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liitlesunshiine · 3 years

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High on the clock

Quirkless AU - Toya Todoroki

Warnings: cursing, drug use, anxiety, panic attack mention, suggestive themes, slight sexual themes

A fun light hearted fic. Definitely enjoyed writing this piece so I hope you guys enjoy reading it. ^.^ It’s flirty n cute n Toya is a total bae. <3

You and Toya are coworkers who try making the most out of your shitty job.

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“Goddd this place fuckin blows.” You groaned in frustration sitting across Toya.

“As if I didn’t know that already,” he sleeplishly replied.

You never intended on working in this shit show of a store for as long as you have but yet, here you were two wasted years later. You had high hopes after graduation but it seems no job wants to hire someone with no experience and you can’t get any experience since you can’t get an actual job that’ll provide it. So it’s forced you in this sort of awkward limbo and vicious cycle of going back and forth. You’ve been stuck wearing this shitty bright uniform with a barely livable wage and terrible hours. Miserable every second of the day, with the constant guilt eating at you for being so complacent.

Of course there were a few exceptions.

Of course… Like the highly attractive coworker you spent most of your time here with. Days spent with Toya were significantly better than the days spent without Toya. In fact, if it weren’t for him, you’d probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as you had here. Because man, when days were good they were ok, but when the days were bad, they were really fucking bad. Some in which you were ready to burn down everyone and everything yet the sweet, hot, god-like Toya would make you melt with his cute quirky smile and meet your eyes with his own that you would absolutely drown in and next thing you know, you had completely forgotten about what you were upset over. Now, it’s just a bonus that he meets your sarcasm with his own, the both of you have always had this flirty like atmosphere that neither of you are willing to acknowledge but low key kinda know there’s an underlying sexual tension there. It was strange how well you both got along, the average onlooker would assume nothing more than a simple boyfriend and girlfriend relationship but it was really just mutual likability and connection between the two of you. Days with Toya were simply good days. And you were absolutely grateful for someone like him because god knows how terrible it’d really be here without him.

“Why don’t we make this night a bit memorable,” Toya who was right next to you behind the counter, gives you a side wink and unzips the company jacket to reveal a small ziplock within the pocket. Andddddd long behold it’s weed! You chuckle to yourself, never getting tired of Toya’s shenanigans. Very much appreciated as he’s best form of entertainment here.

“Toya we almost got caught last time, you really wanna risk it again?” Your words ran on deaf ears as he was already rolling up the blunt underneath the counter, “what’s the worst they can do? Fire us?” You stopped for a second and nodded, well he wasn’t wrong. Maybe this was the push you needed to finally leave this shit hole. “You got a point, let’s do it quick before someone comes in.”

While this is a 24 hour convenience store, usually pass 1am, rarely anyone is inside. So you suppose it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. Plus with Toya your bound to have a good time, who are you to deny him. You trusted in him enough to get away with his bs.

“Pass the lighter doll,” you fished for the lighter that was nicely decorated with little blue flames over in your small book bag and passed it to him. He holds the blunt between his two hands and you duck underneath the counter with him. “Ladies first,” he cockily said, you lean forward and placed your mouth on the blunt while he held it for you. He always did this and it always felt oddly intimate to you. Couldn’t help the warm fuzzy feeling in your chest taking over when his glass like eyes gazed over you. They always made you curious and somehow hungry for knowledge of his life. You’ve never knew someone so well yet know nothing of them, but that’s always been enigma of Touya. You exhaled closing your eyes, attempting to calm your nerves. “You know the only time I ever smoke is on the job with you.” He smirked bringing the blunt to his own lips, “guess I’m a bad influence then.”

You snorted and rolled your eyes. “Everyone needs a lil spice in their life, no?” It was his turn to roll his eyes. You gently grabbed his wrist and led the blunt back to your lips again, he stared quietly at you. Which oddly made you tense up. “Don’t look at me like that,” you smiled.

“Like what?” He smiled.

“Like I’m the most beautiful girl in the world that you can’t live without.” Now you both laughed. This was the usual routine with Toya; cracking jokes and talking shit for a bit and simply enjoying each other’s company while the store was empty. He finally broke the trance you were in when he spoke up.

“You know, having my father kick me out of the house wasn’t so bad after all,” Toya leaned in.

You looked at him with a puzzled look, he never brings up his father. Whenever the conversation appeared it was quickly diverted elsewhere. You didn’t want to poke or intrude but curiosity got the best of you and you couldn’t help but want to continue the conversation. “Yea? Why is that?” You wondered. His father, from what you’ve been able to gather with the little bits Toya has mentioned here and there, was that supposedly his father is some CEO to a multi million dollar company. Odd considering the likes to where Toya ended up but you concluded that they must’ve ended in bad terms. You understood how cruel and selfish parents can be and didn’t need further explanation on that part. Easy to assume considering how poorly and little he speaks of him. He shut your ideas off with his simple response.

“I wouldn’t be smoking a blunt with the world’s most beautiful girl under this shitty counter, if it weren’t for it.” Ha, that definitely caught you off guard, causing a light blush to form across your face. Even with a seeming sensitive topic he still manages to tease you. He’s got that cheeky smile plastered all over, “Got you choked up doll?” You rolled your eyes. You were about to tell him off before the door rang indicating that someone has entered the store. You snapped out of the haze and immediately got up to quickly realize that the person who entered was one of the regional managers, oh fuck. You nearly froze in fear and kicked Toya under the counter. “Ow the fuck was that for?” He looked at you while soothing the kick you just gave him but upon looking at your panicked expression and frenzied body, he quickly crushed the blunt and shoved it back inside the pocket of his jacket. He didn’t need to be told or explained which you greatly appreciated at the moment. Toya was always able to read the room, bless his soul. He clumsily got back up to which you had fixed his crooked hat and whispered into his ear to tuck his shirt in while covering him slightly to do so.

“Hi-ya hello, good afternoon, I mean good evening sir.” You embarrassedly stumbled over your words to which Toya snickered at. You kicked him again harder this time as discreetly as you could. On the verge of a panic attack. He gripped tightly at the counter, smiling at the man in front of you both. Hissing silently at the pain your kick caused him. He gave you a quick side eye nodding his head in disapproval. Which somehow made you feel drastically worse.

“Good evening to you both, I’m sure you know who I am.”

You responded a bit too hastily looking like a rabid chihuahua. “Yes! Yea. Of course we do, how are you? What brings you in at this time? It’s so late.” You manage to say within 2.0 seconds, the automatic robotic customer service attitude overtaking your body. Well- at least trying to considering you just had a 30-minute smoke sesh under the counter and your mind is desperately trying to sober up. Honestly, what the fuck was he doing here at this time? This has never happened and I mean out of all the hours of the day. Oh yea, you’re definitely getting fucked, the smell of weed was so pungent, it was literally embarrassing how bad the situation looks. You wanted to cry. Toya’s eyes were stained red and you only assumed yours look worse.

“Gotten a few complaints about this store recently. Wanted to come in and take a look.” You began to get a cold sweat, oh shit he knows, he definitely knows. You had words lodged in your throat that couldn’t come out. What could you say? What can you say? You’re in the wrong here. Everyone knows that smoking weed with your cool and kinda hot coworker under the counter is definitely not ok. Maybe even illegal, oh god what if this gets on your record. You’ll definitely not be able to get a professional job, then you’ll really get stuck working a even shitter job than this. Oh good oh god oh my god.

As if sensing the absolute panic and anxiety off of you, Toya gently caressed your arm motioning you to relax and to stay silent. You recognized the wave that washed over him and instantly knew he’d handle the situation, he always does. And if you could die in his arms right now, you’d accept your fate happily. Toya was an interesting man oh right, you always believed he held such potential to do great things and even change the world. It doesn’t make sense really considering you both work at a basic job but you had come to secretly admire the guy. You’d would tell him too, how you believed in him, how you had so much confidence for him to become something great but he would always shut it down and brush it off like it was nothing. It was as if he didn’t think he was good enough. It always bugged you that he thought so little of himself, but seeing him now causally and confidently bullshit the regional manager out of your current situation just simply reminded you of how special he was to you. Definitely got your pussy wet and made you eternally grateful too.

Toya was standing in front of the counter, making hand gestures while the manager just stared analyzing his words. You were completely z0ned out, only able to get parts of the conversation.

“We’ve been having this customer appear at the store over and over again around this time of night harassing me and Y/N. We’ve considered calling the cops since he’s always high off his mind, we’ve caught him smoking in the bathroom on multiple occasions too. He was in here about 15 minutes ago and we haven’t been able to get rid of the smell.”

Ah the beautiful lies that slipped through Toya’s lips sounded like a symphony. It was nothing short of comedic and yet so fucking Oscar-worthy. You could definitely pay this man to tell you lies he with how effortlessly convincing he was. You couldn’t even care to listen to what the manager was responding with, but on his way out he waved at you wishing you a goodnight and you sighed out with relief.

Toya turns to you clasping his hands together “well there’s gonna be a security guard here for the next two weeks.” You laughed “I guess that’s better than getting fired huh.”

“I’m not sure about that,” he chuckled. “I texted Shigs to come and take over the rest of our shift.”

You looked at him confused, “how come? Either way, do you think he’ll be ok alone here?”

Toya slipped his phone into his pocket and walked back to you “yea he doesn’t give a fuck. Besides you look pale fucking white, guess this guy sobered your ass up real quick.”

You attempted to glare angrily at him but it came off as a soft puppy look. You had no energy nor the strength to pretend. It feels like you just got whiplash from the rollercoaster you were on. Figured it was no use in lying considering you looked like you just went through it. “Yea, I still feel high as shit, I just wanna go home already, only thing this guy gave me was a fat fucking headache.”

He ruffled the top of your head, “awe poor baby,” he said in a teasing tone, he inched up right beside you, “I got something that can help with that.” You jokingly pushed him off you, tying to ignore the warm feeling pooling under your stomach. Your mind was definitely thinking something dirty with a million miles per second and with how he handled today’s situation you’d be more than willing to give him whatever he pleased, but you pretended to cast aside those intrusive thoughts and act unfazed. “Shit don’t tell me you got Advil on you too?”

He chuckled lightly nodding is head down, “got something even better doll.” He scoots up next to you and grabs a bottle of excedrin underneath the counter, passing it to you. You excitedly open it taking two pills out “oh my god I didn’t know we had some underneath here, yes thank you. You're definitely my hero today Toya.” As if y’all didn’t work in a convenience store that had if not all types of medicines. It was the effort that made it special though, it’s what brought that bright goofy smile of yours to light.

You weren’t able to see the blush that formed on his cheeks while you swallowed the two pills. “Yea I remember you telling me you get headaches n shit and I know this medicine helps with it.” He was scratching the back of his head awkwardly. He never really handles compliments well but you tippy toed over to him and wrapped your arms softly around his neck. “I appreciate it Toya, that was really thoughtful. Thank you.”

If you didn’t see his previous blush you definitely noticed this one, which in turn lead you to blush. But you couldn’t miss this opportunity- “AWE is lil Toya blushing. So cute brings me back to my middle school days.” That caused a loud laugh to come out of you both. “Shut it.” he quickly and quietly said.

“Am I interrupting something.” You and Toya quickly untangled from each other trying to play off the slight tension in the air.

“Errrr um.. Hey Shiggy, thanks for uh coming in.” You awkwardly stumbled, you never really got along with him so there was always this weird loud silence between the both of you. He already seemed to be annoyed, per usual. The sloppy blue hair all tangled looking greasy and his patchy skin looking irritated and flaky as usual. He definitely was not amused or happy to be here. Well when was her ever. You’ve yet to seen the man smile.

“Whatever.” He takes a sip from his metal bottle and walks over to the counter.

“Shiggy you the man, thanks for pulling up bud.” Toya pats him in the back and Shigaraki shuttered. “Don’t touch me,” he flatly said. He glared at you both.

“You guys can go leave and fuck now.” The words caught you instantly by surprise and you got completely red. “That’s not what were gonn- ugh whatever like it matters.” With that, you and Toya clock out and leave the store with Shigaraki sending daggers at your back.

“He’s always acting like such a bitch.” You annoyingly complained.

Toya puts his arm around your shoulder pulling you closer to him “he ain’t so bad when you get to know him.”

“I guess.” You rolled your eyes, you didn’t really care. You were more relieved to have finally left. He can rot in the store by himself for all you care. Not you or Toga would miss him.

“So,” Toya glided with his words, itching you closer to him. He was leading the way in this position with you happily following. Not knowing the destination but feeling completely at peace with his form completely snug at your side. You comfortably wrapped your arm around his waist and gently placed your head in the crook of his neck. This was nice you thought, you and Toya were always this intimate when alone. No hesitation or awkwardness, just simply holding hands and sharing body heat as friends with the underlying passion waiting to burst and to be acknowledged. But nothing ever felt rushed, not with Toya. You stared at him from this angle, taking in his beautiful effortless features. His lashes looked so long as you stared in slight jealousy, his hair a perfect black mess with hidden red roots if you stared long enough, and his eyes. Man, you could write poems and sing songs with how the eyes stirred up some emotion you can't quite pin down. Always causing an eruption of feelings you can barely control.

You felt the warmth from his breath when he spoke, “wanna go to back to my place and finish that blunt? Would love nothing more than to see the world’s most beautiful girl on my bed.”

You blushed and nodded looking at those piercing blue eyes once again “well, when you look at me like that I guess I can’t say no.”

Maybe this time you would finally show Toya just how special he really is to you.

#Touya x You #toya #toya todoroki #todoroki x reader #bnha dabi #dabi smut #dabi imagine #dabi x reader #dabi #dabi my hero academia #my hero fanfic #my hero academia #dabi fluff #dabi fic #toya smut #kinktober #mha todoroki

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escher-room-with-a-view · 3 years

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elaborating on my autism headcanons!!

- sarah -

her special interests are usually between one and three. once she develops a special interest, it stays with her for years; in fact, some of her interests, like reading and writing, have been with her for as long as she can remember. her other special interests are theatre and arts and crafts; the latter is quite a broad category, but it includes things like sewing, felting, embroidery, watercolor painting, book binding, and making collages. sarah delves further into her interests the more they’re encouraged, but she also uses them as coping mechanisms to feel better about or distract herself from the real world around her. in the cases of acting and crafts, she uses these to express how she feels, whereas reading and writing are used more as forms of escapism. her favorite genre of literature is fantasy, though she doesn’t mind any particular fantasy subgenres and is willing to broaden her knowledge of the genre by reading most of them. meanwhile, she isn’t anywhere near as selective when it comes to theatre. so long as there’s a soundtrack and cast that resonates with her, she doesn’t care if it’s opera or ballet, tragedy or comedy, contemporary or dating back thousands of years. indeed, she doesn’t ever feel like her knowledge of theatre is complete—and while it feels unattainable, she’d like to develop at least a cursory knowledge of every play there is.

sarah stims by talking to herself, chewing on her lips or hair, pacing, doing needlework, doodling, and absentmindedly writing. she also has echolalia, repeating the same word or phrase to herself either out loud or in her head; certain phrases can get stuck in her head for weeks on end. she’s rather quiet when she talks to herself—in fact, most of the time, she just whispers or mutters. furthermore, when pacing, she walks in circles or back and forth. she doesn’t use stim toys very much because they don’t appeal to her, though she does like the idea of making her own stim toys and other objects, such as slime or reversibles.

her relationship with routine is complicated. on the one hand, she doesn’t take change well and has difficulty adapting to new situations, especially those that are unfamiliar and stressful. this means that, to some extent, she prefers it when things stay the same. however, this is more of a general status quo sort of sameness that she likes to maintain. on a smaller level, she’s easily bored by sameness and likes it when at least one novel or interesting thing happens each day. for instance, if sarah has gone to the same school her entire life, she’s going to be upset—even devastated—if circumstances force her to change schools without any sort of preparation or warning. however, if her commute to the school every day is identical, she’ll grow bored of it easily and may one day consider taking a different path there just to see what happens.

sarah tends to struggle with eye contact and, on the rare occasions that she wants to maintain it, has to force herself to do so. it makes her immensely uncomfortable to look someone in the eye for an extended period of time. while irene sometimes mistakes this for her not listening, sarah is trying to explain that it’s not something within her control.

she is hyposensitive to (and indeed fascinated with) colors and lights. however, loud noises bother her and can be painful for her. sarah also prefers not to be touched unless she initiates the contact first. being touched without her permission startles her and makes her immensely uncomfortable, as does being surrounded or cornered; all of these can easily overwhelm her in the right circumstances. she hates haunted houses for this exact reason. her hyposensitivity also extends to texture and physical sensations, albeit not in the same way; rather than being obsessed with or actively seeking out sensations and textures, sarah is so hyposensitive to both of them that she sometimes doesn’t even notice sensory input unless it’s excruciatingly painful or needs constant adjusting. her senses of taste and smell are neither above nor below what’s considered average, though she has a preference for sweets, white meat, and anything crunchy.

something else that she and jareth have in common is the fact that their living spaces, specifically their rooms, both have to be organized in a very specific way. any alterations in this organization are bothersome and overwhelming to the both of them; this includes rearranging or removing objects, changing the location of the room entirely, or changes in things like how much light or air the room receives.

- jareth -

he tends to have a lot of special interests at a time, and they change often. his current ones are architecture, illusions, astronomy, fashion, humans/anthropology/sociology, various pseudosciences, and surrealist art. however, in the past he’s been interested in ornithology, geology, romanticism in art and literature, the labyrinth’s prehistory, wordplay and rhetorical/literary devices, cats, different types of governments, letter writing, collecting trinkets and antiques, choreography, and many, many more. living for such a long time has provided him with the opportunity to both develop and engage in a wide variety of passions. in fact, some of these past special interests still remain with him today and simply aren’t considered his “main” ones anymore because they’re not as strong.

his favorite pseudosciences are graphology, phrenology, and astrology. he also likes to try and determine the future via methods like alectromancy, astromancy, augury, scrying, and lithomancy.

he stims using crystals/via contact juggling. this is usually when he’s understimulated, absentminded, or just needs something to occupy himself with. it’s also enjoyable to him. he has other ways of stimming, though, many of which are meant to self-soothe. for instance, feeling nervous or excited might drive him to shake one leg or hand; he also feels compelled to chew on things in such instances. when overwhelmed, he scratches his arms as one would if they had an itch. jareth is trying to stop doing this and is thus looking for alternatives. he views stim toys as some of humanity’s greatest inventions. if he lived aboveground, i imagine he’d have different versions of the same stim toys for different purposes: neutral colors when he needs to prevent overstimulation, bright colors when he’s just stimming because it makes him happy.

he doesn’t mind loud noises, but he is sensitive to bright lights and colors. in fact, he’s so nonchalant toward noise that, when he listens to music, he likes for it to be as loud as possible. in his mind, good music is never quite loud enough. there are certain textures and tastes he doesn’t like, which drives him to be very selective with what he wears and what he eats. with regards to clothing, he likes silk and leather but can’t stand wool, denim, anything baggy or distressed, or velvet. because he conducts magic through his hands, he has sensitive palms; his gloves allow him to touch things without being bothered by them, while also allowing him to use magic undeterred. he’s especially sensitive around food, preferring things that are bland or savory and refusing to eat anything with a consistency that’s too soft. for instance, he finds eggs revolting in most forms.

without a routine, jareth tends to become dejected or burnt out. unfortunately, though, his frequent executive dysfunction makes it difficult for him to plan out and adhere to routines without frequent reminders—which, when they come in the form of goblins, usually annoy him more than anything else. this is why he hasn’t had a proper schedule in years. it’s a bit of a vicious cycle; his unhappiness has led to a lack of motivation, and his difficulty creating something he can stick to has made him even more unhappy. he works best with clear, written instructions that are placed where he can see them. he especially needs specific times to eat and sleep; without them, irritability and physical discomfort set in. in the event that he does have a routine, changes that might seem small to others are often nerve-racking to him.

though he sometimes uses eye contact and close proximity to others to intimidate, he genuinely feels uncomfortable without eye contact and has difficulty remembering to mind others’ personal space most of the time. he can be quite touchy-feely when he cares about someone—even platonically—and isn’t afraid of showing it, but he doesn’t really know when or if to back off unless explicitly told to.

- didymus -

when it comes to special interests, he and sarah have a lot in common. they both love drama and literature; however, didymus has a particular interest in folklore, both that of humans and that of the labyrinth. he only has two special interests: literature (including plays) and history. both of these influenced his desire to become a knight and continue to influence his behavior, as he seeks to emulate the idea of a noble and valiant knight to a T. he has some difficulty responding appropriately to or understanding various social cues. as a result, he spends most of his nights and some of his mornings scripting out how his day is going to go: how he’s going to speak to other people, how they might respond to him, and how he’s going to respond to their responses. whenever didymus makes a new friend, he puts effort into studying their mannerisms and personality so he can adequately pinpoint how they might behave toward him and thus figure out how he’s going to interact with them. furthermore, he speaks and acts like a gallant knight from a fairytale or play because of his constant reading. his consumption of literature provides him with a consistent model of behavior that’s bound by a set of rules, unlike the behavior of people in the real world—which can often be unpredictable, and whose rules are less coherent. as a result, didymus believes that emulating the kinds of characters he admires will make others admire him in turn, and make him easier to understand.

his favorite earth authors are william shakespeare, miguel de cervantes, and alexandre dumas. he is also especially fond of arthurian legend and various human mythologies, such as norse, celtic, and japanese.

one of his favorite ways to stim is by chasing or wagging his tail. he also stims by absentmindedly practicing swordfighting moves with his cane, scratching behind his ear with a hind paw, pacing, and talking to himself. pacing is the only one out of all of these that doesn’t lift his spirits; rather, he does it when he’s thinking because it helps his ideas flow. didymus is most inclined to chase his tail or scratch his ears when he’s bored, practice his parries when excited, and talk to himself when he’s overwhelmed. in the last case, this is often combined with pacing; together, both stims provide a good release for emotions he has difficulty expressing otherwise. when didymus talks to himself, he is unlike sarah in that he doesn’t do so quietly. his volume remains the same as it usually is in a conversation; when he grows passionate, it raises accordingly. sarah introduced him to stim toys; his favorite ones are the ones that make noise, whether they click or woosh or do something else. he also uses dog toys as substitutes and enjoys the ones that squeak, though he has to keep his own set somewhere where ambrosius won’t find it.

his strongest sense by far is his sense of smell; it isn’t necessarily a lot of scents at once that can be upsetting for him, but rather scents that he finds unpleasant. these include sharp or chemical smells such as vinegar, ammonia, spices, perfume, citrus, alcohol, cleaning products, and herbs. aside from these, there aren’t any smells he can confidently say he doesn’t like. he also has hypersensitive hearing and prefers soft classical music, hymns and chants, or music that dates back thousands of years. he hates the sound of bells chiming, loud drums, or thunder; the last of these especially bothers him, though he would never admit it. he was once bothered by the sound of metal objects clanging together when he was a kit, but he appears to have outgrown that in particular. he has poor color vision, as do most canines, so bright colors don’t affect him at all. he finds flashing lights mildly frightening in some cases and annoying in others.

to didymus, routine is the thief of joy. he craves adventure every day and hates when things are the exact same; even having to do the same task in the same way as he did the day before, for instance, is enough to bore him out of his skull. as a result, he likes to mix up how he does things by placing his daily activities in different orders, doing them with his friends, or replacing some activities with others entirely. for instance, he, hoggle, and ludo take turns with household chores—not only so that they can share responsibilities, but so that didymus can have time to go off and pursue his knightly dreams. much of the time, his friends are willing to accompany him on his adventures so long as he’s able to keep them safe—and so long as they can be home by dinner.

he doesn’t really like eye contact, but he tries to maintain it because he thinks doing so is respectful. he does see one perk to his small stature; he’s too short to meet eyes with most people, so his lack of eye contact usually isn’t judged. it wouldn’t be either way because almost everyone in the labyrinth either is ND or knows someone who is ND, but he really does want to maintain eye contact because the books he reads make him think that it’s the proper thing to do. his friends are trying to convince him that he doesn’t need to make eye contact if it makes him uncomfortable; however, because he seems to believe that it’s a rule, he has difficulty convincing himself not to follow it. in fact, didymus is very much inclined to follow the rules that are provided to him and becomes anxious when encouraged or required to break them. without clear rules, the world becomes nonsensical and unpredictable—and therefore upsetting—to him. it was his idea to propose a set of rules for his friends’ home; they accepted and have worked together to write them down so that guests know how to behave.

he gets along really well with the wiseman; despite his typical impatience, didymus is one of few people who actually have the patience to listen to the wiseman. in fact, didymus isn’t just patient with him; his ramblings actively intrigue didymus, and whenever he has the opportunity he makes his contributions as big as he possibly can. didymus really appreciates it when his friends let him infodump, and he figures it’s only fair that he should let others do the same. in fact, didymus also places a lot of value on fairness; it’s the whole reason he opposes jareth in the first place.

#labyrinth #labyrinth headcanon #long post #sarah williams #jareth #jareth the goblin king #didymus #autism headcanon #autistic headcanon #neurodivergent headcanon #nd headcanon

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crimeloyalty-arch · 2 years

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[ COAX ] the dominant partner gently moving the shy or overwhelmed submissive’s hands from covering their face so they can kiss them, breathing praises against their skin. (obi-wan is a sub usually but for this it can go whichever way u want)

for years, their relationship had existed solely in shadowed corners of crowded bars and empty elevators in an evacuated senate building. in public, their affection had been confined to their shoulders pressed together, fingertips brushing. in private, in the few hours they had been able to claw back from the order and the underworld, tucked under tattered sheets on top of creaking beds, they had never had time for anything except frantic, hurried fucking. every touch had betrayed the desperation of two people all too aware that this could be their last encounter.

now, palpatine and joker are rotting under some slab of ferrocrete. when she looks into obi-wan’s eyes, there’s no trace of blue left. harley avoids the holonet when she can, but she knows that the clone wars rage on, even as a heavily pregnant chancellor amidala throws her everything into ending them. this has never been her war, and it is no longer obi-wan’s -- there is no one left to give either of them orders. they finally have what they never thought would be theirs : time.

with time comes new issues. both of them have lost their purpose, lost their structure, lost what little stability they had. all they have of their old lives are each other -- and they did not plan on having to revolve so heavily around each other. they cannot stay like this forever, hiding on some outer rim planet that the war has already burned through. contentment is not for either of them to find in this life. in these quiet moments, these unexpected months, though, they will build a home in each other.

their evenings are no longer short, no longer at risk of interruption from one emergency or another. there is no longer a need to rush, and harley hates it. there is suddenly time for her to think, which means that there is time for her to panic, and she has interrupted more than one night as her fear overtakes her. refusing to talk to obi-wan about it, but also continuing to crawl into his lap, she has created a vicious cycle.

the truth comes out of her in bits and pieces, over breakfasts and in those precious moments just before sleep overtakes them. it’s joker. it’s always joker. her entire adulthood has revolved around him. all of her own needs have been buried so long that needing and wanting are wholly foreign to her. she’s so used to every affectionate gesture being rejected -- to joker’s complete disinterest in her. she doesn’t know what to do now that obi-wan wants her.

obi-wan listens, lets her tell the story in bits and pieces. pulls her into him as they’re about to leave their small apartment, pushes her against the wall in a dark alley -- manufactures the urgency that let her escape before. it is not a solution, but it holds them together until they can find one.

“ what are we doing? ” harley asks late one night, peeking over the edge of her datapad as he climbs into bed beside her, slipping an arm underneath her to pull her snuggly against his chest.

“ practicing, ” he answers, and she loses all interest in the book she’s reading. she sets the datapad down as he slips his hands underneath her shirt. ( his shirt -- she barely ever wears her own clothes anymore, enjoys having a lover who does not take offense at the theft. )

“ practice faster, ” she says, though she knows that that is the opposite of the point of this exercise. in response, his hands move even slower against her skin, fingers barely brushing her stomach. she bites back the urge to insist that she doesn’t see the point in this, that she is more than willing to just be flipped over and fucked -- she trusts him, she trusts him.

sex like this is wholly new to her -- obi-wan’s adoration is clear in every movement. he is gentler with her than she thinks she deserves, always concerned with her enjoyment over his. she doesn’t know what to do with that kind of care, is sure that she will find a way to corrupt this & to corrupt him. harley twists in his arms so she can look at him, his yellow eyes reminding her that she already has ruined them both.

as the familiar panic surges within her, obi-wan kisses her, and it is distraction enough. she bites his lip, delights in the surprised noise he makes. she tangles her hands in his hair, if only to see if he’ll grab her wrists. when he doesn’t, she tries to reach lower, but finds her hands trapped in place. damn him -- this is the last time she’ll get involved with a force sensitive being.

“ please, ” she begs, and he hushes her, slips his hand between her legs. harley never used to understand her friends when they talked about struggling to finish -- was so used to sex being a blur that she never had time to get into her own head. she understands now, struggling to focus on obi-wan’s fingers. there’s not enough going on to keep her anchored. he won’t take. he’s trying to give. it’s new, terrifying.

she presses her hips back against his, takes comfort in how steady he is -- in that it is patience that keeps him from taking her, rather than a lack of desire. still, it takes everything she has to not pull away, to simply sit still and feel. there are several moments where an apology is on the tip of her tongue, but she forces herself to bite back each one, reminding herself that he doesn’t care how long it takes her -- that he only wants her to enjoy herself.

each time she comes close to panicking again, he stops, steadies her, makes sure she is alright before continuing. eventually, his patience reaps rewards, and harley starts to relax. it’s strange to not feel like she’s putting on a performance, for the sounds that escape her to not be purposeful. he does something different with his fingers and harley gasps despite herself ⸻ they both know it’s over for her. a satisfied smirk plays on obi-wan’s lips as he does it again and again and again, and before harley knows what’s happening, she’s shouting his name, shaking against him. he doesn’t let up until she squirms away from him, over-sensitive but finally, for now, satisfied.

she’s also incredibly overwhelmed, curling in on herself, hiding her face in her hands. the orgasms he gives her -- when he takes his time, when he’s gentle with her, when he makes sure she’s enjoying herself the whole time -- are so much more intense than the ones she gives herself -- quick, the point only to come -- or the ones she’s shared with other lovers -- mostly incidental. part of her still expects him to lose interest in her, for her bed to be empty in moments -- but all of a sudden, his arms are tight around her, and he’s kissing the top of her head, murmuring over and over how proud he is of her, how good she’s been.

his hands wrap around her wrists and she feels so small, but for the first time in her life, feeling small doesn’t make her feel lesser. he moves her hands away from her face, pressing his forehead to hers, breathing steadily. he’s noticed by now that, when she’s upset, she’ll match her breathing to his in attempt to calm herself.

“ you were so good for me, ” he reassures again, still holding onto her wrists. she’s glad for it -- glad she doesn’t feel like she has to do anything other than lie underneath him. he presses a soft kiss to her lips, then one to her forehead, and she starts to feel alright again. “ perfect, harleen. ”

“ i love you, ” she whispers, closing her eyes. “ i love you. ”

their home will go up in flames, but at least they will know -- there was love here.

#im sorry obi wan . . harleen WILL NOT dom.#she'll like -- cosplay as a dom :/#but if she's actually given control -- she panics.#sorehsu #⸻ i rewind the tape but all it does is pause — writing.#⸻ only twenty minutes to sleep — au * star wars.#ugh . harley is like completely fine [desensitized] to the Most Extreme k*nk stuff #but just like ? gentle s*x ?#she breaks #im sad for her #this is not sexy this is just sad i'm gonna be real with u

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liberty-barnes · 4 years

Text

Letters To A Stranger

Peter Parker x Female!Reader

Summary: The story of a girl who loved a boy, but couldn't talk, so she wrote.

Warnings: fluff for a bit, but then massive angst, and i mean massive, STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY SPOILERS BUT I WOULDN'T FEEL OKAY WITHOUT LISTING ALL THE ANGST FACTORS

(mentions of ED, mentions of self-harm, implied character death, mentions of social anxiety)

Word Count: 1.3k words

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

A/N: did you miss me?

Masterlist

February 21st, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

Are you new? Or was I simply too oblivious to your presence until now? I've never seen you before, you're really pretty.

I don't think I've ever used the word "pretty" to describe a man before. Well, boy, but my point stands.

But you really are. With your caramel eyes, and artistically tousled hair. You're cute. Kind of like a puppy. Not that I'm attracted to dogs, of course, but there's really no better way to describe you. Your face lights up when you talk on the phone, like an excited golden retriever who'd just been told he was going for a walk. I wonder who you're talking to. Is it your partner? Please, say you're single.

You get off after me apparently, so I guess I'll just keep my pining to my letters and hope to see you again tomorrow.

Kinda wishing I was yours,

Your secret admirer.

February 22nd, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

You're back! Is this a simple coincidence or are you a regular?

From the backpack on your shoulder, I'd say maybe you're a student. I don't go to school. You make me wish I did if only to see your face every day for more than the short ten minutes of our joint ride.

I wonder how old you are. You look old enough to be in high school, but which year are you? I know I'm only nineteen, but I'd feel a little bummed about crushing on a fourteen-year-old.

You're smiling again today. I'm glad. I don't see a lot of smiles at the diner. Mostly glares, impatient huffs, and tired, distant expressions. It's a nice change.

I have to go now but thank you for making my day.

Hoping to see you again tomorrow,

Your secret admirer.

February 23rd, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

I'm starting to think that smile is permanent. It's the third day in a row that I've gotten on the train and was immediately greeted with your beaming smile as you watched some video on your phone. It made me smile too.

Your sweatshirt's pretty. It says "Midtown Tech" on it. Is that a school? Is it your school?

I may have to do some digging later.

Please don't think I'm a stalker.

Your totally not-stalker secret admirer.

March 1st, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

I was late this morning so I didn't get to see you. My boss was not happy about it, I felt like I was walking on very thin ice.

And then this guy grabbed my ass while I was taking his order. I acted on instinct, tried to remember everything they taught me at my self-defense class. I ended up accidentally punching him in the face.

So yeah, I lost my job today. Which is why I'm here so early. I might stay on the subway just to see which stop you get off on.

Yeah, maybe not, that'd be weird and I should start job hunting as soon as possible.

Thank you for making me smile on a bad day.

Thank you for being you,

Your secret admirer.

March 17th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

I got a new job! I'm working at this coffee shop/bookstore and it's honestly the greatest thing in the world. I get to be around books AND get free hot chocolate, how much better can life be?

You looked a little down today, I wonder if you're okay? Is everything well at home? Maybe school's the problem? Maybe you got a bad grade, but you look really smart so I don't know.

I hope you're feeling better tomorrow,

Your secret admirer.

March 19th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

I wish I knew your name, that way I'd know who to address this to. But I guess Cute Boy On The Subway will have to do.

You were smiling again today, that's nice. I haven't seen you smile in a while, I was starting to get worried. The sweater you were wearing looked a little too big to be yours, the collar slipped down a little when you moved. It looks like there's a massive bruise on your upper chest. Does it hurt? Are you okay?

I wish I was brave enough to ask you in person.

Get better soon,

Your secret admirer.

March 25th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

You're back to not smiling today. I don't like to see you frown. Not at all. I want you to tell me what's wrong. I want to help you get better, see you smile again.

I want to talk to you.

I'll do it tomorrow,

Your secret admirer.

March 26th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

You were sad again today. But that's okay, cause I said I'd talk to you.

Except I didn't.

My stomach started doing uncomfortable flips and I had to get off the train earlier than usual so I could throw up. It was not fun.

Maybe I just have the flu?

Hopefully, I'll be better tomorrow,

Your secret admirer.

March 30th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

I've tried talking to you for three days, every time I had to get off and empty my stomach's content. I started to see a pattern so after a half week of that vicious cycle, I went to see my doctor.

Turns out I have social anxiety tendencies and you simply trigger them a bit. So, basically, my body won't let me talk to you.

I'm a little sad but also kind of relieved. At least I know I'm not voluntarily letting you slip through my fingers.

Not that I ever plan on doing that, you've become too important.

I hope you smile tomorrow,

Your secret admirer.

April 7th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

I'm worried about you. Your sleeve rose a little when you held onto the pole. There are scars there, familiar ones, ones that I recognize as scars left by one's own hand. Physical marks of a person's suffering.

Why are you doing that? It hurts to know that you feel down enough to resort to that. I want to help, but I can't bring myself to talk to you.

Please stop this,

Your secret admirer.

April 12th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

Your eyes were red today. You've been crying. There are dark circles under your eyes, how long has it been since you've last slept?

A lady asked you if you were alright. You said you were just a little tired. I've never heard a more obvious lie.

I wish I could talk to you,

Your secret admirer.

April 16th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

The dark circles haven't gone away, if anything they've gotten darker. But now there's a bruise on your cheek. You seem to be getting thinner too.

What's going on?

Your secret admirer.

April 28th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

How much weight have you lost? Your cheekbones are more prominent, and your arms are getting thinner by the second. Why don't you eat?

The bruises are more frequent now. Cheek, eyebrow, lip...

Who's hitting you?

Who's making you suffer?

Your secret admirer.

May 6th, 2024

Dear Cute Boy On The Subway,

I haven't seen you in a few days. I wonder where you are.

Are you okay?

I'm sorry, that's a stupid question, you probably aren't.

I've decided that next time I see you I'm gonna talk to you. Ask you what's wrong. Force you to tell me if that's what it takes.

I hope you're safe.

Your secret admirer.

May 27th, 2024

Dear Peter Parker,

I'm sorry I wasn't brave enough to talk to you when I had the chance.

I hope you're in a better place now.

I'm sorry you were alone when you did it.

I'm sorry you had to do it.

With love,

(Y/n).

yes, i'm one of those authors that post something an then disappears for two months, i'm sorry. i've been super busy with school and i haven't really had the motivation to write lately but i got this idea and i just needed to get it out.

also, i may be getting a new computer in like 1 or 2 weeks, so that's cool! it'll be better to write and stuff cause this one's getting kinda slow and sometimes it's hard to post stuff cause it won't load lmao.

anyway, i hope you liked it and if you did don’t forget to reblog/comment/like

love you all!

-Miah

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Taglists: (if your name is striked through it means for some reason tumblr wouldn’t let me tag you)

PERMA TAG

@jeezkiddo @officiallyunofficialperson @beananacake @theunderlier @harrysleftchelseaboot @averyfosterthoughts @onebigolemess @samoney69 @agirlwithpointlessideas @ddaawwssoonn @inhumanwithpowers @imagineshere-forall @stiles-banshees @orowit @spideynut @deathofmissjackson @parkersbliss @ephemeral-limerences @write-from-the-heart @cardboard-ben @my-alignment-is-bisexual @mendes-marvel @timotayswriter @inthecornerchair @lovelynerdytraveler @niallssweetheart22 @incorrect-things @lost-in-the-stars03 @harishaanne @ellamw04 @bisexual-disappointment @onelovesr @ellyseveronica @sovereignparker @notsosmexy @theamazingtomholland @lozzypoz321 @peterspideyy

PETER PARKER TAG

@dreaming-lia @markleehee @juliebean247 @quechulitaaa @bubblegumbarnes @sofiaconlaz @bellaaa321-blog @parkerpetertingle @emily-louise-hynes @clara-licht @ekelly2015 @inlovewithmobtom @quaksonhehe @danicarosaline @tutuabby28 @sovereignparker @spn67-sister @t-monosapiens-h @kayleypaige2233 @galaxystern08 @highlydisfunctional1 @jillanaholland @zeusmyster @sirtommyholland @a-singleboat @allthisfortommy @middevil456 @kdotcxz @drishtisikarwar

MARVEL TAG

@dreaming-lia @emily-louise-hynes @arts-ismything @peachyafshawn @cathwritestragediesnotsins @spn67-sister @t-monosapiens-h @galaxystern08 @highlydisfunctional1 @jillanaholland @hyluas @ravenagrimes @captainbuckyy @kaylig02 @crazyassbitch-things-blog @sharenaloveyouX @tacobacoyeet @andycanbeemotional @angelicromanoff

#libby writes #libbys stuff #peter parker x reader #peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #tom holland #tom holland imagine #tom holland x reader #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #marvel #avengers #spiderman x reader #mcu spiderman #spider-man #mcu

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angelharness · 4 years

Text

Various Slashers as Yandere Archetypes

WARNINGS: yandere content

Another non-requested piece. I actually found myself terribly interested in the concept after my last post musing on the topic (found here), though I’d like to restate that I don’t believe I’ll be writing more on the matter, unless a commission.

Will firmly reiterate last time’s warning, it’s very important to recognize this characterization as unhealthy and to never enable such behavior in any real relationships.

Will be sorting each slasher into seven classes, including Isolating, Manipulative, Dependent, Possessive, Obsessive, Delusional, and Lucid

The definitions vary greatly depending on the Slasher, while some may not fit an archetype listed, or could be a hybrid of any number of them. It’s also very possible for them to fit multiple subcategories.

For reference, a general key would be

Isolating - (Usually gradually) cuts off s/o from their friends and family, secluding them and asserting themselves as their only social contact. Goal is perhaps to make s/o reliant on them.

Manipulative - Fairly straightforward, though the means of manipulation vary. Often emotionally controlling. Might resort to guilting the s/o or self-destructive tendencies to get them to stay. Goal is to assert control over s/o.

Dependent - Depends on s/o for stability or comfort. Might suffer from separation anxiety and as such is terribly clingy. Often ignores other social ties to focus on their s/o. No implicit goal, but usually wishes for reciprocation of feelings.

Possessive - Similar to Manipulative and often a package deal. Would under no circumstances share their s/o, likely frets over losing them (perhaps to romantic rivals or even misguidedly anyone they falsely deem a threat). Goal is to assert control over s/o.

Obsessive - Not necessarily Possessive, though the two sometimes come together. An Obsessive might not outwardly act on their fixation, but silently pines intensely for their s/o. Fixates heavily on their s/o. Goal is to become closer to the person of interest, or wishes for reciprocation of feelings.

Delusional - Hard opposite of Lucid. They likely wrongly believe their feelings are reciprocated, believe them and their s/o are meant to be, or that their s/o is in denial of their feelings and it’s up to them to help them realize this. No implicit goal, but usually wishes for reciprocation of feelings.

Lucid - Hard opposite of Delusional. Well aware that their feelings are unhealthy and destructive, but usually represses these thoughts or simply doesn’t care. Might feel guilt, but it’s often overshadowed by longing. May have any of the formerly listed goals.

BILLY LENZ

Dependent, Possessive

He is a complex case. His lucidity comes in brief episodes, then wanes to stubborn delusion. Generally, though, he’s dependent on you for a sense of stability. When you leave, he throws somewhat of a tantrum, absolutely trashes the place, tears the wallpaper, knocks shit over, then curls up in a corner, stewing in a vicious, wordless rage. On the rare occasions, afflicted by guilt, he’ll silently clean it up, intensely avoiding your gaze all the while. Most of the time, though, you’re left to deal with the damage of his uncertain temper. He feels like you’re abandoning him, even if you fully have the intent to return; when you do come through the door he launches into your arms, all rushed kisses and crushing hugs. Inevitably, though, the cycle will repeat once more, gradually wearing you thin and thinner. Like a sweater heavily loved. But this love is intense and merciless.

CARRIE WHITE

Dependent, Delusional

Carrie is very much wary coming into this relationship. She’s so baffled by affection, true and honest affection, no underlying teasing, no stifled giggles, that she nearly breaks down. It takes much adjusting, but soon, she’s hooked. She becomes dependent on your praise and approval to function routinely. Anything you dislike she does as well. You’re always so right, she thinks, so puzzlingly perfect. She idolizes you to the point she blocks out any of your flaws (which come with being human), entirely eliminating the possibility from her mind. She’s willing to overlook any fault, anyway, but she’s dazed by the spectacle of genuine love. Every moment you’re away is a unique, awful pain, singed with worry (you’re leaving, you found someone better), and though in those moments she thinks there’s no possible greater agony, the bliss of your presence keeps her around. She doesn’t care for anyone else—they never cared for her, and it’s not like their compassion would compare, either way. She decides you’re all she needs.

JASON VOORHEES

Obsessive, Isolating

First confronting his feelings, he disregards it casually, assuming it’d be easy to ignore. He busies himself with work, but finds this fixation occupying his thoughts in increasingly frequent intervals. He knows something needs to be done when it starts directly interfering with his chores, leading to sloppy work and far too many victims fleeing. The easy answer is to off you. He hunts you down with that intent, well ready to finally rid of this distraction. But he can’t. Stands there with a hellish anxiety wracking his chest, a feeling only distantly familiar, recalling the days when his heart did beat. He’s so intensely, frustratingly obsessed with you—it upsets him even, confuses him tremendously. All he knows for certain is that he wouldn’t be able to stand you with someone else; doesn’t care if he’s not that someone, as long as it’s not anybody else. From then on, it’s a very last minute change of plans; keep you alive, isolate you, make you dependent on him. He’s not the type to force affection on you, but rather, would purposefully withdraw it for extended periods of time, until you seek it of your own will, in which case he will reward you with the desired attention.

BRAHMS HEELSHIRE

Possessive, Manipulative

Like Billy, has a fragile temper that can be quite a minefield to traverse. You can never be sure what will upset him, but when it does he makes sure it’s known. Could additionally be classified as isolating, as he will immediately confine you to the manor. Leaving is far out of the question, though later on he might permit you to extend this bit of freedom to the expanse of garden surrounding the mansion (he will, however, keep you far from the gates). He makes himself out to be entirely helpless without your guidance and care, though that must be wrong, being how he’s had only himself for much of his time living in the space between the walls. It gets you to stay, and that’s what matters in the moment. But eventually, the need to escape his suffocating presence vastly exceeds your will to stay. When that time comes, an effectively inevitable outcome, Brahms had realized in the back of his head, he’ll turn to violence, first in tantrums then in threats directed to both yourself and him. Isn’t beyond killing you if he’s convinced you’re set on leaving and there’s nothing he can do.

BUBBA SAWYER

Dependent, Possessive

Partly delusional, but knows you’re unwilling. Still, relies on you for a feeling of normalcy, that distant echo of a real, functional relationship. Couldn’t bear the thought of you with anyone else, so much he might resort to threats of violence to coerce you into staying. Whether these are empty or significant falls on you to figure out. Liable to tantrums when you’re away, though the severity of these outbursts is determined by his current stability. He considers you part of the family, though at the end of the day, Drayton gets the final say on your status of life. He’ll plead desperately and with genuine distress, but it doesn’t take much pushing for him to cave in on himself; he’s far more scared to disobey the family. If he’s to kill you, he’ll go about it sweetly, clumsy, unfamiliar kisses as he smooths your hair down, trying uselessly to calm you. Your struggling and crying only troubles him, and he might hurry up the process just to quiet that awful commotion. If Drayton allowed, though, he’d keep you as a sort of pet; you’re to stay in his room or at his side and never stray. You’re given a seat at the dinner table as long as you pull your weight and pitch in (albeit unwillingly) with household chores.

AMANDA YOUNG / THE PIG

Lucid, Manipulative

Fairly coherent regarding her emotions, though this regulation never translates into her actions, which are twisted by impulse and anxieties. Unintentionally incredibly manipulative, will very quickly turn to self-destructive exploits to gain your sympathy and convince you to stay. Eventually, she stops caring if you’re only sticking around out of a feeling of necessity. If you ever show intent to leave, though, she’d panic. Amanda can’t conceive a life without you now that she’s met you, and though she despises how dependent she’s become on you for stability, she can’t will herself to try and improve. Your attention is a new, frightening addiction; the highs come with affection and compassion, but then withdrawal in the periods you’re away. These acts of love have to be greater and greater than the last to recreate that same rush of intoxication. She’d allow you the illusion of freedom, reminding you often you can leave if you wanted (it’s all a ploy for sympathy), but makes a show of how pathetic she is without you. She can barely function, and though she hates this vulnerability, her balance of mind being dependent on another person, she’s trapped herself in an unforgiving sequence of self-destructive desperation and a murderous temper.

#x reader #slasher x reader #slashers x reader #slasher x s/o #slasher x you #slasher imagines #reader insert #brahsm heelshire x reader #amanda young x reader #jason voorhees x reader #billy lenz x reader #carrie white x reader #bubba sawyer x reader #leatherface x reader #cw yandere #💾:harpy writez

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frightfurtabby · 3 years

Text

HimiKiyo Week 2021: Day 1- Creeping Darkness

//HimiKiyo Week 2021 is finally here! Took a little bit tonight to finalize edits and come up with a title. Look forward to more each day for the next week~

I’m proud, this is one of my longest singlechapter fics ever if not the longest

Links to other Platforms:

Amino: https://aminoapps.com/c/danganronpa/page/blog/himikiyo-week-2021-day-1/5B58_R2MsVulaQEnXkXVBzYlGjd3mXnP3Z

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34119466

The seaside village Himiko moved out to was more out of the way than the usual cities and suburbs. Apparently, her mentor couldn’t come. It was going to be a pain being out in that little house all alone. Who knows, maybe he’d sent another student of his the same kind of message?

To her disappointment there wasn’t anyone else, still not a single other apprentice known to her. She decided that after not doing anything yesterday but unpacking and eating and sleeping she would go over to the shrine marked on the local map. If nothing else she could pray for good luck before really getting down to working.

The course of this assignment and her whole life changed the moment she saw that strange figure at the offerings box while nobody else was around. They wore a long green kimono with beautiful dark hair almost matching that outfit in length. They looked to be glowing ethereally, with pale white skin akin to a porcelain doll.

Their hand was in the offerings box. At first she assumed they must be giving their own prayers and as such stayed back so as to not intrude. She noticed then that the figure was taking something *out* of the offerings box and that’s when she wondered if they were a thief.

“Fret not, these offerings are for me, dear human.” a voice came to her, seeming at first separate from the figure still several feet ahead. Someone addressing a person as “human” and saying it was their offering… She’d never seen a kami before, but that was the sole explanation that made everything make sense about them.

“Then you’re a kami?” she asked, quirking her eyebrow.

“That I am, I am called Shinguji. This family name refers to residing here, at the True Temple. My given name Korekiyo means just and pure”

“I-it’s a beautiful…” The mage was torn in half between the word ‘name’ and the word ‘place.’ The brook not far behind the pair was babbling audibly and birds were chirping. The water went past the trees and out to the river, which fed it almost directly into the ocean.

Even if something wicked this way was coming there was nothing yet to taint the natural beauty. She wasn’t sure if it would even be able to with a keeper this pretty.

“A beautiful what?” The spirit gently prodded her with the question. They had noticed her biting her lip in uncertainty.

“Name, your name is pretty. Uhh, and I’m…” she was too flustered to easily find any of the necessary words.

“You are Yumeno Himiko.”

“So you knew that already?” It was not that surprising in hindsight, but in that moment she was caught off guard, focusing on trying not to be so tense in their presence like she had been up to that point. She worried she was giving off the wrong message.

“I intuited it, but I don’t blame you for being surprised. Most humans think of us Kami as mythology, but I’ve known these old figures, and dealt with many creatures as my neighbors in my centuries of life.”

“In that case then are you able to intuit why I’m here?” The mage tried hard not to sound too much like a schoolgirl talking to her popular crush.

“I could. It would be easier if you told me. Whatever it is, you seem particularly stressed out by it.” They tilted their head slightly, a very human gesture, and it was clear they were reading deeper. Either humans had gotten it from the ancient gods or vice-versa. One of those things nobody would ever be able to remember the origin of.

It was better to answer the question than get too off track wondering about that.

“Well, my master who is a magician told me there was something that was going to go wrong here. He gave me the mission to stop it.”

It was Kiyo’s turn to be concerned.

“Well, I have been given whispers that a nasty yokai is approaching this land. It comes from the far north and wishes to sap power for itself. Very few claiming to be survivors of this have shown up, and we’re all so isolated these days...”

That was a bad sign.

“Is it because of us?” If her master had worried so much about it then there was no doubt in her mind that this thing would be going after humans if it hadn’t already started.

“Not all of you, but some who are greedy have broken many natural connections and scattered the so-called mythical creatures and spirits away. In a way it’s beautiful, the circle of life even. Although, it is believed perhaps negative energy has attracted this beast from its home and onto its rampaging path.”

A realization hit her. In her research she found that even things that you would not expect to have a soul or a consciousness did at least have the same kind of natural energy as things that did. So objects and anything/everything else with a soul would be susceptible to producing negative energy.

“So it's a cycle of things feeding into it.”

“Yes. I fear if it gets to a certain point it’ll have enough momentum that there will be no stopping it. So you should think about what you will do to face the possibility.”

Something about those words felt familiar. Even though it was a serious topic, Himiko was comforted.

“And you need someone like me to stand a chance?”

“The more the merrier, of course. There are things even I may have missed and for that you can be an extra set of eyes and ears. We’re going to train and prepare.”

The rest of that afternoon was spent, at first guided by Kiyo and by the end on her own, getting more used to the area and learning some specific landmarks.

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

Starting the following day, Himiko started up a routine to come back every day, which would last for several months. Each day she learned new things about the old times that had only ever been guessed about from artifacts. She learned that even Kami had a cutoff point in memory, even if it did happen to be thousands of years stronger than mortals. The only truly omnipotent beings were those that had created earth eons ago, who were as elusive as ever.

She also trained. Oh, how wonderful it was to train again. And with a more formidable opponent than most people she would ever encounter normally. After each session she was told more about the species of yokai, and which were more likely to be dangerous foes that needed preparation for.

They would pray and make wishes for having strength and safety at the lucky rock on the path along the brooks. Kiyo allowed Himiko to take and keep a bit of power from it.

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

It happened when she thought it was going to be just another day of what they had been doing. It was not.

There was something off in the air. And it wasn’t just the dead trees, those were normal for winter. What wasn’t normal was the small patches of rot in them already, the rot had even spread to the grass and other plants on the ground. There was a trail of it and it reeked of a nasty yokai. A being only interested in death and destruction.

Even worse was that Kiyo was nowhere to be found. They had made a game plan about that, Himiko was to check somewhere inside the shrine in order to find clues. Inside the prayer chamber proper it was a mess just like it would be in the case of any other type of break in. The rot hadn't set in because the room was blessed and was better able to resist, but there was a distinct trail of slime that showed its movement and the room.

She could picture Kiyo weaving around it and dodging attacks to have a chance to hit back at it. The fight had torn up the screens and the ancient art it depicted, and even punctured holes in the inner walls and flooring. An extra band of beads like one Kiyo would often wear was left behind. The signal was received.

Something wasn’t right, however. A presence that was too strong to be explained by the evil residue. It seemed like what they were working against had minions left behind, for the exact reason that someone like her was in the area and had to be stopped. The question was how many were there?

Five of them came up from either the ground or one of the holes puncturing the walls, one right before her and four circling around, forming seemingly out of the shadows and the goo. They quickly solidified into dark shapes that were much like werewolves, though she recognized among them different animal traits expressed. One even had bunny-esque lop ears.

Himiko took out her wand and started muttering some spells under her breath, making a broad sweeping motion to keep all at bay. The one closest was pushed back and stumbled in surprise. Trying to charge her led to an acrobatic maneuver: it leapt over onto its back and she whipped out a stage magician-like string of handkerchiefs and pulled it up to start choking the beast out.

They surprisingly weren’t as vicious as she’d imagined from how each of them had shown up. It couldn’t do any of its special moves. Unfortunately, its friends could, and they did. They rushed and she let go for a moment, tripping up one and using its momentum in a way it crashed into the first one before it could recover.

Swinging off it allowed her to jump up and kick a third before lashing a whip of electricity from her wand, yanking the fourth and gaining momentum by bouncing off it with a drop kick right about where the lungs were.

Watching them struggle, she realized they had once been animal spirits for sure, only to have been corrupted. They weren’t just something conjured by their boss.

Hesitation for even one second almost cost her when one swiped claws, just barely missing her and taking her hat instead. The advantage of being shorter than the monsters was they’d miss like that. And much like the stage magic she pretended to use in daily life, the hat was spring-loaded with some friends for them to play with. A magic box that was shattered by the attack let out doves of magical energy that distracted each as well as a jack-in-the-box dummy that took her place as a target for just long enough to take one out.

Even though the trick had been figured out, she could tell from their expressions changing the exact instant of the realization there wasn’t much the poor things could do when the tide had been turned. The rest of them were dispatched with a quick volley of attack spells. She sprinted out, conjuring another hat loaded with a similar trick from her storage at home, just in case. It was more physically exhausting than mana draining so she borrowed from her reserve to recover breath and catch up sooner.

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

She crossed her fingers that those things weren’t going to be much more of a problem on the way over. The trail grew cold on her about a dozen times already the past 4 days but each time she doubled back to a previous checkpoint, there was another sign she’d accidentally glossed over. Each time something was left in an obscure place: a back alley or a bush only to be dragged out by a cat, occasionally right to her.

Whether it was an order from Kiyo or someone else, she wasn’t sure, but all the help was appreciated.

It seemed to be that when it took someone, it had to complete a loop back home. It was much faster than she could follow on foot. So the mage took to various buses and trains when she needed to.

Himiko hadn’t slept in nearly 24 hours by the 4th night, and all the past nights had been similarly lacking in rest. She’d set alarms to go off within a few hours of very scattered naps so she’d at least run decently when it finally came down to it.

She snuck out of an inn somewhere very rural and very cold in the northern reaches of Hokkaido. She could just feel the cave system nearby was definitely the origin point of the attacker.

Before she could even begin the climb upwards, an upright, tall figure came barrelling down in her direction, diving from above off of a rock and gliding down gracefully, coughing and panting, falling to their knees after the taxing stunt. That fall easily could have killed a human, plus most people couldn’t fly without magical objects.

“We need to get back up there, hurry!”

“Kiyo!”

However, before the first shape could speak further they were interrupted from behind Himiko. Just a few feet downhill a second Kiyo was standing.

“Don’t Himiko! That thing can become other entities!”

The first Kiyo to arrive chuckled and shook their head. “Well, that’s true, clever of you to tell her first.” A deep sigh later, they continued. “Shame I’ve heard of that little trick before and prepared something for this kind of thing.”

“A double cross is it?” the second Kiyo asked. “It’s quite a claim you have there, being the real me, having planned for your own deception.”

Whichever Kiyo was the real one, it was hard to tell at first. The two auras had been in close proximity so a mage in training would have a hard time pulling apart which was which. Then the first Kiyo cleared their throat again.

“Well then, I have a proposition.” they said, turning their attention back to Himiko. “Yumeno Himiko should be able to ask a question, then see how both of us answer, and she’ll know which of us is real.”

“Of course, after spending so long with me she’s bound to know the real one. I’d be crazy to decline,” the beast said.

Kiyo knew this thing would do anything to avoid being pegged as suspicious. It was a double bind for the beast. The only way this was ending was fighting it. This was part of that plan. Delaying it just a tad until the right time.

Himiko cleared her throat, glancing between the two one more time before she closed her eyes. It was nerve wracking but as long as it wanted to not out itself, the yokai would never blindside attack her.

“My question is very simple: What is it that I was training to do?”

The creature nodded. “Understood. This one is easy. We were going to stop the one who’s taken all those others and stop them from taking enough power for its plan.” It turned to Kiyo, giving a taunting glare. “And before the monster tries any trickery, to be specific, we were practicing your magic and got you a mana boost. It’ll help the new technique not be so taxing on you.”

That was almost entirely correct. Kiyo knew then their suspicion was right and something in the area had been spying and relayed all its gathered information back to prepare this creature for any threats that may spring up. That’s what attacked first, the helpers that Himiko had to fend off to get here.

“Alright. My turn.” Kiyo remained characteristically calm face to face. “We were training. So I don’t have to repeat what the other me said, I’ll agree. However, there was something missing from that answer.”

“Missing? What, pray tell, did I miss?”

“The mana boost served as a test to see if you were already there. And I felt something that may have been a minion performing recon.” Emphasis on the last word. That was something Kiyo had been anticipating. Before they had been taken, she was given a code word. They only mentioned it to her in a whisper on the day that they felt a presence leave to the north with no other context. ‘Recon’ was that word.

Eye contact was made, Himiko gave a slight nod to show that she understood and it was off to the races. She went on ahead, up one path leaving the Kiyos behind. It was a signal to the real Korekiyo. And so, the two fought again, much like they had when the faker had invaded the temple and kidnapped them to try and complete the ritual.

They weaved in and out, sometimes further to one side away from Himiko and her destination when Kiyo was having their way and closer, forcing her to duck and use repulsion spells to avoid being caught up in the scuffle. Kiyo’s attacks looked like needles when they flew at their enemy, so she even gave those attacks a boost. She heard the cries of anger and pain when one managed to hit just the right place.

The yokai was a resilient one though, it would just pluck them right out and fire back energy attacks of their own. One of them hit Kiyo and sent them tumbling back down the mountain some distance, dropping several dozen feet to a thud.

They got back up almost instantly, knowing how much danger the girl ahead was in, and pulled out a pair of scythe to quickly dig into the mountain’s side and climb up to a point where they could launch up and gain enough momentum to catch up right behind that yokai.

Faster than ever, Himiko ran. It seemed being tired was starting to slow both down the further up the mountain the climb went. She dove and rolled right into the cave and the faker caught up, confirming even further that it was the yokai when it dove to try and stop her from entering, the disguise melting away grotesquely. She didn’t even have time to be offended at it ruining and distorting those beautiful features because of how fast it barrelled back into the base.

All she could do was point her wand directly in its face and say the words. Like a bullet, red light with a pointed tip struck right through an already gaping hole that showed the black flame-like matter that was its heart. The evil and corrupt soul was pierced.

It could barely re-shape itself anymore with its wounds. It stared at her with half its true features and half rippling nothingness as the face it wore sloughed off and dissipated like a puddle under sunlight. Even the animal-like maw began falling off, fangs first.

Then Kiyo wrestled it from behind and wrapped it in chains of light. It was likely already dying. But part of its corrupt nature would linger in this spot if it was not sealed and purified.

“What no! Nooooo”. It started shrieking when the shock of being blindsided had finally worn off and it found itself in chains, being dragged away towards the cave’s inner chamber. It was powerless to do anything but watch these interlopers ruin everything.

“Unfair, unfair, unfaaiiiiir.” Most of the thrashing came in the form of weak kicks. It was truly pitiful for something that had beaten kami before. .

“What a childish temper tantrum.” Kiyo scoffed at it, only briefly turning a shoulder to pay it any mind as they continued towards the end of the mission. It was so mad, and nipped away trying to bite its captor in spite of there being no chance of succeeding now. .

Himiko came to a strange spot on the back wall and Kiyo lifted the beast over their shoulders and used its paw to unlock a big room full of artifacts, a bunch of seals on them to keep its victims contained. Many tomes of black magic and scribbles showcased a plot to steal power from all the shrine deities to build a “Domain of Darkness”. In which it plotted to prevent the sun from ever rising above Japan, and the whole planet after long enough, ever again. This would remove power from any being who got magic from natural resources and would kill billions of mortals.

Himiko looked at the plans and laughed nervously, sweating a bit.

“So um… you don’t think that this would have worked?” she asked, desperately wanting this to just be the pipe dream of an arrogant monstrosity.

“Absolutely not. I’m by no means the strongest of my kind, and you’re still training. It took prisoners, yes, but this is delusional. We won in part because we were underestimated. That kind of fatal mistake would have doomed this plan eventually.”

A sad whimpering came from it, laying on the ground in defeat.

Himiko was tasked to watch over it while Kiyo performed the unsealing rituals. Each one she spared glances at, admiring them from her spot in the center of the room. She could almost feel a tinge of jealousy among the defeat and anger emanating from their felled foe. It was way more interesting watching Kiyo work and chat with each spirit that was freed. Each time they agreed instantly to help get the rest out, which hastened the process.

Each one helped before some left to make sure their shrines were fine. The remainder, led by Kiyo, thanked Himiko. Their hands warm around hers. Kiyo felt every little soft spot on her hands and even some slight callusing, presumably from the fighting. Even those bits were lovely.

“You can go home now. It’s getting late but we need to stay for now. I will return to you with the important news.

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

Himiko got home first, since that was decided as the meeting place. It was far enough from the shrine that it wouldn’t be immediately obvious if that entity came back for another round. She got on her knees in front of her bed, elbows firmly leaning into the mattress so she could clasp and pray. She was exhausted.

“Please let it be gone once and for all.” She trusted Kiyo could do that much.

Then she was awoken by footsteps and sat upright to who was joining her. Her door had opened and glowing in the moonlight, Kiyo came in, closing the door behind them.

“I have seen to it that this chapter is done.” The spirit held a hand to her cheek and gently brushed a long finger across part of her face. “Thank you, your journey has only truly just begun but you can relax for now.”

Himiko was flushed a bright red.

“I was struck by your beauty from the moment that I walked to your shrine.” Her heart raced. They’d touched a couple times by now but this was the most breathtaking and close. The most intimate. She raised a hand of her own and touched Kiyo’s arm gently.

A soft smile spread on the spirit’s lips. “Oh, I could tell. I could also tell that there was a pull here. Some call I needed to answer for you and it's only become more clear that there was more to it than that.”

Time felt like it slowed down to a stop as the two maintained soft eye contact.

Then they kissed her. A warmth emanated from them, pulsing like a heartbeat.

“More to it?” she asked, even though the kiss gave her a very good idea of what they were going to tell her next.

“I love you. And so… I want it to actually be *our* journey.” They heavily emphasized the word indicating that the adventure would be shared. It already was, it had been since the day she came to this place.

“Would it really be okay? For you to leave your shrine I mean. When it comes time for that.”

“No worries about that, I can find someone for that when that’s necessary.”

#HimiKiyo #Himiko Yumeno #Korekiyo Shinguji #himikiyo week #fanfic #writing #ao3 #amino #danganronpa #danganronpa v3

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delldarling · 4 years

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sweet clover & a mocking mouth | baine

This was June’s story of the month over on Patreon!

female unicorn x gender/body neutral reader 9590 words lemon/lime | threats of violence, escaping a rather solitary life, loneliness, fluff, oral, implied romping

The village has been in an uproar for three days now, and it’s gotten even worse now that it’s market day. You can barely walk down the crowded street without bumping into shoulders, and though pick-pocketing isn’t common around these parts, you’re still thankful that your coppers aren’t easily accessible. Now if only elbows couldn’t reach your ribs, your day might turn out alright.

“They’ve an announcement,” Widow Rayleigh murmurs aloud, half a step behind you. You glance over your shoulder, expecting to see the normal sparkle of new gossip in her dark eyes, but her expression is stern. She hasn’t reached old age quite yet, but you’ve noticed a stoop in her shoulders over the past year or so. That hint of weariness is gone right now. She’s straight backed and nervous.

“You don’t sound happy about it,” you offer, not knowing whether she’ll answer you or not. Honestly, it’s a toss up when it comes to most of the locals, with the exception of Old Serell, the apothecary, and his boy. You’ve done nothing wrong, not truly, but anyone that spends too much time out in the forest is suspect and.. You most definitely qualify on that front.

Widow Rayleigh narrows her eyes until she sees that it’s you, thin lips pursing for a moment before she bobs her head. She's never been cruel, simply prone to overlooking anyone that doesn't take her word for immediate truth. “All this talk about a unicorn! They call it a beast, a troublesome demon - when I was a child we called them kindness incarnate.” Widow Rayleigh jerks her arm out of the way of some of the children trying to run through the crowd. “Those hunters are fear mongerers,” she says harshly, though her voice is quieter when she says it and you have to concentrate to catch the words.

You don’t know that you have much to add to that. You’ve heard the same stories about kind unicorns, of course, but the hunters have been in town for the better part of a week and they’ve caught the ear of anyone who will pause to listen. You haven’t been at the forefront of the listening crowds, but you’ve caught more than a few words when you pass by the inn at the end of the day. Their stories might not match with what you’ve grown up on, but they do know how to keep people enraptured, which is all it takes some days. Widow Rayleigh must see the tightness of your mouth, the agreement in your furrowed brow. She slips her arm through yours, sniffing as she holds her head up high.

“All I care about is that someone out there knows the truth,” she murmurs, before looking at you out of the corner of her eye. She leans in close, urging you to bend your ear to her withered mouth, the scent of pipe smoke heavy on her clothes. “I hope the unicorn outsmarts them,” she whispers, baring her teeth in a fierce grin when you smile. “Now, would you escort me to the square?”

You adjust your arm so she’s a little more comfortable, sharing another short smile before you continue on down the street. You’re rather glad that Widow Rayleigh kept her opinion quiet though when you see the hunters in the village square, brandishing weapons and shouting to the crowd about the unicorn’s demise. Whether or not they succeed is definitely in question, as all they’ve done is talk, but the crowd? Is all too easily swayed by the men standing atop the small rise in the middle of the square. People are shouting encouragement, urging them to bring back the unicorn’s head, to put an end to the treacherous beast. It’s a vicious cycle, just like the one you see young children fall into: Bullies screaming for support against someone out of bounds, and children not involved with the dispute raising their voice in agreement, simply because they don’t want to be cast out if they refuse.

“Atrocious,” Widow Rayleigh murmurs, and Ester Brooks, a woman you’ve always thought kind and rather elegant, agrees as she pushes through the crowd.

“Isn’t it just? Unicorns! Despicable creatures!” Ester sneers, like the thought offends her, and then leaves you and Widow Rayleigh behind. You hold onto the hand curled around your arm, and rightly so, because Widow Rayleigh makes to move after Ester, like she intends on setting the other woman straight on this matter. Her hand is curled into a vicious claw as she makes to reach.

“Wait,” you urge, trying to soothe the tension in her knuckles. Relief floods you when she scoffs, but she listens, chin tilted up imperiously when some of the other locals shoot strange looks at the company she’s keeping.

“Enough! ENOUGH!!” One of the hunters shouts, smiling and ruddy cheeked, setting aside his crossbow to flap his hands at the crowd. “We’ll do our level best to bring down the beast for the sake of you fine people!”

A cheer goes up, drowning out what the hunters say. Two of them laugh, leaning on each other to share secrets under the noise, while the third stares out at the crowd with pursed lips. There’s a scar across the third’s face, stretching from his chin to his temple, and the steadiness in his eyes makes you think that he’s noting every face in the village crowd. When his eyes light upon you a moment later, fear curls in the depths of your belly.

The other hunters, slightly cleaner and more jovial, wave their hands at the crowd again, quieting the noise. “Yes, yes,” the first says loudly, brushing at his short brown beard, “it will surely be a tale worthy of song!”

“I’ve a lute!” One of the Fairwind boys shouts, though it doesn’t matter which. All three of them are learned in music, and snotty about status. They'll likely compete for the honor, and end up in a too-rough tussle for the trouble.

The two jovial hunters laugh, and the second points a finger at the Fairwind boy, grinning. “Make an honest effort for us then! Now, we’ve a request of your lovely village!”

“Anything!” Ester Brooks shouts, and Widow Rayleigh makes a noise like a tea kettle.

“To capture the unicorn, for it knows us too well, we need to set a trap for it,” the first hunter says, letting his hand fall from his fellows shoulder. “It sees us and it runs, you must understand. It knows that we will put an end to it’s cruelty!” The crowd cheers again, but quiets as the hunter waves them off. “We must ask one of your villagers to play the bait! It’s preferred prey is often quiet, prone to keeping to themselves,” and the crowd goes quiet, almost silent as the hunter speaks. “Perhaps someone who frequents the forest: a strange soul, who might not understand the danger of the wood.”

Your heart twists in your chest, panic blooming as fast as the cherry blossoms on the Fairwind’s orchard. Widow Rayleigh stiffens as your side, and then, like a damning mark, her eyes turn to you. You close your eyes, knowing, without a doubt, what you will see when you open them.

Your name is shouted first, followed by a scant handful of others before yours is repeated again, taken up by those scared to be chosen. Widow Rayleigh’s fingers have grown tight as strangle-vine on your arm, and when you open your eyes, there is true fear in her face. “They can’t be serious!” She attempts to shout over the noise, but then someone is pushing against your back. As quick and carefully as you can, you uncurl Widow Rayleigh’s grip from your arm. She’ll be hurt if she holds on while they push.

There are a few more friendly faces staring at you from the crowd - though they’re all wearing expressions of fear right now. Old Serell, the apothecary, is sniffling, comforted by his fearful looking son, and the Fairwind girl is clutching tightly to the pearly coat button she’d once lost in the forest. You’d brought it back to her and she’d sung your praises for the trouble. The rest of the village is shouting, urging for you to help out, to do your part in catching the unicorn. As soon as your arm is being grasped by one of the hunters, the swell of noise quiets.

“Worry not!” The first hunter shouts, smiling brightly. “Your friend here will not suffer,” he promises, winking at the Fairwind girl, who goes promptly scarlet with rage. “They’ll be quite safe! Bait does not mean true danger by our sides.” You dart a glance to the other two hunters, and it’s the third, quiet and staring, that leaves you filled with doubt. Whatever issue he has with the unicorn is very personal, and you’re more than certain that he will do everything it takes to capture or kill the creature. If you get injured or killed in the process? You doubt he will spare a second to mourn you.

“Come now, my friend,” the second hunter says, just loud enough for you to hear over the resulting cheers of the first’s declaration. “Let us treat you to a drink and discuss our plans!” You’ve no desire to follow any of these men anywhere, but with every step you take towards the inn, people in the village reach out to clap you on the shoulder or cheer your name in support, like they weren’t shouting that you should be used as bait not two moments ago. Every touch feels like a heavy chain winding around your ankles before you’re tossed in the water.

The inn is no better. People seem both eager to be close, to hear the details of the dangerous mission you’re about to undertake, and too frightened to closely approach. The two boisterous hunters introduce themselves as Heath and Ruf, the third shortly tells you to call him Al, but afterwards he’s quiet, fingers tapping impatiently on the table sitting between you.

“Pick your poison,” Ruf tells you with a grin, leaning his elbow on the table to be closer. He’s trying to be friendly, but there’s a sourness in the back of your throat that says you shouldn’t let down your guard. “Whatever you want, we’ll put it on our tab! You’re need a healthy dose of courage to-”

“No,” Al interrupts. “If you want a drink or two, that’s fine, but no need to souse yourself. You will need courage, not ineptitude. The unicorn is a foul piece of-”

“Down, Al,” Heath mutters, scowling at his companion, beard bristling as he speaks. “Apologies, my lovely friend. Al, you see, has suffered a personal loss at the… hooves of the beast.”

“The horn,” Al snaps, narrowing a sharp eyed gaze upon his companions. “The horn is sharp and deadly, mark me and if we-”

“How about you take a breath, Al. You’ll frighten off our only volunteer!” Ruf mutters, seizing his companions arm before shooting you a grin meant to charm. The grin falters when he sees the serious look on your face though, like he’s realized his wording won’t exactly win him your friendship.

“Volunteer is pushing it,” you say, just to hammer the point home.

“Yes,” Heath says, tone falsely bright, as if he’d like nothing better than to ignore your commentary entirely. “Well, you won’t have to do much, honestly! We’ve tracked the unicorn to the local forest and your village has said that you spend ample time there, yes?”

You nod your head, only because Al shifts forward in his seat, like he’s prepared to make you answer if you refuse.

“Have you come across it?” Ruf asks, sitting straighter, like he’s hoping you can give him a map that will lead them straight to the poor creature.

“I’ve never seen hide nor hair of a unicorn,” you tell them honestly. All you know about them is the stories that the elders have whispered about from time to time: a kind creature that nearly glows in the sunshine, with a spiral horn upon its head, and gentleness in its touch. “I’m out there every day, but-”

“That means little,” Al says sharply, looking you over more carefully now. “You might not have seen the unicorn, but they have definitely seen you. Whether you’ve been foraging out there or chopping down trees-”

“Then we have little to worry about. The unicorn will come and we’ll definitely catch it,” Heath says, leaning back in his chair with a cruel smile on his face. Ruf nods in agreement and ice settles in the base of your spine. You have the feeling that you might never step foot in the village again, whether the hunters are lying or correct about the nature of the unicorn doesn’t matter. With a very small handful of exceptions, you’re fairly sure the village doesn’t expect you to come back.

A day later, you wake up and you’re certain. The village has never been fond of those that wander through the forest. Has never been trustful of those that might meet creatures under the shadowed leaves. They take the foraged mushrooms and bark and all manner of greens from you happily enough, but they don’t seek out your company. They don’t seek out you, only the items you can procure, and without you? There’s always someone who can be pressured into the forest work. There’s always someone they’re looking to push onto the fringes of the village.

If you refuse to be bait for the hunters, if you refuse to aid them, you won’t be welcomed back. If you encounter the unicorn and it is cruel and monstrous and you survive while the hunters do not? You will not be welcomed back. If you- You have to bite your own tongue and breathe quietly through your nose, trying not to wake Heath or Ruf. They claimed to need your company for the night to keep going over the plans for the unicorn, but you knew what it really was from the beginning: They needed to stay close to keep you from running.

The walk out of the village and into the forest feels more like a funeral procession. Very few people are outside of their homes, and those that do notice you or the hunters turn their faces away. There is no cheering or shouting today, caught on the border of encouragement and violence, there is only the wind and downcast eyes.

The forest, at least, still feels welcoming to you. It must be different for the hunters though. Heath’s smile has gone from jovial to tight, Ruf’s lips are twisted with nerves, and Al is still scowling, but more on edge. When he catches you looking, his eyes take on a darkness that makes you feel mildly ill and you turn around, to stare at the back of Ruf’s head as he tromps through the undergrowth. After only a few minutes, you know where they’re taking you. A bright clearing with a small stream running through it, surrounded on all sides by tall silvery trees with leaves that turn golden in the autumn. There are heavy fallen trunks, covered over with moss, that you’ve often taken mushrooms from. One of them is the perfect place to leave a sacrifice, to bind your hands and rope them over a branch just tall enough to keep you from sitting, but too thick for you to break.

For all that they hate the forest, they know how to traverse it, and it feels a bit like betrayal, to see them moving through it so easily. Or maybe it just hurts to see every displaced piece of earth, every broken branch and bent stem they leave behind.

“Here will do!” Heath says, like they hadn’t planned out the place beforehand. All the plans you were supposed to be involved in had been settled long before they called for the village's aid, long before they settled on you as bait. Ruf searching through the underbrush covering one of the fallen logs confirms it: He pulls forth a heavy set of manacles and then digs in his own bag for the locks.

Though you know you’d never make it, the inexplicable urge to run takes hold of your spine. They haven’t put a hand on you, not yet, so you sweep your eyes over the surrounding area, pulse heavy in your throat as you look for a potential escape. You don’t truly expect to find anything, but you can’t stand by and- A pair of gold-green eyes are staring at you from the middle of a wild rosemary bush. Your jaw goes slack, catching sight of the thin, spiral horn jutting out from the shrubbery. You’re tempted to keep staring, to take a step towards them, but instead you slowly look away.

Ruf turns towards you, nodding his head towards the tree, where Heath is looping a sturdy chain over the branch that will help keep you captive. Al is standing off to the side, lips pursed as he watches the work, but he’s starting to let his attention drift. Rather than let him, or any of them, spot the unicorn hiding in the bushes, you heave out a great sigh.

“Will this take long?” You ask, trying to sound as put upon as possible. Not scared, not panicked, just inconvenienced. Al’s blue eyes narrow and he clenches his jaw, scar straining.

“Until we’ve caught the beast,” Heath says happily, letting Ruf take you by the wrist and lead you to the tree. He looks happier now that you’ve shown a little bit of attitude, like he’d been expecting this outcome from the start. “But you needn’t worry about that head of yours, friend. We know quite well what it is that we’re doing.”

Heath is staring at your face, and Ruf is focusing on clamping the manacles shut around your wrists - the weight of them makes you want to pause, makes the panic start to build - but Al is starting to glance towards the rosemary bushes, where you can still see that spiral horn.

“Do you, really?” You taunt, forcing a frown onto your lips. Your mouth is dry and Al’s angry expression is focused entirely upon you now. “Because you said in the village that you’d been doing this for quite a long time. I think you would have had some sort of result by now.”

“So much to say now that we’re not in the village, hm?” Ruf asks, grunting as he pulls on the chain, raising your manacled wrists above your head. “I thought you might have a sharp tongue, but you kept so quiet back at the inn-”

“Shut it,” Al snaps, stomping over to elbow Ruf in the ribs. “Talk too loud and the bane will hear! The beast is creeping around already, I’ve no doubt and if you end up-”

“Oh, Al, do be quiet,” Heath groans, slapping a hand over his face and dragging it down in exasperation. “We want to get them as much as you do! We cared about poor Os as well, but yammering like this won’t solve-”

“Hush up!” Ruf grunts at them both, yanking fiercely on the chain holding your arms one last time. He takes the end halfway around the trunk and then a heavy clanging rings through the trees. Both Heath and Al are silent as Ruf hammers a great nail into the trunk, securing the chain far too well for you to pull free on your own. The two unoccupied hunters search the clearing with slow sweeps of their eyes, but when you glance at the rosemary bushes, the unicorn is gone. Something heavy and painful settles behind your breastbone.

You don’t blame the unicorn, of course. You’d prodded at the hunters in the hopes that they wouldn’t notice the creature, that they would have the chance to escape. But knowing that you’re alone in your misery is harder than you would have thought. The ringing of the hammer finally vanishes, leaving behind a persistent echo that has you rubbing your ear against your shoulder. All three hunters gather in front of you, varying looks of satisfaction on their faces.

“Look at it this way, friend,” Heath tells you, smiling wide. “If we catch the beast, you get to share in some of the glory!”

“If we don’t, if you don’t act properly wretched, then you might linger here until you’d chew off your own arm,” Al says quietly, leaning in and tapping you once, fiercely, against the sternum. You’re half tempted to kick him, but there’s no need to make matters worse. The hunters might not be kindly, but they haven’t put their hands on you other than to lock the manacles, even after you insulted them. You bite down on your lip and clench your hands into fists, looking beyond them.

“Now you’ve gone and hurt feelings, Al!” Ruf says, barking out a laugh. He pats you on the head and nods back towards the path. “Don’t worry about it. Stir up a few tears, look down on your luck and the beast will be so sorely tempted by you that we’ll be back in the village by sun down!” He stands back with the others, giving you one last look, and then arches a single brow. “Give us a smile before we head off to defend you?”

You scowl, silently cursing Heath and Ruf’s laughter as they stride away into the forest, readying crossbows and nets they’ve fixed over their packs. Only Al lingers, mirroring the scowl you’d given his companions.

“The beast won’t escape,” Al mutters, quietly enough that you’re fairly sure only you can hear him. “I know it’s probably been here already, checking you over, making sure you’re in one piece. The stupid thing grows wildly attached to people like you, does everything it can to help.” He laughs, and the rough sound of it makes you slightly sick to your stomach. “I figured you knew, even if you hadn’t seen it, that the creature would come running to your side. You lot always do seem to know, like some kind of second sense that the forest curses you with.” He leans in close, close enough for angry heat to roll off of him in waves. “And know this: If you help that beast escape, if you don’t act the proper bait, the village will learn of how cruel unicorns can truly be.”

Widow Rayleigh’s anger at the hunters, with Ester Brooks, seems perfectly plausible now. If you had both your hands free, if you had one, you’re fairly sure you would crack a punch across Al’s sneer of a face. You could still kick him, but of the three, you’re fairly certain that Al would be the most likely to retaliate in painful ways. You hold yourself quiet, though the soft rattling sounds of the chains straining reach Al’s ears. He laughs when he notices your ire, the long scar on his face marred by the motion, and then takes a healthy step backwards, out of your reach. “S’more like it,” he says, clutching at his greasy looking cloak. “We’ll be back,” he says over his shoulder, striding away after his companions.

You wish it didn’t sound like such a threat.

Time passes slowly, made worse by the lack of movement. Normally, even without the sun shining fully overhead, you can guess the hour by the strain in your muscles, by the amount of weariness in your back and arms. Strung up like this, after the first ten minutes, your wrists are uncomfortable and your shoulders are starting to ache, and it’s only going to get worse. You close your eyes after a soft estimate of an hour passing, leaning your head back against the mossy trunk behind you. You might not be able to sit down or escape, but you can do that much at least, and straining your eyes to search your overgrown surroundings? Isn’t currently helping. If the unicorn is going to come, they might not even do so if you’re watching, and the hunters? You’ll hear them long before they come back up the path. Or.. Maybe you won’t. Your eyes crack open, glaring across the clearing at nothing. They are hunters, and while they haven’t caught the unicorn, they must have some kind of experience, they were wearing enough pelts. Perhaps they’re sitting high up somewhere in the line of trees, watching you silently suffer?

“Assholes,” you murmur.

“Aren’t they, just?” A sarcastic female voice says from somewhere behind you. There’s a tugging on the chain and you promptly suck in a deep breath, excitement and wariness battling to fill you first. “They never seem to learn from their mistakes either, which makes them the worst sort of asshole. You would think after the first few times they would change up their bait and switch scenario, and yet-” The chain rattles, quietly, but enough to make you glance down the path the hunters had gone down in fear. Are they close enough to hear? Or have they been circling the area, waiting for the uni- for her approach?

“You’re the unicorn?” You whisper, curious enough to pull a little, to try and see her around the side of the trunk. All you catch sight of though is a pale tail, a gleaming, curling bit of hair flicking in and out of sight before you can blink.

“Let me guess: They told you I’m a slavering beast, sure to eat your toes and stab you through the heart-”

“Toes?” You say, nose wrinkling. “Have they told others that?”

She pauses, snickers quietly and then sighs. “...Not toes, no. At least, not that I’ve heard. Oh, I give up, this bit is too tall for me,” she grumbles, and then rounds the tree, barely making any noise. Your eyebrows raise as soon as you can see her clearly. The hunters had called her a slavering beast to the village, among other things, detailing a long list of violent and frightening acts. You know, probably better than some, that appearances can be deceiving, but you’re still willing to believe that the hunters were lying.

She looks.. Wild. Manic, and nothing like the four footed, pristine creature that you’ve heard about in tales. Her feet are hooves, legs covered by silvery, silky looking hair, but she doesn’t shimmer. Her hooves and legs are flecked with dirt and the hair hanging heavy over her shoulders is a great pale tangle, peppered with leaves and bits of wood - it does nothing to hide her large-deer-like ears. When she sees your arched brows, she flashes you a wide smile, drawing attention to a chipped front tooth and faint scarring at the corner of her mouth. The horn in the middle of her forehead though, is what keeps you staring. It’s white, for the most part, spiraling into a fine, sharp looking point, but it too is streaked with grime, just like the green tunic hanging from her wiry frame.

“Tell me truthfully, do I look like I eat toes?” She waggles her brows, throwing her head back to laugh when you stare. She bites down on the noise a moment later though, eyes lifting to the manacles clamped about your wrists. “So you’re the poor soul they dragged into this mess?” She asks, taking your elbow in hand and shaking it, testing the strength of the chain and manacles. Her fingers are chilled and you flinch slightly at the contact, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Or did you volunteer to get the big bad creature?” Her eyes light on yours for a moment, but she’s still smiling. You rather have the feeling that she never left you alone after all, and heard every bit of Al’s threats.

“The village volunteered me,” you say quietly, watching her lips curl into a severe frown. “What’s your name?” You ask, trying to edge back from the nimble fingers pressing against your shoulder for balance. She’s terribly close, and while she might be covered over with dirt and bits of forest, she smells a bit like honeysuckle and- and it’s not the time to notice how lovely her dark eyelashes are. She’s trying to save you, despite the hunters, despite the fact that she knows this is a trap. The least you can do is focus on how to help her out as well.

“Baine,” she says shortly, the barest edge of one of her fingertips hooking in the large keyhole on one of the locks. She gives you another smile, tilting her chin up like she’s proud as she adds: “The bane of their existence.” There’s a sharp ting as she presses her finger further into the keyhole, smashing the inside of the lock to bits. She hops to unhook the lock from the manacle and then one of your arms is free. Gratefully, you lower down your aching arm, letting her move to your other side.

“How did you-”

“I’m stronger than I look,” Baine says archly and then winces. “Not trying to be confrontational! I just am, and I’ve had too many people ignore me when I say so. It’s always easier to show it than to try and talk it up though-” She stretches her arm out for the next lock, but you tug on the manacle, lowering it so she can reach easier. “Mm, mannerly,” she jokes, fluttering her eyelashes as her thumb presses fiercely into the lock. It shatters.

“Thank you,” you say immediately, rolling your arms and hissing once both your wrists are free. You can’t imagine the pain you’d feel if left in those things overnight, but you’re still feeling wary. The hunters are out there, waiting patiently for Baine to come free you and- “But you’re in trouble. You should leave this forest if you can. Sometime soon they’re going to be coming-”

“And you expect to just stroll right on by, back into your village, do you?” Baine asks, resting her fists against her hips. “I’ve dealt with the trio of fools before, you know, and this isn’t going to work out well for you, Clover dear.”

You open your mouth and then close it again. “Clover?” You finally ask.

Baine snorts, eyes traveling from your face, to your feet, and back up. “You look good enough to eat - sweet, maybe, like Clover.” She laughs again and wipes at her dry eyes before she nods her head towards the east side of the clearing. “So, I suggest you take a roundabout route, perhaps gather some things from your home and then hightail it out of here.” The levity in Baine’s expression fades. “You said that the village volunteered you, didn’t they? I wouldn’t stick around.”

She’s right. You’d been thinking about it just this morning while the hunters led you to the forest like an animal to slaughter. You might be able to make it in and out, grab some things, or maybe even visit the apothecary for some last minute supplies, but… You’re going to have to leave, if you don’t want to be pushed right back into the hunters path. If you don’t want the whole of the villagers to claim betrayal and drive you out anyway. If you leave instead, your name might still be considered clean, though that’s cold comfort. They’ll likely assume the unicorn ate you. Regardless, you’re still worried about her.

“I’m sure that they spread out around-”

“Oh, they did! Heath and Al are still circling about, but Ruf was covering that direction and he’s a sucker if there ever was one. He’ll be out cold for a stretch and both of us should be able to make it that way, if we leave in a moment or two.” Baine crouches, stretching one of her legs like she expects some kind of chase.

“If we’re caught, then-”

“We won’t be,” Baine tells you, brushing an errant lock of hair away from her face. She rolls her neck and then straightens up, patting daintily at a spot of dirt on her shoulder. “Those fools haven’t ever had a hope of catching me, not after the first time.” She taps a fingertip against her scarred lip when she notes the surprise on your face. “I’ve a weakness for those in need and they took advantage of it once. Honestly,” she says with a snort. “Trying to bridle a unicorn, have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? Their friend paid the price for it.” Baine’s eyes narrow, her nostrils flaring. “I won’t apologize for that either,” she says in a quiet, dangerous sounding voice. “Not ever.”

You hold up your hands in supplication, heart twisting in your chest. Kindness incarnate, Widow Rayleigh had said, repeating the old tales, and this was how Baine had been treated by those hunters?

“I don’t blame you,” you tell her and then the fierce look is wiped clean from her face. Baine breaks into another wide, pleased smile, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Of course not. Sweet Clover like you wouldn’t hurt a fly, hm?” She starts walking, crooking her finger over her shoulder, a clear motion to follow. “I’ve seen you in the forest, after all. ‘S why they brought you, why they convinced your village to send you, of course, and for that I’m sorry.” Baine hops over something, pausing so she can point down at the thin cord strung over the path. “They can’t trick me into saving those that don’t want to be saved though. Not any longer.” She offers you her hand when you’re close enough, fingers gripping tightly to help you balance as you step over the cord. “Meant to trap,” she says with a sneer, tipping her head towards the trees above. You follow the sharp point of her horn and look up at the waiting net. “Look close for others. There’s sure to be more.”

You’re a healthy way into the forest before you realize she hasn’t let go of your hand. The following flush of warmth through you is almost embarrassing, and you’ve half a mind to untangle your fingers before Baine stops in front of a prone body, her tail flicking like she’s trying to brush away a fly.

Ruf is laying in the immediate path, sporting a black eye. His mouth is parted, lips splattered with blood.

“He’s not dead,” Baine rushes to say, kicking him gently in the ribs. Ruf wheezes, but doesn’t wake and- you start to laugh. Not loud, muffled into your free palm, but enough that Baine makes a soft humming noise of confusion.

“I was worried,” you finally gasp, letting Baine pull you along. You’re heading back towards the village, you realize, but one of the circuitous routes that takes you behind a small string of buildings - one of which is the apothecary. “For me, yes, but for you. I’ve heard stories about unicorns-”

“Like the ones the fools share?” Baine asks, rolling her eyes.

“I heard those all the past week. I mean the older ones, about unicorns being kind. About them helping.”

Baine purses her lips, fighting back a smile. “Oh. Well, those ones are alright then. Worried about me though, were you? Wanted to try your hand at rescuing?” She teases and then her mouth grows thin, eyes focused on the surrounding brambles. She doesn’t tell you to be quiet, doesn’t change the way she’s moving, her eyes just rove fast as you keep walking. You drop your voice low anyway, just to be sure you don’t draw the attention of Al and Heath, still wandering through the trees.

“If you didn’t know about them? Then yes.” It’s mildly embarrassing, now that it turns out she’s in little need of help. Her eyes are soft when they drift over your face though.

“And thought very little of yourself, I’ve noticed. We can’t have that if you’re going to escape that trio of fools. Have you-” Baine pauses her speech, frowning until you’re cresting the hill that leads you to the back of Old Serell’s shop. “Come with me,” she says suddenly, lifting her chin, like she’s daring you to argue with her. “Maybe not forever, but for now. You can’t deny that it’s a smart decision - we both should leave this place and I know other forests.” She smiles again, brightly, chipped tooth pressing into her full lower lip. “It’s been a while since I’ve had company, and I haven’t seen anyone trailing after you when you wander. Perhaps it’d be good for you too?”

You don’t blurt out yes, but it’s a near thing. “No need for me to search for maps then, yes?” You ask, forcing yourself to look away. Serell’s son is standing outside their rickety greenhouse, brushing sweat off his brow. If you’re going to get help, now is the time.

Baine snorts and pushes against your shoulder, urging you forward. “Get your things then, I’ll be waiting.”

It’s.. invigorating, and frightening, preparing to leave, and the whole time you’re at it, packing what valuables you’re willing to carry, your heart is beating too fast in your chest. You half expect Baine to be gone by the time you’re done, nothing more than a strange dream brought on by stress. It can’t have taken you more than an hour to get ready, and when you sneak back to meet her behind Serell’s place, his son hauling your pack, she’s still waiting.

She’s finger combed her hair a bit, dragged out some of the larger leaves and twigs. She narrows her eyes when she finds the Serell lad staring. "I've little interest in eating you," she tells him archly, and then cackles when his face turns red.

"Thank you," he tells her, and for a moment both you and Baine are frozen with surprise. "For helping," he says, eyes darting to you and then down to her hooves. "Da felt terrible about those hunters taking you, wanted to go search the forest, but he's too old and I can't leave him. So you-" He flushes when Baine smiles. "You really are like the tales say: kind and good. So thank you, Da will rest easy, knowing you're off safe together."

Baine snags the teens wrist, lifting his hand and pressing his pointer finger to the sharp tip of her horn. He gasps, yanking his hand away when blood is drawn, and stares down at the wound.

"The medicine you brew will always be strong enough," Baine says, wiping the single droplet of blood from her horn. "Now get inside and take care of your father." The boy looks close to tears now, cheeks quivering with the force of his smile, but he turns on his heel and runs back inside.

Before you can say anything, before you can even open your mouth, Baine is tossing her hair over her shoulder and striding away. “Are you coming, or aren’t you?” She calls back and you have to rush to catch up, the thrill of a new beginning running heavy through your veins.

You’re so caught up in the buoyant feeling, you almost forget that you and Baine are trying to escape. You make it to the edge of the village proper, still on the outskirts of the forest, before Heath and Al step out onto the road, blocking your way to freedom. Ruf isn’t there though, which means that he’s still knocked out somewhere closer to the old clearing, far enough away that he won’t be able to shout to them when he wakes.

Al brandishes a blade as long as your arm when you take a step backwards, but Heath- Heath is staring at Baine like he’s never seen her before in his life.

“You’re not leaving,” Al bites out, lip curled into a vicious sneer. “I’ll have the unicorn, and your head if you try and stop me.”

Heath’s eyes are wide as dinner plates, staring at the spiral horn in the middle of Baine’s head. “What sorcery is this?” He asks Al hoarsely. “The unicorn- she-”

“Unicorn sorcery! It doesn’t matter!” Al spits, not even bothering to look at his companion. Heath gapes, eyes darting from Baine to Al and back.

“Unicorn so- I thought we were hunting naught but a beast,” Heath says, arms lowering to his sides. “Are you sure it isn’t the villager doing this? Perhaps we’ve found a wicked sor-”

“Shut up about sorcery!” Al says and takes a few fast steps closer. Baine slaps her hand into the middle of your chest, pushing you behind her. “She is the unicorn, and human-like form or no, she’s coming with us, back to the capital!” Al’s blue eyes narrow with hatred. “If not you, beast, then your friend’s life is forfeit, so I suggest you come with us now, or suffer the consequences.”

“No,” Baine says, fingers twisting into your shirt. “You will let us pass,” she starts and directs her words towards Heath. “Both of us, for the pain you’ve caused me, for the trouble you brought to their doorstep and the lives you’ve stolen in the name of chasing me down. Let us through.”

Al whirls to stare at Heath, shrieking in outrage when he watches him drop the weapons he’s carrying.

“You knew, Al? You knew she could speak? That she could change?”

“Of course I did! And I didn’t care. People want the unicorn as a beast, and so Oz and I thought to sell her, to let them parade her about the capital. We had her, and then she killed him! She struck him down with that dagger on her forehead and for that, if nothing else, she deserves a whip and bridle!” He whirls, mouth an angry maw, ready to spew more insults, raising his blade- and Heath strikes him over the back of the head.

Al falls to the ground, eyes rolling and doesn’t move. After a moment, Heath kneels to check his pulse.

“He’s alive,” Heath whispers. “I… Change, lady. Change and carry your friend away from this place, else Al will likely catch up with you on foot. I can.. I can stop Ruf. Can explain how Al lied to us, but short of killing him, I don’t think Al will stop.”

“You don’t have my forgiveness,” Baine says quietly, all the more terrible for her empty tone, “but I will no longer curse your name every day I lay down to sleep. I won’t thank you for this either,” she says, nodding to Al splayed in the dirt. “But I won’t forget the help.” Baine looks to you, eyes proud and carefully unclenches her hand from your shirt. “If you want to stay, you might have a chance with your village now. I’m sure the least he would do is vouch for you, get you back into your home.”

It would be easy, you realize. You can go back home to your warm bed inside the hut on the outskirts of the village. You can stir up a fire in your small hearth and… Continue. You’ll wake in the morning and start the same old routines over again, searching for the forest, coming home in the evening, taking your things to trade - all by yourself. “I could. I could go home and rest, back to my lonely life. Or, I can take one of the only chances I’ll ever have to leave it all behind. To travel alongside a unicorn.” You crack a smile, hoping she’ll still have you, that she wasn’t trying to quietly urge you to go back.

Baine grins and then throws her head back to laugh. When she’s finished, when she gains back her breath, she shakes her hair out and curls her fingers and- and then she shifts. Bones creak and pop and her wild hair grows longer, falling over her face as she grows tall. There’s a charge in the air, brighter than fire crackling over your skin with warmth and for all that your pulse is racing with adrenaline, you’re not afraid. Baine looks.. Looks like some strange amalgamation of a horse and a deer and some unnameable other that leaves your jaw hanging and your breath stilling in your chest. She doesn’t sparkle or glimmer like stone, but there’s a feeling to the air around her that leaves you emotional - and then you notice that Heath is crying. He turns his face away when he sees you looking, waving you towards her.

Carefully, Baine drops a knee, allowing you to swing a leg over her body and cling to the riot of her pale mane. As soon as you’re settled, as soon as your fingers are woven into her hair, Baine runs, and it feels like being carried by the wind. You’re not sure how long you travel, how long your face is pressed to her neck, fair hair whipping like ribbons in a storm with the force of her movement, but it’s long enough for your hands to ache. Your back is cold and the adrenaline has long since worn off by the time she slows, your pack heavy against your back. When she stops, swaying on her feet, it takes you a moment to get down, your own legs like jelly as you slip off and land in soft grass. You let yourself fall back, laughing quietly, and less than a moment later, Baine is dropping down next to you in her humanoid form, eyelids heavy and mouth still smiling.

“Freedom from that place suits you,” she murmurs, eyes already falling closed.

“You’ve done so much to help,” you say softly, wondering how the day went by in such a blur. “Is there any way I-” You turn to face her, struggling to push your pack from your shoulders, and stop speaking. Baine’s mouth is parted and she’s breathing heavy, hair falling over her face and across the grass. Quietly, so as not to wake her, you tug out the quilt you’d strapped to the top of your bag, unrolling it and throwing it across the both of you. Baine doesn’t move. Laying underneath the open sky next to Baine, the breeze shifting quietly through the trees, feels more like home that it has any right to. You’ve only just met, after all, but she… Fits, in your worldview, in the life you’re heading towards making. If you were less tired, you might have taken the quiet moment to examine what you really felt. Instead, you fall asleep shortly after, stars wheeling across the sky.

The days following pass by in much the same way: an overwhelming sense of belonging. It’s not easy, of course, you don’t just lay in the grass and laze about in the sunshine. You’re still hunting through the forests for mushrooms or plants that villages are always in short supply of. You’re still traveling farther away from your home village, Baine leaving circling trails and then zig-zagging paths through the foothills of the mountains to throw off anyone that might be following. The only difference, really, is that you have each other.

Baine can send you into the villages for supplies, to barter for the foraging and bring back items that make your traveling a little easier. Bedrolls for the both of you go a long way into making the nights on the ground easier for you both - though Baine, now that you’ve seen her in all her glory, has no issue shifting her skin to help preserve warmth. Baine is someone to talk to, someone that doesn’t faux whisper about what creatures you might be meeting in the forest, about what things must have twisted you so, to enjoy spending time hunting through the dark. After all, the only person you’ve ever met out in the middle of the woods is her.

“Hand them over,” Baine mutters, startling you from your musing. She raises her eyebrows when she finds you staring, turning to you and wiggling her fingers in a give it to me motion.

“Hand wh- oh!” She wants the bedrolls and blankets. The sun is starting to get lower, and if you don’t stop to set up for the night, you’ll be without a fire. The last few weeks it hasn’t been too much of a problem, but with the height of summer having passed and the nights growing longer.. You hand them over. You split the work without question, digging a shallow pit for the fire and then gathering what stones you can find so it won’t spread. By the time you’re finished, Baine has an armful of fallen branches that she’s gathered, and you’ve spotted a few chunks of resin on a near-by tree that will help get the fire going. When you bring it back, handing it wordlessly to Baine, you realize she’s staring at you now, even as she finishes the work of starting the fire. “..Are we forgetting something?” You ask, wondering why she looks so intent upon searching your face so thoroughly. “Do I have resin on my face?” You ask with a laugh, raising your hand to brush at your cheek. Sparks catch, and Baine turns her attention to the fire, blowing softly until the smoke is spiraling away and cheery flames are flickering. “Not my face then?”

Baine doesn’t answer, just worries at her lower lip with her chipped tooth, fingers twisting into the hem of her long tunic. “The stories you’ve heard about unicorns - they all say we’re some sort of paragon of virtue, don’t they?”

They do, not that you’ve talked with Baine in depth about them. She’s only ever mentioned them in passing, as if the myth of them amused her. Before you can say so, she’s getting up, prancing nervously around the fire pit, tail flicking from side to side. You’re rather reminded of a cat, not that you would ever tell her so. Baine likes to take jokes and clutch them close, repeat them just when you think she’s forgotten. Eating toes remains one of her favorite ridiculous threats. “They.. Some of them do,” you tell her honestly. Her ears twitch and she lifts her chin, glaring at the stars starting to peek through the fast fading brightness of the sky.

“The only thing they’ve really gotten right is that we like to help,” she confesses with a sigh. She rounds the fire, kneeling so close to you that her knees are pressed against the side of your thigh. She leans in enough that you can breathe in the honeysuckle scent of her, sweet on her skin and lingering about her hair. “They’ve only seen me - or other unicorns - in passing. We’re myth, fond legends, held up to be this.. Epitome of righteousness.” Her eyes are lit by the fire, a bit more gold now that green, and you can’t help when your eyes drop to the soft scar at the corner of her mouth. “Whatever the stories might say, I am flesh and blood, not a far flung star, forever out of reach.” Hesitant, like she’s afraid you might turn away, might reject her, Baine reaches for your hand. “I have wants and desires, the same as any human, and if you haven’t guessed? I’m rather fond of you.”

Her words heat your face much faster than the growing fire. You weren’t imagining things. She’s called you Sweet Clover so often, made so many references to tasting you, to your sweet nature, that every time she smacks her lips you can’t help your mind playing her words on repeat. “It just so happens that I’m fond of you,” you tell her softly, with just enough time to breathe in before your arms are full of her and her mouth is pressing quickly to yours. She knocks you back onto the bedrolls, peppering small, chaste kisses over your cheeks and your lips until she’s breathless and starting to laugh.

“Oh, good!” Baine says, after a moment, voice full of relief. “I hoped that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself. If I did, I thought you'd be gracious about it, but this is much better.” She leaves off on speech, nuzzling her nose against yours until your eyes have fallen closed and then she’s growing still, head tucked under your chin, breathing softly against the column of your throat. “Would you be opposed,” she whispers against tender skin, “if I wanted to keep kissing you?” You tighten your arms around her, the racing of her heart strong under your fingertips and then you shift, tilting her face up to meet your own.

“Please,” you say quietly. Baine’s hair becomes a curtain around your faces, mouth warm and slow when she kisses you this time, careful of the horn spiraling up from the crown of her skull. She braces herself on her hands, legs adjusting until she’s sitting astride your hips, the hair at the end of her tail tickling your calf. She kisses you like she has all the time in the world, lets you cradle her jaw and lick at the scar on the corner of her lips and breathes your name like a promise she wants to keep.

“You do taste like clover,” she whispers, shuddering when you bite her lower lip, hips canting downward. You trail your hands over her shoulders and down the middle of her back, humming when she rolls her tongue against yours, when she sucks, like she’s chasing the remnants of the clover she says she tastes. You want to touch her with the reverence she deserves. Not because of the stories, not because of the magic you can feel crackling against your skin when she does something as awe-inspiring as changing, but because of the way she smiles. Because of the way she’ll crouch next to the creek, biting her lip in silence and then bursting into laughter when she plucks strangely shaped stones from the water. Because of the way she’d clutched at your shirt, had bargained for your safety and then- and then wanted you to come with her.

She curses when you turn, rolling her onto her back, but you can feel the intensity of her grin when you trail kisses down her neck, teeth scraping softly over her collarbone. She strokes her fingers over your head and makes a lovely, gasping noise when your hand slips under her tunic, stroking over the silvery hair on her thighs and rising higher. “Not afraid you’ll taint the unicorn?” She asks, tone slightly mocking. She’s vulnerable though, expression soft, ears turned downward, like she’s still waiting for you to change your mind.

“Hardly,” you tease, and your fingers brush softly over the hard nub of her clit. You move down, gathering wetness as you stroke and Baine’s legs grow lax. “All I want to do is make you feel good, Baine.” You keep stroking, but you linger over her still covered chest, mouthing at her nipples through the material. “To show that I see you, not the stories. Not the unicorn, but Baine: with your mocking mouth and nervous prancing-”

“Shut up,” Baine says quietly, but she doesn’t sound unhappy. You look up, spying the color blooming on her cheeks, pupils gone dark with wanting. “Save the-the poetry for daylight,” she urges, spreading her legs a little wider. “There are far better uses for that clever tongue-” Baine bucks when you slip two fingers inside of her, curling and stroking her from inside. She yanks at her tunic, pulling it half up her belly and then howls when you take her words to heart. Baine is prone to muttering nonsense when you work her over, you find out. Her legs shake and shudder, but she keeps her hooves pressed tightly to the ground to keep from kicking. She bucks though, if you don’t hold onto her thighs, pressing herself as close as possible to your mouth, grinding herself against your tongue. Her tail snaps out at the bedrolls and blankets and her normal voice grows high pitched when you suck against her clit.

You could keep going, even when her body quakes with her orgasm, even when she’s gone silent as she tries to steady her breathing, but then she’s pushing you away. Baine’s laughter is rough around the edges after the keening noises she’s been making. “Enough, enough. For now,” she corrects, when she sees the smile on your face. “Now get up here and let me make you feel good.”

By the time you’re both sated, the fire has grown dim and you’re too chilled, too lazy, to want to get up and hunt for more wood. Baine is near sleep, so you slip back into a meager amount of clothing and then fit yourself to her side, warm under the blankets. It’s lovely out here, and you doubt you’ll ever get tired of traveling alongside her - but you’d like to make a home for Baine. You don’t want her to feel she has to run, forever, the way she has been. The home would be a good stopping point, a place to rest, a hidden reprieve from Al and other idiots like him. ...Perhaps somewhere near the sea. Plans fill your head, but Baine is snoring now and your eyes are growing heavy. You’ll talk to her about it come morning.

#exophilia #monster girlfriend #unicorn girlfriend #female unicorn x reader #unicorn x reader #unicorn faun #d.darling writes #unicorn faun girlfriend

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obxparadise · 4 years

Text

Habits

Rafe Cameron

Word count: 2,670

~Rafe Cameron’s drug addiction becomes too much for him to handle~

Song: Habits by Machine Gun Kelly

Warning: This is a pretty deep fic. It includes drug use and death by overdose/heart attack. It’s not too graphic, but a warning was needed.

A/N: Drop a comment if you enjoyed and reblog :)

*GIF is NOT mine, found on Google. Creds to the owner*

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

Complicated

Frustrated

Underestimated

Can’t sleep, mind racing

Hard to stay concentrated

2017: Alcohol dependence.

2018: Cocaine addiction.

2019: Spiraling into insanity.

Hair follicles flutter to the floor, lying beside sharp shards of glass hiding in the bedroom rug. Rafe’s hands tangle in his hair, tugging, tugging. Eyes flicker between a bottle of bourbon and three perfectly measured white lines on the windowsill. Black Veil Brides blares through the speakers at full volume, but he can’t focus on the lyrics as his father’s words are loud in his brain.

Disappointment.

Worthless.

Good for nothing.

Addict.

The veins in his neck are throbbing, working in overdrive to pump blood through his body. His hands find the sides of his neck, squeezing, head falling back, eyes concentrating on the spinning fan hanging from the ceiling.

Round and round and round it goes. His eyes follow, blinking rapidly, until he tears them away, unable to focus for another second longer. Open palms drag down his face and he lets out a heavy breath that morphs into a dark laugh.

He isn’t a fucking disappointment.

He isn’t worthless.

He isn’t a good for nothing.

And he certainly isn’t an addict.

And if he was, that was the result of an overbearing, abusive father.

It all came down to pressure.

Pressure to be perfect.

Pressure to fit in.

Pressure to please his dad.

Rafe needed an escape from his father. From reality. Everything became too overwhelming. He couldn’t sit back and press pause or rewind or do over. But when the liquor flooded his veins and his nostrils absorbed the cocaine, time stopped. His responsibilities, his life outside of the drugs, ceased to exist.

Sweat drips down his body as he rubs his hands together. A cold shower would fix that no problem, but it would wake him up. Sober him up. He doesn’t fucking want to be sober.

He laughs at the bottle of bourbon that’s dying to be used. It sits there, teasing him. And Rafe gives in, flicking off the cap, downing a quarter of the liquid. It used to burn, but he’s immune to any sort of pain.

He eyes the three white lines next, licking his lips, craving another high. His heart races as he kneels in front of the windowsill. Rolled up beside the lines is a dollar bill and he grabs it, making each line disappear after it. He snorts, snorts, snorts, until there’s not a trace left behind.

The effects don’t happen immediately, but when they hit, they crash hard. His pupils dilate. Blood pressure rises alarmingly. He giggles one minute, and is irritable the next. And as the high wears off, he takes another long swig of bourbon. Over and over. A repeat of a vicious never ending cycle.

Rafe barely hears the pounding on his bedroom door over the music. Ward Cameron lets himself in, face twisting with rage. “Rafe. Rafe!”

He spins around, blood rushing to his ears, baring his teeth as venom drips from his voice. Is this a hallucination? Or is Ward really there?

The bottle is clutched between his fingers and his palm, suffocating in his grip. The mere sight of his father changes his mood instantly. Once pleasant, now violent. “Get out!”

The bottle barely sails over Ward’s head, crashing into the door behind him, shattering to the floor. Rafe’s hands are balled at his side, sucking in sharp breaths as Ward watches his son in disgust, horror, a combination of the two.

When the door closes, the tears fall. Rafe’s body warms, clenching and unclenching his fists. Frustration boils in his blood. His brain is racing, all with thoughts of pure hatred for his father.

Calm. He needs to be calm.

He stalks toward his bed, and as his head hits the pillow, his body relaxes.

Rafe closes his eyes, but he knows he won’t sleep.

He never does.

I fell in love with a very bad habit

But I feel alive for the very first time

“You have a problem.”

“Yeah, and it’s you. Now get the fuck out of my room.”

It was in Sarah’s nature to care, even about her brother, but Rafe wished she wouldn’t.

He kneels beside his bed, emptying the bag of cocaine on a silver platter resting on the night stand. The sight makes Rafe’s mouth water and he fishes inside his wallet for his debit card, splitting the powder into even lines.

“Nineteen years old and addicted to cocaine. You’re going places, Rafe.” Sarah taunts, slouching against the window as she watches her older brother’s descent into darkness. She has no idea just how bad her brother’s addiction is.

He ignores her, fidgeting with the rolled-up bill between his thumb and forefinger. The first line disappears from the plate, and he wipes the excess from his nose with the back of his wrist.

“So that’s it? You’re just gonna sit there and snort coke in front of your little sister? What the hell is wrong with you, Rafe?”

“Sarah, until you experience the kind of pressure I’ve been under for the last three years, you don’t get to judge how I handle it.”

Another line disappears.

“Have you ever thought of something rational? Like I don’t know, maybe therapy?” Sarah suggests in a sarcastic tone.

He chuckles darkly. “I don’t fucking need therapy. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You know, we used to talk about things,” Sarah whispers, doing her best to try and distract her brother. But the only thing on Rafe’s mind is how badly he wants to be high. “I looked up to you. Now I don’t even know you.”

Another line vanishes.

“Rafe, please just stop.”

One more fades.

“Rafe, stop.”

Another one.

“Rafe, stop!”

And then he collapses.

Three sets of eyes stare down at him, one of which belongs to Sarah, but the other two he doesn’t recognize until someone speaks to him. “Young man, we’d like to take you to the hospital.”

Paramedics.

Fuck.

He blinks once, twice, eyes darting from his panicked sister to the stone-faced EMTs who probably had better things to do than to tend to a nineteen-year-old addict who shouldn’t be doing drugs in the first place.

“Is he going to be okay?” Sarah questions, tears welling up in her eyes as she grabs Rafe’s hand, clutching it to her chest. “Rafe, can you hear me? They want to take you to the hospital.”

“No.” A chill shoots up his spine as he opens his mouth, voice hoarse. His answer requires no hesitation. “I’m not going. Help me sit up.”

“Rafe-“

But his body falls back against the floor as he begins to shudder violently. Rafe’s eyes flit around the room, inhaling deep breaths as he tries to find something to focus his attention on, but his brain is screaming for him to find his next fix. Words from Sarah and the EMTs go in and out of his hearing, and he flinches as two sets of hands hold down his arms and legs. The tremors explode through his body and Sarah covers her face, crying frantically into her palms.

“It’s alright ma’am. He’s just experiencing withdrawal symptoms. This usually happens after someone is given Narcan. He’ll be okay in a minute.” The male EMT informs, hoping to put Sarah at ease.

When the tremors dissipate, the paramedics assist Rafe to a sitting position. He’s weak, he’s tired, his throat is scratchy, and blood trickles from his nose. Rafe glances up at his sister, and his heart squeezes in his chest as he watches her cry. For the first time in his life, he feels guilty.

“We cannot take you to the hospital without your consent. So, if you’d like to go, it’s best we take you now.”

Rafe shakes his head and looks toward Sarah, but his words are directed to the EMTs. “No, I’m-I’m fine. I’d like to be alone with my sister.”

Rafe’s shoulders fall dejectedly as he huffs out a breath, watching as Sarah flushes the rest of the cocaine down the toilet. He’s seen his sister sad, angry, hurt, but never in full blown panic mode. Her cheeks are stained by old waterworks, and her eyes shine bright with unshed tears. Sarah’s lip trembles as she tries to keep from losing her cool, and Rafe worries if he’s made a huge mistake.

They sit across from each other on the bed, Sarah playing with her fingers as Rafe stares at his sister. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” his voice leaves in a whisper, and he reaches out to touch his sister’s arm, but she pulls away. “Sarah, please.”

“Don’t.”

He throws his head back. “That’s the first and only time I’ve ever OD’ed. It happens.”

Sarah’s face twists in disgust, mouthing hanging open. “What you should’ve said is that will be the last time you overdose, Rafe, as in you’re going to fucking quit.”

“Come on, Sarah-.”

“Why did you even start?” Sarah queries, hugging her arms. Her voice is small, timid, and she avoids looking at her brother. “Help me understand why people like you, who have everything they could possibly want, resort to drugs and throw their lives away.”

The question stuns him, but he won’t hide the truth. He owes it to her, even if it sounds pathetic. “Because of dad.”

“Oh, no,” Sarah breathes, shaking her head. “Don’t you dare blame your damn problems on dad.”

“It’s true!” He reaches over and grabs Sarah’s arms, holding her in place. “You don’t hear the shit he says to me when you’re not around. Worthless. Disappointment. Useless. Good for nothing. I walk on eggshells around him, Sarah. I can’t do anything or say anything without sparking some sort of argument. For the last three years, I have felt nothing. But now,” his laugh is deflated, shoulders slumped forward. “Now I feel alive.”

“Yeah, well guess what?” Sarah fires back, sliding off the bed. She glances back at her brother sadly. She doesn’t even know him anymore. “Tomorrow you might not be.”

I don’t wanna die

But I don’t, I don’t wanna hide

Or keep shit inside

Rafe finds himself barging into the worn out trailer, ignoring Barry’s protests for him to get the fuck out of his home. He beelines for Barry’s bedroom, tossing pillows, opening drawers and closets, until he finally spots the handgun poking out from underneath the bed.

It’s been two days since his overdose and Sarah’s words have been at the forefront of his brain.

Tomorrow you might not be.

All of the emotions he felt the previous two nights come rushing back, hitting him square in the chest, leaving him breathless. He was so close to death, so close. The cocaine had almost taken his life. He wouldn’t let it, though. Rafe would not let the thing he loved most be the cause of his death. He loved the drug, and the drug loved him back. It wouldn’t hurt him. Not again.

“Bro, what the fuck?” Barry’s voice rings out in his room, jolting Rafe from his thoughts. He grabs the gun from beneath the bed, eyes rushing from Barry to the weapon. “Bro put that shit back. That ain’t something to play with.”

Disappointment.

Worthless.

Good for nothing.

Angry tears fall from his eyes as he clutches the gun tight in his hand. His body begins to tremble. From rage? From withdrawal? Fuck. He hasn’t had coke in two days. Barry swallows nervously, afraid of what contemplations are going through Rafe’s head.

Disappointment.

Worthless.

Good for nothing.

The words are loud in his head, deafening, and for a second, just a second, Rafe believes them. He thrusts the gun into Barry’s hands and surrenders. “Kill me.”

Barry blinks. “Are you fucking with me, country club?”

“I said kill me!” His voice is piercing, laced with rage, hurt, despair, hopelessness. “I can’t-I won’t-I’m just a fuck up-He’ll never love me-I can’t-I just want-.”

Rafe sputters as he tumbles to the ground on his knees, body deflating. His sobs echo through the trailer, full of pain and devastation. No, he doesn’t want to die. He just wants the pain to end. “I just want it to go away, man,” he cries, hugging his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth. “I just want it to go away.”

“A’ight bro, I get that. You good, you good.” Barry coaxes, setting the gun aside. He lowers himself to the floor, a good distance away from Rafe, but close enough to grab the gun in case he has any irrational spilt second choices. “You gave me a heart attack though, bro. Shit.”

Licking his dry lips, Rafe runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, man. I just-fuck. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“What’s going on?” Barry asks, rolling his neck, cracking his knuckles.

Rafe releases a strangled breath. “I OD’ed man. I fucking OD’ed.”

“Shit,” Barry groans, hanging his head. “Look man, you gotta watch yourself. I ain’t tryin’ to be responsible for your death, you got me?”

Rafe nods. “I fucked up, bro. I’ve been fucking up for years.”

“Is this ‘bout your dad again? Bro, how many times I gotta say it? Fuck him. He ain’t worth getting this messed up about.” Barry answers, nudging Rafe’s leg with his foot. “He gets to you ‘cause you let ‘em. You’ll be free once you stop giving a fuck about him, what he thinks, what he wants you to be.”

And that’s all Rafe wanted.

To be free.

I wanna run away, yeah

I don’t wanna stay here

Rafe finds himself back in his room, head resting against the door as Ward bangs his fist on the other side. He’s persistent, pounding and pounding and pounding.

“I want you out of this house, Rafe!” Ward yells. “You hear me? Out!”

If only Sarah had kept her mouth shut about the overdose.

Rafe listens as his father’s footsteps disappear down the hall, and he puffs out a strangled breath. He’s entirely defeated. He feels nothing. Not pain. Not rage. He’s fully numb.

He wants to run, but where to? He can’t just disappear, no matter how much he wants to. There’s nowhere to go, but Rafe knows one thing. He can’t stay here.

His eyes flicker to the untouched vial of powder on his nightstand. It calls to him and he responds, heading in the direction of the stand. He kneels, opens the vial, and empties it onto the wood, dividing it evenly.

Rafe takes one look at the drug, the source of his happiness, the love of his life, and sighs. “I can’t stay here. There’s nothing left for me.”

And he doesn’t mean in his home.

No, he means on Earth.

For the last time, Rafe grabs the dollar bill, a single tear slipping down his cheeks. Bending down closer to the stand, he snorts a line, savoring in the instant high. He’d miss the feeling. Feeling happy. Feeling important. Feeling on top of the world.

He snorts three more lines easily.

But the last two he struggles.

The sensation overwhelms him and he pulls away from the nightstand.

Something drips from his nose.

Blood.

It slides down his lips, his chin, and he doesn’t bother wiping it away.

He can’t breathe.

He tries to swallow, but his throat is closing and his nostrils are clogged.

He’s dizzy, vision blurring.

He panics.

And then he cries.

But his cries are cut short as his chest constricts.

Rafe’s hand flies to his chest, attempting to clutch his heart through his sweat-stained polo, now gasping for air.

He collapses.

He tries to call out for help, but his voice is barely a whisper.

His back hits the floor and he lies there, helpless, crying, in pain, and alone.

Time passes.

The pressure in his chest surges.

But then it stops.

And just like that, he’s free.

104 notes · View notes

argumentl · 4 years

Text

The Freedom of Expression Ep.2 - Ghosn escapes to Lebanon

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, this is the second installment of The Freedom of Expression. Um, Joe san, Tasai san, here we are again.

J, T: Yep *laughing*

J: Why are we laughing at that?

K: Well, somehow, while I was introducing you two, I was wondering whether I should also introduce the third, no, fourth person..

J: I see, I see.

K: I thought I'd leave it at that.

K: Yes, lets leave it there.

Kami: No, don't leave it there.

J: Ah, of course, we try to ignore him, he'll appear.

K: Ahh, but during the first episode, there were times without him, weren't there?

J: Sure

Kami: Ah, but I was just being quiet. I was waiting until the end to come in.

J: I see.

Kami: You played right into my hands

*everyone laughs*

J: We played into your hands? This god has a nasty personality, doesn't he? *K laughing* A god saying that?!

Kami: Of course you would tell me I have a nasty personality.

J: This god is surprisingly small, right? *K laughs a lot*　..saying such things?!

K: Okay, so lets get to the freedom of expression, the concept which we started on the radio and are now doing on youtube. Last time was our first try, how do you think it went, for anyone interested?

J: Well, just how DID it go?

T: Right, I'd like to know the reaction.

J: Yeah, I'd like to know. I'd like it to spread on social media.

K: Yes, me too.

J: Please, by all means, share this for us!

K,T: Yes

K: Right, well for our first item, over to you Tasai san.

T: Well, this is news from Tokyo Sports newspaper..

J: Oh, from Tokyo Sports? Like, is it a UFO or a monster kind of story?

T: Well, I know what you mean, but its not that today. Its about (Carlos) Ghosn.

J: Was Ghosn a monster?!

T:*laughs* No, no, no, its not that.

J: Really?

T: It was really big news at the end of last year. The news that Ghosn escaped to Lebanon. Firstly, what did you think about this, Joe?

J: Oh me? Well, Im one of those that thinks the Japanese judiciary system is terrible, so I thought it was convincing.

T: Ah, I see.

J: Of course it was an illegal thing, but for someone as rich as Ghosn, I think it was nothing.

T: Well, as for Ghosn, he is now in Lebanon, but its been said in the news that the recent worsening of relations between America and Iran will be really bad for him.

J: Can Tokyo Sports really report such a serious story? *K laughs*.

T: Yeh...We have to report this kind of thing.

J: Right

T: So, America killed Iran's number two, General Soleimani in an explosion, and with Iran calling for revenge action, the tension is such that, people are fearing WWIII breaking out. With the current leader calling on Lebanon's Shia military organization, you know the organization Hezbollah?...there is a possiblity that Lebanon could become a battle ground...in which case Ghosn would lose his place of saftety and he would have to flee from there, and might get arrested in a different country. Thats the story, how Ghosn might still be facing danger.

J: I see, direct.

T: Its really like a story from a movie.

K: Yes, thats right.

T: Hiding in a musical instrument case..

J: For sure!

K: A band came to his house right?

J: Yes, yes, he was having a party.

K: Yeh..and like hiding in the case...its interesting isn't it? *everyone laughs*

T: Its a case for a very large instrument, and the makers of it have issued a warning, that this case is not intended to be used in that way. *J, K laugh*

J: But there are not many people who escape overseas, its impressive!

K: Yeh, it really is like a movie.

T: Its great...there is even talk of making this into a movie.

J: Ghosn's story?

T: Yeh

J: Wow. Kaoru, have you any thoughts about this Ghosn news?

K: Well, while being quite simple, the scale is outrageous *laughs* I wonder how much it cost..

J: Oh, probably a considerable amount...its been said that it seems like his fortune has decreased..but it probably hasn't disturbed him too much.

T: On the issue of bail, he paid 15 billion yen, which was apparently further confiscated, but Ghosn probably doesn't give a damn about that.

J: Probably not

K: When he came out, he disguised himself right? Its also kinda interesting from that angle.

T: Oh, dressed like a cleaner, right?

K: Yes, yes, yes.

T: It seems like he thought it would work

J: Well, another thing is, the Japanese judicial system is said to be a so called 'hostage judiciary'. In Japan, the prosecutors have the right to charge people with a crime, but out of all charges made in Japan, 99.9% are found guilty. In other words, if you are charged, the court case is more of a formality, you will almost never be found innocent. It equates to one out of a thousand cases being found innocent. Now, as far as I know, the conviction rate should be a bit lower, ninety-something percent, but if you lower the conviction rate much, the authority of the prosecutors is suspected, as if the original charges were wrong. Its difficult, but a conviction rate of 99.9% is quite extraordinary. So with the fact that prosecutors have so much power, and with this 'hostage judiciary', so called criminals are pushed to confess. At first they are questioned without the presence of a lawyer, and there are many cases where foreigners confess to the crime, even if they havn't done it. The police will say to people, 'you are not leaving here till you confess'. Now, if you really didn't do it you could provide your evidence to the court, but in Japan, the court will take a self confession as the strongest evidence. So, in the end, once you've said 'i did it', you might as well have done. And even if you later say 'i didn't do it', it will only be seen as a lack if repentence, you will not be found innocent...and Ghosn must know all this. This court case is predicted to go or for 5 or 10 years, and say, if it was ten years, his life is already nearing its end. Whether its right or wrong, he probably arrived at the conclusion that he had no choice but to escape.

T: He can do it because he has money.

J: Exactly

K: Ah, its turned into that kind of conversation.

J: Eventually, yes. We are not all equal.

K: But, couldn't you say it would better that he had stayed in an orderly place like Japan?

J: Yes, yes, especially if the place he has escaped to becomes a war zone. Theres a chance that Japan might end up being the safest place for him.

T: Which do you choose, an approaching war with your freedom, or a safe place facing a court hearing?

K: Oh this is gonna be a movie.*laughs*

J: It seems likely...But who would play Ghosn? Who looks like him?

K,T: *????* 1*

J: He's the only one who could do it! If it was dramatized..

K: It makes you wonder how Japan could let this happen, Ghosn was probably surprised too.

T: So for people who are out on bail in Japan, they do sometimes make them wear gps locating device, or restrict thier movement. It seems like Ghosn has really thrown Japan into disorder.

J: Hmm, in Japan, whenever there is a happening, the measures taken against it are often 'too much'. So, if you talk to people in other countries, recommendations will differ. For example, in France or somewhere like that, a traffic accident happens, and someone dies...Well, i mean, if it was in Japan, they would install a pedestrian crossing and traffic lights, which is ok in itself, but if you do this type of thing too much, it starts to get inconvenient. But if it was overseas, a traffic accident where someone dies, they would just warn people to be more careful next time. Rather than doing sonething physical, just encourage people to be safer, and after that finish with it. In Japan, they would definitely either install facilities or place equipment, measures to prevent it happening again, but on the other hand if this is done too much, you may eventually end up with restrictions on you speech or movement, so thats something we have to be careful about.

K: Mm, if you blame other people or things, you may end up losing your sense of self responsibility.

J: Things primarily happen due to our actions, we need to remember that, but people will end up blaming other things, for a sense of security. This becomes a vicious cycle, I feel.

T: This has been excessive recently, funny stories about celebrities being criticized for saying certain things, and then nothing happening.

Kami: Um, is it wrong to be on Ghosn's side?

T: No, I think its ok.

K: Its a personal opinion.

Kami: If you were on his side, he might give you money if you ask him *everyone laughs*

T: What a wierd opinion for a god!

J: You really are working for money, aren't you!

Kami: Well, I just thought if I was rich I could be in control of everyone.

J: I see, I see.

Kami: Like if I told people to cooperate with me, they would say, yes, yes, and just do it. Like, I would say to Tasai san, can't you write a nice article about me, and throw over a bit of cash..

T: I would be quivering

K: *laughs*

J: If it was Hiranabe san, you'd have to take him to dinner.

Kami: Yeah, I've a feeling he would say, 'Ghosn was right!'.

J: I guess so.

Kami: I mean, even if the story in the media is a joke , if someone said 'I'll give you a billion yen if you do it', you would do it right?

J: Well yes..a billion.

Kami: The real god, wouldn't be like that of course...but I'll do it for small change. *everyone laughs*

J: How much would you help Ghosn escape for?

Kami: About 10,000yen.

J: So cheap!

Kami: Its because I know my capability.

T: Isn't god supposed to be all powerful, and all knowing?!

Kami: No, I can't do anything.

J: A god who, can't do anything, strange isnt it?

Kami: Its because no-one worships me.

J: Ah, I see.

K: Aren't you just a regular old guy then? *lots of laughing*

J: And here's me thinking we were getting somewhere deep!

Kami: I only know one deep thing about this. Straight after he was interviewed by the Juicial minister, the minister said that Ghosn will have to prove his innocence, right?

J: Yes, that was mistaken, wasnt it. Completely wrong.

Kami: The rest of the world media heard this, and thought Japan was in the wrong. It is in the wrong, right?

J: Well, that person was orignally a lawyer, um, I dont know if the youtube viewers are aware of this, a defendant doesn't actually have to prove anything. Its the prosecution side which has to prove the guilt. A defendant doesnt prove his innocence at all. So if a harsh sentence is given, that means the prosecutors did thier job, and if guilt isnt proved, that means the prosecutors couldnt prove it. There is no legal situation where a defendant has to prove thier innocence. So, the justice minister saying Ghosn must prove his innocence was probably seen as ridiculous by the rest of the world.

Kami: Well, it is if its said by the justice minister.

J: Well having that kind of person in such a high position, can the rest of the world trust this country? Its a wierd story, the world's mass media have been laughing, can that kind of guy really become justice minister? But as you said, maybe he's just expressing Japan's inner feelings about this. Oh, Kami is gone! * laughing*

Kami:*laughs* No, I was listening attentively. I was listening, and thinking, he had to run away from Japan.

J: Oh, right.

T: I see.

Kami: Yes, get away from Japan..consumption tax has risen too of course * everyone laughs*

J: Well, yes.

Kami: The Olympis will cost money too..

T: And theres that iternet tax.

K: You know a lot, dont you kami?

Kami: Ive been saving money *everyone laughs* I never have enough.

J: Are you a poverty stricken god?! *lots of laughing*

Kami *stifled laugh* Don't say that.

K: Ok, well lets wrap it up here, the second episode. Please tune in next time.

J,K, T: Thank you very much.

1* I don't know who they said here.

#the freedom of expression #dir en grey

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avengersnthings · 5 years

Text

Dumped (Tony Stark x Reader)

Summary: You get dumped the day before Valentine’s Day but Tony makes it all better.

Word Count: 2,093

Warnings: Some swearing

A/N: I’ve been having Tony feels lately and this popped into my head. Enjoy!

Tag List: @mp938368 @generalantiope @thatgirlsar @jumperswellies @quicksoldier @kitkatgaming @marvelfandom-stuff @itsmaytimetosaygoodbye @agentraven007 @marvelgoateecollection @thaniya82 @thats-so-rhyan @hymnofthevalkyrie @themanwiththemetalarm @mslaufeyson @thisismysecrethappyplace @jackiehollanderr @nayr9e @shaydeevee @mxria-hill @littlelonewolfgirl

MASTERLIST

“THAT SON OF A BITCH!” You screamed in anger, throwing your phone down onto your disheveled bed. Tears pricked the corners of your eyes before crashing over your cheeks. You felt so betrayed. So used. So...so...

“Dumped..” You whispered to yourself, lip quivering with anger. You couldn’t believe it. Your boyfriend of two years cheated on you and dumped you the day before Valentine’s Day.

Anger once again pooled in your chest just thinking about it. Just as quickly as the anger came, it flew away to be replaced by dread and heartbreak. The vicious cycle continued for an hour as you flung yourself on your bed dramatically and listened to the voicemail over and over again.

“Hey, babe... Listen... I met someone else. She’s so great and amazing and... I’m in love. I feel like I’m in a movie, it’s crazy. I’ve never been this much in love before and I just need to follow my heart and be with her. So...yeah... We’re done. Well, I’ll talk to you later, babe- I mean, (Y/N). Bye... Oh wait, can I get my sweatshirts back?”

“Asshole,” You spat out as you wiped the tears off your face. Shoving your phone in your back pocket, you made your way to your closet where the sweatshirts hung neatly on hangers. Just seeing the once-comforting items made you see red. Ripping them off the hangers, you balled them up in your arms and made your way out of your room and towards the elevator. Impatiently smashing the button marked ‘L,’ you quietly fumed as you rode the elevator down the couple of floors. As soon as the elevator doors ‘pinged’ open, you stomped your way towards the glass doors that led into Tony’s laboratory. A few biometric scans later, the door swung open for you and you were greeted with the sight of Tony working on a suit.

“Hey, princess, how’s it-” Tony abruptly stopped as he took in your appearance. Mascara ran down your face in black streaks. Your hair was thrown into a very messy bun and your oversized sweater hung loosely on your frame. Your eyes were red and puffy and your lip had a slight quiver to it. “What happened?”

As soon as those two words came out of his mouth, once again you were a blubbering mess. You dropped the bundle of sweatshirts on the floor and ran towards your best friend’s open arms. Immediately you were enveloped in the welcoming warmth and scent of Tony as he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into his chest. He tucked your head under his chin and you buried your face into his Black Sabbath t-shirt, almost immediately soaking it from your tears.

“Shh... you’re okay, I’m here, Princess. I’m here,” Tony soothed as he rubbed calming circles into your back.

“He ch-cheated on me, Tony,” You hiccuped into his chest and screwed your eyes shut tight to try to prevent any more tears leaking out. Through your closed eyelids you could still see the faint glow of Tony’s arc reactor out of the corner of your eye.

“Oh, Baby, no...” Tony sighed before placing a delicate kiss onto your hairline.

“And he dumped me,” You sobbed. “Over voicemail.”

“That son of a bitch,” Tony hissed under his breath before leading you over to the couch he kept in the lab for when he was too tired to go up to his bedroom.

“I know,” You sniffled, pulling away from Tony. “That’s what I said. Here, listen.” You fished your phone out of your pocket and played the awful message for the hundredth time that day. As the message played out, the expressions on Tony’s face turned from disbelief to sadness to absolute fury. The voicemail soon ended and Tony’s jaw was set in anger at what he just heard. How anyone, especially the person who was supposed to love you, could cheat on you and dump you the day before Valentine’s Day was beyond him.

Silence filled the room as your anger began to turn to despair once more. This time, though, instead of breaking down you just sat there numb. The same could not be said for Tony, however. Tony was fuming. Tony hated the guy from day one ever since you brought him back to the compound to introduce him to everyone. The guy was too smug and cocky for Tony’s liking, which says a lot, since it was Tony saying it. Over the next few months as Tony watched the two of you grow closer and get more lovey-dovey, the hatred that Tony felt for the guy soon turned to jealousy as he watched him hold you and kiss you. Tony would never admit it to you, but he wished that he was the one that got to take you home each night and put that beautiful smile on your face.

Months turned to years as Tony’s feelings for you grew deeper and stronger. He had never felt like this for anyone before but he sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything to you. He couldn’t stand to lose you as a friend. No matter what was going on in your relationship, you would find yourself down in the lab telling Tony everything. You told him about your first fight and cried in his arms before jumping up when your phone rang from him calling you. You told him when you thought that “tonight is the night” and that you were going to take things to the next level with him. That one absolutely killed Tony as you asked your best friend for his opinion on what you should wear to that date.

“What did I do wrong?” Your sad voice snapped Tony out of his reverie. He immediately got off the couch and kneeled in front of you, hands on your knees.

“Baby, look at me,” Tony demanded, drawing your sad (E/C) eyes to meet his chocolate brown ones. “You did nothing wrong. That guy is an asshole and doesn’t deserve you. If he can’t see how incredibly amazing you are, then he’s just plain stupid. Never belittle yourself or think you are nothing. You mean the world to people.”

“Doesn’t feel like it right now,” You sniffled. “I wasn’t good enough for him.”

“No, he wasn’t good enough for you,” Tony interjected while tucking a stray hair that came loose from your bun behind your ear. “He should’ve been kissing the ground you walked on, (Y/N). You are such an incredibly good person that it is sometimes hard to believe. He should have done so many things for you. Hell, if I was your boyfriend you would be the most adored woman in the world. I would kiss you, hold you, laugh with you, cry with you, spoil you, and so much more. I would-”

“Wait, what?” You cut off Tony’s rambling before looking him in the eye. “Why did you say ‘if I was your boyfriend’?”

Tony blinked. He did not just say that in front of you. “I didn’t mean to say that. What I meant was, theoretically speaking-”

“Tony.” Once again, you interrupted his ramblings. “Do you like me?”

“Of course I like you,” Tony danced around the question as he stood up.

“No, as in, more than a friend. More than a best friend,” You clarified, you standing up too.

“Well, uh...” Tony muttered, still trying to avoid the question.

“Tony, answer the question. I need to know if I wasted the past two years of my life or not.”

“What?” This time it was Tony who was the one doing the interrupting. “What do you mean by that?”

“You first.”

“No, you,” Tony retorted, taking a step toward you.

“God, you’re so infuriating,” You rolled your eyes before crossing your arms over your chest.

“You know you love me,” Tony said out of habit.

“You’re right.”

“What?” Tony blinked once more. “Do you...”

“You first,” You shook your head while gently biting your bottom lip in anticipation. “Tony, do you like me as more than a friend?”

“No.” It was not the answer you were expecting, nor the one you wanted to hear coming from his lips. Over the past two years with your Ex, you couldn’t help but feel as if you were with the wrong person. You were afraid to be alone, so you never broke things off. You would have, though, if the person right in front of you said something. You would have dumped your Ex’s sorry ass and flung yourself into your best friend’s arms if you could have, but you knew he didn’t feel the same way, so you never did.

“I love you, and more than a friend loves a friend,” Tony admitted quietly to you. You could feel your heart pounding in your ear as it rose from the pit in your stomach where it was moments ago. He took a step closer to you as his fingertips lightly grazed over your arm. “Do you?”

As his eyes bored into your own, you couldn’t help but fling yourself towards the man in front of you. Your hands desperately reached for his face to pull his lips down onto yours. As soon as your lips touched his, a fire erupted inside of you that you had never felt before. His lips were soft and warm on yours and his hands were strong and steady on the small of your back, pulling you closer to him and keeping you from melting into a puddle all at once. You never noticed how soft his hair was until your fingers carded through his chocolate locks. You almost didn’t notice your lungs screaming for air as Tony glided his tongue on your bottom lip, asking for permission. Before the lack of oxygen caused you to pass out, you reluctantly pulled away, gasping for air. Tony could care less for oxygen, apparently, as his lips found yours again not once, not twice, but three more times as he placed gentle pecks on your swollen lips.

“Is that a yes?” Tony smiled as he rested his forehead against yours.

“Most definitely a yes,” You leaned up and captured his lips in yours for a fourth time. “You should’ve told me.”

“You shouldn’t have dated him,” Tony retorted with a smirk.

“I’m glad I did,” You admitted. Tony’s smirk fell from his face at your words. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have realized that I loved you, and I wouldn’t have gotten this moment with you.”

“You are incredible, (Y/N),” Tony beamed before picking you up and twirling you around in a circle. “Will you please be mine, now?”

“On one condition,” You smirked, an idea forming in your head.

“Anything,” Tony sighed contentedly, kissing your temple.

“You let me set his sweatshirts on fire with the suit.”

“God, I love you,” Tony gushed, ducking down to capture your lips again before taking your hand and leading you towards the new suit he was working on. Tony held up one of the gauntlets and allowed you to slip your hand in. The metal plates quickly fitted to your hand and the next thing you knew, the repulsor glowed to life. Throwing the wad of sweatshirts in the test-area, Tony stood next to you and placed a loving kiss on your cheek. “Let em’ burn, Baby.”

The repulsor instinctively responded to your hand and sure enough, the sweatshirts created a lovely bonfire in the laboratory. Before things got too out of hand, DUM-E motored over and extinguished the fire, leaving a heap of charred remains.

“Well, better return his sweatshirts,” You shrugged as you placed the remains in a box to be sent back to your Ex’s place. “Let’s go get dinner, shall we?”

Tony smiled brightly at you as you took his hand. Once more, he placed a kiss on your temple before leading you out of the lab. “Let’s.”

Even though you hated your Ex and all the horrible things he did to you, you had to thank him. If it weren’t for him being an awful boyfriend through cheating on you and breaking up with you, the day before Valentine’s Day, you wouldn’t have gotten the man of your dreams who just so happened to be your knight in shining armor. You’d have to write him a ‘thank you’ note to send back with the charred remains of his sweatshirts. A thank you for giving you the best thing you’ve ever had: Tony.

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glumpiglet · 4 years

Text

Close Encounters of the Beej Kind (F!ReaderxBeetlejuice)

Uh hi everyone.. K This started as a request but then i took another look at it.. And it didn’t even do what was asked and I was like … i might just post this as a fic.. So here we are! Many apologies to that person, hopefully this could be a bit of a compensation and it WILL be answered I promise!

To anyone asking for a pt 2 to my ghost s/o I definitely have more to do with that one…we got a WEDDING TO PLAN MY DUDES….. Eventually..i'm trying to get these requests done (which are Always Open ;) ) and I want to do a second date to my Dew fic. I’m very a stop and go writer, I like to try and keep these to a 3-4k length...sometimes that can take me 2 days… sometimes 2 weeks. Lol you know the struggle. hope you enjoy this one. Stay lovely out there hotties.

Warning: Beej is a voyeuristic, thieving little trash boi and there’s some swearing… That’s all.

It started out an average day when you officially met Beetlejuice.

Moving into a new place alone was always so much work. The organizing, the packing, the stress. It would be ultimately worth it, you realized. This would be the first time you lived alone, no roommates, no family. You were a real, genuine adult now.

Laughable, you thought, as you shoveled the spoonful of cereal into your mouth before returning to your controller. There might still be unpacked boxes around you, but sometimes video games were just higher on the priorities list.

The whole ordeal was almost over with. What was left was pictures to hang up, you bought a bookshelf that needed to be built… Nothing crazy. Lucky enough there wasn’t too much of a headache.

That came surprisingly after the move-in.

It wasn’t something you voiced out loud, but you were sure the place was haunted.Believing in ghosts was a difficult subject for you. Having had… Things happen to you when you were a child, whispers of your name in the basement where your mom would do laundry. You had an argument once on New Years at a friends house because you were certain you were hearing someone in the house.

Ghosts were like Religion or Big Foot to you: Not a firm believer but definitely had some ‘need more answers’ kind of person. The human mind was a confusing piece of machinery. It came up with all sorts of insanity.

Still, a list was started to be compiled of odd occurrences in the short time of living here.

One day, you had been binging a couple Buzzfeed Unsolved episodes ironically enough when you should have sworn you could hear low-pitched laughing in your living room. Not from an adjacent apartment. Like it came from right beside you on the sofa. Pausing the video you listened for any more sounds. Complete silence greeted you and couldn’t tell what would have been creepier: if you had heard the laughing again or the quiet. Deciding to not finish the episode, you turned the t.v off and sat there in the quiet room for a long time

There was an odd smell in your apartment. You didn’t notice it when viewing the place but every morning you woke up to a pungent, musky odor that almost made you think your neighbours were smoking weed or living in garbage. The smell came and went throughout the day, sometimes wafting over you so unexpectedly you swivel your head to see what was behind you. Nothing was ever there.

Things were disappearing. At first you thought it just got lost in the mix of moving. Some cheap jewelry. Old photos. A hairbrush. It wasn’t until your clothes just started disappearing that you became troubled.

As you were for sure your panty drawer was being raided, you couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on. You checked the dryer to see if you accidentally left any behind, you were a forgetful thing. It wasn’t impossible that your underwear had simply.. Disappeared. You tried to chalk the whole thing up to paranoia. You had been celebrating with the new apartment and was drinking a bit more than usual.

Blame the alcohol. Blame yourself. Anything to not think about the possibility of an actual haunting.

Not until a hot autumn night did you get any actual proof.

Sleeping nude has always been a thing for you. Your parents would scold you as a child for walking around naked. Leaving your windows wide open as you changed. They basically had to force you into pajamas. You didn’t want to be a nudist or anything, there was just something constricting about wearing clothes to bed. Pants were unbearable, anything with long sleeves suffocated you and god forbid if you ever wore socks. Even in Winters.

Living alone meant you slept nude nightly, even had the insight to splurge on some silk sheets finally, it was literally the best sensation you had ever felt. It was still unbearably warm in September and you had not been wearing much clothing since you moved in. You were saving up money for an A/C unit but it would probably be snowing by then. Slipping between the cool covers, you sighed as you drifted as you usually did, that space between sleep and dreams where your brain was beginning to shut off….

In a split second, the desire to open your eyes overtook you. Hovering above you was a large, dark figure. Clear as day. No mistaking it for something else.

Struck still with terror, the intruder didn’t see your wide, open eyes apparently, leaning down over your vulnerable body. In your restlessness, the sheets had been kicked off, leaving way too much exposed skin. Looking horrified, your skin began to break out in goosebumps, perking your nipples. The air to scream wasn’t finding you.

You heard a sound. Growling, like a dog. Vulgar, nasty sniffing noises were blowing from the beast, like the bellow of a forge. This was a nightmare, you clamped your eyes shut. If only you could pinch yourself… Striving to find the will to move your arms, fingers. Anything.

The shadow spoke. It was like gravel hitting the pavement. Striking and rough.

“MMmm.. So sexy...”

That was it. His voice snapped something in you and you felt yourself come alive. Jumping up in bed, you had screamed in panic, stumbling to your light to reveal an empty room.

In the terrified state that found you, pacing, in your robe, in your kitchen. Waay to wired now to return to bed. You had decided that night it was a dream, a type of sleep paralysis. No way in hell did your new apartment have a poltergeist.. Some demon?! No fucking way.

The idea of buying something: smudge the house, a ouija board, had crossed your mind. Before you realized what a terrible idea that was. If this was real, you weren’t communicating with it.

You weren’t thinking about it. Not at all.

Fate was funny, however. Destiny or kismet, whatever you want to call it. With every weird occurrence, it never occured to you that slowly but surely it was getting worse.

Not one week after the whole night terror debacle, did you catch someone in your bedroom.

As you said, average day. Meaning you stayed out in the living room, trying to find the energy to be productive beyond sitting on the couch, playing. Glancing at the clock intermittently, watching as the morning shifted into afternoon. You sighed and put the controller down, compromising with yourself.

Okay, get the boxes out of the closet. Put the shelve up and unpack three boxes then you could return. Sounded fair.

Walking into the room, reaching the closet, you leaned your head in to find the boxes, and heard a bump. Thinking the sound was just coming from something you hit in the closet, you continued reaching further in… Clothes shuffling made you pause. Turning towards the sound of an impulse, you gasped aloud as you took notice of a man opening your dresser drawer.

“Holy Fucking Shit!”

The first thought in your mind was he was a burglar. Afterwards, you had to chuckle at the idea, he was definitely not dressed for a B&E; terror made funny things make sense.

Grabbing the first thing in your reach, the contents of your vanity. You began hurling them at the now stunned creature, hands up on his chest, eyes wide in surprise.

“Get out, Get out!” Practically shrieking in the small bedroom, you backed up to the wall, trying to find the courage to escape. In your hysteria, you failed to notice something.

The items were flying right through him.

Adrenaline pounding through your body, making your head throb. He wasn’t doing anything, just standing there, confusing you through the panic.faintly you looked down and saw what he had in his grip. One of your shirts.

You had broken out in a cold sweat. Feeling like you were going to be sick.

“I’m serious guy, I’m gonna call the cops!” The booming voice you tried was being to sound more wilted, your heart was about to burst from your chest. Tentatively stepping a few more steps towards the door, brandishing the thing in your hand like a weapon, no matter it was just a mascara bottle.

“Uh-....yo-...” He continued to blunder through a breath, like a match striking against sandpaper.

You didn’t notice him pocketing your clothing. You dropped the thing in your hand.

The voice... That deep, dark rasp. You had heard it before. In your living room… In your bedroom.

Great timing, you couldn’t catch your breath. Gasping for air you slid to the floor, clutching at the ground for some balance.

This was not happening. This couldn’t be happening.

Every ration, logical, scientific part of your brain screamed for solid facts. The Afterlife wasn't proven real. Death was unknown. This wasn’t a movie and he wasn’t Casper. This was NOT a ghost. This was a human being, totally alive, uninvited in your home.

Watching with sight blurred around the edges, he was approaching you slowly. Clenching your eyes shut, you cowered in on yourself as you waited for the attack.. This was it, this was how it ended.. You could see the headlines now.

‘Local Girl Found Dead: No Witnesses. No Suspects.’

Family would never know what actually happened to you. Search for answers until they found this creature and the vicious cycle would continue.

The stench got infinitely worse as he approached, and your eyes began to water with more than fear.

“Hey, hey.. Breathe, breather.”

His voice was calm… Forced but calm and you didn’t take the bait. He was just playing with his prey and soon would sink his fangs in.

“You can actually see me?”

His voice was incredulous. A happy tone that made you look up, he was doing something odd. Not acting frightening in the least, not attacking. He was talking to himself. Angled away from you as he gave himself a pep-talk..What?

“Okay calm down… Play it cool….”

His eyes met yours. He rearranged his features to appear to be.. Smoldering.. He looked to be trying for suave.

“Heyyy.”

Not what you expected. In any other circumstance, you would have laughed. The air wasn’t found to make the sound. Instead you choke on your tongue. “..I-...Wh-”

That was all you could get out. It seemed his speechlessness had traveled through the room and now possessed you.

There was a knock on your door. It was the sound that brought you back to reality. The normalcy of a knock meant you had to interact with a human. You raced towards the door, ready to cry out in panic.

Retching it open, your breath caught in your throat.

It was your attractive neighbor. You had talked to them a total of three times including the time the landlord introduced you. In your hyper aware state, you couldn’t even reach in your mind for their name.

“..Hi.” You said breathless, wondering how much of a mess you looked. Attempting to discreetly pat your hair down, the neighbor explained their hearing you screaming, wanting to make sure you were okay.

On the tip of your tongue was ‘No, actually. There seems to be a poltergeist in my bedroom. Do you have the number of any good priests?’ But what came out of your mouth was surprisingly calm and normal. You were so sorry, you were playing and sometimes could get a little loud and competitive, you’ll try and keep it down.

Feeling the back of your head prickle, it seemed now you had obtained the power to tell whenever it’s eyes were on you. Great.

Seeing the ghost peeking from around the corner, not subtle at all in the ordinary background of your apartment, his contrite countenance almost making you smile. The words left your mouth before you could catch them.

“..Can you not see him?”

Your neighbours' confused silence answered. You took a deep breath, savouring this human interaction. Alrighty then.

“Gotcha! Sorry, I get spooky around this time of year.” It wasn’t even October, six weeks until Halloween, but it seemed to do the trick.

Sharing a laugh with the neighbor, you expressed your desire for them to enjoy their weekend, and bid them goodbye, promising to be quiet. Hoping they didn’t notice how fast you closed the door.

You turned back around to regard the ghost.

It.. Certainly didn’t look how you imagined it.

He looked worse.. Dirty and disheveled in a striped suit, you tried to picture how he might have died and carefully watched as he shuffled forward. Wide, yellow ambers glittered at you.

“Listen.. I know we didn’t get off on the right foot, but… You can see me.”

“Yes.” You had to clear your throat, the voice that came out of you was dry and cracked.

“Stop saying that, please. Why can I see you?” He stepped closer to you, head tilting and you had the space to break free into your living room, walking backwards as he stalked you.

“Beats me, sweetheart. Breathers are usually so self centered they never notice the dead.” You plopped down on the sofa, processing that bit of information. So it was all real. Ghosts were among us. Unbelievable.

He began to fiddle with the cuffs of his jacket, you almost wanted to ask him to sit down, the nervous energy you felt from him not helping with yours. What do you offer to a ghost for comfort? Smooth as always you blurted out the first thing.

“So… You’ve been haunting me. You were-”

Sudden, potent anger flushed over your skin. It came together. Your underwear. That night. This pervert!

“Have you been watching me sleep?!” You felt yourself screech before trying to lower your voice, remember the promise to the neighbor. Shooting up from your seat, the ghost floundered under your glare, eyes flickering towards the ground, refusing to look at you.

Lowering your voice to a dangerous whisper, the anger was making you brave. You began to advance on this deviant spectre. Realizing you had the daily source of your misfortune in front of you fueling your fire.

He had been around the whole time, through your daily routine like… He was your boyfriend or something. As uncomfortable as that was, maybe he couldn’t help that, but you drew the line at theft.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?! I don’t care, ghostly apparition or not, that’s just rude! Stealing my clothes?! What do you have to say?”

“Woah-woah.. I-I’m sorry! I just… You’re so…Hey!”

Continuing your pursuit despite his stuttered protests, you found yourself standing up close. The closeness was pungent, but it was becoming kind of bearable as the minutes passed on… Up close he was..

Strangely handsome, your brain chimed in for you. Not the fucking time!

Arms crossed tight, you glowered at him. Unexplained, you waited for his answer. Obviously he wasn’t going to hurt you. This stupid, smelly, handsome ghost had had plenty of opportunity, you thought sourly.

��Look, this really isn’t going the way I wanted it to. You’re the most interesting breather in this hellhole……. I’ve been stuck here for so long, but if-if you want.. I’ll stay away...”

Deciding to proceed with the first bit of what he said: going the way he wanted? You watched as he began to slump away. He was muttering to himself again.

“Probably go down and haunt Mrs. O’Reilly in 2B. Heard she got a new pacemaker...That could be fun”

Viewing the sad spectre slink away, the rage was strangely dissipating. Maybe it was the down tilted head, the kicked puppy expression, the idea of this dude with poor little Mrs.O’Reilly. Something made you call out.

“Wait.”

He perked up almost comically, twirling back towards you, having to bite your lip to keep from smirking. Maybe this ghost wasn’t so bad, he was certainly interesting. Entertaining. Handsome. Shut up brain. Didn’t mean you forgave him yet. He was giving you every piece of clothing back.

“Did I tell you to go away?”

“Yeah.. Earlier..” His fingers twitched together and now taking notice of how open and earnest his expression was, it was making you smile. Right, when you were freaking out. Could you be blamed? Now it seemed implausible you were ever scared of him.

“Okay, well that was then, this is now. Let’s start over, I’m (Y/N).” On reflex you held your arm out, and kept it there before you thought better of it. Why you were attempting to shake hands with a ghost was beyond you, but as this was of course the weirdest thing to ever happen, what else could be done that didn’t make sense?

He, with rapt attention, reached forward and you watched in astonishment as his hand drifted slowly through yours. The sensation was an icy buzz shooting up your arm, tingling through your neck into your brain, even your scalp felt the jolt. You felt like you just been electrocuted.

Both of you shivered at the contact. The air was filled with a growl and once again you were transported back to you in bed and him above you. For the first time.. You felt yourself throb in pleasure at the memory rather than fright. This was slowly becoming dangerous, you could feel it.

“Ooo… That’s different.”

Studying him as he glowed green, he began to lewdly run his hands down his chest...Down his thighs.. Your eyes snapped away, suddenly very interested in your own hand..Certainly different.

“I like it.”

“So…. Have you been here the whole time?” You asked, desperate to change the subject in a strangled voice, turning away so he couldn’t see your burning face. This was dangerous. Impossible. Not healthy. Deciding to let this ghost stick around perhaps wasn’t the best instinct.

“I’m not sure you’re gonna like the answer to that, babes.”

Revolving around to ask him what he meant, you paused at him... Flushing pink. Definitely not.

#beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice broadway #betelgeuse #beetlejuice musical #beetlejuice fic #beetlejuice x reader #beetlejuice #lydia deetz #charles deetz #delia deetz #adam maitland #barbara maitland #reader x beetlejuice #beetlejuice x you

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anotherpersbective · 3 years

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A LESSNESS LIFE .

I know from the moment you read the heading of this article, you thought that its interesting but never came across your mind that is going to be about minimalism. In this upcoming words I am going to express my thoughts on such a subject and the reasons behind adopting it, and this is going to be in answering questions method.

WHAT ACTUALLY IS MINIMALISM?

Let us imagine the following situation, a person comes to me and asked me to describe minimalism in one word? The answer is going to be FREEDOM. However, if he asked me to define it, my answer would be I can't do such a thing. There is no united definition of minimalism that everybody would agree on because we are different and everyone understands it in various descriptions.

No one will tell you that if you own more than 50 items, for example, you can't be a minimalist. And he will be absolutely wrong.

My definition of minimalism is all about the intentional use of things and stuff. It's all about doing more with less, achieving more with less, and living happier with less. Until eventually, LESS can show you the FREEDOM.

IT'S ABOUT HAVING, BUT CHOOSING NOT TO OWN.

HOW DID I GET THERE?

I was born in a society that is all about showing off what you have, and what you have accomplished. I used to be that person who wants to achieve finical freedom and I still won't, but the method differentiates from that time. So, I watched those who own more all the time whether it was cars, homes, or boats. As a result, I told myself that this is the answer to the problem which I do not even know what it is? However, year after year the principal starts failing down by seeing those who have more hurting themselves, being hit by the depression, and attempting suicide. DON'T GET ME WRONG, I DON'T MEAN THAT THOSE WHO OWN LESS DO NOT COMMIT SUICIDE TOO. But, this showed me a hole in the equation and another element that can explain this phenomenon shall be found.

BACKGROUND:

I used to be that person who loved accumulating stuff, things, and materialistic goods. I tended to tell my self " If I get this thing, I will be fulfilled and satisfied. However, this leads to own another thing, another good. Moving forward, you will end up finding yourself in a vicious cycle of wanting more all the time without realizing that you have already got the very first thing that was supposed to fulfill you as a human being, but it didn't. And now you are pursuing another one.

Over time, due to personal circumstances, I, finally, realized the cycle, so I decided to hold on and slow down a little. Then, it bound on me, I should take a step back and look at the bigger picture. In the end, because of such a step, I was able to adopt minimalism as a way of life with another step; however, this step was ahead.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WANT AND NEED?

I see people most of the time get confused between these two words ( want & need) without even knowing. people have already mixed them on everyday usage, they treat them as being synonymous to each other; conversely, they aren't.

Looking at the definition of WANT, it's going to behave a desire to possess or do (something); wish for. This means that want is used to express our desires which are not a necessity and we can live without. Adding up, our desires can manipulate us to convince ourselves that that thing which should be a want has already become a need. However, when it comes to the definition of NEED, it's all about required (something) because it is essential or very important rather than just desirable. So, when using the word (need), we should keep in mind that we are talking about a crucial thing to continue living and keep our body running appropriately.

Humans in their basic instance are easily emotionally manipulated, and that's the main reason for the confusion of these two words in our modern society. Let me repeat this message again. There is a line that you should not cross and this line lies between want and need. Now, you might think that to be a minimalist, you should buy what is a need and cut down what is a want, absolutely not. For me, minimalism is all about the intentional use of stuff, and if what you are going to own will add an intentional value to your life or someone else's life whether it is a need or a want; it has already met my stander definition of minimalism. For instance, you want to buy something, and it's a want, so I used want; at the same time, owning this thing will make you happy or make someone else happy ( with knowing the difference between instantaneous and long-term happiness Crucial ). Then, you should buy it, because of the value that shall be accomplished by owing this thing.

Moving forward, both want and need should be bought as long as they add value and purpose for you or others.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF MINIMALISM?

I know for sure that no one has ever told you that you can do more with less, but let me be the first.

Minimalism will help you in the next three areas of your life:

financial side

Time

productivity side

relationships side

stress-free life

FINANCIAL SIDE:

Financial freedom is a goal for most people, nowadays. However, far fewer people achieve it, and far fewer die with it. The answer to financial freedom in most societies is all about working more and hard. Conversely, it's not about how many times you put into work, it's about the perceived value of your work. So, as I said you can achieve financial freedom with less, and here is how. When you adopt minimalism or essentialism, you will cut out so many expenses that were used to buy invaluable stuff. As a result, you will have so much money left to invest or even starting a business in the long run. In addition, you will have saved so much time rather than working because you do not want the extra money from working overtime, so you have saved time and money by living with enough. Going forward, I am going to show you what can be done with more time.

TIME:

You have been told over the years that time is the most important asset of your life, but you have not compromised this statement well enough. However, you will be fully aware of it at the bed of death. Although this might seems harsh, there is a way out, and this way can be thrown Intentional living. When you become a minimalist by removing all the distractions, you will realize how much time you have and how to get the best use of it. Time will give you the chance to answer life's most difficult questions and offer you a journey to your inner self. Another benefit is having more space to establish a fulfilled relationships with those who matter the most to you. Minimalism is a way to boost your productivity because you will have the space and time to work on what's really matters and the freedom to do more of what you pleased.

STRESS-FREE LIFE:

Among all the problems that minimalism offers a solution for, we can look at two of them and explain how minimalism or essentialism can help people overcome them. First, information overload. As we live in a grown society, technology makes it so easy to get lost in the world of information. Everything has become two clicks away, and you will have all the knowledge about a certain topic. You might see this as an advantage, and it is, but up to a certain point. According to neurological science, when our brains being exposed to a new and unexperienced phenomenon, the brain will work to figure it out and all the details which are related to this certain topic. Now, imagine that with every single new thing that your eyes can observe, your brain will work to figure it out. As a result, when seeing an empty picture, you find it relieving. For example, an ocean or an empty desert. And that's where simple living entering the equation as a solution to such an issue.

The other problem that minimalism can help you with is Decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is simply being overloaded and stressed by the number of decisions that you have to take every single day. As long as the number of decisions increased, your brain will eventually lose its ability to make the perfect one due to decision fatigue. For example, you find that people spend a ridiculous amount of time choosing what to wear or which photo should they upload on social media, and neither of these decisions is life-changing ones. And here again, minimalism offers a hand.

CONCLUSION:

In a life of accumulating stuff, nothing seems to be enough. The food doesn't test as good as enough, the view isn't high enough, the car isn't fast enough, the money doesn't seem as much as enough, and then you become a slave to things and stuff. As harsh as may it sound, Stuff was designed to be controlled by us, not the other way around. As Bhagavad Gita once said, " detachment is not that you own nothing, detachment is that nothing owns you". I wish that I can tell you that minimalism will solve all your problems, but it will not. Minimalism offers you a life of meaning and freedom with less.

BY: AHMED ELGDDAWY

INSPIRED BY:

Matt D'avella

The Minimalists (Joshua Fields & Ryan Nicodemus)

Leo Babauta by Zen habits

https://mnmlist.com/about/

NOTE:

This is my first article to be published on Tumblr, if you liked it. You can support my work , if you liked on https://www.patreon.com/AhmedElgddawy .

#minimalsim #simple living #problem solving #a better world #lifestlye #meaningful decision #life stories #self improvement #self descovery #articles

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avatarstories · 4 years

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Izumi’s Birthday part four: getting better

A/N: I am so sorry it’s taken me so long to get a chapter out. law school is hard and time consuming. I’m about to enter exam study time and research season so I definitely will not have another chapter out until after Thanksgiving. Thank you to everyone who reads. You have no idea how happy your comments make me, especially after a long study session. I originally thought this series would only be three chapters, but I think now it’s going to be eight or nine. Take care, stay safe, wear a mask!

When they had made another complete trip around the the palace and were unsuccessful at finding Bumi, Aang and Katara returned to their room. When the door closes behind her, Katara turns on Aang.

“I kept telling you to take care of this,” she says coldly.

“You’re going to make this my fault? He had a fight with Izumi. Why is it my fault?”

“He and Izumi get along beautifully. I’ve been telling you for two months that you needed to talk with him, and now that hurt he feels is affecting his other relationships!!”

“Bumi wasn’t open to it, and you weren’t backing me up!”

“Backing you up? Are you kidding me?” she asks incredulously. “Who stayed at home alone with our kids while you went on missions or days long trips into the Spirit World or taught Air Acolytes how to meditate? Who was there beside you when you tried to bring back a culture from the brink of extinction? I have always backed you up,” she says pointing a finger at him. “And it hasn’t even always been you! When Mai died and Izumi was really sick, I came here with little Bumi to take care of her and Zuko, and Bumi on top of them. When Kanto left Toph when she got pregnant, it was me who helped her get everything ready for Lin. I have always put down everything and helped when people need me! Spirits, I even gave up becoming chief for you! I am not going to sit here and let you tell me that I don’t have your back, because I always have. But, you can’t run away from this or he will end up resenting you for the rest of his life,” she says furiously. She’s almost yelling at him, but then she stops and a tear rolls down her cheek. She looks defeated and disappointed. “I know you’re the Avatar, but you promised me we’d be in this together. I can do a lot, but I can’t do everything.”

Katara looks at him with anger and hurt in her eyes. The way she stands with her clenched reminds him of when she was 18 and he was 16, and she broke up with him for awhile . Right after their break up, her father asked her to go to the Fire Nation for some diplomacy work. Aang had been miserable. To try to help him feel better, Sokka and Suki invited him to visit Toph’s metal bending school, and Suki had given him some of the best advice of his life...

“I’m pretty sure Toph could will herself to bend the other three elements if she tried hard enough,” Suki says they watched Toph work with her metal bending students.

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Aang says, “then I’d be out of the one thing I’m good for.”

“Was it that bad?” Suki asks. Of course Aang knew exactly what she was referring to.

Aang sighs. “She said I don’t support her. That I expect her to give up everything for me, and that I don’t see her.”

“Hmmm, that must have been hard to hear,” Suki says empathetically.

“She said, ‘you are in love with the idea of me” I mean, what am I supposed to say to that? Of course I am, she’s perfect!” Aang takes a deep breath. “And then she conveniently gets appointed Ambassador to the Fire Nation so she gets so busy there, and she can do so many things she wants to do…and she can do them because she’s not with me. I don’t want her to think our relationship was a waste of time.”

Suki offers him a sad smile. “She would never. She adores you, Aang. But even when two people love each other dearly, it doesn’t mean they are good partners for each other.”

“Are you saying I was a bad boyfriend?” he says.

“No, and don’t put words in my mouth,” Suki says. “Some people just aren’t always good partners for each other. Like, look at Zuko and Mai. They adore each other. But Mai didn’t want to be with someone who couldn’t take care of himself, and she told Zuko that. So she left for a while so that he could get his bearings and figure what he needed to do to be a good Fire Lord and a good boyfriend.”

“So…I was a bad boyfriend?” Aang asks again.

“No Aang, you just weren’t what she needed right now, and it’s no fault of your own unless you honestly did not try,” Suki says. She puts a hand on his shoulder in an empathetic gesture. “You have to stop thinking like you were a failure. You’ve learned how to be a better friend to her. And, you can be mindful of this lesson in your next relationship.”

“But what’s it matter if we’re not together?”

“Aang, come on. If the only thing that mattered was that you were ‘together’ then that’s not enough,” Suki says.

“So what, if Sokka decided you weren’t good together you’d be fine if he left you?”

“Of course I wouldn’t be fine, but that’s why I work hard every day to make sure he feels loved. I let him know that he matters, and not just to me, and that he can mess something up and I’ll be there to help him fix it. And if what I give him doesn’t satisfy what he needs out of a partner, I would rather him leave and find someone who will make him happy than him stay with me. I would feel bad because I can’t be enough for him. It would be a vicious cycle, and we’d just end up resenting each other.”

Something about her statement clicks for Aang. “So it was better to just cut the losses,” he says. “And that way we can still be friends.”

“I think you’re catching on,” Suki smiles. “Plus, you never know what will happen in the future. Maybe in a few years, you’ll be exactly what she needs, and she’ll be exactly what you need. Not that it wouldn’t be hard work, but maybe you’ll be good partners in the future.”

“Thank you, Suki. This really helped,” Aang says.

“Anything for you, kid. Come on, let’s go find Sokka, I’m starving.”

Aang smiles, Suki is exactly what Sokka needed.

"Its no fault of your own unless you didn’t try.”

“I’ll find him. I’ll make this better. I promise,” he says walking towards her. She lets him wrap his arms around her and hold her to him. He presses a kiss to her temple. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispers. Her gaze follows him until the door closes behind him, and for the first time in a long time, it isn’t a sight that makes her angry.

———————————————————————————————————

“Alright, now I do have work to do, so unless you plan on helping me, I am going to have to ask you to leave. I have to take care of a few things before I go to the insufferable ladies luncheon that gets put on every year for Izumi’s birthday.”

“I could assist you,” Bumi offers. “What do you have to do?”

“Security,” she answers. “Having guests in the palace puts Zuko and Izumi in a bit more of a precarious situation than I prefer.”

“Why is someone trying to kill them or something?” Bumi asks.

“Nothing has happened in a while but that’s because I am diligent.” She gets up from her desk. “Come along, I hear you’re quite the strategic mind yourself, you can help me solve the last problem I have to figure out.” Azula moved to lock the door to her office, at which Bumi raises his brow quizzically.

“Tunnels,” she explains. “I don’t like being stopped in the hallways.” Bumi moves the piece of furniture that blocked his original entrance and follows Azula.

When the stone door closes behind them, Azula lights her palm. Bumi had seen Azula’s fire before on trips to the Fire Nation, but he had never seen it so up close. It was so many different colors, almost like stained glass.

“It’s called Dragon Fire,” Azula says. “When I was a teenager I could bend blue flames. I came to find out, fire benders are not supposed to bend fire that hot without special training. As a result, I lost my bending. It took a lot of healing, but when I was ready, my brother took me to the fire bending masters, and they taught me how to bend again, and then I was able to make these colorful dragon fire flames.”

“How did you lose your bending?” he asks. The only way he knew for people to lose their bending was his father’s avatar powers.

“Turns out, fire benders can quite literally burn themselves out.”

“That’s the self destruction you were talking about?”

“Very perceptive, Master Bumi,” she says. “Ahh, here we are.” Azula pushes on the stone and lets Bumi pass through the secret doorway before she exits herself. Bumi realizes they are close to the courtyard and festival space where Izumi’s party would later be held. Azula leads him into the center of the courtyard. He quickly does a turn around the scan the area. It’s bustling with staff who are setting up the tables and lanterns for the evening festivities.

“Guards are posted there, there, there, and there,”Azula says pointing to the four different locations. It’s a post at the main entrance, one at the back entrance, and one at each side entrance.

“What about the galleries?” Bumi asks immediately.

Azula smirks, “Smart, but that’s where I watch so that’s covered. No guests will be permitted up there without the Fire Lord’s approval.”

“Uncle Zuko will be on a dias, yes?”

“Yes with two Kyoshi warriors stationed there, and there,” she says pointing.

“Well it seems covered, especially with my dad, my mom, Aunt Toph, Uncle Sokka, and Aunt Suki all being here, so what’s the last issue you couldn’t work out?” Bumi asks.

“Poison” she answers. “Zuko and Izumi are fantastic fighters. I don’t have to worry as much about someone poisoning Zuko because he knows his safety protocol and he isn’t really one to socialize anyway, so it’s unlikely he will get something that has not passed through his layers of security.” She walks to the center of the courtyard, scanning the surroundings once again. “I know Izumi could take out a small army by herself because I trained her. And what she can’t do with fire bending, she can throw shuriken precisely enough to pin flies to a wall. When she’s in a fight, she’s almost undefeatable. So if anyone was trying to kill Izumi, they’d do it with poison. Since I’ll be spending most of the party of up there, I’ll have a dragon’s eye view of what happens on the courtyard grounds, but it will be difficult to keep track of everything.”

“Well if I am supposed to be Izumi’s special guest or whatever, why don’t I monitor on the ground? I’ll be on the ground and close to her the whole night. If I think something is suspicious, I’ll take Izumi’s cup or her food.”

“After you get in an argument with Izumi, the heir to the throne of the Fire Nation, you think that I would allow you to do poison control?” Azula asks, almost harshly.

Bumi looks shocked, “I’m upset with her but I’m not going to let someone hurt her!”

“You’re the son of two cultures against whom my people, whom my family represents, committed genocide and countless other atrocities. I’ve seen first hand the anger you hold since you have visited here so often, and I just saw you have an angry outburst at breakfast not even an hour ago, after you had an argument with her last night. Again, explain to me why I can trust you to protect Izumi.”

“I am not angry” Bumi whispers harshly, stressing every word. “I am not an angry person.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m not angry…I’m just…” he stops for a beat. “I’m just lonely,” he says, his voice trailing off.

“And was it Izumi that made you feel lonely?”

“Maybe,” he says crossing his arms and letting his gaze fall to the cobblestone ground.

“So again, explain to me why I can trust you with Izumi’s life.”

In the silence between her question and Bumi’s answer, Aang finds himself on the galleries lining the courtyard.

“I don’t know what to tell you besides that I would do whatever I had to for her, just like I would for Tenzin,” Bumi says. “And Kya. Whatever they need, I would do in a heartbeat,” he adds.

Azula gives him a look, silently urging him to continue. Recognizing his son’s voice, Aang listens over the railing, hoping Bumi and Azula will not notice him.

“Tenzin is just as much an heir as Izumi is,” Bumi continues. “Tenzin’s the only Airbender born in over a century. He has a legacy to inherit, and its an unspoken understanding for Kya and me that Tenzin always comes first. If there’s a life or death situation and Tenzin’s in danger, the ultimate priority is Tenzin’s safety. Maybe not as much as Tenzin and Izumi, but Kya’s an heir too. There aren’t many fully Southern waterbenders, so she’s under a lot of pressure.”

Aang’s shoulders drop. When did he ever tell his two oldest that they would have to give up everything for Tenzin? When did Bumi get the idea that he had to take on the mantle of a protector? Had he really made them think they were expendable? And when did Bumi and Azula get so close?

“It is safe to assume that Tenzin does not live under the same expectation?”

“...He’s ten…”

“I was raised by a war lord to be a super weapon child solider, and your dad became a fully realized avatar at 12. You and I do not have the same inherent understanding of the relationship between age and ability.”

“Umm then no, Tenzin doesn’t have the same expectation. But he’s little, it would be unfair to expect anything else from him.” Bumi explains confusedly.

Azula regards Bumi for a moment. She’s made him vulnerable, and he’s clearly uncomfortable airing his thoughts like this. However, he is still honest, and she admires that about him. “Is that the source of the loneliness?” Azula asks, her voice becoming a little softer.

“Spirits, is this therapy?” Bumi asks, exasperation obvious in his voice.

Azula laughs, genuinely. “Oh no, that’s worse,” she says jokingly, and Bumi chuckles. “At the end of firebender therapy you dance for your life in front of two monstrously sized dragons.”

“What is wrong with the Fire Nation?” At that, Azula laughs again. In the corner of her eye, she catches the swatch of yellow clothes up on the gallery. She and Aang make the briefest of eye contact before her gaze falls back to Bumi. Bumi glances to where she looked, and he catches the sad expression on Aang’s face.

“I have a luncheon to get to, but stop by my office again around 4 to go over the details of your position, hmm?”

“Sure thing,” he says without looking away from his dad.

“Remember what I said about being open to being helped. It’s hard to get better unless you are.”

Azula turns on her heel and leaves the courtyard.

———————————————————————————

Azula walks to Zuko’s office before going to find Izumi and Kiyi for the luncheon.

“I swear to Agni, if she ever hurts that boy’s feelings again, we’re sending her to stay with that wretched Earth Princess in Ba Sing Se for a month!”

Post Note: I’m pretty sure the Earth Queen from LOK and Izumi are around the same age. The Earth Queen sucks and I imagine she always did. Also sorry Izumi isn’t in this chapter. Her part didn’t really fit the theme of the chapter.

#avatarstories #I'm back but briefly #izumi's birthday

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athingthatwantsvirginia · 4 years

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Catherine, Heathcliff, and Shangri-la

PART TEN OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: mentions of death, smoking, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 4.9K

Summary: Though she plans to spend her birthday alone, Ella ends up passing time on the late August evening with Jess, eating old pie and playing cards.

She looked like a dream in her sundress. Late August light bathed the crowds at the summer festival, and Ella practically glimmered when Jess spotted her from across the square. It made him feel like an idiot thinking the way he was, but she had an effect on him which he’d previously only read about in books. He wasn’t sure exactly when the tipping point had been, when he’d truly fallen in love with her, passed the point of no return. But he had. And he was. He loved a girl who didn’t believe in love, who wasn’t into dating, who didn’t feel the same. It had never been so complicated before, and he’d never been so completely screwed. There were moments, times when his heart nearly burst from the hope. When she laughed at one of his wiseass remarks, or ran her fingertips over the notes he’d left in the margins of her poetry books, or let her eyes linger on him for just a second too long. But each time, she would brush it off, act like nothing had happened. And he’d be forced to wonder if he’d imagined the electricity passing between them.

Slowly, over the course of the summer, he was beginning to come to terms with it. Maybe they could just be friends, coworkers. Maybe all he needed was to make out with Shane until his lips were swollen and his mind was blank and his memory would be wiped clean of all the times Ella had made him feel deeper than he ever had before. Besides, he had never fallen in love before, had never uttered the three fateful words in all his seventeen years. A small part of him believed he could snap out of it easily.

He took his eyes back from her form, concentrating on the girl in front of him. The girl who wanted him and nothing more. Who meant nothing but ease and pleasure. Sliding his hands down in her back pockets, Jess closed his eyes and placed kisses down Shane’s neck, the bark of the tree they leaned on rough against his back.

. . .

“She’s back with a vengeance!” Ella exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Rory in a gleeful embrace.

They stood together near a flower stand, the fragrant display adding sweetness to the air. Despite the barber shop quartet droning on in the background, Ella felt her spirits lift at the sight of Rory Gilmore, her confidant missing in action over the summer at an internship in Washington. In the back of her mind, Ella couldn’t help reminding herself that soon, she would have to deal with the constant separation. Rory would be off at Harvard, Lane would be touring with her band (hopefully), and Ella would be stuck. As she always had been. She’d have to fill Rory in on how the college applications were going later.

Rory laughed happily, pulling away from Ella and holding her at an arm’s length. “Yes, and with all the hot DC gossip.”

“I’m intrigued,” Ella said, raising an eyebrow.

From behind them, Lorelai beamed, her own face painted with joy, her daughter back in town. Ella loved that about summer. It had a special kind of magic no other season could manage, positivity radiating from everyone, dampened only by the occasional rainy day.

“Alright, let’s go find Lane, and we are in for a movie night of epic proportions!” Lorelai announced, strolling around the square with the two teens in tow.

Before they departed completely, however, Rory followed Ella’s distracted gaze to the old oak where Jess stood, eating his girlfriend’s face.

“Oh, God!” Rory exclaimed, scrunching up her face in disgust.

Ella blushed, Rory having noticed her staring. She hadn’t meant to. But seeing the two of them together, considering the many fights with Shane the summer had brought, gave her a feeling of irritated uneasiness. Like a car crash she couldn’t look away from. Morbid interest feeding morbid interest in a vicious, voyeuristic cycle.

Tilting her head to the scene in question, Lorelai scoffed. “Guess he’s got his ‘What I Did This Summer’ essay all planned out.”

“I know,” Ella groaned. “America’s youth really does have such admirable modesty.”

Snorting a laugh, Rory shot a knowing look at her mother. “Have they been at that a lot?”

Ella nodded, speeding up in her stride a little to get out of view of the display. “Yep. It’s now part of the Early Bird Special at the diner. Dinner and a show.”

Lorelai faked a gag. “I told you. The kid gives off major Sid Vicious vibes.”

“Looks like he’s found his Nancy,” Rory added.

“And he’s been so weird at work lately. He barely talks to me, just sits on his little stool. Reading, brooding, scaring off small children. Maybe I pissed him off. I don’t know,” Ella said. She fiddled with the chain of her necklace.

“Um….Ella?” Rory began, bringing a hand to the blonde girl’s shoulder. “Do you not realize you’re the Catherine to his Heathcliff?”

Ella scoffed, laughing breathily. “What?”

“He’s totally into you!” Lorelai exclaimed.

Raising a brow, Ella rolled her eyes and kept walking. She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “Very funny.”

“Every time he looks at you…” Lorelai said, feigning a swoony look. “It’s sickening.”

“Yeah, right. I bet it’s Rory he’s into,” Ella argued, shrugging them off once more.

“Oh really?” Rory asked skeptically. “Then why does he make those notes in your margins? In the poetry books he said he hated when he first got here?”

“It’s mutually assured destruction,” Ella explained. “If he stops taking a chance on poetry, I’ll stop taking a chance on the beats. The arguments would ensue, the diner would descend into chaos. In an effort to avoid certain death during our shifts together, we compromise.”

“Ah, the key to a strong relationship’s foundation,” Lorelai retorted.

Snorting a laugh, Ella shook her head. Without the flowers and the serenity of solitude, the less desirable aspects of the festival began to wear on Ella’s psyche. The barber shop quartet spun around and around in her head, making her dizzy, and the sun beat down on them. Stray strands of hair, fallen from her bun, began to stick to her damp forehead.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to Ella. “Rory, my dear?”

“Yes?” Rory answered with suspicion.

“You know how you always give me presents on my birthday even though I tell you not to?” Ella asked.

“I’m aware of the annual birthday commiseration,” Rory said, nodding.

“Well, I’d like to request, as a birthday present for your favorite waitress, a moratorium on the Jess talk until I am seventeen years and one day old,” Ella suggested, fluttering her eyelashes jokingly.

Sighing, Rory linked her arm with Ella’s. “Alright, but only because you asked so very nicely.”

“Good to have you back, Thelma,” Ella smiled fondly, pulling her friend a little closer.

“Same to you, Louise.”

Lorelai chuckled and shook her head, watching as the girls ascended the steps to Lane’s door.

. . .

Mercifully, Ella had made it through the day with minimal birthday wishes and no attempts at gift-giving. Lorelai and Rory had teased her about a surprise party, but she knew they wouldn’t truly dare. Instead of going home, where she knew she’d have to brave Fiona’s pathetic attempts at celebration, she wandered around town aimlessly. It made her feel guilty to snap at the woman so much, but she just couldn’t help herself. Watching Fiona, only twelve years her senior, traipsing around in her house, humming the Dixie Chicks songs she knew her mother would’ve hated. Before she could apply any rational thought to the decision, she found her way to the bridge. The greenish-black water sparkled in glowing moonlight. Crickets sung and cicadas buzzed, a low summer tune. She hung her booted feet over the edge, the black cotton of her dress pooling around her knees. Rifling through her shoulder bag to the side, she found a copy of The Grapes of Wrath. A perfect book to sustain her gloomy mood. She laid back against the wooden planks of the pier, holding the novel above her face, blocking out the view of the clear night. The humidity had dissipated, and a cool breeze blew past her.

A few peaceful moments had passed before she heard footfalls thumping heavily, vibrating beneath her back. She sighed as the noise got closer, letting the book fall to her chest and rolling her eyes.

“Stealing my spot, huh?” Jess spoke up as he approached, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“Sorry, didn’t realize you’d bought the property.”

“Touché.”

Though Ella still hadn’t looked over at him, she heard him sit down next to her. She could smell the subtle mixture of hair gel and pine.

“By all means, sit down,” she snapped, sitting up again, placing her scrap of construction paper back in the book to save her place. She stuffed it back in her bag to the left. Fiddling with the end of the loose braid which hung over her shoulder, she sighed again.

Jess scoffed. “Jeez, Daria. Don’t pull your punches.”

“Bite me, Jess,” she replied flatly, staring out across the water. In the light, she knew she would’ve been able to watch schools of tiny grey fish whizzing by. As a child, she’d imagined small mermaids living in a crystalline village beneath the surface of the dull silt and sand.

“Feelin’ pithy tonight?” he drawled, an eyebrow raised.

“You could say that.”

He only nodded, leaning back on his palms. Silence stood between the two of them, heavy in the nighttime air. Ella almost put her nails to her mouth, then thought better of it. When Jess still didn’t speak, she huffed out a big breath and finally tossed him a glance.

“Don’t you have someone to verbally abuse at the diner or a girlfriend’s face to suck or something?” she asked.

Jess shot her a look. Before he could even respond, Ella spoke again.

“As long as you’re here, could you loan me a cigarette?” she asked, a shameful blush coloring her cheeks. As much as the request embarrassed her, she couldn’t stand the way her skin was crawling.

“What?” Jess blurted out, eyes wide. “What happened to the periodic surgeon general’s warnings?”

She sighed, dropping her gaze to her lap and clearing her throat. “I’ve gotta keep you on your toes, don’t I?”

Though slightly flabbergasted, Jess’s eyes shone fondly, remembering the carriage ride they’d taken at the Bracebridge dinner so many months ago. After a moment, he produced a crumpled packet and a lighter from his pocket and handed them to her.

“Thank you,” she muttered, placing a cigarette between her lips. It surprised her that he actually obliged, considering how stand-offish he’d been at work lately. The lighter struck on the first try, the small orange flame flickering warmly in the darkness. And Jess could tell immediately it was far from the first time she’d smoked. She handed the supplies back to him.

He took a cigarette of his own and lit it up.

“Don’t tell Luke,” she said, voice slightly husky as she exhaled the first puff of smoke. Her words came out in dim blue clouds.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he replied, tapping ash into the lake and watching it burn out. “Your secret is safe, Stevens.”

“Thanks. I’ll consider it a birthday present,” she grumbled, feeling the familiar burn of smoke in her chest. She knew she would regret the decision in the morning.

“It’s your birthday?”

“Yep.”

“Happy birthday,” he said reflexively, eyebrows raised.

Scoffing bitterly, Ella flicked ash off her cigarette with her thumb. “Thanks, Mariano.”

“Is that why you’re gonna bite my head off at the next wrong move?”

She laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, birthdays aren’t my thing.”

“Huh. And I guess that’s why no one said anything at work?”

Ella nodded. “Yeah, after a few crying customers last year, Luke ordered the diner a birthday-free zone.”

“Wise of him.”

“It was.”

Regarding her in the moonlight, Jess sighed. “Any particular reason for the birthday allergy?”

Swallowing harshly, Ella brought her free hand to her necklace and a smirk formed on her face. “It’s just...my mom was a big birthday person. Without her here, it just all feels a little artificial. It’s weird. The anniversary of the day she died never hits me as hard as Mother’s Day, or today.”

He nodded, solemn as she continued.

“I try to spend as little time at home as I can. And Rory and Lorelai always try to get me to do something,” she said, pausing to inhale deeply and blow out a stream of smoke. “But I am nothing if not pertinacious.”

“Nice. Ten-cent word.”

“Thanks. Used it in the crossword this morning. I’d say it’s at least twenty cents,” she said, scoffing in mock offense.

Jess chuckled. “Alright, I’ll cave for the birthday girl.”

“How kind of you.”

Crushing the smoldering butt of her cigarette on the weathered bridge wood, Ella exhaled out her nose and crossed one leg over the other. She smoothed her hands over her dress. Somewhere, a loon cried. Jess sat quietly beside her, the last of his cigarette glowing as he inhaled. When he put it out, he stood up and made to leave. Ella didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at him. After a second of thought, he held a hesitant hand out to her.

“Let’s go back to the diner,” he proposed with finality. “We can eat the leftover pie. There will be no birthday talk whatsoever. I promise.”

Looking at his hand, Ella thought of the book in her bag. The hours she could spend alone with nothing but Steinbeck to entertain her. But then, she felt a sudden rush of courage at the thought of Luke’s. Free of people, with pastries under the glass domes on the counters and stale pies in the back fridge. And Jess. She heaved a sigh, then slung her bag over her shoulder and grabbed his hand.

. . .

“No way,” Jess said, shaking his head doubtfully as he took another bite of the pie.

Ella smiled, nodding. “I swear. I was named the worst dancer out of all the little girls ever taught at Miss Patty’s by the Gazette. I was responsible for the domino incident of 1992 which caused two sprained ankles and one broken arm. Suffice it to say, the arm was mine.”

“Jesus,” Jess laughed, his eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, I’m Patrick Swayze’s worst nightmare.”

Jess rolled his eyes and threw his head back with a dramatic groan. “I’ll never understand your fixation with those cheesy eighties movies.”

“You bite your tongue, heathen,” she said lightly, digging another bite from the cold apple pie in the tin between them.

“Well, at least we can agree on Steinbeck,” he shrugged through a laugh.

She nodded and sighed tiredly, brought a hand to her necklace.

The diner shone brightly against the otherwise dark landscape of Main Street. Ella could hear Luke snoring from all the way upstairs, but it was almost comforting if not amusing. With the leftover pie between them, she and Jess sat alone amongst chairs stacked on tables and cutlery put away. It smelled vaguely of disinfectant, but the pine was still there, making her heart feel just a touch less broken. Maybe being alone wasn’t the best way to pass one of the hardest days of her year.

“I’m surprised she still even lets you step foot in the studio, leaving that much carnage in your wake,” Jess said, smirking at the way the tension slowly released from her shoulders.

Snorting a laugh, Ella took another bite of the pie. She could tell it was made from her recipe, heavy on the cinnamon. “Well, the years have improved my coordination a little bit.”

“But have they?” he teased.

“Shut up,” she retorted, good nature in her voice.

A comfortable pause filled the air. Jess’s eyes caught her thin fingers still rolling the silver chain of her necklace. She blew up a long breath and straightened up, putting her fork back down in the tin, the half-pie almost all the way gone.

Nodding, Jess swallowed dryly and bit at his lip. “Why do you wear that necklace every day?”

Eyes widening, Ella couldn’t help but feel taken aback by the question. She let out a self-conscious scoff and her hand immediately dropped away from her collar. The small silver charm, a key, glinted in the yellow diner light.

“My grandmother gave it to me,” she explained, her tone even though she avoided his eyes. “It’s the key to the jewelry box she had when she was little. The box got lost, but the key stayed. She was a singer. Friends with Miss Patty. Pretty fucking cool.”

Jess smiled a tiny smile. “Sounds like it.”

“Yeah,” she replied, the word a sigh. Then, after a beat, she regained her direct nature and looked him in the eye. “Okay, since we’re asking questions tonight: why the hell are there bongos on the shelf above your desk?”

Jess laughed, but his cheeks reddened a touch. “Those were there when I moved in. Scout’s Honor.”

She rolled her eyes. “You are the last person in the world they would ever let into the Scouts.”

“Wow, that one hurt.”

Ella smiled. “Then what’s Luke doing with those bongos?”

“Preparing for a Matthew McConaughey,” Jess shot back knowingly.

“Ugh, that image is gonna be burned in my mind forever,” she groaned, nose scrunching up in disgust.

“You’re welcome.”

“Fuck you,” she said, grinning.

“Right back at ya.”

Suddenly, a loud snore came from the floor above them.

“Speaking of,” Ella grumbled, only in mock irritation.

“Like you don’t snore.”

“Only when I’m drunk,” she said, then looked up at him, accusatory. “But you. Oh my god, it was all night long. Really, the two of you put together could probably break some sonic records.”

Instead of retorting, Jess retrieved his weathered deck of cards from one of his jean pockets. He raised his eyebrows as a challenge and began shuffling. “Just for that last comment, you’re about to be massacred at Rummy.”

. . .

A knot of anxiety sat in her stomach, but work was helping her keep it at bay. It was the last Saturday of summer, Monday the start of senior year. But the waves of butterflies fluttering around in her chest weren’t ones of nervousness, more only of dread. The constant drudgery of school work, the monotony of the day. She liked summer for more reasons than the mood and the weather. Free time to read, to draw, to paint. And she much preferred painting the full greenery over the desolate landscapes of a Connecticut winter. The fact she hadn’t seen Jess since the night before, when she left the diner satisfied with herself for winning three hands in a row, was doing nothing to calm her either. After cleaning up from the breakfast rush, Ella was mindlessly reorganizing the mugs on the cubby shelf to the left of the counter by color and size.

“Alright, this is ridiculous,” Luke admonished, walking up behind her.

She scoffed. “It’s not my fault these mugs haven’t been reorganized since Reagan was president.”

“Because they were the last ones you hadn’t got your hands on. You’re starting to sound like Taylor.”

Instantly, she turned and narrowed her eyes at him. “The next time you say that to me I’m turning in my apron and never looking back!”

Luke scoffed in disbelief at her dramatics. “Just take your break, Ella.”

“You think I’m bluffing,” she warned, untying her apron and leaving it on the hook near the kitchen window, “but I’m dead serious.”

“I’m quaking in my boots,” Luke replied flatly, gathering some receipts from the side of the cash register.

“I bet,” she shot back, rounding the corner and going to dig through her bag, hanging by the front door. “Is Jess here? I’ve got a book for him.”

“Upstairs,” Luke said shortly.

Retracting her hand from the shoulder bag, with a worn collection of Dorothy Parker, she rolled her eyes. She tucked her hair behind her ears and prepared to disappear behind the checkered curtain on the way to the stairs.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a master conversationalist?” she asked.

“Shaddup,” he groaned, waving an annoyed hand at her in the direction of the apartment.

Ella snickered, then bounded up the stairs, the soles of her old converse a little slippery on the creaking wood. She heard the TV droning on from inside, daytime Saturday shows. Only a couple short knocks sounded on the door before she let herself in, as she had so many times before when fetching random items during her shifts.

“Hey, Jess-” she began, turning to the left, Jess’s room.

Cut off by a sudden flash of noise, she watched Jess stuff a blue mesh vest quickly into the top drawer of his dresser. Eyes wide with surprise, he faced her with a scowl, brows scrunched up.

“Ever hear of knocking, Daria?” he snapped.

Processing the scene before her, Ella blinked a couple times and bit the inside of her cheek. “Sorry. Guess I was too quiet.”

“Apparently.” He crossed his arms over his Punk Planet t-shirt and looked at her expectantly. “You need something?”

Ella cleared her throat, looking down at the book in her hands. “Yeah, I had that Dorothy Parker I was telling you about last night and…” she paused, glancing at his dresser. “I’m sorry, Jess, but I simply can’t ignore this. Was that a Walmart vest?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

He straightened up, defensively. “No.”

“Really?”

“You heard me,” he shot back.

Pursing her lips, she nodded, unconvinced. She stepped a little closer to him, one hand on the hip of her skirt. “So, what was it?”

“A shirt.”

“A shirt with a Walmart logo on it?” she asked, her voice gaining a teasing lilt.

Jess scoffed. “I think you need glasses.”

A momentary staring contest ensued, and she watched him squirm under her hazel gaze. “Do you work at Walmart, Jess?”

Sighing through his nose, Jess glared at her. Then, he ran a hand through his hair and side-stepped Ella, making his way to the kitchen. “Fine. Yes. You happy?”

Instantly, a smile spread wide on her face. “Oh, so very happy.”

“Glad to hear it,” he growled, avoiding eye contact as he popped open a can of soda. He sat down at the kitchen table, facing the I Dream of Jeannie rerun.

Biting back her giggles, Ella came over to take the rickety kitchen chair next to him. Clearing her throat, she put the book in her hand on the table between then. She smoothed her slightly wrinkled Patti Smith t-shirt and tried to appear nonchalant, a smirk ever-present on her lips. Jess sipped his soda, eyes dark and moody, embarrassment underneath a thin layer of irritation. Nearly five minutes passed on the oven clock in the small kitchen, both of them watching Barbara Eden’s foibles in silence. Ella bit a little at her nails, but only to mask her amused expression.

“So...all this time...Shangri-la was Walmart?” she asked.

Jess sighed, rolling his eyes. “Eleanor-”

“You work at Walmart,” she repeated, chuckling a little.

“Whatever. You smoke,” he countered.

“Like, twice a year,” she said defensively. “When did you even start that job?”

Bowing his head slightly, Jess finally dropped the act a bit. “June. When you were in New Britain.”

She sighed, nodding, then brought a hand to his arm. “I’m really proud of you. I mean, you can’t waste all your people skills at the diner.”

Jess shook her off and rolled his eyes again. “Shut up. I move stock around on a fork-lift in the back.”

“Okay, tough guy.”

“And don’t tell Luke,” he said, finally looking her in the eye.

She shrugged. “Fine, I won’t. Cross my heart.”

“Thank you,” he snapped.

“You’re very welcome,” she replied, still grinning. “Seriously, though, it’s not that lame. Trust me. I think it’s cool. You have your own thing going, y’know?”

Jess scoffed in doubt but said nothing more.

Clearing her throat, Ella shifted her eyes down to her lap for a second, the tone of her voice changing. “But enough about your double-life, Mr. Bond. I just wanted to bring you that book. And also thank you for last night.”

Jess raised a brow, eyes on the TV screen. “For what?”

“I don’t know. If you hadn’t come along, my plan was to read Steinbeck at the lake, then sneak home and listen to Nirvana through my headphones,” she explained. “But instead I got to eat old pie and kick your ass at cards.”

“Such a sore winner,” he muttered, cracking a little smirk.

She laughed quietly, her fingers finding their way to her necklace. “And sorry if I was...I don’t usually talk about my mom. Not exactly a crowd-pleasing topic. Just on Mother’s Day and my birthday, I...You didn’t have to listen.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t do things I don’t wanna do,” he said, casting her a momentary glance, a small, lopsided smile on his face. It was more genuine than she was prepared for, and she had to look away as her cheeks heated up.

Rising from the table, she made to leave, hoping not to overstay her welcome. “Anyway, thanks. It was the best birthday I’ve had in awhile.”

Running a hand over his mouth, Jess blew out a breath and faced her fully again. “Anytime, Stevens.”

He looked as though he were about to say something more, but she could practically see him swallow it down. Instead, he got up from his seat and switched off the TV. Going over to his side of the apartment, she watched him grab a CD from the top of a small stack on his dresser. She couldn’t quite read the cover, but could see it was filled with shades of black and red.

“How long do you have left on your break?”

Ella looked down at her watch then back up at him. “Still have about twenty minutes.”

He nodded, gesturing to the CD. “I get fifteen percent off at the store, so I picked this up the other day. Just came out. It made me think of you. I thought you might wanna listen?”

“Oh,” she said dumbly, surprised. She nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure. As long as it’s not jazz.”

“It’s not,” Jess assured her, chuckling.

As he opened his closet and brought out the small stereo, she took a few steps closer, arms crossed. She couldn’t help the fluttering in her chest or the way her cheeks flushed with heat. In all the time she’d known Jess, she couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so anxious around him. Quite so antsy. She almost couldn’t explain the feeling, but it wasn’t one she minded.

“I would’ve shown you last night if I knew it was your birthday,” he mentioned as he pressed play.

As the music started, he suddenly didn’t know what to do with himself. Sit on the bed? On his desk chair? Instead, he leaned on the desktop itself, hands stuffed in his pockets. He regretted the decision already, showing her the music. He’d meant to do it at some point, during one of their friendly book exchanges. But then the air between them had become charged again, and she was about to walk away from the moment. He wanted it to last just a little longer, time with the one person in Stars Hollow he actually enjoyed being with. Even if she didn’t feel quite the same as him, even if she never would.

Ella felt the slight vibrations of the music in the soles of her soles as she stepped closer to the stereo, picking up the CD case from his dresser. She turned it over in her hands. Turn on the Bright Lights by Interpol. It surprised her she hadn’t heard of them before; Lane usually kept her in the know about such things. They must have been very young, very new. But she liked it, the echoing guitars and the drums. Judging from the back cover, the song to which they now listened was simply called “Untitled.”

“They’re good,” she said, putting the case back down. “Different. I like it.”

Jess shrugged. “Figured you would. What with all that sad shit you listen to. The other songs are a little more lively. They’re no Fleetwood Mac, but…”

Walking closer still, she stopped when she was only a couple feet in front of him. Her heart beat with the music, and she swallowed dryly. Something was clicking in her head.

“Jess?”

He looked up, and his brown eyes locked with hers. “Yeah?”

Before she could rethink it, before she could talk herself out of it, before she could silence her heart with her head, she brought a hand to the back of his neck and kissed him. His shock was sudden but brief. Almost immediately, he wound his arms around her waist. And he was kissing back, sweetly, gently at first, then deeper. She was flush against him, smiling into it. The music beat quietly around them, and his grip was warm, and his lips felt exactly right. Ella wanted it to never end, for the moment to last forever, alive, and never cross over and turn to mere memory.

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