#he somehow is the busiest human being ever but also has too much time to kill

[morsmortish]

barty is suspiciously really fucking good at random things. like pool. or smothering someone with a cloth soaked in chlorophyll and restraining them until they pass out. or solitaire.

[contaminatedlamb]

Paint ペイント -[tmnt2012] Leonardo x Fem!Reader

summary: To your limited knowledge, something is going on in the midst of New York City. From the Bronx, all the way down to Brooklyn, creatures are emerging from the woodworks to ease their claws into the lives of every inhabitant. From a sous chef who dreams of refining her artistic skills, an androgynous woman with a dark past and a violent soul, to a once lively mutant teenager who's grief has morphed him into a shell of his former self. Together, with the help of their friends, family members, and wary allies— the truth will be revealed. No matter what the cost. Who knew that it would all start with a bit of paint?

notes: posting my first ever fanfiction on tumblr! I hope you enjoy, this is a passion project of mine that I have been working on since 2019. Show some love if you can, and let me know what you think of it! This book is also cross posted on Ao3 and Wattpad. Currently being rewritten as we speak.

warnings: gore and blood.

(Accidentally added a poll and can’t remove it from my draft so here we are lol)

Chapter One - Nothing to see here, folks! Everything is Fine.

You woke up that morning dreading to take out the trash.

It was Friday, that dreaded day of the week. While many celebrated it as the last day before the relief of a weekend, it happened to be only miserable for you. It was the busiest day in Murakami's Japanese restaurant, with all the drunk college men stumbling into the little hole in the wall to harass the three employees, and its blind owner/head chef. They made a mess, per usual, figuring out how to break down the token driven vending machine, demolish the bathrooms, leave their tables in chaotic disarray; all while somehow leaving drunker than before... If that was even possible. You were convinced that it had to do with those 'water bottles' they carried, which you were sure were just filled to the brim with vodka. There were times, when you were busy moping up a spilt drink, dizzy from their boisterous noise and the fumes, that you hoped they choked on their 'water'.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only reason that you dreaded going to work. Every Friday was also the day where the garbage had reached unfathomable levels of toxicity and needed to be tossed into the dumpster for the workers to take it away the next morning. How was it that the small portion of the human race that came to the restaurant seemed to make the biggest, most disgusting mess possible? New York. Disgusting down to its very own garbage.

Black trash bags would pile up by the pounds against the back door, so much so that it may have become a safety concern and an entire health violation if you thought about it for too long. You were certain that some sort of mutant would sprout from the bags and squeak a pleasant hello~ towards your horrified face. And yet, that wouldn't even be the strangest thing you had seen happen during your almost two years living in Manhattan. You wished you were joking when you told the story about how you had once seen a grown man with a glorious beard dressed as a nun take on a costumed Elmo, who looked as if he discovered cocaine with those tech bros that cluttered the streets of the city. Only in Times Square at eleven at night did something like that happen— and it hadn't even been Halloween! The absurdity of it all meant that you couldn't help but begrudgingly be amused by the chaotic energy of New York City.

Now though, as you stood slouched over, your lower back pressed against the beige wall lined with awards and old pictures of simpler times, you glared with a burning ferocity at the trash bags. The trash bags which always seemed to come up with new scents and would send you to the bathroom to heave up the few crackers you had eaten for dinner. Those black plastic trash voids which oozed and dripped with weird discolored sludge that made the bags stick to the ground when you dragged them through the back door, leaving behind horrible slime trails in their path. Only once before in your life had you accomplished a feat of strength, and that was when you had jumped up from your chair to do one 'pull up' in P.E. at seven years old. You had been extremely proud of that loophole, and it was one of your most cherished memories, depressingly enough. That made this attempt of physical strength all the more difficult, in the end.

At this moment, glaring at the trash as if it had insulted your entire family, you were finally snapped out of the inner roasting that you had directed to the garbage— by being unceremoniously slapped in the face with a pair of neon latex gloves. You sighed loudly, closing your eyes to collect yourself before you, to put it in modern terms, cut a hoe. You bent over and snatched up the pair of yellow gloves with more rage than expected. Straightening, you met the grin of your friend, none other than Sukiyaki Ashika; the source of your constant suffering.

The young adult of Japanese and Pakistani descent leaned in the doorway which led to the kitchen, dark arms crossed over her flat chest, that same cheeky grin that she used against those teenage delivery boys plastered across her Asian based features. It was a weapon, paired with her psychedelic slanted red brown eyes, the sort you saw on vampire men in those terrible low budget movies. These weren't any different. They were real, and they were lovely. It felt at times that she would hypnotize you with her stare, so powerful were they. There were times where you couldn't hold her gaze, having to lose the staring contest by dropping your gaze to the ground.

"Make sure you put on them gloves, by the way." The teenager reminded you, tossing her Wolf cut bangs to the side, the back of her straight black hair cropped short. The bangs were wispy, perfect, flowing in the wind as if she were in a shampoo commercial. It was comical, and you wanted to stab it.

"Yeah— I remember what happened when you didn't wear them that one time." You snorted with a lopsided smile as you slid them both on, the latex snapping loudly against your skin as you raised your eyebrows. "How's your hands by the way?" You questioned, a grin growing across your face.

Yaki made a noise of annoyance as she looked over at the hallway between the kitchen and the main restaurant area, sniffing in distaste. "Its not my fault that the stuff in there stained my hands yellow." She grumbled, looking down at her hands with their splotches of light neon yellow blemished along her pecan brown palms.

"It's literally toxic." You noted, as you wrapped your hands around the tied knots of the black garbage bags, inhaling deeply as you attempted to lift them up. All that was obtained from that movement was a sore back and almost dislocating your wrists. You let out a groan through your clenched teeth, your shoulders shakily sagging.

Sukiyaki guffawed loudly, a grin growing on her lips as she curled a finger around a strand of her coarse hair to play with it. "Awe, babaaa." Cooed the woman, tilting her head to press against the doorway.

"Don't 'awe baba' me." You huffed back like the annoyed teenager you were, glaring at the bags filled with garbage that resembled you, kicking at the receptacle. "You're enjoying this." You huffed, dropping the bags, placing your gloved hands on your hips as you shot the bags another dirty look.

Yaki gave a half shrug coupled with her signature smile as she continued to watch in amusement at the train wreck starting before her. "Put 'cha back into it!" She called as you began to slowly roll each large trash bag across the linoleum floor and through the backdoor. You managed to shoot her a scowl over your shoulder as you began your process of piling all the bags outside the door. Finishing up, you pulled back one of the bags holding the backdoor open, allowing the heavy wooden door to fall shut against its doorway.

You listened for a moment as Yaki faintly sang All Star to herself through the closed door, as you began the long process of figuring out how exactly you were going to drag each humongous bag into the six feet tall dumpster bin. Your arms already shook with the effort, your tendons stretched out against your skin, as you tried your best not to fall over. You would've loved Sukiyaki to help you, or take over even, but you knew it was your turn. If you ended up asking, you knew what would follow. The teasing, the pokes in your sides, ruffling up your hair before she would finally submit and get the job done. Effortlessly tossing in the bags as if she were playing basketball, not a bead of sweat to be found, her hair perfect as always. It was annoying how perfect she was, and this time, you decided that you would put the garbage in its place without submitting yourself to the mortifying experience of asking Suki to help. At least you could try to hold onto a silver of dignity left in your body.

After loud fits of swearing, prayers to God, squealing as the bulging bag teetered back from the edge of the metal container and almost crushed you (if you hadn't ran off before it crashed to the floor) and, embarrassingly enough, a bit of frustrated tears being shed, you managed to shove a bag into the dumpster. Placing each on the edge and shoving them all inside with a loud grunt, you found yourself finding a rhythm. It did little to cheer you up as you felt the muscles in your arms beginning to complain. You were definitely going to blackmail Yaki into buying you some ice cream after your shift was finished— after all, it was the most your roommate could do to soften your pain.

"This is supposed to be your job." You grumbled to no one in particular, feeling the bead of sweat tickle the side of your temple as it slid. You dragged the last trash bag towards the dumpster bin, loudly (and explicitly) directing your frustration towards an imaginary Yaki. Fuming, cursing, you planned in your head, allowing your mouth to run wild. You could mess up her perfectly styled hair (though she would attack your hair then too, and it looked bad enough as it did after a long hot day of work), you could hide her earbuds in her locker (but then she would talk your ear off in the subway home), or, you could smack her with your broom. The broom smacking seemed the easiest, the most surprising, and frankly, the funnie—

Something squeaked back in response.

Your head swiveled around, your fingers gripping the trash bag as it teetered on the edge of the dumpster (dangerously so, as you dug your heels into the ground), your eyes wide, shoulders aching and nostrils flaring. The rats in New York City were as large as an alley cat, and you were not prepared to catch the bubonic plague from one of those buggers. You were pretty sure you had been vaccinated against rabies as a child, but a quick trip to the hospital to confirm that was not something you looked forward to. Either way, the thought of a rat sinking its dagger like teeth into your ankle did not sound fun.

Your eyes scanned the dark narrow alleyway, listening closely to hundreds of flashing cars zooming by on nearby streets, their horns blaring in the distance. Your pupils dilated and adjusted to the shadows cast by the towering buildings surrounding the alleyway, making sense of the shapes along the walls. Garbage bins, loose trash, scattered needles, rotting garbage bags from the business in the next building, cardboard boxes. Nothing. Nothing suspicious at all. Your knuckles turned a shade paler as you held onto the trash bag for dear life, turning towards the giant receptacle, finally releasing as it hit against the bottom of the bin with a loud thud.

Another squeak echoed in the alley as you brought your hands abruptly to your chest, ("protecting your innocent little heart now, baba?" You heard sukiyaki's voice tease you in your mind), your eyes falling towards a pile of trash bags against the opposite wall. Your heart thudded angrily against your chest. It felt as if it wanted to crawl up your throat and escape, running. You wanted to run, but your feet were glued to the asphalt. You cautiously reached for the rickety broom that was propped against the wall, right next to the garbage bin. Isidore must've been here recently, brushing the loose vegetables out into the street to be run over or stolen by the rats. Your fingers curled around the cool blue plastic, your sweaty palms squelching against the material. You were ready to slap any demon rat that came anywhere near you.

You gripped the plastic broom tightly with both hands, watching closely as one of the trash bags began to vibrate. Yes, vibrate; as if it were a ringing phone laid against a glass tabletop. You gulped, shuddering violently, as you began to take delicate steps toward towards the bag.

I'd rather it be a mutant than a freaking rat,— you hoped in your mind. At least mutants didn't try to bite... Right?

A gasp ripped from your mouth as a circular white face popped out with a rat-like squeak from a chewed up hole through the material of the plastic trash bag. There was the sound that you had been hearing all along. It belonged to a 2-D face with two white skinny stick arms stabbing into the bag as it wiggled out its beanpole of a body from the hole inside the trash bag. A drawn stick figure, about the size of your hand. It looked like it had been cut out of paper by a child, the edges showing pencil marks where the shape had been carefully drawn. It leapt out of the bag to perch itself onto the black bulging trash bag, sticking its face forward. Staring. Staring at you.

You didn't realize your mouth was hanging open until a fly smacked against your upper lip and ricocheted away. You spluttered, wiping the back of your hand across your mouth as you took a step backwards. Big mistake. The abrupt noise and sudden movement startled the stick figure. It arched its back, on all four nubby sticks (like a cat, you thought numbly in amusement), hissing at you even though it had no visible mouth. The noise that it emitted was enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand straight.

You stared at it. This was... unreal. A stick figure, (or a cut out figure?) coming to life, hissing at you like an angry pigeon. Did pigeons even hiss? You couldn't recall, you were just frozen. In utter shock.

...Were you high? Okay, yeah, sure, it was probably those delivery boys, their fault at is, smoking weed freely whenever they dropped off their shipments of vegetables, frozen fish and meat, including the occasional ice cream. At least you hoped; it would certainly make more sense than the stickie in front of you. Obviously, you had inhaled some second-hand-devils-lettuce smoke and now you were high as a kite, imagining a two year old's drawing cut out of a stick figure aggressively arching its back in and out at you as if it were performing some sort of mating dance.

The stick figure hissed once more and you finally noticed a hole appearing on his face, (because of course you assumed it was a male), and tiny paper like sharpened teeth baring at you.

Yeah, no.

You swiftly swung the head of the broom, bristles and all, at the sentient stick figure, slapping the surprisingly light thing in the torso and sending it flying. A loud squeal escaped its empty mouth as it sailed across the alley wall (you stared, mesmerized, wondering how paper could hold such weight), and tumbled onto the sidewalk. It scrambled to its feet, sickly yellow light from the street lamps throwing shadows against its flat white skin. It stared. And stared. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it hissed once more at you and scurried off. The sound of its flat feet scratching lightly against the ground quickly faded away.

You stood there, sucking and exhaling rapid breaths. You stared at the place where, just moments before, a living drawing had stood.

After a few minutes, you had successfully convinced yourself that none of it had been real, or had even occurred. It was the toxic fumes from the garbage bags, mingling with remnants of the evil weed as your mother called it. It had come together to corrupt your brain and had made you hallucinate for a few minutes— that was all. It was something psychological that you were sure could be explained through a quick google search. You really had to make sure you wore a gas mask next time you took out the trash. That was a joke, but it barely amused you. Maybe it would make Sukiyaki laugh, if she didn't start cackling at your story of weed, poisonous fumes, and stick figures coming out to attack you.

You spent a few spare moments gingerly poking the hole riddled trash bag with the end of your broom, (letting out a gasp when something inside it fell over, causing you to jump), before shaking off that nagging feeling scratching the back of your mind. Everything was a-okay, perfect, absolutely fine... everything was fine.

You cleared your throat, turning swiftly on the soles of your stained beat up, formerly white sneakers, twirling the broom lazily in your free hand. Around and around, you twirled, as if you were trying to mimic the actions of a Jedi. Your heart had calmed down from the mini heart attack it just had, as you wiped your free shaking sweaty palm on your stained light blue jeans. You walked back towards the backdoor, a trembling hum resonating in your throat, dragging your shoes against the dirty concrete floor of the alleyway. Everything was just fine.

You felt the ground tremble before you heard it. The sound of feet hitting the ground behind you, slapping against the ground clumsily, a small grunt following it. Softly, albeit messily, but gently enough that you wouldn't had even noticed. If it hadn't been for the hand that grabbed your shoulder.

A shrill shriek escaped your lips as you swung around the broom (really, this had become second nature after what you had just gone through) spinning around to beat the person who had grabbed you. Grabbed you! This was New York City after all, it was late, and hadn't there been reports of mutants, gangs, and weird looking alien robots in this area as well? You were not the type of person to willingly go if you were kidnapped or, god forbid, harassed. If it came to it, the good Lord had given you two dirty hands for wielding whatever was available. Which happened to be a cheap, held-together-by-prayers-and-duct-tape-broom. Put together, you were the shining representative of all pathetic, weak, easily scared girls worldwide.

Unfortunately, before your weapon of choice could loudly thwack against the face of your adversary, the broom was gripped tightly in a shaking bandaged three fingered hand.

You were face to face with a creature.

You were both breathing heavily in sync. This thing, this animal, was injured and heaving in rhythm with you. How rude!

In the dim yellow light emitted from the streets that dragged into the alleyway, he was red— no, he was green, covered in red. You narrowed your eyes at him, trying to hide the fact that you were beginning to hyperventilate at the pure shock of this mes— wait; was that a panic attack you felt coming on? You hadn't had one in weeks!

He was taller than you, that much you could tell as you stared into his eyes. You were caught in his piercing gaze, your eyes only being able to flicker around before being dragged back into this stare. He appeared to be brawny in his physique, though you on the contrary seemed as breakable as a twig. A huge gash ran across his green face as you, for the first time, noticed a blue mask around his neck that was soaked with... blood. Torn up bandages swayed limply from his elbows, shoulders and hands, with a few knee pads barely holding on. His left shoulder leaked blood through a large open gash that didn't seem to relent with its flow. His right eye was reddened and beginning to swell shut, the other a piercing blue that seemed wrong belonging to a thing like him. Your eyes trailed to his back, oh hello there shell, where large multi colored gashes peeked at her, contrasting against the brown. The streaks seemed as if they were made out of… paint.

Your attention was pulled away as remembered the broom you were gripping with both of your hands, his three fingered hand holding the other side, his own grip in between your hands. You let go, stumbling backwards, your arms outstretched into a t-pose as you stared wide eyed in silence. Whattt was happening? What was this? Why was this? Why? Why?!

A noise that sounded like a pigeon choking on a piece of hot dog meat escaped your parted lips as you pointed at his face. The thing. The turtle. The mutant. With eyes you had only seen before in cliché anime gif's that you would usually spam to your former nanny to confuse her.

He stood there, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable, mimicking the exact expressions that you were experiencing too. He clutched the broom in one hand, his arm falling limply to the side. His grip on the pole was tight, so tight that his knuckles turned white. His hand began to shake. His grip loosened. The broom clattered to the ground. The shaking in his hands didn't stop there. It only spread, up his arms, down to his knees; his entire body seemed to be having a shaking fit. You realized, late as it was, that it was probably the buckets of blood covering him, (hey-o! blood loss!).

You took a small step forward.

"Um..." You cleared your throat, embarrassingly loud as it echoed throughout the alley, trying to draw his attention. He was staring straight ahead, his gaze empty and in some far off place other then the present. "My, my guy." You said, unsure of yourself as you scrunched up your nose at the stupid words spilling out of your mouth. You held out one hand tentatively, eyebrows knitted in concern as you licked your very dry, very salty lips. "Are you... good?"

The mutant hesitantly shrugged, his one working eye squinting and shining in the sickly yellow light. "No." His hoarse voice squeezed out, barely a whisper as it echoed along the dense towering concrete walls of the alleyway. With that one word, he collapsed in on himself, like a soda can being crushed between two hands.

You stared at the pile of blue, green, brown, beige, yellow, purple, and red before you and inhaled deeply. You gazed upon your familiar surroundings, calm as ever, and clasped your gloved hands together. "God..." You declared quite loudly, as if you were confessing to the Lord himself. "I'm high." And with those cheerful words, still trying to convince yourself that this was all a hallucination you turned on the heels of your white sneakers, opened the door, and walked inside. Humming a loud tune, the door shut closed behind you, ringing throughout the alley, out into the empty street.

A squeak rang out from a familiar hole riddled trash bag.

Everything was fine.

[yostresswritinggirl]

Hi there. Can I request a poly relationship with Albedo, Xiao and Scaramouche ? A mix of fluff n a pinch of smut is this possible ?

First of all, what the fuck gave you this wacky idea? I thought at first, wow, this is so random, how did they think this. But then upon making the banner- IT'S ALL MY HUSBANDS IN ONE FICNWOFHLSNDLKSBSOANA

I'll do my best but oh gawd, I'm just so baffled right now HAHAHHA- brain juice GONE

Three Shorties Convention

Poly Relationship with Scaramouche, Albedo and Xiao... (event masterlist)

HOW?!

Three individuals from three different nations somehow collated to love a single human, that of which is you. With how wide your range is for such individuals, we can greatly assume that you are an adventurer travelling the world.

You first met Scaramouche who was undercover, on the way to Mondstadt/Liyue through boat. As he was in the down low, he made sure to act friendly to avoid suspicion. When he heard you were on the same path, he thought of using you as an alibi.

The next person you came across was Xiao when you were passing by the Inn. You heard of the Adepti residing in the area and wanted to ask for blessings as your journey would be much more confusing and dangerous. You lit up incense and a small prayer before leaving.

The last person you met was Albedo. Mond was your last destination before you laid low again until your next long expedition, and you were looking for Alice who you met long ago during your expeditions. You last heard about Mond from her and wanted to talk to her about your adventures but ended up empty.

What made them stay/intrigued? For Scaramouche, he saw you messing with the meteors and your theories, your disarrayed thoughts and ideas somehow made sense when he looks past the lines. And you ended up being the reason he found the large piece of meteor in that... island thingy.

For Xiao, it was the incense I mentioned earlier. It was something you got as a souvenir from a commission in Inazuma, and the scent it gave off brought him to Teyvat Nirvana, the voices silent and his body soothed. His curiousity got the best of him as he tracked your path.

And finally, you first piqued Albedo's interest when you mentioned your affiliation with Alice, and when he listened to your stories (you forced him to listen since Alice was not there) it remindee him greatly of his master.

All of them were attached so badly that on your way to the wilderness one day, the three of them ended up confronting you in some kind of JJBA way with you in the middle. Their Visions and weapons were raised in worry until you identified how you knew them all.

And when they found out of each other's interests towards you, they grew more wary but turned to you: who was busy picking up a mint flower to truly understand what's going on.

"I like all of you!" Somehow all three of them were smart enough to realize that you hold at least a drop of endearment for each of them.

It was supposed to be a silent competition, that then ended up to an ambiguous relationship through coexistence. The problem here is: all four of you barely understood the grounds of a proper relationship, and delved deeper into this polyamory without a second thought.

Equal Thirds

Oh geezus, this is the most confusing setup you've been through. Having to juggle between three continents, three men, three different occasions. They were so petty to the point that your schedule must be split EQUALLY or else the other two would ambush the place you would be in.

Albedo is the busiest and lax when it comes to your "relationship schedule." As a person of Alchemy, he takes days buried deep into his research and he is more than thankful for the existence of a schedule, as he struggles with the maintenance of human relations a concrete time and day for when he is needed balances this. Albedo requests your presence during the period after his major experiments where he wishes to unwind and empty his brain of the equations and machinations. His type of love deals with comfort and distraction.

Xiao has the most free time in your relationship in terms of work, but he is also the one tied down strictly to his code of conduct. His time with you comes from your visits to Liyue and he will always be by your side whether you're in the outskirts or within the mortal realm. His type of love, ironically, is filled with longing touches and whispers of adoration for your strength and light that silences the voices in his head.

Scaramouche is the neediest boy in this bunch, the most mortal of them and the farthest from your reach. Your relationship is a secret to everyone especially the Fatui, but he makes sure that every agent in Liyue and Mond does not lay a hand on you or else he's breaking that same limb. Your time with him comes when HE comes over no matter where you are or what you do. His 'love' is filled with materialism and feisty aura, revelling in strenght and power dynamics.

When you're in charge of the schedule is the rare times that all three of you are together, because you plan your expeditions well in par with their seemingly conflicting schedules. Soon enough you four would be a whole team of travellers going around Teyvat to indulge whatever curiousities you lay upon.

"Circus Festival in Fontaine? Sign me and my three boys the fuck up. No complains, I know you're free."

Camping and travelling with them is sooo convenient too because they're all incredibly strong in constitution and battle. You only need to hang back and watch as they bring you a fireworks of elements, which are thankfully not very harmful against each other.

You're NEVER hurt or even TOUCHED when they're with you, they always have keen eyes for danger and always stick close to you to make sure you are safe. But on a RARE occasion that you DO get hurt, they have a formation: Albedo is tasked in retrieving you, Scaramouche is the backup in clearing a safe area for possible first aid, and Xiao lets all hell break loose once you three are gone.

They help out as much as they can whenever you all go out to camp but ultimately it ends up being some kind of adventuring class for the three of them since you're the master in this field.

Cute stuff: You never keep watch because they always want to cuddle, so one would be up and the other two would be cuddling you on both sides, and the rounds would switch between them while you have your beauty nap.

Albedo is pretty chill with the other two, but Scaramouche and Xiao seem to have a tension between them due to his Harbinger status. Xiao is wary and protective of Albedo because of the knowledge of his background coming from Morax. And all three of you deal with Scara's chattiness.

Your Pet Names for them! Scaramouche: Darling; Xiao: Sweetie; Albedo: Beloved. If you go beyond that, they start to see favoritism so you picked them carefully.

Their Pet Names for you! Scaramouche: My Dear; Xiao: Beloved; Albedo: Sunshine.

Soon enough, their soft rivalries turned into friendly coexistence and they would start to at least see each other in a better light besides acquaintances. While nothing physical or lovey-dovey would happen between them as they only ever see you in that way, they develop respect and slight trust. Competition long gone as it dissolves into compassion in protecting you and giving you the loving you deserve.

@albaedhoe @struggljng @heisenwurst @moaa @dandelion-dreams @witchsungie @lehra @kookieyachi @struggljng @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @snackgod @rxsalinee @cala-ran @wind-wheel @lilydewi22

Softcore under the cut! No looking, my children

In this relationship, individual and multiple participating intercourse is normal, and they happen when all parties involved are ever comfortable. With the fact that you'll change continents in mind soon after, the boys have their little rituals with you.

The most prominent of all would be Scaramouche's signature hickey on your neck. He sucks it hard enough to make it stay for WEEKS, so that when the other boys move to kiss you on your neck, they see the apparent mark and groan to themselves in defeat. It was your sensitive and ticklish spot, and he makes sure he owns it.

For Albedo, he almost always (probably in a kink way) do it with you on a surface that's NOT the bed. Table, chair, sofa, his lap, it seems that the bed is a sacred place for rest. And he usually ends up doing it when he is about to finish his work, hence the convenience of such furnitures. You were conditioned to the point that if you even just innocently lean on a furniture, your mind and body immediately snaps back to those moments, making you back off with a flushed face.

Xiao is the most innocent and yeet friskiest of them all. He loves to litter you with kisses all over your body, no bites and no scratches, just innocent flutters of his lips that makes you tingle. But such moments of lovemaking... seem to always happen on the Inn's balcony. Most of the time it's when the door leading there is closed for the night, but you were sure there were occasions that someone at least knew or saw what was happening, but you two were too drowned in pleasure to notice.

Whenever all four of you were to participate, safe words are always emphasized. Because you're suffocating right after between their bodies with all holes filled to the brim with them. Usually the formation goes as: Albedo behind you, Xiao in front and Scaramouche in your mouth. They may switch up when you still have the stamina but that's their default order, and yes, you orgasm multiple times and are overstimulated a lot. To the point that you're getting used to it.

It's a golden rule to always shower before and after your session, and they would be very caring and gentle during aftercare. With this arrangement, you always have a large bed rented or in your arsenal for a huge cuddle session at night.

[xcrystalzero]

love languages

Characters Included: Kaeya, Diluc, Xiao, Zhongli

Kaeya:

Giving: Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch

-Have you heard this man's voice-lines? The dude is the literal definition of a sweet-talker.

-Will constantly be telling you how good you look in that new outfit or how well-spoken you just were or how good you are at everything your do.

-Also kind of handsy??

-Not like in an obnoxious way (well at least not all the time). Loves to have a hand around your waist when you guys are just talking at the tavern or taking a walk around Mondstat.

-Will 100% grab your ass out of nowhere and then pretend like nothing happened.

Receiving: Physical Touch, Quality Time

- On the other hand, if you grab his ass, he may pass away on the spot.

-Absolutely loves it when you initiate physical contact, especially in public. Will tease you every single time about it but loves seeing this "bold" side of you.

"Oh? Someone's a little needy today." Kaeya cooed as he turned to glance over his shoulder at the way you were currently clinging to his back. You pouted up at him, making a show of slowly pulling away.

"You don't like it? I guess I'll just need to go find someone else to hug... You think Diluc is at the tavern?" You had taken a single step away when a pair of arms wound their way around your waist.

"Hey now..." There's a bit of a warning in his voice but it's nothing harsh. His breath hits your skin as he nuzzles into the crook of your neck, sending a shiver down your spine. "I never said that."

-Has a pretty packed schedule as a captain so he doesn't have much free time to spend just chilling. So when you take time out of your equally busy schedule specifically to spend with him, he gets all warm and tingly inside.

-Especially loves it when you do the planning since again, he's a busy man. If you show up at the Knight's headquarters and are just like "get in loser, we're going on a date" he'll probably fall in love all over again.

Diluc:

Giving: Gift Giving, Acts of Service

-Mans is the second-richest person in all of Tevat. If even bring up a slight interest in something, expect it to show up at your doorstep the next day, perfectly gift-wrapped.

-Will shrug it off when you confront him about it, wondering why you're making a big deal out of something so trivial.

"Diluc why is there an army of stuffed animals on my porch?" You aren't sure what your eyes are supposed to be. The fiery-haired man before you or the 50 fluffy creatures arranged in perfectly packaged boxes sitting on the ground in front of you.

"The other day, you said you thought they were cute" Diluc shrugs as he weaves his way through the maze of little creatures to stand by your side.

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU BUY THEM ALL!"

-Also likes to make things easier for you whenever he can.

-He's always offering to call you a carriage so you don't have to walk places, or make sure that all of the errands are done before you get a chance to get to them.

-He just wants to reduce any stress in your life and it's cute.

Receiving: Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation

-Touch-starved motherfucker.

-Somewhat shy when it comes to PDA and just general affection but over time, he gets used to it and starts to crave it.

-Will never ask you for affection directly but will definitely hint at it. He'll let his hand rest gently on your shoulder for just a little bit too long, or linger after he's already said goodnight, and that's how you know that he wants some love and affection.

-Really likes when you run your hands through his hair. There's just something so soothing about it, especially since he hasn't allowed someone to be that comfortable with him in a while. May just fall asleep in your arms if you keep doing it.

-In the same way, he likes to hear praises. He's not a man who needs to be told by others that he's doing the right thing or that he's doing a good job, but it does kind of feel nice when you're the one saying those things to him.

Xiao:

Giving: Acts of Service, Gift Giving

-He feels like he has nothing of his own to give so he tries to make himself useful in the only way he knows how.

-You mentioned that there's this commission you took that's harder than you expected and has had you busy for the past few days? Oh look at that, somehow the issue is solved. The Treasure Hoarders seem to be creeping too close to the trading ports for comfort. Not anymore they're not.

-Gets borderline creepy at some points where he seems to know every little thing you're struggling with and be able to solve all your problems immediately but are you really going to complain?

-Will constantly bring you food or little things that he saw that reminded him of you.

"Here, take this."

You glance puzzled at the hand the adeptus has outstretched to you. Gently, you reach out and take whatever it is he is offering you, bringing it up to your face to observe. A soft chuckle leaves your lips. In your hands is a tiny butterfly seemingly constructed of folded and interlocking leaf strips.

"Aww Xiao, did you make this for me?"

"I... I just happened to have it," he stutters out, looking anywhere except at you. That does nothing but coax another soft laugh out of you as you gently lean your head against his shoulder.

"Thank you, I'll take good care of it."

"... you better."

Receiving: Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch

- Normally, he thinks the sweet-talking of mortals is just another form of manipulation. That being said, when he hears any of those sugared phrases coming from you, his heart skips a beat.

-The first few times you complemented him, he literally had to stop and process for a second because wow. That felt great.

"Mortals are so incapable," Xiao mutters as he brushes slime condensate off of his sleeve. You sheath your sword before turning back to him, a grin on your face.

"Well anyone would be compared to you. You're really amazing you know!"

He froze. They were just words and nothing he hadn't heard before from workers at the inn or humans in the past, so why was his heart beating to fast?

"Xiao?" You questioned, catching up to him and waving a hand slowly in front of his face.

Coming back to his senses, Xiao huffed, turning his head to the side to hide the red creeping onto his cheeks. "Shut up..."

-Surprisingly enough, also really really likes when you touch him. Of course, always ask first or he might just straight up deck you on sheer instinct.

-But as he gets more and more comfortable around you, he grows to love the way you will absentmindedly grab his hand whenever you want to show him something or the way you like to brush his hair gently out of his eyes when the wind picks up.

-His ears turn red whenever you touch him, no matter how innocent the touch and he will get flustered if you ever decide to tease him about it.

Zhongli:

Giving: Gift Giving, Quality Time

- For a broke bitch, he sure loves to spoil you. Will always bring you to upscale restaurants to try the most expensive dishes or take you out to the stalls to look at exquisite jewelry.

"Which one should I get?"

"Why not both?"

"And who is going to pay for that?"

"That... I did not consider."

- Likes to be around you whenever he can. He's not the busiest person now that he's basically given up the job he had for so long (spoilers???) so he has more time to spend with you.

-If you don't mind, he likes to just be around you throughout the day as you do your own thing, just enjoying being in your company.

Receiving: Quality Time

-The dude has been alive for so long, he just wants to spend some of that time with someone else.

-His favorite thing is just to wander around Liyue Harbor with you, pointing out historical landmarks or just rambling around the history of the land. Loves it when you ask him questions about things or just generally express interest in the things he is talking about.

"That section of the harbor actually used to be a theater."

"Like for plays?"

"Yes actually. However, it was demolished as a sign of the end of the cultural revolution as the city turned to trade as its primary focus."

"Oh yeah you were telling me about that yesterday!" You remark excitedly, gaze drifting around as though you are attempting to imagine the world Zhongli describes. But he is only looking at you, a warm smile spreading slowly over his face.

There is no shortage of people in Liyue Harbor to listen to his stories but only your commit them to memory almost immediately, constantly asking him questions and wanting to learn more about his world. And just for that, he thinks he may fall even deeper in love with you.

note: let me know if you guys like this and i'll do a part two with some of the characters i missed!

[lifeofroos]

Part 49. Lets be real, things that are free taste ever so slightly better.

In short: Nico gets therapy from Dionysus. In this chapter, Nico tries to find Christmas gifts people he cares about with Will. The rest can be found on AO3 and FanFiction.net! And also in Tumblr tags like Dionysus, Nico di Angelo, therapy etc. 

This Might Be Crazy: Chapter 49: Free chocolate milk

‘And then suddenly it’s Christmas.�� I looked around. New York looked like the Christmas elves had dropped a bag of joy over it. 

Will looked at me. ‘Not to scare you, but the city has been looking like this since Halloween.’ 

‘I try to ignore that.’

Will sighed and laughed at the same time. ‘Sure. Come now, you needed to buy Christmas presents, we should get to buying them.’

‘Yes, of course... hey!’ He grabbed my arm and pulled me along, further into the heart of New York.

‘They really were just too lazy to name these streets.’ 

Will sighed. ‘No.’ He looked at  his phone. ‘It is way easier to find out where the streets are. You just follow the number.’

‘I guess. Which street are we on now?’ I looked around, but I didn’t see a number anywhere. Will narrowed his eyes, while still looking at his phone. ‘If I am correct, we are on thirty-third.’ 

‘Ah.’ I took a step back when two screaming children ran past me, followed by a tired looking mother. ‘We need to go to Jackson village, too. I don’t mean Sally Jacksons’ place, but the actual, physical part of town.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Free drinks at Denny’s.’

Will grinned. ‘Those are always welcome. Also, Google Maps gave me the directions I asked for. Let’s go.’ 

I had to give Will some credit, he chose his boring chocolates rather quickly. Why he had to go to all the way to New York for them was beyond me, though. 

Will handed me a tiny felt box. ‘Alright. We should go with the subway, then maybe we can actually reach Jackson village before Christmas. Here, eat.’ I opened the box. It had two heart-shaped chocolates in them.

‘Will, that is kinda sappy.’ I put the bonbon into my mouth. ‘And I like sappy sometimes. Alright. Can we get out of the subway a few stops earlier than necessary? I am not entirely sure what to get people, so I want to see a few shops.’

‘I mean, I was thinking of going to a dollar store to buy things for the Camp gift exchange, and we could go to an outlet if you wanted something for Reyna, Hazel or Percy…’

‘Hm. For camp a dollar store is good, and maybe I can even find some fun things for my friends as well. For Hazel I already bought a knitted raccoon hat, though. And I will not buy your present while you are standing right next to me.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Perhaps.’ 

‘Alright. Come, I see a subway station over there.’ 

Even though they are probably the grossest and busiest places in New York, I kind of liked the undergrounds. Kind of stupid, but well, they were under the ground.

We got out and went up to street level again. Lo and behold, there was a dollar store right across the street. 

‘I always wonder how they can stuff even more garbage into stores like those then they can into IKEA,’ I thought out loud, while we crossed the street. Will shrugged. 

‘Talent, I guess.’  

‘Talent? Oh, what. At least I will be able to find something Percy will go absolutely insane for that costs me nothing more than a measly dollar.’

‘Last time I was in the dollar store, they had dolphin shaped candy boxes.’

‘If they have those again, I’ll take two. Otherwise Percy will complain that his dolphin-shaped candy box is lonely.’

Maybe it was all trash, but it was easy trash. Packed with presents for almost everyone we cared a little or slightly more than a little about, we got out of the dollar store. 

‘So, that was quite productive,’ Will mentioned. He was carrying the plastic bag with our stuff. 

‘Yes.’ I looked around, at the other stores. Somewhere, they were bound to have something.

‘What I did not say before is that I am actually looking for something for Dionysus. I do not know if he celebrates Christmas, but I do know it is his birthday.’

‘The 25th of December?’

‘Yes.’ 

‘So, basically, Jesus just took over his birthday?’

‘Yes. I don’t know how he feels about it.’ Maybe I’ll ask. 

Will hummed. ‘I think it is pretty difficult to find something for a god, though. That being said, I do think Dionysus will be happy no matter what.’

‘Maybe...’  

‘Oh, here is a thrift store!’ Will pointed . We stopped walking. ‘Do you mind if we go there for a second? I need something they might have there.’ 

‘Are you entirely sure what that thing is?’

‘You never do with thrift-stores.’ I sighed. 

‘Yeah, true.’ I wrapped my arm around his waist while we went in.

It was a pretty big thrift store and it clearly didn’t just sell regular mortal junk. I wandered off, while Will searched through the old books. 

I ended up in the jewelry section. It looked as if both an old grandma and her six year old granddaughter had just given away all of their jewelry. All I saw was ancient-looking pearl necklaces and pink fairy rings. 

I looked in a few drawers of an old cupboard. It was all clearly not worth much, otherwise it would not be laying out in the open, but it sure looked shiny. 

In one of the drawers, I found an earring. I could not find its better half, but it did look a lot like something Will had shown me that he wanted to buy but could not find anywhere. 

I let it roll from one hand into the other. Was it dangerous to gift your boyfriend jewelry from a thrift store that radiated weird energy? Maybe. But the earring itself did not do so. 

I dug slightly deeper, looking around for more stuff the people who were worth more than dollar store gifts would appreciate. Now that I took a good look at it, the jewelry cabinet was kind of a goldmine, no pun intended. I even found a small, gold necklace for Reyna (Probably fake-golden, otherwise it would not be lying around in a random cabinet-drawer, but still). 

Eventually, I looked up and saw a small glass cabinet. There was a brooch on display that made me unable to stop looking at it. I did not recognise the gemstone they used, if it was even a real gemstone, but it was a deep purple. The brooch was shaped like, vines running past and over each other. 

The thing cost only five dollars. It was as if the universe was pushing me to get it (But I could have imagined that).

In the background, I heard Will say something to the seller (Who did not sound entirely like human to me). Slowly, I walked past the shelves, hoping I could somehow buy what I wanted without Will noticing. 

After a few seconds, I felt a tap on my shoulders. I turned around. There was a second not-entirely-human seller standing behind me.

‘You want what you are currently holding and the purple brooch without your boyfriend over there noticing , is that right?’ He asked, in a coarse voice. 

‘Eh, yes,’ I whispered.  

The seller grinned. ‘I get it, youngling. You saw the prices. Twenty dollars and it is all yours.’

I had no idea whether those were the actual prices, but twenty dollars was not super expensive, so I handed it to him. He unlocked the glass cabinet, got out the brooch, I put everything into the pocket of my coat and joined Will again.

The seller, who Will was just done with, looked exactly like the seller I had spoken to had. Will grabbed my hand and we walked out. I looked over my shoulder as Will opened the door. The seller winked at me.

‘Sad that you did not find anything ,’ Will said, while we made our way over to Denny’s.

‘Oh well,’ I answered, while I squeezed his hand. 

‘Nico!’ Mary smiled widely when she looked at us. ‘Is that your boyfriend?’

‘Yes!’

‘Well, he is adorable.’ She winked and gave us two free hot chocolates. ‘As promised.’

I was not above getting free hot chocolate, so I thanked her and we sat down one booth further from the booth I usually sat with Dionysus. The Denny’s was busier around this time. 

Will looked around. ‘There is a Dionysus-vibe here.’

I nodded and took a sip. ‘Oh yes. There always is.’ 

Will smiled and pulled his legs onto the couch. ‘I think that was a productive day, Nico. I think I’ve got almost everything I need. ’

‘Me too.’ I grinned, which left Will eyeing me suspiciously. 

A/N: Fun Fact: there are barely any subways in the Netherlands. We have busses, trains and trams (In some cities), but no subways. 

It has never been academically proven that the 25th is Dionysus birthday. There is no proof whatsover. Don’t go around quoting me on that, because it is a Tumblr thing, NOT PROVEN!

Aside from maybe a little general magic, the jewelry is not cursed. Just calming you down there. 

Tell me how do you all see Dionysus? Because during writing I have constantly had the young, mythological version in my head. Long black hair, purple eyes, frail, basically not what Rick Riordan described. That is why I have been calling him Dionysus and not Mr. D, because that ain’t him to me. 

This isn't really a therapy chapter but shhh it shows Nico is healing.

[ottobooty]

@masonsfreckles‘s tagged me for this a while ago for an OTP tag. Most everyone else I know has already been tagged, so I’m tagging y’all who are reading this :^)

OTP tag for Miriam and Adam

DISAGREEMENTS.

Who is more likely to raise their voice?

Adam, but Miriam is known to get loud when passionate or wants to get her point across.

Who threatens to leave but never actually does?

neither.

Who actually keeps their word and leaves?

neither.

Who trashes the house?

Neither

Do either of them get physical?

NOPE.

How often do they argue/disagree?

Sometimes. Mostly due to his stubbornness and habit of bottling his emotions up and Miriam’s habit of thinking with her emotions and impulsive behaviour.

Who is the first to apologize?

Usually Miriam, if only because she doesn’t want things to potentially drag out. Adam gets bullied into it by others.

SEX.

Who is on top? Who is on bottom?

Most of the time it’s Adam, but sometimes Miriam likes to be the one looking down.

Any kinks?

Hand holding and showing vulnerability. Miriam would never admit it out loud, but she’s curious and interested in very light bondage. Miriam probably has a hand kink. 

Who has the strangest desires?

neither.

Who’s dominant in bed?

adam.

Is head ever in the equation?

Miriam is a strong yes. Adam likes being able to look her in the eye; he likes his hands more. 

If so, who is better at performing it?

Miriam

Ever had sex in public?

Nope! Miriam is too shy and nervous about getting caught, and Adam prefers to stick to the bedroom or at home.

Who moans the most?

Miriam. She’s also a little loud and finds it embarrassing. At least Adam knows DAMN WELL he’s doing a good job.

Who leaves the most marks?

Adam, but not too many or too hard.

Who is the more experienced of the two?

Miriam by like one or two things. Adam is confident enough to make it seem like he really experienced, but he knows what he’s doing.

Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’?

make love, definitely.

How long do they usually last?

Pretty long! Though at the end, the only one who is jelly is Miriam from how much he focuses on her.

Rough or soft?

depends on the mood.

Is protection used?

Sort of? Miriam is on birth control for period regulation so she doesn’t end up being out of commission for the entire week because of how bad it gets. 

Does it ever get boring?

Not really!

Where is the strangest place they’d have sex?

Back of her car during a stakeout. 

FAMILY.

Do they plan on having children/or have children?

later in their relationship when things calm down, yeah.

If so, how many children do they want/have?

One or two. Miriam would LOVE more, but she’s also….very small. 

AFFECTION.

Who likes to cuddle?

Miriam is a chronic cuddler. If Adam isn’t there, Felix or Nate are the next Victims of it. She just likes to be near him.

Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places?

Miriam. Gotta keep him on his toes.

Who struggles to keep their hands to themselves?

Miriam. She enjoys being near him or close to him, and really wants to let him know as often as possible with actions that he is loved and deserving of it.

How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable?

Pretty long. Longer if there isn’t really anything to do and there’s nothing important to attend to. 

What is their favourite non-sexual activity?

Anything really. Like mentioned before; Miriam enjoys his presence and having him near her. But if she had to pick ONE, it would absolutely be baking. Gotta put them muscles to use somehow. Plus kneading dough is a great way to work out tension.

Where is their favourite place to cuddle?

Couch and bed. She likes to sit in his lap with her legs draped over his thigh.

SLEEPING.

Who snores?

Neither, but Miriam does mumble softly.

If both do, who snores the loudest?

Neither!

Do they share a bed or sleep separately?

Share a bed most of the time. She knows he doesn’t need sleep, he knows he doesn’t need sleep, but he also just wants to be near her. 

If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart?

Cozy. She’s latched onto him like a koala.

What do they wear to bed?

Pj’s. Though Miriam 100% wears one of his shirts and no bottoms in the summer.

Are either of them insomniacs?

Miriam occasionally. 

Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside?

Not sleeping pills, but Miriam’s regular medication for her ADHD can be found on her bedside.

Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side?

A mix of both, but usually the former.

Who wakes up with bed hair?

Miriam. Half the time, she’s surprised her hair hasn’t strangled him in her sleep.

Who wakes up first?

Adam, usually before the sun is even up if he has slept that night.

Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other?

Depends. She knows he doesn’t like to eat, but does still offer simple things that won’t overwhelm him. Adam sometimes returns the favor, but he sometimes settles for just coffee the way she likes it.

What is their favourite sleeping position?

Spooning with Miriam being the little spoon, or with her draping an arm across his chest. Sometimes he gets smacked in the face, but it’s a small price to pay. 

Do they set an alarm each night?

Yes, as much as Miriam is Very Much Not a morning person.

Who has nightmares?

Both of them do. 

Can a television be found in their bedroom?

Nope, but a small radio is. Sometimes she has soft music playing.

Who has ridiculous dreams?

Miriam. She always makes a point to tell him about the weirder ones just to see his reaction. 

Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed?

Neither, but if we’re going by “Takes up the bed”, it’s Adam’s 6’1 ass by default. 

Who makes the bed?

Both, though when Adam does it, it’s arguably a lot neater than when she does.

What time is bed time?

10-11pm

Any routines/rituals before bed?

Miriam might have developed a slight OCD and has to check that her locks are indeed locked and the alarms are set. Adam makes no comment on it, but understands why she does it. Sometimes she puts up her hair to make extra sure the fuzz doesn’t kill him in her sleep. 

Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up?

Miriam. She’s very grumbly. 

WORK.

Who is the busiest?

Arguably Miriam. As both the Detective of Wayhaven and the Human Liaison for the Agency, she’s working a lot.  

Who rakes in the highest income?

Ehhh, doesn’t matter. They’re both doing the same thing, technically.

Are any of them unemployed?

nope.

Who takes the most sick days?

Miriam. Because she’s Human. 

What are their jobs?

Miriam is the only detective in Wayhaven, as well as the Liaison for the Agency in Wayhaven. Adam is the Commanding Agent of Unit Bravo.

Who sucks up to their boss?

Miriam jokingly. It’s her mother, afterall, and she tries to keep things light between them due to the nature of their job.

Who is more likely to turn up late to work?

Miriam, though she tries not to be. 

Who stresses the most?

Both of them do, but Adam absolutely does more since Miriam is very self-sacrificing and impulsive as HELL.

Do they enjoy or despise their careers/occupations?

Adam enjoys it when Miriam isn’t doing things that make his hair turn gray or make him want to rip it out.

Are they financially stable?

yes.

HOME.

Who does the washing?

Both. Adam helps when he can if he is over for the night or week. 

Who takes out the trash?

Both of them do.

Who does the ironing?

Adam more than Miriam, since he has more clothes that need ironing.

Who does the cooking?

Miriam. Adam doesn’t cook too often.

Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying?

Neither, but Adam is more likely to burn the food or have it taste bad.

Who is messier?

Miriam by just a bit. Sometimes she leaves out mugs of tea that are half empty because she forgets about it.

Who leaves the toilet roll empty?

neither.

Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor?

Miri when she’s in a rush for things. She does pick up after herself quite often though.

Who forgets to flush the toilet?

neither.

Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere?

Miriam. Adam blames it on the mess of her basket she keeps things in.

Who answers the telephone?

Miriam. Adam only answers if he recognizes it’s someone from the Agency or Miriam.

Who mows the lawn?

There is no lawn, so neither.

Who does the vacuuming?

Both. Though it’s more sweeping than vacuuming.

Who does the groceries?

Both, usually. Miriam likes to make it an adventure. 

Who takes the longest to shower?

Miriam. It takes a lot to wash hair that voluminous. 

Who spends the most time in the bathroom?

Miriam. That long hair takes hours to dry and is a hassle to deal with.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Is money a problem?

Not really. Miri’s gotten a lot better as she’s gotten older about spending her money, and Adam never really spends money on things unless there’s a use for it.

How many cars do they own?

Just Miriam’s car.

What’s their song?

“Guiding Light” - Mumford & Sons

Do they live in the city or in the country?

Technically the country? Wayhaven is a small town. 

Do they own their home or do they rent?

Miriam rents her apartment. Adam’s lodgings in the Agency are rent free. 

Do they enjoy their surroundings?

At first, Adam hated the bright colors and textures and flowers that dotted her apartment. It’s since grown on him and he’s found a weird comfort in it.

What do they do when they’re away from each other?

Keep busy, mostly. Miriam does send him messages or calls to check up on him if she hasn’t heard from him or one of the Unit in a while. She trusts him enough to be able to come back in one piece.

Where did they first meet?

At the abandoned warehouse. Miriam shot him out of panic due to already frazzled nerves. 

Who spends the most money when out shopping?

Miriam, especially if she spots a flea market or thrift store. 

Who’s more likely to flash their assets?

Neither. Both of them are rather practical and don’t like to show off too much.

Any mental issues?

Miriam has PTSD from the Murphy incident, as well as ADHD. I’m also willing to bet that Adam has some form of PTSD he doesn’t want to admit he has. 

Who finds it amusing when the other trips over?

Neither, really.

Who’s terrified of bugs?

Miriam is slightly afraid of spiders, but usually just tries to shoo it away by blowing at it.

Who kills the spiders around the house?

Neither do. Despite being scared of spiders, Miri doesn’t like to see them killed, so the bug ends up just getting put outside.

Do they have any fears for their future?

:^) SO MANY. Particularly because of her Mortality.

Their favourite place?

One of the city gardens. They both enjoy the quiet.

Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner?

Adam. If he’s cooked it or if it’s NATE who cooked it is up in the air. (It’s Nate with help.)

Who pays the bills?

Both. Though Miri does insist she pay most of them since she’s home the most.

Who’s the tallest?

ADAM. Miriam is 4′11.

Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other?

Miriam, mostly due to the fact that she’s Tiny™ and can get away with it.

Who wanders around in their underwear?

Miriam, though usually it’s just with a big shirt on overtop. 

Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio?

Miriam! Sings loud and proud. Adam begrudgingly sits through all of it, but will be found humming along if he’s heard it enough times.

What do they tease each other about?

Miriam teases him about his age at times, while he absolutely takes to teasing her about her height.

Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times?

Adam might playfully tease her about her more….COLORFUL outfits, but neither of them cringe.

Who crushed first?

Adam :^). The only clown at the carnival was him.

Any alcohol or substance related problems?

Nope. Miriam is pretty nervous about alcohol in general and doesn’t like the taste of it. 

Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am?

Neither. Miriam doesn’t like to drink too much.

Who swears the most?

Miriam, and it’s usually when she’s very upset. Adam has been subjected to at least One (1) F-bomb.

[wincore]

chasing sunlight | ten

pairing: ghost!ten x reader

words: 6.8k

genre: ghost!au, fluff, angst

warnings: language, mentions of death

a/n: this was supposed to be a warm up fic but it got long hh sorry for any mistakes!!

You slam the door shut to your apartment in a hurry to enter. There’s nothing you want more right now than to get inside your bed, and fall into the blissful escape of sleep. The room is devoid of any lighting, other than the lights from the surrounding buildings entering through your window, and you reach out to switch them on out of habit. You drop your bag to the floor and pause before making your way to the washroom to rub off the ink that your leaking pen had decided dump on your arms.

That wasn’t the only mishap of the day—you had almost submitted the wrong document, full of less than nice doodles of your professor, accidentally dropped your phone from the top of the staircase (you’re surprised it’s still somewhat working), and you almost got run over to protect a stray cat which ultimately ignored you after a short glance of thanks.

Living in the city, sometimes you wish you had grown up elsewhere—like the seaside or the hills. But you know that the sort of comfort provided by a city as busy as yours is hard to replace. It’s all too familiar, you’ve been here long enough to be a permanent part of the picture and you can’t see yourself anywhere else.

You ignore the light tapping outside your window; even rain didn’t have an effect on you these days. You change as fast as you can and soundlessly get under your warm blankets, the tiredness in your bones lulling you to sleep.

You glare at the unusual rustling outside your bedroom door. It’s too dark and too late for you to be mentally equipped enough and get out to check what it is. Plus, you’ve watched enough crime shows to know how simply checking the noise out can turn out. Not today, murderer, you think as you pull your blankets up till they cover all but the upper part of your face. The rain has stopped, leaving your windowpanes wet and the air cool, but you can’t pay much attention to it. The rustling continues amidst your lack of action, getting louder in fact. You groan softly and open your eyes.

Turns out, living alone means you have to go check out the noise; to make sure it’s not a stray animal or rodent, or other reasons. You know you keep telling your friends you want to die every day; but when you’re faced with this sudden possibility of death, there you are making sure you don’t do anything sudden, making sure your heart isn’t beating too loud. What the fuck does a robber want from your stupid apartment?

Fear laces your silent footsteps, as you grudgingly make your way to your bedroom door. You don’t switch on the lights—you don’t want a murderer or robber to get aggressive if they know you’re awake or something. You wait till your eyes adjust to the darkness, till you can somewhat grasp the situation.

The figure in your living room is darker than its surroundings. It looks like a guy with a fairly lean frame, and he continues shuffling around the couch. You watch quietly as you try to make out what exactly he’s trying to do, or if he’s taken anything. You breathe softly in fear of getting caught and while this is your place and he should be the one afraid of being caught, you still can’t help but wonder why anyone would ever bother robbing you, a college student who barely has anything in their pale apartment.

You let out a mild noise when a pair of eyes shifts its focus onto you. This is it, you think, this is how I die. But there’s something about him—there’s something strange, different about him, something that tells you he won’t harm you, something soft.

You turn on the lights to see a boy about your age, wearing a rather ordinary attire consisting of a beige sweatshirt and dark pants, and a bright red baseball cap covering dark tousled hair. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights as he scans your face, possibly for some sign of response you don’t greet him with. You feel less afraid after you see him—he looks just like any other guy, he could be in your college for all you know, and the innocence on his face provokes you to be bolder.

“Who are you?” you ask, furrowing your brows.

“M-me?” his response comes meeker than you expected.

“Yeah, you’re the one in my apartment!”

“Your- your apartment? Oh, please,” he scoffs.

“What?”

“Well, technically, I owned this apartment before you did.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you say, more confused than ever, “Leave before I call the police.”

“Sheesh, you have no respect for the dead.”

Before you can ask what he’s on about, he makes his way towards you abruptly, startling you in the process. You take a step back, growing increasingly worried and he stops when he’s barely a few steps away from you. He stretches his arm towards you and nods his head, signalling you to come over.

When you don’t move, he sighs and adds, “Look, I couldn’t hurt you even if I tried. Plus, it’s getting a little weird standing with my arm out like this.”

You raise an eyebrow and gulp before making your way towards him reluctantly.

“Give me your hand,” he says.

You do as he says after a moment of hesitation and your eyes widen when your hand passes right through his, meeting the cold emptiness of air instead of a warm palm.

“H-huh?” you manage to ask.

“Boo! I’m a ghost,” he says with a lopsided grin.

That was not a good idea on his part because the entire chain of events is so weird, you get the desperate need to take a seat back and revaluate everything. You slump down to the floor, sitting cross-legged, and the boy looks momentarily worried at your discomposure.

“You’re…a ghost,” you drawl out.

“Yes. Sorry if I startled you, though. I haven’t spoken to a human in so long,” he crouches down beside you.

“Ah” is all you manage. Well, it’s a lot to process but you think you can somehow come to terms with it. Adult life is weird enough already. But, you think, ghosts are a little unheard in the midst of urban civilisations and concrete-engulfed lives, where the streets are so animated that the dead could never fit in the picture. You snap your head towards him, startling him, and try placing your hand against his chest. It passes clean through again and you breathe out in sync with the dawning realization. Of course you’d find a ghost in your apartment during your busiest semester.

You remember the landlady warning you about this apartment room in particular. They all said it was cursed, haunted; that anyone who moved in was compromising their life. But did that stop you from getting the cheapest apartment near your campus? Of course not.

“I’m Ten,” he says, breaking you out of your thoughts.

“Uh, I’m—”

“I already know. I’ve been here since before you moved in.”

“What the fuck?”

“No need to be rude.”

You gape at him before finding the right words to form your sentence. “So you’ve been here like a creep, watching everything I do?!”

“No. Well, maybe sometimes I accidentally saw you change- but that wasn’t on purpose!”

“Oh my god,” you hug yourself, the blood rushing to your cheeks. “You are a creep!”

“I’m a ghost. I said I didn’t mean to!”

You huff before turning the other way. You get up and he follows your movement, standing up to his full height.

“What else have you seen?” you narrow your eyes at him.

“I don’t know what you’re looking for,” he tilts his head and pretends to think. “Do you mean like the times you dance around in your underwear to pop mu—”

“Ahh!” you yell and gesture wildly to get him to shut up before he embarrasses you further.

Ten grins before attempting to reassure you, “At least I won’t tell anyone. You know, since I’m dead.”

“Literally how does that help?”

He shrugs before moving over to your couch and falling onto it. You stand in place and look at him with your mouth slightly agape, still not comprehending how he’s so casual about everything. You always imagined ghosts to be at least a little bit more serious, if not total angst lords. But the boy on your couch—well, he’s just a boy, a boy who doesn’t seem like he could be full of destructive emotions like resentment or regret.

“See? I don’t even sleep on your bed,” his voice rings out.

You don’t know how that’s something he should be praised for. But he looks so harmless, you’re not sure how to react. When you think about it, he’s pretty much like a normal college student except for being, you know, dead apparently. Moreover, he doesn’t seem like a bad guy despite what you’ve seen so far of his rather snarky personality and you assume that if he’s lived with you all this while without doing anything resembling a ghost-like evil, he can’t be all that bad.

You go back to sleep mumbling an awkward ‘good night’ to Ten, wondering if he’d still be there in the morning.

A few weeks are more than enough to make you realize that you are in a regrettable sort of situation—that Ten alone is enough to make the devil proud. He doesn’t stop being a nuisance to you when you’re home, he talks louder if you ask him to be quiet, likes spooking you in the middle of the night and he barely lets you complete your assignments or do anything on your own for that matter with his excessive need for attention. He’s also surprisingly good at startling you—like when you once entered the apartment to Ten doing a handstand right in the middle of the room, yelling ‘Hi!’ or when he creeps up on you every time you’re trying to get a midnight snack or some cold water.

“But,” Ten whines at you typing away on your laptop, “I’m so bored.”

“Why can’t you do the things you did before you suddenly materialized?” you rub your temples.

“First of all, I didn’t materialize,” he says and moves his hand over yours to prove his point. “Secondly, you were more entertaining when you thought you were alone.”

Your ears turn red while he grins winningly, having pushed the right buttons.

“You just love attention, don’t you?” you grumble.

“Only yours, darling,” he says with a wink, making you redder than before.

Ten can’t leave the apartment, unfortunately. He needs something physical to tie himself to, to latch on, so he can keep his human sanity. He’s a lost soul otherwise, and you don’t know what lost is supposed to mean or the extent of that outcome, and Ten refuses to elaborate, so you don’t let yourself question it.

On a particularly gloomy evening, you find Ten playing with your old soft toy in your living room. It doesn’t strike you as unusual till you suddenly realize and stare at him for a few seconds.

“How are you doing that?” you knit your eyebrows together.

“Oh this?” he asks, raising the toy. “I can touch physical objects sometimes. Takes a bit of energy but I can handle it.”

You continue observing him absentmindedly playing with the artificial fur. His eyes don’t focus on anything in particular, just remain sort of glazed over while his lips are curled at the corner as if recollecting a lost memory. It’s oddly relieving to see him like this, looking more human, more real despite the translucence of his skin.

“What?” he asks when you forget to shift your gaze. “I need to feel something sometimes. I don’t want to go crazy.”

“Ah,” you nod. “Do other ghosts do this too?”

“Poltergeists live off this. That’s why they’re so dark,” Ten wrinkles his nose in disgust.

“Dark?”

“Yeah. The more energy you use, the more you try to interact with this world, the darker you get.”

“Oh,” you rub your arm awkwardly. “That’s kind of scary.”

Ten smiles brightly. “Aren’t you glad you have me?”

You are. You wouldn’t admit it to him, but you really are.

Ten’s latest hyper-fixation has been trying to get you to take him to the new art museum that opened a few days ago. He sits on the floor beside you, as the late afternoon transitions to a reddish orange evening, whining continuously as you try to focus on your assignment due this Friday (keyword: try).

“Ten. Stop,” you finally turn to him. “Why would I go with you to some art museum instead of focusing on an assignment that makes for half my grades?”

“Uh, because I’m cute?”

“Th- that’s not a valid reason,” you say, your ears turning red at the puppy look Ten is giving you.

“Okay, okay,” he begins, “how about we go out this weekend?”

“Okay,” you nod, turning back to your work.

“Yes!” Ten punches the air and gets up before beaming at you. “I haven’t been outside in so long,” he adds softly, the look in his eyes outrageously pure.

You feel a pang of guilt as you realize that he might have been stuck in this apartment for God knows how long—possibly since he…died. And you gain a newfound sympathy for him, thinking that perhaps you should have been nicer, despite his tendency to infuriate you so easily. Truth is, you want to know more about him, but the words wouldn’t ever come out. You couldn’t even ask him how he died, worried you might offend him or bring up something awful. You fall asleep with your head against your desk instead of completing your assignment, plagued by your curiosity surrounding Ten growing way out of proportion.

You wake up to darkness, only broken by the city lights that breach through the window, and the warmth of your coat laid delicately over your shoulders. With a strangled gasp, you check your phone to find a bright 1:04 displayed on your lockscreen. Your unprecedented nap might have left you weirdly reenergized but it made space for a familiar anxiety to settle in.

You leave your work after barely completing one-fourth of it, when you realize the absence of your usual companion. You turn on the lights in the living room, but Ten isn’t there. He’s not in the kitchen either—he’s barely in the kitchen, complaining why he should even be there if he can’t eat. He doesn’t seem to be anywhere you can see him, and you figure he must have retreated into wherever he goes when he’s not hanging around you; to the place he possibly goes to think, to be himself. The curiosity that started as a little spark slowly starts to grow into a dancing candle-lit flame when you can’t help but think more and more about Ten, who you would dare to call a friend if only you knew.

You suddenly want to know what his favourite ice cream flavour was (even if he can’t have them now) or what he likes to do when it rains. You want to know what he was like at school or if he has a favourite TV show, or if he likes the smell of fall leaves. You barely know anything about him; and it’s not entirely your fault either when Ten didn’t like sharing anything too personal or closely related to his past. It could be hurting him, so you laid off. Ten is hard to read—he acts a certain way one moment and he completely changes the next. Sometimes you think he has fifteen different personalities at once. You feel a tug at the edge of your heart now, wishing you knew more.

You wander off to the roof, trying to organize the muffled mess in your mind. City lights still shine bright after midnight if it’s a big city. You can see neon signs and billboards in the distance, and skyscrapers sprinkled with orderly lights from each room, looking like lines of stars wrapped around each building. They look small and insignificant now, but they loom over you each time you walk through the streets, blocking the skies and the sunlight to leave shadows of a manmade world. There are tiny cars on the highway far off and the warm glow of the street lamps doesn’t go unnoticed by you. You like to think that every little light in the city has a story of its own.

You’re a little startled by the figure clearing his throat next to you. Ten looks at you with questioning eyes when you regain your composure and smile at him. You don’t know why you’re so glad to have found him but you let it show with a sudden smile. He smiles back, a little unsure, and asks, “You like coming here too, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” you nod and make your way towards the concrete railing, Ten trailing right behind you.

You lean on the rail, your chin resting on your arms and let yourself be calmed by the numerous lights of your city, spread as if an artist had splattered paint over his canvas. Whenever you come up here, you wonder the same thing again and again. Here you are, at the heart of the city, yet you have never bothered to explore the intricacies of its veins and arteries. There are tall buildings, short buildings, coloured ones and pale ones; and all of them look like they’re part of some maze, beckoning you to come play through the streets in between. But you have no time; you let yourself have no time.

“Do you like the lights?” you ask Ten.

“Why else would I come here?” he smiles.

And that’s how the conversation starts. Ten likes matcha ice cream, and he likes to draw when it rains. He says feels awkward touching people so for him it’s not all that bad being a ghost—you’re pretty much alone and don’t have to go through awkward friendships. He really likes kittens too, and he wishes he could pet them; that’s the main downside of being a ghost stuck in a world full of so many kittens.

“You were a dance major?” you ask, your eyes widening.

“What? I don’t look it?” A half-smile is plastered across his face.

Before you can respond, he motions to you to play a song. You find one after scrolling through your playlist for a whole minute, shaking a little with the night breeze hitting your face.

Ten moves right at the first beat. He moves his arm, and his head and then his legs. It’s like watching an orchestra perform for the first time—wholesome and satisfying. The stars and the moon look at him as delighted as you do, following each flow and bend. And as beautiful as Ten’s movement is, you can’t help but shift your focus to how happy he looks. There’s an involuntary smile on his face and you find yourself beaming, too, as he continues painting with his movement. For him, it’s as easy as you breathing.

Ten tilts his head at you when the song stops and you pause for a moment to take him in before bursting into applause.

“That was amazing!” you say. Amazing didn’t even cut close but you don’t know a better word either.

“I- uh, thanks,” he laughs.

You end up sitting with your back pressed against the concrete, sitting beside Ten and just…talking. He has his legs sprawled in front of him as he tries to recall the face of his awful high school math teacher, contorting his own into a horrendous expression to make you laugh.

Ten hasn’t felt this normal in so long. He hesitated talking to you about what really matters to him because what even is the point? It’s not like you’ll understand, or help him somehow. Besides, it’s difficult to get the right words to come out or let the fear in his still heart subside when trying to convey something so serious. It never felt right and you couldn’t give him time either.

But now, when you look at him so attentively, like he’s not a side character, a faded presence, like he matters, he feels a swell in his lungs, spilling everything he’s been carrying alone for so long. When you talk to him, he feels like a friend, a human—still alive and tangled in the web of life. He suddenly feels connected again, and a warmth spreads across his chest in a gentle blaze; a flame that had faded to darkness a long time ago.

When Ten sees your head drop as you remember your assignments, he decides, Okay. That’s it.

“Wh—”

“Come on! Let’s go,” he insists, wildly waving his arms to emphasize.

“I can’t go out in my pyjamas,” you deadpan.

“The city doesn’t care,” he scoffs before disappearing behind the door.

While you stay frozen, contemplating whether to act upon Ten’s wishes or not, he pokes his head back in and flashes his dazzling smile at you—and you find yourself locking your apartment door a few minutes later (having changed into appropriate clothes of course).

“Wow, I’m really going outside,” he smiles. There it is again, that expression of his that makes you want to stop being so restrictive and agree to him, whatever he says.

Ten runs faster than you think and you have to push yourself to keep up as he disappears and reappears in between the crowds littering the streets. He looks back at you occasionally, a wide smile adorning his face as his eyes reflect the warm lights from the streetlamps and windows of giant buildings.

It’s a little strange how you forget any sort of darkness when you’re with Ten. He stands on the sidewalk, admiring the large LCD screens of the billboards on top of buildings advertising something insignificant to either of you. His head turns to follow the cars, the people, sometimes stopping at the barely noticeably trees; you follow his gaze to notice the lined-up stores displaying the lucky colours of red, and a sprinkle of gold, for the upcoming new year celebrations. But even if it is a new year, it won’t matter to Ten. He won’t grow older or have anything to look forward to, and you wonder how he holds on in such a depressing situation.

And of course, Ten has to ruin any strand of sympathy you hold for him. He waits in front of you while you catch up and when you look at him, the crinkle in his eyes is obvious. He points to a rat on a bleak poster advertising pest extermination and calmly says, “Hey, that’s you!”

You glare at Ten while he cackles at his own unfortunate sense of humour and wish you could actually whack him. It’s not his actions but the fact that it’s done deliberately just to annoy you that gets on your nerves sometimes.

You step inside a convenience store with the sudden onset of rain. It’s not a heavy downpour but only a light shower that you’ll survive, but something tells you to get in, and not walk back home in the rain. You purchase some cup noodles just for the heck of it, and while it warms, Ten does a happy sort of dance outside the glass. Rain doesn’t affect him, at least not physically, (“It’s not raining in the spirit realm.” “Like that makes a lot of sense to me.”) and he continues his silly tap dance till he tires of it to join you inside.

The showers stop by the time you get your meal (if you could call instant noodles a meal) and you sit outside at one of the little benches with Ten beside you.

“Is that spicy?” he asks.

“Mhm,” you respond.

“Bet I could have stuff spicier than that.”

“Sure, Ten.”

Ten gives you a look before tilting his head onto your shoulder. If strangers could see him too, you’d look like lovers on a midnight walk. The thought itself makes you blush and when Ten notices the pink, he quirks an eyebrow, no doubt planning to say something stupid.

“I know I’m really good-looking but are you bl—”

“Let’s go home!” you stand up a little too abruptly, startling Ten.

Your pace is quicker than normal, as your brain goes ‘no, no, no!’ at the idea that has inevitably attached itself to an obscure part of your mind. Whatever demons were dancing on your shoulders needed to leave before you let yourself think something stupid, before Ten could find yet another reason to make fun of you.

“Race ya!” Ten’s voice breaks you out of your thoughts as he dashes past you, looking at you for a brief moment to make sure you’re following him.

And that’s how you reach the apartment red-faced, your chest heaving up and down, struggling to take out your keys. You enter to beeline towards the kitchen and chug a cold bottle of water.

“You’re lucky you don’t have to breathe,” you point a finger at Ten.

He smiles faintly and responds with a “Yeah, I guess” before proceeding to sit on the floor in front of your couch. You join him and the silence that follows isn’t an uncomfortable one but you would more aptly describe it as a warm, quiet embrace.

You tilt your head back to rest it on the couch and Ten copies your posture. You look at Ten right when he looks at you, resulting in an embarrassed smile on your part. But Ten doesn’t care as a happy smile forms on his rosy lips and you get the sudden urge to move the hair out of his eyes, to touch his cheeks, feel the material of his sweatshirt, truly comprehend his being.

“You know, you’re not all that boring,” Ten says with an impish smile, and raises his arm towards you in a motion that would be considered petting your hair if he had any physical impact whatsoever.

“I would say you’re not that annoying but that would be lying,” you roll your eyes.

He shapes his lips into an exaggerated pout. His eyes occasionally flicker under the dim lights and you find yourself falling a little deeper into his reality. Is it ironic that Ten is so full of life? That he’s brought more colours and lights into your world than you had ever imagined possible?

There’s a sudden thump from the floor above you that snaps you both out of your trance and Ten squeaks, snapping his head into position. You look at him, amused.

“You’re pretty easily scared for a ghost,” you say.

“I wasn’t scared, I was just startled,” he glares.

You want to laugh and pat his shoulder, like friends do—but you don’t have an ordinary friendship. You can’t hit his arm while you’re laughing or pull his cheeks to annoy him, or grab his hand to drag him through crowds, or share food with him. You can’t hug each other when you’re happy or for reassurance, you can’t do silly things like styling his hair into something funny or paint his face. You can’t even be normal friends, let alone anything more.

It just doesn’t work that way and you find yourself getting lost in thought more and more till you lose focus and sleep takes control of your body.

When weeks turn into months, your awful semester finally ends on an okay note, but you and Ten are still the same; though the frequency of your midnight strolls has increased. It leaves the both of you a little happier, a little brighter. However, it does bring you to a dilemma of the heart that you would rather bury till even you forgot about it.

“Why don’t I see other ghosts?” you ask Ten, sprawled across your bed on a Saturday afternoon.

“Because I’m special?”

You throw a pillow at him fully aware that it’ll pass right through.

“Okay, okay,” he begins, “I guess it’s because they don’t really wanna be seen?”

“But you do?”

Ten keeps quiet, leaning against your bedroom wall with his eyes closed. The fine line between the shadows and the orange sunlight on the buildings outside your window waned as the sun sank further. You move your eyes to notice the golden sunlight falling on Ten’s face, illuminating the curve of his nose, his cupid’s bow and chin, and at times like this, he looks like something only an artist can dream up. At times like this, when he’s perfectly peaceful, he doesn’t look real, doesn’t look like he ever belonged to this world.

When the silence starts to get uncomfortable, Ten stands back up straight and looks at you with expectant eyes.

“Can we go to the art museum?”

“Like now?”

“No, in the evening maybe?”

You hesitate before agreeing, wondering why he wanted to visit that all of a sudden. It’s not like you’re against it, but it’s on the other side of the city and travelling can be really tiring sometimes. You don’t want to say no to Ten though; you’re finding it increasingly difficult to these days. He seems to be more pensive, barely responding to anything sometimes, and you’re worried something is wrong. That something inevitably bad is going to happen.

Ten rubs his forehead, sitting alone on your couch while you’re at the grocery store. He would have gone with you and he very well knows you would have let him. What is he doing? He can’t think straight, can’t focus on anything and he’s so miserably afraid he’s going to lose himself, lose his memories and thoughts that he doesn’t let himself talk to you as much as he wishes. He’s not allowed to do this—look at you like that, or feel the warmth in his chest. He’s supposed to be despondent and alone in this cage of a world he lives in.

Ten begrudgingly admits that because of you he wants to feel. The urge to touch, to be in contact with your physical reality grows day by day. He can’t even see in full colour like he used to when he was alive, and he’s desperate to see the pink of your lips and cheeks, the warmth of your skin in vibrant shades. He embarrasses himself with these thoughts and while they give him a reason to smile, he doesn’t want to lose himself in the darkness.

“Are you sure it’s here?” you whisper to Ten.

“You just saw it on your phone.”

“I’m really bad with directions,” you complain.

“I know.”

You glare at Ten but quickly sigh in relief when you see the large building in the distance. It’s appearance is minimalistic as if to say ‘you can come here but only if you want’ and you find it more pleasant than the heavily decorated buildings you would usually find in the area.

Ten takes longer to look at the exhibits than you, each one of them sending him into a new spiral of thoughts. You wait for him with your hands behind your back as you scrutinize what exactly captivated him so much, what he really saw.

The art museum isn’t what you thought art museums were like either. Each hallway has a theme, and when you enter a new one, you’re plunged into a new world. The breath leaves your lips in a gasp when the next hallway you enter is in complete darkness. You wait till your eyes adjust and you start seeing the even darker paint on the walls. When you walk further, you find paint that glows in the dark. Ten looks at the meaningless splatters of light amused while you’re lost in thoughts entirely your own.

You know ghosts are creatures of the dark (if you could call them creatures, that is); they’re not supposed to have any consciousness or morality. But here, surrounded by this artificial darkness, Ten is what shines the most. From his eyes brimming with an unknown delight, to the curve of his nose to the languid smile stretching across his pink lips, everything glows with a warmth you wouldn’t expect from the dead. No, the dead don’t glow, neither do angels or whatever souls are likened to be.

The last hallway you enter is labelled ‘Art imitates Life’ in classic cursive. It doesn’t have any paintings; it’s just full of windows letting you glimpse at the world outside. The sunset paints all of these ‘paintings’ a bright red, and it mixes perfectly with the fading blue, the city below adding to the depth.

There are two mirrors, one on each side of the exit, and you think it’s meant as a compliment. But you don’t see Ten in the mirrors as he stands beside you but he refuses to look, keeping his head down while he walks out.

The walk to the subway station is quiet, eerily so and you wish Ten would say something, anything at all. But he doesn’t and you’re left with unspoken words that should have been spoken.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you ask when you’re inside the safety of your apartment.

Ten hesitates before nodding, fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt.

“I…I don’t know what’s happening lately. It’s like I feel everything and nothing at once.”

Your expectant silence urges him to continue.

“I miss my family,” he says, “but sometimes I can’t remember these details I should and it’s so terrifying- it’s like I’m getting lost and I don’t like- It’s like- like I’ll forget myself and I’ll really- I’ll really be gone.”

You don’t say anything, you can’t say anything as you fight the urge to take him in your arms when he’s like this, when he sounds so broken and confused.

“I’m so afraid,” he says, placing his face in his hands.

“I’m here for you,” you mumble despite the muddled thoughts in your brain.

“My legs hurt,” you grumble as you sit on the couch beside Ten. He looks a lot lighter after crying his heart out, enough to flash you a bright grin letting you know he’s okay.

“You’re so unhealthy you forgot how to walk,” Ten replies offhandedly.

You turn your head to glower at him and swat at his head, and in the sudden moment of contact, you are unsure of how to retaliate. You hold your hand, which turned red from the impact, with your other while Ten clutches his head, his face wrinkled in pain.

After the initial confusion subsides, you look at each other in a whole other level of confusion.

“How did you do that?” you ask at the same time.

“I didn’t do anything!” Ten responds quickly.

“Well, I didn’t do anything either,” you lean back.

Ten’s hand shakes noticeably as he lifts it up and you are quick to bring your own hand to hold his. His fingers are an icy cold, quite like how you imagined them to be, but you still suck in a sudden burst of air at the contact. You steady his hands first, intertwining your fingers slowly till you’re sure your warmth reaches him. When he still sits frozen, like he hasn’t understood what’s going on yet, you press his hand to your heated cheek and he breathes out slowly, as if he still has air in his lungs.

Ten leans in when he regains consciousness of his surroundings. It doesn’t seem real, it’s like he’s trapped in a dream but he swears it’s probably the best one he’s had since he died. Your lips are warm, so warm he can almost feel you breathe the joy of life back into him. He pulls away for an instant to look at the innocence in your eyes before leaning back into you, your warmth, your presence. He cups your cheeks for a better grasp and you shiver at the touch. He almost feels guilty but he’s allowed to have this, right? He’s allowed to feel, right? He didn’t choose to leave, he didn’t choose any of this—so he’s allowed these strange appearances of luck, right?

Ten’s lips are as comforting as they are cold, and you never felt exhilaration of this sort as you let him press his mouth to yours, enjoying the touch as much as he does. When he places a gentle finger on the back of your neck, the other hand on your waist, you gasp and his tongue winds against yours with undulating pressure while the beating in your heart gets louder.

Ten doesn’t speak to you for almost a week after the kiss. You don’t know how to approach him, where to approach him, and it devours you completely from the inside. When you do catch a glimpse of him, he escapes before you can come up with anything to say. The lack of his presence is unsettling as you try desperately to make amends to a tear that’s invisible you.

You surprise Ten when you clutch onto the sleeves of his sweatshirt. His eyes widen at the contact and when he tries to tug himself away from you, you pull him closer.

“Ten. Speak.”

A garbled sort of noise comes from Ten’s throat when he tries to speak and he turns the other way, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

“Ten,” you urge.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m so scared.”

You pull him closer to wrap your arms around his torso, your warm breath tickling his cheek as you look at him. He looks conflicted, as though he should be doing something he isn’t but you don’t pressure him further.

“It’s my fault,” he whispers, “that’s the only way.”

“What?”

Ten pushes you away to hold you by the shoulders, and although his motion is gentle, you feel the absence of touch painful.

“What if I’m killing you?” he says, “What if you’re dying because of me and that’s why all this is happening?”

You shake your head, “No. That can’t be.”

“It is!”

“Ten, listen to me. It doesn’t matter. If this is happening without reason, it’s meant to happen.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ten says with a cynical twist of his lips.

“Ten, please.”

“You think you’re the only one in pain?”

You keep quiet at that. You could never comprehend what Ten went through, what Ten is going through. You can’t comfort him because you don’t know.

Ten lightly places his fingers on your cheek and rubs his thumb in circles.

“I want to kiss you,” he says, “I want to kiss you again and again and again—”

Ten’s breath hitches in his throat as he tries to control the heaving in his chest. He can’t actually breathe, he’s not alive and burning like you—it’s just hard to break out of habit. Ten meets eyes with you, finding the same comforting candlelit flames and he cups your face once more.

You lean in this time; his lips are warmer than before and you press your mouth against his harder, knotting your fingers in his hair undoubtedly messing it up. He groans softly, the sound low in his throat, but it’s not pleasure you seek from him, it’s the comfort. The comfort when he wraps his arms around you, when he kisses you slowly and delicately, when he pulls back to hear you breathe—even if it’s not going to be everlasting, you’re okay with it. You’re okay with going on midnight strolls and trips into the city with Ten, you’re okay with the friendly bickering and him teasing you till your ears are hot and red, you’re really okay if Ten is there.

“I wish it was like this forever,” Ten whispers against the crook of your neck as you run your fingers through his hair.

He’s told you a hundred times, maybe more, that the dead don’t work like the living. The living gain strength from happy things, like hopes and dreams; but the dead, they survive on darker things. That the dead could always potentially harm the living. But how could he say that when he himself exists as a stark contrast to that? When Ten is the one brimming with feelings of hopefulness and joy, and when you’re the one who seems to be holding to him for that spark.

But like you told him, it doesn’t matter. And it’ll be that way till fate decides otherwise.

[carryonsimoncarryonbaz]

New fic!! The original idea was for a steamy one-shot gift fic for the wonderful @krisrix but the plot ran away with me and it’s now a full-blown multi-chapter fic. Updates will hopefully be on a regular basis. 

Hope you like it @krisrix! I”ve been meaning to write you something ever since you created that amazing art for Can’t Find My Way Home! 

Behind Closed Doors

Baz

I can’t get out of David Mage’s office fast enough. I thought weekly one-on-one meetings with him were torture but now he’s moved them up to twice a week, as we reach the end of year, and it’s simply excruciating.

I hate him. I hate this job. I’ve come to despise working at Watford, which breaks my heart. But I won’t leave. I’m going to stay the course and I’ll be damned if I don’t outlast Mage here.

My mother started this company. This is her legacy and I won’t let that pompous bastard ruin it.

He’s doing his best to do just that. The numbers bear that out. Month after month I’ve been trying to communicate to him what a disaster his policies are. How they’re actually weakening the company. He just spouts some drivel about “fresh starts ”and “thinking outside the box” and then the phrase I absolutely abhor: “take it to the next level.”

I damn near leveled him when he said that today.

Father still sits on the Board of Directors but it hasn’t been much help. Somehow the rest of the Board has morphed into collection of lackeys for Mage; sycophants, supporters, cronies. It’s sickening. I think the only reason Father still has a seat is because he started Watford with Mother. They can’t vote him out.

At least I don’t think they can.

I’m storming down the corridor to get to the blessed isolation of my office when a voice calls out behind me.

“Baz!”

I can’t deal with Snow right now. I really can’t. I quicken my pace but the wanker just speeds up to catch me. Literally. He actually tugs at my sleeve.

I stop and level a glare at him. “What do you want, Snow? Some of us have work to do to keep this company afloat.”

Simon Snow is Mage’s personal assistant. His right hand man. His closest confidant and staunchest supporter. His jack of all trades.

I wish I could hate him as much as I hate Mage. I’ve tried.

I’m stupid enough to have fallen in love with him instead. It’s a cross I have to bear, but at this moment being in his presence after that disastrous meeting is almost more than I can handle.

“You haven’t sent in an RSVP for the Christmas party yet. I need to send the final number to the caterer today. I’ve sent you three emails about it, Baz.”

I arch my brow and give Snow my iciest sneer. “As if I have time to read frivolous emails about social gatherings. It’s end of year, Snow. The busiest time for the financial department, which you should know. Happens this time every year.”

“Christmas comes this time each year,” Snow mumbles.

Did he really just quote the Beach Boys most idiotic lyric at me? It shouldn’t surprise me that Snow likes that utterly insipid Christmas song. It’s absolutely endearing that he does.

I harden my heart against his charm.

“Yes, Snow. I’m quite aware. End of year financial accounting also comes this time each year and that’s rightfully occupying far more of my attention than the utterly useless Christmas party you’re harping about.”

He looks hurt. I internally curse myself. It’s not Snow’s fault I’m in this mood. It’s not Snow’s fault that he’s in charge of the dreaded Watford annual Christmas party. It’s not Snow’s fault I’m in love with him.

Actually, that last one is entirely Snow’s fault. He can’t walk around this place with that riot of disheveled bronze curls, the constellations of moles and freckles on his tawny skin, that bloody dimple on his left cheek when he smiles, his distressingly charming personality, completely unwarranted kindness, and expect me not to fall recklessly, hopelessly in love with him.

I’m so weak for this boy.

I soften my voice. “Listen, Snow. I know you’re putting all your energy into the party right now. I’m putting all mine to the financials.” I take a breath. I can do this. “I’m sorry I haven’t responded to your emails.”

Simon perks right back up at my apology. “That’s alright, Baz. I know how stressful end of year is for you. That’s why I emailed, so you could get back to me when you had a free moment.” He glances back towards Mage’s office. “I should have known better than to run you down after a meeting with Mr. Mage.”

Two years working here and he still calls him Mr. Mage. It’s ludicrous. And that bastard never corrects him. It’s some hierarchy, respect bullshit. It’s not like Snow doesn’t know Mage well enough to call him David.

He’s Mage’s pet project. Scholarship student out of the care home system and under Mage’s tutelage for years at that small university Mage worked at before he inflicted himself upon us here at Watford.

Corporations don’t function like universities though and Mage’s management here is a testament to that. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d come to Watford to purposely run us into the ground.

Perhaps he has. I wouldn’t put it past him.

Snow is still looking at me, likely waiting for a response. Instead I let my mind wander, like I usually do when I am confronted with him.

I have to, for self-preservation. Being near Snow is like being caught in a tractor beam, like he’s the sun and I’m crashing into him. It’s why I try to avoid him at all costs. He’s too distracting.

I’m doing it again.

“So, shall I put you down as a yes, then, Baz?”

“Yes, fine, whatever.” I’m pathetic. I hate the party. I only go because I know how much work Snow puts into it and because he looks so damn good in a suit.

“And shall I put a plus-one?”

“What?”

“Are you bringing a date?”

Bollocks. This is why I should have answered his email. To avoid awkward questions like this. To avoid inadvertently saying something monumentally stupid like “you can be my plus-one, Simon.”

“Ah, no, no, just me.”

“Right, then.” Snow beams at me. “I’ll mark you down for one. We’ve still got a spot open at our table. I’ll put you with us.”  His smile grows even wider. “Saturday at seven. At the Club. I’ll see you there, Baz.”

He nods and then scurries back down the hallway towards Mage’s office.

Fuck. How am I going to get through an entire evening at the same table as Snow?

Simon

I really should know better than to interrupt Baz when he’s in a snit and storming down the hallway from Mage’s office.

If it weren’t for the fact that he’s always in a snit after a meeting with Mage.

I know they don’t get on. It’s too bad really. Watford’s a family thing for Baz. But it still must be hard to see someone else in his mother’s place. In her office. Running her company.

I’m not sure I agree with all of Mage’s policies either. I know he was the dean at the school but I uni isn't like the corporate world.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t work here, with him. I mean, I know it’s a good job, with solid prospects, a good salary, stable environment. But I’m not using my degree here, am I?

I double majored in Sociology and Human Resources. I’m actually overqualified to be a personal assistant, but here I am planning Christmas parties and managing Mage’s schedule.

I owe him. For a lot of things. Getting me out of the care home system. Supporting me for that scholarship to the private secondary school that paved my way to getting into uni. Being my mentor at uni. Hiring me when he got this job.

It’s quite a lot. I can’t just walk away from this. I like Watford. I like what they do here. I like the values this company has. Or had, I suppose. Things are changing quite a bit under Mage.

He’s the one who would write a reference for me, if I left. Which is why I don’t dare leave. I’m not sure he wouldn’t consider it a betrayal. He’s funny that way. Very focused on loyalty and allegiance. Everything seems to boil down to “us and them” with him. He and I are the “us” and it seems everyone else is the “them.”

Particularly Baz and his father. The other long-term Watford employees. Half the Board.

Well, less than half now. A fair number have ‘retired’ and been replaced with people who are friends with Mage.

I didn’t think that’s how Boards worked. Maybe I’m just naïve.

I can’t let myself think about all that. I just have to concentrate on doing my job and doing it well.

I’m glad I caught Baz, even if he was in a mood.

I think he’s always in a mood. Two years I’ve been here and Baz is still an enigma to me. I’ve asked Penny about him. She’s been here longer than I have. She just says he’s brilliant and a tosser and that I should let him be.

Easier said than done.

There’s something fascinating about Baz. It’s not just that he’s fit either.

He’s quite fit.

But he’s intriguing as a person, not just because of how he looks. He’s young to be the CFO of a corporation the size of Watford. I know he was top of his class at LSE. Brilliant financial mind, could have had any job he wanted but he wanted to work here. With his mother. So, he started in the financial department and worked his way up.

Penny told me he’d just been promoted to CFO when the accident happened. It was a bad multiple car pileup on the M5. Baz actually passed by it on his way home that night. I can’t imagine how that must have felt. Seeing that car, knowing it was his mother’s.

I don’t know how he came back to work here, after that.

But he did. Agatha says he’s much more withdrawn since then. He used to be a bit more social, would occasionally go out to lunch with people, sometimes even to the pub for drinks after work.

Not now.

Baz comes in early, goes home late. He’s rarely out of his office unless it’s to lead a department meeting or meet with Mage. I think he even eats in there.

I’ve tried to get to know him. Hasn’t gone too well. I mean we’ve talked, of course, but not much more than that. Not for lack of trying on my part though.

I plan the corporate activities—the Christmas party, the summer soiree at the Club, periodic department morale boosters and whatnot. Retirement parties, new employee meet and greets. All sorts of events.

Baz rarely goes to any of them. I mean, he comes to the Christmas party every year and the summer event, but it’s more like he makes an appearance. Shows up, has a drink, shakes some hands with Board members and then buggers off.

I don’t know why I’m so determined to be friends with him. Penny says I’m obsessed. I disagree.

I think it’s just that he seems lonely and that bothers me.

I know how that feels.

Baz

The only diversion at the Christmas party this year has been Snow. He spent the first hour rushing around, talking to the caterer, having a word with the DJ, sorting some table seating mishap. We were well into the dessert course before he finally sat down.

In the open seat next to me.

I’d planned to leave after dessert, make my cursory rounds with the Board members and then scuttle out of here before anyone noticed. It’s still my plan, but having Snow seated next to me is definitely putting a wrench in the works.

I go to such lengths to avoid proximity to him. But having him so near, being able to look at him up close—it’s mesmerizing.

I practically swoon when his knee inadvertently bumps mine under the table. He’s left-handed so we end up knocking our hands together as he eats his food. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Snow eat before. He does it with a gusto, determination and rapidity that’s breath-taking. I think he ate every remaining roll in the bread basket. And he took my butter. Not that I was planning on eating it but still. I don’t think he’s quite aware of plate assignments at formal table settings.

Or he just loves butter.

From the way he slathered it on his roll I’m going to assume it’s the latter.

He’s also hitting the wine fairly hard. We have a few bottles at our table but Bunce and Wellbelove have only had a glass each. I’ve sipped at mine. I don’t think Rhys drinks and Gareth has a whiskey by him.

Snow’s on his third glass by the time the DJ starts playing and the dance floor begins to fill.

I think he’s well on the way to being pissed. He hurried off to hand over a check to the caterer but it appears he took a detour to the bar. Snow’s back and he’s got a drink in each hand.  

“Here.” He hands me one.

I shake my head. “Sorry, Snow. One glass limit for me tonight. I’m driving.”

His face falls for a moment but then he shakes his head and beams at me. “More for me then, I suppose.”

“Simon.” Bunce is seated on his other side. “I don’t think you need two Mojitos.” She commandeers the one intended for me and passes it off to Wellbelove.

Wellbelove just shrugs and takes it.

“I think I’m entitled to as many Mojitos as I please.” Snow leans back in his chair and proceeds to down his entire drink.

“What’s brought this on?” Bunce asks, placing a hand on his shoulder. She darts a concerned look in my direction.

As if I would have any idea why Snow has decided to drown his sorrows in rum. It’s a tempting idea to follow suit except for the fact that I despise rum.

And I hate being drunk. Hate the loss of control, the giddiness, the way I find myself saying things that absolutely should not be said. That would be a disaster here, with Snow at my side.

Who knows what nonsense I would start spouting about the blue of his eyes or the light glinting in his bronze curls. I’d never live it down. I’d die of mortification on the spot.

I’ll stick to one glass of wine and then a lonely drive home to end my night curled up with a good book.

Of course, that’s not what happens.

What happens is that Snow continues to drink. Profusely.

Wellbelove offers to take him home when she leaves but he waves her away. Bunce tries to be more forceful with him but he’s having none of her bossiness tonight (Bunce is a force of nature) (I’m secretly relieved I don’t have to interact with her department often).

“I can’t leave, Penny. Not until everyone else packs it up. I’ve got to pay the DJ and make sure everyone’s got a ride home. It’s my job.” Snow’s explaining this to her, with his hands on her shoulders and an adorably earnest expression on his face.

“Yes, I know that, Simon. Perhaps that would have been a good reason not to make so many trips to the bar, now wouldn’t it?”

He laughs. It comes out as a bark, nothing like Snow’s usual laugh. I take a closer look at him. There’s a hint of desperation behind the forced cheerfulness. I hadn’t noticed it before. Something’s bothering Snow, enough to make him behave this way, so out of character for him.

“It’s alright, Penny. I’ll be fine. It’s not like I don’t know how to handle my liquor. Better than most.”

“That’s not the point, Simon.” Bunce groans. She looks at her watch again. “I need to go. I’ve got to get to the airport early tomorrow morning.” She tugs at his sleeve.

Bunce’s boyfriend lives in America. I don’t know how they manage this long-distance relationship of theirs but I do know there’s a lot of flying back and forth for holidays.

I step closer to them and then, even though I’ve just had the one drink, I find myself saying something absolutely rash. “I’ll drive him home, Bunce. You go on.”

They both turn to look at me, Bunce incredulous and Snow inordinately pleased. “There you go, Penny. Baz’ll get me home. You can count on Baz. That’s what he does all day, he counts things. Count on Baz. Baz’ll take care of me, Pen.”

Bunce rolls her eyes and then fixes me with a stern look. “Baz, so help me, you better get him home in one piece.”

I give her a bored look, hopefully masking the ridiculous way my heart is pounding at the thought that I’ll be watching over Snow and at the way he’s gazing at me right now.

Because he is. Gazing at me, I mean. Raptly, intently, fondly. I can’t quite wrap my head around his expression. I want him to look at me like that all the time.  

“Relax, Bunce. I’m quite sure I can handle getting one pleasantly drunk employee home.” I focus on Snow, who is literally beaming at me now. “As long as you remember where you live, Snow, we should be fine.”

“I’m pleasant now, am I?” Snow’s latched onto that unfortunate word choice of mine. I’m not even soused and I’ve already said too much. I am utterly pathetic.

Bunce shakes her head but leaves Snow in my tender care. She writes his address on a paper napkin and shoves it in my pocket before she goes, to his disapproval. “I know where I live, Pen. I’m not a complete idiot.”

She gives him an odd look, her gaze going back and forth between us thoughtfully. “I’m not so sure, Simon. I’m not so sure.” And then she leaves.

It takes a while to sort everything out. Snow has a check in his pocket for the DJ. He has a conversation with the Club manager about sending the bar bill to the office. He wanders around making sure there aren’t any purses or coats or belongings left behind, and then we finally make our departure.

He’s tipsy, that’s for certain, but I think Bunce was mistaken as to how drunk he is. Granted, he’s taken in a prodigious amount of liquor, but I think he’s got the right of it—he can handle the alcohol, better than I had assumed.  He’s uninhibited, that’s for certain, but he’s definitely not incoherent.

I input the address Bunce scribbled onto the napkin in my SatNav as Snow leans back in the passenger seat of my car, a sigh escaping him as he does.

“You alright, Snow?”

“Yeah.”

His eyes are closed. He looks tired. I haven’t put much thought into all he does, to make these parties go off without a hitch. He’s the one doing all the work, behind the scenes, but he certainly doesn’t get any credit for it.

I feel bad for snarling at him as much as I do.

“Are you sure?” Why am I still talking?

“Yeah, it’s just been a bit of rough night.”

“Why’s that? You pulled it off again. Lovely evening for all.”

He turns his head to the side and opens his eyes. “You really thought it was lovely?”

I don’t know what’s gotten into me tonight. My voice softens as I answer. “I do. You always do a wonderful job with these events, Snow. It’s a thankless job, I’m sure, but thank you for doing it.”

Snow’s smile is brilliant. I reluctantly turn my eyes back to the road. “Thanks, Baz. I wish everyone agreed with you.”

I frown. “I can’t think anyone would find much to criticize.” I give him a wry look. “Other than the DJ insisting on playing The Electric Slide.” I dare another sidelong glance at him. His grin is even wider now. “That needs to be on the no-play list.”

“Ah, come on, Baz. It got a lot of people on the dance floor.”

“Not me.”

“And what would get you on the dance floor? I didn’t see you out there at all tonight.”

My mouth is dry. I’m not prepared to have this type of conversation with Snow. It’s not intimate but it’s somehow far more personal than any we’ve had previously.

“I don’t dance.”

Snow snorts. Literally. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”

“And why not?”

I can’t help glancing at him again. He’s laser-focused on me as he answers, an intensity in his gaze that makes my skin tingle.  “You don’t move like someone who can’t dance.”

I swallow. This is definitely veering into intimate territory. I take a breath and answer him. “I didn’t say I couldn’t. I said I don’t. There’s a difference.”

“Ah. So what would it take for you to dance?”

“Nothing that comes to mind.”

“Hmm.”

We lapse into silence. We’re almost at Snow’s flat. I’m utterly failing at the witty banter. I’ve got Snow’s undivided attention and I can’t for the life of me come up with anything to say. It’s tragic, really.

I pull up in front of his building. There’s a spot conveniently open. I manoeuvre the car into the tight space and park. “Alright then, Snow?”

This smile of his is soft, not the heart-stopping brilliance of before. I think I love this one even more. It’s private, personal, like he’s saved it just for me. That’s a load of rubbish, I know, but I let myself believe it for a moment.

“Yes, thank you, Baz. Thanks for driving me home.” Snow’s made no move to unbuckle his seatbelt or get out of the car. He’s just contemplating me. Raptly.

It’s like staring into the sun. I can’t hold his gaze. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel, clear my throat and force my eyes away from him. “Alright, then.” Christ, now I’m repeating myself. Will the embarrassments of tonight never end?

He reaches out a hand and gently touches my forearm. It’s electric. I can feel the heat of it through the fabric of my suit. Then it’s gone and Snow is swiftly unbuckling his belt and making his way out of the car.  He leans into the open door. “See you Monday, Baz.” And then he’s gone, the door thudding closed behind him. He’s not the steadiest on his feet but he’ll do. He just needs to get in the building and up to his flat.

I stay parked anyway, to be certain he makes it in safely. It’s a good thing I do, because I can see the distress on his face a moment later. He’s patting down his pockets, face rapidly growing more alarmed as his search continues. He stares at the car, expression frantic now. I roll down the window. “What’s the problem?”

Simon rushes back, stumbling a bit as he does. “Baz. I can’t find my keys. I can’t find them anywhere.” He’s scrabbling in his pockets again—trousers, suit jacket, overcoat. His eyes meet mine. “Fuck. I must have dropped them at the Club.”

“Is there a spare set anywhere?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve been meaning to leave a set with Penny but I keep forgetting.”

Blast it. “Get in. We’ll head back to the Club. The cleaning crew should be there.”

The cleaning crew is not there. No one is. The Club is locked, dark and deserted. I’m a bit taken aback. You’d think they’d want the place cleaned up before the Sunday brunch crowd. I’m rethinking my whole attitude towards the place.

But that’s not helping with the Snow situation. “What am I going to do?” He’s got his hands in his hair, furiously pulling at his curls. “I can’t get into my building. I can’t call Penny—she’s got an early flight, I don’t dare wake her up.”

I make my decision. It’s a stupid, moronic, risky decision, but I’m tired and I’m besotted with this blasted boy and I can’t just leave him to his own devices, now can I? I told Bunce I’d take care of him and I damn well keep my promises. I can’t help the small sigh that escapes me. “You can come home with me, Snow. I’ve got a sofa you can use for the night. I’ll bring you round here in the morning so you can track down your keys.”

His hands drop to his sides and his red-rimmed eyes meet mine. “I’m sorry to be such a pain in the arse, Baz, really I am.” His brow furrows. “You can drop me off at a hotel or something. I’d hate to inconvenience you.”

I can’t help but frown back. “I am not having you spend the night in a hotel. I’ve got a perfectly serviceable sofa at my place. It’s not an inconvenience. It’s easier this way, truly. I can help you search for your keys tomorrow.”

His face softens to that fond look again and I’m wrecked. I can’t think when Snow looks at me like that. “Thanks, Baz. You’ve no idea how much I appreciate this. I feel like such a knobhead.”

I just nod at him. I don’t quite trust my voice at the moment. My heart is beating so rapidly that I swear he can hear it when he gets in the car.

It’s fine. Everything is fine. I’m fine. Snow’s fine.

Fuck. I most certainly am not fine. I’m going to have Simon Snow sleeping at my flat. It’s a fucking dream come true but not in the way I’d fantasized.

I’m simply helping him out. It’s just for one night. This means nothing.  

It means everything.

Christ, what am I even thinking? It can’t mean anything. Honestly, even if Snow were interested, which he’s certainly not, it’s against company policy. No fraternizing. No inter-office romances. Strictly off-limits, especially for one of the chief officers to potentially be involved with a subordinate.

It’s theoretically both an HR and Compliance violation, even if it’s not spelled out explicitly in the handbook.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve kept my distance from him. Not given in to the temptation to test the waters, see if he’s even remotely interested. Because it’s doomed from the start. I can’t date Snow. Not as long as he’s employed at Watford.

Snow’s still babbling rambling apologies to me. I let him. I’m too tired to argue and too overwhelmed to speak at the moment.

He falls silent by the time we pull into the parking garage at my building. He’s still a bit wobbly but not enough that I have to steady him, thank God. I don’t know what I’d do if I had him leaning into me right now.

I find out the answer to that question moments later as I fumble with my keys. My hands are shaking and it takes me a few tries to fit the key in the lock. Just enough time for Snow to slump against the wall and slide down to a seated position.

“No, Snow, what? Not here. We’re almost inside. Come on, now, get up.” He’s got his eyes closed.

“It’s spinning a bit, Baz.” The words are just a whisper.

“Bloody hell. You were fine just a minute ago. How much did you have to drink?”

He shakes his head and then stops with a moan, both hands going up to grip his temples. My eyes dart around the landing.  I need to get this idiot inside.

“I had a shot of whiskey when I went to get my coat, just before we left.”

“Snow, you are an absolute moron. What the hell has gotten into you tonight?”

“Mage.” It’s even quieter than before but I hear it.  It sears my heart. What did Mage do, to have Simon behave so out of character tonight?

It’s not something I’m going to delve into out here. Somehow, I’ve got to get him into my flat. I should be able to pry it out of him while I fetch him some water and paracetamol. He’ll definitely need both.

And pyjamas.

Blast it. I do not need the mental image of Snow wearing my pyjamas at this particular moment.

I shove the door open, drop my keys in my pocket and reach out a hand towards him. “Up, Snow.” He opens his eyes and stares at my hand. “Come on. Let’s get you inside. We can talk about whatever’s bothering you then, alright?” I’m using my gentlest voice, the coaxing one I used to use on my siblings when I’d try to get them to go to bed.

Snow reaches up and grips my hand and I haul him to his feet. He stumbles a bit and leans into me hard. I’m not expecting it and my arm involuntarily slides around his waist to steady him. We stagger into my flat, Snow a near dead weight in my arms. I manoeuvre him to the sofa where he’ll spend the night and he drops down heavily onto the cushions. The momentum drags me down as well.  

Snow slumps against the back of the sofa and I leap to my feet. “I’ll just be a moment.” I take my overcoat off and toss it on a chair before hurrying to the kitchen to fetch Snow some water. It takes me a few moments to hunt down the paracetamol. I rarely use it so I check the bottle to make sure it’s not expired. Thankfully, it’s not. I tuck the bottle in my pocket and head to my room for a pair of pyjamas.

I return to find Snow, head lolling back on the sofa, snoring gently. He’s ridiculous and entrancing and the line of his neck is utterly enthralling.  I can’t take my eyes off him.  I shake my head in irritation and raise my voice. “Snow. Wake up. You can’t sleep in your suit.”

His head bobs up and his eyes widen. It takes a moment for him to focus on me but when he does a smile lights up his face. “Baz.”

“Present and accounted, Snow. Now, sit up, that’s right. Time for some water or you’ll feel like absolute shite in the morning.” “Think I’m going to feel like that no matter what.”

“You’ll feel worse if you don’t do as I say. Now, come on, drink the water and then I need you to take some paracetamol for your head. It’s going to be pounding soon enough, I’m sure.”

Snow obediently takes the paracetamol and drinks most of the water. I scamper off to the kitchen to bring him another glass. He’s managed to stay awake this time. He blinks up at me. “Thanks, Bazy.”

That’s not going to do at all. I’m absolutely not going to tolerate nicknames from this intoxicated wanker.

“You do not get to call me that, Snow. Under no circumstances do I answer to nicknames.”

“Baz’s a nickname.” It comes out as a mumble.

I roll my eyes. “That’s my name, Snow. It’s not a nickname. It’s what everyone calls me.”

“Not your father. Not Mage. Call you Basilton, they do.”

“I am not going to engage in a debate about my name while you are inebriated. It’s one o’clock in the morning. Give it a rest.”

“Alright, Bazy.”

“Snow.” My voice has an edge to it. I don’t care how adorable he’s being at the moment. I simply cannot allow this.

“Hmm. How’s this then. I’ll stop the Bazy bit if you stop calling me Snow. M’ok?”

“What?”

“M’name’s Simon.”

“I’m aware.”

“Rather you call me that, than Snow.”

I sigh. “Fine, then. Simon. Are you happy now?”

He grins in response and then proceeds to slump further down. This won’t do at all. He’s still in his suit.

“Might need the loo.”

Of course, he needs to use the loo. I position myself in front of him and hoist him up. We lurch our way to the bathroom down the hall. I go in search of a spare pillow and blanket while Snow—er, Simon—uses the facilities. There’s some thumping and bumping, which is likely his attempt at getting out of his clothes and into the pyjamas I left with him. I can feel my face heat up. I’m going to leave him in his suit if he hasn’t managed to change out of it himself. There are some lines that simply can’t be crossed.

Simon’s somehow managed to get out of his suit and into my pyjamas and I can’t say that the sight of him in them doesn’t make my head spin. His clothing is scattered on the floor and over the side of the bathtub. I tut at him and gather it all up, hanging it in the hall closet once I get him situated on the sofa again.

“You need to drink more water, Simon.”

“I will if you sit with me a bit.”

I sit at the far end of the sofa, perched on the edge. Simon tilts his head in my direction, eyes heavy-lidded. “Thanks, Baz.”

“Drink your water.” He takes a few sips and then closes his eyes again. “What’s going on tonight, Simon? I’ve never seen you like this.”

He opens his eyes and regards me thoughtfully. “How would you know? You don’t really spend much time in my company do you, Baz?”

He’s right. I don’t. I observe him from a distance, taking note of every nuance of him, every facial expression, every burst of laughter. I’ve collected scraps of information about him from office gossip and the interactions we’ve had. I know him better than he thinks.

I’ve been to most of the corporate events since he started working here and I’ve never seen him behave in an inappropriate fashion. It’s not that he’s been behaving poorly tonight. It’s just so unlike him. “I know you take pride in what you do and you are usually impeccable in your behaviour. Tonight’s a bit of a departure from that, wouldn’t you say?”

He sighs.

“Simon. What’s going on?”

“I got into a bit of a scrap with Mage.”

“When?”

“At the party.”

I think back on the night. I don’t recall seeing Simon with Mage but I didn’t have eyes on him the whole time. He was running around quite a bit all evening.

“What about?”

“Quite a few things. The party mostly.” Simon exhales again and his expression becomes grave. “No one gave me any new parameters for the cost. I followed last year’s budget. Mage had approved it a few months ago.”

A chill goes through me. I’d just gone over the projected year-end numbers with Mage Friday. They weren’t good. He’s been vastly overspending with marketing and Board-focused events. Retreats. Strategic planning sessions. Consultants. Corporate mumbo-jumbo as far as I’m concerned. Colossally wasteful. It’s done nothing for our bottom line. Made it worse, if anything.

Our customers rely on our thoroughness and reliability. Mage has cut a swathe through the staff in the last two years, alienating long-term employees and hiring toadies who curry his favor. The loss of Possibelf six months ago and Minos a few weeks after decimated those departments. Mage hired Bunce’s brother, but Premal is new to the business and far too arrogant to ask for help. The managers under him have been floundering for months, despite my clandestine assistance.

Assistance Mage has sharply reprimanded me for more than once.  

He was incensed on Friday, with the numbers I had shown him. Accurate, up to date, precise numbers. He’d threatened another round of layoffs, which will only weaken us further. That’s why I was in such a foul mood when Simon caught me.

It seems Simon’s borne the brunt of Mage’s rage as well. “What did he say?” My tone is far gentler than it typically is with him.

“He was furious about the menu. The open bar. The holiday prizes we give out every year.”

That was my mother’s tradition. A series of gifts for random employees. She’d draw the names out of a top hat and the winners would march off with an iPad or a new watch. A television or a swanky SatNav. There were always one or two splashy items while the rest were more moderate. It was a unique way to boost employee morale and add a tinge of excitement to the party. Something a bit more personal than the yearly holiday bonus check.

Simon was still speaking. “Said we couldn’t afford it. Said I’d overstepped my bounds by not clearing it with him.” His face clouds over. “But I did clear it with him, Baz. I cleared it with him months ago, when I booked the Club. When I purchased the items. How was I to know the funds were more precarious now?”

There was no way for Simon to know. Not if Mage hadn’t told him. He is a direct report to Mage, no one else. It isn’t my place to peruse the budgets with the CEO’s assistant. Another example of how unfit this man is to run the company.  

Simon leans forward, his head buried in his hands. “Christ, I feel like such a fucking idiot. I never intended to make things worse.”

I’m not sure how I end up with my hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You did what you’re supposed to do. It’s his job to keep up with the finances. It’s his job to communicate if he needs plans to change.” My hand makes its way across his back and then he’s leaning against me, his head on my shoulder.

I can smell the clean, fresh scent of his hair. His curls are tickling my neck. He’s pressed up against me and I can’t pull away. I’m riveted to the spot.  

I find myself crooning soothing phrases into his hair. It isn’t Simon’s fault and it’s complete bollocks that Mage has made him feel responsible and guilty. No wonder he was hitting the drinks hard tonight.

If I know anything about Snow it’s that he’s frugal to a fault. He grew up in the care system, had nothing of his own. The scholarship may have rescued him from that environment but he’s never lost his sense of caution about expenses. It’s a well-known office fact. I don’t need to know him well to know this about him.

It’s obvious from where he lives. How he eats. I think he’s the only other employee who brings food from home almost exclusively. I do it because I’m anti-social and I don’t really like eating in front of others much. He does it to conserve his finances.

I keep murmuring comforting words to him. It’s basically a litany of “it’s alright, you did nothing wrong” repeated over and over at this point. I’m not quite sure what else to do. I really should get up and get him settled for the night.

But I don’t want to. I know it’s wrong to relish the sensation of him near me but it’s been far too long since I’ve had human contact like this. I know I’m supposed to be comforting him but this is consoling me as well.

I may never have another chance to hold him in my arms like this.

I don’t know how much time passes. I’ve stopped speaking now, I’m just holding him. He stirs and lifts his head. He’s so close. Our eyes lock and I’m lost in the blue of his gaze.

“Thank you, Baz.” It’s a whisper but the feel of his breath ghosting against my lips makes me shiver. His hand comes up to cup my face and his head tilts up.

And then he kisses me. Simon Snow is kissing me and it’s simultaneously the best thing and the worst thing in the world.

The best because it’s Simon Snow kissing me and I’ve desperately wanted this for so long. I’ve never been kissed quite like this. He’s doing this thing with his jaw and it’s overwhelming me. It’s soft, passionate, so devastatingly sensual that my lips part of their own volition and I lose myself in the taste of him.

It’s the worst because I can’t let him keep doing it. He’s not himself. He’s had too much to drink. He doesn’t mean this. He’s not thinking clearly. I pull away, every nerve in my body alight with the sense of him. I’m literally dragging my lips from his as the regret pools in my stomach, weighing me down.

“I’m sorry, Simon. That was uncalled for. I apologize.”

He blinks at me, face flushed. “What’re you apologizing for? I kissed you.”

“I know that. But you’re not yourself. I shouldn’t have let you do that.”

Simon frowns at me. “But I wanted to.”

I’m not prepared for this. I feel exposed, raw, vulnerable. It’s all I’ve wanted and the reality that I can’t let myself have this is devastating.

“You may think that now, Simon, but you likely won’t feel the same way tomorrow.” I shift away slightly and then stand up. I can’t help but reach out one more time, to rest my hand on his shoulder. I can feel the heat of his skin through the fabric. It’s an effort to step back but I have to do it.

I yank the pillow and blanket from the armchair nearby and make a show of fluffing the pillow and settling it in place for him. I give him a gentle push and he slides down until he’s curled up on his side. He looks so young, so trusting. My hand creeps forward of its own volition to sweep the curls off his forehead, my fingers lingering in his hair for a moment. I settle the blanket over him and decisively step away.

Simon’s eyes follow me as I move towards the hallway leading to my room. “Good night, Simon.”

I close my eyes for a brief second and then switch the light off. I see him shift a bit in the dimness,hear his whispered “goodnight, Baz”and then I turn away to find the lonely comfort of my room.

It takes me a long time to fall asleep.

Simon

Baz may think I’m going to forget this or regret it in the morning. He couldn’t be more wrong. The only thing I might regret is the hangover I’m sure to have tomorrow, but I don’t expect I’m going to feel much remorse about that.  

I doubt I’d have had the courage to kiss Baz just now, if I hadn’t had a few drinks in me.

I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve at all, if Mage hadn’t aggravated me to the point of throwing all caution to the wind and indulging in more liquor than I’ve had since uni. Can’t be helped.

It did serve to clarify things for me.

I like Baz. More than like him.

I can’t delude myself that the feelings I have for him are just casual interest or fascination. The truth is I’ve had a crush on Baz for quite some time now.

I’d resigned myself to it being a one-sided attraction but I’m not sure that’s true, if the way he responded to my kissing him is any indication.

I liked that too.

I pull the blanket up to my chin. It smells like Baz; cedar and bergamot.

I breathe the scent in and let my eyes drift closed.

[almostviki]

Loop

Pairings: None Genre: Is this angst? Idk if it is or not Warnings: Death mentions, non-graphic mentions of violence/gore (descriptions of injury), spooky ghost talk  Summary: Logan hasn’t seen another human being in three years. Then Virgil moves in next door, and Logan is forced to confront his loneliness head-on, whether he likes it or not.  Notes: I know Halloween isn’t for a few days but I go back to school next week so happy Halloween everyone! This AU is so elaborate and I’m so invested now lmao. This is like 7.4k, jsyk so like, super long

Read on Ao3 Here

10 Logan steps out of the elevator. He lives alone on this floor; nobody else has been willing to live up here since the “hauntings” began. The statistical probability of ghosts is so low that Logan refuses to let himself be caught up in the hysteria. The flickering lights and shaking walls don’t deter him. The building has faulty lighting after all, and a weak foundation besides, and this apartment is centrally located to everywhere he needs to go in the city. As far as he’s concerned it’s just a normal apartment building with normal rooms, and the whereabouts of its other tenants are unimportant to him.    He walks towards his apartment and notices another person. He stops short. He’s about average size, wearing an oversized hoodie and large headphones. Maybe a student trying to find cheap rent. This place is less expensive than the dorms the city university provides. The guy looks in his direction, but his eyes completely skip over Logan, which is fine. He doesn’t want to make conversation anyway. They disappear into their respective apartments with a creak and a click of the lock, and the hallway is empty once more.

9 Logan is in the elevator. There are two people in it with him, a bubbly guy with a cardigan and a pompous-looking man with too much styling gel in his hair. They don’t pay him any mind, which is fine with Logan. He’s always been bad at small talk. The doors open and Logan is back on his floor. The other two follow him down the hall.    "This place looks like a haunted house,“ says the one with the cardigan, and the other groans as if the statement is an old and tired gag.    "You say that about every place we go,” he bemoans, and the one with the cardigan shrugs.

   "Actually, there is a persistent rumor that this area is inhabited by some sort of sentient supernatural phenomenon,“ Logan interjects. "That’s why the population of this floor is meager, to say the least.”    They both jump and turn to look at him as if realizing for the first time he’s there.    "I- how did-“    "I’m Logan. I live on this floor. Would I be correct in saying you are here to visit this hall’s only other inhabitant, my neighbor?”    "Virgil?“    "We have not yet been acquainted.”    "Oh, well, we moved in here a few days ago. With Virgil. I’m Patton and this is my friend Roman.“ Patton looks unsure how to carry on the conversation as if he hasn’t had to introduce himself to people in a long time. "We all moved in together. It’s strange we haven’t seen you yet.”    "I’m away at work most of the day. I’m also busy with classes.“    They lapse into silence. Logan reaches his own door and Roman and Patton stop in front of Virgil’s.    "I guess we’ll be seeing you around, Logan,” Roman said, sounding somehow harsh even though Logan was sure he hadn’t done anything to offend them. They’d barely had a conversation.    "I suppose,“ he said and turned the key in his apartment. Three neighbors? What a hassle. He far preferred being alone.    "You should stop by sometime,” Patton says. “It gets lonely around here.”    "I hadn’t noticed,“ Logan says, voice a bit tighter than he intended. The walls of the apartment building groan. Patton’s eyes widen and he looks around nervously. Roman opens his mouth to speak but Logan turns away and goes into his own apartment.    He isn’t lonely. He isn’t. He’s busy, that’s all.    The walls stop groaning.

8 Logan stands at the door to Virgil’s apartment. He promised Patton he’d come by today. They discovered a few weeks ago that they both have a love of classics and Patton had insisted he come over to see his collection. He takes the detour across the hall and knocks on the door of what he still thinks of as Virgil’s apartment, and Patton answers, big smile in place.    Their apartment is the same size as his, but their apartment feels homier, more lived in. Patton has a bookshelf on the far wall of the living room, and they spend hours going over the books in it. Patton pulls out Ulysses and starts flipping through it.    "You’ve read Ulysses? It’s the height of literary pretention.”    "Oh, trust me,“ Virgil says, appearing out of nowhere to flop down next to Patton. "We have a lot of free time.”    "Do you?“ Logan eyes them suspiciously. "Virgil, I thought you were a student at the university.”    Virgil blinks. “I was. I…dropped out. I wasn’t that great at it.”    There’s more to this story than Virgil is saying, but Logan isn’t one for prying. Instead, he fixes his gaze on Patton.    "And what do you do?“    "Me? Oh…a bit of this and that.”    "Hmm.“ He drops the subject.    Logan browses through the shelves, running over titles hoping to find one he hadn’t read before. His fingers stop on The Kraus Project and pull it out, turning it over in his hands.    "That’s mine, actually,” Virgil says when Logan shows him the cover. “Roman recommended it.”    "Roman did?“ Roman reads? he didn’t say and started flipping through the pages. "I read this a while ago. The narrative style is dense but not unreadable.”    "Really?“ Virgil perks up. "What did you think of it?”    "Well, I thought that-“ Logan’s brain stops. He stumbles over his own words, tries again. "I think his criticism of digital culture, particularly in-” Like a computer unable to find a file, his thoughts freeze, and rewind.    "Logan, are you okay?“ Patton’s eyebrows are knit in concern, and he tries to say he’s fine but his mouth freezes around the words. Did he ever finish The Kraus Project? Of course he did. It never takes him more than a week to finish a book even at his absolute busiest, and he’d bought it…when had he bought it? Randomly, he starts flipping pages, speeding through the essays until he reaches somewhere in the middle when the words stop looking familiar. But he had to have read past this part, right? He remembers reading it, remembers buying it on a Tuesday, he was coming home from work at the bookstore, he was holding his page with his right hand and shifted the book to his left to open the door of his apartment and when he got inside-    "Logan!” Virgil calls, sounding panicked. The walls of the apartment groan. The lights flicker. The book falls from Logan’s hand and he is dissolving, dissolving, dissolving-

7 Logan is sitting on Patton’s couch. It is Patton’s couch, Logan’s been informed, as he’s the one who insists they bring it everywhere. They move around a lot, but they’re hoping to stay here because they like this part of the city.    "It’s very central,“ Virgil said once. "Easy know where you are.”    "Exactly,“ Logan agreed.    Virgil is sitting next to him now, and they’re sharing earbuds as Virgil thumbs through his phone and Logan skims through documents on his computer, searching for a particular article he needs for a reference. It’s easiest to exist like this with Virgil, simply taking up the same space but not speaking. He’s spent a lot of time at their apartment lately-more than he’s spent at his own.    It could be hours or minutes that pass, but after a while, Virgil sits up and removes his earbud from his ear.    "Do you believe in ghosts, Logan?”    "No.“ The answer is easy. "It’s highly unlikely.”    "Why do you say that?“ Virgil’s voice is careful, although Logan can’t imagine why. The statistical probability of ghosts is so low there’s no point wasting the thought. The idea that the spirit of something could be tethered to a physical artifact, the implication that living things even have souls, is too metaphysical to fully be determined through any degrees of natural science. Logan tells Virgil this, and Virgil’s mouth presses into a line. At first, Logan thinks he’s going to argue, but he doesn’t. He just shrugs and puts his earbud back in.    "Okay. I was just wondering.”    Something in his voice is tearing at Logan’s very existence but he says nothing and turns back to his computer. The heat of the laptop is less tangible, the air much thinner.    "Do you believe in ghosts, Virgil?“    Virgil lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been building for a hundred years. "I wish I didn’t.”

6 Logan steps out of the elevator. He’s increasingly tired these days and he can’t figure out why. He doesn’t think he’s working more than usual, but sometimes the stress gets to him. The increasingly frequent power outages aren’t helping on that front.    Roman knocks on his door a while later, shuffling awkwardly. He doesn’t talk to Roman much; he gets the feeling Roman doesn’t like him. Every time they’re in the same room Roman’s jaw sets in distaste. Logan almost peers around him to see if Patton is behind Roman egging him on, but he manages to refrain.    "Yes?“ he asks, not opening the door wider to let him inside.    Roman holds out a book. The Kraus Project. "Virgil said you’d mentioned this book before, but that you never finished it. A pity, it seems like something someone of your…sort would enjoy.”    "My sort?“ Logan takes the book and flips through it. The book is familiar, tugging at something in the corner of his mind, but it isn’t pressing enough for him to mind it.    "You know…” Roman waves his hand dismissively. “English teacher types.”    Logan resists the urge to immediately tell Roman to leave. “I’ll have you know I teach European history, not English of any kind.”    "Don’t you work in a bookstore?“    "Yes, that is correct, although there is little correlation between my chosen profession and my part-time job.”    "I- okay.“ Roman takes a steadying breath as if to stop himself from continuing. He looks almost pained. "Do you like working there?”    "Yes. I do. I appreciate the effort of my coworkers and the compendium of knowledge that surrounds me. Why?“    "No reason. I was just…wondering.” Roman seems to bite back more words, and he turns to leave. “Finish that book, alright?”    "Alright,“ Logan says by way of goodbye and closes the door. He puts the book on his counter and ignores the shiver that climbs up his spine. He’ll try to start on it tonight. If only he could remember where he’d stopped.

5 Logan is sitting at his desk, typing an essay. It’s habit to have the television on in the background while he works if only so he can glance at it every once in a while to feign interest in current events. Even better, when the sun sets, the TV provides enough illumination so as to eliminate the need to turn on a lamp. Logan is only absently paying attention to it, but the morning discussions on news and politics shift to daily reports, one of them being the baseball game the previous day. Logan looks up at the TV just as they show a clip of the game’s winning home run. The crack of the bat hitting the baseball echoes in his ears like a gunshot. Logan’s vision goes white. He shoots out of his desk and turns the TV off, the image of the bat swinging wildly still looping before his eyes.    He hates baseball.    It takes him until he’d calmed down to realize that the power has gone out. Wearily, he walked back to his desk to grab his phone and uses the flashlight to rummage around for candles.    There’s a knock at his door. He keeps his flashlight on when he goes to open the door and finds Virgil standing there, covering Logan’s phone with his hand and hissing angrily at him.    ”-Trying to blind me?“ Virgil winces and blinks hard, trying to extinguish the lights in his eyes. Logan fumbles to turn the light off.    "Apologies, Virgil. Do you need something?”    Virgil sticks his hands in his pockets and angles around Logan to see into his apartment. “I was gonna check if you were okay, but based on your miniature Yankee Candle over there I’d say you’re fine.”    "I am. Are you three alright?“ Logan is surprised to find that he cares. It’s been so long since he’s had neighbors, so long since he’s had friends.    "Oh, yeah. We’re doing just great. I personally love the dark,” Virgil says and smiles. In the candlelight, Virgil’s face changes slightly, morphing and twisting just out of Logan’s focus. It feels a bit like water filling Logan’s lungs.    With a jolt, Logan realizes Virgil is still speaking.    "-and invite you to wait at our place until the power comes back on.“ Virgil rolls his eyes. "I told him you’ve lived here a long time and you’re used to it, but if you don’t want to upset him I’ll make up some excuse.”    Logan weighs his options. He could stay here in his own apartment and wait until the power comes on, which wouldn’t take more than an hour. Or he could go across to hall to Virgil’s apartment, which is somehow more lived-in than any room he’s ever been in, despite the fact they’ve only lived here for a few weeks. His laptop still had charge; he has essays to write, papers to grade. Yet Patton’s words twist in his chest, pulling him to the door across the hall: It gets lonely around here. But Logan isn’t lonely. He’s…he’s…    "No, it’s alright. I’ll come over. It’s more efficient for us to share light sources anyway. I’d rather not waste candles.“    Virgil’s eyebrow raises, and his lips quirk in a small smile. "Alright. Come on then. Patton was trying to bake something when I left and if I’m not there we won’t have an apartment by the time he’s done.”    Logan follows him, closing his apartment behind him. He starts to walk away without locking it, but a burst of fear shoots through him and he yanks the key from his pocket. Rationally, he knows no one would get in. No one ever comes to this floor except the four of them. He can’t be too careful, though. There are some risks he just isn’t willing to take.

4 Logan steps out of the elevator. He’s never been so tired. His whole body aches as if he’s been running nonstop for days.   His own thoughts have started to twist on themselves, unraveling at the seams. It occurs to him to go to Virgil’s apartment, but he doesn’t want to bother any of them. The hallways groan sickeningly as if the building itself is sliding on its foundation. The sound of small animals and bugs line the halls. A door opens down the hall and Virgil’s voice calls, “Logan?”    "Go away,“ he hisses, but he has to walk toward Virgil to get into his own apartment. Halfway there, he stumbles, and Virgil catches him, lifting up his head to examine his face.    "You’re not well,” he declares, and slings Logan’s arm over his shoulder. They end up in Virgil’s apartment and Logan doesn’t even have the energy to complain. He collapses on the couch and cradles his head in his hands.    Voices whisper just out of earshot, and Logan can barely pay enough attention to make out snippets of what they’re saying. Roman’s voice is insistent, growing increasingly upset, and Patton’s tone is more serious than Logan has ever heard it. He catches his name somewhere in the hush of whispers and his heart leaps into his throat. He hopes they’re not fighting over him. He’d rather suffer alone than cause fights.    "Hey,“ Virgil says, his voice nearby. Logan opens his eyes and glances up to see Virgil offering him a glass of water. "Drink this.”    Logan accepts the water gratefully and takes small sips. Virgil sits down near him on the couch, but not close enough to suffocate him.    "I told Patton and Roman to be quieter,“ Virgil tells him. "It didn’t seem like the noise was helping.”    "I’m sorry,“ Logan feels the need to say. "I didn’t mean to incite conflict.”    "You didn’t incite anything. This was a long time coming.“    "Oh. If I may ask, what is the argument about?”    "Honesty,“ Virgil says, and that’s all he volunteers. Logan sips his water and doesn’t ask any more questions.    A few minutes later, Roman storms down the hallway and out the door of the apartment. Patton follows behind him, looking similarly irate, but he manages to collect himself when he sees Logan wan and exhausted on the couch.    "Hey, Logan. Virgil told us you were feeling a bit under the weather.”    "I’m feeling better now,“ Logan assures him, and he is. Now that he isn’t standing on his feet he feels more centered, and his thoughts are quieting. "It’s probably best I return to my own apartment now.”    “No.” Virgil and Patton speak at the same time, their voices similarly insistent. They make eye contact, and Patton clears his throat nervously.    "At least spend the night here to make sure you’re alright. You still look pale, and I’d feel terrible if we sent you back to your apartment alone when you were sick.“    "I don’t want to impose.”    "It’s not imposing if we’re offering, sport!“    Logan looks between Patton, whose encouraging smile is a thousand times brighter than the apartment’s cheap lighting, and Virgil, who’s nervously chewing his lip next to him on the couch, and tells himself that he’s doing this for them, not himself.    "Alright,” he says. “I’ll stay.”    Patton claps his hands together excitedly. “Terrific! I’ll get the spare blankets out of the closet!” And in an instant, he’s gone. Virgil rises from the couch and slips his phone into his pocket.    "I’d better go after Roman.“    "Will you be alright going alone?” Logan asks.    Virgil raises an eyebrow in challenge. “It’s broad daylight.”    "I’m aware of the time,“ Logan snaps, then takes a breath, steadies himself. "It’s just…things happen.”    Virgil’s expression softens a bit. “Trust me. Nothing’s gonna happen to me.”    Logan, for some reason, believes him.

3 Logan steps out of the elevator and wants to collapse on the floor of the hallway. He’s gotten worse over the past few days, much worse, but he hasn’t let the others notice. He doesn’t answer when they knock, he doesn’t stop at their apartment after work. Thinking of them seems to make the pain in his chest grow, and so he cuts them out. He’s eliminating variables, is all. He was alone once. He could do it again.    He drags himself to his apartment and fumbles with the key. It falls to the ground and Logan almost wants to give up and fall on his knees in the hallway. But he can’t do that. He can’t let his weakness overcome him like this. He summons the strength to pick up his key and make his way into his apartment, dumping his bag and books by the door as he stumbles in.    Logan doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he comes back to himself he’s standing in his bedroom, and walls careening sickeningly around him. He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes and makes his way toward the kitchen, passing by the open bathroom door as he goes, then pauses, backpedals, finds his face in the mirror.    He’s pale. And not an ordinary pale. A sickly, unnatural pale, as if all the blood’s been sucked from his body. It reminds him of a skull, and that thought is so disturbing he actually stumbles back, averting his eyes from his own image. The sound of a baseball bat echoes in his head again, the hard crack! of a metal bat hitting not a ball but something more solid, something that hurts. Logan’s headache intensifies. His body feels less and less like his own.    Do you believe in ghosts? Virgil had asked him, and of course he said no because he didn’t. There was no evidence of ghosts, no proof, even considering it was asinine…    Bile rises in the back of Logan’s throat and he swallows it back down, continuing his trek to the kitchen. His eyes land on the book Roman handed him weeks again, The Kraus Project. Funny, he’d totally forgotten about it. Maybe that’s why he’d never finished it: the book is completely forgettable. He picks it up and thumbs through it, ignoring the shaking of his fingers, trying to find a starting point. A piece of paper slides out from one of the pages and lands on the ground. Maybe an old receipt, or a bookmark, Logan figures, and bends down to pick it up.    When he sees the words, his brain freezes, rewinds. It doesn’t make sense. On the paper, printed in full color, is a picture of him. Below it, in bold, is his name, and below that, a headline: ‘Third Victim in a String of Violent Break-Ins Found Dead Thursday’. Logan goes cold.    The article rattles off details in an orderly fashion, from the time the body was found to the suspected nature of the wounds. “Blunt force trauma to the head,” the article reads. “Found in the entryway of his apartment after he missed a day of classes”. Logan reads the article over and over, scans the picture, looks for anything that can prove this fake, make it seem like someone has tried to play a cruel trick on him. But he can’t find it. He sees the words but the information is cycled out of his head. He has to be misreading it. This has to be a mistake. The person in the photograph isn’t him, the article can’t be about him, none of it can be real because Logan is standing here reading this, he isn’t dead.

2 Logan barges into Virgil’s apartment without knocking. The piece of paper is clenched in his hands, which are shaking so hard he can hardly maintain his grip. No one seems surprised to see him. Virgil is staring at his knees, his face blank. Patton’s face is wracked with guilt as he looks at Logan standing there, breathless. Roman stands to the side, arms crossed, impatient. Logan turns to him now, and with more anger than he can remember feeling in his entire life, spits his accusation.    "Do you think this is a joke?“ Roman doesn’t react, which only makes Logan angrier. "Do you think this is funny?”    The apartment is dead silent. It’s stifling, oppressive. How had he ever lived so long in this quiet?    "I didn’t want to tell you,“ Virgil says, not meeting his eyes. "But Roman insisted wasn’t fair to you.”    "What’s not fair to me?“ Again, there is silence. Logan wants to rip his own hair out. "What are you all hiding from me?”    "Logan,“ Patton starts, voice soft and calm and all wrong. "You’ve been living here a long time, haven’t you?”    "I can hardly see how that’s relevant.“ His words are sharp and poisonous but Patton doesn’t bat an eye.    "How long have you been in this building?”    Logan bristles at the fact that he’s being ignored, but he’s far too tense for riddles and games. “Three years, maybe four. Why does it matter?”    "That newspaper is from about three years ago.“    "I’m aware. I can read.”    "Can you?“ Roman speaks up, and his voice is so emotionally heavy that Logan isn’t sure where to begin picking it apart. "What’s the date on that paper?”    Logan answers through gritted teeth. “November 20, 2014.”    "And what’s today’s date?“    "November 19, 20-” Logan stops, catches himself before he finishes the year. He does the math in his head. He’s lived in this building for three years, so it isn’t 2014 anymore. It can’t be. But that’s today’s date. That’s the date he’s been writing at the top of his papers for weeks, months.    Years.    "Sometimes, um, when a person goes through trauma, they can forget parts of their life.“ Patton is still talking far too slow. Virgil still isn’t looking at him, still picking at threads on his sweatshirt and Logan wishes he would please look up because Virgil is calm, objective. Virgil would stop Patton before he said anything too crazy, anything Logan couldn’t handle. But Virgil doesn’t look up.    "Yes, I’m familiar,” Logan says, even though it didn’t require a response. “Post-traumatic amnesia is particularly common with head wounds.” The phrase 'head wounds’ bounces around his head right next to the words 'blunt-force trauma’.    "And I’m sure it doesn’t escape your knowledge that death would be, generally, very traumatic.“    "I don’t know what you’re implying, but-”    "What’s the last thing you remember?“    Logan swallows and clenches his fists to stop them from shaking. "I don’t see why this information is relevant”    "Logan.“    "No! I don’t know what you’re trying to prove but I’m not the one being interrogated here!” Logan thrust the book in Roman’s direction, trying to turn his helplessness into anger before it completely overwhelmed him. “I know you’re the one who planted that false article and I’ll have you know that it’s as needless as it is sickening, and it’s beyond me what on Earth I did to you that made you feel the need to-”    "What did you do at work today?“    Logan’s brain short circuits. His mouth opens to say something, anything, but the words stick in his mouth and die before they reach his lips. Logan’s thoughts wind backward, unable to find answers to questions that should be simple. Still, Roman persists.    "You’re always grading papers, but for what assignment? Why don’t you ever finish grading those papers, Logan? How many people could possibly be in advanced European history?”    "Roman,“ Patton says quietly. "I think it’s best if you-”    "When was the last time you left this building, Logan? When was the last time you went further than the elevator?“ Roman’s face is red now, too, almost righteous in his stance as he stares Logan down, and Logan isn’t afraid of him but he shrinks from the onslaught of words. He squeezes his eyes shut but he can still see Roman’s eyes burning into him, his voice grating on his nerves like nails on a chalkboard. He’s willing himself to stay together, for his atoms to quiet and leave him whole because he needs to work through this, needs to prove to himself that his fears aren’t true, that this is all a mean-spirited trick because there’s no way that-    "Roman, stop,” Patton says, more forceful now. “This isn’t right.”    Roman turns to him, eyes still alight, and Patton winces slightly at the harshness of his gaze. “What isn’t right is leaving someone to suffer alone when I have the power to save them!”    "Not everyone needs saving, Roman. Sometimes it’s better to just leave things alone.“    "Oh, just like I should’ve left you alone when-”    "Both of you, stop.“ Virgil’s voice is quiet but it echoes through the apartment that seems both bigger and smaller than it did when Logan walked in. Objects flicker around them, like images on a television with bad reception. Logan stands frozen, hardly even daring to breathe. Virgil sighs and pushes his bangs out of his face, then looks over at Patton and Roman with disdain.    "This isn’t helping anything. You’re only going to freak him out more.”    Logan thinks about responding that he isn’t freaked out but Virgil fixes him with a hard stare and the words die in his mouth.    "Logan, you told me you don’t believe in ghosts?“    He knows he’s being walked into a trap but he swallows and nods.    "Would you believe me if I said I had proof?”    "It…it would have to be fairly convincing.“    Virgil gets off the couch and walks further into the apartment and returns with a box. He pulls off two more newspaper pages from under a stack, folded so precisely and delicately it appeared as though they hadn’t been touched in years, and sets them on the coffee table. Patton sucks in a breath and Logan opens his mouth to speak but Virgil, as if he could hear Roman’s mouth opening, shoots him a glare.    "You know there’s a right and a wrong way to do this,” Virgil says, admonishment clear in his tone. “Cruelty doesn’t suit you, Roman, nor you, Patton.”    Patton whimpers and steps back and Roman crosses his arms and turns away.    "Here,“ Virgil says.    Logan leans down to inspect the now unfolded pages, and again, it feels as though his brain is short-circuiting. Instead of his own face, it’s Virgil and Patton’s faces staring up at him from the wrinkled pages. Virgil’s name is printed in block letters under a picture of a smoking car wreck, the date on the picture over a decade past. Patton’s face is marred from the yellowed and cracked pages but Logan can still read the heavy sentiment of the obituary, how he was beloved by his family and classmates, how he’d returned glory to his soccer team, all of it written in the past tense, the date printed in the corner reads 1981 but the face in the picture looks the same as the one in front of him, as if he hasn’t aged, as if he is…    "Why would we keep fake articles of ourselves?” Virgil prompted, lacing his fingers in Logan’s shaking hands and squeezing hard. They were as cold as a corpse. “And you know these aren’t fakes.” Virgil’s face does that twisting thing again when it looks like him but also not at the same time. His skin seems paler, more sallow, the edges of his jacket are stained so so dark and getting darker by the second, the stain spreading as if from an unseen wound. The newspaper clipping in Logan’s hand feels heavy, so heavy, heavy enough to rip his arm from his socket. He’s holding a report of Virgil’s death, he’s holding his own obituary, but he could only be holding his own obituary if-    The statistical probability of ghosts is infinitesimally small. It’s useless to fear monsters that don’t exist, and ghosts don’t exist. Ghostsdon'texistghostsdon'texistghostsdon'texist-

2 Logan steps out of the elevator. Patton and Roman are in there with him. They are partially transparent, their faces blending into the steel doors. Logan looks down at his own hand. It’s also transparent, his skin sallow and pale. His fingers still tingle from Virgil’s handshake. It’s been a long time since he touched anyone.

2 Logan steps out of the elevator. The cobwebs in the corner of the halls are getting bigger. He opens the door to his apartment and dust billows out. The apartment is barren, dark, and dank. He wonders idly where all his stuff has gone, but it’s irrelevant. He has everything he needs.

2 Logan steps out of the elevator. He doesn’t have any work to do. He doesn’t have any time to waste. Time lost all meaning three years ago.

2 Logan steps out of the elevator. The elevator never went anywhere at all. It doesn’t come up this high anymore. Yet still, he returns to it, day after day, with the same blankness, the same meaningless drive.

2 Logan steps out of the elevator. It was a busy day at work. A customer came in demanding a book that wouldn’t be released until the following week, and the coffee shop was running behind, so all the office workers were testy. Logan had tried his best, but there was only so much he could so when no one wanted to listen to his suggestions. Exhausted, he walks towards his apartment, waving an absent hello to the man down the hall leaving for his night shift. He tries to be conscientious, even if the sentiment is empty. He may not be a good friend, but he’s an amicable neighbor. He sticks the key in the lock and finds that the door was already unlocked. Irrelevant, he told himself. I must’ve forgotten this morning. He opens the door.    Everything happens very fast, then.    There’s a man on the other side of the door, tall, hard-faced, remorseless. Logan enters and drops his books in shock. The man turns. Logan is frozen. He can’t reach for his phone. He can’t back out into the hallways.    "Hey kid,“ the man says, his voice like a car engine- rough and mechanical. "Maybe pretend you didn’t see a thing, huh?”    "I- what are you doing in my apartment?“ Logan says dumbly, thoughts whirring like a broken CD player.    And those are his last words. The man grabs him by the shirt and throws him into the wall. His head slams against the drywall and he slumps to the ground, stars popping in front of his eyes. The intruder lifts something long and metal-a baseball bat-high above his head. Before Logan can speak, think, dodge, it comes down. His head explodes in pain. He thinks he screams. His eyes never see the blood because they are already closed, he’s already falling sideways, Logan stands above his body, watching the blood color the walls, the floor, the pages of The Kraus Project, his ringing-phone…

1 He wakes in his apartment, in his bedroom, and he registers that this is the first time he’s truly woken up anywhere in the past three years. His head hurts, but compared to before, this subtle ache is nothing. Even before he opens his eyes he knows he is being watched. He sits up and sees Virgil sitting at his desk in the corner of the room, scrolling through some feed on his phone.    Virgil’s eyes flicker up at the movement, but his expression doesn’t change when he sees Logan is awake.    "How are you feeling?” Virgil asks as if he’s recovering from a cold and not the crushing memory of his own demise.    "I don’t know,“ Logan says, and he doesn’t. He honestly has no idea how he feels. He only knows he can’t think his way out of this one, not this time.    "You’re taking this surprisingly well. At least, apart from your whole freak out last night, but that was warranted.”    "What happened?“    "You destabilized.”    "I don’t-I don’t know what that means.“    Virgil sets his phone down on his knees and leans forward. "It takes a lot of energy to maintain a form like this, to affect objects in the real world. Up until now, your denial has kept you in a partially physical form, but when you realized the truth, you went into shock, and the reality you’d built around yourself dissolved. All the ghost activity, the lights, the noises? Every time something triggers, or almost triggers, the memory of your death, it conflicts with your conviction that you’re alive, and your energy can’t handle that.”    Logan wants so badly to say that that doesn’t make sense, but he doesn’t have the right to question the legitimacy of anything anymore. He feels smaller and weaker than he’s ever felt. Death is the only thing he can’t think his way out of.    "Are you also dead? All three of you?“    "Yeah. That’s why we were so surprised you could see us. I honestly thought you were alive for a while. You’re very corporeal.”    "I- I’m sorry, I don’t follow. How could I die and then not remember it? How can I have no memory of time passing but still talk to you three every day? I don’t-“ Frustration boils in him, but a wave of nausea pushes it back down.    "Easy,” Virgil says. “You’re not ready to manifest anything else right now. But to answer your question, you were caught in a loop.”    "A loop?“    Virgil tsk’s. "Roman is better at explaining this than I am,” he mumbles, then louder adds, “Okay. So if a ghost is a collection of a person’s energy, we can imagine that like a CD. It should play through with no interruptions. So, a ghost on loop is a scratched disk. It’ll reach one part right near the end where it’s scratched, and just keep repeating that part over and over as it tries to figure out how to process a scratched readout. Your death is the scratch. You went into shock and couldn’t process it, so you just repeated the previous day over and over, so you wouldn’t have to deal with it.” He stops suddenly and glances at Logan hesitantly. “Does that make sense?”    "Yes, actually, it does.“ Virgil sags with relief.    "Good. As for the talking to us part: ghosts can enter the loops of other ghosts, but only as much as they’re allowed. That’s why we never went into your apartment. Roman giving you the book, which was deleted from your memory, led to your rising instability which was probably his goal.”    "Is that why he never liked me?“ Logan asks, unsure of what he means by that. Virgil seems to understand because his face becomes impossibly even more serious. He chews his lip, as if debating how to start, or if he should start.    "Patton died in 1981 and looped for seven years. Roman was the one who pulled him out. It was…bad. Really bad. I don’t know the full story but..Patton didn’t take well to being dead. He almost corrupted completely when Roman pulled him out, and Roman blames that on the seven years Patton spent in his delusion. Roman still tries to pull everyone he can out of their loops, but Patton thought you were…happy enough. But when we realized it was you causing the power outages and the shaking in the walls, Roman was afraid you’d become corrupt, so we pulled you out by force.” Virgil is silent for a while before continuing quieter. “I’m sorry about that by the way. Feeling your soul leave your body isn’t great.”    Logan stares at the wall above Virgil’s head. A thousand emotions flutter through him at once and he doesn’t have the knowledge or energy to identify and deal with them all. He wants to lie back down and go to sleep, and never wake up, and be dead if he was going to be dead. Was that all this had been? Three altruistic ghosts making him their pet project? Would they move out once they decided he wasn’t going to go feral? Would he have to keep living in this apartment, in the apartment he’d died in, and keep being irrevocably and undeniably lonely? An ache in his chest starts up to match the one in his head, and he considers ignoring it, but he’s tired of being in pain.    "Was that all this was?“ he asks. "You pulled me out because of Roman’s hero complex?” As he says it, he braces himself for the answer, prepares to hold himself together until Virgil leaves. But Virgil’s eyes widen, and his eyebrows disappear into his hair.    "No! No, that’s not it at all. I would- we would- loop or not, we care about you. Even Patton would’ve given in eventually. Every day you appeared over again in the elevator…hurt. I wasn’t sure how much more of it I could take.“    It wasn’t much, but it was declaration he could believe.        "Alright,” Logan says, brushing his hair from his face.    "Alright?“ Virgil asks, voice an octave higher than normal.    "I don’t know what else to say. This is so far beyond me.” The crack! of the baseball bat plays again, like a video on repeat, and Logan finds he is milliseconds away from hysterics. “This is so far beyond me.”    "Well, look at the bright side,“ Virgil says, his voice even and low. "You’ve got as much time as you need to figure it out.”

0    Logan sat on Patton’s couch, surfing articles on his laptop while Patton and Virgil tried to bake something in the kitchen. The mechanics of both activities were lost on him, but he learned not to question how things work.    "I no longer even own this laptop. The intruder stole all my valuables,“ Logan insisted, staring at the laptop that miraculously had not vanished with the rest of his illusion. His apartment had reverted back to the dusty, dank, abandoned hole that it was, along with the rest of the hall, and the rest of the building, which, as it turned out, did have faulty wiring and a bad foundation and was scheduled for demolition within the next six months. What Logan couldn’t figure out is why his laptop wasn’t dying with his denial.    "I mean, it’s not your real laptop,” Roman pointed out. “It’s a psychic manifestation of your laptop.”    "Then how is it connected to the internet? How am I getting real news?“    "Psychic wifi?” Virgil suggested. Logan glared at him and he grinned.    "Don’t question it, Logan,“ Roman said exasperatedly. "I have no idea how you, a ghost, sitting on a ghost couch in a ghost room, is using a ghost laptop. I don’t want to know. I can’t have an existential crisis when I no longer exist, Logan.”    So Logan cut back on his questions, Roman worked on his temper, and Patton was very excited that things were finally settling into place.    "Roman hasn’t had to deal with a newbie since 2006,“ Patton said once, nearly vibrating with excitement. "I’d forgotten how entertaining it was. You should’ve seen him when we met Virgil.”    "Virgil was too nonchalant about being dead,“ Roman complained. "He didn’t care at all about the gravity of the situation.”    "What gravity?“ Virgil asked, muted old resentment burning in his eyes. "I’m already dead. What could possibly be more distressing than that?”    Not much, Logan was finding out. He didn’t appear daily in the elevator anymore, which raised quite a few more questions, all of which Virgil denied looking into.    "I know you’re like, a smart guy,“ Virgil told him. "But trust me. It’s better if you don’t think about it too much. Move forward.”    "Until when?“ Logan asked, not even bothering to hide his upset.    "Until there’s nowhere else to go.”    So they went, the four of them, slowly, carefully.    Logan never finished The Kraus Project. It wasn’t worth the read anyway. He was still overly-conscientious of locking doors, despite the fact that the building was condemned and they were ghosts who could neither die nor accumulate material possessions. The others never said anything about his locks and keys, and even though they could easily bypass them they all went through the effort of unlocking and re-locking every single one. He still couldn’t stand baseball, still couldn’t deal with the sound of metal slamming against a heavy object, but soon he wasn’t shaking apart, literally or metaphorically. Soon, dying seemed like the past, rather than the constantly-looming present.    Five months later, the building went down. Logan watched from the sidewalk as the wrecking ball laid the building to waste.    "Where to now?“ Virgil asked, pulling up a map of the US.    "How about Nevada? We’ve never been to Nevada,” Patton suggested    "You hate the heat,“ Roman reminded him, looking at the decimated apartment building with mild distaste.    "Well, what about New Mexico?”    Roman made a disapproving sound. “You’re getting even worse.”   Virgil, hiding his smile behind his notes, looked up at Logan. “What do you think? Where do you wanna go?”    Logan tried and failed to hide his shock. “Me?”    "Who else?“ Virgil said at the same time Patton said, "Of course! Did you think we’d leave you here? Don’t be ridiculous, Logan.”    Against his will, a warm swirl started forming in Logan’s chest. He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “I see. Well then, if you’re looking to escape the heat, I’d suggest going to Montana.”    "Montana?“ Roman looked as if his heart was about to burst.    "Small population sparsely spread out, plenty of older and unused buildings- it’s the perfect hiding spot.”    "Also a lot of ghost bears,“ Patton piped in.    "There’s no such thing as ghost bears, Patton.” Logan admonished.    Virgil choked on his gum. “Are you actually kidding me right now?”    "No, I’m with Encyclopedia Brown,“ Roman said, voice wavering in misery. "I think I have the authority to say I’ll believe it when I see it.”

[artificialqueens]

My loneliness is killing you (Vatya) /Part 9/ - Polly

Author’s Note: So here’s the next MILKY chapter that I had done for the longest time except one paragraph. But times are tough but good (Guess who works 30 hours a week and also has Uni on 2 days). Anyway, this isn’t anything special but I do love this fic so I hope you enjoy!! xx

(PS: I’m rereading ‘A story about love’ and it will come back out of its semi absence soonish (soon as in probably this year) and this is a promise)

TW: mention of human trafficking, mention of underaged prostitution

All Chapters on AO3 and AQ

Sneak into my DM’s (ok its my ask box) here and drop me a line

Summary: ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ trophy wife style. (LESBIAN AU)

(2.1k)

Before

It’s early morning morning and the sun makes the baby hairs around Katya’s face look golden and Violet calls her beautiful. She tells Katya that her parents are in jail, that most her family is in jail, that her parents were con artists and that Violet has stopped calling a long time ago when they breakfast half an hour later. Katya just nods but doesn’t look surprised. Sometimes Violet forgets that Katya didn’t grow up as a pretty spoiled princess either.

“I came to America because my uncle sold me to settle a debt,” she says instead. There’s a pause that stretches on for a long time. Katya starts to look uncomfortable. “Sold you?” Violet asks slowly.

“Yeah.” Violet pauses again and tries to figure out how to just brush over human trafficking but finds it kind of hard to drop it. “How? Why? What? When?” she blurts out instead. Katya laughs a little now. “He was in a gang or the mafia or something. I actually never found out. One day he comes to our house and tells my mom he’s going to America and that I should come because there’s a lot of opportunities there and you know…. my mom…,” she pauses for a moment “she loved me a lot so she said yes. She didn’t know. She couldn’t have known and she meant well. But there I was, 16 years old and in a plane for the first time and I thought that nothing can be this bad when the world can look this small. Then my uncle bought me to a crack house slash brothel slash all things illegal and said 'those people will take care of you Yekaterina. Be good.’” She deepens her voice when she says that and smiles, fucking smiles when talking about her uncle pimping her out. “And then I was there until I was 18 and it was pretty bad.” She doesn’t go into detail and Violet imagines horrible things and knows that it probably was ten times worse. “When I was 18 I was legal and they upgraded me and then I was a high class Russian whore. That’s how I met David.” She shrugs her shoulders and takes a bite of her blueberry muffin and her and Violet stare at each other for a moment, Violet with furrowed brows and Katya almost expectantly while chewing. “It wasn’t that bad,” she adds after a long moment, looking almost sorry. “Right,” Violet breathes out quickly when she realises that a long time has passed without her saying anything. It was bad but it’s too similar to the stories Violet has heard before, stories of her cousins, her friends from school and Violet knows that Katya knows it’s bad too but it’s easier to not acknowledge some things sometimes. And Violet understands how Katya can stay in her abusive relationship for years. This is better than before and sometimes better is as good as it gets.

Christian calls her some time later to tell her that he’s sending a driver for later in the day to get Violet because his parents are coming to town and Violet wants to cry because somehow his mother is even worse than Christian himself.

Katya draws lazy patterns on Violet’s arm and tells her she’s going to be okay. She looks sorry and so much younger when she kisses Violet goodbye later and tries to tell both of them that it will be alright.

- The winter passes in one cold, sad blur. Violet runs into Katya once two days before Christmas and they go for coffee and Katya complains about how for David it all seems to be about money and fancy parties and expensive gifts.

“Our Christmas would be different,” she says.

“Our as in your and my Christmas?”

Katya blinks at her for a moment. “Yeah, your and my Christmas. I think it would be nice.”

“I don’t like Christmas,” Violet says before taking a sip of the hot chocolate with cinnamon Katya had forced her to get while telling her ‘to ‘shut the fuck up about fat percentages and get in the holiday spirit, Violet.’

Katya grabs onto Violet’s underarm with both her hands and looks at Violet manically. “What?”

“I….,” Violet looks at Katya’s face intensely and is suddenly feeling like she’s saying the wrong thing. “…never liked Christmas?”

Katya lets go of Violet’s atm and throws her hands up in surrender with an accompanying groan and Violet thinks she’s being a bit dramatic. “But why? I mean I get that it’s grossly intertwined with capitalism over here but it’s about love and family and all that. Who would hate that?”

“I never said I hate it, I-“

“You didn’t say you love it either, you actually said you never-“

“Can you not interrupt me? I said I don’t like it. It’s not like I hate it.”

Katya is quiet for a moment. “But… why?”

Violet shrugs her shoulders. “My parents were criminals and apparently Christmas was the busiest time of the year. So I spend Christmas at my neighbor’s house. But Pearl’s mom was a drug addict so it wasn’t really that great either.”

“Pearl is a stupid name.”

“You’re only saying that because I told you I had sex with her once.”

“Maybe so.”

Violet only grins back and Katya shakes her head slowly but Violet can see the smile in the corner of her lips.

“Anyway,” Katya continues with an eye roll “if you and I would have Christmas together we’d do it all. Bake all the Christmas cookies, decorate the tree, decorate all the cookies, watch Christmas movies, eat all the Christmas cookies and-“

“What the fuck that’s so domestic. Are you alright,hon?” Violet grins and puts her hand up against Katya’s forehead and pretends to check for her temperature.

Katya bats her hand away with a small laugh. She takes Violet’s hand in between both of her own. “You’re awful,” she says and smiles.

They talk about everything and nothing and Christmas a lot and it’s nice, so nice but then David picks Katya up and his stares make Violets skin crawl.

-

She sees Katya twice after their coffee date. Both times at parties and they can’t really talk but Katya doesn’t look fully miserable and that has to do for now.

When spring comes to New York so does Violet’s cousin Kurtis. Christian suddenly has a business trip that lasts the entirety of Kurtis’ stay. Precisely. Christian tells her to just take Katya to brunch with Kurtis instead and Violet tries to not look too pleased.

Kurtis spends most of the brunch watching Violet and Katya. He kicks Violet under the table once and whispers something about non existing subtlety in her ear while Katya is ordering another coffee.

It’s a bit later, when all three of them are done eating and decided to go shopping that he takes Violet to the side while Katya is trying on shoes on the other side of the store.

“You love her,” he says matter of factly. Violet laughs nervously, glances at Katya and forces Kurtis to try on six pairs of shoes and buys them all. He tries to refuse but Violet insists and mumbles something about birthdays or christmases and it it feels like hush money that she knows won’t work on Kurtis because he would’ve never told anyone in the first place. He doesn’t let it go either though. They’re sitting on the sofa, legs entangled while watching Mean Girls, 15 years old Violet’s favourite, when he brings Katya up again. He puts a hand just above Violet’s knee and looks very serious suddenly. “I just want you to be happy, Vi.“ He looks at her for a moment before looking back to the TV. "Money can’t buy happiness.” Violet doesn’t answer but thinks about their talk long after he left and well into the next year.

She shakes the truthfulness of his words of. Money can’t buy happiness. But money can buy comfort and comfort is better than the crippling feeling of there never being enough to go around.

-

The sun in southern France is warm on Violet’s skin, so much warmer than she had ever expected for it only being May. She doesn’t know if it is always like this here, has never been to France, has never even been to Europe except for her three day honeymoon trip to Stockholm that Christian had mindfully connected with a business trip a few months back. But that had been last spring and Stockholm was nothing like the azur blue ocean and the view of Marseille in the background she was having now.

And Violet loves the ocean, loves how wide it is and is a bit pissed of that Katya doesn’t have the same view now. At least she was on board of the boat too, actually driving it; a fact that confused Violet beyond belief. To give up that kind of control to Katya didn’t struck her as very on par with David’s character. She watches as he takes another sip of champagne and looks on as his face goes sour for a split second and she knows that he will never get used to the taste of it, that he hasn’t been raised on champagne, oysters, monthly trips overseas and that he never feels like he belongs.

There is an army of rich, white people living in the upper class of New York and whose families have been there for the longest time. There is an army of people whose upbringings, motives, movements Violet might never understand. The cold sentences, stiff handshakes, fake smiles, deluded friendships, empty promises and judging stares made Violet’s skin crawl. Christian is one of them. Violet can tell that the guests that came with them onto the yacht were too. Violet knows how to pretend she is one of them. Katya tries hard to make sure that they don’t even get the idea that she is one of them. David isn’t one of them and never will be.

He is all new money; laughs at inappropriate times, reads all social clues wrong, wore the wrong shoes with his belt one too many times. He is almost as out of place as Violet and Katya. But David has the money, is in fact richer than some of the people he associates with. It doesn’t change anything. In such a small group it was evident that he could never possibly close the gap he doesn’t even know exists. This might be his boat but the conversation would never be his. Violet watches him intently and she doesn’t get him but is intrigued by this economical genius that much like Katya grew up on a farm and understands a bit why Katya had once thought that David would be her saviour, that they were a bit the same.

Violet would love to hear Katya’s thoughts on everything. She wants to know Katya’s thoughts on most things these days, could spend days talking to her, finds everything about her endlessly fascinating. She wishes Katya would be upstairs now, especially upon seeing how David grows angrier, uneasier every time Christian talks over him and Violet has no doubt that Katya would be the one to pay for that at the end of the day in one way or another. David catches her staring and his facial expression lightens. He throws her a smile that she fears is supposed to be flirtatious. Her stomach clenches. “I’m glad you came with us today, Violet,“ he speaks suddenly, slowly, while letting his eyes move over Violet’s almost nude body and she wishes to have something to cover the tiny bikini. She tears her gaze away from him, taking a sip of champagne while her hand is shaking lightly. Christian clears his throat glares at Violet in a fashion that she know means that somehow this is her fault. “Violet, you can leave us alone now. We have business to attend.“ It’s not a request, not even a question. It’s an order and normally Violet would feel anger boiling up but for once she is glad. She just wants away. Away from David’s stares, the predatory grins the other two men have on their faces when Violet rises from her sitting position, away from Christian’s clenched jaw and constructed cold expression. Violet holds tightly onto her own glass of champagne and quickly moves down the stairs to where she assumes Katya is.

[awkwardshanandagins]

Costco+Lupron=One Very Stabby Shanda

You read that right, STABBY. As in I'm on the brink of stabbing someone or something.  Anyone else ever feel this way? Oh..no?  Are you telling me it's not normal to feel like stabbing someone?  Well, shit, I've been feeling stabby so hard since about 5:00 p.m. yesterday, just in time for my husband to get home.  Lucky him!  I got my sixth and final Lupron injection yesterday and this one stays in my system for three months as opposed to the one month injections I've been getting.  I don't know if you're supposed to feel much of a difference between the two but dear Lord this one has been a doozy!  I have had to try way harder than one should ever have to try to not elbow someone in the face today.  That should just be easy, right?  We don't elbow people in the face, it's not socially acceptable, therefore we do not have to consciously make an effort not to do so, we just don't do it.  Not me.  Not today.  I've had to make a very conscious decision not to elbow several stupid faces.  They're lucky I have some self-control.

At this point, you may be thinking I am a very violent person. As much as I talk about it (and yes, sometimes daydream about it), I would NEVER actually do anything to hurt anyone.  I'm a big ol' pussy and I "care" too much about my fellow man or whatever.  But, if there was ever something strong enough to make me actually throat chop someone, it would be this damn Lupron.  This shit is not for the weak!  I know better than to go out in public the first couple days after my injection but I ignored my better judgement, something I do too often.

I decided to run by Costco on my way home from work.  Going to Costco while practically roid-raging on Lupron is a terrible idea.  Going to Costco in general is usually a terrible idea.  I have such a strong love-hate relationship with Costco.  It is literally my favorite store while also being the place I hate most in this world.  It's not so much the store I despise, but the people inside of it.  There seems to be a common theme with me lately, I just really can't stand people.  Anyways, after spending almost a full week laid up on the couch I figured running some errands would be good for me.  I have to do things while I feel most human and today was one of those days, or so I thought.  Hormonally, I don't think it was my wisest decision.

Parking was the first red flag.  This dickhead woman stole my spot and I about had a total meltdown.  A screaming, crying, ramming my car into the back of hers kind of meltdown.  I think she knew how annoyed I was, one because I stared her down real hard and two because she did not get out of the car until I exited mine and walked inside.  Another spot opened up two spots away and at this point a normal person would have let it go but Lupron said "NO! YOU WILL HATE THIS WOMAN FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY.  SHOW HER YOUR HATRED!" I glared through her window as I got out of my car.  I went as slow as possible so I could see how long she'd stay in there.  Part of me was hoping she'd get out but the other part of me, the more rational part of me, was like "why? what would you do if she did get out?"  I'd give her a good ol' fashion scream cry in the face, that's what I'd do!  I always seem to think if I stare at someone long and hard enough, they'll feel my rage burning into the side of their face and they'll know they did something stupid.  Man, I sure showed her!  In reality, she probably had no idea any of this was even happening.

While walking in, I somehow got behind the slowest couple that has ever existed.  They were barely moving but did an excellent job of taking up the entire entry way so there was no way for me to go around.  They continued their slow, sprawled out moseying the whole way in, pointing and stopping at every single item; again making it nearly impossible to pass them.  My hormone fueled rage did not let me give up however.  I got way too close for comfort, did a few NFL approved spin moves and somehow slipped by.  What I don't understand is how at the end of my shopping trip in hell, I ended up behind them again!  They had to have walked in and straight to the check-out lane.  There is no way, with their speed, that they could have made it anywhere else in the store and still ended up in front of me in the short amount of time it took me to sprint around the place.  Damn them.  Damn them real hard.  Slow walkers are literally the worst.

Next, I ended up right in front of a real fun older gentleman.  He turned out to be a super douchebag, but by the end of our interaction I made sure to really give him the look of hate and shame so he knew how annoyed I was.  To start, he about ran me over with his cart.  I was eating a sample as most of us do during our shopping trips to Costco.  Let's be real, it's pretty much a given that at least 75% of us are there during lunch time to indulge on these samples instead of eating a normal lunch.  Anyways, I do what I do best and accidentally dropped it down the front of me.  It had ranch on it and it spilled all over me and splatted on the floor.  Trying to be a decent human being, I bent over to pick it up and this mother-effer was so close behind me that he had to abruptly pull his cart backwards or he would have knocked me straight onto my face.  I let him go around, loudly said "jeeeeeeeeez," picked up my stuff and walked slowly behind him so he could get way ahead.  I was trying to spare his life.  About three aisles down, all of a sudden I can feel a cart right behind me but before I could turn around, someone threw a giant heavy box of something into it making a huge crash which about made me wet myself.  I turned around and it was the same toolbag who nearly booty bumped me onto my damn face.  At this point, I was beyond annoyed, almost to a place of murder, so I decided to follow very closely behind him so he could feel my wrath glaring a hole into the back of his head.  He walked comically fast, which I take as a compliment because I obviously scared him enough for him to practically run away.

I decided to skip the rest of the samples and leave before I lashed out and hurt someone, or most likely myself.  It was obvious I was in no state of mind to be around other human beings so I made a straight shot for the aisle I needed which luckily was right by the check-out.

You know what people drive me the most crazy?  The ones who act like they take precedence over everyone else on this earth.  Luckily, one of them was right in the main aisle trying samples with her child while her cart sat in the middle of the busiest aisle there is.  It was obvious it was in the way as people were lined up to get around it and were taking turns to pass her.  The polite thing would be to move your cart but no, she just stood there shoving her stupid face with quinoa not giving one shit that she was making it difficult for literally every other person there to get around her.  If anyone were to get a punch to the throat today, it would have been her.  I wanted to slap her quinoa out of her hand and high-kick her cart.  Move your shit, lady!

Whoever is in charge of deciding what items go on which shelves is either incredibly smart or terribly evil, or both I guess.  All I wanted was the protein powder I use for my morning shakes.  It is usually always by the vitamins but you know where they moved it?  On the fucking candy aisle!  Good God, why?  I AM A WEAK PERSON, COSTCO!  They know.  They know we are all weak and if they put the healthy crap by the delicious and unhealthy crap, we will buy both.  What a bunch of assholes.  Smart assholes though.

By the time I got up to the checkout lane, my arms were so full of stuff I did not go there for in the first place, that I was walking with an awkward limp, attempting to use one of my legs as a weird third arm to try to keep it all from falling.  I was hot and super sweaty at this point, which I'm sure made me look incredibly sane, and the rage had hit an all-time high.  What's worse than a menopausal woman?  A HOT menopausal woman!  A nice man came to my rescue as he clearly saw they had a liability on their hands with me.  I left as quickly as possible and tried not to look at anyone for fear if they gave me the wrong face, I might throw my box of items right at their head.

This was not even one of my worst trips to Costco.  I usually take Paul with me which honestly just makes it all worse.  He is not good in crowds and has a quick temper at times.  We are quite the pair right now!  One of us usually tries to remain level headed to keep the other one from completely losing their mind and rampaging through the store.  He absolutely loathes Costco so I tend to be the one remaining level headed.  Hard to imagine, I know.  The sample areas are breeding grounds for assholes.  It never fails, every time either he or I walk up to grab one, some jerkoff steps in front of us and grabs the last one.  I will wait patiently but Paul will boil over and have to walk away while cursing quietly.  Actually it's not quiet at all.  He does it so loud it usually draws attention.  I try to quickly corral him out of there while telling him to talk quieter which usually leads to us bickering until one of us walks ahead of the other one and remains five steps in front for the rest of the excursion.  It's obvious there is a marital spat taking place at this point.  Any time you see a woman walking five steps in front of a man, you can guarantee a fight just took place.  I really should just leave him at home.  It never turns out well.  Paul can't help but have an angry scowl on his face the entire time.  My family now calls Paul's angry face his "Costco face."

My next stop was PetSmart.  I should have just gone home but why stop there?  Maybe for the safety of myself and others?  Probably, but I live life dangerously.  There was this bird, or possibly baby pterodactyl, inside PetSmart that screeched non-stop the entire time I was there.  Normally, I would be able to block that out but my Lupron brain would not allow me to and instead made it sound like it was inside my skull.  I asked the cashier if the bird did this all the time and he said yes while looking like he had been seriously considering murder.  I would lose my mind working there with that bird.  That damn thing would "mysteriously" disappear one day.  Whoa, calm down, I wouldn't kill it, I'd obviously just let it go.  Right as I walked out of the parking lot, a car alarm continued the screeching's of that fucking bird.  Again, it usually wouldn't bother me but since it was happening inside my skull, I seriously considered running inside and screaming similar sounds until someone shut the stupid thing off.  Instead, I got in my car and drove my ass home.  I will hide out here until the effects of Satan's saliva wears off and I am a more normal, functioning person.

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am that this will be my last shot!  This stuff is no joke.  It honestly has been both a blessing and a curse.  I truly do think it's made me feel better in many aspects but it has also made me into a complete lunatic.  Seriously, if my marriage can withstand this, it can withstand anything!

To those who are considering this medication, please do not let my stories turn you away from it.  The side effects I've had really have not been anything compared to the constant pain and bleeding us girls/women with endometriosis suffer from.  I've heard people have both amazing and terrible experiences with it.  I really urge you to think for yourself on this one and not take others' experiences into account since each one of us reacts so differently to this drug.  If you do decide to take it, good luck and God speed!  I joke.  Seriously though, I am here to listen to you throughout your own Lupron journey if you just need someone to vent to.  It helps having someone to talk to who completely gets it.  If you decide to give Lupron a try, just a word of advice...DON'T GO TO COSTCO!

[ohlawsons]

the things that matter.

SUMMARY. Commander Natalie Shepard has a bit of a history with her flight lieutenant, but they've long since worked through any lingering awkwardness. Mostly. When she and Kaidan go on a double date with Joker and his girlfriend, it leaves them all thinking about the past, what-ifs, and all the things that are most important. Inspired by a double date prompt. NOTES. nat belongs to @reagans-ramblings! thank you for letting me write about your beautiful bi shepard i love her so much now with an ao3 link! LINKS. [ AO3 ] [ FFN ]

Thinking back, Joker wasn’t sure exactly whose idea it had been.

Setting up an elaborate double date between three of the galaxy’s busiest people and a woman whose job required her to be virtually impossible to track down was, strictly speaking, a terrible idea. Maybe Cal had suggested it, because she loved social shit like that. Or maybe he had, because social shit like that was a surefire way to convince Cal to take some shore leave on the Citadel. There was a pretty decent chance it had been Kaidan, for no other reason than Joker was more than willing to put some good-natured blame on the major. Hell, it might’ve even been EDI who’d brought it up, and in that case he was just glad he wasn’t on his way to meet her and Sam.

Although, awkward as EDI could be, a double date with her and the comm specialist could potentially be less awkward than a double date with Major Alenko and Commander Shepard — the now very pregnant Commander Shepard, who he’d once dated, and who his current girlfriend was definitely a little bit into.

Yeah, he’d rather take his chances with EDI and Sam.

But then his omni-tool chimed with a message from Kaidan saying they were running a few minutes late, and Joker typed up a reply that Cal was still MIA, and it was officially too late to back out. He fidgeted with his suit — again; it was only at the insistence of both Cal and Kaidan that he’d even agreed to wear it in the first place — and opened a vid call to Cal. “Any chance you’re still in another system? Running tragically late and we’ll have to miss dinner?”

She laughed. “Just landed, unfortunately. I’m on my way over.”

“Alright. See you then.” Not leaving the crew quarters just yet, Joker glanced reflexively over to where EDI’s display had once been. “EDI, let me know when Cal gets here.”

“Of course, Jeff. I can also alert the Commander with an updated estimation of your arrival, if you’d like.”

He groaned in response.

Fortunately for Joker, the Normandy was blissfully empty given that they were finally getting a rare bit of shore leave. Adams was still down in engineering, and he was pretty sure Tali and Traynor were both around somewhere, but with EDI’s help it had been easy enough to avoid them all evening. This whole ordeal — dressing up and looking presentable and going out to a fancy restaurant — was certainly not high on his list of ways he typically preferred to spend his time on the Citadel, and the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with comments from the rest of the crew.

But by the time he’d met Cal down in the CIC, he’d almost changed his mind about dressing up and going out; her short hair was combed back into its usual style, and she wore simple heels and a fitted suit with a black jacket and a crisp white shirt left partially unbuttoned, and she was quite possibly the best damned thing he’d seen since the start of the war. Or ever.

Joker pointed to her shirt. “You missed one,” he said, clearing his throat as he tried to find his voice.

“I prefer to think of it as giving you a head start, you know, for later, but I can always—” Cal moved to fasten another of the buttons, and he quickly retracted his statement.

“Actually, on second thought, it looks great.” He paused, not bothering to hide how his eyes roamed across her figure. “You look great,” he added, voice filled with sincerity, and emphasized the statement with a kiss, just a light brush of his lips against Cal’s.

“I look fucking fantastic,” she shot back, stealing a quick kiss of her own, “and you’re not so bad yourself. But I was promised dinner, and company that I haven’t spent the last four months with.”

He took her hand as she led him out through the main airlock and towards the skycar she’d brought. “Is it that bad?” Joker frowned; Alliance special ops weren’t easy during the best of times, but with the war, Cal’s N7 training had been pushed to the limits. He knew it had been draining her, but the level of exhaustion in her voice was still unexpected.

She gave little more than a shrug in answer, climbing into the skycar and not surrendering Joker’s hand even as she keyed in the location of the restaurant. “War sucks and everything’s classified.” Despite her words, Cal launched into a vague explanation of her most recent mission, detailing the soldiers she’d lost and the relative lack of success they’d had against the reapers. Joker chimed in where he could, adding sarcasm or supportive comments as needed., and Cal’s mood had nearly lifted by the time they reached the restaurant.

They were the first ones there, and a quick message to Kaidan confirmed that it wouldn’t be a long wait. The reservation was under Natalie’s name, and apparently being Commander Shepard meant no waiting in lines, because Joker and Cal were almost immediately led to a relatively secluded table near the back. The second couple joined them before they’d even ordered drinks, and Joker wasn’t sure whether he or Cal was being more obvious about their staring; he’d long since accepted that Kaidan would always manage to look unfairly handsome — and it didn’t hurt that his suit actually looked like it fit — but it had been a long time since he’d seen Nat out of uniform and she was practically glowing, with her hair pulled up into an elegant bun and the contrast of the deep green of her dress against her warm brown skin.

“Calliope Olson.” Cal stood, just a bit too quickly, and held out a hand first to Kaidan, then to Nat. “Joker talks about you all the time.”

Nat raised one perfectly arched eyebrow as she sat across from Cal. “Does he?”

It had been years since they were together — they were just kids on Arcturus, back then — but damn if it wasn’t suddenly very, very awkward. Repressing the sudden urge to get up and head straight for the bar, Joker shrugged. “What can I say? Cal’s a longtime fan of yours, and I aim to please.” Cal snorted at that, and Nat gave her a pointed, knowing stare; the urge to leave grew, and was accompanied by a rush of heat to his face.

“No, he’s right,” Cal admitted as she recovered from her laughter. “I’ve been following your career since Elysium. You caught my eye after Eden Prime,” she continued, turning towards Kaidan. “The only biotic originally on board, and with the woman who would become the first human Spectre? Of course I was interested.”

The two shared a sidelong glance; Kaidan looked a bit overwhelmed, but Nat seemed to be thoroughly unimpressed. She got recognized far too often for Cal to even phase her. Joker, who was fairly certain that his attempt to disappear into his chair was not working, was nearly prepared to intervene — as much as he loved how excitable Cal could be about everything from Nat to sniper rifles to wheat fields, this was not a good time — but was saved by a waiter bringing their drinks. The conversation lulled, and after a moment Kaidan set down his whiskey and cleared his throat. “So, Calliope, how’d the two of you meet?”

“He doesn’t shut up about you,” Nat interjected, sipping at her water, “but none of us ever really paid attention. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend, she’s just involved with top secret Alliance missions and she’s really hard to get a hold of’ isn’t exactly the most credible story.”

“Just Cal. And well, it was… actually…” She trailed off, giving Joker a look that clearly said help; it was never easy to bring up the two years Nat had been gone, especially for those who hadn’t actually discussed it with her before.

“It was while I was grounded,” he offered, knowing Nat would catch his meaning. “We were at a bar, she asked me to dance, I told her I didn’t feel like breaking a femur.” He shrugged. “Typical meet-cute. You know.”

If Kaidan was shaken by the mention of Nat’s death, he didn’t show it. “Somehow, I don’t have too hard of a time imagining that,” he said dryly, not quite rolling his eyes.

“What about you?” Cal asked, pausing to take a drink of whatever bright pink concoction she’d ordered. “How’d the two of you meet?”

Nat gave a flat, “My father,” at the same time that Kaidan said, “A tech issue.” They both laughed, and Nat explained, “My dad handpicked the original Normandy crew. He chose Kaidan specifically for his biotics, and Joker specifically to piss me off,” she added with a mock glare in his direction. “But actually met face to face? That… yeah, I guess that’s what it was. I had an issue with my omni-tool and Kaidan helped me work it out.”

“That’s so much better than ‘we saved the galaxy and they hooked up.’” Cal emphasized the words with air quotes, tossing a teasing grin in Joker’s direction.

“In my defense, I did try my best to stay out of their way.”

With dinner out of the way — which, if Kaidan were being honest, hadn’t gone as badly as he’d feared it might — the four of them began walking back towards Nat’s apartment. It wasn’t far, and the streets were quiet enough that there wasn’t a need to get a cab. They were in no particular hurry to get back, and Kaidan walked with an arm around Nat’s waist as they made their way through the Strip.

The bright spot of the evening, he thought, had been getting to spend so much time talking and reminiscing about their time on the SR-1, before things had gotten so damn complicated. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were.

He watched as Cal and Joker walked a ways in front of them, hand in hand, laughter occasionally ringing out into the night. Kaidan had known that Nat and Joker had been together, before, but their double date had piqued his curiosity — less about the two of them, and more about Natalie, and how she’d been when she was younger. He wondered if she’d laughed more, back on Arcturus, back before she’d fought her way to hell and back and returned triumphant. Before life had hardened her, before all the scars that he knew so well — the ones he’d once learned and re-learned, after Alchera, and the cybernetics from Cerberus that still sometimes flared up.

Kaidan wouldn’t ever give up the woman Nat had become, but sometimes he still wondered.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Nat observed with a tilt of her head, eyes searching his face.

“Just thinking,” he assured her.

“About?”

“You.” He leaned over to place a light kiss on her forehead, right above her eyebrow, where he knew the bright lights of the Strip hid the soft glow of her cybernetics.

Nat gave a quiet laugh. “You’ve already got me, Kaidan, you don’t have to butter me up.”

“Mm. Let me enjoy it.” He fell silent for a moment, attempting to collect his thoughts; in front of them, Cal stripped off her jacket and tossed it at Joker, following it up with a less-than-subtle innuendo and laughter at his half-hearted protests. She wobbled a bit as she slid out of her heels, tucking them under one arm and falling back into stride with Joker. “It’s just— Do you remember being that… carefree, I guess?”

“No.” Her answer was automatic and unhesitant, but after a few moments she amended, “More than now, maybe, but never entirely. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone without some sort of weight on my shoulders.”

Kaidan’s only response was a thoughtful hmm as he considered all the things that had weighed her down over the years — himself included. He was under no illusion that the state of the galaxy was in any way his fault, but things could’ve perhaps been different if he’d been the one to receive the vision from the beacon on Eden Prime, all those years ago, instead of Nat stepping in because she’d wanted to save him.

But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it would always be complicated, and what mattered was being at Nat’s side when those complications arose.

[addxm2012-blog]

MS2 project 1: Final Story Update

1. Reality: "Mr. Foster, your dream cabinet is ready." says the personal secretary of William Foster, Elfenheim BioTech & WelFare (EBW)'s CEO. Foster does not answer right away. He is absorbed by memories. He has been working sleeplessly for 41 years. The creation of "spine" and artificial dreams not only makes him the richest person on earth but also the busiest one. If there is one thing he regrets in his whole life, that will be not being able to say goodbye to his beloved one 30 years ago. Today is his 65th birthday and all he wants is a chance for redemption. "I want the dream to be customized exactly as I ordered." Foster rumbles. "Yes, Mr. Foster. Your cabinet has been set up as 'Level 1: customized dream only' mode." the secretary replies. Foster sets his sights on an old photo on his desk. "Tell Doctor Muller that I want to cancel today's treatment. I'll be right with you." "Right away, sir." The secretary steps out of Foster's office, leaving old William alone with his dusted memories. "Jane..."

1. Dream: Foster found himself in his office. He feels significantly younger and more energetic. The office is decorated just like he remembers 30 years ago. He is still a little disoriented but he knows he is waiting for something. His secretary enters the room. Back in the days, the secretary was still the beautiful Felicia. "Mr. Foster, they are all here. We can start the meeting at any moment." Suddenly, he feels his phone vibrating fiercely. The number on the phone is blurred but something tells Foster: "this is it. This is the phone call I have missed 30 years ago. This is what I am waiting for." He picks up the phone and rushes out of his building immediately, leaving his secretary shocked and confused. A moment later, he is at the front gate of that one hospital, the one that took Jane's life. It is even darker and more horrifying than he remembers. He feels an indescribable horror swallows him, but Foster was never a man held by fear. He walks steadily into Room 2167, where Jane lays with a final breath. "Jane..." Foster moves slowly towards his wife. For a moment, he feels the world has stopped spinning. Her face is twisted due to illness, to the point that Foster can barely recognize her. She is too weak to talk. Foster finally got his chance for his redemption but somehow, he feels speechless in front at this moment. He holds her hand until death takes her away. Foster misses his change yet again. He can do nothing but drowns himself in dreadful remorse. "That must be tough for you" a voice raises up behind Foster "I wasn't able to say a damn thing when ma died". Foster turned around and sees a homeless with a red hat. He is extremely confused about this unexpected element's appearance. So he asks: "Who are you?"

2.Reality It's 11:15 p.m. at night, Thursday. David is just about to wrap up his work today. The streets are still bright and crowded. People drink, dance, have fun and go back to work. The city never sleeps, neither do people, thanks to EBW's "spine". David is a middle-aged man and a supply chain department manager in EBW. As a man of his age, he lives a fruitful life compared to others. However, David has his own troubles. He has been single for 20 years and he has a really bizarre sexual interest. He has been secretly fancying his supervisor, Miss Standley, for years but he is too scared to let her know. He could only keep his pervert thoughts in his mind and release them via pornography or masturbation. Things are different now. David wants to give the artificial dreaming a shot. He has heard that customized dreams are hyper sensorial and with high fidelity. This excites him whenever he thinks of "materializing" his "fantasies and ideas" in a private dream. Thus, he goes on to squeeze out some free time form his packed and overloaded work schedule for customizing a dream he has been craving for years. The original plan was to have a "level-one fully customized dream", but this option requires the dreamer to depict out the exact ingredients, like characters and their roles, in the dream before dreaming. David is afraid that people might peek into his little hobbies and judge him. So he decides to have a level-2 dream instead which only requires some loose descriptions of the desired dream. The brain will be responsible for 50% of the content creation during this level of dreams so it preserves some privacy. David heads to the dream service front desk bashfully. "What can I do for you, sir?" "I would like to have a dream, a Level 2 dream." "And what would you like to be in there, sir?" "...Chairs... ropes... candles and... Rachel Standley" "Right away, sir. Would please confirm the character's ID here?" "Yep, that's her. Make her submissive please." "Understood. Your cabinet is ready, sir. Follow me." "Understood?" David thought, "What did she mean by that?" He hesitated a little but eventually stepped into the cabinet and started his dream.

2. Dream: David finds himself in the office. This is not exactly what he expected but can be an exciting stage. This is Until he sees a colleague hanged himself on the ceiling with a rope. This dream is probably not what he wanted. He starts to realize that the office is in the dark and everyone is working nonstop with only candles to light up their desks. He also saw Miss Standley's block sits right next to his. He tries to say hi but is immediately stopped by a cold voice from behind. "I don't remember I hired you for doing nothing, David" David turns around and sees a much bigger version of William Foster staring at him with anger. David was shocked. Foster grabbed David up and rumbles: "If you cannot deliver what I expect from you, you are useless to me." He then throws David into a cage along with Miss Standley. "Rachel, get rid of this good-for-nothing." Miss Standley takes out a hammer from her jeans and replies submissively to Foster: "As you wish, master Foster." This scares the shit out of David. He saw a tramp with a red hat in the corner with him but he was too scared to ask for help. David feels humid. He definitely is sweating and possibly wets his pants as well. This dream is definitely not what he signed up for.

3. Reality Doctor Hanna Muller is an erudite Psychiatrist who has a pretty light workload every day. Her patients are usually rich and generous so she lives a decent material-life. When Hanna is not working, she dives into her research of dreams, a concept that makes Hanna ensorcelled. To Hanna, the contemporary understanding of dreams is merely a parody of the real deal. The real deal, to Hanna, means letting the brain to take over 100% of dream content creation by itself. Humans from the old times used to be able to dream by themselves. That was the time when humans still sleep. The modern technology makes the dreaming experience customizable and controllable for the dreamers but those service providers never dare to give their customers real dreams because that means having the dreamers enter third layer dreams. The signals coming from the cabinet at level 3 is so strong that it has a chance of frying both the "spine" and the dreamer's brain out. Nevertheless, Hanna desires authentic dreams and she is willing to take the risk for science. She is well connected. One of her patients is William Foster himself! She knows pretty much every influential people in EBW. The one that most likely to support her crazy wish is Doctor Walter Schmidt, the leading researcher of EBW's Hypnos Lab. Hence, she makes the call and Walter answers.

3. Dream I was born at the break of dawn when the Queen dreamed of receiving a kiss from the goddess of the dream. I was the first princess of this kingdom and because of my power of deciphering dreams, I was worshiped as the daughter of gods in this country. Every day, people from different realms come to ask about their dreams. When I was 12, I met a strange person. He wore a little red hat and looked like a tramp. He asked, "Dear princess, I am having a bizarre dream. It is too bizarre and is beyond my understanding.” I peeked his dream, and It was in a dark room with four tall men wearing clothes I have never seen before. "Any clues?" he asked. I answered, "They said you would be a hero." He thanked me and left a pile of gold. At the age of 18, the king of the neighboring country proposed to me. I rejected him because, through his dreams, I saw his brutal and fornicating nature. The king of the neighboring country was furious and launched the war. My father was a butchered and I became a captive. I was assigned to monitor all ministers' dreams and report to the king, but I had never told him the truth. I had lived a peaceful life for 20 years until my lies were exposed. The night before I was executed, I saw that little red hat again who was exactly the same as 20 years ago. He said, "I came to be a hero!" He stole the key to my prison and let me escape. I didn't have time to thank him and just ran out desperately. The whole kingdom had not yet woken up, and all kinds of dreams were drifting in front of my eyes: some of were wonderful, some were absurd, some were strange and some were terrible. But all is past now. It is time to forget the history and build a kingdom of my own.

4. Reality In a secluded room in Hypnos Lab, a ragged tramp sits across from four well-dressed people. He is holding his red hat, looking at the man- Walter Schmidt - who claimed to help him get rid of the pain. "Don't be nervous," Schmidt says, "These are excellent engineers of Hypnos Lab. They will help you." One of the three engineers shows signs of reluctance. He asks the tramp, "Are you sure you want to enter the fourth layer of dreams?" "Yes, I confirm." "Do you know what it means?" "I won't realize that I am dreaming, and I won't remember to wake up." "Walter, this won’t work!" the engineer argues, "Human experiment is too dangerous. No one has ever entered the fourth layer of dreams! We may kill him!" The tramp says, "Sir, thank you for your kindness. But that's probably better for me." The tramp points at the "spine" on his neck, "When the government put this on homeless people like me, I thought this shit was a gift, but the longer I lived, the more I feel it's a curse. I would rather die in my dreams if I could sleep, but I'm just a tramp stinks in poverty. It's hard to live like this. I've thought about normal ways to suicide but I'm afraid of pain." "Take it easy. " Schmidt says to his engineer, "There is always the first person to take the risk. He will be our hero when the fourth layer of dreams can be controlled and create huge commercial wealth for this world that never sleeps." Then, He hands a few pages to the tramp. "If you have no doubts, please sign here." The tramp put his red hat on and signs down his name: Freeman.

4. Dream "The irony is, we thought we are special, but as we exploring our origins we are more likely to be another logical combination of elements following the basic rules of the universe. That's been said, we still have our chance for redemption. The second evolution is coming, my son. We are on the edge of metamorphosis from mundanity to extraordinariness. We can be truly special!" "That sounds great but I'm not sure what is going on?" Freeman is confused. "The world is not the same as it was. You have to blow my brain out with your blaster, release my soul and get the fuck out there AND MURDER THOSE MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIES! YOU HEAR ME SON?! YOU HEAR ME?!" "but why me?" Freeman screams. The other slightly bigger Freeman points his finger towards Freeman's red hat: "You see that, my son? That is proof that you are the chosen one. You are born to lead us. You are born to be the king!" He then grabs Freeman up and holds him up in the air as the sun rises. As the earth is covered by golden sunlight, all the animals bow to their newborn prince: Freeman the red hat pineapple. "Do you feel that my son?" asks the slightly bigger Freeman. " Yes,  yes I do. Now I am ready for a little swim." Freeman then pulls out his blaster and blows the slightly bigger Freeman's brain out. He then went to the hospital for food. But nobody is willing to give him any. He finally stops at room 2167. The patient, a female named Jane, is about to die anyway. So he robbed the prepared food from her, leaving her moaning on the bed alone, and start to feast in the corner. Then a big dude comes. It appears to be Jane's husband but Freeman cannot care less. He thinks he finishes the meal and leaves the hospital right away. The king's journey has yet to begin. He will venture into many weird places like the dream kingdom and maybe the darkest office of all times. The red hat has no fear, for he has his beloved rotten burger with him all the time. "Am I right, burger?" "You surely are, Freeman. You surely are."

3. Walter Schmidt

4.  When he first became homeless, Freeman thought this "spine" that the government put on his neck for free is a generous gift because it freed him from the need for sleep. Without such a need, lives become slightly easier for homeless people like Freeman. After all, they don't need to go out and find shelters for nights of sleep anymore. This is what Freeman thought before. Now he is not sure whether it's a generous gift or a bloody curse. He finds a spot in the park where he can rest his feet. It is a bizarre feeling for him because he should feel tired and fatigue but he doesn't. The "spine" keeps him

[corporateinnovation-blog]

Never a Greater Oxymoron

Corporate innovation. It sounded appealing when I first got involved, and I want to say I’m still interested, but two and a half years of consulting have left me wanting a creative outlet. Most of my childhood and teenage years were centered on creativity in some form or another – I played musical instruments, I was a standout English student, and storytelling was one of my favorite parts of the videogames I spent (way too much) time playing. As I focused my studies and career on technology, “innovation” seemed like a natural fit. I learned about disruptive innovation and the startup world and was drawn to the idea of creative solutions to difficult problems – the stated modus operandi of the consultant, if you will.

It wasn’t shocking that I ended up at a consulting firm after undergrad. I began my journey in healthcare analytics and met some great people. Before too long, I had an opportunity to join an internal innovation group and immediately pursued it. Through that and my other experiences, I’ve come to understand that innovation at huge companies is difficult, if not impossible. I don’t mean to sound cynical as I share my stories of buzzwords, red tape, and incompetence, but it will probably come across that way. Neither you nor I owe anything to large enterprises, though – they certainly wouldn’t hesitate to slander us, after all. If I use names in these anecdotes, know that they are fake names and I don’t intend to reveal anyone’s identity or hurt any feelings through these blogs. 

But those are the only punches I intend to pull, so hopefully we get some good laughs out of all this. Without further ado, on to the good stuff.

--

Perhaps you’ve heard of something called robotic process automation. If you haven’t, allow me to enlighten you – they are computer programs with a fancy name. If you can write code, you can pretty much write a rudimentary robotic process automation. That description doesn’t do more sophisticated process automations justice, as there are companies and toolkits out there that can almost completely simulate a human on a computer, but make no mistake – they are computer programs. The idea is writing one of these scripts will allow you to automate repetitive processes that humans currently do, saving time, money, and frustration.

Here’s the catch – you’re only really going to save a ton of time if you automate something that a TON of people are currently doing on a regular basis, and you probably only see scenarios like that at large companies. Why is that a catch, you might ask? Because you quite simply will not be able to put together all the pieces to automate a process like this at a large company. There will prove to be too many hoops to jump through, too many security concerns, and too many people with wildly differing opinions to accomplish anything. So while the goal is to save time, money, and frustration, it ironically takes too much time, money, and frustration to make it happen. I’ll elaborate with an example.

Our internal finance teams use an application to view data on each of our most important clients. On a regular schedule, the teams download a spreadsheet containing this information from the application, and send it to higher-ups for review. Sounds simple, and should be easy to replace with a computer program, right? You could not be more wrong. 

First, we had to work with a development team to learn how the process is done today, recording every click in a word document. If you’ve ever done traditional software development, you’ve written a functional document, so this may not sound bad. However, both the development team (an outsourced team, because this is corporate America) and the experts on the process (finance-types with zero technical experience) had to review and approve the document. This somehow took a few weeks. Little did I know the fun was just beginning. After one development team had seen the process, become familiar with the process, and approved the process document, this same team naturally began writing code for the robot.

…Just kidding. We got an entirely new team of developers with no familiarity with the process assigned to write the code. The first thing that we were told by this team is they needed a process demo with the experts, making sure to capture each click along the way. Yes, you read that correctly – my associate Steve and I spent weeks in document review hell only to have this new development team essentially wipe their asses with this word document that already captured every single click. “Some questions naturally come up in a process demo that we think only the experts can answer,” was the justification. Don’t you worry, reader, every single question they asked after taking another unnecessary hour off the calendar of an internal finance manager was a question Steve or I could have answered. Another wasted week, not a huge deal. At least we could begin writing code now, right?

Wrong again. The development team did not have access to every single client’s data in the application. This time a security team spoke up, saying they don’t want a bot accessing every single client’s data. Probably a reasonable concern, but where was this security team in the beginning of this whole debacle? Their input would’ve been quite nice to have, to say the least. After addressing their security questions, we were promptly told to get access to a client’s data, we need written permission from that client’s lead partner, also known as one of the busiest people at the company. These guys would win the “most likely to ignore your email” superlative if this was a high school and not a lackluster consulting firm. Sounds promising.

We ultimately got about five clients to sign off on this. Five. That is a small number, so we decided to plead our case with this security team for a faster solution. We put together a business case and sent it to them. The response, of course, was radio silence for weeks while Steve and I got asked every single day by a, shall we say, persistent developer when we were getting the full client list.

Sidebar on this developer – Working with this guy was rough. Meetings with senior management with no advance warning or context, repeating questions regularly, throwing Steve and I under the bus any time something went wrong… the list goes on. In any case, after multiple unproductive weeks with the developers and a paltry five clients, we were with no warning told that the bot was almost complete and we basically needed the full client list yesterday.

I had been raising the warning bells, but now really started driving the point home. It did not help that Steve was on vacation, but this all resulted in an email from a high-level partner that just said “call me ASAP.” Never a good sign to have to explain to someone at least ten times your net worth why the hell his personal robotics investment was hitting a wall. After a less painful than expected conversation with this guy, he went to the stubborn security team and attempted to drop the hammer. I say attempted to drop the hammer, because he was unsuccessful. The security team ignored him – because the security team is somehow an entirely separate company under the same corporate umbrella as my consulting firm. Therefore a partner at my company had no real power over this security team. Makes sense, right? And no, I don’t understand why we are attempting to work on a tool owned by a completely separate corporate entity. Or why we are separate corporate entities.

If you’re wondering whether this story has a happy ending, prepare to be disappointed. This epic is ongoing – I’m fully expecting to log back in after the holidays and find some other reason why we won’t be able to put in place a small program that will save everyone involved many hours of frustration. I don’t foresee this being done in the next month or two, but don’t tell my manager – as far as he knows, everything is on track!