#hasn't been wrong yet so *knocks on wood*

[say-hwaet]

That's the Way it Is

Chapter Six: To Dance With Danger, Part I Previous Chapters: V IV III II I Word Count: ~10,600 words Warnings: Mature themes, violence, sexual innuendo, language Summary: Desperate to retrieve some memories, you have asked Dutch to give you a job...a dangerous one. What do you suppose his answer will be? And regardless, will you even listen?

“No.”

No? After hearing Dutch give a speech about everyone carrying their weight, he is telling you no?

“Why?”

Dutch waves off your question, as though that will be enough to dismiss it. You feel something in your chest rise up, anger perhaps, but it aches with disappointment. “You’ve been saying how your memories ain’t fully back, yet, how am I to expect you to carry on like you used to?” You want to protest, but he holds out his hand. “It’s late, anyway. Why don’t you join the other women and finish up the chores before the day’s over? They could use your help.”

You clench your fists and bite your inner cheek. “Fine.” And you turn to walk away. 

You have to do something. Danger seems to be the thing that helps trigger memories faster. That cure you drank, while easing up your headache, hasn’t done anything else. 

Your stomach is growling. You’re hungry. You actually didn’t eat yesterday and have had little to nothing today. As you make more distance between you and Dutch’s tent, you see John and Reverend Swanson getting their helpings of Pearson’s stew. 

You haven’t really spoken to them much, maybe conversing with new people will be a good distraction for now. 

Bolstered with the energy from your frustration, you walk over to them. 

And as you approach, you hear Kieran, as he pleads with John over something. 

“Shut up, O’Driscoll, I ain’t talkin’ to you!” the scar-faced man barks. 

“I-I just wanna go into the bushes! My teeth are gonna fall out if I don’t relieve myself…!”

Reverend Swanson, his half-lidded eyes looking at you, skirts out a hello. “Hell-o, missssss…”

You wave half-heartedly, unsure if he can even see you clearly. But announcing your presence gets Kieran’s attention and he looks eagerly at you. “Oh! Miss! Can you please help me?”

“She ain’t gonna go watch you take a piss in the woods, you idiot…!” John bristles. 

Kieran’s eyes widen more than they already have and he quickly shakes his head. So fast, it’s giving you a headache just looking at him. “No! No! That’s not what I—!”

John sets the ladle down and steps near Kieran, his fist raised. “I’ve gotta mind to knock you out, O’Driscoll, then you’ll really relieve yourself!”

Kieran, unable to defend himself with his hands, merely leans back into the tree, turning his head and closing his eyes. “No, mister! Please!”

“John!” you yell and John stops mid-swing. He turns to look at you and for a moment, you can see his eyes soften. 

“What?”

“What’s wrong with letting him…?” You gesture flippantly towards the bushes. “You really think any of us want to have urine and bile right here in camp?”

He scrunches his nose. Maybe not for the idea, but for the words you chose to use. “Kit…”

“I’m serious.” You point to Kieran’s trembling figure. “Look at him. He’s a little twig, this slaboch.” You chortle. “Even if you weren’t armed to the teeth, you really think he can take you?”

John’s expression shifts, a mix of annoyance layered with reluctant admission. He lets out a grunt, his fist lowering as he glares at Kieran who still hasn't dared to open his eyes. “Fine,” he mutters under his breath, stepping back and giving Kieran some room.

Kieran exhales deeply, leaning forward and putting his weight on his bound wrists. “Thank you,” he sighs.

“Don’t thank me, yet,” you say and you step closer to him, an idea brewing in your head. “I think you owe me, don’t you?”

He looks up at you, surprised. “Don’t tell me you’re like the rest of ‘em?”

You feign insult, resting a hand on your chest. “I’m deeply affected.”

John snickers. “No, you ain’t.”

You grin and look back at Kieran. “We’re outlaws, Kieran, at least that is what I’ve come to find since I’ve returned.” You lean close to him, showing your teeth as you smile. “And I think, most here figure you are guilty by association with the O’Driscolls. Men who killed Annabelle and Mr. Adler, among many others.”

Kieran shakes his head. “I didn’t kill nobody! Like I told you, I only ran with them for a few months!”

“Then it shouldn’t be too difficult to tell us where they are…” You feel John’s eyes on you, awestruck while also grudgingly impressed by your cunning.

"You don't understand, they'll kill me if I—"

"But you're dead either way if you don't," you interrupt, your voice dropping to a whisper that carries the weight of finality. "Help us, and maybe there's a way out for you."

Kieran looks at you, his eyes shifting as he wrestles with the choice you gave. It doesn’t help that John, his face intimidatingly scarred, glares at him with a wolfish stare. “I…”

“Start talkin’!” John demands.

“Alright! Alright! I know where O’Driscoll’s holed up…!” You and John remain quiet, eyeing him closely. You find yourself starting at his eyes, looking for just the slight twitch or change. “He’s waiting at Six Point Cabin.”

That doesn’t ring any bells. You back away and look at John. “Do you know where that is?”

He nods. “Yeah, sis. I know the general area.”

Sis. Is that how John sees you? You remember Arthur had mentioned it was only you three for a while before anyone else showed up. Is that how Arthur sees you, too? Is that why people think you are close?

It makes sense. People can get those sentiments confused. Arthur could just as easily care for you like a sister as much as a love interest, albeit in a different way.

“I’ll take you there myself!” Kieran offers. “I never liked him, less than I like you folks.” His eyes soften a bit when he looks at you. Perhaps it was only because of your kindness that he was even willing to give up the location so easily.

That settles that, then. You smile softly, glad to have made headway on a mission of your own. You pat Kieran’s shoulder, in the same manner you see the men do with each other. “Good.” You turn to John. “You mind escorting him into the woods? I think any longer and we might have an issue on our hands.”

John chuckles, nodding his head as he reaches for his hunting knife. Cutting Kieran’s wrists free from the tree, he makes quick work at binding them again, before pointing the barrel of his revolver in his back to urge him forward. “Get movin’, my stew is gettin’ cold.”

You watch them both go, and you begin to feel the headache return. Normally unwelcomed, you begin to feel happy, and elated. You grin from ear to ear, and close your eyes to welcome a new memory.

“Give me that back, John Marston!” You are running barefoot in the grass, running after the fifteen-year-old boy who has your journal. You’ve been practicing your writing, and while it is far from perfect, you’ve made great strides in poetry.

And now, to shatter any veil of privacy, the muddy, scrappy-faced boy has pilfered your journal and has started reading its contents aloud.

At least, what he can read, given his own lessons of reading are still in progress.

He looks back over his shoulder, grinning as he holds up the journal in front of him. “I whu—whu—wait for luh—luh-ve love! Oh, what is love…?”

“John, that’s enough!” Your voice cracks slightly with frustration and embarrassment as you close the distance between you and John. The grass beneath your feet feels cool and slightly damp, a testament to the lushness of the area where the gang has set up camp. You're close enough now to grab a corner of the journal, but John, nimble and teasing as he is, leaps away. “Gotta catch me first, sis!" His laughter peppers the air, a sound both infuriating and delightfully carefree.

You give chase, your heart pounding with a mix of anger and exhilaration. The gang's camp disappears behind you as you both thread through trees and hop over logs, the forest around becoming a blur of green and brown. John's laughter rings out ahead of you, a beacon guiding your furious chase.

Suddenly, he stumbles, his foot catching on an exposed root. With a triumphant yelp, you leap forward, seizing the journal from his outstretched hand as he tumbles into the ground. “Oof!”

You laugh victorious, holding your journal close to your chest. “Serves you right!”

You hear a soft, low laugh behind you. Turning slowly, you look up to see Arthur, mounted on Boadicea.

He’s back after riding off for a few days. “Hey, Kit.”

You smile, tucking hair behind your ear. “Hello, yourself.”

He juts his chin over to the fallen thief, as he rises from the ground, rubbing his backside. “Keepin’ him out of trouble?”

You chuckle. “He’s keeping me on my toes.”

Arthur swings down from Boadicea, his movements smooth and controlled. His eyes, that striking shade of blue, scrutinize the scene before him, lingering on your flushed face. "Looks like you could use a hand," he says with a chuckle, approaching you with an easy stride.

"You think?" you reply, your tone teasing, the remnants of your chase still coloring your cheeks.

Arthur's smile broadens, his gaze softening as he takes in your disheveled appearance—hair tousled and eyes sparkling with mischief. "Definitely," he replies, coming to stand close enough that you can smell the leather and earth on him, evidence of his long journey from wherever it was he came from. He’s been like this for about a year, gone for a few days, coming back with such relaxed posture, it is as though he travels to a place of respite.

You long for a place like that.

He turns and looks at John, a gleam in his eye.

"John," Arthur's voice holds a hint of reprimand mingled with amusement as he nods toward the journal in your hands. "You oughta know better than to take what ain't yours, especially from Kit."

John brushes dirt off his shirt and grins sheepishly. "Aw, I was just funnin'!”

Arthur shakes his head. “It seems that you ain’t as sorry as you should be.” His body tenses, and you can’t help but eye the muscles in his legs as he readies himself for a chase.

John’s eyes go wide and he turns to run.

Suddenly, Arthur takes your hand. “Let’s get him, Kit!”

The thrill of the chase pulses through you as Arthur pulls you along, your feet kicking up grass as you sprint after John. The late afternoon sun casts long shadows across the dry landscape, making your game of tag seem like a dance with the golden hour light.

You feel alive, your heart pounding in your chest not just from the physical exertion but from the closeness of Arthur. Each breath you take is mixed with the sage-like scent of the high desert and the warm, earthy smell of his presence. It's exhilarating, running side by side with him, a wild joy that makes you forget the pains of your past and the uncertainty of your future.

You open your eyes, and find yourself clinging onto a nearby tree. You don’t know how long you’ve been reliving your memory, but the sun has completely gone down. It’s dark and it seems as though you have wandered far into the woods.

You look around, unsure as to where you are. You try to see if you can find your way back to camp. A firelight, perhaps, but you can’t see none.

You remember Mary Beth’s warning. You worry that you are lost.

You aren’t an expert in navigation, and without the light of the moon, you have no way of assessing exactly where you are.

The next time you choose to give into a memory, perhaps you should tie yourself to a tree?

You exhale loudly, frustrated at your predicament.

That’s when you hear a thud, thud, thud, thud. The rustling of grasses and the snapping of twigs has you startled. You hold your breath, hoping to remain still and under detection of whatever is approaching. You lean into the tree to support your posture, and your heart pounds fiercely against your ribcage. You recall the stories that drift through camp, of wild animals and outlaws lurking in the darkness, and for a moment, fear seizes your very bones.

Then, you see a light. A light of a lantern, and it illuminates the head of a horse and the arm that holds it.

The glow falls on you, and you squint to help your eyes.

That’s when a voice breaks through the night. "Kit? Is that you?"

The relief that floods through you is immediate and overwhelming. Though, you do not recognize the voice. It is gentle, sharp, but it speaks with a clear energy, a budding excitement.

You aren’t sure what to say, except to call back. “Yes, it’s me.” Your voice trembles slightly with a mix of fear and relief. Pushing yourself off the tree, you step towards the light.

“My God…” the voice says. “Arthur was right…!”

You blink, both from surprise and from the light. Then as you let the sound of the voice enter your mind, it does become familiar.

Good work, Kit. If you hadn’t done that, there would have been more to deal with in there.

You speak his name, hoping that it will confirm your suspicion. “H-Hosea…?”

You hear the man dismount and calmly approach you. Lowering the light just so, you see his face.

Yes, it is an older image from your memory.

And you can see the shine in his eyes. “It is good to see you, my dear.” Hosea steps closer, the light of his lantern casting warm glows on the rough bark of trees and the underbrush, creating a soft halo around him. His familiar deep-set eyes hold a mixture of joy and disbelief. "You're alive," he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion.

You nod, your chest feeling tight with an emotion that you understand to be joy of seeing him again. You wish you had more to remember, but you are still happy for this reunion. “I…got lost.”

“Yes, and Arthur found you.”

You shake your head, smiling. “No, I mean that I wandered too far away from camp.” And you tuck your chin. “I got carried away.”

Hosea chuckles softly, the sound rich with warmth that banishes the cold around you. "That sounds just like you, Kit," he says, stepping forward and gently placing the lantern down on the ground beside him. His hands are slightly trembling as he reaches out, as if unsure whether you're truly real or just an apparition. Sensing the welcoming gesture, you go to him and let yourself be wrapped in his embrace.

It does feel familiar, as though it was once a source of comfort in great pain. “You always liked to wander off the beaten track,” he whispers, his breath warm against your ear. “But I’m glad you’re back now.”

You pull slightly away, looking up at him with a mix of confusion and yearning for truth. “Hosea, what happened to me? After the ferry...?” Your voice trails off and you look down. “I…I don’t remember anything.”

He nods. “Yes, I know. Arthur told me your memories are gone.”

You lift your head, and he lets you out of his embrace. “They are coming back! Bits and pieces, like how I remembered you…”

Hosea blinks. “Me?”

“Well, Arthur did tell me first about you, but I had a memory…” You turn around and take a few steps forward, not too far from the light, before you turn around. “The Bank of Lee and Hoyt.”

After a moment, Hosea grins. “Our first bank robbery.”

Your eyes widen. “That’s what it all was?”

Hosea nods. “Yes, Kitka. That was your first heist with us. You were exceptional, even then.” He pauses, his expression turning somber. “After the ferry, things went bad fast. The Pinkertons came down on us hard. We thought we lost you in the chaos.”

Your heart drops at his words, and the gnawing void in your memory seems to grow deeper, and hungrier. "Lost me?" you echo softly, feeling the weight of his words settle like stones in your stomach.

Hosea’s face softens, lines deepening around his eyes with a mix of pain and relief. "Yes, Kitka. When we regrouped, we noticed that you weren’t there. Dutch said you…”

“Drowned.”

“Yes.”

“But I didn’t. I was shot in the back.”

Hosea’s eyes widen. “Shot?” he repeats, his voice catching on the word. “Does Arthur know this?”

You shake your head, feeling the confusion stirring a storm inside your mind. “I did tell him, but I don’t think anyone knew. I…I woke up in a doctor’s office days later, and everything prior was just... gone.”

Hosea runs a hand over his face. “Do you know what kind of bullet?”

“No. The doctor spared me those details.”

Hosea nods and after a moment, bends down to pick up his lantern. “Let's get back to camp. I think I need to rest and think about this.”

You nod. You are getting tired, and want a break from the headaches.

Riding behind Hosea, you both head back to camp. Everyone has gone to rest except for those on guard duty. It doesn’t take long for you to slip into your bed roll.

As the night deepens and the stars paint a canvas of endless possibilities overhead, you can't help but let your thoughts drift to Arthur. You recall his laughter, a sound rough and warm like worn leather; his eyes glinting with mischief or darkening with stormy emotions. The memories are incomplete, fragmented by the trauma of your past, yet they flicker in and out of your consciousness like fireflies on a summer night. Arthur's image haunts the edges of your slumber, the pieces of him stitched into the fabric of dreams that dance just out of reach.

You remember the way his hand felt in yours that night after the bushwhacking—strong, yet gentle, filled with a tenderness that you couldn’t place. You suddenly recall the heat of his breath, a kiss against your forehead, one laden with fear and hope mingled together. 

You open your eyes wide, gasping for air, and you feel weighted with a bittersweet ache.

“Kitka…?” you hear Mary Beth’s soft voice whisper to you in the night. “Are you alright?”

You sigh, feeling terrible for waking her. “Yes, I’m—I’m fine.”

She is quiet for a moment, but finally gives you a “Alright, goodnight,” before turning over and going back to sleep.

You lay back down and try to make yourself more comfortable, and finally, you let sleep overtake you.

***

That headache last night must have been a doozy, you wake up with a sore head that when you sneeze, you feel like someone took a beer bottle and just threaded you upside the head. 

“You’re finally awake,” you hear Abigail say. She is walking by your tent, carrying a pail of water from rain collection. “You must have been up late.”

You rub your eyes. “I was out walking in the woods.”

She chuckles. “What else is new?”

You smile and shrug. “Hosea said the same thing to me last night.”

She nods, her eyes falling on her son as he sits with Tilly at the nearby table. “You’ve always been like that, for as long as I’ve known you.”

You feel something in your stomach, a budding question that you hope to have answered. “How long have you known me?”

She looks back at you, her eyes softening. “Sometimes I forget that you don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

Then there is a spark in her eye as her frown turns into a smirk. “You must have also forgotten that you rarely ever apologize.”

You blink. “I don’t?”

“Well, when you’ve done somethin’ wrong, you’re quick to own up to it, but you’ve never been emotionally apologetic if that makes sense.” She eyes your expression and follows with an explanation. “It’s like, there are those people that apologize for apologizin’ too much.” And she chuckles. “You weren’t one of them types.”

You look into your lap, glancing at your dark hair as it rests over your shoulder. “Oh.”

“I’ve known you for about five years.” Then she looks at her boy again, a loving affection evident in her smile. “It weren’t long after I came here that I had Jack.”

You nod, Arthur has already filled you in on the details as to who Jack’s father is. “John is good to him?”

That’s when you see her frown. “He ain’t anythin’ to him.”

You think back on your memory of chasing John through the woods, the joy and excitement still lingering. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

She looks at you, her face laden with bitterness. “Well, it is.”

You want to say sorry, but after what she had just told you, you swallow it down. “Maybe I should give him a good beating.”

She snorts. “Good luck with that.”

“I have a feeling he respects me, in a sister sort of way.”

She nods, her brow relaxing but for only a moment. “He did seem to miss you when you was dead.”

Her comment sends a shiver through you, that word—dead. It's hard to reconcile with the notion that everyone thought that you were gone, yet here you are, breathing and feeling and puzzling through the fog of lost memories. "Was it hard?" Your voice is barely a whisper, afraid of the answer yet desperate for it. “I didn’t mean to cause anyone grief.”

Abigail rolls her shoulder. “We ain’t a stranger to death. Davey and Jenny died the same day.”

You nod. “Yes, I know.”

“But…with you…” She looks at you, her eyes softening. “Jack cried the longest time. I couldn’t comfort him enough. Kept sayin' he missed his 'Aunt Kitka'. Broke my heart to see him like that."

You touch your chest, feeling a warmth spread through you at the mention of Jack considering you to be family. You remember hearing him call you that when you first got here, and now you are beginning to understand why. "You’re like my family.”

Abigail nods, brushing back some loose strands of her hair. “Yeah, we are.”

Her words settle over you like a comforting blanket in the chill of a desert night, and for just a moment, the sharp edges of Blackwater's events, now a harsh reality, soften. "I want to thank you for being patient with me." Your voice is threaded with a genuine, albeit brittle appreciation. “I want to remember the things we shared, things we’ve talked about…”

Abigail gives you a knowing look, one of empathy. “Don’t worry too much over it. If your memories come back, they do. If they don’t, that don’t mean we care about you any less.” She bends over and pats your hand gently, a gesture so motherly that it catches you off guard. "You take your time, Kitka. These things, they can't be rushed." Abigail stands, smoothing her skirt before offering you a small smile. "You should get dressed, ol’ Miss Grimshaw will be on your hide before too long.”

You smile, and she returns to her work, leaving you to change.

***

“Okay, you go on ahead and get yourself a gun,” John tells you as you dismount. Kieran sits on the back of Old Boy, John’s mount, and Bill sits on Brown Jack. “And then this O’Driscoll will take us to the hideout.”

You nod and give Odliv one good pat before turning in the direction of the gun store. You three, and Kieran, managed to slip out of camp without Dutch noticing, as he seemed pretty occupied having a tete-a-tete with Micah. He’s been recovering like a lazy no-nothing in camp since sustaining some decent head injuries, and you can’t help but wish that it rendered the bastard an amnesiac instead of you.

Your steps make that disgusting squish squish as you walk across the mud, and you avoid the odd stares of men and women as you walk past them. Well, gee. You suppose not many women out here are seen wearing patched-up skirts and wide-brimmed hats. Nobody around here knows of your background, so that can’t be the reason they are staring.

You walk up the creaking, wooden steps to the gun store and let yourself inside.

The bell above the door jingles softly as you enter, announcing your presence to the gunsmith who looks up with a raised eyebrow as he stands behind a counter. He's a wiry man, middle-aged and dark-haired, with sun spots that line the bridge of his nose.

"Can I help you, miss?" His voice is soft and deep, with a friendly air but also representative of the store he maintains. Masculine.

“Yes,” you begin, trying to sound confident. “I am looking for a rifle.”

Your request seems to catch the man off guard for a moment, but he recovers swiftly, setting aside the cloth he was using to polish a set of pistols. “A rifle, you say? What kind are you looking for? Something light? Or maybe something with a bit more kick?”

You ponder his question, memories still eluding you on this subject. You seem to be familiar with weaponry, given your instinctual response during the bandit attack. However, you seemed to be drawn to a certain type of weapon…

“You got anything with explosives?” you ask, and seeing the reaction on his face, you feel instant regret.

The gunsmith’s eyes widen just a fraction, and he pauses, the cloth in his hands forgotten. For a heartbeat, it's as though the air between you thickens with suspicion. "Explosives? Well, now, that's not exactly standard fare for hunting or protection," he remarks cautiously, his formerly relaxed demeanor shifting subtly. "Uh, what exactly is your husband planning to hunt with something as dangerous as that?"

You blink and realize that you are still wearing your mother’s ring. You still can’t bring yourself to take it off. “Oh, I’m not married. It’s for me.”

He seems to freeze for a moment and clears his throat. “You want to hunt with explosives?”

You realize your mistake, the remnant of your expertise, and a hint of your past life creeping into the conversation unwittingly. "No, nothing like that," you quickly cover up, an uneasy chuckle escaping your lips. "I was just jesting. What I meant was something more along the lines of a rifle for... protection. Something sturdy."

The tension in the air slightly eases as the shopkeeper resumes his task of polishing the pistols, though his eyes still hold a trace of doubt. "Protection, huh?" he muses, and he turns around to look through select cases. After a minute, he opens one of the glass doors, and grabs a rifle, with a grey-stained maple stock and blue steel. He places it gently on the counter between you, the metal parts gleaming under the shop's dim lighting. "This here is a Springfield. A favorite among settlers and lawmen alike. Reliable, accurate, and reasonably powerful without being too cumbersome to handle," he explains, his fingers grazing the wooden stock reverently. “I can also add a scope on it, good for hunting those quick-footed pronghorn from long distances.”

You nod, your interest piqued despite your lingering discomfort from the earlier gaffe. You lean closer to inspect the rifle, your fingers tracing the smooth curve of its stock, a familiarity in its weight and balance slowly seeping back into your memory. "It feels right," you admit quietly, more to yourself than to the gunsmith. “I’ll take it.” And you rest it on the counter. “Do you have any handguns?”

At this he grins. “I think I have something that you might be interested in…” And bending down behind the counter, you hear some rustling and the closing of a wooden box. He rises back up and rests a large handgun on the table.

You feel a twinge in your head, an image of Charles grinning at you as he hands the very same gun to you.

Sure wish I had mine looking like yours. You ought to show me how to make that incendiary buckshot…

You reach to your temple and rub it softly as you eye the gun. “That’s a nice looking sawed-off.”

The gunsmith nods, his eyes flickered with surprise. “Yes, I’m sorry, I thought you didn’t know your guns.”

You chuckle softly. “I guess there’s a lot I don’t know about myself either,” you reply, the wry smile fading as the words sink in, swirling with the fragmented flashes of your past that occasionally pierce through the fog of your amnesia.

The gunsmith watches you for a moment, his expression softening. "Well, if you’re interested, I can cut you a deal and throw you in some extra ammo.”

You try to add up the amount in your head, the numbers coming easily to you. You figure this is from the practice of working with Strauss, selling those cures for the last few years. “Well…”

“I’ll throw in a gun belt.”

You grin and nod your head. “Deal.”

The gunsmith nods, polishing up the Springfield and the sawed-off shotgun one last time with a practiced ease. As he does so, he continues to chat, asking you about your plans in Valentine, careful not to pry too deeply but clearly curious about the new face in town with an unusual interest in firearms.

You make small talk, keeping your answers vague and noncommittal. As he hands over the shining weapons, the gunsmith offers a friendly piece of advice, “Just be careful out there. Valentine attracts all sorts, and not all have good intentions.”

“Thank you,” you say, swinging the Springfield rifle over your shoulder and holstering the sawed-off comfortably in your holster at your hip. “I’ll keep that in mind.” And you step out of the store.

You see John and Bill across the way, and they haven’t noticed you come out yet. Given a window of more time, you take the chance to head in the direction of the general store. You hope that maybe your orders from the catalogue might have come in, even though it has only been a few days.

You walk up the steps and just as you open the door to the store, you hear something as you come in.

“You don’t understand…!” A shrill cry fills your ears, stopping you in your tracks. You look ahead and see the woman you saw the last time you were here. You think back and then you remember her name.

Mrs. Downes.

She looks distraught as she points to something in Amos’s hand. “I heard what that German said when he was talking to you! That bottle could cure my husband!”

You feel a chill up your spine. She’s talking about Strauss. About your cures. That snake oil you’re trying to sell.

Your breath catches in your throat as memories collide, each piece of your past jostling for space in your mind. You remember Strauss and the cures, how often he used sweet words to mask the bitterness of deception, though benevolent your tinctures are. The sight of Mrs. Downes, her desperation clawing its way out through her voice, tugs at you. And you can’t help but feel something for this desperate woman.

Amos holds a bottle close to himself, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Downes, but it was like I told you a few days ago: you have too much money owed to me from your other purchases, and I can’t extend credit to you anymore until that balance is paid.”

Her hand trembles as she holds it out toward the bottle. “But my husband needs it…!” Her lip trembles. “He is very sick.”

“Take him to the doctor, like I told you! He might be able to prescribe something better for him.”

Then suddenly, she snaps. “Dr. Howard doesn’t have a cure for Tuberculosis…!”

Her voice echoes with despair, reverberating against the walls of the general store, stark and raw in its desperation. You stand there, rooted to the spot, your own heart hammered by memories of sickness and helplessness. Antek, your brother, sick and pale for months, miserably clinging onto you as though you were the only thing that could save him.

You close your eyes tightly, and a single tear trickles down your cheek. You feel the weight of that memory this time, and since you have discovered it once before, it doesn’t cause your head any pain. But that does not mean that there isn’t an ache. You exhale sharply, and while not intended, it alerts both Amos and Mrs. Downes of your presence. 

Mrs. Downes's eyes, red-rimmed and swollen, meet yours across the space. There is a sudden recognition in her eyes, as they widen and her mouth goes agape. “It’s you…!” She hesitates but takes a step forward. “You make the medicine…!”

You are unsure what to do, and you’re tempted to quickly turn around and leave the store before you are pulled into something you might regret. But you see how her despair turned to hope, and you can’t bring yourself to walk away. 

Amos looks at you apologetically, his brow pinched with a mix of embarrassment and frustration. “I’m sorry, Ms. Doe, I’ll be right with you.” And he tries to get Mrs. Downes’ attention. “Now, ma’am—”

But Mrs. Downes cuts him off, her attention still turned on you. “Please,” she cries, her hands now clasped as though in prayer. “Have pity on us.”

Your brow furrows. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

She takes a step toward you, the creaking floorboards beneath her feet accentuating the uncomfortable feeling the tension gives you. “Your cure could save my husband…Just one bottle? I—I’ll make it up to you. I just…”

You want to tell her that it won’t work for that. You want to tell her the truth. It is mild, but good enough to make one think it is working. You know that now. You remember the herbs you use. It isn’t meant for anything chronic. 

But what do you do? Risk ruining the operation Strauss has crafted here? That will only create a trail that others are bound to follow? Leading them to the gang and jeopardizing their safety. 

You can’t do that.

You glance around the sunlit store, feeling the weight of their gaze. Amos shifts uncomfortably, clearly wanting to resolve this situation without further complications. You sigh softly, a sound almost lost amidst the soft rustling of goods and the distant murmur of the bustle just outside. The decision sits heavy on your shoulders, a burden made tangible by the desperate hope in Mrs. Downes’s eyes.

“You have my sympathy, Mrs. Downes,” you begin, your voice unsteady with the weight of your own secrets. “But Tuberculosis is—”

“I know how bad it is…!” she cries. “But your medicine could save him.”

“How far gone is it?” you ask. “If it is too far along, the cure might ease some pain, give him a brief respite, but it won’t save him,” you explain gently.

You see the surprise on Amos’s face. “But it restored your memory?”

You need to provide an explanation. “Amnesia is different than a near-death disease.”

Amos nods, still puzzled but accepting your words as the final judgment on the matter. Mrs. Downes’s shoulders slump, the faint glimmer of hope in her eyes dimming as she absorbs your explanation. “I still want it.”

Amos blinks. “Mrs. Downes, you can’t afford it!”

You can see that you won’t be able to talk her out of it. “Give her a bottle, please, Mr. Sims.”

Amos looks at you. “What?”

“They’re my cures, and I can choose how I want to sell them.”

“But what about your associate Mr. Kilgore, don’t you think you ought to consult him?”

You feel yourself bristle at this. While he means well, you find it irritating that he assumes you can’t make your own decisions.

You stare hard at Amos, your gaze firm and unyielding. "Mr. Sims, I appreciate your concern, but this is my decision. Mr. Kilgore trusts my judgment in these matters," you say with a quiet authority that silences any further protests he might have.

Reluctantly, Amos pulls the bottle back from behind the counter and sets it on the counter. “Here.”

Mrs. Downes reaches for it with trembling hands, her eyes wet with unshed tears. "Thank you," she whispers, her voice choked with gratitude. She clasps the bottle close to her chest as if it's a precious lifeline.

As she turns to leave, you feel a pang of sympathy mixed with doubt. You wonder how long it will prolong the inevitable, and you wonder if she will end up blaming you for it. You hope that you don’t stick around long enough to find out.

Once the door clicks closed, Amos again clears his throat. “Now, how can I help you?”

***

After getting some food for the journey, you step out of the general store. Your order from the catalogue hasn’t come in yet, so you will, unfortunately, have to come back into town another day. You walk along the muddied street of Valentine and make your way back to Bill, John, and Kieran.

John sees you first, narrowing his eyes at you. “What were you doin’ over there?”

You mount Odliv, readjusting the rifle on your back. “Got some food.”

“Wish I had known that,” Bill grumbles. “Would have had you get me some pomade.”

John casts a disturbed gaze at Bill. “Are you for real?”

Bill’s cheeks turn red. “What?! It makes my hair look good.”

John snorts. “Sure…like as if that’s what—”

“Oh-kay…How about we move along?” You interject, not eager to hear this conversation continue.

John nods, grateful, and elbows Kieran as he sits behind him. “You ready to do this, Kieran?”

Kieran nods, his voice shaky. “Y-yes, sir.”

John backs up Old Boy, and you and Bill follow him out as he rides through Valentine. “You better not try anything. You will not make it out alive if you do.”

As the three of you trot along the dusty pathway, the mid-afternoon sun casts long shadows over the land, giving it an almost melancholic feel. The air is filled with the scent of dry earth and the distant sound of cattle. You ride in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts until John breaks the stillness as he asks Kieran a question. “What is Colm doin’ hidin’ out at Six Point Cabin, anyway?”

Kieran shifts uncomfortably, his eyes darting around as if the answer might be lurking in the brush beside them. "Colm mentioned it's because the law's been tightenin' the noose in Strawberry. They have to keep moving. Colm's layin' low, gatherin' strength."

You glance over at John, catching a hint of worry flickering in his eyes before he looks away, focusing on the trail ahead. "Makes sense," he mutters, his voice carrying a note of unease. Surely Colm’s gang isn’t the only one feeling the pinch. 

Bill, riding up beside you, leans towards you and speaks in a low tone. "You think Dutch can handle Colm this time?" His question hangs in the air like the dust kicked up by your horses' hooves.

This time? You think back to what Mary Beth had said about the O’Driscoll’s. You imagine you yourself had encountered them at one point, but of course, that has eluded you for now. But you can sense things aren’t the same as the glory days. Lately, Dutch's fiery speeches, his eyes blazing with determination, also add a touch of desperation. You look at Bill and nod slowly, more out of hope than conviction. "He has to," you say quietly, your words nearly swallowed by the wind.

“Colm ain’t much different than you folks,” Kieran bravely says, and of course, this gathers a negative reception.

“We ain’t nothin’ like Colm…!” John snaps. “You know nothin’ about who we are and what we do.”

Bill, with his usual grim humor, chuckles darkly. "We may be outlaws, but we ain't no cold-hearted murderers like them O'Driscolls."

The conversation drops as the group continues riding through the stretching shadows of the evening. The silence is oppressive, heavy with thoughts unspoken and plans yet to be fully realized. You sense the danger, and this excites you. Danger is what you are after. Danger is what will get you closer to finding out who you are.

You come up on a grassy hill, with a cluster of trees up ahead.

“It’s just up this hill,” Kieran explains.

John nods and takes charge. “We should leave the horses here.” And just before the top of the hill, you three stop your horses and dismount. “Kit, you make sure you got your guns. I’m lookin’ forward to seein’ you use them.”

Bill chortles. “Yeah, I can’t wait to see Colm go up in a blaze of glory…!”

Blaze. He must mean the incendiary buckshot.

But, alas, you have yet to relearn how to make it.

John watches Kieran as he dismounts, quickly grabbing him by the arm and pointing his revolver into his side. “You’re comin’ with us, and you better not try anythin’.”

Kieran raises his hands, shaking his head fearfully. “I won’t, I promise. Just want to help, I swear!”

Despite the assurance, John's grip on Kieran tightens as you all move stealthily toward the cluster of trees. The sun has moved across the sky now, casting a golden hue that makes the edges of the world seem to glow. It's a tranquil kind of beauty, a stark contrast to the tension threading through your group. Yet, there's a thrill that pulses beneath your skin, a remembered echo of your past life with the gang, and it stirs something deep within you. It’s happening. You are that much closer…

As you approach the trees, you instinctively crouch, and the men do the same. And it is just in time, too, for you hear a couple of voices.

John instantly covers Kieran’s mouth, pointing his revolver into the milksop’s temple. Kieran freezes, holding his hands out to show that he will keep still.

You focus your attention on the voices and look down the hill. Sure enough, there are two men, dressed in black coats and green bandanas. These must be them. O’Driscolls. At least two of them, anyway.

The conversation between the O'Driscolls is muffled by the wind, but you catch snippets of their dialogue—something about a meeting point and the times they expect to rendezvous with others. Your heart beats faster, each throb echoing a morse code of danger and anticipation. John's eyes meet yours, a silent communication passing between you like a current through the crisp air. He nods slightly, indicating for you to keep your position while he and Bill edge closer to the unsuspecting O’Driscolls.

You appreciate his effort to keep you safe, but this isn’t what you came here for. Still, you let them go on ahead of you and while keeping watch on Kieran, your eyes follow them as they descend carefully down the hill.

Bill moves with surprising stealth for his size, blending into the shadows like a predator stalking its prey. You remain crouched, watching quietly with your sawed-off pointed at Kieran, though it isn’t really necessary.

John and Bill's approach is a silent dance of precision and patience, skills honed from years of living on the fringe, outside the law. The ground beneath them crunches softly, draping the moment in thin layers of suspense that threaten to snap with any misstep. Stray beams of sunlight pierce through the branches, but they remain concealed.

The two O’Driscolls are completely unaware when Bill and John pull out their knives simultaneously, and stab each in the neck, killing them instantly. You wait just another second, before John waves you down.

“Okay, Kieran,” you whisper. “Let’s go.” You nudge Kieran forward and he complies with little to no resistance. You remain crouched as you hurry to meet them and find a large tree to hide behind.

Taking a peek, John looks over at what you have to deal with. “They got three workin’ girls with them.”

“Great!” Bill grumbles. “I didn’t want to kill no hookers.”

But they’re women. And you’re a woman.

Your heart begins to pound and you look down at the patched-up skirt you are wearing. You suddenly get an idea, a risky idea, but you feel confident as it begins to stew in your mind. Holstering your sawed-off, you remove your gun belt and remove your hat.

John glances over at you and raises a brow. “What are you doin’?”

“Working,” you answer and begin to unbutton the first three buttons of your blouse, exposing the lace of your chemise and little cleavage.

John and Kieran’s eyes widen and you ignore their gaping mouths while you remove your hairpins and fix up your hair.

You are going to do what comes naturally.

Entertain and distract.

“Turn around,” you hiss at them and wait for the men to look the other way while you lift up your skirt and secure your gun belt around the waistband of your bloomers. Letting your skirt fall back down, you see that it is clearly concealed. At least you won’t be going in completely unarmed.

Pushing up your bosom as best you can, you decide that’s the best you got for the time being. You then remove your shotgun and hand it to Kieran. “If you use this on anything other than O’Driscolls…” you lower your voice and make it as convincing as possible. “I will not hesitate to put a bullet between your eyes.”

Kieran nods. “I won’t, I swear!”

You nod and looking at John, you give an order. “Don’t shoot until I say.” And then you come out from the cover of the tree. You veer off to the left to make it so that you appear you are coming in from another direction and walk confidently toward the cackling group of O’Driscolls.

Your large hips make your walk look tantalizing, and you hope that this plan will work. Your heart pounds against your ribcage and as you near the hideout, you try to take slow, steady breaths.

You see the three women, dressed scantily clad, as they lean and press their bodies into the men who have their hands on them.

Slowly, you approach, your lips curled into the sweet smile of a seasoned performer, your gaze lowered in feigned shyness. The men turn, noticing your arrival with leers that make your skin crawl underneath the facade. One of the younger O’Driscolls, a scruffy boy barely out of his teens pulls out his revolver, pointing it at you. “Oy! Who goes there…!”

You pause, pouting your lip and resting a hand on your hip. “Don’t tell me that I weren’t invited?” You adopt a more juvenile way of speech, making yourself appear younger and more stupid than you are. “These girls always have the best pickings, and I want my chance, too…!” you whine, being sure to stomp your foot for good measure. 

The girls, already tipsy, squint their eyes and study you for a moment. “Blanche?”

You blink and decide to roll with it. “Yes, girls! You clearly need to get some eyeglasses…!” You punctuate your last word with a high-pitched giggle and, miraculously, the girls join you.

The young O'Driscoll lowers his revolver slightly, the suspicion in his eyes faltering as he glances at the girls for confirmation. "Well, if Blanche is with you girls..."

You smile wider, stepping closer and lowering your voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Got anything to drink?" You gesture to a bottle peeking out from one of the men's bags. The young O’Driscoll, now somewhat convinced and possibly swayed by the appeal of your feigned innocence, nods eagerly, reaching for the bottle. "Sure thing, darlin'. You look like you could use a good swig."

He hands it to you and you are sure to bat your eyelashes and sway your hips before bringing the end of the bottle to your lips. The liquid instantly burns like fire, and you try with all your strength to not recoil and throw the bottle as far away from you as you can. You take several good gulps before making a satisfied sound with your mouth and wiping your lips in an uncouth way. “Thank you, sweetie, I was…” And you look into the man’s eyes, evidently mesmerized. “…thirsty…”

You hear some warm chuckles from some of the men, picking up on your suggestive language.

Your lashes flutter again and you lean a little closer, using the momentary distraction to your advantage. “So, boys, what’s the occasion?” you ask, injecting a playful curiosity into your tone. Your gaze drifts across the motley assembly of O'Driscolls, noting their relaxed postures. As they laugh and joke amongst themselves, you carefully observe their unguarded expressions, searching for any hint of deception or danger.

One of the older men, stubbled with a crooked nose, grins at you, his teeth yellowed from years of tobacco use. "We're celebratin' a successful raid on a stagecoach.” And he lights a cigar before taking a deep inhale. “Colm’s gonna be meetin’ us later to pick it up.”

You pout your lips. “Colm…? He’s not here?” You cast a feigned sigh and arch your back, bending backward. Some of the men’s mouths go agape at your sudden flash of flexibility and reaching your arms back, your hands touch the ground. You flip over and rise back to your feet. You clearly have their attention now. “I was hopin’ I’d see him…”

The men sigh in awe, appreciating your display of agility as much as your feigned disappointment. "Don't worry, darlin'," a man with a crooked nose replies, smoke curling from his lips. "Colm will be here soon enough, and you can charm him just the same."

“Wow, Blanche!” One of the girls gasps, smiling. “I didn’t know you could do that…!”

“Must make it really nice in the bedroom…!” Another giggles, wiggling her hips suggestively. “You ought to teach us all that trick…!”

You remember the comment Micah had made and it takes everything in your power to not react. Instead, you chuckle along with them, your heart pounding with the adrenaline of performance and danger. "Oh, I've got plenty of tricks up my sleeve," you say, giving them a wink that promises mischief but discloses nothing. Your voice drops to a husky whisper as you lean forward, conspiratorially. "But a girl’s gotta keep some secrets, don’t she?”

A few men nod, their eyes following every contour of your movement with poorly disguised admiration. You feel a prick in your head and in a quick flash, an image appears in your mind’s eye. 

You are high up. Standing on a small platform. You eye a thick rope, taut between two beams. You hear gasps and moans, hundreds of eyes on you as you lift a foot and place it gingerly on the rope. 

Your attire, tight around your small frame, doesn’t drag or hinder your movements. You hear a woman calling your name, her maternal voice cheering you on from below.

“Máte na to, Kitka! To je moje dcera!”

You feel your heart pounding and you begin to walk.

The vision fades as you stare at the men eyeing you. The atmosphere is thick with smoke and laughter – a dangerous cocktail that makes it easy to forget the perilous line you tread.

But you are on the line, and you will not dare to fall off of it.

You feel you are coming into your skin, your body becoming more familiar to you than it has in a long while. Your mind is working in two directions, thoughts of how to keep these people entertained and distracted, while also working on how to destroy their hideout, send the women off, and end these O’Driscolls in a blaze of glory.

The first thing, of course, is to be rid of the women.

You look over at the girls, still sitting in the laps of the men. “Girls…” you begin. Your voice carries a new tone, one that’s both coaxing and authoritative. "How about we show these gentlemen what real entertainment looks like? Just us girls, hmm?" The sparkle in your eyes is infectious, and slowly, you watch their curiosity change into excitement.

The women glance at each other, a silent agreement passing between them.

They rise, a collective swirl of skirts and laughter, prying themselves from the grasp of their admirers. You lead them to the center of the gathering, forming a circle. They look to you, expectant, the air buzzing with anticipation.

“Let’s give them a show they won’t forget,” you whisper, your hand taking that of the girl next to you and you lead them toward the trees. “We will be right back, boys!”

You hear the excitement buzzing from the men as the women follow you into some bushes. You know this must look crazy in the eyes of Bill and John, and you also know they must be itching to kill some O’Driscolls. You have to work quickly.

Once out of the sight of the men, you stop and turn around. “Girls, we need costumes.”

One of them blinks and looks at you confused. “Costumes?”

“Yes!” You take her by the shoulders and try to sound as convincing as you can. “Didn’t I tell you about Colm?”

They look at each other, then back to you. “No…”

“Well…Colm is into…role play.” You don’t know how you’re able to come up with this, given that you are a virgin, but it is clear that you aren’t ignorant. Karen has probably made sure of that.

The girls grin at you and nod. “Oh…”

“Yes, so you will need to run back to town and get some hats and gun belts. He likes to be chased by a lady bounty hunter.”

“But what about you?”

You wave off the notion. “I will keep these boys entertained. You saw how I can handle it.”

One of the women nods, clearly inspired by your daring plan. "Alright, Blanche, we'll be quick," she asserts with a newfound sparkle of adventure in her eyes. They turn, skirts rustling as they dash back towards the town, leaving you alone to return to the men.

As you step back out of the bushes and into the clearing, the chatter resumes, louder and more excited as they see you return.

The young O’Driscoll, cheeks turning red with drunkenness, clearly notices that the other girls aren’t with you. “Hey! Where did they go?”

You flash a sly grin, shrugging nonchalantly as you address the gathering crowd. "Oh, those girls? They've gone to fetch something special... a surprise to spice up the night." Your tone is teasing, suggesting all manner of possibilities as their imaginations begin to turn.

Confusion and anticipation mingle in the gathering and they eye you as you walk among them. “In the meantime…” You begin. “I need somethin’ to drink…” And you point to the young O’Driscoll. “And someone to warm up…”

The other O’Driscolls start whooping and hollering, encouraging the young O’Driscoll to go to you. “You’re about to get your first real taste of a wild night,” one of them hollers as the young man, cheeks flushing with a mix of nervousness and excitement, steps forward.

You take his hand, feeling the calluses that are beginning to form, such a young pup joining the soon-to-be harsh life, and you lead him towards the old cabin not too far off. The men’s eyes follow you both, and you walk with a confident sway as you hear the excited breath of the man tailing you.

You reach the cabin and walk in first, pulling him in quickly behind you.

Your heart beats rapidly. You aren’t really going to let this man sleep with you, but it is making you nervous still. You aren’t sure why, but something feels strange about it, like you almost know what to expect, like you know it should be better than what this boy is offering.

And before you can have a chance to think more about it, the young man is removing his gun belt, hands trembling.

You just stand there, faking a smile. “Well, aren’t we eager…?”

“This is my first time…” he says, his voice shaking.

You tilt your head, assessing him with a gaze that's at once both gentle and calculating. "First time?" you echo softly, your voice carrying an undercurrent of something unspoken, maybe even a little melancholic. "Well, let me tell you something, lad," you continue, moving closer as his eyes follow you. “It’s mine, too.” And before he has a moment to react, you take the gun from his belt, hold it by the barrel and hit the side of his head with the grip. With a dull thud, he is rendered unconscious and falls to the floor.

You stand over him for a moment, feeling the rush of adrenaline slow down, replaced by a sinking feeling of necessity. You're no stranger to violence, yet each time it becomes like second nature, awakening the instincts that you so desperately seek every day.

Quickly, you tie his hands and feet with some rope that you found, letting your thoughts wander to how and why it was there in the first place. You drag his body to the window facing away from the view of the other men, and seeing it is broken, you carefully lift the boy and shove him out the window.

You wipe your hands and looking about the cabin, you see the young O’Driscoll’s gun on the floor. You walk over, bend down to pick it up, and going over to a table, you set it down quickly.

You assess the room around you, and your eyes are drawn to the fireplace. Up on the mantle, hangs a dusty double-barreled shotgun.

And your heart skips a beat. You hurry over to it and stand on your tiptoes to reach it. As soon as it rests in your hands, you feel your head buzzing with a burning warmth.

You go to the table and unload the bullets from the shotgun. You search the cabin, and looking underneath the table at the center of the room, your heart flutters with excitement.

Moonshine.

Your head starts to ache, but you grin. Here it comes.

And as the memory floods your mind, you mirror the actions of your vision. Moonshine in hand, you return to the table and eye the bullets. Carefully using your long fingernails, you pop off the bullet caps. You then pour the moonshine inside the bullets and lightly secure them, making sure that no liquid escapes.

You did it. You made incendiary buckshot.

Now it is time to destroy the cabin.

You find several bottles of whiskey and Kentucky bourbon and using the sheet on the old, dingy bed, you tear out several pieces. Opening the bottles, you stuff them with the shredded cloth, leaving some hanging out of the mouth. You see matches on the table and take them in your hands. With the shotgun over your shoulder and the bottles in your arms, you quickly step out.

You take a look to your left and see the men aren’t looking at you, yet. You still have a few seconds before the jig is up. You strike a match, lighting the first bottle, and you throw it into the opening of the cabin.

As the bottle shatters against the cabin wall, flames lick up the aged wood, climbing hungrily towards the roof. You don't wait to watch the fire spread; you're already moving to your next target, adrenaline surging through your veins. Your steps are quick and precise, a dance of necessity and survival you've learned over the last two decades.

“Alright, boys!” you shout, pulling your sawed-off from underneath your skirt. “Who’s ready to be entertained…?!” And you make a single shot in the air. 

That is your signal, and just as you have made the call, shots echo from the other side of the hideout, with John and Bill shouting their battle taunts as they follow.

The men shout, clearly taken by surprise as they see the harlot-turned-hellion, defying the roles they've cast for you in their narrow minds. Gunsmoke fills the air, mingling with the acrid sting of burning whiskey and wood. Your fingers wrap tightly around the seasoned stock of the shotgun, its familiarity a comforting weight as you level it at the nearest outlaw.

You see the sparks and fire as the incendiary bullets rip from the gun’s barrel, creating a tunneled inferno as it hits its target. The O’Driscoll immediately catches on fire and he turns around, screaming as he falls into the dirt.

“You thought you could hide from us?!” Bill taunts. “You're not hidden no more!”

As the chaos unfolds, your mind begins to ache as it races back to the days when the circus tent would erupt into frantic excitement, but this—this is a different kind of performance. Your heart pounds against your ribcage like a drum, syncopated with the gunfire and shouts. You move fluidly, dancing around men who fall near your feet, each one more surprised than the last at the ferocity housed in your slight frame. The earth beneath you vibrates with the staccato of footfalls and gunfire, melding into a symphony of survival and revenge.

Your eyes fall onto John, as he uses the bunt of his gun to crack an O’Driscoll’s nose. “You’re makin’ this too easy…!” he roars, a harsh sound that cuts through the chaos like a knife. He's relishing this, the fight, the challenge—it’s what he lives for. But your thoughts stray, always one step ahead, always on survival.

Suddenly, a memory flashes in your mind—Arthur's face, his eyes brimming with excitement as he looks behind him to shoot at someone pursuing you.

“You’re too slow…!” he taunts and he steals a glance at you.

You laugh, hands holding tightly on the reins as you ride Odliv, your feet bare and a shot gun over your shoulder. “You think we made him mad?”

Arthur chortles, ducking just in time for a bullet to fly over his head. “Wouldn’t be the first time, Kit!”

“Next time we need money, I’ll pick the job.”

“And have you rob me of watchin’ you hypnotize the rich?” His eyes gleam, and you can still see his smile from underneath the bandana that covers his mouth. “Never.”

As your mind lingers on that fleeting memory, a sharp pain ripples through your skull, pulling you back to the grim reality at hand. The harsh reverberations of the ongoing battle snap you out of your reverie. You shake your head slightly, trying to dispel the fog of nostalgia and focus on the enemies who are clearly still trying to fight back.

“Kit…!” you hear John shout and you look up to see him take a shot at an O’Driscoll who had his gun aimed at you. “You better focus!”

You nod sharply, feeling the weight of choices - from circus rings to shootouts – settling upon your shoulders. John's right, this is no time for memories, however desperate you want them. You tighten your grip on your weapon, readying yourself as another wave of O'Driscolls charges forward.

And you take them on like an outlaw.

Thank you for reading!

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[cheesetalia]

up there came a flower

For @aphcardverse-week's Day 3: Someone Bless These Seeds I Sow | garden | fairies | rot

England/Canada | 1.5k words | warnings: noncon (blackmail), cheating/adultery

Summary:

One of a Queen's most sacred duties is to provide their kingdom with little princes and princesses. But Arthur has passed year after year without managing to conceive a child. He's sick of the gossip and snickers and sneers, and of his flat belly. He's had enough—his barren years are ending now. If King Alfred can't provide an heir, maybe his brother can.

Can be read on the Archive of Our Own or underneath the Readmore:

The King and Queen are both healthy. Some of the healthiest royals in any of the four kingdoms. They're always active, horseback riding and taking strolls through the nearby woods and keeping up their sword fighting skills even though there are hundreds of guards to protect them.

They're fit and vigorous, none of that lazing about on a throne all day for King Alfred and Queen Arthur. Maybe King Alfred likes his food a little too much, but no one could tell by looking at him.

Stripped to his waist in the practice yard with a sword in hand, sweaty and gleaming as he faces off against his spouse, he's the picture of youthful male beauty and strength. Across from him the Queen is just as impressively healthy.

So why then, do members of the court and increasingly even the peasants, whisper and wonder why the Queen hasn't yet carried an heir for the kingdom?

Those few in the know could tell you that the royal doctor had examined the Queen's womb and found it flawless, as had the doctor brought in for a second opinion.

The servants who collected the royal couple's bedding to wash would whisper to you that the absence of a royal baby wasn't for lack of trying—there's enough jizz on the sheets every morning to impregnate all the queens of the four kingdoms.

(Maybe that's the problem, they giggle. Too much royal seed on the sheets and not in Queen Arthur's hole.)

Whatever the cause, it's been five years since the King and Queen were wed, and Queen Arthur, already a little older than his King, isn't getting any younger.

Arthur needs to get pregnant soon if he's to have any chance of carrying an heir. This is what has him walking down a corridor of the palace he's only been down a few times before.

Arthur is not a quitter. Arthur does not lay down and accept defeat. For every problem there is a solution—if one is bold enough to seek it and embrace it.

If all goes well, problem-solving won't be the only thing he's embracing tonight.

It's late and Arthur is weary after a long day of sitting on the throne for hours hearing petitions, then swordfighting with Alfred to keep sharp, then doing his self-assigned daily hour of magical research (he's tried every spell, potion, and ritual that could possibly help but he keeps hunting).

His work isn't over yet. His feet take him to what he vaguely remembers is the door to the bedchambers of Matthew, the courts' Ace and his husband's identical twin.

Arthur knocks quietly on the door (there's nothing <i>wrong</i> with the Queen visiting the Ace's personal rooms, but Arthur wants no one to know of this). Matthew's soft voice, so inoffensive and blandly pleasing to the ear, beckons him inside.

"Your Majesty," Matthew bows.

"Hello Matthew," Arthur says.

Matthew moves a stack of books off the wingback chair next to the fireplace, and Arthur sits down. Matthew sits across from him, quiet, but with his fingers tapping restlessly against his knee.

"So, did you consider my proposal?" Arthur asks, his voice so casual that no one could ever guess that the future of the kingdom rests on Matthew's answer.

"I did and—" Matthew mild voice becomes wrenched, "Arthur, I just can't. He's my brother."

"I see," Arthur says.

Arthur's nostrils flare with repressed anger. He sees weakness, sentimentality, a short-sighted desire to be kind that will lead to cruel effects on the ones it's aiming to spare. Arthur isn't about to let the kingdom, everything he and Alfred worked so hard for, fall to ruin because of one man's cowardly unwillingness to do what fate demands must be done.

Appeals to logic, to duty, to the safety of the realm, have all failed in the face of Matthew's staunch loyalty and morality. Perhaps a different tack is needed.

"Matthew, you know you'd be doing him a favor. This is the only way Alfred will get to be a father. Don't you want him to know that joy?" Arthur asks.

Matthew hesitates now, biting his lip, "If you'd just ask Al, get his okay—"

"He'd never say yes. He's too proud. Too unwilling to admit to himself or anyone else that he's the problem," Arthur says.

There, said aloud, laid bare, the truth that no one dares say but they all must awkwardly walk around regardless.

"Maybe if I talked to him—" Matthew tries.

"No!" Arthur almost shouts.

The last thing he wants is for Alfred to have any inkling of this plan. If Alfred knows that Arthur is willing to do such a thing, the paternity of any child of theirs will forever be in question, no matter how much it looks like Alfred.

"You're not to tell him anything of this," Arthur orders.

Matthew opens his mouth to argue, but Arthur cuts him off. "I didn't want to do it this way. I thought you would be willing to make the sacrifices needed without pressure but...very well."

"What—" Matthew starts to ask.

"Your brother...I'm sure he'd be very interested in the letters you've been sending to the Kingdom of Clubs," Arthur says, and there are icebergs warmer than his voice.

Matthew freezes. There's no way Alfred can find out about his letters with King Ivan—no way Alfred can take such news as anything other than a betrayal. Even aside from the obvious conflict of loyalties that...befriending...a foreign kingdom's royals entails, Alfred has this whole weird rivalry thing with Ivan that he's weirdly possessive about.

"I have copies of all the palace's incoming and outgoing mail," Arthur continues, as if Matthew needed further proof of how screwed he is.

"So, how do you want to do this?" Matthew asks, shoulders slumped.

"Just lay back and let me do the work," Arthur advises.

He has more experience being on top, doesn't like the feeling of having no control as someone senselessly batters him.

Matthew does as bid, undressing silently and moving to the bed.

His obedience is very convenient, and a little intoxicating. Arthur loves Alfred to bits, but he's a hard man to control. Arthur is used to having to fight to get his way on everything, and Alfred is never brought to this level of defeat, cowed to submit so deeply.

A little smile playing about the corners of his mouth, Arthur sheds his trousers, leaving them on the chair next to the bed, and moves to sit next to where Matthew is laying.

Matthew is unfortunately, completely flaccid, but Arthur is still pleased at the sight. Long and thick even in resting state, Matthew's penis appears essentially identical to Alfred's, confirming the rightness of Arthur's plot. Two brothers, but the same cock, the same sac, the same seed.

There are no more words spoken between them—none are necessary. Arthur gets to work, soft warm mouth and clever tongue working expertly to bring Matthew up to full hardness. He has all the same sensitive spots as Alfred, and Arthur hums out a pleased sigh around Matthew's cock.

Matthew trembles under his ministrations, fingers clutching the bedspread while Arthur brings him to the brink.

And then backs off, pulling his mouth away and leaving Matthew's hips to thrust in the air seeking contact, friction, release. Arthur will give it to him—when he's in the right spot.

Arthur rises up and straddles Matthew, lining himself up carefully, and then drops down in one smooth motion, taking Matthew's cock to the hilt. Arthur isn't doing this for pleasure, but he's nonetheless very, very wet from spending so long sucking and swallowing at a cock that is almost his beloved husband's, perhaps spurred on a little too by the thrill of victory, of getting his way, of successfully locking the prey between his jaws.

It only takes a little bit of rocking and grinding before Matthew's face scrunches up and his eyes roll back, a soft groan escaping his mouth. Arthur feels it then, the hot wet stripes of semen being painted on his inner walls.

He can't help but moan a little, reveling in the feeling of being filled up with cream, a pleasure too often denied him by his husband. He clamps down around Matthew's cock as tightly as he can, as if could wring out every drop of life-giving fluid from him. Arthur certainly feels like he's taken it all. But some trickles out when he pushes himself off of Matthew, and Arthur sighs. It's over, it's done. All that tension and stress over something that look less than half an hour to complete.

Matthew ignores him as Arthur redresses, and Arthur heads out the door without so much as a goodbye.

He walks down the halls towards his own bedroom, where his husband is waiting. Halfway there, he stops. There's no one around to hear him laugh as he feels it. He'll need to cast one of his body scan spells to confirm it, but Arthur can just tell somehow, that the seed has taken root and will soon sprout.

[ryker-fvckrr]

Sneaking around NSFW

Female reader and Ruffnut have always been closer than anyone in the group, maybe even more than Hiccup and Astrid. Nobody knows what you two do in "private" though. (Ruffnut and reader being gross and horny in public)

"Are you okay? You look a little-" "I'm good, Fishlegs! It's just...a little hot in here." You cut your friend off with a crooked smile, wiping your forehead with the heel of your palm. Casting a glance to your right to look at Ruffnut, you're almost shocked that she's acting like nothing is out of the ordinary, but this is unfortunately normal for her. You look to your left instead, meeting eyes with Astrid, who looks much too suspicious of your odd behavior, and you look back down at your plate.

The laughing of Spitelout across from you gives Ruffnut the opportunity to slide another finger into you, your soft and shaky hum being drowned out by the elder Jorgenson loudly joking with Gobber. Ruffnut turns her attention from her male counterpart, back to you for a check up.

"You wanna tap out yet?" She mutters into your ear, actually making sure you're still okay with being this risky, because usually you aren't.

Your brows furrow, staying quiet while searching through your brain for an answer. Swallowing, you nod once to confirm that yes, you were wanting a break. Ruffnut looks a little disappointed for a second, but it disappears as she shrugs, pulling the three fingers she had stuffed into your cunt, out. Not before letting the tip of her middle finger catch onto your clit, making you jolt, and have your knees knocking up into the table. You lift your head from your hand to snap something at her, but the raised eyebrow Spitelout gives you is enough to stop that train of thought.

"What's wrong with you, girly?" He questions, scrunching the bridge of his nose while his eyes scan you over for anything out of the ordinary. "I'm going for a walk." You reply in a way to announce to the table after finding your voice, slipping out of your seat without a second thought, ignoring the eyes burning into your back as you leave the building.

As soon as you close the doors behind your back, you groan quietly at the absurd amount of natural lubrication coating your inner thighs. You slide your thighs together before heading down the stone stairs that lead up to the building, knowing Ruffnut was minutes away from joining you.

(It feels cluttered, I'm sorry. Consider this a spacer of sorts.)

You get near the end of the path just before it ended, and the woods started, then get yanked between the huts of Astrid's parents and Snotlout's parents. Ruffnut immediately tugging your trousers down and kneeling on the ground, her thin hands pushing your thighs apart. She was eager for a taste today, and you weren't going to deny her from getting it. You've been so busy with the "saving dragons" business, that there hasn't been time for any secret fooling around.

"I really like the view from down here." She snickers, wasting no time getting her mouth over your cunt, groaning against your folds when she does.

You fold almost immediately. Knocking her helmet into the grass, hands in her hair, and putting your back against the outside of Spitelout's hut. Your head falls forward to watch her through your lashes, swallowing a mouthful of air as you do. Beginning to lightly grind into her face, you moan quietly when your clits bumps against her nose, and it only fuels the tall girl on her knees to angle herself in a way so that she can shove her tongue into you, joined by her index and middle finger. Scissoring her fingers and lapping her tongue to get as much of you as possible.

"Damnit, Ruff..." You breathe out, lifting your left hand from her scalp to run it through your own hair.

It turns into fisting your own hair tightly when her lips turn their focus to your clit, starting to suckle on the nub in a way that forces your throat to make a small gargle while trying to shut the Hel up and not draw attention to yourselves. It was difficult, you were decently close back at the table, and you didn't have too much time to cool down because she wanted to be greedy. Your hips grind against her face more, popping your clit out of her mouth and tugging her hair to get her closer. She didn't care about all the slick starting to coat her nose, everything under and around that area too. If anything, it got her going even more than before, especially now that she had a hand down her own pants.

"...'m gonna cum..." You whine in the same tone she's gotten so used to hearing when she sneaks into your hut on Dragon's Edge in the middle of the night.

Your left hand flies back down, fingers tightly threading into her blonde strands, and you're basically humping her mouth, nose, and chin now. She forgets about herself, bringing her hand out of her pants, coming back up to your hip and joining her other one, moaning against you while being smothered by your pussy. Your brain tells your body to let yourself go, and you do. Crying out a bit louder than you usually would've done, and halting the grinding against her face, whimpering as her mouth finds your clit again, suckling it while you come down.

You let your legs give out under you, falling to the ground with your legs still wide open. Accepting Ruffnuts mouth against your own when she lays over you, eyes rolling back at the taste of you filling your mouth, and your own juices smearing around your lips. She pulls away, giving her famous evil grin. And you already know what she's gonna say as she starts shifting to her knees above you, and looks towards the walking path a few yards to your left before back down at you, lowering herself onto your face.

"My turn now, pretty lady!"

[inkrabbit]

He came back wrong

Mary came back wrong.

You're not sure what happened. You got the text from them as they complained about their shift at the bar. They were on their last break and asked for you to meet them at the cemetery. They wanted you to bring food and hang out for a while. This wasn't unusual. Mary loved the cemetery, saying how peaceful it was. No one was ever out there. It was just the two of you and the silence.

But Mary never showed up. You waited at the usual spot for almost an hour, telling yourself that they would show up. You picked at the food you brought for yourself, eating bit by bit but not being able to eat the whole thing. It wasn't like Mary to just bail without saying anything.

You texted them several times, asking where they were, but they never responded. Only Delivered appeared underneath each text you sent, the messages getting progressively worried as time went on. You felt sick, and after you had been sitting there for an hour, you gathered your things and started to make your way to Mary's apartment.

No one answered the door when you knocked on it. You tried calling Mary's phone, but all it did was ring until it finally sent you to voicemail. You stopped leaving messages that consisted of you begging them to pick up and let you know they were okay. You felt sick as you continuously knocked on the door, calling their name.

One of their neighbors came out, looking at you with disdain. Mary lived on the second floor and their neighbor shook their head when you asked if they had seen your friend.

"No one's walked up these stairs ever since I got home," they told you. "I heard him leave, but he hasn't come back yet."

You felt worse but thanked them anyway. You left the apartment complex, phone in hand. You called their older brother, their parents, their friends. No one had even heard from them. Their parents acted like it didn't matter, and their friends tried to brush it off.

"You know how Mary can be," they all told you. "They'll show up eventually."

Their brother was the only one who worried, but even then, he wasn't much help. You both knew Mary hated going anywhere too far from the bar after their shift. They were always so tired.

But still, their brother reminded you that police wouldn't put in a missing person report until Mary had been gone for twenty-four hours. So you went home and curled up in bed, sobbing as your anxiety and fear for your friend took over.

The next evening, Mary turned up on your doorstep, a cheek-splitting grin on their dirty face. You pulled them into a tight hug, finally relieved that your friend was safe.

You should've known when they hugged you back. You should've known when they apologized for making you worry.

You should've known when you realized the look in their eyes was different.

They stayed the night with you, spooning you from behind. The relief was starting to fade, their new personality making your skin crawl. You wondered if they were like this to everyone else.

When they finally rolled over in their sleep, you slowly and carefully grabbed their phone from the table. Mary never kept it locked, and you were surprised to see the countless texts that hadn't been opened, all from friends and family. But the one that caught your eye was a message that was saved as a draft for you.

Woods behind cem

You knew that behind the cemetery was a small wooded area. Mary took the old trail from the bar to the cemetery whenever they felt like taking a shortcut. Your heart raced. Mary was on their way to you.

When morning came around, you got dressed and told a lie about having to be somewhere. You didn't know who was in your house. The person looked and sounded exactly like Mary, and they had their memories and manners, but that was the extent of it. And truth be told, you couldn't stand another second with this stranger.

So you rushed out of the house, sprinting down the street. You knew the trail. Mary showed it to you time and time again when you would hang out in the bar with them until their shift ended. Even if it was nothing, you had to check.

It took you a little bit, but you finally noticed it. The disturbed earth that was a little further off the trail. You didn't want to accept it, but you ran over anyway, falling to your knees and clawing at the dirt frantically. You uncovered their Morbid Angel shirt first, dirty nails hitting the cold flesh beneath the material. You moved up, digging the dirt back.

For once, Mary looked peaceful, their eyes closed and their head tilted to the side. They were a lot paler than normal, and their skin felt frozen underneath your hands as you tried to slap their cheek to wake them up. Your tears blinded you as a guttural scream tore through your throat. They lay limp as you tried desperately to wake them up.

Ultimately, you settled for laying overtop of them, holding them tightly as you sobbed. You blamed yourself. You should've hung out with them for the remainder of their shift. You should've surprised them like you were thinking about.

The sound of heavy footsteps only registers until the person is too close. You pick your head up at the last second, the glint of Mary's hunting knife being the only thing you properly see.

At least you knew why Mary didn't join you at the cemetery the other night.

[moonchildreads]

and now that we're on it, i was actually thinking about dot and eddie last night. i remembered the first time they meet thanks to hellfire and dot proves eddie's expectations wrong by showing that she's not just a cute and pretty face, but she knows her dnd shit.

now i know that i'm bringing you a bit of an au here but i was wondering how do you think things would have progressed between them if dot hadn't had a background that made her know this stuff? like, everything is the same but james and his friends met for different reasons so she doesn't know much of dnd? how would she and eddie meet and fall in love? or if she'd gone to hellfire without knowing much bc dustin was very nice when he asked her to join their club? how would their story go without that? bc my original theory was "no, dnd is an intrinsic part of their relationship, it's an unskippable part of their story together" but then i entertained the thought and said "ok but what if???"

okay babes buckle up i'm off work now and this is gonna be a wild ride.

full transparency here, i hadn't thought about it before but now that you bring this question to me i realise that i've always known the answer so thank you for that insight into my own story? lmao i love you. anyways, short answer: if dustin hadn't invited dottie to hellfire, they wouldn't have interacted with each other at all. end of story. dot has no desire to buy weed from eddie, and eddie isn't exactly in the business of talking to random girls (he's bitchless, let's be real here). the long answer is, however, much more intriguing which i'm guessing is what you're here for so i'm gonna spill my guts here for you under the cut about what happens if dustin invites her but she doesn't know dnd:

if dustin invites dot and she goes without knowing what dnd is, here's where it gets interesting because you mention that dnd is intrinsic to their relationship but it actually isn't. it's not dnd what brings them together, it's dottie's eagerness.

[...] “Do you want to watch today, see how everything works?” “If you think that’s the best, sure,” she said, and he noticed she looked a little deflated. “Or not. Trial by fire,” he smiled. [...]

in that bit from chapter 3, eddie doesn't know she knows her shit yet. all he knows is that a pretty girl is in front of him, treating him nicely and wanting to learn about something he loves. he doesn't know her, she's a new student he hasn't really paid too much attention to, but he sees that she's nervous and notices that she doesn't seem to have an ulterior motive: she walked in, asked for dustin and didn't realise he was the dungeon master until she saw his supplies on the table. so she's not here for him, she's here for the game. she wants to learn. now, eddie could go about it two different ways: 1) he gatekeeps like he tried to do with erica until she knocked him down a few pegs, or 2) he acts calm and tries to make her feel at ease like he did with chrissy in the woods. i think in this case, knowing what happened after he was friendly with chrissy, he'd go the same route because not only does he explicitly think dottie's enthusiasm is adorable, he's also been proven wrong twice by women he's recently met (erica and chrissy).

and here is where it gets interesting, because now we have dottie recognising that he knows his shit and wanting to learn from him, and we have eddie getting something he normally doesn't, which is someone who doesn't judge. someone who wants to get to know the ins and outs of the very thing that he loves, who doesn't care who he is, or who anyone in hellfire is, she just wants to learn. and we see this time and time again throughout small town, because dottie doesn't know anything about metal music, but she still accepts donny's mixtape and listens to it during the weekend so she can talk to him about it on monday. we see dottie being interested in gareth's background as a jazz drummer, she switches seats to sit with all of them during shared classes after knowing them for one single day. eagerness is all dottie knows, because she's used to molding herself to what everyone else wants her to be in order to have friends. so she asks questions, she learns about things because if she shows interest, then maybe others will show interest in her too. it hasn't worked for her so far, but she's never met anyone like the hellfire boys before.

see, this story doesn't work if both sides aren't equally eager. they are all desperate to fit in somewhere, and the boys have found that they fit into hellfire and with each other. so dottie coming along and not only asking to be let in, but also putting in the work to get to know them feels so special to all of them. here comes this unasumming girl that was deemed so fucking uninteresting that hawkins high forgot she existed two weeks after she transferred and she's actually so goddamn awesome! she comes from the big city! she doesn't care if they are a bit of a weirdo bunch, she's not poisoned by the hawkins rumor mill, and quite frankly, she's a freak herself! she has her own opinions and will voice them, she enjoys high fantasy, loves music, and is kind of a nerd! she's just so desperate for love and the only way she knows how to ask for it, is to throw it to everyone who so much as looks at her, and the boys in hellfire reciprocate so easily because this never happens to them! no one treats them like they are normal but she does! so the way eddie falls in love with her is the same way all of hellfire falls in love with her: she loved them first and kept loving them so hard they had no reason to doubt her.

yeah, she doesn't know how to play dnd. it might be a little bit annoying for a table of experienced players, but eddie takes the outcasts in and dottie has spent the last two months eating lunch alone with her headphones on. they are all the same kind of broken people, searching for someone to look at them and tell them "i see you, because i am you, and i get you". so for eddie to not fall in love with her, no one in hellfire should love her, and that was never going to happen because she showed up with snacks to a club she knew nothing about because a fifteen year old told her it was cool. eddie never stood a chance.

[slashyrogue]

Spacedogs AU: The Cat’s Fancy

Adam doesn't know why he goes to the park that night.

It's cloudy, there's little visibility, and yet he finds himself heading outside.

His breakup still stings from just a few weeks prior, and while he's sometimes lonely Adam doesn't try to talk to strangers much anymore. Beth's rejection made him think he's better off alone, and when he spots people in the park he avoids them heading as far back as he can possibly get hoping for just a glimpse of the stars outside.

But when he hears a hiss coming from the bushes behind him he freezes.

Everyone knows shifters aren't prone to attacking humans, mostly other shifters, but he's still never met one and the sound is far too loud to be just a normal sized cat. He gets up from the bench, hand in his pocket to grab the taser he always carries, and is about to leave when he hears a whimper.

And he sees a clawed hand sticking out as if trying to reach someone.

Adam takes a deep breath and goes down on his knees, pushing back the leaves to see a man deeply injured curled up in the bushes.

"Oh!" he says, reaching to grab the man's arm, "Are you alright?"

He pulls, barely able to get the man out halfway, and lets go when he realizes he's right.

It's a shifter.

The injury must've made him stop mid-shift, his body half cat but still very human, and the blood all over him makes Adam's chest hurt.

"Are...do you need an ambulance? I'll call..."

The shifter grabs his arm, digging his nails in, and Adam whimpers turning back to look at him.

"No...no...cops..."

"But...you're hurt and...you're hurting me!" he yells, pushing him back hard.

The shifter crawls closer, and his ripped clothes make him shiver.

"I just...I need to...get home."

"I have to call the ambulance," Adam repeats, tears in his eyes as he looks at the claw on his arm, "I...I..."

The cat shifter growls, trying to shift again, and Adam pulls out his phone to dial 911.

"Hello? Hello, I've found an injured cat shifter in Woods Park. He's right near the cluster of elms at the back and he's bleeding and...aggressive."

"No cops, no..."

Adam watches the shifter pass out, going limp, and sits down on the grass beside him. He's surprised when the shifter comes closer, nuzzling his arm, and it feels wrong to be excited at the attention but he is.

He pets the shifter's head as a loud purr reaches his ears.

"They're gonna take care of you," he says, "I...I'll stay till they come, ok? They'll take care of you."

The ambulance doesn't arrive for almost twenty minutes, and the shifter gets so aggressive that Adam ends up coming along since him just being close calms the shifter down.

The shifter who, according to the ID in his pocket, is named Nigel Ibanescu.

Nigel ends up having many injuries that didn't heal because of the bush he'd been hiding in.

"Cats are allergic to hosta plants," the doctor says, as Adam sits beside Nigel, "It was...a fluke I suppose. Any longer entangled in that he might not have made it out. You saved his life."

They give Nigel some antibiotics, and after a few hours Adam can see the wounds healing rapidly which makes him look much more normal - though his brown cat ears are prominent on top of his head. Nigel hasn't let go of him the entire time, purring so loudly Adam is sure he'll hear it in his dreams, but he knows he has to go.

"You'll be ok," he says, "I have to get home and...I...I don't like it here. You'll be ok, Nigel."

Nigel makes a sound when Adam pulls himself away, and it's harder than he expects to leave but he does, getting home so late he passes out cold. Adam is grateful that he's off the next morning, even if he feels anxious about how much he missed the day before.

And he can't stop thinking about Nigel.

Was he ok?

Who hurt him?

Adam is in the middle of breakfast when he gets his answer.

The knock at his door has him confused and when he peeks out he stares wide eyed at who's on the other side.

"Nigel."

Adam doesn't know why he opens the door.

Curiosity?

Worry?

But as soon as he does Nigel pulls him into his arms, and the sound of his purring has Adam confused.

"Mine."

The word gives Adam pause.

"What?"

Nigel pulls back, his almost yellow eyes nearly glowing in the sunlight, and his smile makes Adam's heart beat faster.

"You're mine," he says, breathing in deep, "All mine, Darling. You..."

Adam pushes him off, shaking his head. "I don't know you, I...I don't...I'm not anyone's."

"Adam..."

He hurries back into his apartment, locking the door fast, and his heart is beating wildly as he looks out to see Nigel still there with his ears down as he glares. 

"I know you're there, Adam," he says, nearly hissing, "I can hear your heart beating. You saved me last night, Darling, and I followed your scent all the way here. You might not understand, but....I'm not going anywhere."

Nigel leaves, at least from Adam's view, and he turns to put his hand over the scratch mark on his arm.

What did Nigel mean Adam was his?

And why, despite how scared Adam felt, did he want to see him again?

[nobodyexpectsthe]

There's some comfort to be found in his reassurances. If there is anyone whose opinion and council he values, however unsolicited it may come, it's Solas'. To know that he hasn't made a mistake in his eyes is enough of a comfort to ease some of the tension in his shoulders, even if his expression remains trouble.

But if you saw no hubris, he thinks wearily, then I've become more adept at lying than is wise.

This thought stays caged between his teeth. Scattered to the winds as the subject of vallaslin returns in the same breath as an apology. Pirith's brow furrows, his hands curling against the desktop to try to quell the surge of unease that rises.

"... Very well."

The Dalish Gods were never Gods the way the Maker was. They were meant to be living things, fallible things, and finding that they were once mortal did not unsettle him to his very core. Maybe it was because they were so long dead, their legacies subsisting on nothing but myth and hope. Pirith had always found that stories had more power than their truths, and the clearcut line between the man he was and the Inquisitor he played was proof of that.

But this is different.

He closes his eyes and reaches toward the old magic now deep within his blood. The noise is deafening, voices long past thundering in his ears in a tongue he cannot translate to answer questions unasked. As Solas suggests he picks the clearest from the cacophony, holds the question in his mind and -

The answer comes to him in pieces.

The language of it is broken, but the feelings are not. Images come in flashes, and though words fail he understands perfectly. The pain that had marked him an adult does not hold that same taste of victory against this phantom's skin. It feels like defeat, like loss, something taken and not gained. Their faces unwillingly marked, claimed, like they were -

Pirith stumbles back, nearly knocking his desk over in an effort to escape the vision. He's breathing fast, one hand clapped over his mouth while the other grips the edge of his desk so tightly he feels the wood strain under his palm. The pain he felt is not his - was once his - but there had been no loss, only pride that he had endured, pride he was now a man.

"No," his voice comes out raw, desperate, and breaking. "No. That cannot be our history. I - I did something wrong."

But he does not reach for it again. Cannot bare to feel his proudest moment revealed to be someone else's worst.

The truth haunts the space between them and yet he pleads anyway.

"... Tell me I did something wrong."

“But you saved them as people, rather than for what they symbolized by virtue of their history,” said Solas. “Immortal or not, ancient or not, it does not matter. They were only ever people, with all the flaws and virtues that come with it.” He bit down the urge to add, as I have told you. It would not be helpful, and would be unfair. Pirith had reached that conclusion on his own. “And you saved them. That is worth something.”

Solas let out a breath of relief at ‘would-be gods’. At least there was no reverence, learned from Pirith’s years with the Dalish or informed by the voices of the geas. 

“You have not damned us,” he said. “I believe that the knowledge contained in the Well will aid the Inquisition.” He gave a wry chuckle. “Perhaps only one who styled herself a ‘god’ can understand how to defeat another claiming that title. You made as right a decision as the circumstance allowed. I saw no hubris in you.”

Shadows wearing vallaslin. Abelas’ insult cut deeper than Pirith realized. Solas should not add to the hurt but…Pirith had said he was tired of not knowing. Pirith was now a literal font of knowledge, and it had to be controlled lest he drown in it. The most efficient way was to test the waters.

“Perhaps pose a question,” Solas offered. “While we are here in relative quiet. Ask the voices - ask about the vallaslin,” he said heavily. “The nature of the practice, its history. I know what it will tell you," he sighed, "and I am sorry. I will explain it all afterwards. We will see if the Well speaks truth, and how best to glean answers from it. Try to focus on only one voice, rather than the whole at once.”

[hamliet]

Gin Should Be Fine

Another chapter, another month with no answers about my girl. 

That said, I really think she’s okay, and I’m going to write out why because it helps me deal.

Gin’s role thus far has primarily been a mystery that is slowly being unveiled with revelations that she’s a woman and that she’s Akutagawa’s sister. She has potential for an arc of her own, but so far we haven’t seen one, and killing her before we even see a single interaction between her and her brother beyond a brief “let’s go home” scene observed by Higuchi would be... I mean icky from a social perspective, but also Not Good from a narrative POV. If they want us to grieve a sibling relationship, it shouldn’t be shown to us just in flashbacks. 

As much as I don’t like it, I think we all know that what happened to Gin is going to be used for Akutagawa’s development, especially when we consider his current promise to Atsushi not to kill anyone for six months. Clearly her injury is going to challenge this for him, as I highly doubt the emotional Akutagawa isn’t going to want to rip Tachihara apart. But the thing is, having Gin survive injured makes a lot more sense for his development than killing her does. 

If Gin is dead, that... gives us very little development. We’ve seen what happens when Akutagawa loses his most important person (Dazai). Losing Gin doesn’t really make sense as a consequence since the manga has never warned him about choosing Dazai over Gin, or Atsushi and revenge over Gin, or anything of the sort. Him choosing not to kill Tachihara at the end (as seems to be where the arc is going to end up) doesn’t have a lot of stakes if she’s dead; instead, it makes his choices, no matter what they are, empty because nothing will bring his sister back. if she’s alive, he has a way of choosing life over death, which is exactly what he’s supposed to be learning through Atsushi’s six-month challenge. 

Akutagawa’s arc also doesn’t really need him to sink further into the darkness; on the contrary, I think what we’re going to see is Akutagawa inching towards the light and humanity (and having a sister is a part of this), while we’ll see Atsushi becoming somewhat darker (not diving off the deep end though)--only for the two of them to eventually meet in the middle. 

And then there is Tachihara, who is clearly painted as conflicted. If the manga wants us to sympathize with him and buy into his internal conflict over what he did to the mafia members, I have a hard time seeing him as having killed a character who is the sister of a beloved popular character, not to mention pretty well-liked in her own right. 

If they’re really dead, then what is the choice facing Tachihara now? His brother’s death means he isn’t coming back, and if they aren’t either. there’s no one left in the mafia besides maybe Higuchi whom he feels close to (and Higuchi would not forgive him for killing Akutagawa-senpai’s sister). But if they’re still alive, just wounded, then Tachihara has a more compelling arc ahead of him (even if I expect him to dig in his heels a bit more because I’m pretty sure Akutagawa and Atsushi will team up to defeat the Hunting Dogs). 

Related to that... no one dies in this manga. Like, if Kunikida is still alive, if Futon-Man who just so happens to love Gin is fine, if Yosano’s ending was also a cliffhanger, I’m pretty sure they’re all alive. The only characters who die are characters we do not know: the little child Kunikida couldn’t save, Ace and the boy at Dostoyevsky’s hands, and like... Gogol, who wasn’t exactly in many chapters. This would be a weird place to start killing recurrent characters. (nb: this isn’t to say I think everyone will survive the whole story, but I do think the majority will and most if not all recurrent characters will make it to the final arc which will probably come out like ten years from now.)

[xxghost-zombie-jesus]

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

A/N: I decided that I'll be doing prompt fills/writing requests in between my longer fics! If you have any prompts or requests you'd like to see, shoot me an ask with the prompt, character(s) and/or ship you'd like! They'll probably be between 3k-5k but with my track record, who knows.

Anyway, onto the fic!

Prompt: "I'm sorry you had to see me like that." Requester: @beetlejuicebrainrot Warnings: Meltdowns, Unhealthy coping methods, self harm, blood, overstimulation (of the ADHD/Autism variety) Word Count: 3,728 Read on AO3

"Have you seen Bug?"

He had been missing for the better part of the day, after he had gotten into arguments with both Delia and Lydia in the course of an hour. It was almost as if he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, coming downstairs already irritable and only getting worse as the day progressed. After his two arguments he had told everyone to go fuck themselves and disappeared upstairs.

Lydia didn't look up from her homework as she shook her head. "Nah, he hasn't been around, which is great because I can do this math without him trying to eat my homework." The way her hand clenched around her pen betrayed her worry, and Adam smiled at her in sympathy.

"Alright, thank you, Lydia. I'm sure we'll find him eventually. He's probably hiding on the roof or something."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Tell him he isn't allowed to use my Switch until he stops being an asshole, though." 

"I'll tell him to apologize," Adam agreed, turning around to leave her room. Shaking his head at Barbara who hovered nearby, he shrugged to show no one had any idea where the demon had gone.

Despite what he had told Lydia, Barbara and he had already checked the roof, thoroughly, and hadn't seen one sign of the demon. It was unusual because that was where he usually went when he was upset or wanted to hide, so the fact he wasn't there left the two ghosts on edge.

There was only one place no one had looked, yet: his room. On the off-chance he had been there, no one wanted to intrude on his privacy, and wanted to give him space. "Should we…" Adam trailed off but gestured to the room down the hall.

"I think we've given him enough time to cool off, don't you?" He agreed with Barbara, but was still hesitant to intrude on one of the places that Beetlejuice called his own. "I'm worried about him," she continued. "I don't like when he's this quiet."

No one did. Quietness and Beej went together like sodium and water–that was to say, rather badly and typically explosively. He was quiet when he was scheming, or actively doing something, or, less amusingly, brooding or really upset. And with how the day had been going, there were only two options that it could be.

Adam sighed and nodded. "Me neither. Do you want to go first?" He didn't want to admit that he didn't want to be the first one into the room, a little afraid of what they'd come across. He'd go, he was worried about Beetlejuice, and wasn't about to leave him to whatever was bothering him, but he'd rather have a buffer to prepare himself.

Thank God Barbara understood and silently took the lead. They headed down the hall, and stopped in front of the garishly decorated door. Stickers and little plastic bugs and snakes were glued to the wood, as well as a strip of fake caution tape, and a crudely-made sign that said "Beej's Room." Barbara raised her hand and knocked. "Lovebug, you in there?"

There wasn't an answer, and Adam called next, "Bugsy? We're worried about you." Still nothing, and the Maitlands shared a worried look.

"Beej, we're coming in," Barbara warned, grabbing the doorknob. Both were fully prepared to phase through the door if push came to shove, but to their surprise the door was unlocked. Slowly Barbara opened it before stepping through. Adam followed quickly behind her, and the two glanced around the room.

While his room had been messy the few times the Maitlands had seen it, this was something else entirely. It looked like a storm, or a very angry demon, had ripped through it. Shelves were torn from the wall, items lay broken and scattered across the floor, the bedside tables were on the opposite side of the room from their usual place next to the bed. The dresser was overturned, clothes spilled out from the open and smashed drawers, and the lamp was on the ground, though miraculously unharmed aside from an askew shade.

There was even a sizable hole in the wall, like he had punched through it. and claw marks scored into every available surface. The overwhelming feeling of panic, rage, and something they couldn't quite parse permeated the air, a heavy blanket that settled over the room. The feelings were so strong that they were an almost physical thing to the two ghosts, and whether it was some power they didn't have control over, or a side effect of Beetlejuice's they didn't know.

"Beetle?" Barbara asked, worry straining her voice. She and Adam split up, Adam heading towards the en-suite bathroom and Barbara towards the only thing that lay untouched, aside from missing blankets: the bed.

The door was slightly ajar, the light on and glowing through the crack, and Adam knocked twice. "Bug? Are you in there?" Nothing. Adam pushed open the door and the first thing he noticed was the shattered mirror, glass sparkling sickeningly in the light. The second thing he noticed was the blood splattered across the floor, dark nearly-black blood.

It was smeared across the sink, the walls, even the ceiling in drying streaks in the vague shape of a hand. The floor was stained with it, drying tackily against the broken glass and tile.

"B-Barbara?" Adam called warily over his shoulder. "Can you… could you come here? Please?"

"Did you find him?" She sounded hopeful as she headed his way.

"N… No. No it's… um. It's bad."

He heard her approach, unable to tear his eyes away from the carnage, and flinched when Barbara gasped in his ear. "Oh my God. What happened?" It looked like he had gotten in a fight, and lost, and now they couldn't find him.

Adam finally turned to his wife and grabbed her arms. He could feel himself shaking, could feel his phantom heart pounding in his chest, could feel his breath choking him. "Oh, God, Barbara. He's obviously hurt. What if he's seriously hurt, or dying, or-or worse, and we can't find him. Why can't we find him? What if we never–"

Barbara placed her hands on either side of his face. "Hey, hey, look at me." She stared him in the eye, conviction burning brightly in her green irises. "We'll find him."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. We'll find him. But… he's not okay. There's no way he's okay, not…" Adam looked back at the bathroom and grimaced. "Not after seeing this."

"We'll find him, and we'll make sure whatever happened won't happen again. It'll be okay." Barbara sounded so convinced that everything would be fine that Adam couldn't help but believe her, and he felt the tiniest amount of tension leech from his shoulders. "He'll be okay."

"I hope you're right."

There was a noise behind him and both ghosts whirled around, Barbara with her fists raised and Adam's own fists clenching at his sides, but nothing in the room had changed. It looked exactly like it had when they first entered. Except…

Adam nudged Barbara's arm and pointed underneath the bed, where an unnatural darkness loomed, obscuring everything underneath. Everything but the pair of glowing eyes staring at them from the inky blackness. Barbara lowered her hands when she saw what Adam was looking for and took a step forward. "Beetle?"

Whoever–or whatever–was underneath the bed didn't answer, but the eyes blinked slowly, warily, and watched as Barbara approached. Adam followed right behind her and stopped a step back, both of them crouching and peering under the bed. "Bug, that is you, right?" Adam asked the eyes, and they glanced at him before blinking again.

Adam sat down, making sure his movements were as slow and deliberate as possible, and Barbara followed suit a moment after. The darkness under the bed seemed to lighten slightly, and Adam could just make out the misshapen lump attached to the pair of eyes hiding within it. Well, that answered where all the blankets from the bed went.

"Do you want to come out?" Barbara kept her voice light and steady, despite the worry obviously eating at her. 

"No."

It was the first thing they had heard from Beetlejuice in hours, and his voice sounded rougher than it usually did. Forget gargling glass and smoking since he was two, it sounded as if his vocal chords were completely shredded and then haphazardly pieced back together again. Adam wondered if he had been screaming, and did something so no one would hear it.

"That's okay, Bug," Adam smiled reassuringly. "You can stay under there if it makes you feel safe. Though, usually people are afraid of under the bed. Guess that makes you the boogeyman?"

There was a tiny, barely-there laugh from Beetlejuice, and Adam considered it a small victory. He didn't want to upset the already upset demon further, but there was still the issue of the bathroom and the… blood.

"Hey, Beej," Barbara started slowly, and his eyes slid towards her. "We saw the bathroom." She let it hang for a moment, to give him a chance to explain, or weasel his way out of talking, or anything, but he just stared unnervingly at her, no longer blinking. "What happened?"

Adam watched in muted fascination as Beetlejuice's pupils grew and shrank as he thought, his stare never leaving Barbara. Then, to their surprise, the darkness all but faded, now only a normal shadow instead of whatever glamor or mirage he had put over it. They could clearly see Beetlejuice now, curled up under a pile of blankets with only the upper part of his face poking out. Even his hair was obscured underneath the numerous blankets.

The demon shifted, and pulled one of his arms–his right–out from the safety of the cocoon he had made. The second it hit the light of the room Adam flinched backwards with a quiet, "Jesus!" while Barbara's hands flew up to cover her mouth.

His arm was littered with a number of wounds, from obvious bite marks that still oozed blood sluggishly to deep tears that practically flayed his skin from his arm. His hand had a ton of small, yet probably deep cuts that were the worst around his bruised knuckles. There was barely a patch of skin that didn't have a wound or was covered in blood. After a moment he pulled his arm back into the blankets.

It took Adam a second to find his voice, but when he did he could only utter a weak, "why?"

Beetlejuice's eyes turned towards him with their unending stare, and Adam had to force himself to not shiver under their intensity. The blankets moved as Beetlejuice must've shrugged, and it pulled them off his head a little bit, revealing a bit of his hair. It was a motley of dark red, orange, and a pale yellow-green.

Adam wracked his brain to try and remember the chart, since he wasn't about to get up to grab it. Dark red was… pain. And orange was danger? Or alarm. And the pale yellow-green was, he thought, anxious? Yeah, yeah that sounded right.

"Why did you do this?" Adam asked again, forcing his voice to stay gentle and not betray the intense, bone-crushing worry and fear that was settling in his chest. He didn't want to force Beetlejuice to talk, but they desperately needed to know what had led to this, and why. Adam shifted until he was laying on his stomach facing Beetlejuice, who watched his movement with rapt attention. "Can you speak right now?"

"Yeah," Beetlejuice rasped, finally tearing his eyes away from the Maitlands and lowering them to the floor. Another color appeared in his hair, a twinge of light pink. Embarrassment, or shame. The blankets moved, unraveling further, though it seemed Beetlejuice didn't seem to notice. He growled, low and upset, but it was seemingly directed at himself because he squeezed his eyes shut, tips of his hair bleeding into a bright red.

He brought up his other arm, just as torn up as his right, and dug the claws of his right into his flesh before burying his teeth into his skin. "Stupid," they heard him mumble around his arm and Adam wanted to grab him to stop him, but worried it would only make things worse.

"Hey, hey, Bug, can you look at me?" Adam didn't care how desperate his voice sounded now, just needing Beetlejuice's attention on him and Barbara and not his own thoughts. Only one of his eyes cracked open to land on Adam, but Adam would take it. "I know you don't like talking about these things, but…"

"But," Barbara took over for him, voice soothingly soft. "You know it helps. All we want to do is help you, okay? But we can't know how unless you tell us what's wrong." She offered her hand and Adam did as well, palms up and waiting. "Will you come out?"

Beetlejuice's eyes darted from each of their faces to their outstretched hands rapidly, and for a moment it looked like he was going to refuse, but he, achingly slowly, let go of his own arm, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before wiping his hand on the blankets, and reached out to them. He hesitated before taking their hands in bone-crushingly strong grips, fingers curling desperately around them.

He kicked himself out of the pile of blankets and crawled forward, conjuring a second pair of arms so he wouldn't have to let go of their hands. The second he was no longer under the bed he let the extra arms melt away and instead sat on his knees, refusing to look at either of the Maitlands.

"Thank you, so much, Bug," Adam grinned, some of his shot nerves soothing, though he still glanced down at Beetlejuice's arms with a flinch. Adam squeezed his hand back slightly, thankful that he didn't really have blood and therefore didn't have to worry about losing feeling in Beetlejuice's grip.

"First thing's first, we should do something about those wounds," Barbara took charge, conjuring up a roll of bandages and some antiseptic and laying them aside. "Is that okay?"

"Mmm," Beetlejuice hummed, hair shifting through a number of colors too quickly for Adam to pinpoint before setting back on the four colors from before: dark red, orange, pale yellow-green, and the barest amount of pink streaked through. He let go of Barbara's hand, though he looked like he didn't want to.

Adam scooted closer and wrapped his free arm around the demon's shoulder, feeling him press back against his chest. Beetlejuice gave a shuddering breath and held his arm out for Barbara to gently take. He didn't even flinch as she dabbed at his skin with the antiseptic even though Adam knew it must sting, and instead just turned his head far enough to hide in Adam's neck, all three ignoring the worrying crack that resounded from the movement. Yeah, necks weren't built to turn that far, but Beej was a demon who didn't conform to human standards.

"You really worried us, Beetle," Adam rubbed his upper arm in small circles, feeling the full force of Beetlejuice's shaking against him. The demon just made a strangled noise and pressed his face further against Adam's neck. "You disappeared all day. Were you in here all day?"

He nodded, forehead pressing against Adam's neck with the movement and hair brushing against his jaw. "Sorry," his breath tickled Adam's throat and he couldn't help but squirm a little, shoulder instinctively raising. Beej didn't seem to mind and didn't budge, or he didn't notice.

"Don't apologize, not for that. Everyone needs their space. What we want to know, Lovebug, is what happened? Why'd you… hurt yourself? So badly, too." Barbara finished cleaning up his right arm, pressing a kiss to his palm before silently asking for his left. He hesitated, not wanting to let go of Adam's hand, but Adam took his right hand instead.

After letting go and letting Barbara gently take his now-freed arm, Beetlejuice shrugged. "Dunno," he sighed, shifting his face away from Adam's neck and instead letting it simply rest against the ghost's shoulder. "Felt bad."

"Bad how?" Adam used his free hand to start petting Beetlejuice's hair, gently untangling the knots there from how many times he must have run his hands through it. 

Beetlejuice worried at his bottom lip, chewing on it in thought as he moved his legs to be sitting cross-legged instead of on his knees. "I don't know. Bad."

Adam felt bad about pressing, but he knew it was sometimes the only way to get Beetlejuice to figure out his own feelings. "What kind of bad?"

"Bad! I don't know!" He growled, but despite the sound his hair didn't change and it came out weak and tired instead of bold and scary like he probably had hoped. "I don't know. I don't know." He fell silent for a moment, eyebrows scrunched together, before he continued. "Too much. Too loud, too quiet. Everything felt bad and hurt and pissed me off. My own skin hurt."

That sounded oddly familiar to Adam, though he dealt with it a lot differently. "Oh. Were you perhaps overstimulated, Beetle?"

Beetlejuice tilted his head to give Adam a puzzled look. "Huh? But we didn't–"

"Not in that way," Adam hurried to correct, blushing slightly. "Did it feel like every time you touched something, anything, even your shirt or your own skin, that it hurt? And people talking was too much, but if they weren't talking you could hear every little thing, like the fridge buzzing or the water in the pipes? Were your own thoughts too big and loud for your head, but you couldn't get them to stop?"

Beej frowned at Adam and nodded, tilting his head slightly. "Yeah… how'd you know?"

"Ah, I've dealt with it myself, actually. Yeah, sounds like a textbook case of overstimulation. Did you sleep last night?" A shake of his head. "The night before?" Another, more hesitant shake. "The night before that?" A third, barely-there shake and Adam sighed. "That'll factor into it, Beetle."

"Usually Adam comes to me about it when he feels like that, and then goes to find a quiet corner to listen to quiet classical music underneath our weighted blanket," Barbara added as she finished up, kissing this hand too before letting it drop. "He usually caught it before it got too bad but… I can see why you wouldn't realize until things got to be too much."

"Has it happened before?"

Beetlejuice shrugged, "probably. I always thought it was just my brain being stupid, honestly," he admitted quietly.

"And how do you usually deal with it, Beeble?" Barbara scooted to the side Adam wasn't at and wrapped her arm around his waist, laying her head against his shoulder.

"Like this. Feels good breaking things."

"Does that include yourself?"

Beetlejuice fell quiet and a few more streaks of pink appeared in his hair. He lifted his head off Adam's shoulder and ducked it, and pulled his hand from Adam's to start twisting his fingers together. He picked nervously at his nails, then at the bandages, then at the little bit of skin that wasn't wrapped before his hands were grabbed and pulled away from each other.

"It helps. The… pain. And the blood. It helps the thoughts, bleeds them out. I–" His mouth hung open for a moment before he snapped it shut with a click of his teeth, deciding to not say what he was going to say.

"Is there anything that could help? Maybe coming to someone before it gets bad enough that it gets to this point?" Adam suggested.

"The thoughts are always this bad," Beetlejuice muttered so quietly under his breath that neither Adam nor Barbara could understand it.

"What?" They both asked at the same time.

"Said, 'yeah I guess I could try,' dumbasses," and it wasn't what he had said, Adam could tell that much, but he had done enough badgering and prying for the day and was willing to let it go.

"That's all we ask, Junebug," Barbara smiled gratefully at him, and Beetlejuice managed to smile back. He flushed when she pressed a kiss against his cheek, and ducked his head when Adam kissed his temple. His smile broadened slightly, and his hair started fading back to it's normal green, albeit with pink tips.

"I'm, uh, I'm sorry you had to see me like that," Beetlejuice sighed, wearily. 

"Everyone has their bad days, Bug, even self-proclaimed 'Ghosts with the Most'." Adam grinned and stood up, pulling up Beetlejuice and subsequently Barbara along with him. "We should clean up a bit. See what we can salvage."

"Oh," Beetlejuice pulled his hand from Adam's and waved it in the air. The room began to piece itself back together, tables righting themselves and clothes piling messily back into drawers, the shelves and their knick-knacks reattaching to the wall. The clinking of glass from the bathroom alerted them to the mirror being put back together in the bathroom. "Ta-dah." It was said so matter-of-factly, without any fanfare, that Adam snorted in amusement.

"That's convenient," Barbara laughed, delighted at the rare show of non-chaotic power from Beetlejuice.

"Can't do nothin' about the blood," he shrugged, as if it didn't bother him. And it probably didn't. "I'll clean it later." 

"Or you can go lay down in bed and we'll clean it," Adam offered, already herding Beetlejuice to the now kind-of-made bed. Beetlejuice didn't struggle and allowed himself to be lightly guided towards the bed where he curled up amongst the blankets.

He watched them as Adam and Barbara geared up to face the horrors of the bathroom. "Thank you," he murmured from behind them. "For… helping me."

"It's nothing, we'll always help you, Beeble," Barbara gave him a pair of thumbs up, and he rolled his eyes with a laugh.

"We'll always be there for you when you need it. You do have to apologize to Lydia for earlier though. Or she won't lend you her Switch anymore." Beetlejuice whined dramatically from his place amongst the blankets. "I know, but you did yell at her."

"Didn't mean it."

"She doesn't know that."

"Uuuuuuugh."

[cornfarm]

sakata gintoki comfort fic

tags: reader has gone through something traumatic. gintoki and reader aren't in a relationship. hurt/comfort and fluff. comfort fic.

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*not proofread (sorry...)

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it is really a miracle that gintoki is able to wake up at 7 when he has early morning jobs. it's an even greater miracle that he can wake up as early as 5 and still manage to hobble out of bed, even when kagura keeps him up all night.

gintoki had assumed, since, she is a yato after all, that at around 9 or 10 she'd just knock out, staying fast asleep until the morning. yet it also didn't come as a shock to him when kagura turned out to be an insomniac.

well, to his credit he was half right, but he's lucky if kagura falls asleep before 11. it makes his midnight bedtime go a bit smoother without her nagging him every moment she can.

tonight, kagura had fallen asleep a little early, tuckered out from both the tiling job they had, and the heafty 6 overstuffed bowls of rice she ate for dinner. gintoki looks at the clock as the numbers slowly add up, until they finally tick over to read 1:00am.

there's no way he's nervous, he his feels steady and he doesn't feel cold or sweaty. in fact if anyone has been nervous it's been you, hasn't it? he thinks of your downcast face as you try to smile at him. you've mastered the perfect, friendly and unsuspecting smile. perhaps a year ago he would have mistaken it for the kind gesture you intend it to be.

but he's not an idiot. he saw the dark circles under your eyes, the creasing beneath your lower lids. he saw how your smile flexed up, as if you were stretching the muscles. the glimmer in your eyes, the playful remarks you'd make at him- gone.

but of course he's not going to pry. it's not really his business.

his eyes refocus at the clock. the time reads 1:04am.

i mean, if you were to tell him what was bothering you he wouldn't be displeased. maybe his ego would be stroked a little. people pay him for favors, and worse, his friends demand favors for nothing in return. but if you were to sit on his couch and let your worries out on him, he wouldn't mind not being repayed.

his heart jumps when he hears footsteps slowly coming up the steps leading up to his front door. he nearly pulls his leg jumping up. his heart pounds. did he summon you? wait- it could be just a random loser drunk off his ass. no, the footsteps aren't sporadic.

maybe on another night he would just ignore the knock and pretend nobody's home, but he's up anyways, and probably not going to fall asleep anytime soon.

he a few feet away from the front door as he waits for the knock to come. after a moment, three gentle knocks echo through the walls.

"gintoki? it's me," you call out, knocking again a little louder, "are you there?"

he approaches the door, fiddles with the lock and carefully slides it open.

alas, there you stand, every single foot of you. you haven't taken your uniform off yet, despite that you're already done for the day. you're still carrying the bag you bring to work.

"were you working this late? why?" he asks.

you look up at him, a little surprised, "hm? no, ah- i was too nervous at home i didn't change."

the corners of your lips pull as you grimmace. if you weren't so dreary then it would have been a smile.

"can i please come in?"

"yeah, of course."

you step inside, standing at the landing. he watches you inspect your shoes, and slowly, with trembling hands, untie the bows and loosen the laces until you can wiggle your feet free.

he reaches out and grabs your arm as you stumble to the side. he smiles, "are you drunk or something?"

gintoki feels quite displeased when you ignore him. he watches your chest heave as your shoulders begin to shake. you step up onto the wood before kneeling down onto the floor, wrapping your arms around your shins as sobs escape your lips.

"hey? uh-" he takes a step back, "what's wrong? what happened?"

you continue to ignore him- or perhaps the sobs escaping your lips are too heavy to form words. gintoki pulls the hem of his pants up as he kneels down, knees schooching forward so his hands can ghost over your shoulders.

"are you hurt?"

you fall forward onto him, face pressing onto his breast. he wastes no second wrapping firm arms around you, a hand reaching around your waist, the other around your upper back.

"please-" you finally choke out, "please let me stay here."

gintoki's imagination begins to race as he wonders what happened. did somebody attack you? did they hurt you? are you afraid? why are you here so late at night? did something happen at work?

he can't seem to find the words. he tries to pull you onto him more so your legs aren't bent so awkwardly. he can't say anything to make you feel better, so he tightens his grip around you.

after a moment, you begin patting his arm, your body trying to wiggle away from him. "gnngkk-" your voice is muffled. "i can't breathe-" gasping as you finally escape his grip.

he smiles at your wide grin. he laughs while his hands come up to cup your cheeks, the tears beginning to roll down your face as you return to sobbing. his thumbs gently press under your eyes as he catches the tears.

"what happened?" he speaks with a soft cadence, you can almost feel how much he likes you just by how he asks the question. his voice is serious though. if you were to ask him to perform a hit for you he probably would.

with your breathing finally slowing, you shake your head, "i can't tell you. i got mixed up with some bad people. i'm fine but i-" your voice quivers at the end.

"i feel so bad, i feel so ashamed of myself. when i got home i just stood at my shoes for hours. i couldn't move."

his hand comes up to push your hair aside, brushing it together like he was forming a ponytail.

"i just needed to be with someone. i need the company. i don't feel very safe right now."

gintoki pushes himself up from his heels, ushering you up with him. your legs tremble, causing you to fall forward, but he catches you. of course he does.

"you can stay here as long as you like, you know? as long as you're here you're safe. i-" he stops himself. this would be a weird time to say something too emotional on his end. he meets your eyes as you look up at him. you look like you're waiting for something.

he hopes a moment of silence wouldn't be weird. his eyes graze over your features. the flush of your cheeks, how your pupils are totally blown out from the darkness of the room. he feels how you place your hands in his, and how they're shaking like a leaf.

"you what?" your voice is so meek he almost wants to cry too.

"i'll take care of you. i won't let anything bad happen to you. you're safe with me."

you shuffle closer to him, pressing your chest agaisnt his but not quite embracing.

"thank you, gintoki," you smile, "i'm so grateful i won't even tease you about how you're blushing."

"oh shut up,"

you giggle at his annoyance, and gintoki can't help but let out a sigh of relief. he paces to the lamp sitting in the living room, "brace your eyes."

you squint as your eyes readjust to the light, "i'll make you some tea."

"thank you, gin."

he fetches the kettle sitting on the stove and empties out the leftover water. after he refils it, he turns on the stove, twisting the ignition to the right until the flame is barely licking the sides of the red kettle.

"do you need anything else?" he asks, brows knit as he leans against the stove.

you look up the ceiling as you think, "could i borrow something to wear? i didn't change or bring anything and these are my outdoor clothes."

"yeah, wait there."

he paces into his bedroom and rummages through his closet.

"these are pajamas," he says, holding up a shirt and shorts, these ones are pink, compared to the green ones he's wearing. he holds up the other hand, ushering to the fabric, "and this is one of my clean yukatas. you can pick."

you reach out and touch the fabric with your fingertips, inspecting it. the pajamas feel very thin, the cotton weave presenting no stretch. the yukata on the other hand, is much softer and stretchy, although it's much thicker.

"i'll change into this one," you say, taking the yukata from his hands, "i don''t like the texture of the other ones. thank you. can i change in your bedroom?"

"go ahead."

he turns back around to stare at the kettle. the low hiss of steam beginning to be audble from the pot.

he's a little nervous to turn around and look at you, and he doesn't like the confrontation as he hears the bedroom door slide open. he stares at the flames.

you gently lean on his side, the weight of your head against the top of his arm.

"it's rare i ever see you so serious."

"huh? how could i not be serious when you come in here crying? do you even know how late it is?" he asks, voice raising a little bit.

"see, now you're back to normal."

he swings an arm around you, finally turning to look down at your figure. "i'm only acting normal because you stopped crying. i already feel embarrassed about what i said."

you chuckle, reaching over to turn off the kettle as the loud whine begins to echo through the confined kitchenette.

while your body is twisted towards him, you reach your arms around his waist. and again, his arms intinctually wrap around you, holding you firm in his grasp.

"you're so clingy tonight," he scoffs.

"i would be more clingy with you if i could. i wish i could jump on you everytime i see you, but you would get angry at me."

his eyes open wide, "you do?"

"yeah..."

he pauses, "i wouldn't get angry at you. i could show off to all those cops that i'm actually a well adjusted guy."

he pulls away and reaches up in the cabinet above the stove, grabbing two cups. he places them on a wooden tray and pours loose tea into the bottom of the cups. carefully, he pours the hot water into each cup.

he leans over to the pantry and grabs two paper wrapped azuki buns he had bought after work.

"did you get one for me?"

"no, they were both for me but i'll give you one."

you gape at him, "i've never seen you so generous before."

"will you just take the damn bun or not?"

"of course, thank you, gintoki."

he follows behind you as you sit on the couch. he places the tray down in front of you, and takes a seat next to you. he sits with a gap between your bodies, but after a moment he moves a little closer, his hips touching yours.

now with the lights turned on, he can see how red you are. he almost feels proud of himself, but not even 20 minutes ago you were nearly dry heaving on his floor.

quietly sipping on tea and snacking on the azuki buns, you break the silence first: "i'll tell you about it later. right now i just need to be with someone."

"i know. i'm here. i have work in the morning though. i'll tell shinpachi to stay home and take care of you while i'm gone."

"no, you don't have to, i'll need to return back to work anyways."

he frowns. "i told you, shinpachi will stay home and you can stay here all day tomorrow. kagura and i will be back around evening. shinpachi will stay home."

"okay, i'll stay."

he takes the next moment of silence to finish the bun.

"but you'll pay him still, right?"

"yeah, i'll give him a cut."

"good. he's a really good kid."

"that's why i trust him with you.

you flush, kicking your foot against his, "you know, you're quite protective when you want to be."

he turns away from you as he feels his whol face, down to his neck heat up, "i just don't want you sobbing and miserable."

you gently knock the side of your head against his shoulder, "you're so sweet." you giggle.

"i should be saying that to you. you've stuck with me this far. you trust me enough in moments like these. i-" he looks at you, meeting your eyes. the familiar ferocity in his gaze is back, "i don't really think i deserve all the kindness you've given me. this is only a small token of my gratitude."

you reach a hand out and place it on his arm. he frowns as he watches tears begin to collect in the inner corners of your eyes.

"i- i can back off if you need me too."

you shake your head. looking down at your hands as you take his in yours.

you're trembling. he can feel the soft skin of your palms trembling.

"tonight, can i sleep next to you?" he nods. "and will you, uhm," he's quiet as he waits for you to finish. "will you kiss me?"

he feels weightless, heart pounding in his chest. he almost begins to shake as he feels dizzy. god he feels so dizzy.

but as your protector, it's his job to make you feel better. he can't let his own desire run wild. he has to protect you,

"of course," he starts, a hand detaching from yours. his thumb brushes against your cheek.

"i want you to want to too."

"yeah... trust me, i do." he squeezes your hand with the hand thats still holding it. his thumb runs down to your lower lip, pressing down a little so your lips part.

"look up."

[djino04]

Injury 2

Author's note : Someone asked for the sequel to "Injury", here it is. I'm not particularly a fan of this chapter, but nothing better came out of my head.

POV Farah 

It's finally summer vacation and I've been alone at school since this morning. The students have of course gone home. Ben, Terra and Sam have gone back to Rose, as they do every year. And I managed to persuade Saul and Sky to go away together for a few days. I hope this little trip will give them a chance to work things out. They're both hurting from the current state of their relationship, but I know he's not yet ready to forgive his foster father. Maybe the change of scenery will do him good.

It feels strange to be alone here. In 18 years, it's rarely been like this. And besides, since my return, the students have been very clingy. And when it wasn't them, it was Saul or Ben. 

Every few minutes I look up at the door, expecting one of the fairies to knock and then I remember that they all went home. I really thought I could finally get on with the paperwork, but I was wrong. I guess I might as well go to my quarters and relax. 

I quickly put the papers away on my desk when I hear my phone ring. I frown as I see Saul's satellite phone number. He already called me 30 minutes ago to complain about Sky's behavior. Although in real life, I know he did it mostly to see how I was doing. At this distance, our connection doesn't work very well, so he needed that to reassure himself. I can't even imagine how he felt the moment I died. What I do know is that his protectiveness has increased tenfold since my return. To be perfectly honest, I don't mind so much that it's coming from him, although I will continue to grumble for the sake of it. Which I do, by the way, as I pick up the phone: 

"Saul, I'm past the age of needing a babysitter."

"Aunt Farah..."

It's not Saul on the other end of the phone but Sky, a very concerned Sky from the sound of his voice, not to mention the fact that he hasn't called me by that nickname since he became a student at Alfea. I then fear the worst but try to stay calm as I ask him: 

"Sky, what's going on? Where's Saul?"

"He's hurt. The wood stock collapsed on him. I think he has a concussion."

"Is he conscious?"

"He was when I left him. But now I don't know, I'm at the car."

A plan of action quickly begins to form in my head and I explain it to Sky: 

"Okay, join your dad Sky, keep him conscious and don't move him for now. I'll get the supplies I need and come through the portal, okay? Everything will be fine, I promise."

After assuring him again that I'll be there soon, I hang up. I could have stayed on the phone with Sky to reassure him, but it would have taken me longer to get everything ready. On top of that, I want him to focus on Saul to keep him awake. It only takes me about ten minutes to get everything I need and create a portal to the hunting cabin. It's a good thing my specialist took me there a few years ago, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it. 

As I walk through the portal, I immediately feel Saul's pain through our connection. I am reassured that they are not too serious and that I should be able to deal with the injuries without Ben. Despite the rain and wind, I run to what's left of the cabin. Once there, I hear Sky's voice but also Saul's as they both talk. The younger one looks up at me when he notices my presence and simply says: 

"Aunt Farah."

I see Saul trying to straighten up and I put a hand on his shoulder as soon as I'm beside him: 

"Just lie there while I check to see that you didn't do anything bad this time. You'll have to tell me how you manage to find trouble even on vacation."

He lies down again without protesting and answers me: 

"Maybe this wouldn't happen if you agreed to go on vacation with us."

I simply reply with a smile. It is true that I often let the two men go together and sometimes join them later. Sky needs to have Saul all to himself from time to time. Which happens more and more rarely now that he is a student and no longer sleeps in his foster father's apartments. And I'm sure Saul really appreciates this time alone as well. 

I use my magic to scan his body and assess the damage. I'm reassured to see that other than the concussion, he's not hurt badly. He has some bruises, a few cuts, and he's going to be stiff for several days, but it could be worse. Most importantly, we'll be able to move him safely. We are all soaked and there is no point in us adding a cold or worse to the list of problems. 

I quickly explain my findings to the two men: 

"Other than the concussion, I didn't find anything serious. We're going to be able to get into the house and out of these wet clothes. I brought a potion that should help with your head and some things for the cuts and bruises. You'll be back on your feet in no time."

Saul starts to straighten up and I can see a slight grimace of pain appear on his face before he hides it. I know he's not going to want to let me take his pain so I don't even offer. Sky gets on one side and I get on the other and we help Saul get up and then walk towards the house and to his room.

Once we arrive and Saul is sitting on the bed, I turn to Sky: 

"Sky, go change, take a hot shower if you're cold. I'll take care of Saul."

I can see that the boy hesitates for a few seconds. He glances at Saul. The latter gives him a reassuring smile: 

"I'm fine now. You did a good job, thanks. Now go get changed like Farah told you."

Obviously, this is what Sky needed to hear because he quickly exits the room. I then turn to Saul, potions in hand: 

"To us both."

I hand him a vial, which he takes with a suspicious look: 

"It's not that I don't trust you but uh, are you sure about this?"

"Just because I missed a potion once doesn't mean it'll happen every time. And anyway, it was Ben who made it so there's no risk."

Once, just once, I messed up making a healing potion like this. Andreas and Saul were sick all day and then neither of them would ever take one of my potions. What they don't know is that they've drunk several since then. The dark-haired guy looks at me for a second longer before drinking the potion straight down with a grimace. But even though it's not good, its effect is almost instantaneous. I hear him sigh with relief and feel the pain recede.

"See, there was nothing to worry about. Come on now, let's hit the shower too. I'll take care of the rest afterwards."

I don't even ask him if he's able to shower or not because I know he'll say yes anyway. He has a slight tendency to underestimate his injuries. After finding him passed out twice in the bathroom, I have learned to assess his condition from our bond. More importantly, I use it to monitor him throughout his recovery, no matter how slightly or severely injured he is. When Saul figured it out, he started blocking his part of the bond in those moments and I think that was one of the only times we really argued. If he can't be honest about his injuries, I need a way to know how he's doing. He eventually figured out that I wasn't doing this to invade his privacy and has left the link open every time since. 

I am brought out of my thoughts by Sky coming over and sitting next to me. I can see that all of this has upset him. It's not surprising, especially with everything he's been through this year, including Andreas' death. I put an arm around his shoulders and he comes to lean against me. I ask him: 

"How are you doing?"

"You know I'm not the one who got hurt?"

I smile gently at him: 

"You know, you don't have to be physically hurt to not be okay. I know the last few months have been hard on you. And what just happened may have messed you up."

He shrugs: 

"I'm not a kid anymore."

No, he's not really one anymore because of Rosalind. These kids have been through war in the last year. And Sky had to kill her biological father with his own hand to protect his adoptive father. There is a lot to be upset about, child or not. That's why I say to him: 

"You don't have to be a child to be upset about things. It's perfectly normal to be scared when you see someone you love being hurt. I was scared when you called me and then when I saw Saul lying on the floor."

He looks at me with a raised eyebrow: 

"You seemed very calm though."

"Being scared is not the same as panicking Sky. It's in the moments of fear where you have to step back and think so you don't make the wrong decision. That's what you did, you called me and Saul is fine because of you. But you know being an adult is also about dealing with problems by talking things through instead of letting your anger out. "

Our conversation is stopped by Saul stepping out of the shower, shirtless. I can quickly see that I was not mistaken, there are some bruises and cuts that deserve a balm but nothing too bad. After a good night's sleep, he'll be almost as good as new and he'll be fit enough to finally have a good conversation with Sky. That is, if he is ready.

[morg-among-the-stars]

‘Til Undeath Do Us Part

Word Count: 3,084

(This is what happens when @turniptitaness kindly shows me one frickin’ clip of an awesome movie about vampires and my little autistic brain does it’s Thing™️. So, please enjoy Hobarkley but vampires!)

————————————————————————

"The light, what are you doing? Shut the curtains, please." Payton groans from the bed.

River stands by the window, the sun is setting, but the tiny bit of light that remains bothers his lover, who continues on, "It doesn't bother you?"

"No, not too much." River shrugs, "Not yet, at least."

Payton sits up in bed, delirious and groggy, but smiling to himself.

"It's been eighteen years, how are you still so fond of the damned light?"

River doesn't really know why.

The sun is nearly gone and the more it sets, the more Payton pulls himself out of bed and over to the bedroom window.

Eighteen years ago, River had been human, sprinting through the deep woods and coming upon a castle.

He'd been seeking refuge from a clan of werewolves that wanted to rip him to shreds, eat him for supper.

And while the huge, dark castle covered in vines and wilted black roses wasn't the most friendly-looking place, River's options were either to gain access into the castle or to, quite literally, be thrown to the wolves.

Payton had been at the organ when a loud knock was heard at the door.

He never had visitors, save for his mother when she made the hike to his neck of the woods.

Back then, he was frustrated at his music being disturbed, but the prospect of a visitor changed his attitude quite fast.

He opened the castle's front door and there River stood, eyes blood-shot and panicked, and his clothes tattered.

Payton saw a few bleeding claw marks underneath his ripped shirt and he pulled the human inside, no questions asked.

River pants heavily, adrenaline pumping through him and trying to settle down as he stands in the large, dimly lit entryway.

All Payton can think about are those scars and he stands still, watching River catch his breath from whatever long-winded sprint he'd done to end up so far away from the nearest town.

Though, he can't kill him, something in him thinks it would be wrong.

But, then again, he hasn't tasted human blood in a long, long time-

"Thank you, I didn't mean to barge into your home, but the-"

"The werewolves, yes. I know. They've been a problem for a while now, I don't pay them any mind." Payton tells him, cooly, "It's a miracle you outran them unharm- without getting eaten."

River nods in agreement, he doesn't even know how he's alive right now.

His pale, red-eyed savior looks at him, as if he's holding himself back from something.

Red eyes... pale... a dark castle...

It would be rude to ask his question directly, but River can't necessarily leave as there is a pack of hungry werewolves who are slobbering and ready to devour him the second he exits the castle.

So, he takes a step back and Payton knows why by his panicked one-again expression.

He gets to the point, sighing,

"I'm a vampire, is that what you're worried about?"

River looks at him, almost guilty.

"Oh."

Without much experience with visitors, let alone humans, Payton doesn't know how to handle this.

He stares at River again and he cannot kill him, even if he wanted to.

Those scars on him will stop bleeding eventually, Payton will have to stick with his supply of blood from other sources.

"I won't hurt you, I promise." Payton states, "You're hurt enough as it is."

He gestures at River's ripped shirt and the wounds beneath it and, caught up in his conversation with an oddly kind vampire, River remembers that he is injured quite badly and in need of help.

Maybe it's a vampiric ability, but Payton nearly reads the thought right from his mind and beckons him to come farther into the castle.

River follows behind Payton with the curiosity of a little boy.

He wants to ask about every piece of ancient furniture or portrait and painting on the wall.

In all of the castle's many rooms, River is taken to Payton's study, where he has books upon books and drawers upon drawers.

So many things, so much space.

River is told to stay put while Payton goes through his drawers.

He does as he's told and stays in one spot, but River wants to peek into every drawer and take a closer look at every book Payton owns.

Vampires, like werewolves, have always terrified him, but Payton is so nice that he can't feel any fear.

He has many questions he wants to ask after he isn't in such a rough shape.

Payton comes back to him with what looks to be a travel-sized first aid kit and tells River to take a seat in a nearby dark velvet chair.

"Why do you need a first aid kit? I thought vampires didn't bleed."

"You're right, I don't bleed, but another traveler... wasn't as lucky as you, and was found dead by the road. I found all this on him and took it."

River has even more questions to ask, but Payton tells him to take his shirt off before any of them can be asked.

Payton kneels in front of him and gets to work.

His hands are cold and still, bandaging River up and talking as to distract him from the uncomfortability of getting his fresh wounds cleaned.

"What were you doing so deep in the woods?"

River isn't hesitant with his answer, but it seems to sit heavy in his chest.

"I got into an argument with my girlfriend, I wanted to go for a walk and clear my head... and I kept walking until the sun went down and then, the wolves came."

"What was your argument about?" Payton asks him, securing another bandage onto his chest.

Silence.

Payton may be good with hospitality and bandaging up a wounded traveler, but the whole socializing thing isn't his forte.

He looks up at River and sees the blank, slightly pained look in his eyes.

He hasn't seen a human- an alive one, at least- in years; he'd forgotten how different they can be from one another.

How special each one is.

River has a little dimple on his cheek and eyes like diamonds.

Special, very special and blatantly handsome, as well.

Payton remembers what he's doing and clears his throat,

"You don't have to tell me, I'm sorry about that."

"It's alright." River sighs, looking down at Payton for a moment.

His eyes are terrifying to look at the first time around, but now they're fascinating.

Bright red irises and pitch black pupils, incredible.

He's all cleaned up and he has to shake himself out of his thoughts the same as Payton does, putting his threadbare shirt around his shoulders.

Payton takes a step back from him and goes back to the first aid kit's drawer, talking more.

"It's not safe for you out there right now, you can stay with me for the night."

Hearing that, River looks as if he's seen God himself.

He thanks Payton profusely, for letting him stay and for tending to his wounds.

Payton tells him to not mention it and takes him to the guest room.

It's a bedroom that hasn't been used since his mother's last visit a few months ago, so it's still pristine from when she left.

River looks around and there's a joke about the lack of coffins that he thinks about making, but ultimately doesn't.

The bed is much better than a coffin, with maroon-colored satin bedding.

Payton tells him to stay put once again and goes off to find something else for River to sleep in besides his ripped up clothes.

He comes back with only a sweater and he looks disappointed in himself over it.

"It's all I could find. At least it's clean." He says, straightforward.

River can't help the faint chuckle that comes from his chest.

"It's more than enough, Payton. I don't know how you find stuff like this in the first place."

Payton is now grateful for all the pickpocketing he's done over the centuries. His little treasures have come in handy.

He leaves River to change his shirt and tells him where his room is, wishing him a good night.

River smiles at him and says it back, thanking him again and wishing him good night.

For the first time since becoming a vampire, Payton goes to sleep only a few hours after River does.

It messes up his sleep schedule, but it's for a good reason.

A while after the sun rises, River wakes up to a note by his bed:

Went out to get food. You can look around but please don't touch anything, thanks. — Payton

There's a smiley face next to Payton's name, it has two tiny fangs.

River is happy that he upgraded from, "Stay put." to, "Look around, but don't touch anything."

He does just that while he waits for Payton to return.

The castle seems to get bigger as he walks around in it, the hallways stretching out for miles and one room connecting to another, then another.

He fears he may get lost of he continues on; maybe Payton has the floor plan folded away in one of the drawers in his study.

Though, Payton is eventually calling for him by the entryway and River has to retrace his steps, calling back to him, "I'm almost there!", hearing his voice echo up through the tall ceilings.

Payton is happy when he sees River again and he walks him to the dining room.

A long table with a dozen or so chairs, where he rarely has his meals.

But today, he has a guest and a reason to use it.

Payton had brought River a few bottles of Gatorade and a couple granola bars; both of which he has seen on the body of every person who's every trudged through the woods.

"When did you leave?" River asks him, before taking a swig of the Gatorade.

"This morning, I tried to get to town before the sun rose, but I couldn't beat it."

"Do you burn up in the sun? I've read that before, I think."

"I don't burn up, it doesn't hurt. It's just not the most pleasant thing in the world. The sun makes me all... reflective."

"Reflective? Like the Twilight vampires?"

River means it partly as a joke, but Payton stares at him for a moment,

"Don't even make that joke, that movie is a gross misrepresentation of what we're like towards humans. Most vampires aren't as creepy like the Twilight guy is."

"But you sparkle in the sun-"

"Yes, but you don't see me taking my shirt off just to show you my glistening chest, do you? It's so dramatic!"

River makes a mental note: do not bring up Twilight. Payton has a lot of thoughts on it.

The time comes for River to leave and, even though it's been only a day, Payton feels a small ache in his undead heart.

He takes River out towards the road and says his goodbyes, telling him that he's welcome any time.

River leaves with the millionth, "Thank you." and walks off towards wherever it is he lives.

To Payton's delight, River visits him quite often, every few days if he can help it.

He tells Payton all about his school and his lacrosse buddies and Payton listens to him for hours, happy as can be.

The visits go on and Payton feels something new whenever he's near River.

Something he felt for a girl who'd gotten lost in the woods. Who would visit him frequently, the same as River.

He hopes that River doesn't find someone else like the girl did all those years ago.

Payton loved her and, for some time, she loved him, too.

But things don't work out and the world keeps spinning.

He's aware of River's girlfriend, but there comes a time where he talks of one last argument which led to their splitting up.

Payton feels almost guilty for how happy he is that River's girlfriend is no longer an issue.

River enjoys his time with Payton quite a lot, his heart thumps eagerly whenever he's close to the large vine-covered front door.

There's one visit where, on a Saturday, River comes to Payton's castle with an idea set in his mind.

He takes Payton out of his neck of the woods and tells him to close his eyes at one point or another, holding his hand and pulling him towards unsteady ground and the sounds of slowly moving water.

"I know this would be your own personal hell during the day, so I'm showing you this on your time."

Payton opens his eyes and he's on the soft sand of the beach, a place he has read about and seen plenty of pictures of, but never been here himself.

The beach at night is peaceful and quiet.

Moonlight bounces off the water and all Payton can do is look at it with his eyes shining with utter joy.

He can't stop smiling and River feels pride in himself; there's so much love swirling inside of him.

Out of respect, he has made sure to avoid the entire Twilight franchise, both books and movies alike, but he can surely see the appeal of it.

But entirely separate from his vampirism, Payton has proven himself to be one of the kindest people River knows.

Falling in love was inevitable.

So, tonight, on the beach with no one else around, River walks along the shore and tells Payton of the fluttering in his heart.

Payton reciprocates it, the feelings are mutual.

Very, very mutual.

Before Payton has to return to his castle and River to his home, a kiss goodnight is shared by the water; underneath the moon and stars.

They both return home, giddy and as happy as can be.

For a while, things are great.

Plenty more visits happen as well as dates in the middle of the night.

Payton shows River every nook and cranny of his castle and he answers every question that his lover has to ask.

Even the hard questions, questions about Payton's family.

But Payton tells his truth, tells of being raised by the best mother in existence and a distant father; and brothers who always tortured him, but who grew up to be vampire hunters.

The irony is bitter and cruel, but Payton knows how to keep himself safe.

River is happy generally, but the heavy weight of the world and his heart get to him some days.

There's a day where the weather is awful, raining like hell and cold with whipping winds.

A loud knock is heard at the castle's front door and Payton opens it.

His heart, though unmoving, feels a violent ache when he sees River.

River is soaked through and his eyes are red, as if he's been crying for a long time.

He steps into the castle, apologizing and rambling about how he can't do it anymore.

He doesn't want to live this mortal life, the pressures of it all and the question of, "Where do you sneak off to at night?" are getting to him.

River is frantic, with a pleading look in his eyes.

"I want you to turn me. Can you do that?" He asks and Payton's eyes widen.

"What- yes. Yes, I mean, I can turn you, but is that really what you want? It's not all it's cracked up to be. You can only digest blood, certain types at that."

Payton paces the entryway floor, rambling on, "And the sun makes you reflective and it doesn't feel too good. People look at you weird when you go out in public. You can't die-"

"I know, I know." River states firmly, stopping Payton in his tracks and holding onto his biceps.

River looks at Payton, taking a deep breath.

"I know all the... downsides, but I can't live like this anymore. Do you know how important you are to me? I want to be with you."

Payton looks at him and he lets a beat of silence settle between them, a second to think.

"It would be forever, River."

River looks sure of himself, extremely sure of himself, he holds Payton's arms a little tighter, nodding and telling him directly,

"I want forever, Payton."

At that, Payton takes River by the hand and takes him to his study; a place River has become quite familiar with by now.

River stands in the middle of the room and Payton gives him one last out,

"Are you sure you want to do this? It'll hurt, I have to bite you and take some of your blood; drink it."

"I'm sure. I know it'll hurt, but I'm sure. I trust you."

The trust between them has never needed to be directly stated, for it was established the second Payton welcomed a human into his home and didn't instantly kill him.

And that River didn't go searching for a wooden stake the second Payton told him about his vampirism.

They very well could have killed each other, but they didn't.

They grew to love each other.

Payton offers River his hand to squeeze and when River tells him that he's ready, Payton is overcome with his own strength and love, feeling River's grip on his hand get impossibly tighter and tighter.

River groans low in pain, holding tight onto Payton's hand, but he's filled with bliss.

A new life can start for him.

It's a learning curve at first, River has to remember to be weary of the sun and to not go picking fights with the werewolves and to get used to being a creature of the night.

Getting used to it all takes time and Payton is there to walk him through it; to shield him from the sun and to help him grasp all the newness of his being.

In a blur of moonlit dates and time spent at the organ and thumbing through thousands of books together, eighteen years fall behind them, continuing on day by day.

Every morning, River peeks out the window to see where the day turns into night and Payton whines about it nonetheless.

But he's happy to see River happy, even dawning a hood so they can sit together under the warm sunlight some days.

They're happy together, wandering through the castle and the woods hand-in-hand.

In love, together.

Forever.

[jjkpls]

the wishlist (m) - 2

“Since when do we buy each other sextoys?”

> genre : light angst, fluff

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> words : 5k

> content/warnings : back at it again w/ the bff2l; one sided love, lot of pining; sextoys talk; explicit language; ambiguous infidelity; chaotic oc; clueless koo

previous - next

It all starts with the first box and the vague memory of a warm touch on your face.

When you wake up that morning, groggy from exhaustion and the sensation of having spent the night waking up, again and again, you sense something. You struggle to point out if you’ve dreamt or if it really happened, but there’s the lingering of a warm hand's trace, cupping your cheek, soothing the stress lines on your forehead, and softly brushing your hair back from your face. You can’t tell if it’s happened but it left a lovely sensation both on your skin and heart. 

You get up and out of bed, slowly stroll to your living room with a lazy hand raising to your head, meaning to scratch at the snake nest you expect to be sitting on it. Instead, your fingers are met with a rather neat braid you definitely didn’t go to sleep with as you were too fucking done with this day to even try and deal with your tight bun -the very bun that elongated your time to fall asleep by at least a good half an hour. The same fingers that caressed your face took care of your hair and you know exactly to whom they belong. 

Of course, giddiness ensues and the mildly serious feeling of mortification -you despise the idea of not knowing in what state he found you, in what state of ugly, of dishevelled, of smelly. There’s no room for embarrassment in this friendship, not this kind anyway, fortunately or not, he’s seen you at your worst (at a time when you didn’t care much if he did or not) so it counters, always a bit, the shame.

He hasn't left your side yet, has he? And he’s exposing himself to this face of yours, so why should you feel bad about it? He sneaks into your apartment at night just to brush your face and bring the covers up to your chin, tuck you nicely in as if he’s your mom or something, so why should you care. He doesn’t seem to mind. He never seems to mind. He’s the best of friends. The best of all the people you know and the best of your friends. 

And of course, naturally fitting this role, you’d find the morning of Christmas, a mysterious box you’ve never seen before sitting on your coffee table. 

The girls, your friends, have presents for you, you know they do, but yesterday you were working and couldn’t see them, therefore, the little celebration was reported and you didn’t expect, you wouldn’t expect them to come at night or early in the morning to bring you your gifts. It can wait (so they decided). 

But Jungkook is sweet like no one else is. 

And he came to wish you a merry Christmas even if you were too tired to wish him back and he left a present for you. 

There’s not a name attached to it but it’s obvious it comes from him. There’s just a post-it he stole from your desk, with a Merry Christmas written on it, the lines of the letters, round and neat, you’d recognize from any other lettering and a bunny with teeth as big as the eyes smiling at you, drawn next to it. 

The box is so pretty, you feel an actual pressure thinking about opening it, as if there is a certain way, a proper way, to go about it. 

And apparently, there is. You go wash your face and rinse your mouth, prepare yourself one of your good teas, tear the curtain wide open and slowly, almost ceremoniously, take a seat on the ground, right in front of it.

The box is neat. You don’t know what’s inside, probably a perfume or some kit for the bath you’d assume, but you already know that whatever is inside, even if it’s not of your liking -which is impossible, it comes from Jungkook-, will be balanced out by the appearance of this perfectly elegant, tasteful box that you’ll use again to stock anything, maybe your face masks, maybe nothing -it’ll just sit, looking good on a shelf. 

It’s a pastel blue, with a black rose drawn on top of it, the icon to a brand you absolutely don’t recognize. With fingers trembling with excitement you drag the box to yourself, it’s mildly heavy, for some reasons, it gives you a little rush of anxiety. There’s just a tiny black ribbon holding the box firmly closed. A tiny pull on it and it slips open. 

Slowly you lift the lid, a grin already plastered on your face, hurting your cheeks. You expect a blinding magical light to come out of it, with the sound of bells ringing near your ears and sense to suddenly knock into you as you’d understand what wondrous present is in front of you.

But none of it comes. There's just a thing hidden inside a black satin bag.

It’s not a perfume nor a bath kit and you’re confused.

A bit scared.

Honestly, maybe a little shameful part of you has guessed it. But the louder yet weaker rest of you can’t see it. It would be too... ludicrous. And wouldn’t make sense, would it? You’ve never actually seen any in real life so how would you know what the packaging would look like and how would you come to this conclusion now? And how, why, how would he, Jeon Jungkook, come about to offer you this?

Doesn’t make any sense. 

But somehow, when you pick up the courage to open the little bag and drag the object out of it, you hardly even gasp in surprise when you discover a dildo. You just let it drop to the table, thumping loudly the fake wood. 

Why did you guess it to be that and why did he get you this shit?

Scorching red seize your face and your whole being.

You are infuriated.

How dares he? You are mortified.  How dares he?

What does this fucking mean? 

A joke?

Is it a joke?

If it a joke then what’s the fucking point? It’s not fucking funny. It’s weird as hell and you can’t believe he came in the middle of the night, pretending to be Santa to leave you a fucking kidding present as if your miserable life needed that. 

And if it’s not then what the actual fuck? Does he think you’re that desperate? Does he have really no notion of boundaries?

Conveniently your phone lays centimetres away from the offending thing, you don’t even need to get up to grab it and therefore, you start looking furiously for his name in your recent call list. After only two rings as if he was just expecting your call, his bright hello reaches your ear. 

“What the actual fuck, Jeon?” He must hear the madness in your voice, both the anger and the hysteria. There’s a pause during which he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make a sound and you even check your screen to make sure he hasn’t hung up on you. 

“That’s- not- the reaction I expected.” He sounds sheepish. Mumbled words, lisped syllables, long pauses. 

“What did you expect?” You yell a bit, you can just picture him, dragging the phone out of earshot and winding, the same way you do when your mom who doesn’t get the concept of telephone screams in it each time she calls you. The realization hits you, that in your quiet little apartment, in this (for once) quiet morning, you are screeching like a banshee. You quiet down instantly, some of the anger soothed down by embarrassment. “Are you insane?” You whisper in his ear and comically, he starts whispering too, with the same alterations to his usually bright and open tone. 

“M’not. I just- you said that’s what you wanted so I got it for you.”

Now he’s making stuff up and blaming this insanity on you and that serves to raise a bit more the bar of anger -along with the loudness of your voice, “When have I ever said that I wanted a-“ You choke on your own saliva once your brain realizes that you’re supposed to say the word, out loud, to him. In an angry whisper, as if someone, your mother, for example, could be listening “fucking dildo!” You blush furiously at that and it’s ridiculous. Probably the reason why you didn’t own one in the first place and maybe shouldn’t yet. Because you’re a grown-ass woman of a quarter of a century, living alone and admittedly independent and responsible for your own existence, but you can’t even say the word “dildo” out loud to this asshole of a friend who apparently, and that’s new news, doesn’t have an issue talking about sex and everything related to it with you. 

“Y-you said-“ There’s a pregnant pause. You can’t know for sure since you’re not seeing him if he’s faking it or not but he sounds confused as hell. Like he genuinely doesn’t understand what’s wrong. Moron. “You said you wanted sex but not a boyfriend so I thought- it’s pretty much- it’s exactly what it is. Why are you so mad?”

The question in itself serves to drag you a little further over the edge. So much so, it clogs your brain with anguish and leaves you unable to give him an answer.

When he’s starting to talk again, maybe ask again his question, you just hung up, slamming your phone down on the carpet. 

You hear it vibrate to life twice before it shuts down completely. Good. At least he knows you well enough, still, to assume rightfully so that you won’t pick up his calls anymore. Not today.

You just have the time to pack the dildo back in its bag and inside its box, throw away your tea that tastes unbearably bitter and maniacally scrub your face in an attempt to get rid of the red patches that don’t want to fucking leave before the telling high beeps of your front door’s digital lock alert you. Your face is soaking in cold water, another attempt to cool it, your face and your troubled mind.

You mean to ignore him. Dipping your head further in the filled up sink, closing your eyes tight shut hoping somehow it’ll help you push aside the calls of your name better.

For a few seconds, it works. You can’t hear him anymore. You wonder if the furious pleas you were chanting in your head could have been loud enough to make the sound of the door slamming behind him as he would have left, completely quiet.

He’s such a try-hard. You hung up on him because he’s saying batshit crazy things and his first reflex is to barge in your house again. You really need to change your lock and not tell him. You can do that. You’re an adult and you have the right to your own fucking place. It’s not a fucking benevolent stay in, for fuck's sake. 

The cold water really seems to work. You feel better, light-headed, coming down after the earlier hysteria. And knowing that he’s left and won’t pursue this mess any further, for now, surely helps a lot. 

Except it doesn’t last for, as soon as your face leaves the water, your hands reaching clumsily for a towel that falls magically in them, one wipe at your eyes and your worst nightmare is standing right in front of you. 

“Fucking- Jungkook!” Burying your face back in the towel, drying your face as much as possible, maybe even trying for a second to suffocate yourself, you wish vainly that when you’ll take it off he would have disappeared.

He is still here though. Watching with dark eyes and a straight severe line replacing the cute button he owns for a mouth, he looks awfully serious for a guy that’s never really serious. Your towel ends up centimetres away from his face, he catches it right before it touches him. You hoped it would blind and confuse him momentarily, long enough for you to escape but of course, this guy would never miss a shot, even a surprise one. 

“Why are you like this?” He asks when you try and push him from the ribs, out of the door frame. You hate that you think about it. About his chest being so hard and warm and his fucking smell of sweat that you’d recognize amongst any others (pretty easily as any other makes you gag and this one, probably because you’re a primary animal guided by hormones, leaves you dizzy and wanting). He doesn’t budge until he decides to, mercilessly stepping aside to let you through. Because you’re an idiot, you don’t think and head for the living room and it’s only once you’re there, very aware of his steps following you, that the devilish object of your discord is right fucking there, obnoxiously sitting on the middle of your coffee table. You groan and squeeze your eyes tight.

What meditation technique, an extra effective one, could you use right now before you definitely lose it and throw yourself out the window?

Before you find one, you end up clinging to the opposite wall, forehead pressed to it, back to him, in a vain attempt to suppress yourself from the situation. You might look a little insane or at best, somehow on edge, but who cares at this point?

“Jungkook, if I don’t pick up your call, do you think I want to see your face?” 

“But why though?” His tone is still harsher than usual. You notice it and you notice you don’t hate it either. What a little bitch you are. If you like his usual self, with the bright smile, soft words, boisterous laugh, dainty manners, you can’t deny that this rougher version of him, genuinely pissed off as you’ve never seen him, tickles your fancy. You’re fucked. “Seriously these days you- you’re such-“

“I’m what?” You bark, swirling on your feet, expression distorted by an offence he hasn’t even made yet. You completed the sentence he’s never finished with terrible words that you’ve never heard him use talking about anyone: bitch, hysterical, cunt. 

“You’re trying to pick a fight with me all the fucking time, I don’t get it!”

Now you feel terrible. You’re still bothered by the raw edges of his tone, it’s literally sending electric shocks to your lower tummy. But his eyebrows have dropped and his fiery dark eyes have turned shiny and sad, your heart hurts in your bosom.

Ugh.

You’re such a bitch. 

“I’m sorry. I know I’m insufferable. I’m on my period. Sorry.” You send a mental apology to womanhood. You're just an idiot lacking imagination. 

Jungkook frowns, his eyebrows dancing in all kind of ways, before they settle for an, unfortunately for you, attractive finale, one straight down, one tilt up. He stares at you, dubious. 

“For three weeks. You’ve been on your period for three weeks.”

The first thing you take notes of is the fact that he dated it way shorter than you would have. Honestly, you found yourself becoming a weirdo with inappropriate feelings that reindeer you into an asshole for at least a month and a half. Before that, it was extremely tamed, totally under control. You’d just notice his handsome face and cute smiles and nice smell, thinking “oh yeah that’s right. He’s kinda attractive. How funny I never really noticed.” And slowly it progressed to not being able to handle him touching you without having something close to a panic attack.

The second thing you note is that he doesn’t believe you. His stare is insistent, turns a bit dark as he lingers, studying your own eyes with judgment in his. He’s frowning even more, looks down at the floor and sighs so deep, heartbreakingly so. He looks hurt that you’re lying and don’t want to share what's really been up with you. If only you could be a better liar. 

“It happens sometimes, all women are diff-“ 

He just sat down on your sofa, eyes fixed on the blue box. Before you can finish your sentence, he sends you a glare that awfully looks like a threat. You shut up. He doesn’t believe you anyway. He knows you and your periods (sort of) way too well. He knows you’re in pain the first day, you’re a bit tender on the following ones and he takes it upon himself to be gentler and not try to play WWE with you on those but you don’t turn into a mean dragon. This much he knows for sure. 

There’s something he’s seeking for within the box. He’s grabbed it, holds it now in between his fingertips, piercing virtual holes into it. It’s probably the answer he didn’t find in your eyes. 

It makes you flush furiously. Seeing his pretty hands with his long fingers touching it. Here’s the reason, he would have caught it on your cheeks if he wasn’t so busy looking for it elsewhere. 

“I really thought that- you’d like it.” He sounds so saddened. You’re caught off guard. Again. So this present wasn’t meant to be a joke. It is a genuine one. It makes sense that he’s hurt then. You’re shitting all over his gift but how could you not? How could he believe that you could just accept that for a random gift? Slowly he makes the top of the box slide up, pout sucked in in concentration, dimple out. Your heart seems to stop at that. He’s not going to take it out, is he?

He can’t take it in his hands.

You’ll die if he takes it in his hands. 

Fortunately, he just opens the box, looks at the satin bag, looks at it with a pained expression as if he feels bad for the thing, then closes it back. 

“The woman at the shop said that it’s one of the best ones, for starters.” He sulks like a child. Bottom lip all plumped out, shiny eyes under curved eyebrows.

Jungkook looks up at you, ultimate sad puppy look on.

“She said the size and the texture were perfect if you’ve never used one before. It wouldn’t be too... what was that again?” He asks aloud as if you’d know. And you’re mortified. On behalf of him. The concept that he’s not embarrassed right now and that he went to an actual shop, browsed through the shelves and asked an actual saleswoman for help is absolutely insane. Unbelievable if it were not for the sincerity he’s dipped in. “And I picked blue because I know you like this colour. It matches your planner, doesn’t it?” He adds as if he’s not sure when obviously he knows.

It is surprisingly very close in shade. And so what? He expected you to love it so much, take fucking aesthetic pictures with it and your planner sitting on your fake marble desktop, next to Diego the succulent? What an idiot. And for how fucking long did he talk to that woman?

Silence hangs heavy between you. You watch as he scowls some more, mumbles under his breath while staring with despair at the box.

Slowly, resolute to be the better friend you have not successfully been these past weeks (months), you leave your protecting wall. Taking a seat on the carpet, on the opposite side of the table, you do your best to ignore the blue patch invading the bottom of your vision and try to give him the softest expression you can come up with at this moment. 

“Why are you so butthurt?”

His curiously perfect round eyes raise in a swift motion, pouty lips agape in a silent little gasp. 

“Sorry.” You apologize before he even gets to respond because, maybe, you could try harder to be good and nice to him. 

“Because it’s a present.” He starts at a very slow pace. He pauses between words like he’s addressing a dim, dim brain. And he might be honestly. But he’s one to talk. How can he not see an issue? “That I’ve looked for and bought for you. That’s why I’m butthurt, what do you mean?” 

“But- since when are we buying each other-“ You need to grow up. There’s no one else but him hearing you and since your last conversation about it, when he too was embarrassed, he’s able to say it just fine apparently. Still, you whisper the following, “sex toys?”

“Since you turned twenty-five and said you were interested in it.” His right-hand raises from the box to start flapping the air and you know it means bad news. He’s upset. When he needs his hands to further accompany his speech, it means he’s a bit too taken by the conversation. And in this case, you don’t feel like it’s a good idea for him to be. “When you were fourteen and into Legos, I bought you a set of Legos.”

Hardly makes sense. 

“You’re just going to pretend it’s a random present?”

“It’s not random. I put thought into it.” His eyes are digging up intensively in your own. It might be desperation that leads you to remain still, allow him to look. Hopefully, he won’t dig deep enough to find stuff he shouldn’t. “Why do you hate it? I thought- I don’t know- you’re a- flourished single woman and-“

Flourished? Really? The words don’t come out of your mouth but he reads them on your face and an adorable smile cracks open the mask of gravity.

“Jungkook.” You owe him an effort. Maybe you should look into why it requires an act of inhuman courage for you to admit your shame. It might be because if he were anyone else, you’d be embarrassed by the present for five seconds because clearly, you’re still half of a fucking child but soon enough, you’d probably be enchanted by the thing. Who doesn’t need a good sex toy? You definitely do. You thought about getting one for a long while but never got to it for some reasons and here’s one offered to you (in a very pretty shade of baby blue).

The thing is you don’t think about anyone sexually except for him (and his friend Jimin, once in a while, just by curiosity because the guy is a very sexual being). If you don’t even consider them in this light, you don’t have to think about them using it, do you? But he’s all you think about, unfortunately. And you’re friends. And it feels like one step closer to your fantasy while simultaneously one step closer to betrayal. And he certainly is not offering you this wishing for you to keep close in mind the fact that this is his. His present. He knows about it. Maybe can think of you using it and liking it without any further implications. Because obviously, it’s not like that for him. “It's awkward. How can you not see that.”

“Is it? What is?”

“First of all, we don’t- we- don’t even talk about... it. And suddenly you’re buying me- this?”

“Yeah, I realized that too!” It’s too much enthusiasm. Eyes too big and hands not leaving the air. You can already guess his next sentence. It’s probably going to be a terrible suggestion. “I talk about sex all the time with the guys,” Your eyebrows jump to your hairline at that. You’re not even that surprised but the formulation could probably be fixed. “and you talk about it with your girls, right? But we’ve known each other the longest and we never talk about it. Isn’t it fucked up?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘fucked up’-”

“Well, I would. I am.”

“Don’t you- don’t you see that you’re a boy and coincidentally you can easily talk about it with the guys who happen to be boys and I am a girl, right? And I-“ Who would have thought? It took you fifteen years to finally be giving him the beginning of the talk about the birds and the bees. You would have given it to him sooner if you’d have known how far behind he’s been. 

“But what if I need girl advice-“

“I’m sure Jimin knows a whole lot about girls, Jeon.”

“From a girl point of view. Real girl advice.”

“Jungkook-“

“If I ask what the G spot exactly feels like, what-“

“Jungkook!” 

He’s amused, the fucker. He’s not as clueless as he sounds. But the crooked grin on his face is too telling. He might just be messing with you. Usually, when he’s just playing he wouldn’t insist so much, he wouldn’t take the conversation this far so surely, there are some genuine intentions. However, he's still having way too much fun.

With his frowned nose, and squinting shiny orbs and stupid bunny teeth. 

“You’re just embarrassed, aren’t you?” You might have terribly loud red streaks painting your cheeks that you try naively to cover with your hands. He can see it all and silently, he nods his head, looking like he’s reached the final touch of his experiment. “How? What happened to the teenage girl who spent her nights writing dirty stories about Harry Styles?”

Horror.

How the fuck-

“How the fuck do you know about that?”

“You showed me!” He defends, hands high above in the air like a soccer player claiming innocence. “You did! You don’t remember?” No, you don’t. But you can tell he’s not lying. Apparently, young you was quite the fearless bitch.

What happened indeed? 

Years happened. A growing sense of self-preservation along with them. Undesired feelings for an idiot with a bunny smile. An inappropriate sense of shame along with those. 

“Anyway. So it’s a bribe for girl advice?” You ask, chin pointing to the box. Jungkook looks down on it, drums his fingertips lightly on the top before he looks up, beaming. 

“Sort of.” Shrugging, he adds with a shifty eye that telltales a certain vulnerable sincerity. “I just wish for us to be able to share everything. Be comfortable like before.”

“Before what?” He stares for a long time, mouth shut. He then blinks the moment away and for the first time, you might believe ever, Jungkook looks like he might have a secret too. 

“Just before. Back in the days, I mean.” He simply explains. His attention is back on the stupid box. He’s staring at the rose on top of it. Fingers playing with the corner of it. 

“Back in your old days.”

“You’re older than me. So you really don’t want it?” Here he comes again with the sad puppy face. Why would it be breaking his dumb little heart to refuse a dildo from him? What kind of insane parallel universe is this? “Is it like a 'men are fine but little Jeon Jungkookie still has cooties so I can’t accept his present, it’s gross'?” 

“Something like that.”

“Oh.” Defeated, he sighs. Another one of those soul-harming sighs. “Fine. I’ll get it refunded and you’ll buy yourself something else with the money then.” 

Is he really going to make you do that?

As if the question is even to be raised. He can make you do anything. 

“No, Guk, sorry. It’s fine. Sorry.” You start, hands clasping over the box you drag your side of the table. The only way you can do it is if you don’t actively think about what’s inside. “I’ll keep it. Sorry.”

“So you kind of want it?” He is grinning from one ear to the other. You can feel him giddy and excited, kind of jumpy on his seat and really, you don’t see any difference with the excitement he portrays each time he gets you any kind of presents and you tell him that you like it. 

“I won’t use it.” It’s almost a threat. Eyes squinted in severe slits, index finger millimetres away from poking his eye. “It’s a gift so I won’t make you get a refund, that’s rude but- I won’t use it.” After a second of seemingly deep reflection, he breaks out in his loud, annoying boyish laughter. Eyes watery at the corners and hands clapping like a stupid seal. “I’m serious!”

“Sure.” He’s still cackling, the idiot. “But you should. The lady said it’s a best seller too.” 

“Great. I don’t care.” 

He has his eyebrows high, a twitch in his wide grin, and the amused black orbs. He doesn’t believe you one bit. “Course, you don’t.”

The idea that he sincerely expects you to use it might drive your delusional brain for a loop. He just wants to be the best gift-giver, the best Santa, and wants you to make good use of whatever he's got you. But how can he not consider that you could not use something like that, to pleasure yourself, when it’s directly related to him, your best friend? It’s weird as hell. It can’t be just weird to you. 

Unfortunately, there’s no one you can come up with the question to have them agree with you. You already know what the girls will say. They’re even worse than you when it comes to Jeon Jungkook and your ambiguous (on your side solely) friendship. They’ll say the ship is sailed and start buying themselves bridesmaid matching dresses.

They don’t understand. It’s not like they’ve grown up with someone like him. Someone rather simple, authentic and kind, so much so, so much more than most people, that it turns him complicated because so different from other humans you can meet. There’s nothing to be read in between the lines with him. It’s always lovingly honest, blatant, generous.

He doesn’t mean anything else behind the gift besides a “have a good one!”. 

And you didn’t mean anything else but the truth when you said you wouldn’t use it. 

At the moment, anyway, you meant it.

A/N: hoping it makes sense and is not too raw, edited it at midnight TT; may i manifest a sugar daddy that would pay me to stay home and write fanfiction for you guys all day :). i really hope you like it, and hope also that you can handle the secondhand embarrassement because even i struggled. let me know what you think of the series so far, sending everyone reading this an infinite amount of virtual kisses and hugs, take care of yourself, love yourself and others a lot, BYEE.

tag list: @moon-asia​ @btstrasht​ @jkbangtan7​ @taehugger​ @kaepjjangiya​ @daggerbeneathmygown​ @cuteipat​  @jinsalpaca​

PLEASE ASK TO BE TAGGED IN THE COMMENT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER! TY <3

[bentnotbroken1fanfiction]

It's officially whumptober, so here's another entry.

It's a loud bang and sudden pressure that awake Billy from an apparently uncomfortable sleep.  He cracks open his eyes to find himself in an unfamiliar and dark room. 

Where the hell is he?  

The noise turns out to be a large metal door slamming shut and the pressure was apparently another person being tossed onto him. 

"What the fuck?" He tries to sit up but he finds that he can't move his arms. They've been bound behind him. And to make matters worse, he feels like he got hit with a mack truck. 

Twice .

Fucking great. 

The other body finally rolls to the side and he is surprised when he can clearly see that he knows this guy. 

It's Steve Harrington. 

Harrington lets out a slew of curses as he too, tries and struggles to sit up."-last fucking time I do Henderson a favor. If it's not getting a flat tire and stranded, it's something else, I swear to god-" The tirade stops when he finally manages to get upright and notices Billy staring. " Hargrove ? What the hell are you doing here?" 

"I could ask you the same question." 

He sort of shrugs."Some shady dude got the drop on me when I was picking up something for one of the kids." he sighs dramatically. "What about you?" 

Billy thinks about it, thinks about where he was before waking up in this room, but he's drawing a blank. The last thing he remembers is drinking a shot of whisky at the Long Branch. His dad is pals with the owner so he gets away with sneaking a drink every once in a while.

But after that…nothing. 

"I don't remember. I drank something and then…I don't know."  He definitely can't remember anything that would make him fucking ache like this, that's for damn sure.

"Well I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say we are in Hawkins Lab."

His interest is piqued at the statement. "I thought they got kicked out and the place was condemned?" 

"Yeeeeah, evil people don't really give a fuck about legalities. If they have money they'll do whatever the hell they want." 

Billy huffs out a tired laugh and attempts to get in a more comfortable position, which he unfortunately finds that he can't . "You do have a point." He knows money talks. 

After a moment of nothing but silence and awkward grunting from him still trying to sit the fuck up, he decides to ask the other boy. Because every time he breathes now he feels like his body is on fire and Harrington looks fine.  "Hey, do you feel OK? Like physically. You're not in any pain?"

Harrington meets his eyes and they look concerned. "No, I'm fine. Are you in pain?" 

"Yeah, but...I was fine..." 

"You must have been drugged. These guys...they're sick. I can't really say for certain what kind of shit they're up to this time, but if it's the same group as before…" he trails off.

Yeah, Billy doesn't like the sound of that. "What did they do before ?" 

His voice is quiet when he replies "Human experimentation." 

All the pain and memory loss make a lot more sense now, but he feels queasy with the thought of someone touching him...experimenting on him while he was unconscious. "You think they've already done something to me..." 

"Yeah. They probably have." 

Fuck. "We're going to die aren't we?"

"No. I didn't go through two years of bullshit just to get kidnapped and murdered. We are getting out of here." 

"And how do you propose we do that?"

He looks thoughtful for a moment. "OK, here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to scoot my back to yours. I can't move my arms, but I can still move my hands. If I can get you free, we can get the fuck out of here. I don't know the layout but I have a general idea of where the exit is. I wasn't knocked out when they brought me in."  

"Fuck it. I'm willing to try anything if it means getting the hell out of here." Billy agrees, even though he doesn't have much faith in the plan, but surprisingly Harrington manages to get the ropes around his wrists untied. 

Hands free, he returns the favor and Harrington quickly stands and makes a break for the door. It's just as loud opening as it was closing, and Billy cringes, waiting for someone to come storming in.

But no one ever does. 

So, they both stick their heads out and glance down the hallway. There isn't a soul in sight.

Either their captors are overly confident in their abilities to contain their prisoners, or they are really dropping the ball here. 

  Whichever it is, it doesn't matter. What matters is that they have a chance to get out of this place unscathed. Or in his case, relatively unscathed. 

He keeps stumbling after Harrington, like he's not used to his limbs, but it's not bad enough that he's lagging behind. It just hurts…. a lot.

And it's weird...He can usually ignore pain. He's played basketball with broken ribs and waited for broken limbs to mend without medication before, but he is quickly realizing that whatever they did to him... It's different, and he doesn't know how much longer he can keep up the pace. 

Thankfully, Steve hadn't been full of shit and led them out a side exit…

...just in time for sirens to blare throughout the whole damn building. 

"Looks like they finally noticed."  He says, trying to hide the sudden fear in his voice. 

"It's fine. There's the woods. We're almost there" Harrington points forward and Billy follows his finger. 

It's freedom, and the only thing standing between it and them is a barbed wire fence. 

It's probably ten feet tall but Harrington scales it like a pro. He's dropping onto the other side in no time flat. 

Billy would usually be right there with him, he's a pretty fit guy, but he stumbles again when he reaches the fence and puts his boots in the holes. His right leg is fine and he gets halfway up, but the moment he puts his weight on the other he falters. The only reason he's not on his ass is because of all the push ups and lifting he does. His upper body strength is nothing to scoff at.

Harrington notices his struggle and climbs up, reaching out to take his hand and pull him over the top.

But the pain is excruciating and after a few tries, he knows he can't get up and over the fence.

His leg is fractured or something. It has to be. Maybe the running just aggravated it. Or...whatever they fucking did is starting to overcome him.

His chest feels tight and his jaw is sore from gritting his teeth through the pain. 

It only takes a moment more for the severity of the situation to set in. 

He's not going to make it.

He stares up at the wounds on the other boy's face and arms from the wire cutting into him. The longer he tries to help Billy, the more injured he'll become….

So, there's really only one option here, but Steve hasn't realized it yet. There isn't a way for them both to escape this. The creeps that took them have already noticed their absence. He can still hear the sound of alarms and now barking dogs behind them. 

"Harrington," his voice shakes despite the bravado he's trying to project. "You have to let go, man."

There's confusion and then anger in those brown eyes as he glares at him. "I'm not leaving you here." He tries again to unsuccessfully pull Billy up, panting out, "You're an asshole, but I don't want you to fuckin die."  

The barks suddenly move closer, making them both shudder. "Look, there isn't another way, and you have a chance to get out of this freak fest. My leg is fucked. Something is wrong with me and I'm slowing you down. So let me go ."

There are so many emotions that cross his face before he finally relents."Fuck you, Hargrove," he hisses, and lets Billy's hand fall from his grasp. 

Something like relief fills his chest as he slumps down to the ground, but the other boy isn't moving. He has to hiss out, "Go!" 

"Fuck. I'm going …but when I find help, I'm coming back for you." 

Billy forces a smile and gives him a wave. "See you later then, pretty boy." 

He watches his back retreat into the darkness and shivers as heavy footsteps stop behind him.

"The control subject escaped," someone says into a radio before roughly grabbing him. He doesnt put up a fight as he's dragged back towards the lab, but he does throw up when the pain becomes too much. "I have subject A." The man speaks again. "But it doesn't look good." 

And Billy sighs sadly, because he had already known the outcome. The only thing Steve will be coming back for, is his body.

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[thekillingjoke-haha]

Prime Time,Bitch!

Tagged: @spnquotebingo the keep reading function is messing up for me

Sam said he was locked up tight in the dungeon. He was never locked in with her. She was locked in with him. The hunter becomes the hunted with no where to run.

Warning: Mature Language,Blood,Gore,Character Death?

-"Thoughts"- (they are red for those who can see)"Quotes" 'Reading'

"I'll be right back. This demon side is fighting to stay in control. I just need a few more pints of blood." Sam said as he slung a bag on his shoulder. "Yeah I got it get some food to!" Y/n said with a smile as she walked him to the impala. The roar of the engine rumbled as she waved him off going back inside what she didn't know was Dean knew that Sam just left and a chilling smile grew on his face.

Y/n popped popcorn as she sat in her room a horror movies playing as she got comfortable. A scream came from the movie drowning out the sound of the dungeon door opening up. The youngest Winchester laughed as a girl tripped over nothing her and Dean always make fun of them they had no real reason to hit the ground so they should get right up. This made her slightly sad. Was Sam going to fix Dean or was it already to late for him? Shaking off the thought the killer was about to crush the women's skull when the power cut out,but the red emergency lights didn't cut on yet which was weird. "God damnit." She grumbled getting up and grabbed a flashlight and went to the breaker to fix it walking right past the open door. Flipping the switch the normal lights don't turn on only the red ones and she turned around to get her phone to call Sam when she dropped her flashlight. Y/n gazed at the empty chair in the center of a devils trap she took off running to her room,but paused he knew she would run there for her phone and Dean or the demon he's become won't let her get help. She changed course to Sam's panic room to hide.

"Oh N/n where are you? I miss my little sister don't you miss me?" A metal sound of something dragging on the floor made her tense. Thinking of all possible things it could be of how she's going to die.–'It could be a bat,but we don't have any metal ones in the bunker. Maybe a sledgehammer,but that would have ment he when into the garage and the power going out would have locked everything.''– Her eyes widen as she released what it was he must have been carrying around she was sharpening it with the rest of the blades earlier that day."Have you figured it out yet? I know how you think when a horror movie is playing you see ever scenario before the movie can catch up. No wonder Sammy says you cheat at Clue!" Dean laughed as he seemed to wander to each room. The sound of wood splitting as he yelled "Here's Johnny!!!" It seemed so much worse that Dean was the evil this time a normal demon would know her so personally this seemed almost cruel him quoting films they watched together. "What to clichés? I admit the axe is old school."

The panic room the size of a cubbie it was so small,but just big enough I could calm down and think properly. Looking up another version of myself sat in front of me...my conscience. I could speak,but she could she's in my head after all. –"You can't run. There's nowhere to go doors locked down the moment the lights went."– I saw a illusion of myself running through the halls just to hit a corner and get a axe to the chest before it faded away. –"Can't go for your phone or your laptop he probably broke it the moment he noticed you weren't in your room."– I saw myself creep into my room just to see a shattered phone and my laptop with a cracked screen buffering to open instant messenger to text Sam. The laptop was slammed shut on my fingers causing some to break and get sliced by the glass looking up the sick grin of the Demon caught my eye before the axe ended that path. –"The burner. The one in your dresser Dean doesn't know about it so neither would the demon.Get it and get back here as quickly as possible. "– It was settled call for help. Listening for any foot steps I creep out of the hiding space a faint whistle going off down one of the many halls way from my room. Sneaking down the hallway staying low I get to my room where the door is torn to shreds as I open my drawer and fish out the phone. Going back down the hallway I get back to Sam's room and immediately call him.

"This call has been forwarded to a automatic voice message at the tone ples–" Hanging up I call again and again with no answer. At this point help was no longer a option. The whistling seemed to get closer and I rushed to the panic room until I paused. –"A enclosed space in a closet. There's not much space to move around if he finds you there your done for."– I back away slightly. –"Behind the door offers a easy place to hide and get out,but if he does the same to Sammy's door he did to yours it's not much of a hiding spot then."– A axe goes through the door creating a massive hole and Dean peaks inside and sees the white of you tank top in your (f/n) flannel. The door was whole again as I looked around the sound of metal getting louder running out of time. –"Under the bed allows you to see him without him seeing you,but like the panic cubbie not a lot of wiggle room if he hears you your done."– It was too late running to the metal door of the panic room she slams it shut not to loud to sound like she's trying to hide it,but just loud enough for the demon to register it. Sealing it shut I slip under the bed and wait for the time to get out and hopefully find a weapon.

Boots walked into the room turning to the closed closet. "Oh N/n!~ There's only so many places to hide in such a small room. Did you really think I wouldn't hear that heavy ass door close?" He chuckled darkly as he opened the closet and went to the small door. Dean tried turning the wheel to unsealed it,but it seemed to dawn on him that it could only be opened from the inside. With a huff anger he began pulling the brick of the wall started to bend outwards and crack. I was glad I wasn't in there. Going to slip out from under the bed while he's distracted the burner phone rang its annoying ringtone. Not even bothering to stop it I rush to get out faster,but a firm grip caught my ankle and dragged me out. Turning onto my back Dean stood their his apple green eyes staring at me. "Found you." He lifted up the axe having let go of my ankle lifting up my feet I put as much strength as possible into kicking his stomach. The demon was knocked back into the closest hitting the ground. Unfortunately axe still in hand. Stanfing up I ran leaving the phone behind. -"Sam took Baby so the trunk armory is out of the question. The garage has so pretty handy tools too bad that it was sealed along with the front and only entrance. Kitchen has knifes none that can hurt him,but just enough to slow him down. Library demon blade was in there last you checked,but Sam could have grabbed and put it on a high shelf."– Too many options and the kitchen was closer so that was the first stop grabbing a knife I held it tightly as a stalked slowly to the Library to see if there were any supernatural weapons.

The library was dark and the red lighting barely lit up the large room. "Would you like to play a game?" Dean mocked in a deep voice as he went around the bunker his voice echoing no real pinpointing where he is. I can't call Sam and prying to Cas hasn't worked meaning Dean made angel banishing symbols in most of the rooms. Y/n was getting desprit the bunkers massive size most of it was unexplored by them so being lost in a underground maze b wasn't the best option. "Are you scared yet Y/n? Well be afraid. Be very afraid. I'm what goes bump in the night sweetheart! Never thought the Winchester’s downfall will be by the hands of the oldest. What a twist!!! Right?" Dean yelled turning to the table I saw the supplies I cleaned with,but the weapons were gone and a note was left on in their place. 'Hey Y/n I put the weapons back into the trunk for tomorrow's hunt so you wouldn't have to...you're welcome and your blade was just sitting on the table so I put it up. ~Love Sam' I wanted to cry oh chuck nothing can save me in this buncker Bobby was sending us gallons of holy water next week because we were low...all rooms were demon proof,but he seemed to be a exception now,so no calling Crowley either.

Turning around the library doors open and I duck behind one of the many shelves. "Welcome to my nightmare!~" He said with a chuckle that bounced from every wall. Dean knocked down books and destroyed anything in his way while he looked around. Crawling on the ground I go to leave when the sound of something whooshing in the arm made me drop like a bag of rocks. The axe meet the shelf and I gazed at the red illuminated face of my brother eyes now black and demented. Laughter bubbled out of his chest as he mumbled. "Carful dear wouldn't want to lose you head." Yanking the axe free many books tumbled down. Taking the kitchen knife in hand I slash his calf and go for his thigh when the knife is flung out of my hands. "You little bitch!!!" He hissed now holding the knife and showing it into my stomach. A silent cry came from my lips bot to give him the satisfaction of my screams just yet. I look up at him and just past his head where I couldn't normally reach was the handle of my blade peeking over the shelf.

I begin to giggle and it turns into fits of laughter. Black eyes flicker back to confused green ones. "What's so funny?" I catch my breath as I lean up slightly. "You picked the wrong place to corner me. Wanna play?" Grabbing his knee and pulling it buckled under him causing Dean to hit the shelf letting the blade fall freely. Reaching out I catch it "Let’s play." Stabbing upward into his stomach the same place the knife was lodged in my own stomach. He howled in pain as I removed the blade and ran keeping pressure on the knife wound as I turned corners just to get away. -'He played with your head play with his. The intercomes...a good distraction can lead him away and let you get the jump.'- I hurry to the intercoms not before making a pit stop.

Demon!Dean POV

I growl at the wound on my body the little shit stabbed me. This makes killing her so much easier then she can be just like me. Grabbing the axe I stomp through the bunker. "What a excellent day for an exorcism." Her voice sounded through the speakers now I know were she is. "Would you like that?" I said aloud with a grin. "Intensely." Y/n said trying to make her voice horse before the clipping sound of the intercom stopping rang out before being replaced with a creepy melody that always scared her. "There was a crooked man. He walked a crooked mile he had a crooked six pence upon a crooked stile." It went on with childish like tones until it got further in the song it was so god damn loud though. "The crooked man stepped forth and... rang the crooked bell and thus his crooked soul... spiraled into a crooked hell.Murdered his crooked family... and laughed a crooked laugh." My ear drums almost burst at the loud deep voiced scream ears still ringing I didn't register the blade being driving into my sholder flinging her back I turn around as she's running down the narrow hallway taking the axe with both hands throw it straight and the axe hit her almost dead center in the spine. The audio cut off after the song and I stood over her. Y/n had her face turned coughing up blood I definitely hit her lung. "Thanks for catching it for me." I smile as I heavily put my foot on the small of her back pulling the axe out. She screamed out it was mildly gurgle from the blood. Turning her over my little sisters eyes shined with unshed tears. "Oh,no tears,please. It's a waste of good suffering." I said with a small whipping the few that slipped by she whimpered Sam's name and I grew frustrated. Lifting the axe again. "Looks like you couldn't make the cut,N/n. Just another extra that stuck around for too long." Dropping the axe down it went into her chest the creaking of her collar bone and sternum were whispers compared to the blood curdling cry. They soon died out as her skin paled and her breathing stopped she'llmake a strong demon. "See you soon." Taking the axe out I begin to drag her body.

The lights in the bunker cut back on meaning Sammy was home. Having placed her perfectly in the chair I was tied to I wait until he finds her standing next to the door. "Y/n?! Y/n!?" He yelled most likely having gone to her room rushing the the dungeon his heavy foot steps abruptly stopped. "Oh God! Y/n come on!" The moose of a man rushed in the room cradling her face in his hand. "You were too late, Sammy. She called your name before she went,but I guess five missed calls wasn't enough for you to rush home. N/n fought for so long waiting it out just for you to never show." I said closing the door as he turned to me standing infront of her corpse. "You didn't make things easy on her. I mean you took all the weapons and put the only thing to defend herself on the top shelf...like keeping the cookie jar way from a child. In some way you killed her before I could." Lifting the demon blade that had his own blood on it. I stalked towards him cornering him in the room. "Sure you won't give me a good chase,but woah she wore me out." Holding the blade to his throat when a gun shot fired and a sting hit my arm causing me to drop the knife.

Y/n stood colt in her left hand the axe keeping her up in her left. "Demons always so sure that what's dead is dead and can't be undead. Ever heard of a pulse jackass. " so distracted that she was alive Sam was able to restrain and she held a handful of bags of blood. "Let's get this over with." She bagan to inject me and I felt myself become mire human and I started thrashing hard. With the last vile in hand she looked into my eyes. "You should be dead." I hissed as she pushed the needle in. "Sorry. I'm into survival."

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A/n This is the last one in round one of the Spnquotebingo and I ended with a dozen quotes.

Title: "Prime Time,Bitch!" Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

"Here's Johnny!" -The shinning

"Would you like to play a game?" - Saw

"...be afraid. Be very afraid"- The fly

"Welcome to my nightmare."- Nightmare on Elm Street

"..lose your head." Alice in Wonderland

"Wanna play?"- Child's Play

"What a excellent day for an exorcism...Would you like that?....Intensely." - The Exorcist

"There was a crooked man. He walked a crooked mile he had a crooked six pence upon a crooked stile." It went on with childish like tones until it got further in the song it was so god damn loud though. "The crooked man stepped forth and... rang the crooked bell and thus his crooked soul... spiraled into a crooked hell.Murdered his crooked family... and laughed a crooked laugh." - The Conjuring 2

"Oh,no tears,please. It's a waste of good suffering." - Hellraiser

"See you soon." - Coraline

"She called your name before she went,but I guess..." -Hadestown

"...what's dead is dead and can not me undead." -Jacksepticeye (DBD playthrough)

"I'm into survival." ‐Nightmare on Elm Street