice. You are nice and soft, uh delicate." When you snorted he dropped his forehead against yours again. "I haven't had something nice for a very long time."

You pressed your lips to his in a firm kiss, bringing your hands up to rest on his chest. When you started to pull away he followed you, one of his hands slipping into your hair and keeping you still while he deepened the kiss. His tongue swept into your mouth and you immediately brushed your own against it. It only lasted for a few more moments before he pulled away with a groan.

"Copia, don't stop."

"We should fill the canteens and head back, Principessa."

"No, you should kiss me again."

"You sound desperate," He leaned in close, his lips brushing against your ear. "Are you desperate for me?"

"Yes, yes Copia please just kiss me."

His lips were on yours immediately, both of you clinging to each other as he licked into your mouth. The bitter taste of his black makeup was on your tongue as it quickly disappeared from his lip. Copia maneuvered his hands down to your waist and started to guide you backwards. You weren't sure what his plan was and you didn't really care just as long as he kept kissing you.

When you felt a tree against your back you pulled away from his mouth with a gasp, letting your head rest against the bark. The sun had fallen behind the trees letting the moon highlight his features. He was gorgeous and right now he was yours. You wanted him so badly you didn't care that you were in the middle of the woods.

You reached up and batted his hat away, kissing him again when he started laughing. His hands wandered from your waist to the front of your pants and he made quick work of the buttons so he could start to tug them off. As soon as they were past your hips he cupped your sex, his gloved fingers warm through your undergarments. He pulled away from your lips, a deep growl rumbling in his chest as he started to rub you through the fabric.

"Wet for me already?"

You barely managed a nod, too focused on the pleasure he was pulling from you. When he pressed a finger at your entrance your knees became weak and he slipped one arm around you to keep you steady. You whimpered when he pulled his fingers away but it was only to quickly tug his glove off with his teeth, his fingers going back to your cunt when they were free. This time he slipped them underneath the thin fabric that was covering you, both of you groaning when one finger slipped right inside of you.

“This is why I miss that dress of yours. Or one of those skirts I saw you stash in your bag.” He huffed out a laugh but it turned into a moan when his fingers slid slower and stroked at your entrance. “So wet for me.”

“Copia please I-oh!” He pushed two fingers inside, slowly beginning to pump them in and out. You moved your head off his shoulder and kissed him, trying to convey what you wanted with your lips and tongue. When the hand at your back slid up into your hair you pulled away. “Take me, make me yours.”

Copia growled and surged forward to take your lips again. He moved his hand down lower so he could press his fingers even deeper, rubbing at you at just the right angle. With a cry you broke the kiss, looking down at his hand as it moved against you.

“Aren’t you already mine, Principessa?” You looked up into his eyes, unable to look away as he continued speaking to you in a low voice. “As soon as I can get you in a bed again you’ll be mine and no one else’s.”

His voice deepened as his fingers moved faster, the heel of his hand rubbing against your clit. Your back arched as the pressure built and Copia dropped his forehead to rest on your chest. You could hear him talking still but with the roaring of your blood in your ears you didn’t understand anything he was saying. Your hips started moving in time with his thrusts and finally, with one last stroke against your inner walls you came, collapsing against Copia and trusting that he would hold you up.

You arrived back to the camp facing knowing looks from everyone.

They were easy to ignore for the most part. It wasn't until Swiss had made a comment about being glad 'mom and dad had made up' that you had blushed fiercely. Thankfully Sunshine came to your defense, easily shoving Swiss over and promptly handing you a bowl of the stew Aether had made for dinner. It was nice and warm on your stomach and you quickly found yourself settled around the fire, your blanket wrapped around your shoulders.

Dewdrop had started idly playing the guitar again and you watched with interest as his fingers danced across the strings. Sunshine had been lounging next to him, looking almost half asleep. She caught your eyes on her and smiled before sitting up and leaning over to Dew. He shook his head a few times before you saw him finally nod. The random notes he had been playing suddenly changed into something more defined. You were about to ask what song it was when Sunshine began to sing along to his playing and you froze.

Her voice was beautiful.

“Can I have this dance, Principessa?”

You jumped, turning to see Copia holding a gloved hand out towards you. Your eyes wandering from the glove up to his face, raising an eyebrow when you saw the smug little smile he was sporting.

“I didn’t think cowboys knew how.”

He laughed, lowering his head almost bashfully towards the ground. His hand remained out though and he gently shook it to encourage you to take hold. You slipped your hand into his slowly, appreciating the warm leather against your skin once more. When he reached out with his other hand you eagerly grabbed onto that one too, yelping when he quickly pulled you up off the ground. You fell against his chest with a little grunt, scoffing when you saw his pleased grin.

This man didn’t know how to be bashful.

The grin stayed as he maneuvered you where he wanted you. He held onto one of your hands, pulled it to rest against his chest. His other hand rested at the small of your back. You placed your free hand on his shoulder, your fingers idly tapping along with the music. He moved you around expertly, his smile turning smug when he could see how surprised you were.

"How's this? Better than those boys from the city you danced with before?" You tilted your head up, pretending to think about it. When you took too long to answer he dug his fingers into your side and you squealed, trying to jump away unsuccessfully. "Admit it and I'll stop."

"Ok! Ok, fine!" You fell against his chest, trying to catch your breath. "Much better than those city boys."

He chuckled, murmuring something in Italian as he held you close. You let his words and the music wash over you, focusing on just being close to him. Dewdrop played a few more songs, Swiss even joining Sunshine to swing along with one. You caught Copia humming a few times but you didn't ask him about it, trusting that one day he'd sing for you. Whenever he was ready.

His arms stayed around you when the music stopped. It was like you were both under a spell and if either of you moved it would be broken. You found yourself wishing tomorrow wouldn't come, that you could stay on the road with him forever and never have to worry about meeting his brothers or anything else that would come after. Copia's lips brushed against your ear and you shivered, sighing when he held you closer.

"Will you promise me something?"

You pulled away enough so you could look at him, the firelight dancing across his face.

"Anything, Copia."

"Will you be here when I wake up?"

Secondo did his best to keep his gaze steady as he stared at Mr. Saltarian across the poker table.

“What should I call you?”

Saltarian’s voice was calm and in control as he idly sorted his chips into neat stacks in front of him.

“Secondo is fine.”

“Are you sure?” He raised an eyebrow as he glanced his way. “Wouldn’t you rather be called Papa?”

“I haven’t been a Papa for a very long time, as you know.”

“Ah yes, how could I forget.” Saltarian gave a brief nod to Aurora when she came by to refill his drink, watching her walk away for a moment before turning to Secondo again. “Bone Daddy?”

“Is there a reason you’re here?”

“Is my money no good here? That would be a shame, I’ve been meaning to visit your establishment for many years.”

“All money is good here, but I’ll pass on the cryptic game you're trying to play.” Secondo tipped back his drink, relishing the burn in his throat. “I’ll ask again. Why are you here?”

“Well it’s a funny story actually, if you’ll indulge me. You see a long time ago I thought I had rid myself of a few pests.” He took a casual look around the casino before looking back at Secondo. “But it seems like they have come back. Ghouls as far as the eye can see.”

“This is a casino. Nothing more.” Secondo nodded at Phantom to start dealing. The Ghoul’s nimble fingers were slightly shaky as he shuffled and began to flick cards to both men. “This isn’t a place of worship.”

“Oh but it is, Secondo. Everyone here is still worshiping and indulging in sin, just like you were before.”

“And here you are, indulging with us.”

“Oh! I am, aren’t I?” Saltarian let out a loud laugh that had Secondo gritting his teeth. “Apparently even I can’t resist the lure of the devil.”

“There is no devil here, Saltarian.”

“Just his mouthpieces? I’m sorry. Former mouthpieces.” The man finally turned his attention to his cards, pondering them for a moment before tossing a few chips towards the middle of the table. “You’re right though, we should get down to business. I’m typically not one to dawdle but I have to say that you intrigue me.”

“How is that?”

“Let’s take a look at where we are, The Ministry. As you call it. A truly magnificent building.” Saltarian smiled when Secondo called his bet and added his own chips to the pile. “I have to admit I’m impressed that you built this from nothing in such a short span of time.”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“Oh but you did, we all have choices don’t we? Isn’t that one of the things your church likes to preach?” When Secondo opened his mouth to correct him, Saltarian waved a hand around. “Ah sorry, liked to preach.”

“We had no home and barely any supplies. You and your men made sure of that.”

“And again that’s what impresses me so much! I took everything I could away from you, away from your brothers, but yet you survived.” Saltarian held up a finger towards Phantom and accepted the card tossed his way. “You know in another life we could have been business partners.”

Secondo let out a disbelieving laugh, leaning back in his chair as Saltarian’s words soaked in.

“Partners? What makes you say that?”

“I’ve always thought you had a keen mind, Secondo. Your church truly began to prosper under your reign.” He waved a hand in a circle by his head. “And this place just proves it. Where would your brothers be if it wasn’t for you?”

“You leave my brothers out of this.”

“Unfortunately I can’t, because we both know it’s because of one of them I’m even here to begin with.”

“Then you should take up your issues with him and leave the rest of us out of it.”

“You know I can’t do that. The Emeritus’s are a packaged deal.” Saltarian turned around in his chair, seemingly searching for something. “Where are your brothers by the way?”

“I do not know, I’m not their keeper.”

“Maybe not Primo’s, but I don’t think your younger brothers sneeze without you knowing about it.” He added some more chips to the pot before leaning back in his chair. “Where is Primo by the way?”

“I thought you knew?” He tensed when Saltarian smiled. “Primo was the smart one, he moved away from this all many years ago.”

“Yes, his cozy little cabin. My men and I rode by on the way here.” He smiled cruelly when Secondo froze. “Don’t worry, your brother is still alive. I’m not concerned with that old man.”

“Then who are you worried about?”

“Worried isn’t the word I’d use. Frustrated, annoyed, bothered…those are more in line with how I feel.”

“Terzo brings out those emotions in everyone.”

Saltarian’s loud bark of laughter had the surrounding tables instantly quieting down.

“I’d worry about Primo sneaking up on me before I lost sleep over getting bested by Sheriff Terzo. From the sounds of it Terzo hasn’t spent a moment sober in the last ten years.” He shook his head as he looked down at his cards. “It’s quite poetic really, if you think about it. The Morningstar falling from such a great height, just like his namesake.”

“Of course Terzo took your attack the hardest, he was our leader when it happened.”

“I think you’re wrong there. We both know who took it the hardest, just like we both know he’s the reason I’m here.” Saltarian suddenly seemed far less interested in his cards, setting them down on the table and fixing his stare on Secondo. “By the way, where is Cardinal Copia?”

“Just like I am no longer a Papa my brother is no longer a Cardinal.”

“I’m not so sure about that. I’m fairly certain he’s known as The Cardinal. The same man that has been a thorn in my side for years now.”

“The papers are the ones that come up with these ridiculous names.”

“Ah but this is very fitting, isn’t it? However, there’s no point arguing over a nickname, right Phantom?” The Ghoul froze when he was addressed, his eyes skittering back and forth between the two men in front of him. “In fact, let's stop playing this game altogether.”

“Yes, let’s.” He caught Phantom’s eyes and jerked his head towards the bar. The Ghoul’s chair scraped loudly against the floor as he shoved it back and practically ran from the table. Secondo looked back at Saltarian with narrowed eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’ve let your brother get away with many things over the years. I’ve let him steal from me, destroy my property, kill my men…it was amusing, for a time. I enjoyed the idea of him feeling like he was making a difference. Like he was actually affecting my business ventures.”

“And that’s changed?”

“It has.” Saltarian idly tapped his fingers on the table as he considered his next words. “Did you hear about my engagement?”

“I saw something in the papers about it. Was I supposed to send you a gift?”

“Oh no, nothing of the sort. She’s a lovely girl, my fiancé, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose so, yes.” Secondo shrugged, not caring that his exasperation was showing. “She’s not really my type.”

“Nor mine. Girls like her are a dime a dozen though and considering the real reason behind our engagement I didn’t feel as bad choosing her.”

“The real reason?”

“To lure your brother out of course. To get him to make a spectacularly idiotic decision. One fueled by wrath.” He smirked at Secondo then before continuing. “Lust too, if I believe the words of a man I hired to try to get her back.”

“He wasn’t successful?”

“Not successful in the way he thought he was supposed to be. But they were able to share with me some things they saw that have actually altered my original plan.”

"Mr. Saltarian I have a business to run so if you could get to the fucking point I’d appreciate it.”

“I don’t really need a wife, nor do I want one. What I wanted to do was exert power over someone that was failing to pay back their loan as promised.” Saltarian finished his drink, setting the glass back down onto the wood with a firm thunk. “But now instead of something pretty to have on my arm at whatever boring ball I’m required to attend I have something better.”

Secondo gripped the edge of the table, his leather gloves creaking from the force of it. He knew where Saltarian was going with this. It all made sense now that it was being laid out before him. A sense of dread began to build inside of him, something he hadn’t felt sense that night ten years ago.

Something he hadn’t felt sense he had heard the screaming start.

“Which is what?” He forced his fingers to relax and tried to calm his heart down. “What is better?”

“Now I have what I wanted all those years ago.” Saltarian’s smile was the same cruel one he wore the night of the attack. “The end of the Church of Emeritus.”

He tried to keep his breathing even while he met Saltarian’s gaze, tried to keep his posture relaxed as his mind raced over what the man had said.

“You already ended it years ago.”

“No, the true end will be when you and your brothers are dead, when your Ghouls and Ghoulettes are dead and when everything your family has touched here has turned to ash.” He ran a finger around the rim of his empty glass, an almost regretful look appearing on his face. “It’s a pity that I’ll lose something in the process but I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”

At his last comment Secondo straightened up, leaning forward as he stared Saltarian down.

“What do you mean?” When Saltarian stood up Secondo followed, pushing his chair behind him and not caring that all eyes were on the two men. “What the fuck do you mean?”

“How do you think the public will react when my dear, innocent fiancé is murdered by The Cardinal? It won’t be pretty, Secondo.”

“Copia wouldn’t hurt that girl and you know it.” Secondo stalked around the table, ignoring how the men Saltarian brought with him tensed and placed their hands near their weapons. He knew his Ghouls were doing the same. “He’ll get her to you in one piece.”

“No Secondo, he won’t.” The man’s grin was unnerving, so unnerving Secondo didn’t even flinch when Saltarian reached out and slapped a hand on his shoulder. He could smell the whisky on his breath when the man leaned close so only Secondo could hear his next words. “She’s going to die in your brother’s arms and after I pin her murder on your church the rest of you will die not long after.”

Go to Chapter 11: Confessions

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