#how are you not picking up what SUPERNATURAL least subtle show in the world is putting down

[ardentpoop]

the number of ppl who apparently thought chuck just magic’d the samulet into sam’s pocket on the spot….. HELLO? what did you think the significance of that whole scene was? the looks on their faces? the fucking song playing in the background? chuck earlier in the episode saying “you’ll never guess where this thing has been this entire time”?

I worry abt you guys!

[make-me-imagine]

🕷️ 13 Days of Halloween: Day 11

- The three times I tried to scare you, and the one time I succeeded -

Prompt: ‘Jump- scare’ Request: Reader is constantly trying to scare Derek but always fails 

Requested by: Anonymous

Pairing: Derek Hale x Reader

Gender: Neutral       Triggers: None       Words: 2,552

Genre: Humor + Little Fluff (subtle flirting/crushing + a confession of sorts)

Notes: I hope you like the route I decided to go with it! Reader is suggested as 18+ in this. 

As you sat with the pack in Derek’s loft, Lydia planned her families annual Halloween party. “So, this year we are doing a haunted house theme and we need some scares to take place throughout the night. So. What are some things that scare you?”

“Spiders” Scott suggested

“Sharks?” Kira spoke up from next to him.

“Clowns” you and Stiles said at the same time, sharing a look of agreement.

“The ever imminent demise of our world” 

You all turned your heads at the suggestion, finding Peter sitting on a nearby couch reading a book, unbothered, as if what he said was a part of every day conversation.

“oookay” Lydia said, hint of confusion in her voice before turning to Derek “What about you Derek?”

Derek looked from his uncle to Lydia “Nothing” 

You and Stiles both chuckled “Yeah right -” Stiles began “there’s nothing that scares you?”

Derek looked at him “Nothing you could use at a Halloween party”

You frowned at him “Nothing?” 

He met your eyes, seeing a hint of challenge in your gaze “Nothing.” 

“I don’t believe you” you challenged “I bet there is something. Probably something embarrassing.” you smirked at the suggestion. 

Derek smiled lightly at you “You couldn’t find anything to scare me with”

“Is that a challenge?” you asked with a smirk as Stiles and Scott let out quiet ‘oohs’ making Derek roll his eyes before he looked back at you.

Walking closer he bent down, staring directly in your eyes “Try it”

You smiled at him as Lydia rolled her eyes and cleared her throat “If you two are done flirting, can we discuss my party now?”

Derek straightened up before walking out of the room, no comment against Lydia’s accusal of flirting. He knew that was what he was doing, sort of, but he wasn’t sure you did. 

As you all continued to talk over the party, you had thoughts running in the back of your mind, thinking of ways you could scare Derek, while hopefully embarrassing him as well. 

The First Time

You decided to try something classic at first, something stupid. Sometimes it was the simplest solution that solved a problem. Sneaking quietly into the loft, mask behind your back, you looked around before listening for any noise.

Hoping that if Derek heard you come in, he might think you were Peter, as he came and went as he pleased. Hearing movement as Derek made his way down the stairs. You hid under the staircase as you put on the mask.

The mask was a werewolf mask, of course, but this one was alarming similar to what werewolves actually look like. As Derek walked down the staircase, you saw him looking around the loft.

As he stepped off the last step you popped out with a no so convincing roar or sorts. Derek stepped back, but made no face or noise of alarm. Seeing that he stared blankly at you you sighed yanking off the mask “Nothing huh?” 

He rose his brow as he smirked “Definitely not that” he said as he turned to walk towards the kitchen “Besides, how could you surprise me if I already knew you were here?” 

“I thought you might think I was Peter” you admitted as you followed him, disappointed.

He chuckled as he opened and closed the fridge. Turning around, water in hand, he stared at you for a moment “You don’t smell like Peter”

You hesitated as you stared at him “What..do I smell like?” you asked, genuinely curious, having not thought of it before.

All he did was smirk before walking past and back towards the stairs “Don’t forget to close the door tight when you leave” 

You glared at him as he disappeared up the stairs, ‘Oh I’ll get you’ you thought to yourself as you left.

The Second Time

Sitting on the couch, your mind was filled with anticipation as you waited for Derek to come back from the store. 

Lydia, Stiles and Scott sat around the loft talking and going over coursework. Looking at what Stiles was doing you smiled “I thought you said you finished all your homework”

He looked up at you with disdain “They assigned more” 

You chuckled “Yeah, teacher’s will do that. I’m glad I just don’t have to deal with it anymore”

As the loft door slid open, you saw Derek, making the anticipation build as he walked into the loft, his eyes grazing over all of his uninvited guests, hesitating on your for a second. 

Looking up, you meet his eyes as he passes before he looks at the others “Why is it you guys always come here, don’t you have homes?” 

“We like it here Derek, you should be flattered” Stiles muttered as he tapped his pencil against his chin.

You could practically feel Derek roll his eyes as he went into the kitchen. You watched him from your peripheral as he moved around, waiting for the moment he would open the cabinet. Seeing him reach for it, you looked up completely. 

As he opened the cabinet, a large hand sprung out, paired with a loud automated scream. You cursed to yourself as you saw that Derek reacted in no way, apart from a small flinching blink. The others however all jumped and gasped at the sudden noise, all turning to look at what caused it.

Derek paused before turning and looking at you expectantly, the others followed his gaze, landing on your disappointed frown. You shrugged “Well at least I scared someone” you said as you looked at the others. 

Derek smiled at the comment before grabbing and removing the hand. Walking over to you, he tossed it on the couch next to you, a cocky smile on his face as he passed. You stuck out your tongue at him, making him chuckled lightly. 

The Third Time

"So Derek, how do you feel about scary movies, huh?” you asked as you flicked through the options on the screen.

“They’ve never bothered me” Derek replied, knowing exactly what you were doing.

“What was the last movie that scared you?” Scott asked as he settled on the couch with Kira. 

“There haven’t been any” 

“Oh bullshit!” Stiles called as he made popcorn in the kitchen. 

Derek rolled his eyes “They’re just movies, why would I get scared?” 

You looked at him “Seriously? Not even one? What about suspenseful ones that make your heart beat so fast you can’t breath right?” 

Derek smiled at you before shaking his head, making you sigh as you plopped down on the couch next to him, continuing to look through movies, ignoring the burning gaze of Derek’s eyes as he looked at you.

After picking a movie you knew was full of unexpected jump-scares and suspense, you all settled down after having turned off all the lights. You were still sitting next to Derek. Close enough that if he jumped in his skin you’d feel it. But also close enough that you felt kind of nervous. Knowing his stupid werewolf senses could probably pick up on it, you hoped he’d just think it was from the movie. 

About halfway through the movie, you had slouched down, pillow hiding part of your face. You had failed to notice whether or not Derek jumped at the sudden scares. Mostly because you were too busy doing it yourself.

But you’d occasionally look over at him, seeing that he’d have an amused smile on his face or look disinterested. Which more of less told you what you needed to know, so you gave up, focusing on the movie instead. 

Derek admitted to himself that the movie was quite intense, but he refused to show any fear. Mostly because he liked annoying you. But his mind was also preoccupied by how close you were, and how you would instinctively hide your face or get closer to him every time you got scared. 

By the end of he movie you were exhausted from the pure adrenaline the movie gave you “That wasn’t that bad” Derek commented, his voice closer to your ear than you were expecting. Looking up, you see him staring at you, now meeting your eyes. At this moment you realized that throughout the course of the movie, you had ended up practically on top of him. You also now realized that at some point, he had laid is arm across the back of your shoulders. 

You stared silently at him for a moment before speaking quietly “How did that not scare you at all?” 

Smiling lightly at you, your heart skipped a beat. “I was distracted” 

Knowing his comment was directed at the fact that you were practically in his lap now, you hesitated to speak. Luckily being distracted by the fact that Lydia flipped on the lights. 

You, Scott and Stiles all let out startled groans as you hid your eyes from the sudden harsh light. Hearing Derek chuckle from next to you, you didn’t look at him as you felt him get up from beside you, even as you felt his hand grip your waist for a second as he did so. 

The One time I succeeded

Entering a small cleared out space in the woods you looked around, Derek stopped, looking at some tracks on the ground. It was the evening before Halloween, and you and Derek were in the woods, the others in the pack were split up around town. Some form of Supernatural creature showed up in town and you were all trying to figure out if it was dangerous. So the pack had split up into groups to try and find it.

Derek stared off towards the direction of the tracks before looking back at you “I’m going to go follow the tracks for a while, see where they end up, you stay here”

“Why?” 

He pointed towards the direction of the tracks “The woods are really dense that way, and there’s rocky cliffs” 

You nodded your head, knowing you probably wouldn’t be able to keep up “So I’ll stay here then?”

He nodded as he stood, taking one last look at you as he followed the tracks, noting in his mind where you were, and how dark the sky was getting. 

After a few moments of looking around, you noted some claw marks on a nearby tree. Touching them, you wondered if the creature caused them. Looking towards the direction that Derek went, you hoped he would be careful.

Not long passed before you started to get antsy, not just because Derek hadn’t returned, or the fact that evening was coming quickly, but also because you really needed to pee. Looking into the woods for Derek for a moment, you groaned in frustration before deciding to find a bushy area you could have some privacy in. 

As Derek made his way back to where you were, having found nothing, he stopped, his hearing picking up on the distant sound of something big running nearby, not too far from where you were waiting. Realizing this, he began running back to you, not wanting you to get ambushed. 

As you finished your ‘business’ you began walking back to where you had been waiting for Derek, having wondered off quite a ways to find some dense brush. Suddenly hearing something running you stopped, your breath hitching in your throat. Moving to hide behind a tree, your hand gripped the weapon you had holstered at your hip. Your only form of protection. 

Looking towards the sound of the noise, you heart jumped in your chest as you realize what it is, feeling a mixture of fear and relief. It was a large Californian Grizzly Bear. 

You remained quiet as it ran past, not wanting to draw it’s attention. You wondered just where it was running too, or rather, what it was running from. Waiting for a few more moments you began your way back to the clearing. 

As Derek broke through the brush into the clearing his heart sank when he saw you were gone. He could still smell your scent which meant you had been here recently. His heart was pumping loudly in his own body, he struggled to focus on his hearing to listen for you nearby. Trying to catch his breath he looked around, for any movement, especially in the direction of the running he heard before. 

Entering the clearing, you saw Derek, looking off into the trees, you could tell he had been running. You wondered if he had been chasing something, maybe the bear? Walking up behind him you watched where he was looking.

Just as he began to turn towards you, you called out his name “Derek?”

With the sudden voice, and failure for Derek to sense you, he spun around, shock evident on his face as you startled him. You jumped back slightly due to his reaction, pausing for a moment ‘Did I just scare him?’ 

He sighed out before he took a step towards you “Where were you?” he asked, voice relieved and exasperated. 

You pointed back behind you “I had to pee, hold on - “ you pointed at him “I just scared you”

He ignored your comment “You need to be careful, there was something big-”

“A bear” you cut him off, seeing his confusion you pointed in the direction of where the bear went “Big brown bear, ran off that way, I saw it” Derek sighed in relief, watching as you smiled, pointing at him “I scared you”

Derek, realizing what you were saying, and that you were right rolled his eyes “That doesn’t count” he turned away “Let’s go, there’s nothing here”

“Oh no Derek, you can’t just push it aside, I jump-scared you! That counts!”

He turned back to you “The only reason I was scared was because I was worried about you getting hurt, I thought that bear was a monster and that it got to you” he answered honestly, somewhat surprised at his own words. 

You hesitated “Oh. So. That’s what scares you? Me getting hurt?” 

“Loosing you” he corrected as he adjusted his stance as he stared at you for a moment “It’s the only thing that scares me”

Turning he began walking, trying to ignore the fact that he more-or-less just confessed to you. 

Your heart pounded in your chest as you remained frozen in your spot for a moment, before you moved to catch up with him. “I’m still going to tell the others that I scared you!” you called out.

Derek stopped in his tracks, knowing you were trying to make it less awkward for him. Turning back to you, he sees the smile on your face as you stop moving as well. Walking up to you he stared into your eyes “As long as you don’t tell them what else I said” 

You smiled at the softness in his voice, somewhat mesmerized by the way he was staring at you “Deal” you said.

He smiled, his eyes glancing down to your lips momentarily before he took a step away looking back at you “Come on, it’s getting dark” 

You smiled as you walked after him, amused that you finally scared him, surprised that you found his weak spot; and flattered by the fact that his weak spot was you. 

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

Why can I never resit making something without fluff and/or pining and confessions??

If you’d like to be added to a taglist let me know!

Reblogs are highly appreciated! As are likes and comments! :)

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

Apophenia Pt. 2

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Summary: Isaac comes to understand what he's in for.

Content advisory: Kidnapping, drugging, needles/injection, captivity, use of restraints, being gagged, loss of consciousness, swearing, supernatural horror elements

It was embarrassing how fast it had happened. Isaac had always been sure he’d put up a good fight at least—death before dishonor and all that good stuff—but there hadn’t been any warning. No footsteps rushing up behind him. No ominous chuckles from the darkness of an alley. No hair raised on the back of his neck until an arm had snaked and constricted around it. A few moments of pressure on his carotid arteries turned the world white, then black. When it returned, likely only a handful of seconds later, it was too late. The dry texture of a fabric gag cut into the corners of his lips and zip ties trussed his hands to his ankles. Disappointment in himself outweighed any panic over being bound and gagged in the trunk of a car at first. Slowly, though, reality began to sink in.

He would be dinner and a show if he didn’t get his ass in gear. Isaac’s priorities abruptly realigned themselves. He scrambled to think. The subtle hum of the electric engine and gentle bumping and rocking motion meant they were on the move. Trunks had latches to open them from the inside. He could maybe wriggle around and grope until he found the one in there. Roll out into the road. Hope he wasn’t turned into an interstate pancake by any vehicles following in that lane. It had to be preferable to what awaited at the end of the ride.

He’d just completed Step One—felt the rush of free air against his skin, heard the dull roar of its passing—when the car began to lose speed and drift toward the shoulder. Desperation had gotten him as far as up onto his knees before time ran out. The crunch of shoes on gravel came around the side of the car and the bloodborn loomed over him against the backdrop of the lightening sky. His features didn’t stand out too clearly in the gray haze of pre-dawn. Except those eyes. Same color as a tropical sea and backlit by the power of stolen lives. He reached into an inner pocket of his jacket with what might have been an apologetic expression. Isaac would have given anything short of his life to shove him headfirst into a woodchipper—forget the sun-cured stakes.

“I didn’t want to resort to this, but I can tell you’re going to be a handful.” The bloodborn’s voice projected goodwill, giving away only the barest hints of accent around the vowels. Spanish or Portuguese most likely, especially this close to the Broken Coast.

“Fuck you,” Isaac replied, his own basic, Central States tone muffled by the gag.

Smiling, the bloodborn pulled his hand from his jacket pocket. Something small and made of glass winked. A syringe. He pulled the cap off and tossed it to the gravel.

Isaac thrashed, cursed, strained muscles. It didn’t stop the bloodborn from getting an arm around his neck again, only to restrain this time, while the needle stung his bicep. That task completed, the bloodborn threw the syringe aside, calmly reached into the trunk, and wrenched off the escape latch with a jerk of the wrist. He still wore the same magazine photoshoot smile while sealing Isaac back into his lightly upholstered tomb. Fuming became the remaining option. There’d be plenty of time for it, he suspected; whatever the bastard had injected him with would work even slower for having to be absorbed through muscle. That meant a long ride ahead.

It took what he estimated to be a half hour before the drug slipped into his brain, picking at the tangled threads of terror, outrage, and despair. They unraveled, fell away. Combined with the gentle hum of the engine and rocking motion of the car it turned his eyelids and limbs to lead.

Isaac Soto rode to his doom not with a roar or whimper but a snore.

-

He woke with a snort. Something warm and wet coated his cheek. Wiping at it with one hand, Isaac discovered he’d been drooling. He blinked at his fingers, brain processing frantically as it came back online.

Daylight. All around him. Limbs free, he propped himself on one elbow to look down. A double bed beneath him. Clean, crisp sheets and blanket, ergonomic pillows, soothing scent of lavender detergent throughout. Nordic-style furniture in the rest of the room: nightstands, dresser, a full-length mirror in a corner by the large window. Functional and elegant in their simple, straight lines.

Isaac threw off the covers and got up. That lasted two seconds before blood rushed to his skull and drowned his motor skills. He plopped back onto the mattress, dizzy. His second attempt went at a slower pace, introduced him to all his new aches, but met with success. Isaac frowned down at his bare feet for a moment. Whoever had brought him to the room had also been considerate enough to remove his sneakers before tucking him in. They sat patiently under the nightstand, waiting. Turning toward the mirror, Isaac and his reflection exchanged perplexed scowls. While he had no complaints about being alive, he couldn’t riddle out the how. Or, more important, the why. If he’d expected to wake up at all he would’ve bet it would be in a cage. As an animal waiting to be slaughtered. Not put to bed like the friend who’d had one too many at the bar the previous night.

He studied the window. The heavy, royal-blue drapes framing it. The gauzy…undercurtains? was that a thing?...beneath those. Bars of sunlight slanted in through the spotless glass. Shit fire and save matches, he could hear birds singing.

It took Isaac two strides to get to the window and shove the curtains farther aside. He spared just a few seconds to note the modest yard one level below, complete with synthetic grass and patio furniture. Instead, his interest went to the metal latch on top of the sliding section. Grabbing it, he yanked. Didn’t budge it. Progressed to cursing and yanking on the damn thing. Still not so much as a wiggle. Finally, with his nose pressed close enough to steam up the glass and pick up the faint whiff of dust he understood why.

Someone had soldered the latch permanently shut. Banging a fist against the panes told Isaac more bad news: the window wasn’t made of glass. Glass didn’t make such a dull thump when struck or feel that sturdy. Bullet-resistant acrylic or polycarbonate, however, did.

So. He’d woken in a cage after all. Just a more pleasant one than imagined.

“Motherfuck,” Isaac said through jaw muscles screwed tight. Not a turn of phrase that had gotten him into honors English at university maybe, but an apt expression of his mood. Well, he’d try the door as a formality before searching for something to start pummeling the walls with.

Mouth a thin, dire line, he went over and gripped the knob. Almost jumped clear out of his skin when it rotated without resistance and the whole damn thing swung open. He caught his balance after a stumble. A short hallway leading to another ajar door ran off to the right. Through the crack he could see a tidy bathroom. Stairs waited to the left. Marveling at the absurdity of still needing to worry about such mundane concerns, Isaac made a pitstop at the former before descending the latter.

A townhome. That’s what they called these sorts of split-level apartments. Couple of spaces upstairs, another bedroom on the ground level, plus a sitting area, kitchen, and half-bath. In this case, the downstairs room had been left empty except for more blue drapes and the smell of fresh paint. Isaac’s examination of the other two were perfunctory; the real matter at hand was the front door.

He approached it as if it were a growling dog. To be honest, his caution went beyond the suspicion he’d find this somehow blocked off too. Each step he took toward the door dropped another leaden lump of dread into his belly. By the time he could reach for the handle, cold sweat slithered down his spine, beaded his brow, and slicked his palms.

Not just a door. He knew it couldn’t be just a fucking door. Yet, ever the optimist, he made the mistake of turning the knob anyway.

A hideous sucking sound, like a large creature hauling itself out of bog mire, accompanied a gray hand oozing out of the wood. It’s gnarled, clammy fingers clamped around Isaac’s wrist. Though he could see right through its mottled gray flesh its grip proved solid enough to start applying crushing pressure to the delicate network of bones inside his forearm. Stench rolled off the phantom limb to help prove its reality as well. Humid wafts of vegetation, animal meat, and waste stewing in stagnant water. Being rendered into the next layer of sludge.

The sagging face that slimed its way through the door after the hand was overkill by that point really. A gargling scream bubbled out of its ragged, sagging, stinking hole of a mouth. Isaac answered with a much shriller one of his own. Half-choking on the reek of the thing’s breath, he wrenched his arm out of its grip and fell on his ass hard enough to put a second crack in it. His nails and heels scrabbled at the hardwood flooring, dragging him away from the wretched specter.

Slowly, it melted back into the door, empty eye sockets never looking away until the face vanished. Only a faint sheen of something that dripped down the paint remained to show it had been there at all.

Isaac lay panting on the living room floor, glad he’d used the toilet minutes before.

Once his heartrate had returned to something like normal he sat up and began to review his options in light of this new development.

Almost ten years. He’d been a field researcher on the Coven’s payroll for that long. Since he was nineteen. Since the jagged claw marks crisscrossing his back had turned to scars. He knew monsters, in other words. Knew some about magic too, though that hadn’t been the specialty he’d chosen. Everything he’d encountered since waking up came from his mental file of Very Bad Things.

For instance, while studying the subject of bloodborn, he’d learned many broods of unregistered individuals ran underground businesses. Black markets full of charming items like charred infant bones, choice body parts culled from suicides or murderers, or various fluids from select portions of the mortal population—virgins and children born at certain times of year counted among the usual targets. Then there were the so-called mortuaries and crematoriums that disposed of the, ah, byproducts from such markets. Of course, they didn’t turn away paying human customers either; cartels and sundry other shady organizations were more than welcome to drop by and have material evidence destroyed for a convenience fee.

The most horrifying, in Isaac’s opinion, had been the part about real estate. Namely, how one bloodborn with some financial acumen, or a group, would buy property somewhere quiet, out of the way. A complex of townhomes an hour or two away from the old interstate, say. These would be outfitted with various means to hold something or someone against their will. For days perhaps. Maybe weeks, months—longer, who knew? It really depended on the renter, who might be anything from a serial rapist to a director of hardcore bondage streams.

Not to mention, not infrequently, a bloodborn who couldn’t give half a shit about the Coven’s rules and regulations regarding feeding. Who preferred the old-fashioned method of stalking a human and tearing their throat out once in a blue moon. Or sipping their life dry over a longer period. Either way, the result came out the same.

It took Isaac around twenty minutes to exhaust his supply of expletives and tears. Another fifteen to recuperate enough willpower to drag himself up off the floor and go to work.

Roughly seven hours of daylight remained, if the comm screen on the fridge was correct. Seven hours with which to search that slaughter pen decorated with impersonal catalogue-ordered furnishings. Not much time, but maybe, if he used it wisely, enough to save his life.

[gothamsglam]

Can I have Your Name? (a SamBucky ficlet)

for @samshield hope you enjoy 😘

(also on ao3 under @/the_fifth_marauder101)

---

“Thanks, can I have your name?” asked Bucky with a charming smile on his face, pulling out a sharpie. However, instead of writing on an empty class as the poor customer thought, he scribbled down “Tony” on one of those ‘Hello, my name is…’ stickers.

“That’s a wonderful name by the way,” Bucky compliments, because fck you Steve, he can be polite. 

He fcking told Steve going into customer service was a great idea. Idiot wanted to continue doing door to door shit, or, even worse, mope around forests for wandering travelers. He told him it wasn’t the 1400s anymore, and to grow up. Damn the supernatural council and their ‘hunt in pairs’ rule, he will go rouge and leave Stevie, he will do it. 

“I’m this close,” Bucky had hissed, holding his fingers in the air so Stevie could see, 

“Your fingers are touching,” Steve deadpanned. 

“Exactly.”

The man doesn’t look up from his flurry of typing, “Thank you, it’s a family name.”

“Sure,” Bucky replies quietly “Alright, your order will be right out,” Bucky grinned, replacing his name tag with the new one without looking away from the brown-haired customer. The second the tag sticks to his shirt, he feels a refreshing rush of energy. Kind of like what he imagines those ‘caffeine/sugar rush’ those damn teens keep harping about. 

“Thank y—” The customer—Tony—looks up from his phone to flash him a grin, only to have it fall from his face when he sees the name tag. 

This was the fun part. Bucky didn’t break eye contact, maintaining it with the same smile, only now he could tell it felt eerie to the human. Like something wasn’t right. 

The man’s brown eyes flitted up and down between Bucky’s face and the name tag, before he surged forward, “What di—”

“Have a good day,” Bucky bit out, still keeping the smile and cheery customer service tone. His eyes were blank, he made sure of it. Honestly, this whole song and dance was unnecessary. Stevie usually just wrote the name tags, and then stuck them on as he was making the drinks. Their shop was typically slow enough that there wouldn’t be people behind to question why the tender had a new name. But Bucky loved to fck with humans. What the hell else was he supposed to do? He’s been alive for 70 generations, let him have his fun. 

However, today was a bit different. Another two walked into the shop, Bucky didn’t see it as much as he felt it. Bucky kept his back turned, hollering “Welcome to Stars and Stripes, I’ll be with you in just a moment,” over his shoulder as he made the three drinks. What asshole ordered three drinks?

Bucky’s question was answered when he saw the two men walk over to Tony’s table. One of them kissed Tony on the cheek and the other just faux-gagged before giving Tony a hug as well. Bucky called out the order, eyes tracking the way Tony mumbled something to the two men and both reacted oddly, as they probably should. Bucky would expect no less. 

Apparently, he jinxed himself, because the man who hugged Tony came to pick up the drinks. 

“Nice name,” said the man.

“Thanks,” Bucky flashed his uncanny valley smile and offered nothing else. The man winked and then walked back to the table. 

Bucky did not look at his ass, he didn’t. 

---

The next day, the man comes in. Not Tony, but other guy. The cute one. 

“Hi my name’s Jacob, how may I help you today?” Bucky asks politely. 

The man, to his credit, didn’t bat an eyelash, “Hi I’ll have three—” And he rattled off the same order that Tony had. Bucky resisted the urge to frown, maybe it was just a two-time thing? This group has only come into their shop once before, what are the odds of it happening again, for a third time?

“Perfect,” Bucky slid the receipt across the counter, “Can I have your name?” Bucky asked, as he reached for a pen. 

“Nope,” the man replied. 

Bucky froze in his moments, “What?”

The man shrugged, face showing nothing but politeness, “I’m the only person in this store, you’ll be able to find me.”

Bucky was stunned as he watched him walk back to the spot the trio was in the other day. As he sat down, the man gave a nod of acknowledgment to Bucky, who was still staring. 

His brown—almost hazelnut with the light of the sun—eyes stared into Bucky’s own, and in them all he saw was mischief. 

Fck.

---

For the next two days, Bucky kept a—subtle, he wasn’t obsessed or anything—watch out for Tony or The Man. And for those two days, he didn’t see hide or hair of them. Bucky figured they must have been college students from nearby campuses, wandering in when Starbucks was too full, which happens often enough. Then on the third day, he returned. 

“Hey, Jacob” greeted The Man, his smile so bright—so bright that Nat would have burned like she does under the sun and threaten to bite the man in the jugular. Bucky, who was too gobsmacked to even deliver his customer service opening, stared at him. 

“Not Jacob,” Bucky said, his voice strangled. 

The Man chuckled, his eyes sparkling with the same look from the first day he ordered, “Ok ‘Not Jacob’, may I have—” And repeated the same order from the last two times. 

“Um, right, uh” Bucky stammered, face growing hot as The Man raised an eyebrow at him smugly, “Can I have your name?”

“Put Redwing,” The Man said, shrugging. The corner of his lips pulled upwards into a happy smirk—how can a person have a fcking happy smirk?—, not that Bucky was only looking at his lips or anything. 

“Redwing?” Bucky asked, stupidly. Because why ask, idiot, why ask for clarification? He read somewhere that the psyche is powerful enough to make the body do things, like fake pregnancies. Whether that’s something only reserved to humans is up for debate, but maybe, if Bucky doesn’t ask and lives in blissful ignorance, he can feed off of a fake name. But no, because he’s a bloody fool, he asked. 

“It’s my pet’s name,” The Man answered, then looked tilted his head, giving a sheepish smile, “Or at least, that’s what I want to name a pet, I don’t have one.”

“Right,” Said Bucky, suddenly feeling empty in ways that have nothing to do with hunger, “Your order will be right out.”

Their conversation was longer than normal, so when the man went to sit down, the couple came in moments afterward. All three sat in the same place as before. 

‘Oh no,’ Bucky thought in dawning horror, ‘Regulars.’ 

---

“Falcon,” grins The Man, now foregoing any attempts to be subtle and simply being a little shit.

Bucky looked at him, face void of any amusement. At this point, he’s shucked the polite customer service voice and snarked back and forth with the regular like there’s no tomorrow—only in this situation, there is a tomorrow, there always is tomorrow.

Their staring contest probably goes on for a bit too long, judging by the way Tony and his boyfriend—Bucky can feel comfortable calling the two a couple, based on how disgustingly affectionate the two get in the cafe—walk in. 

The Man flashed a smile and turned away to greet the couple. An audible ‘Rhodey!’ reached Bucky’s ears. Now, finally, he has a name for one of the dark-skinned men, the one who kissed Tony’s cheek and was currently walking in with said Tony, arm around his shoulders. Only Bucky doesn’t feel that familiar warmth pool in his gut, refreshing his energy levels. 

‘Oh,’ Bucky thinks, and watches as the man—his regular—laughs with his friends but also how his eyes flit back to peek at Bucky as names are spoken. ‘oh, loopholes.’

Bucky is so screwed. 

---

The names his regular gives become increasingly goofy, and Steve teases him about how flirty they get—Bucky absolutely didn’t have a favorite, and it absolutely wasn’t Angel. But Bucky only believed Stevie when he got a number instead of a random moniker. 

“What?” Bucky short-circuited. 

The man just sighed, “Come on, I gave you my number, work with me here.”

“You finally did it, huh, Sam?” Tony called out from where he was typing away on his computer, which rested on Rhodey’s legs. Rhodey, who was sprawled out in one of their chairs, nudged Tony with his foot, “Shush, let them have this.”

‘Sam,’ Bucky thinks,  and all he can come up with in his blue screened mind is, ‘Perfect’.

In his phone, the name Sam’s contact is under is ‘Angel’.

Steve heckles. 

---

“How did you know, Angel?”

Sam looks at Bucky, and Bucky’s struck into silence, The whole world falls around them in muted sounds and lights fade into balls of blurry color, because as they lock gazes all Bucky can notice is Sam’s eyes. Sam’s eyes—his wonderful, soul-deep eyes that shine with mischief and laughter, that glow so bright and rival the heavens when the sunlight reflects off it just so—are sad. 

“My friend,” Sam says quietly, “Riley. He was one of yours.”

Bucky nods, and reaches out with his metal hand—an injury from decades ago and a gift from a shapeshifter who hissed that his debt was repaired before slithering off into the night—pulling Sam closer to him. They watch the sun go down from the top of the roof, the stars revealed one by one, twinkling against the darkness of the dusk. 

---

(One day, Bucky will ask for Sam’s name again, specifically his last name. Only then, will Sam reply honestly.)

---

AN: This is a more bastardized version of faeries/fae, I just made up my own creature for what Bucky and Steve are. Simply because I just wanted to write a little ficlet about SamBucky and didn’t do much research. Don’t think too hard about it :)

(and the link to the Tik Tok I saw on tumblr that inspired this is also linked on my ao3 fic)

Hope you enjoyed! 

-vix

[homeformyheart]

bucket list - all pairings (twc)

author’s note: i woke up one morning with the thought of what would each UB RO do if they found out the detective had a bucket list because they thought they might die soon from all the supernatural activity, and we’ll all have to thank @pearlsandsteel, @kelseaaa, @wayhavenots, and @ohnobbwhatisyoudoing for bullying encouraging me to do this (if you don’t like it, blame them; if you like it, thank them). hope you all enjoy!

copyright: all characters, except the oc detectives, are owned by mishka jenkins @seraphinitegames. series/pairing: the wayhaven chronicles – all pairings (6 detectives) rating/warnings: 14+; minor angst based on/prompt: inspired by the movie a walk to remember word count: ~3.5k words in total (~500-700 words per pairing) summary: the detective has a bucket list of things they’d like to do before they die (these are all canon stories). each pairing is featured in a ~500-700 word drabble.

1. adam du mortain x detective lyra kingston x nate sewell (LT) 2. mason x detective ria knight 3. nate sewell x detective cassie knight 4. felix hauville x detective harley bishop** 5. adam du mortain x detective regina bishop** 6. mason x detective brooklyn kingston**

** the ones with asterisks have little easter eggs / connection to other prompt fills / fics i’ve written for those pairings. bonus points if you can figure out what they are before you get to the end of those!

and tell me which one you liked best / least 👀 (i need to know your angst thresholds for research).

bucket list

1. adam du mortain x detective lyra kingston x nate sewell (LT) (~600 words)

lyra rummaged through the drawer of her nightstand, tossing out old receipts, rubber bands, and other random knick-knacks that she really didn’t need but kept anyway “just in case.” her fingers finally wrapped around a thick card-sized envelope and she yanked it out of the drawer triumphantly, instantly recognizing the pale yellow color and her name written on the outside.

a knock on the door made her spin around and instinctively hide the card behind her back. nate opened the door, leaning casually against the doorway, and smiled gently at her in a way that made her forget she was supposed to be annoyed with him for how secretive he was.

“did you find what you were looking for?”

lyra nodded before walking out into the living room and sitting down on the couch. she patted the seat to her left and nate obliged, sitting close enough that their thighs touched. she did her best to ignore adam from where he was standing just a few feet away. he had insisted on coming with them to retrieve lyra’s belongings, for added protection and since nate couldn’t drive.

“it’s the card my dad wrote for me when i was born,” she said quietly, her usual energy tempered. “it’s been a while since i’ve read it.”

her fingers trembled as she opened the flap of the envelope and slid the plain white card out, the only embellishment being a simple watercolor of a few hydrangeas on the front.

nate hesitantly wrapped an arm around lyra’s waist, moving slowly and watching carefully for any signs that it would be unwelcome in the moment. he relaxed when lyra instinctively leaned towards him, the subtle shift in her body language not going unnoticed by a certain commanding agent from his station by the window.

“will you tell me about it?” nate asked softly, seeming to have forgotten they weren’t alone.

lyra opened the card and ran her fingers down rook’s scrawl-like handwriting. she swallowed heavily to keep the tears stinging her eyes at bay.

“nothing to tell really, he wrote stuff about how much he loved me already and couldn’t wait to show me the world,” she said quietly, her voice breaking. she cleared her throat. “he wrote a list of things he wanted me to experience.”

she grabbed a pen from her purse and proceeded to cross out items on the list, stopping only to circle the last one.

fall in love

nate leaned in closer, running his finger down the list of crossed out words before pausing on the last one and looking up at lyra quizzically.

her throat was suddenly dry. she dropped her gaze towards her lap. “bobby doesn’t count,” she whispered. “that wasn’t love. my dad would want me to be with someone who loves me for me.”

nate tilted her chin up with a finger so she was looking into his eyes again. “i hope one day i could be that someone,” nate murmured, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

lyra’s breath caught in her throat and she blushed under his intense glaze. “well, you’re certainly, um,” she paused and glanced away to collect herself, making eye contact with adam inadvertently. her body tensed subconsciously, warring with itself to stay in nate’s warmth and ignore adam’s magnetic pull.

she tore her eyes away from the pained look on adam’s face and forced a smile.

“you make it easy, nate,” she said, her own smile growing genuinely in response to nate’s, despite the soft bitter edge in her voice and how it cut through adam like a knife.

* * * * * 2. mason x detective ria knight (~560 words)

ria clutched a crumpled up note in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, the thin paper disintegrating rapidly as she inhaled deeply, letting the smoke burn the back of her throat and lungs until she couldn’t take it anymore. her head fell back against the gate as she exhaled, the cloud of smoke stinging her eyes since she refused to close them.

just tell him.

“tell me what?” a gruff voice broke through the haze and made her blink. she hadn’t realized she said anything out loud.

she carefully schooled her features with a look of indifference as she crushed the cigarette under her foot.

“bold of you to assume i was referring to you,” she shrugged, turning to walk the short distance to the warehouse.

mason fell into step beside her, an easy silence settling over them both. ria kept crinkling the paper in her hand with her thumb, crumpling and uncrumpling it over and over again, glancing at it every so often until they were in the living room.

if mason was curious about what was on the piece of paper, he didn’t show it.

“what do you have there, ria?” felix’s eager voice brought ria’s attention back to the present and she inwardly groaned.

felix was the last person she wanted around right now. he was too observant for his own good.

“a bucket list,” she muttered, crumpling the paper inside a tight fist.

“what’s a bucket list?” the younger vampire asked.

ria sighed. “it’s a list that people make of things they want to do before they die,” she said, her voice so uncharacteristically soft that mason almost wondered if he had misheard. “i know my life is in constant danger, so i thought it might help to make sure i write down what’s important to me.”

felix’s mouth parted in surprise, but mason interrupted before he could say anything. “what’s on the list?” he asked gruffly, though not unkindly.

ria gave him a long, hesitant look. “i wanted to show you my dad’s grave. catch him up on everything,” she said, her gaze dropping. “it’s been a while since i’ve gone to see him.”

“name the time and place, sweetheart,” mason said quietly, the weight of his words washing over her and softening her features. he stepped closer to her, even though felix would be able to hear everything he said anyway. “you’re not dying on my watch.”

she swallowed the snarky, defensive retort that sat on the tip of her tongue. “thank you,” she mouthed silently instead.

“is there anything else on your list?” felix asked, stepping closer to ria.

she quickly pulled her hand behind her back and walked past him. “nothing important,” she snapped, tossing the crumpled ball of paper into the trash before heading to her room.

felix exchanged a knowing look with mason and dug the ball out of the trash, carefully uncrumpling it.

“this isn’t much of a list, there are only two things on here,” he said, trying to smooth out the paper so he could read her handwriting.

mason snatched the paper before felix could read the rest of it, skimming over the words himself, brows furrowing tighter before he let it drop to the floor. felix picked it up as mason stormed out of the warehouse, reading the only other thing that ria had written on her bucket list:

tell mason i love him.

* * * * * 3. nate sewell x detective cassie knight (~600 words)

cassie grabbed a tissue from the box on her coffee table, wiping her tears furiously as the credits of the movie they had finished watching began rolling on the screen. nate turned off the television with a smile, wrapping an arm around cassie and pulling her closer until she was practically in his lap.

“i thought you’ve seen this movie before,” he teased, rubbing his hand soothingly up and down her arm.

cassie elbowed him playfully. “don’t judge me. i love the book but the movie always gets me, especially when he helps her finish her bucket list.”

“i can honestly say i prefer the book,” he said, genuinely surprised to see this side of cassie.

he hadn’t seen her this at ease in a long time, maybe ever. she looked comfortable and content, despite her puffy eyes and red nose, all of which he found absolutely endearing.

“the nathaniel sewell, connoisseur of historical tomes and vintage novels, read a nicholas sparks’ romance novel?”

it was cassie’s turn to be surprised.

things were still relatively new between them, but not for lack of effort. the steady stream of missions and supernatural activity in wayhaven kept them both far too busy for comfort. and when they weren’t on missions, she still had a lot of work at the station and nate always had mission-related paperwork and research to do.

it shouldn’t have been a surprise that there wasn’t much they knew of each other when it came to personal quirks and guilty pleasures, but nate wanted to know more.

nate’s gaze dropped at cassie’s inquiring look. “i—um, dated someone a while ago who really enjoyed his books and i thought reading them would help.”

he could almost see the gears turning in her head as her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“i could see why you might think it would make someone fall in love with you,” she said finally, a wistful distance settling into her eyes. “bobby liked to compare himself to noah calhoun from the notebook.”

nate felt his entire body tense and he had to clench his jaw to keep from violently flinching. just the thought of that reporter and how he had mistreated cassie was enough to make his blood boil.

“you said you liked the part where landon helps jamie with her bucket list. do you have one?” nate asked, trying to turn the conversation back to a safer topic.

cassie’s eyes widened slightly in confusion before she realized what nate was doing and gave him a grateful smile. “i do, actually. i’ve been meaning to update it,” she said, reaching for a leather-bound journal resting on the coffee table and flipping to a page in the back.

“may i?” he asked, noting the flicker of hesitation darkening her green eyes for a fraction of a second before she nodded.

nate took the journal from her and skimmed the list. it mostly comprised of things he thought were consistent with how thoughtful cassie was, but the second-to-last item stole the breath from his lungs in a painful way.

live to 30

he put the journal down before grabbing both of her hands. “i will do everything in my power to keep you safe, i promise. you will get to live beyond thirty,” he said, his eyes flashing with a seriousness that was rarely directed at her.

“then i will look forward to the day i can cross that one out,” cassie said, giving him a warm smile.

nate felt his breath return to him as cassie settled against his side once more, her warmth reminding him to cherish these rare moments they shared.

* * * * * 4. felix hauville x detective harley bishop (~500 words)

harley scanned the legal pad in front of her, two-thirds of it filled out with various experiences and things she wanted to do sooner rather than later. it took meeting felix and the rest of unit bravo for her to realize that she had become very content and complacent with her life. felix’s enthusiasm for this world made her want to explore and experience things.

but more than anything, hayley wanted to feel alive.

the trappers had become more brazen and the number of close-calls in the past few weeks didn’t sit well with her. she never really had any personal ambition or dreams, but she knew now that she wanted more moments with felix.

she looked down at the list that seemed to keep growing by the hour.

show felix the grotto

take felix camping

learn how to cook one dish

a knock on her door, followed by the sight of felix’s head peeking around the doorframe made her look up.

“hey babe, what are you up to?” he asked, clambering on top of her bed to get as close to her as possible.

“i’m just putting together a bucket list of things i want to do while i still have the chance,” she replied, trying to keep her voice light.

felix lifted his head from her shoulder so he could study her face. she made a point of avoiding eye contact as she held up the legal pad.

“these are some of my favorite spots in wayhaven,” harley said, her finger running down between the numbers three and ten. “i want to make sure that you get to see them.”

“and i can’t wait. but we have plenty of time for that babe,” felix said, wrapping his arm around her waist and tugging her closer. “i promise.”

“but what if we don’t?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “i want to make sure you don’t forget me.”

truthfully, that was what really had been bothering her the past few weeks. harley worried that compared to felix’s eternal life, hers was not only insignificant, but also incredibly boring.  

he gently cupped her face in his hands. “i would never want to forget you. and we’re going to be together for a very long time, okay?”

she nodded and mustered a small smile. “okay,” she said, a warm flush spreading from the touch of his skin on her face through her body.

he gave her a soft kiss before grabbing the legal pad from her hands. “i want to add stuff to the list too. things i want to do with you,” he said, his cheerful energy rubbing off on her as she handed him a pen.

she rested her chin on his shoulder this time, so she could watch as he scribbled a few things near the bottom. they were mostly ideas for different types of date activities, but the last thing he wrote made her lift her head and freeze.

tell harley i love her.

harley looked at felix, stunned, to find him smiling softly at her. “one day, really soon,” he murmured, his eyes shining before his lips enveloped hers in a kiss. and she knew that day couldn’t come soon enough.

reference fic: camping.

* * * * * 5. adam du mortain x detective regina bishop (~570 words)

regina watched adam play with their children from where she was sitting on the porch, pretending that ten-year-old jacques and seven-year-old cecilia were able to pin him to the ground. she smiled as their youngest, four-year-old philip, waddled over and placed a fistful of daisies on adam’s face, before sitting down and rearranging them with a look of concentration on his round face.

she let herself bask in the moment of happiness that she knew would be fleeting, before looking down at the journal on her lap. she pulled out the worn sheet of paper tucked away in the middle, covered in hasty scribbles and crossed-out words on each layer of sticky notes, a bucket list she made years ago and continued to update.

tell adam i love him

get married

build a house by the sea

revive the du mortain line

raise our family together

regina smiled as she quickly skimmed over the crinkled pile of notes, sifting through them carefully so as not to further wear down the adhesive before she got near the bottom and pulled out a bright green-colored sticky note with only one thing written on it. all the other notes in the pile were pink and blue because she had wanted this one to stand out so she could easily find it.

turn?

don’t turn?

decide whether to turn

her smile faded. it hadn’t taken long to work through everything else she put on her bucket list. even the ones that took considerable effort (and really, it was mainly getting adam to come around to having kids), she was able to accomplish through sheer stubbornness and determination. but this last one was different.

regina was afraid to bring it up with adam and she knew he wouldn’t bring it up first. she knew him well enough by now that he would insist that this needed to be her decision and hers alone and refuse to influence her either way. but because she understood him better than he understood himself most days, she also knew that her death might break him and return him to an even darker and more repressed version of himself than before.

a sudden darkness brought her attention back up to meet a pair of wavering green eyes. her gaze flicked past him to note the children still playing together in the yard before meeting his again as he sat down next to her, reaching over to clasp his hand over hers.

“your bucket list?” he asked, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

when he first found out she had created one, under the assumption that she could die at any moment, he was unsurprisingly fearful, and remained simultaneously distant and protective for a long while. it did, however, help spark the conversation between them about having children.

regina nodded. “i still can’t believe i managed to accomplish all the things i’ve written down over the years. i just really have one thing left to figure out.”

adam intertwined his fingers with hers and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. the small circles he drew seemed to relieve some of the tension in both of their shoulders.

“whatever you decide,” he said finally, a noticeable strain in his voice. “i will respect it.”

“thank you,” she responded quietly, a thick tension sending a chill over them both despite the bright and warm sun and the laughter of their children surrounding them.

reference fic: cottage by the sea.

* * * * * 6. mason x detective brooklyn kingston (~530 words)

mason leaned against the side of brooklyn’s desk as they turned off their computer and pulled out a loose sheet of paper.

“what’s that?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

things had been relatively calm in town and even though the quiet made adam tense and stern, mason enjoyed the reprieve. especially since it meant that he got to spend more time with brooklyn. they had threatened to quit the team and move out of town not that long ago, but had yet to follow through.

he wasn’t going to question them on it. he had already made it clear that he would follow them to the end.

“a bucket list,” they replied distractedly, not even bothering to look up at him. “a list of things i want to do before i leave wayhaven.”

mason raised an eyebrow. so they were still planning to leave. he leaned over and let his finger land on the sheet, pinning it to the desk.

“this is an ambitious list,” he remarked as he scanned the list of thirty things or so, most of which had been crossed out.

they lifted his finger and swatted his hand away before smoothing out the page. “are you doubting me?”

“i’d never do that, brooks,” he said, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. “come on, i’ll take you home.”

“i’m going to dinner at verda’s and he’ll take me home after. i’ll see you tomorrow,” brooklyn said quickly, grabbing the cigarette from his fingers and tossing it into the trash can under their desk.

“i should make you start paying for those,” he growled playfully.

brooklyn chuckled. “or you could stop buying them. now get going so i can finish up here.”

he smirked and leaned in close enough that they could trace the freckles on his face with their nose if they leaned forward just a little.

“do i get a kiss before i go?” he asked with a smirk on his face, his gaze focused on their lips.

their eyes flicked down to his lips and back up to his grey eyes, the playfulness simmering behind a seriousness that made their breath catch. they tilted their head slightly and leaned forward to press their lips to his, letting his wrap around theirs for a brief second before pulling away.

“goodbye, mason,” they murmured, smiling gently at him, hoping the ache in their chest wasn’t visible in any way.

mason’s eyes fluttered open and his heartbeat thudded in his ears, the sound becoming more familiar each time they kissed. this time, however, brooklyn’s lips felt different and not in any way that he could pinpoint. mason’s eyes searched theirs, confused but unable to figure out exactly why he felt so uneasy.

after a moment, he shrugged and got up from their desk, turning back to nod at them once before heading out. brooklyn’s smile faded and they looked over their list one more time. the few they had left were ones they had planned on knocking out that evening, starting with verda and his family.

they just hadn’t expected to complete the last item so soon:

say goodbye to mason.

reference fic: menage

* * * * * permatag: @kelseaaa; @kat-tia801; @anotherbeingsworld; @crackerdumortain; @pearlsandsteel; @gloynporslen; @writer-ish; @sosolenoo; @alyssalauren; @fhauvilles; @wayhavenots; @gingerbreton; @takemyopenheart; nate x detective: @missameliep;

[yandere-daydreams]

how about a yandere solomon with a darling who's very much into asmodeus? i just really want to see how you would write him!!

He’s one of those characters I really, really didn’t expect to be as popular as he is, and yet, the Solomon Simps have only made themselves more apparent, considering the hype for the new lessons. It’s the least I could do to help fan that fire, while I’m here.

Title: Infatuation. 

TW: Delusional Mindsets. 

~

No one should be that oblivious.

It was a crime, really. Of all the infatuations and fancies and one-sided passions Solomon had borne witness to, yours was the only one more apparent to the target of your affections than the one who targetted those affections to begin with. It was sickeningly childish, really. All wide-eyes and stifled giggles and flushed cheeks, a complexion you wore so often, Solomon used to think it was natural. It was obvious, and yet, if anyone asked you about your little crush, you’d just laugh and dismiss the notion that you could pursue something so fruitless, so immature. Solomon didn’t care for it. He thought it was cute, and naivety was far from a fatal flaw, but he just couldn’t bring himself to indulge your daydreams.

But, you didn’t want him to.

He wasn’t the one you were so enamored with, after all.

Even now, his exclusion was clear. He was closer to you, he knew you better, and yet, your attention never wavered from that monster, that abomination, that demon, the one currently perched on the edge of his own bed, pawing through a pile of packages and palettes and unused products, only a handful of which Solomon could identify as ‘make-up’. You were lying on your back, fiddling with the contents of a more selective bag, searching through what Asmodeus had picked out with you in mind during his last shopping spree.

You’d stuttered so badly when he presented you with the self-indulgent gift, Solomon had to wonder if you’d managed to swallow your tongue.

He almost wished you had, if it’d ended his misery a little faster.

“I don’t see why you called me,” Solomon mumbled, shifting and crossing his legs, making space for himself on the otherwise occupied mattress. Idly, he traced the shape of a tube of mascara with his thumb, not bothering to try to read the label. He was sure he could ask questions about application and purpose and whatever he had yet to learn, but this was a corner of the world he was glad to leave in the dark. One he didn’t mind not being so wise about, for the sake of his sanity, if nothing else. “You and (Y/n) seem to have this handled. I dare say I’m unneeded.”

Asmodeus sighed, and you grinned like he’d made the funniest joke in the world. “Be patient. You’re here because I’m biased - both of you always look awful, compared to me.” He paused, taking up a circular, black compress and handing it to you, letting it fall into your palm as you lazily reached back. “Our dearest little mortal is going to do something very important soon, and it’s my job to make sure no one does anything life-changing without looking their best. I don’t like the idea of my second-favorite human getting caught unprepared.”

“Very important,” You agreed, rolling onto your stomach as a wide, careless smile spread across your lips, untroubled and far too casual for Solomon’s tastes. He suppressed a frown, his nails digging into his palms as he forced his fists into his lap. If you were going to smile like that at all, it should be because of him. He didn’t like the idea of you being so trusting towards anyone else. “I’m going to confess to someone I’ve liked for a while, and I want it to be perfect. Asmo’ promised to help me get ready.” You stopped, for a moment, spotting a smaller palette of eyeshadow and pushing it in your companion’s direction. “How do you feel about the second color? I think it goes with the outfit you picked out.”

“When I send you back to the circus, I’ll let you wear that. Look for something darker.” With that, his attention began to drift, amber eyes soon coming to focus on Solomon, who met his gaze with a light scowl and a quirked eyebrow. “Solomon, dear, tell your friend to tell me who we’re putting on a show for. I’ve been prying all day, but they won’t spill.”

“Solomon’s friend keeps telling you that it’s a secret.” You’d gotten caught up in your own glee without noticing, your words drawing out for a touch too long and your syllables rolling together, forming one long, silent admission. You were talking to Solomon now, technically, but your focus never strayed from Asmodeus, your face growing lighter and your voice becoming infinitely more jovial as his came to center on you, as well. “He’s in the House of Lamentation right now, but that’s all I’m going to say. You’re going to have to wait and see, just like everybody else.” There was a wink, a giggle, and Solomon couldn’t help but feel you’d abandoned the hope of staying subtle. “All we can do is dress me up and hope he feels the same way, right, Solomon?”

He supposed he should answer. He supposed he should encourage you, or give you his best wishes, or tell you that he’s sure whoever you’re so enthralled with is just as captivated as you are, judging from the renewed vigor in Asmodeus’ laugh and the way you couldn’t seem to tear yourself away from him. Asmodeus was interested, but you, you were in love, as charmed as any of the demon’s victims could be without supernatural assistance. It wasn’t fair. Solomon was in love, he cared about you, more than Asmodeus did. He was better. He was human.

He was jealous, despite himself.

You were going to confess, and you were going to get yourself hurt in the process. You were going to chase after a monster who fed off of people like you, too loving for their own good. It’d be kind of him to put a stop to it, really. It’d be merciful. His pulse was drumming in his ears and his heart was beating faster than he should ever let it, but he knew without a doubt that his intentions were the purest in the room. You’d be heartbroken and sorely in need of a shoulder to cry on, but that was just a silver-lining. He was sure his motives were solely protective. They had to be. 

He cared for you, and he wanted to guide you away from harm. Neither sentiment was selfish, nor were they exclusive.

He’d put a stop to this because he cared for you.

Becoming the focus of your affections would just be a bonus, to him.

His thoughts were already morphing into ideas, his ideas becoming plans, but he was interrupted by a sudden weight on his shoulder, your form suddenly removed from the bed and slumped against his. You were jostling him gently, laughing and sticking your tongue out at Asmodeus, and while he was sure you were saying something, he couldn’t bring himself to listen.

Rather, he gazed at you and he smiled, thinking of how lovely this would be when it was just the two of you.

[homesteadchronicles]

A Cycle of Seals: Writing Excerpt (Princess of Impotence)

After three months of continual debate on whether or not to post this excerpt, my friends convinced me to submit it on-stream tonight. While it imperfectly handles heavy topics I myself am still working through, I hope you see the heart and healing process behind it - and, most importantly, behind Eirys.

You may remember these three from my recent Character Description Challenge! I can never get enough of writing their dynamic, even as their in-canon scenes continue to dwindle through editing. Whomp.

___

Project: A Cycle of Seals Timeline: Pre-Book One Canonical? No Context:

The House of Salvation has long isolated society’s sick. The Godewine twins - Royan and Eirys - visit every dawn and tend to the condemned. While Royan attracts the masses with the supernatural power of his Timekeeper’s Seal, the powerless Eirys attends to one individual: Oeden Sincairn, locked away even from the other infirm. 

Content Warnings: Illness, Isolation, Mentions of Ableism

___

The Yoreword warns of a wickedness more contagious than any sickness, one bestowed upon the lowest amongst them. Eirys has never - paragons forgive her blasphemy - believed that. Illness did not demean one’s internal divinity. Not when the skin-deep sainthood of her fellow nobles could nauseate an angel. Even still, sacrilege guides her away from those surrounding her blessed sibling to instead seek solace with the kingdom’s most corrupted citizen.

With the crowd thoroughly enthralled by Royan’s abilities, Eirys slips outside their thinning scope of notice and down the western hall. While the main chamber had been filled to overflowing with the infirm, naught but a begrudging servant files through the passage here. Those who notice her appearance regard her with the civil disinterest paid to one of their own. Or had they purposely dismissed their princess? Nonsense, she thinks (but does not believe).

Would such insolence not make sense? She is no Shepherd. She bears no Seal. She does not sway the hearts of nobles like Isolde, does not command the arms of soldiers like Sigrid, does not awe the minds of scholars like Ciaran. She is but another stumbling block to the damned’s salvation, a scourge to kiss their scars.

Why must power inhabit those who refuse to wield it well? That question had no answer, or at least not one the spirits deign to supply.

Yet, despite her inherent impotence, one resident still awaits her entrance.

Eirys shuffles down the corridor, around the corner, and up to a room quartered off from the rest. With a knock for courtesy, she slips in without awaiting permission.

Inside, the chamber holds little else other than Oeden, perched at the edge of a bed as unkempt as he. He is dressed, thankfully - not that a medic cares much for modesty - with a tunic hanging loosely off his wiry form. The tension that inhabits his shoulders evacuates whilst registering his visitor’s identity.

You’re safe, she thinks, willing the assurance to reach him. Safe, but not saved.

A flicker of mischief lifts his lips, too weak to raise the bags beneath his eyes. “Abandoning your brother, are we?”

Eirys huffs, indignant fists finding her hips. Even Oeden thought only of Royan! “I do hope that’s not a disappointment.”

He does not answer, and so Eirys sets to work. Oeden needs attention - medically, at least - every day before sunrise, lest their superiors deny him access to the sanctuary. If coming here every morning means her friend can escape isolation? Well, it made her wartime training worthwhile. Her bag unpacked, the bedside table stands littered with supplies of every shape and size: needles and knives and salves that would unnerve even hardened warriors.

Oeden refuses to flinch.

“You should have seen them,” Eirys says as she rifles through her satchel for a binding beneath the draughts. “All those patients, pawing at his Seal like it might peel off if they rub it right. They were two fools short of a parade!”

Oeden cannot see it, can see little else beside this room, and instead snorts from imagination alone. “With Royan there, they only need one more.”

She swats him with the wad of bandages in hand but cannot hold back her laughter. How tragic that such wit must stay locked away. “At least someone pays him any mind.”

“Ironic, isn’t it? His only admirers come from ones the rest of the world admonishes.” The laugh that follows lacks all humor.

There is a sickness in Norire. One that spares the poor and spoils the pure. One whose unholy hand reaches across the nation, fingers of infirmity digging into every manse and mansion. Even her own. Eirys knows this, intrinsically. Hates it, irrefutably. But, like every other illness, she cannot cure it. Not anymore than she might will away the wickedness of kings who condone quarantining the chronic, the heresy of priests enslaving the impoverished, the sinfulness of princesses submitting to these societal normalities.

Instead, she sits down. Shuts up. Prays behind sealed lips to an imprisoned god for forgiveness, for change.

Oeden never minds the silence. His proclaimed disdain for company disproved itself with every unspoken show of appreciation. This time, it crumbled beneath a subtle repositioning atop the bed: an invitation for intimacy.

Eirys accepts his summons, scooting closer, the equipment her plus one. A once-over of his body shows no sign of his condition having spread, but she can tell little with the glove that disguises his limb. Her hand hovers above, but does not touch. “May I…?”

Oeden nods. Neither required consent – thus why she elicits it. No one asked Oeden permission to burden him with this power, any more than they had asked Eirys to deprive her of it. He deserves this small dignity.

With measured tenderness, Eirys peels back the fabric encasing his left arm. Each inch of cloth stripped away reveals the crystalline protrusions carving through calloused skin in misshapen patches. Flesh split in bloodied fissures, ore corroding the body into its personal deposit. No worse than before, she thinks. The thought does little to placate her concerns because that does not make it better than before either.

Oeden evades her gaze. Witnessing her displeasure would surely confirm a deep-whispered suspicion: that he was, even to her, grotesque. She knows that he spies her reaction when he thinks her attention lies elsewhere, awaits a well-deserved grimace or an artificial grin. Instead, Eirys freezes her face in cold indifference. It comes naturally, she realizes - her family has done the same on the throne for one hundred years, after all, for far less noble a purpose.

She pulls a rag from the pouch at her hip and dips it into one of the pungent balms scattered about the bed top. The whiff of peppermint briefly assaults her before the musty scent of Salvation overpowers it. “Ready?” she asks. His nodded ascent initiates the delicate process of cleaning the crystal. Eirys traces the edges of fractured skin with her cloth as if she painted a masterpiece - with precision, and with respect to the canvas.

Oeden winces with each misplaced press of fabric. He never complains, but none could deny the pain he endures on the nightly. The momentary sting ebbs away at the gritted teeth and tensing posture until relief resumes its rightful mantle upon him. Eirys has never seen such strength from someone so weary. Weary, she realizes, and lonely.

He needs tending to. In his body, yes, but even more so in his soul.

“It’s not, you know,” Oeden says suddenly. He still refuses to meet her eyes, but he picks up on her confusion nonetheless, for he continues, “a disappointment, I mean. That you’re here.”

Had he dwelt on her greeting this whole time?

Eirys slips her free hand into Oeden’s, clasping it with desperate compassion. You deserve deliverance, but I can only give you decency. “I’d sure hope not,” she teases, “but we both know you’d prefer my brother’s company.”

“Royan would have only worsened this,” Oeden reminds her. The Seal of Progression could do little to cease the spread of crystal. It could only comfort those who conformed to its whims - and Oeden had never been one to obey. “Besides, who knows what I would have seen, had anyone else done this…”

Ah, yes. The visions.

Eirys understands next to nothing of them, despite her supposed spirituality, but she does not doubt their existence any more than she doubts that their god remains trapped in some undiscovered vault. One touch of crystallized skin could send Oeden into an unconscious stupor. Foreseeing an unfortunate future from unprompted contact became an all-too-common occurrence.

“And with me?” Eirys entangles their fingers, drawing his hands up. “What do you see?”

Oeden’s breath hitches as she scales the goosebumps raising across his arm, but he does not deny her. His left hand rises to meet her, ore-crusted finger brushing against a freckled forehead. A breath. A moment. A hope.

“…Nothing.”

Oeden exhales like oxygen had always evaded him. His head slumps against hers. “Thank the Seals you’re safe, Eir.”

You’re safe for me, is what he means. She hopes he knows he’s safe with her, too.

They sit there, undone and unsure, in each other’s presence until time unwinds itself around them and Eirys realizes: the military, the clergy, the royalty - none of them need her. None of them need to. Oeden does. And a flustered, wistful part of herself believes she needs him too.

She always loathed her own powerlessness, but this powerlessness to resist him? She could live with that. She might even love it.

[writingsbychlo]

more ways than one (01)

word count; 4951

summary; your first meeting with the stranger you rescued doesn’t go as smoothy as you’d hoped.

notes; I remind y’all that Stiles was possessed, but it veers off and it goes away, it’s not really mentions how, but the nogitsune never splits from Stiles. Allison is still alive, and Malia and Stiles are not a couple. Oh, and Derek is away travelling with Cora. That’s about it.

warnings; violence, choking, aggression.

You chewed on the straw in your mouth absentmindedly, your gaze trailing off into the distance as the girls talked constantly around you. You were vaguely following the conversation as they spoke, the girls chatting loudly about everything you had all been through lately, as though the supernatural was public information and they didn’t care about the opinions of those tables around you all who could easily eavesdrop if they bothered to listen closely.

Your eyes were squinted a little, the sun shining down and giving a warm feeling over the day, despite the storm that was due to set in later on in the day, and Lydia had texted you all this morning and told you to be ready to go for a late lunch while it was warm. She claimed that after everything that had happened with Stiles’ brief run-in with possession, and the year of supernatural crap that had gone down during your sophomore year, that you were all well overdue a lunch date to chat. That, and she was taking the opportunity to introduce Malia to the world of once again being bi-pedal and human.

Said strawberry-blonde snapped her fingers in front of your face, calling your attention to her and your thoughts snapped away from the nightmare you had somehow landed yourself in, your eyes focusing in on her as you pulled your milkshake away from your mouth, smiling as casually as you could as you looked at her. Her eyes were narrowed, lips pursed as she studied you carefully, before her lips were twisting up in a smirk. 

“What’cha thinking about so hard there, girly?”

You cleared your throat, shaking your head and smiling casually as you lifted one of your fries to your mouth, chewing on the soft potato as you shrugged at her, trying your best to play it cool, but the four sets of eyes on you were throwing you through a loop. “Nothing.” You watched them carefully, swallowing the milkshake before taking a long sip of your milkshake, the chocolate flavour filling your mouth and she merely hummed, Allison was snickering as she turned to whisper to Kira, and Malia simply watched the interactions, taking the last bite of her double-cheeseburger and licking the sauce from the edge of her mouth, humming happily around the food.

“So, you’re not thinking about a pale and male-covered boy with brown hair and bright eyes?” You practically choked on your drink as Allison questioned you, your eyes wide as you wondered whether they’d found out about the lookalike you’d stashed at Derek’s loft, and you sputtered for an explanation, your cheeks heating up with a red flush, Kira cracking up and slapping the huntress on the arm as the two curled into each other in a fit of giggles. 

“She’s totally thinking about Stiles, look at her blushing!” 

You felt relief seep into your body as the tension slipped away, your body slumping in the seat as you rolled your eyes, your racing heart calming as your secret remained safe, for now. “Wait, am I missing something? Why would I be thinking about Stiles?”

Lydia picked at her acrylic nails, not even bothering to look up at you as she spoke. “Maybe because you’re totally into each other?”

“What?”

“Oh, come on. You know the two of you have gotten super close, lately!” Allison insisted, and your brows rose as you glanced around the other girls, and Lydia mumbled her agreement as she sipped at her water, a half-eaten salad sitting in front of her. 

“When I first met you guys, I thought you were together,” Kira added, and you rolled your eyes, nibbling on your lower lip as embarrassment flooded through your system, the copy-cat male you’d hidden away yesterday slipping from your mind as thoughts of the original filled your thoughts. You loved your best friend, you truly did, and you couldn't deny how much closer you’d gotten to him lately, but it was only because he’d come to you when he started to feel the effects of his possession, confiding in you long before anyone else had. “I think you’d be cute together.”

“Are they not together?” Malia muttered, looking intently at the uneaten food on your plate, and you giggled as you offered it up to her, a bright smile taking over his face as she accepted the plate ad placed it down on top of her own empty one, quickly tucking into your leftover food.

“C’mon girls, he’s totally in love with Lyds, since like third grade. You know this, he’s not exactly subtle.” You teased, knowing it was true. The boy spoke about her all the time, and while he hadn't quite been as vocal about it, you knew he was still pining for the red-head girl. 

“Everyone’s a little bit in love with me, but not everyone holds hands with their best friend.” You snorted unattractively, giving her a side-eye and leaning back, your legs crossing proudly as you thought about it. 

“When have I ever held hands with Stiles?”

“Uh, like six times over the past three months?” Kira objected, the others all making various sounds of agreement as you watched Malia finish your meal too, a proud smile on her face as she leaned back in her chair, legs parted and hands sitting on her stomach as she groaned happily at the feeling of having a full stomach.

“Three of those times he was unconscious, one of those times he was going into a bathtub full of ice and one of those times he was checking into a nuthouse.” You pointed out, and the banshee counted them off on her fingers, wiggling a finger at you as she smiled.

“That makes five, what about the sixth time?” 

You shrugged, deciding to bait them a little, a sigh falling from your lips. “You’re right, me and Stiles are totally and madly in love. You caught us out.” Their jaws dropped as they leaned forwards, a collection of squeals sounding as you tried to keep a straight face, eventually cracking up, and one by one they caught on as they scowled at you, Allison flicking you in the arm and Lydia pinching the other one, and you jumped away from both of them, rubbing your arms as you all but cackled at having fooled them. 

The conversation moved on as they began to focus on other things, and you pulled your phone from your pocket, two messages flashing up on the screen and you clicked on the first, rolling your eyes as you opened the message from Stiles.

[batman 🦇💛] bring me ur leftover pizza back from lunch?

can’t, malia ate it, whoops x

[batman 🦇💛]  >:( I can’t believe this, does 12yrs of friendship mean nothing to u?!

You grinned, rolling your eyes and tuning out the taunts and whistles you got from the group around you as they realised you were texting your best friend, your fingers flying over the screen as you typed out your reply, checking the time before you did.

according to the girls, it means we r in love x

[batman 🦇💛]  ha. funny. ive seen u eat sand. couldnt kiss u now.

shut up, dumbass. I was 6 and u dared me x

[batman 🦇💛]  kinda sad to kno the girl i'm in love w/ thinks i love u but that's my luck.

You cooed, rolling your eyes and promising that you’d text him later as you swiped out to the other text, your stomach churning as you realised it was from Derek. Admittedly, he was only asking about his loft, and whether you’d been over to check everything was okay, but it still made guilt twist at your guts before you sent a half-true reply, choosing instead to cover up the real facts. 

Instead, you chose to tell him that you had definitely been over to check and that everything was tip-top okay, neglecting to tell him that you were stashing a supernatural double of your best friend only two weeks after he was mysteriously possessed and released, and that he was cut up and injured and arrived from a weird storm. Minor details.

Clearing your throat, you pulled out a handful of notes from your purse, placing them down in the amount that you owed as you excused yourself from the table, balancing the strap of your bag on your shoulder and smiling at the complaints of your friends as they encouraged you to stay, but it was already nearing the late afternoon and early evening, and you needed to grow the courage to return to the scene of your crime.

The pharmacy was only a quick walk around the corner, and you’d made sure to park your car outside of it so that none of them would see you leaving and entering the building with a suspicious amount of medical supplies, and you pulled the crumpled paper with your list pulled on out of your pocket. Smoothing the crumpled item out in the palm of your hand, the bell above the door jingled, the air conditioning washing over you immediately and you shivered at the sudden temperature drop upon entering the shop.

Peering at your own writing, you smiled uneasily at the cashier who was watching you, a kid who’d graduated just a year or two earlier, and her eyes narrowed on you as you moved through the shelves. Plucking one of the plastic shopping baskets from the side, you held it carefully in your arms, avoiding their scrutinising gaze.

Paper Stitches.

Your eyes scanned over the shelf, a surprising number of options displayed before you, and even the first option was already showing you the impact that this little shop was going to have on your bank account, and you simply prayed it would be worth it. Taking the largest size and strongest strength in your hand, you shrugged to yourself, dropping it into the basket and scanning the other ones. You could always pick up another size of you needed them, but you were definitely going to need at least two boxes of these ones for now.

You couldn't help the scowl on your face as the sum total began to add up in your mind, moving along the aisle to the wrapping sand covers,

Bandages. Gauze.

There were far too many options of bandages and covers, a jumble between compression wraps, light and thick material covers and thick and padded gauze. You could barely tell the difference between any of the options, and you began to think that maybe you should have paid a little more attention to the quick google search you’d done earlier as to what you actually needed. 

First up, a collection of thick, cotton wool paddings to place over the large gashes the man had obtained, followed by gauze and bandages, a hand rubbing over your forehead as the collection began to gather up in the bottom of the basket. Your fingers brushed over the rolls of medical tape, and you dropped a roll of that in too, knowing you’d need something to fasten the material to his torso with. 

You skirted around the corner to the next set of shelves, your cheeks flaring in a blush as you caught the suspicious gaze she was giving you, and you cleared your throat, holding your head high as you ignored the judgement hanging on her sights. 

Antiseptic Wash. Hand Sanitizer. Cotton Balls.

100 cotton balls in a bag for three dollars felt like a good enough offer for you, and you dropped it into the basket, humming to the tune playing over the radio above your head as you swiped a large bottle of antiseptic wash from its place, and finally, a few of the small bottles of hand sanitizer, because you’d been needing some more of that anyway. 

You hadn't quite been ready for the odd glare the ex-peer had given you when you placed the basket on the counter, and her eyes moved slowly between the items and your eyes, a sarcastic smile on her lips as she slowly began to ring them up, placing them all in a paper bag for you and ensuring they would all fit.

In a bid to avoid the wight of her stare fixed on you, you let your eyes scan over the ‘last-minute-purchase’ options on the counter, adding a packet of strawberry bubblegum to the collection and she scanned it through, reading your total to you and you jammed the card into the reader, wincing at the price that was displayed on the small screen. Your fingers punched into the buttons as you bit your tongue, taking the card and the bag as soon as you could and you darted from the shop, barely pausing to take your receipt from her as you fled. 

Placing the stuffed paper bag on the shotgun seat, you rounded the car, letting out a deep sigh as you strapped into the seat and stuck your keys into the ignition. Digging into the bag beside you, you fished out the bubblegum, taking a stick from the packet and unwrapping it, popping it into your mouth and letting the chewing motion and sweet flavour soothe you as you started up the car and began the well-ingrained journey to the loft, anxiety riddling your body.

The radio played quietly in the background as you made your way along, the only sounds filling the car being that of the quiet hum of the latest chart-toppers, and the occasional pop of the bubblegum in your mouth. You weren’t really too sure why you were still keeping this secret from everyone, you had the perfect chance at lunch to tell the girls about what had happened, to get help and confide in someone.

Stiles.

Deep down, it was about protecting Stiles. The ripples on the surface of the water had only just smoothed back down, and you weren’t willing to throw the next stone in a situation that you were absolutely certain you could handle yourself. How dangerous could someone who was 147 pounds and unconscious be?

That was the only thought that was strong enough to force you up and out of the car, your feet carrying you forwards as you unlocked the main door, clicking it shut behind you as you made your way toward the stairs, choosing to walk all the way up to the top instead of taking the rickety elevator. You could use the time to calm yourself down, work out what you were going to do if the stranger you were harbouring was now awake.

Your hands were shaking so much that the keys were jingling as you walked, and you clenched them in a fist, taking a deep breath as you reached the final level and pausing before the silver metal door. With a deep sigh, you unlocked it carefully, sliding it out of the way and looking inside carefully. Natural light was flooding in through the huge bay windows at the other end, the concrete room lit up with warm light that almost made the monochrome grey space look welcoming, and your eyes zeroed in on the space that had once occupied that man you had rescued. 

Nothing seemed out of place, the room wasn’t trashed and rummaged through, and everything was still and calm as you took a first cautious step inside. By the second step, you were sliding the door shut behind you, your brows furrowing. By the third step, a cold hand was sealed tightly around your throat, pinning you up to the wall as the tips of your toes brushed the ground. 

The bag in your arms fell away, the items within it scattering across the floor as you squeaked, coming up to grab at the wrist holding you so tightly to the wall as you struggled to drag in any breath at all, your gaze meeting the furious one of the face you knew so well on the person you didn’t know at all. Those familiar honey-brown eyes were scanning over you interrogatively, and the long fingers wrapped around your throat flexed, tightening for a second before you were released, and you fell to your knees, eyes watering as you took in burning breaths, rubbing soothingly at the skin on your throat as the man merely stood and watched you for a second, before spinning on his heel and walking away.

You watched him go, shaking your head as he stormed away, and once your breathing had finally calmed and your heart had stopped racing so had on your chest that you thought it may burst out, you began to slowly gather up the items you had dropped, stuffing them all haphazardly back into the now torn paper bag and standing it up. Sitting on your knees, you took a moment to gather yourself, your eyes locking with the narrowed brown ones watching you, goosebumps rising over your body and you tried to seem strong, not to let him know quite how terrified you really were, as you took the back, standing on unsteady legs and holding your head high as you stared him down.

Making your way over to him, you placed the bag down in front of him, raising your brows as you moved slowly, the warning growl in his throat being acknowledged as you held up your hands, palms out to him to show you meant no hard, despite the fact that he'd attacked you only moments prior. Instead, you slowly tipped the bag upside down, allowing all the contents to spill out across Derek’s plain black coffee table, the man’s eyes scanning over it all, his face twisted in confusion as he looked at each item.

You stood with him in silence for a moment, letting him look at all the items, before he was stepping away from you, a snarl on his lips as he moved as far back as he could while still being able to watch your movements, track what you were doing. With a heavy sigh, you backed away yourself, never taking your eyes off of him out of fear of what he might do once you did, and for each step backwards you took, he moved forward one, and you slowly guided him toward the kitchen.

He lingered in the doorway as you moved around, never taking your eyes off of him for more than a split second as you searched through his drawers and cupboards, a small sound of victory leaving you once you found something you could work with, and you slipped two packets of the instant-noodles from the collection, dropping them on the counter as you continued your hunt on your meal-making task. 

He flinched each time a pot or pan clashed, his eyes once again narrowing menacingly, and you had to suppress a chuckle because it was no longer focused on you, but instead on the source of the loud sounds, as he glared at a frying pan that had shifted and fallen loudly on another one. Selecting a pan big enough for the job, you quickly filled it with water from the tap, deciding that using the hob was definitely the safest bet, as you worked with this. Tearing open each packet, you held it up to show him as you watched on curiously, and you dropped the solid blocks of noodles into the water, waiting for it to begin to bubble over the flame. 

There was nothing in the fridge that you could use, he’d gotten rid of everything perishable before going away, and you made a mental note to buy food, your heart once again sinking at the savings-draining task you had taken on. Maybe if you told Lydia, she’d give you her card and allow you to pay using her platinum, but you highly doubted you’d get away with telling her now without having to endure a long sit down talk and a lot of disappointed looks, which you weren’t ready to deal with. Lydia Martin could be scary when she wanted to be. 

The silence hung heavily in the room between the two of you, and you tried to school your face into a stoic expression, despite the stormy scowl that was being directed at you, his body shuffling as you looked at him, his shoulders rolling from the discomfort of his injuries and he looked like he was going to try and dash at any moment. Taking two dishes from the lower cupboard beside your legs, you placed them out on the table gently, a fork beside each one and you stirred the noodles, the pasta soft and flimsy as it circled around, the savoury smell filling the air and you quickly dished up the food after switching off the hob, placing a fork in one bowl and pushing it across the countertop toward him. 

He stepped forward as you took a seat on one of the stools, and you watched as he lifted up the instrument, pushing the pasta around the dish, a growl leaving him as he dropped the fork back into the bowl with a clatter, and you raised your eyebrows as you ate your own food, fixing him with a judgemental look and shaking your head. He used a single, skinny finger to push the bowl toward you roughly, some of the soup sloshing over the side and you let out a sigh, continuing to eat your food as he glared at you.

You had never felt quite so intimidated while in the presence of a bowl of noodles, and had you been anywhere else, in any other situation, you might have found this situation funny, perhaps even laughed at it, but right now, you worried you may actually choke on the noodles from stress. When you finally finished, and he was still twitching from foot to foot in front of you, his nervous shuffling giving you anxiety, too. 

“What? You don’t eat, then?” He merely snarled at you, despite the rumbling in his stomach as the delicious smell drifted through the air and you raised a brow at him, shrugging and taking the bowl, his eyes watching as you snatched the food from in front of him. You made sure to make a show of tipping it into the garbage disposal, his eyes watching as the food slipped away into the drain and his jaw tightened, twitching as he ground his teeth together, his body jerking in shock as you slammed your hand down on the button on the wall and the loud grating filled the room, before you finished it, a smug look on your face as you cleared the dishes into the sink to clean later.

He stalked from the room as you did, his nostrils flaring at your actions and you wanted to stomp your foot on the ground and groan, but instead, you merely clenched your fists by your sides, following after him as he whipped his head around to see you following him, choosing to make his way over to the couch and poke through the items spilt out on the coffee table.

He picked up the bag of cotton wool balls, looking at them curiously before dropping them and you cleared your throat, his hard gaze directed back to you as you crossed your arms over your chest self-consciously. “Those wounds on your back are bad, you should let me take a look at you.”

He blinked at you, twice, eyes wide and his face didn’t move, giving you no indication that he was actually understanding a thing you were saying and you took cautious and slow steps toward him, his body tensing up as you did and you plucked the item from his hands, meeting little resistance as you held it up. 

“These are for cleaning the wounds. On your shoulders?” 

You placed the item down, motioning to your own shoulders as you tried to make him understand, and he twitched at the motion, his features falling from their hard glare a little his eyes softening and he swallowed thickly, his gaze dropping from yours for just a moment as he adjusted his arms. A wince was clear on his face as he moved his arms back, his lips parting and a quiet groan left him. 

Your own shoulders slumped as you watched him, and you picked up another couple of items, deciding to offer him a small smile as you held it up, jiggling the packages before him, and the crinkling caught his attention. “These are for wrapping and padding the cuts, because those are really bad, and they’ll get infected.” 

He pursed his lips, but for once they weren’t fixed in a heavy scowl and you felt as though perhaps you were making some kind of progress with him. Placing them down, you moved through the rest of the items, lifting each one slowly and telling him what it would be used for, only receiving the same blank looks and lonely silence as he stood before you, his gaze flicking over both you and the room multiple times. Despite the lack of verbal confirmation, you were choosing to believe that he understood you, because his posture had loosened, his body slumping forward a little and he seemed a little less like he was preparing to fight for his life at every turn of events. 

It wasn’t until you’d finished talking to him and moved toward him that his defensive stance returned to him. He jerked aggressively away from you as you took a step toward him, and you lifted your hands, reaching out to him carefully as you motioned towards his back. “Let me take a look at your injuries!”

He stepped back again, his legs hitting the edge of the couch and he went rigid as you closed in on him, a low growl sounding from his throat, the noise rumbling from his chest in a warning and his eyes were practically burning with rage, his anger having built in seconds and your jaw dropped.

“We just talked about your injuries! I told you what I need to do!”

You tried one final time, reaching for him carefully and he took your wrist in his hand squeezing so tightly that your knees buckled as you released a cry, and he growled once again, this time predatory, as if to tell you to back off or it would get worse. Then, he was using his grip on you to push you back as you stumbled over your own feet, just about stopping yourself from tripping up and falling on your ass.

“Fine!” You snapped, your arms flying out to your sides as you shouted at him, and his eyebrows raised at your increase in volume, his eyes wide as he watched you, your own jaw clenching and you pointed at him angrily. “Go ahead, die of fuckin’ osteomyelitis for all I care!”

Your cheeks were flushed, and you fixed him with the harshest glare you could, before letting out a deep sound of anger, a groan that rippled through your body as you threw your head back, eyes squeezed shut as you tried to calm yourself down. Taking a series of deep breaths, you calmed your racing heart and the heat that was curling up your cheeks died down. 

You mumbled curses under your breath, turning back to him to find him staring at you intently still, and you ran a hand through your head, grimacing as the tension in the air hung thickly. “Look, I’m going to go and get some warm water, we really need to sort out those gashes or you’re going to get really sick.”

You nodded at him, hoping that he understood before you were rubbing your hands together and turning on your heel, making your way into the kitchen. Fishing out a fresh bowl, you turned on the tap, running the water over the inside of your wrist to test the temperature, and when it became too hot for the skin there, you knew it was the perfect temperature. Gathering enough in the bowl, you placed it on the side, searching through the drawers for some clean rags.

When you first heard the metal of the door sliding, your brows furrowed, and it took a second before the realisation of what that particular grinding of metal meant, your eyes widening and you squeaked, dropping the material on your hands as you dashed from the kitchen, your eyes scanning over the empty loft area and your heart raced, bile rising in your throat as you guts twisted. “Shit!”

Your eyes focused on the open loft door, and you ran towards it, your feet moving quickly down the stairs as your tried not to fall, your blood pounding in your ears and you let out a panicked and frustrated yell as you noticed the main door now hanging open too, his taller stature and head-start ensuring you wouldn’t catch up to him even with his injuries, the area surrounding the loft still and empty, as though he had just disappeared. 

Your legs buckled under you as the consequences began to run through your mind. Worry, fear and anger flooded your system as you kicked at a rock on the ground, tears lacing your eyes from the overwhelming floods of emotion bubbling over inside of you as you tried to work out what the fuck you were going to do now. 

The sun was almost setting, dark clouds moving in over the sky and threatening to break at any time as the sun sank lower and lower on the horizon.

“I’m so fucking screwed.” 

[milknette]

chapter 02 - rebellion

i move slow and steady, but i feel like a waterfall.​

tumblr month: @adrinetteapril​​

links: ao3 | ff.net chapter: previous | next

ALYA'S the one to pick her up from Ms. Mendeleiev’s class, waiting outside the door so that she can’t actually get out escape her.

She smiles as soon as Marinette exits, and the latter can’t quite swallow down the grin that threatens to escape her lips as she sees her friend’s hands crossed over her chest.

“So…,” Alya starts, as they begin to walk down the hallway. “I skipped class an hour ago.”

“ Ah, ” the mermaid only says offhandedly, “you know, you shouldn’t be skipping. That’s not the kind of role model behavior you should have for your ward .”

“Right,” the girl only nods alongside her. “It’s just that I was trying to help out a friend, so I rushed down to the quad with tons of towels in hand— looking absolutely insane , might I add… and imagine my surprise when she wasn’t there!”

“Shocker!” Marinette only responds drily, eyes widening unrealistically in shock. “I mean, to her defense, she would’ve been late if she’d waited. At least one of us should’ve been a good student today.”

Alya only narrows her eyes, before lightly bumping her companion to the side. “ You know , I’m thirsty,” she starts, slowly grabbing a bottle from the side of her backpack as she opens it.

Marinette takes a brief step back, and glares. “You wouldn’t dare .”

They have a brief staredown for a second, with Alya raising the bottle up… before simply taking a sip and immediately putting it away. She rolls her eyes as Marinette relaxes, laughing lightly as she hooks her arm around hers. “Come on, you didn’t really expect me to do that to you, did you?”

“Wouldn’t put it past your species,” she only responds curtly.

“Oh yeah, I forgot. All us land mammals suck, huh?”

A brief pause, before Marinette nods.

(But not brief enough— as Alya’s head flips towards her direction, an eyebrow raised and excitement almost bubbling out of her expression.)

“Hey,” she starts slowly, as they come to a standstill in the middle of the hallway. Alya moves uncomfortably close to her face, scrutinizing her friend’s expression. “What was that?”

Marinette doesn’t answer, instead looking in the other direction. “What do you mean?”

“That pause.”

She still refuses to look at her directly. “What pause?”

“When I said that you hated land mammals, you hesitated .”

She scoffs. “I did not .” Marinette struggles to get herself out of Alya’s grasp. (She has absolutely no problem swimming against strong currents in the ocean, but was increasingly realizing that her human body was largely just a useless and inefficient lump of flesh.)

“Yes, you did ,” Alya protests back, eyes squinting as she tries to make out what her friend’s expression means.

Marinette tries not to let anything show. Thinks about anything else. Not about the very cute TA, or the way he carried her, or the way his god-awful puns made her laugh like he’d just told the funniest joke in the world. Not about Adrien, and especially about the way he made her feel — ah, crap .

The red on her cheeks is subtle, but it doesn’t go unnoticed.

(Damn Alya and her investigative skills.)

“You met someone,” her friend finally deduces, voice slowly increasing in volume. “Do you have a crush on a human!?”

At that, Marinette manages to free herself (the power of embarrassment does wonders to the human body, she realizes), and pulls Alya to one of the empty classrooms. “Do humans always feel the need to speak so loudly? Mermaids are never this noisy.”

“That’s because you don’t have lungs ,” Alya only responds, rolling her eyes — before grabbing her friend’s hand, and using the other to point at the mermaid accusingly. “And don’t you even try changing the subject; I need to know everything. Right now.”

Marinette shakes off her arm, opting to lean upon one of the desks. “There’s nothing to say! You’re just making things up from thin water.”

“Thin water?”

“Yeah. Like when you make something up without any basis? Do humans not have expressions like that here — “

“No, yeah, we do, but that’s not…,” Alya pauses, then exhaustedly rubs at her forehead. “Look, we’ll get into human and mermaid language later. A lot more interesting is that a mermaid has fallen for one of us .”

“I did not fall for him…!” Marinette stops in her tracks, realizing with her friend’s smirk that she’s fallen right into her trap.

“Ah, so there is a he to fall for?”

Marinette scoffs, tries to find an excuse or brush it off, before realizing that it’ll ultimately be a fruitless effort. Running a frustrated hand down her still-damp hair, she sighs. “Fine!” She finally mutters, defeated. “Look, it’s not a big deal. I just found him cute, that’s all.”

Alya raises an eyebrow. “Not a big deal?” She asks, shaking her head. “You’ve been here for a month , and I haven’t even seen you be interested in talking to humans, much less making friends,” she points out. “Actually talking to a guy without wanting to murder him, and finding him cute… now that’s what we call progress.” She grins, then leans forward.

Personal space, Marinette figures, is likely a concept that she isn’t all too familiar with.

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t —. “

“ Marinette ,” she finally deadpans. “We both know that you’re gonna end up telling me, or at the very least, I’ll end up figuring it out with my amazing detective skills, so let’s save the time on our part and just… tell me who he is.”

(She wants to say she knows Alya’s bluffing. But the determined look in her eye and tilt to a smile, and the fact that she knew how stubborn her best friend could be when it came to getting the “latest scoop”, as it is — makes her know that the statement is nothing short of the truth.)

“Adrien,” she finally breathes. “I don’t know his last name, but — “

“Agreste?” Alya suddenly interrupts, eyes widened in slight surprise. “Adrien Agreste?”

“Look, I can’t tell you if it is — “

“Blonde, green eyes, model figure, speaks only in corny puns but somehow endearing, and basically drop-dead gorgeous?”

“I — ,” Marinette pauses, trying to get her thoughts together. “How did you know that?”

To the former’s surprise, Alya doesn’t even respond. At least not with words.

Instead, she bursts into a fit of laughter . “Of course, it’s him,” Alya only cackles. “Of course it’s Agreste, isn’t it?” She pauses, then mutters to herself: “can’t believe I didn’t figure that out earlier on.”

“What do you mean?” Marinette only insists, trying to stop herself from mentally drowning her best friend. “Do you know him?”

“Adrien?” She finally catches her breath, before cackling again. “I think the better question to ask, Marinette, is who doesn’t ?”

“ Stop laughing! ” Marinette huffs, evidently getting more irritated. “What? Is he popular or something?”

Noticing the mermaid’s growing annoyance with the situation, Alya finally calms herself down, wiping a stray tear from her eye. “Adrien? He’s not just popular. He’s like the equivalent of an actual prince we have here in Francois-Dupont.”

“A prince?”

“Ever heard of the Agrestes? His dad’s on the board of directors here, and they’re loaded . Piss off Adrien, and he could definitely have you expelled in a second,” Alya states, before shaking her head. “Not that he would ever do it; Adrien’s one of the kindest people here — there are rumors that he’s actually an angel who’d come to visit us mortals.”

“Now that’s a little farfetched.”

Alya pauses, then stares her down while gesturing at her feet. “ Really? And a shapeshifting mermaid with supernatural powers is absolutely normal?”

Marinette looks at herself, then begrudgingly nods. “You have a point. But go on .”

“Well, that’s it, really,” she only says. “Adrien Agreste’s what you’d call your token golden boy . He even has a fanclub — “

“Really? There are a bunch of girls who set up a fanclub here?”

“ Oh ,” Alya shakes her head. “Not just here. It’s an international fanclub, and they have like, different branches or arms within and outside university. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t made it to mermaid media yet.”

“Mermaids don’t really care about the human world,” she only mutters, head still reeling from the onslaught of new information. “All they really want is to be left alone, remember?”

“Right,” Alya states, then suddenly looks at her in worry. “Are you okay?” She finally asks. “Don’t worry about having a lot of competition,” she points out. “He’s nice, but he hasn’t shown interest in any of them. You still have a chance.”

“Look, I don’t care about that,” Marinette only mutters. “I just want to be friends.”

Alya rolls her eyes. “Sure,” she drawls, “just be friends, says the girl who’s curiously asking about his life.”

Marinette stares back at her, deadpan. “Yes, and also that same girl who’s going through more than enough just by being the sole mermaid for miles.” She shakes her head, willing the thoughts of the blonde boy to escape her mind. “I’m not fanning the waves by going after someone who I’m sure has relationship drama following wherever he goes.”

“Okay,” Alya starts, “we’re going to circle back to ‘fanning the flames ’ later, but come on! Shouldn’t you chase after love regardless of the obstacles?”

Marinette can’t quite hide the disgust in her eyes. “Who talks like that? Are all you humans so cheesy?” Alya looks unimpressed with the response, but simply shakes her head. “I’m thinking strategically. Adrien’s cute, sure , but he’s not worth starting a revolution for.”

“A revolution? Aren’t you being a little too dramatic?”

“Fine then,” Marinette instead amends. “A rebellion.” She walks over to the window, starkly aware of the amount of people who’d prefer she not be here at all. “There’s already a manhunt over me, and I just want to finish the rest of this program in peace.”

“But…!”

She finds her way back to Alya, taking the latter’s hand and interlocking it. “See? You’re more than enough for me.”

“Initiating touch with a disgusting land mammal like me?” Alya dramatically puts a hand to her forehead, voice accentuated to sound like some stereotypical damsel-in-distress in early black-and-white movies. “Am I dreaming?”

Marinette cracks a small smile, then rolls her eyes. “All humans are so dramatic.”

“ Not all of us ,” a third voice suddenly chimes in, making the two pause in their tracks.

Leaning upon the door’s entrance, the so-called golden boy enters the room, eyes bright with visible amusement. “You know, students aren’t allowed to use the rooms without a permit.” His eyes gloss over to land on one figure in particular. “ Water you doing here?”

Oh, that’s objectively terrible.

Yet she finds herself smiling anyway.

Damn it.

“I was— I mean, we were, uh…”

Alya looks at her companion in evident surprise (she’d never seen Marinette quite so… adorable , if she were being honest), then stifles a laugh.

Marinette makes a mental note to throw her in the swimming pool later.

“We were just looking for Madame Bustier!” Alya finally responds easily, “she told us to meet her after she finished class, but we must’ve been in the wrong classroom. Sorry about that .”

Adrien looks at the two of them for a moment— perhaps looking at one not-person, really, then breathes a light chuckle. “She’s having lunch right now, but you can visit her office later if you still need to schedule an appointment.”

Busted.

“Thanks!” Alya only responds brightly, choosing to skip over how easily she was caught in her lie. “I guess we should take a head start, then.” She pulls Marinette, who seems to be paralyzed in place. “Let’s go , Marinette—!”

“ Actually , if it’s okay with you, I’d love to talk to her for a bit,” Adrien says, cutting them off. They both pause, and after a mental conversation between them (more on with Marinette saying something along the lines of ‘don’t leave me with him’ , and Alya either not understanding or willingly ignoring the statement— she really bets it’s the latter), giving an obnoxious thumbs up and nodding.

“Then I’ll see you later, Mari!”

Marinette updates the mental note. Throw her into the ocean , then.

“I’m starting to think your hobby’s eavesdropping on my conversations, huh,” she finally says, hands folded over her chest in an admittedly feeble attempt to assert dominance. Then, in a slightly more meek (and panicked, really) volume: “what did you hear?”

“Just dew- ing my job,” he grins back. She can’t even comment on how awful the pun is. “Can’t have you getting into more trouble.” Then, a thoughtful pause. “And don’t worry, I only got in when you called us disgusting land mammals.”

“Wait but that wasn’t me, that was Al—!”

She pauses, noticing the amused smile on his face. “And you’re messing with me, huh?”

“You need to learn how not to take things so sea riously,” he jokes. “Just go with the flow .”

Marinette huffs. “I can absolutely go with the flow…”

“Really?”

“De fin itely.”

The pun escapes her mouth before she can think about it, but it’s more than enough to make Adrien grin like an absolute maniac. “Then prove it over dinner? Tomorrow?”

“I don’t want to start a rebellion, though…”

They both pause.

Now why exactly did that come out?

He laughs. “I don’t know what you mean, but what do you have against rebellions?” Adrien pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “You’ll never get what you want or need by not doing anything about it.”

“So you’re telling me that…?”

“Well I don’t want to incite a whole-out war, but I think there are some things worth fighting for.” He turns to face her, eyes still beaming with a look that she can’t describe as anything other than kind . “Don’t you think?”

Marinette stops in her tracks, thinks, then carefully offers a hand.

“What time?”

“Hm?”

“The time,” she repeats. “For dinner tomorrow, I can meet you there.”

She hadn’t known it to be possible, but the smile on his face widens. “ Seaven,” Adrien says brightly. “I can pick you up at the girls’ apartment. You live there, right?”

Marinette nods.

“Fintastic,” he responds, still grinning as he jokingly bows and tips an invisible hat in his direction. “Until then, Marinette.” Adrien concludes, before walking away, a little bounce in his step, as she’s left to her own devices.

Marinette knows she’s going head over tails for him.

But she’s surprised to find that she doesn’t quite mind it.

[dennou-translations]

K SIDE:GREEN – Chapter 1 (Part 2)

Feel free to message me about possible corrections. If you can, please support the creators by purchasing the official releases.

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“‘Electricity’, activate!” Letting out a resonant voice, Hikotarou raised his PDA up high.

Isn’t this guy reading too much manga? Should I stop looking up to him after all? Sukuna thought, hands buried inside his pockets, yet the PDA’s screen started glowing green before his eyes.

“Eh?”

As if to sneer at his foolish reaction, a green shine burst from within the terminal. Drawing a zigzag track in the empty air, the green lightning pierced a PET bottle about five meters away. A chemical-like smell of melted plastic drifted from it.

Sukuna approached the burned PET bottle, and as if to say that he was acting without thinking, he touched it.

“Hot!”

Instantly, he flung it away. The PET bottle made a loud noise as it hit the ground. White smoke dissipated in the wind. A blistering appeared on Sukuna’s hand.

“What’re you doing?” Hikotarou cackled a laugh.

With his back turned to that laughter, Sukuna was looking down at his hand, forgetting to even blink.

That was real. It was neither magic nor a trick. A real supernatural power.

He had never even imagined that something like it existed in this world. Games were games, not reality. It was exactly because he usually played many of them that Sukuna was perfectly aware of this much – or at least he intended to be.

However, the words that Hikotarou had said to him one day came back vividly. A video game that one could play in the real world. That was most certainly a fact, not a metaphor or anything of the sort.

Sukuna heard an unfamiliar noise. A steadily pulsating beat. That was something Sukuna could hear from nowhere other than his own chest. A fragment of a world that had only ever exited within fiction and fantasy was unmistakably floating before his eyes – this truth was making Sukuna’s heart beat loudly.

“How’s that? It was true, wasn’t it? You believe what I said now?”

It was a wholly different story that Sukuna was annoyed at Hikotarou, who, in a stark contrast with him, was smirking proudly and pushing his PDA against Sukuna’s cheek. He gave quite some thought to knocking down the device, but that would be lashing out while being in the wrong, which was pathetic. After reflecting a little, he decided to attack from a different opening.

“You said you’d bought this thing, right? How much was it?”

When asked, Hikotarou quickly averted his eyes and said in a low voice, “1k.”

“So expensive! Ain’t that the same amount as the promotion points!?”

1k was a short for 1000. In order to rank up within JUNGLE, the points had to be consumed, and the points required when an E-rank was promoted to an L-rank were exactly a thousand. When thinking about earning that many points in an honest manner, it would likely take almost a month.

“Also, didn’t you say this was disposable or something? Don’t tell me this is the end.”

“O-Of course not! I said it was disposable ‘cause there’s a frequency limit! We can still use it!”

“How many times more?”

“Four...”

Meaning that item cost 1000JP for five times of use. Unfair overcharging was an understatement for it. And out of all things, Hikotarou had spent a valuable opportunity to make fair use of those 200JP on a PET bottle. Most likely with the sole purpose of showing Sukuna something nice.

The moment he thought this, something welled up within him.

“Fufu,” he snorted as if about to burst out, a roar of laughter following suit. “Ahahahahaha! What’s with that? Such a waste! Aren’t you an idiot!?”

“Sh-Shut up! It’s fine! Those are my points after all!”

“Even so, you—for something like that—”

“It’s ‘cause you wouldn’t believe what I said if I didn’t do something like this!”

A worked-up Hikotarou was so amusing that Sukuna laughed even louder. If his classmates saw him now, they would be wide-eyed and shocked. Sukuna himself had just found out for the first time that he could laugh with such a strident voice.

“Damn, it ain’t something to laugh so much for. You’re always making such a sour face too,” Hikotarou said with a strained smile. It was apparently influenced by Sukuna’s burst of laughter.

And so, for a while, the two players laughed together.

“But how does this thing work?” After laughing for some time, Sukuna scanned Hikotarou’s terminal with his eyes. “Doesn’t seem like there’s any mechanism planted in your PDA. It’s the same model as mine.”

“Yeah. Everything is apparently thanks to JUNGLE’s personal use app. Everybody calls it ‘ESP app’.”

If one could use psychic powers upon signing in, then there was indeed no social media more revolutionary than this one. It was about enough to become explosively viral, but it had its own reasons to remain as underground.

According to Hikotarou—

“There are these two types, the ‘skill’ and ‘item’, in the ESP app.”

“Skill” referred to powers that could be used constantly. If people called something a “psychic ability” in JUNGLE, it normally indicated one thing. That when rising to G rank and above, they could choose only one power and use it limitlessly. From among many abilities, they would select just one that matched them and nurture it in their desired direction.

On the other hand, any player could use an “item”. However, it was disposable – as Hikotarou had just showed, one had to spend copious amounts of points for each time of use. In exchange, it could be used in combination with skills to develop various strategies.

“You can clear high-level missions by combining those two – that’s what the upper-rankers are doing, it seems. Well, this is just what I heard, since I’m still in a low rank.”

“Huun. Sounds like you can do a lot, depending on the combination.” Looking through JUNGLE’s store, Sukuna nodded as if impressed.

“Yeah. Sukuna, you should think now about which you’re gonna pick when you turn into a G.”

“That so? I can also use it?”

Up until the present, Sukuna had lived a life where “things that he could not do” did not exist. Which was why he had never once thought that he wanted superhuman powers like those from mangas or movies.

The reason for Sukuna to have butterflies in his chest when he saw the “ESP app” was that JUNGLE had destroyed his world.

It was such a wholly different world that it could completely overturn the things imposed on him until now – the tedious common sense and reality – by his parents and the people at school. Coming in contact with a power none of them could imagine and racing to a place their hands could never reach – how thrilling that was!

When he realized, Sukuna was gripping his PDA strongly. This was neither him fleeing from suffocation nor rebelling against parents. Sukuna had just now come to know the true appeal of JUNGLE.

“Right. Aah, that’s right! I’ll rise too! Then, I’ll use even more amazing powers and accomplish bigger missions!”

“Yeah! That’s the spirit!” Hikotarou nodded, laughing.

Sukuna was also grateful that he existed. Hikotarou was the one who had told him about JUNGLE and showed him its real charm – it was all thanks to him.

If he could one day clear up all sorts of missions using various kinds of psychic abilities with Hikotarou, it would surely be extremely, tremendously fun.

It was Sukuna’s first time being excited ever since he was born.

◆

“Well, see ya tomorrow,” Hikotarou said at the three-way junction on the way home that day, waving his hand.

Sukuna stopped walking involuntarily, as their talk had been at the most interesting part. They had looked into the JUNGLE store list, discussed about this and that combination and just as he figured out the best combo, he had started talking about it.

Sukuna’s house was on the right side of a Y-shaped three-way junction. Hikotarou was about to walk toward the left side. Wordlessly, Sukuna went to Hikotarou’s side.

“Sukuna?”

At Hikotarou’s surprised look, Sukuna pouted and turned away. “It’s fine to go the long way around sometimes, ain’t it?”

Hikotarou blinked repeatedly. That gaze was annoying. Enough to make him almost unwittingly forget the invisible combo that he had finally come up with.

“That so? Then hang out with me for a bit.”

Hikotarou did not try to tease him for it. His countenance surly, Sukuna replied with nothing but a “fine by me” to that grinning face.

And so, Hikotarou took a detour. The place he stopped by was a drugstore in front of the station and what he bought was cat food.

As Hikotarou held two one-kilogram dry food packages with both arms, Sukuna asked as if skeptical, “You had a cat?”

Hikotarou averted his eyes with a rather subtle expression. “It’s not like I’m keeping it.”

Through that single sentence, Sukuna was somewhat able to understand the situation. He followed behind Hikotarou, who was walking mutely.

Eventually, the two arrived at a vacant lot on the outskirts of town. In a corner of said vacant lot, where weeds grew boundlessly, there was a cardboard box. Cries of “mew, mew” that seemed to beg for something could be heard coming from inside the box.

“They were four at first,” crouching down and opening the food package, Hikotarou whispered as though talking to himself. “One was the mother and the others were kitties. But one day, the mother was gone, and when I came to see them after a while, the two other than this one were dead.

Sukuna looked around. On a spot at a short distance from there, he could see two small stones lined up beside the block wall.

“This guy here was about to die too, but I did a bit of research, and after I gave him milk and brought him something warm, he managed to recover one way or another.”

“Won’t you try to take it home?”

Still crouched, Hikotarou looked up at Sukuna. He had on a weak smile. “We can’t have pets at my place. My da—my father hates this kinda stuff.”

“Then—I know; how about you use JUNGLE? Send out a mission to find him a foster parent.”

Hikotarou laughed dryly, “I think whoever takes it on will probably just take the points and send the cat off to a health center.”

Sukuna went silent, crouching down.

The little cat was dirty. Its fur and skin were muddy, its tail bent. It was engrossed in eating the food, but once it looked up, its eyes had hardened mucus on them.

Hikotarou took out a tissue and gently wiped it off. “Wanna pet it?”

“That okay?”

Hikotarou raised his voice as he laughed at the dumbfounded question. With a sour face, Sukuna reached out a hand and touched the kitten. Perhaps thinking that he was food, the kitten thrust its nose onto his palm and sniffed it incessantly. It was ticklish. His mouth distorting, Sukuna endured the sensation. Finally, the kitten pushed its body onto Sukuna’s hand and its sleeping breath began to ensue.

As if not to disrupt the revolving, throaty sound, Sukuna complained in a low voice, “Hey. What do I do about this? I can’t move.”

“Won’t it be fine if you don’t move?”

“You!” He let his anger show, but the kitten might awaken if he moved recklessly. As if having bitten into a bitter-tasting bug, Sukuna looked down at the kitten. “Does it have a name?”

“Yeah. He’s also Nine.”

That was Hikotarou’s handle name. Sukuna stared at him with a look that said, “Don’t give it such a confusing name”, yet Hikotarou was gazing down at “Nine” and laughing.

“I’m glad it’s summer right now. A parentless kitty wouldn’t survive if it were winter. Even then, many dangerous things will likely happen to him, but if he grows up just a bit more, he’ll get by on his own—”

“I’ll,” Sukuna opened his mouth before thinking of anything. “I’ll keep it.”

Hikotarou looked at Sukuna with wide eyes.

“My parents probably won’t allow it, but even so, I’ll keep it. I think I can do it. My house is big. I can think of lots of places that neither my parents’ nor the servants’ eyes could reach.”

“Sukuna—”

“That should be better for this guy than here. I can put up a box, a blanket and things like that in our unused warehouse, and a toilet too, I guess. I don’t know about that stuff, but I’ll look it up later. You can also come over when you feel like seeing him.”

As if angry, Sukuna was making a surly face. Hikotarou looked at that expression of his with rounded eyes. Unable to bear the gaze, Sukuna stared down at the little cat once again.

“Of course, only if you’re okay with it.”

Hikotarou replied to Sukuna’s mumbled words, which sounded like an excuse, with a smile that seemed to shine, “It is! I’m counting on you, Sukuna!”

Sukuna laughed sheepishly. The kitten’s sleeping breath ensued windingly from within his hand. While feeling its body temperature on his palm, Sukuna inferred his opinion by muttering a few words, “By the way, can’t you change the name Nine?”

“Nope.”

◆

The home of Nine the kitten was soon found.

There was a wooden shack in a corner of the Gojou estate. Originally used as the gardener’s warehouse, it was now abandoned as the garden tools had been moved to a storehouse in the main residence. The shack, which Sukuna’s parents obviously did not go anywhere near and neither did the servants, was perfect for his purpose. He had arranged the kitten’s needs in a corner of the cramped and dim shack.

He could not possibly bring that cardboard box home, so he had laid a blanket over a basket woven from wood, making it into an improvised bed. The kitten Nine had raised its voice in protest against being moved from its former location, but it soon quieted down after being tossed into the blanket.

He had left it with a box of food, a water bowl and litter for its toilet. He could not take it outside, so he would have to raise it there for a while.

Looking around the small shack, Sukuna had nodded to himself. The kitten would surely be okay there. Nobody would find out. Convincing himself of this, Sukuna had cautiously left the shack and returned to the main house.

Today was the day to eat dinner with his mother.

“How was school, Sukuna?” such words came out of her red lips.

His knife, which had been carefully cutting the meat, stopped moving completely.

Sukuna looked at her with upturned eyes. The appearance of his mother enjoying an elegant dinner on the other end of the pure white tablecloth and silver candlesticks, with two servants at her left and right sides, was almost like the queen of a nation.

“Just normal.”

“‘It was’.”

“It was normal.”

His mother titled her neck a little. With a slight movement from her gaze, one of the servants moved soundlessly and poured wine into her glass.

“Have you been getting along with your friends? Your face has been bright lately. Are you having fun?”

Sukuna was silent.

If she was asking if he was having fun playing with a friend, the answer was yes. But not with the friends she had provided for him – Ninomiya and his former followers. It was with a smart and lively boy named Kue Hikotarou.

What would his mother do if she found out about Hikotarou?

She did not approve of anything that did not act in accordance with her will approaching him. Needless to recall the matter with Ninomiya, if his mother knew about Hikotarou, she would certainly try to keep him away. He could not think that she would be appreciative of things like JUNGLE.

Hikotarou might have to transfer schools because of him. As this possibility crossed his mind, Sukuna was horrified.

After thinking a little, Sukuna answered, “Yes, I am having fun, Mother.”

So you have nothing to worry about. So don’t meddle in anything and leave it as that. Leave me alone—

His mother drank a sip of wine, smiling. “Is that so? Then I’m glad. Your happiness is my happiness—”

Suddenly, the smile disappeared.

She stood up from the chair as if kicking it away. The glass collapsed with a smashing sound, the wine spilling and dyeing the tablecloth red. Approaching the frozen Sukuna with big steps, she firmly grabbed the hand that was still holding a knife and raised it with force.

A raspy voice came out of her lips, which were once tightened into a thing line, “What is this?”

Stock-still, Sukuna looked at it. He had a burn on his right hand. It was the wound that he had earned himself right after school today, when Hikotarou showed him the ESP app.

It had happened due to his own carelessness, and until just now, Sukuna had even forgotten that he had a burn. After all, it did not particularly hurt and he thought it would heal soon.

But his mother was different.

“Explain, Sukuna.”

Sukuna’s mother thought of him as a treasure. He was her property, like gemstones and rings. Of course his mother would be angry if said property was damaged. Whatever the property itself thought did not matter.

Sukuna spoke with a voice that sounded like a gasp, “It—is nothing, Mother. This is just—”

“‘Just’ what?”

“I was eating something hot during lunch and... I touched the food with my fingers...”

It was a painful excuse if he were to say so himself, but he could not think of anything else. Talking about Hikotarou was out of question. If he said he had borne it in class, there was no mistaking that she would check with the school for confirmation. If the lie were exposed, Sukuna’s mother would thoroughly investigate his surroundings.

If this happened, Hikotarou’s existence would definitely be revealed. And if she found out about Hikotarou, farewell would be waiting in the not-too-distant future.

Sukuna’s mother stayed dead-silent, peeking at his face fixatedly. Halting his breath, Sukuna accepted her gaze.

“Is that so?” muttering these few words, the mother let go of Sukuna’s hand.

Sukuna pulled his hand to his chest as if stealing it back. His heart was beating with strong thumps.

As a Crescent Moon-like smile once again crept on his mother’s red lips, she reached her hand out to caress his head. “Mother has an urgent matter to take care of. I will be going now, but you can eat dinner by yourself, right?”

Swallowing saliva as if swallowing lead, Sukuna answered, “Yes.”

“Really? You are a good child, Sukuna.”

Stroking Sukuna’s head in a noticeably rough manner, his mother turned on her heels. The way that the wine splashed on the back of her skirt looked like a spurt of blood was forever seared into Sukuna’s eyes.

◆

Five: You there?

Nine: I am. Got any business with me?

Five: Nothing that you can call “business” in particular.

Nine: Then what is it? Can’t sleep?

Five: Hey. Didn’t anything happen to you?

Nine: I don’t get what you mean.

Five: I mean, like...

Five: Didn’t anyone, like your parents or people from school, say anything to you?

Nine: Aah, I get it. Is it about JUNGLE?

Nine: I told you, didn’t I? That the level of anonymity is super high in JUNGLE. You can change the app icon anytime so nobody can tell who you are just by looking, and you can also hide that you installed it if you feel like it. You’re scared of being found out ‘cause you’re from a good family, right?

Five: No! That’s not it!

Nine: Then what is it?

Five: Like I said...

Five: It’s nothing.

Nine: What’s up with you?

Five: I said it’s nothing!

Five: Just, if anything happens at school, make sure to tell me. ‘Cause I might be able to do something about it.

Nine: Don’t say such creepy things out of nowhere... What, you mean something’s gonna happen to me?

Five: I don’t know. But this is a what-if.

Nine: Yes, yes, thank you for your kindness.

Five: I’m serious!

Nine: Then I’ll answer seriously; I won’t rely on you even if that happens. JUNGLE players are independent by default. No matter if they have friends, they don’t do that kinda thing. Aren’t you the same?

Nine: ......

Nine: Sukuna? You awake?

Five: I am.

Five: I get it. It’s just like you said. Forget about that.

Nine: Ah, that so? Then are you done? I ain’t done with tomorrow’s homework yet.

Five: Haa? You should finish homework the moment you get it.

Nine: Shaddap! G’night!

Five: G’night.

◆

The next day and the one after, Hikotarou did not show up at school.

Sukuna was fretting about all sorts of things, yet it was not as if he could do anything. Hikotarou had said that in the chatroom, but if Sukuna’s mother attempted to keep him away, there was surprisingly little that Sukuna could do.

Sukuna’s mother loved him and tried giving him whatever he wanted. However, it was completely impossible to change her opinions through his. Plead as he might, his mother would do as she willed. His voice would not reach her.

But that did not mean he could fold his arms and watch.

He was the first and only friend that Sukuna could respect ever since he had been born. Just thinking about this friend having to go somewhere far away because of him made chills run through his spine.

Until now, he had never experienced so much fear and anxiety. Although he did feel suffocated and disturbed by his mother’s actions, he had never felt dread.

Before he realized, Sukuna had sneaked out of his room and headed to the shack. He opened the door gently. Relying on the light of his PDA, he found the basket he had left in a corner. Wrapped in its blanket, the kitten Nine had been sleeping soundly.

However, perhaps noticing Sukuna, Nine looked up at him with its round eyes. Raising a sweet cry of “mew, mew”, it scrambled its way up the basket, crawled out and ended up rolling down to the floor with a thump.

“Ah, h-hey—”

He frantically picked Nine up, but this time, it climbed up his arm. As he let it do as it pleased out of not knowing what to do, Nine reached Sukuna’s shoulder, rubbed its head against his neck and curled up on the spot. It was warm and ticklish.

Sukuna’s cheeks slackened. Supporting Nine with one hand, he made sure it would not fall. Sitting down in a corner of the shack, he whispered in pauses, “I gotta protect him, huh.”

As if to respond to his talking to himself, Nine cried out a “mew, mew”.

◆

Even though he had consolidated his determination, on the very next day, Hikotarou popped up in front of Sukuna as he was getting ready to go home.

“Hey, Sukuna. Have you become an L ranker ye—ouch, owowowowow!”

As Hikotarou waved his hand lightly with the same bright smile as usual, Sukuna forcibly grabbed his wrist and went out to the corridor.

Hikotarou raised his voice in protest, “Wh-What’re you doing?! That hurts!”

“Shut up! Why did you take days off!?”

While Hikotarou was not coming to school, Sukuna had imagined all sorts of bad things. Such as, he could be preparing to be transferred or his parents could have told him to stay away from Sukuna. That was why he was awfully irritated by Hikotarou’s carefree smile.

However, Hikotarou, who had no idea about that, said while cackling a laugh, “My bad, my bad. I was just a bit busy with missions lately.”

Apparently, Hikotarou had been absent from school due to fake illness. As he said that he had been running around town while pretending he was at school in order to accomplish JUNGLE missions, Sukuna was flabbergasted.

Feeling spent, Sukuna leaned against the wall. He gave Hikotarou a sharp gaze. Fretting had made him look like an idiot.

At that moment, he realized something. Hikotarou’s forehead was just slightly swollen above his right eye.

“What’s that?”

As Sukuna pointed at it, Hikotarou raised his voice with an “aah” and said, “I hit it in the middle of a mission. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nobody’s worried.”

“Thought so. That aside, wanna go on a mission now?”

At Hikotarou’s shining eyes, Sukuna asked curiously, “Missions can be done in duos?”

“What, you didn’t know? There’s an urgent mission coming out now!”

“‘Urgent mission’?”

Despite finding the unfamiliar term strange, Sukuna tapped on JUNGLE and opened the “mission” tab. As he did so, the words “urgent mission” were indeed dancing over the top row. Unlike the other missions, a large red font was used for it.

The title was “Urgent Mission: Uwagami Town Survey”.

“Activating urgent mission. The mission content is a survey around Uwagami Town. Please record the cityscape and roads of Uwagami Town in photos and videos and upload them. For the photos, the reward is 5 JP each, and for the videos, 50 JP per minute. We will pay double the reward for videos near Uwagami First Street. Details are as follows─”

Sukuna dry-swallowed. “This is around here?”

“Yeah! So it’s a chance! It was activated just now, so most of the players haven’t noticed!”

Hikotarou was excited. Of course he was. Uwagami Town – moreover, the First Street – was precisely the surroundings of Uwagami Elementary, which Sukuna and Hikotarou had to pass through. Meaning that they would earn JPs just by taking pictures of this area. It was as if dirt had turned into gold.

“All right! Let’s go!” Squeezing his PDA, Sukuna gave a broad nod. As if he were infected by Hikotarou’s enthusiasm, his chest started throbbing.

◆

Uwagami Town was a high-class residential area located in the heart of the city center. The adjacent Shimogami Town was a government district where governmental facilities were concentrated, and many people who belonged to government agencies lived in it. In particular, there were police officers stationed in front of mansions where important people lived, watching for suspicious figures.

To start off, Sukuna took a picture of one of said police officers. The police officer merely squinted without saying anything.

“First, 5JP!”

“Let’s go steady! Steady!”

Talking loudly to each other, the two took pictures one after another. A two-lane main street that ran from east to west through Uwagami Town, an enormous building under construction, a vast parking lot, commercial buildings lined up as if to jostle one another, a spacious park and the children playing tag in it.

Upon a more careful look, there were countless other people taking pictures like Sukuna and Hikotarou. Salary men, high school girls, housewives and even elders who, no matter how one looked at it, were over 70 were positioning their PDAs to photograph and record the streets. Amongst them, there were also those who were being interrogated by police officers due to taking pictures too unreservedly. They indeed looked suspicious.

The chances that Sukuna and Hikotarou would be questioned were slim, but they somewhat did not want to be regarded as the same as those people, so they started moving to less popular locations.

“Let’s go, Sukuna!”

“Ah, wait!”

The main street of Uwagami Town stretched through a beautifully maintained city, but when one entered one of the back streets, an old townscape spread out. The back alleys, so narrow that it seemed people would have a hard time just passing each other in them, had branches and leaves hanging over them as if they were tents. Hikotarou and Sukuna sprinted under the sunlight coming through the gaps between the leaves, storing everything that caught their eyes in pictures.

At the veranda of a wooden house, an old woman was napping with a cat on her lap. Just beside the gutter stood an outdated red post. In front of a mysterious shop, there were three lined-up statues of tanuki. Sukuna photographed them all with refreshing surprise.

“It might be my first time coming to a place like this.”

Hearing the whisper that leaked from Sukuna while taking pictures, Hikotarou made a skeptical face. “Your house is around here, ain’t it? Never went exploring?”

Sukuna shook his head. The only part of Uwagami Town he knew was the main street up to the school and its surroundings. He had never made side-trips or eaten outside – he was never given the choice to go “exploring”.

Because by no means would his mother allow such a “vulgar” conduct.

Head tilted, Hikotarou said with a nonchalant voice, “Hu~n... Welp, that’s okay. Then, I’ll be your guide!”

“You know much about it?”

“This area’s my backyard!” Hikotarou said, full of confidence and grinning.

With just a step, they jumped over a stream fortified with concrete. As an unknown dog barked at them, Sukuna laughed at Hikotarou for dropping his PDA. They hopped onto the block walls and rushed through as if to sew the gaps between the houses.

All of it was a new world that Sukuna did not know about. Every time he took cuts of said world, his JP went up. He was accumulating the power to open novel worlds. Absorbed in it, Sukuna pressed the shutter over and over.

Eventually, by the time that this unfamiliar world began to dye itself in the colors of sunset, an electronic sound suddenly echoed from the PDA.

“Urgent mission concluded! The cumulative JUNGLE Points will be calculated now. Please note that any subsequent shooting will not be converted into points!”

As the end of the mission was announced, Sukuna and Hikotarou looked at each other’s faces at the same time.

“How many did you take?”

“About 200, I guess. I’ll probably rank up with this!”

As Sukuna said so, Hikotarou grinned. “Then let’s celebrate!”

Hikotarou turned around, going back the way they had come from. Sukuna followed behind him.

Two arrived at the shop with the tanuki statues that they had seen on the way. The sign that the tanuki were holding had the words “snacks shop” on it.

Sukuna stared at it in puzzlement. “What’s a snack?”

“For real?! No, well, that’s right. You’re a rich kid.”

Sukuna was offended by the disbelief in the way he spoke. However, Hikotarou opened the glass door unconcernedly and stepped into the store.

It was small and dim. The objects tightly crammed into the cupboards and baskets were all things that Sukuna did not get very well.

When he picked one up and inspected it, he found that it was a bag with richly colored gummy-like things inside. It looked like some new type of poison, but he could not rule out the possibility that it was food.

“Sukuna, you’re taking that? Then me too,” Hikotarou said, stealing it from Sukuna’s hands.

“No, hum—”

“Granny~, I’m leaving the money here~.”

“Aight~.”

Ignoring Sukuna’s voice, Hikotarou put money on the front edge of the unattended entranceway and then took cider from the refrigerator. Without time to do as much as be surprised at this innovative system, in which the owner of the shop did not have to even show her face, Sukuna was taken outside by Hikotarou and the two sat down next to the tanuki.

“My treat. We’re celebrating your raising of status!”

Being handed the colorful gummies bag, Sukuna stared fixatedly at it and opened his mouth in hesitation, “Hey, is this...”

“Edible?” was what he intended to ask, yet Hikotarou was devouring them without paying him any mind. Apparently, it was really food.

He opened the seal. If his mother knew Sukuna was eating something that had any foreign substance in it, his mother would probably pass out. That was why Sukuna closed his eyes, readied himself and threw it into his mouth.

“How is it? Good?”

As Hikotarou asked innocently, Sukuna said with an indescribable facial expression, “Tastes like chemicals.”

“That’s what’s good about it. Feel like you’re gonna get addicted to it one of these days?”

“Don’t wanna be.”

Sukuna washed his throat with the cider. Heaving a breath, he looked at the tanuki statues beside him.

“I didn’t know this kind of store existed at all.”

“Told ya that this area was my backyard, didn’t I? There’s lots of other places like this one!”

Earnestly impressed with an “eeeh”, he casually asked, “So your house is around here?”

Hikotarou’s smile instantly thinned. “Hm, well, kinda like that.”

Hikotarou’s complex facial expression caused Sukuna to hesitate asking any further, so he kept his mouth shut. It might be that he did not want to talk about his home circumstances. It was not as if Sukuna wanted to pry either.

Hikotarou was completely different from his “school friends” of until now. He knew Sukuna was a member of the Gojou family, but was not swayed by that. He saw Sukuna for what he was.

So his home circumstances did not matter.

“I see,” Sukuna replied with a mutter, looking up at the sky.

A large airship was crossing the sky, which was painted in sunset colors.

As he ate the mysterious gummy candy and drank the cider, a question left Sukuna’s mouth out of the blue, “By the way, what was so urgent in that urgent mission?”

“Eh?”

“Well, ain’t it kinda weird to make a survey of the city into an emergency? Just what’s the reason to investigate the city in such a hurry?”

Folding his arms, Hikotarou began to think. “Now that you mentioned, it’s indeed suspicious. The reward’s too high in the first place.”

“For starters, who issued that mission? I’d never heard of an urgent mission until now, y’know?”

Sukuna opened his PDA, which was in the middle of charging, tapping the “mission” tab. Even if a mission had already ended, one could check the details from the history category.

Hikotarou explained while doing the same as him, “Just like the name says, urgent missions are missions with a high level of urgency. They’re easy to spot ‘cause they come from the top of the list, but they charge a lot, so not many people issue them. To begin with, only upper rankers can activate these. Well, the one who issued it was—”

“H. N”.

That was the name of the player who had triggered the urgent mission. Apparently formed of just initials, the handle name was tasteless and dull. Even as they tried jumping to the user page, most of the information was private. There was no doubt that this was a top ranker, but they found out nothing more.

Staring in a daze at H. N.’s user page, Sukuna opened his mouth, “Since we’re at it, let’s try to guess. This guy’s objective, I mean.”

“I’m in.”

Meaning that, just as when Hikotarou’s mission and Sukuna’s JP gains had been speculated about, they would try to conclude what goal this H. N. person had that warranted issuing an urgent mission.

“It told us to take pics of the city. Is he a cameraman or something?”

“There’s no way a pro would use photos taken by amateurs. He’s better off doing it himself on that matter.”

“So, in any case, he just needed a big amount of them? He used lots of users for it ‘cause he wouldn’t be able to handle it on his own?”

“If he were taking a bunch of pics alone, he might be warned off by the police. But if it’s done in large numbers, he’d get the pics even if one or two people were caught. Besides—” Sukuna pointed to a sentence in the mission details. “Here says, ‘back alleys that aren’t on the map will give you bonuses’. So he wants info on backstreets, secret paths and the like?”

“For what?”

“The only thing that comes to mind right off the bat is, well – a preliminary investigation, I guess.”

“Of what?”

“Let’s see; some kind of data—”

“Like an escape route?”

The duo’s smiles disappeared at this casual phrase.

Those were disturbing words. As they could not grasp the whole picture, their imaginations were awfully agitated. Pulling their faces close to each other’s, the two continued the “speculation”.

“Escape route for who?”

“If he gotta run, he must be a criminal.”

“Like, say, a robber?”

“There’s government buildings here, so ain’t it more possible that he’s a terrorist?”

Silence.

The “caw, caw” cry of the crows echoed comically. The two burst into laughter at the same time.

“N-No way! There’s no chance that’d be it!”

“Y-Yeah! None, none! No way there’d be terrorists in Japan!”

While laughing, they were aware there a somewhat dry ring was mixed in it. Indeed, something of that sort was, first of all, probably impossible. However, it was not as if it did not exist.

Most importantly, there was nothing they could do now. They had already submitted the photos. No matter what H. N. was scheming, they could do nothing about it.

Even so, unable to erase the vague fear he had once acquired, Sukuna peeked at his PDA. In that moment, a fanfare-like sound played from the PDA. A holographic image of a deformed parrot character – Jumpy – appeared, dancing around Sukuna and Hikotarou’s general area.

“Urgent mission accomplished! 2745 points added to your JUNGLE Points! Rank up! Five has been promoted to JUNGLE L-ranker. Congratulations.”

Just like dates changed, the rank display in his own page was replaced with a flashing noise. From E-ranker to L-ranker. Along with that, the functions that had been restricted until now were unlocked as well. New rank mission ordering rights, mission activation rights, AR function usage rights—

Sukuna felt that his world had expanded yet again.

When he looked to the side, Hikotarou was raising his cider bottle with a cheerful smile.

“Congrats on your promotion, Sukuna!”

“Thanks.”

As Sukuna gave a lopsided smile, he and Hikotarou had a toast with their cider bottles.

Yeah, that’s right.

JUNGLE was the source of Sukuna’s power. It was a window that showed a new world to someone like him, who was bound hand and foot by his parents and simply made to walk the rails that had been decided for him.

No matter how shady it was, he could not think of losing it. That was about as terrifying as losing Hikotarou.

“Hey? Sukuna?”

He came to his senses. It seemed Hikotarou was calling him.

“A-Aah. What is it?”

“Just wondering how the cat Nine is going.”

“Aah, he’s so well that it’s a problem. He climbed on my shoulder a while ago—”

“Eh~, what’s up with that? He’s never done that with me!”

Laughing at Hikotarou’s sullen face, Sukuna said, “Then come see him next time. He’ll be happy too, for sure!”

“Yeah, true. One of these days.” Hikotarou laughed faintly, filling his mouth with cider.

◆

He woke up early that day.

“6AM?” as he whispered, a yawn came out. Sukuna turned off his PDA, put it in his sleepwear’s pocket and got up from his bed.

He had to wake up earlier than usual ever since bringing Nine in. That was the expected, as he was the only one looking after it. He had to set up a time to take care of Nine before going to and after returning from school.

He quietly slipped out of his bedroom and headed to the first floor, sneaking out through the window of an unused guest room. He had secured this “escape route” by making use of Grass Root. He picked places where the servants would not be and times when they would not be around, rushing within the stipulated period.

Therefore, he was at ease. He had made sure that by no means would anyone find out about it.

Upon opening the door, Sukuna learned that this was nothing but an assumption.

Nine had disappeared from the shack.

His heart resounded with a strong thump.

He wondered if it was hiding somewhere. It was a kitten. It might have crawled into a spot that would not cross his mind.

However, he could not find such a breach anywhere in the shack. Neither could he hear its voice. It would always come crying loudly and cling to Sukuna whenever he arrived.

There was only an empty basket and a blanket that had grown cold in there.

He peeked into the bowl that he had filled to the brim with water. It had not decreased in the slightest. Was it not going thirsty or hungry, wherever it was? For starters, where had it even gone? His own expression full of anxiety was reflected over the water in the bowl.

As he looked at himself in blank amazement, a sweet voice coiled around him from behind, “Sukuna.”

His body trembled with a start.

As he turned around with eyes wide-open, his mother was standing at the shack’s entrance. Her red lips were forming a smile. Both her arms were holding a basket with a pure-white kitten on it.

“If you want something, you can just tell your mother.”

Grinning at him while he was motionless as if frozen, Sukuna’s mother left the basket with the white kitten by his feet. Not making the littlest movement, the white kitten stared fixatedly ahead, as if already disciplined to do so.

Words finally spilled from his dry mouth, “Where’s Nine?”

His mother tilted her head, but after catching on, she at last said, “If you mean that filthy one, it has been disposed of.” She spoke while smiling, “You wanted a cat, right, Sukuna? If so, you should purchase a proper one.”

Her hand caressed Sukuna’s hair. As though she were admiring a treasure.

“You mustn’t touch such a dirty stray cat like that one. What if you were scratched and contracted some disease? My dear Sukuna, I can’t let you do that.”

Sukuna looked down at the white kitten. It was well-manneredly, quietly sitting in the basket. There was a luxury accessory, adorned with a golden chain and red ribbon, fitted around its neck.

It was a choker.

While he was looking down at the kitten, a dark emotion gushed forth within Sukuna. It was a sensation that he had tasted countless times until now. When those people had tried to provide him friends. When he found out that those people were watching his room. That was the feeling that welled up inside.

He had managed to swallow it down until now. He had been able to control it. Because he was aware, somewhere in his heart, that there would be no going back once he laid it bare.

But he believed that, if he gulped it down now, something within him would definitely end up broken.

Therefore, Sukuna reached out and took the bowl full of water in his hand. As he glared at his mother, the smile disappeared from her red lips. Fear did not surge even as he saw this. More strongly than that, the dark emotion – “hatred” – was filling Sukuna from the inside.

“WHO—” He swung up the water bowl. “—SAID I WANTED A CAT?!!”

Sukuna slammed it at the kitten.

The bowl did not hit it directly. It collided with the nearby wall, bouncing off a big splash. Struck by said splash, the kitten let out a cry and jumped off the basket. It ran to a corner of the shack and gazed up at Sukuna as if scared of him.

When he saw that look, the dark feeling was gone like a retracting tide.

The kitten was not at fault for anything. It was simply brought here unknowing of anything and made into a replacement for some stranger. It was shameful and pathetic of him to take his anger out on it. He felt like he had become the same kind of person as his mother. Sukuna sensed that his own hatred was aimed at himself.

On the other hand—

Any facial expression had vanished from his mother’s face. She was as expressionless as a Noh mask. Lips sewed into a thin line, she stared intently at Sukuna.

Sukuna did not return the gaze. However, he did not attempt to explain himself either. It was not that he feared doing so. But because he was repulsed of even speaking to her.

After a moment of silence that could be deemed as an eternity, his mother muttered in a few words, “Really? I see.” She then turned on her heels, exiting the dim shack.

Left behind, Sukuna did nothing. He crouched on the spot, burying his face in-between his knees. Recalling Nine’s voice whenever it called for him, the softness of its fur whenever it snuck up to him and the ticklishness of its breath whenever it sniffed him, Sukuna cried with his shoulders shaking.

The white kitten was observing Sukuna.

◆

The next day, Sukuna found the collar that the white kitten had been wearing inside his residence’s trashcan.

That was what happened to the things Sukuna said he did not want.

◆

What should he say to Hikotarou? Lying on his bed, that was all Sukuna could think about.

The answer did not come to him. There was no way it would. The one who had offered to take in the kitten Nine, which Hikotarou found and had been taking care of, was Sukuna himself. There was no way he could tell him that his parents had found out about it and gotten rid of it.

Ever since losing Nine, Sukuna had secluded himself in his room, refusing to go to school or even eat, thinking about this all the while. His parents had knocked on his door and spoken words mixed with persuasion, and every time he heard their voices, he desperately had to overcome the urge to clear them away using the ESP App.

What should he say to Hikotarou? This question without an answer occurred to him whenever he opened JUNGLE and saw messages from Hikotarou piling up.

Amidst his spiraling thoughts, Sukuna became someone who did nothing but fiddle with his PDA. After all, he was able to escape from this reality just by staring at the several lined-up missions in JUNGLE.

The reality was catching up quickly.

It was no coincidence that Sukuna had activated Grass Root at that moment. He was wary of his parents perhaps trying to force him out of the room if he kept shutting himself in it.

Only the security surveillance cameras of the lowest floor could be viewed on Grass Root, but it could detect if someone were to break through the door of his room. He had not decided what to do when that happened, but he imagined that he would likely have to use an item from the ESP App.

However, that did not happen.

The one projected in the surveillance camera was not the robust guard-man. It was a man clad in a wrinkly suit and a boy who he was bringing with him.

“Hikotarou? Why...?”

With the words that he had whispered in a daze, Sukuna awoke at once. There was no “why”. It was because his parents had found out that Hikotarou existed.

Sukuna felt goosebumps. He jumped out of bed and rushed to the door of his bedroom, but gave up on opening it.

There were lookouts on the other side. His mother had arranged a sleepless watch so that she could deal with Sukuna whenever he came out. If he came out, he would quickly be caught and transferred somewhere else. And then, he would never get to see Hikotarou again.

The door’s no good. I need a different means of escape—

He looked back. Outside the window, he could see the trunk of a garden tree about three meters away. Even if one jumped off the windowsill, they would not be able to reach it.

That was the case for ordinary humans. However, Sukuna was a JUNGLE player.

Taking out his PDA, he opened it without hesitation. He activated the item “physical strengthening”, which was within the power of L-rankers.

Instantaneously, a green electric current burst out from the PDA, ran through Sukuna’s whole body and then disappeared into thin air. However, that strength remained within Sukuna. Each time his heart struck a beat, a force that was not his own circulated his blood vessels, his muscles absorbing it.

A countdown appeared on his PDA. He did not know the reasoning behind it, but once this period was over, his power would be gone as well.

In short, he had no time to waste.

Sukuna opened the window and jumped up. The unbelievable jumping power more than compensated for the three meters. The momentum was so strong that he almost missed the tree trunk, spiraling around it when he reached out and clung to it. His eyes spinning from the gymnast-like maneuver, Sukuna jumped from branch to branch and landed as if rolling down.

Sukuna broke into a run barefoot.

It was not as if he could do anything by running. Sukuna’s parents would not listen to his opinions. Rather, they may consider Hikotarou even more dangerous as a cause of his rebellion against them.

However, he had a feeling that he would resent it for the rest of his life if he just watched the current situation with a finger in his mouth.

From the position of the surveillance cameras, he calculated the place where Hikotarou would be at right now. It was one of the normally unused reception rooms. He ran along the outer walls, taking a wide turn around the mansion. Holding onto the reception room’s window, he quietly peeked inside.

And so, Sukuna experienced a lifelong regret.

“Good job on your report,” his father said, sitting on an extravagant chair.

The middle-aged man and Hikotarou were standing opposite to him, on the other side of the office desk. The middle-aged man was giving his father a toadying smile. Hikotarou, standing next to him, was merely staring at his toes with a mask-like expressionless face.

Sukuna’s heart began to beat copiously fast. If he kept looking at this scene, he would lose something important. Even though he knew this, he was unable to take his eyes off it.

“You might be poor, but since you have enough brains to be able to talk to him as an equal, we have selected you to be his friend as a special case.”

Sukuna’s breath caught. The conversation he was hearing through the window was as vague as a nightmare, with no sense of reality to it.

“Make sure to do your job modest and humbly. I have already transferred this month’s payment.”

“Thank you very much! Hey, you show gratitude too.”

While bowing repeatedly, the middle-aged man put his hand on the back of Hikotarou’s head and squeezed it with force. Unresisting, Hikotarou let himself be handled and bowed his head. He weakly muttered incoherent words.

He was extending his gratitude. To Sukuna’s father. To the power of the Gojou household.

His father leaned his body against the backrest and looked down at the two. “However, your interactions seem to be going too far lately. My wife is worried that Sukuna might have become defiant due to bad influence from you.”

The face of the middle-aged man quickly turned pale.

“Who was it that put in word so that someone from the fallen Kue family could somehow attend that school? I would like you to be a bit more aware of that.”

“M-My deepest apologies! Hey, you!”

The middle-aged man grabbed Hikotarou’s head violently. Hikotarou let him do as he pleased. He was mumbling something – perhaps apologizing?

Enough already. I don’t wanna see any more of this.

He did not want to see Hikotarou – his friend – like that. Still, in the end, that “friend” was also nothing more than something those people had arranged for him.

After watching Hikotarou receive punishment for a moment, his father raised his hand. “Do that somewhere my eyes can’t reach.”

“Yes! I-I always—”

“Enough of that. Sukuna is what matters now.”

Hearing the name, Hikotarou sluggishly raised his head.

“He has been confining himself in his bedroom all the time lately. I called you here to convince Sukuna. Talk him into it and bring him out of his room.”

“O-Of course! Hiko! Get ready at once!”

“Hum.” At that moment, Hikotarou’s voice sounded clear for the first time. “Sukuna has been absent from school all this time... Is he sick or something like that?”

Snorting, Sukuna’s father narrowed his eyes as if to poke fun at Hikotarou. “There seems to be no problem with his health. Apparently, he had picked a stray cat recently. By the looks of it, he got angry because we disposed of it. Honestly, children are so...”

Hikotarou went stiff. His small hands balled into fists.

“If he wants a replacement, we can provide anything he wishes. So hurry and do something about this. It will be bad for our reputation if the current situation continues as it is.”

Hearing the words of his father, who thought of no one but himself, Sukuna slammed the windowsill with his hand, reinforced by JUNGLE’s superhuman abilities. The only one who noticed the sound was Hikotarou. His eyes alone moved, taking in Sukuna’s figure. Their gazes met for just an instant. Yet Sukuna would probably never forget those wide-open eyes.

Sukuna peeled his body away from the window. He had lost all reason to stay in that place.

The “physical strengthening” was still within its effect time. Making full use of that power, he ran. Tears spilled as he rushed through the estate’s garden.

That was the first friend he had made ever since he was born. For the first time ever since being born, he had admired someone and thought of him as even cooler than himself. He had taught Sukuna about many things. Such as the enormous power that he had never even imagined and a new world that he had never so much as noticed, even though it was lying right next to him. He deemed the memories of breathing in the air of freedom and of playing around shoulder-to-shoulder with him as brightly sparkling jewels.

However, they were not jewels but glass marbles arranged for him by the adults.

He had nothing. The resounding beating of his heart, the new world that shone so vividly – everything had disappeared. Right now, the all that surrounded Sukuna were adults so filthy they made him want to throw up, as well as the fakes they had provided for him—

No.

“That’s not true,” Sukuna muttered little by little.

At the same time, an electronic voice echoed from the PDA in his hand, “The effect time of item ‘Physical Strengthening’ has expired. If you wish to extend the effect time, please add extra JUNGLE Points—”

“Extend effect.”

“Voiceprint authentication confirmed. Consuming JUNGLE Points in order to maintain effect duration.”

Hikotarou was a fake. A fake that his parents had prepared for him. Whenever he was with Sukuna or whenever he laughed, he had been probably making a fool out of Sukuna deep down.

Nevertheless, it was not as if everything was fake.

Only this power, JUNGLE, was real. True strength. A tangible world. Beyond that window, a new world was spreading out. That was the sole truth.

And right now, having wiped the tears away, Sukuna was seeing yet another world.

In that world, Sukuna was free. Sukuna was lonely. Having lost his only friend, Sukuna figured that there was no longer anything chaining him to that place now. The exciting world that he had once had a glimpse of together with Hikotarou was lost forever, and the only thing spreading out before Sukuna was a desolated, perishing world.

Yet he had no options anymore but to jump into it.

Strengthening this resolve, Sukuna set forth while gritting his back teeth.

◆

On the day that Sukuna used JUNGLE’s superhuman abilities to the fullest, stealing everything he could take and vanishing from the Gojou house, a large number of thieves attacked Uwagami Town.

Multiple government officials’ homes were raided at the same time. After suppressing the police officers guarding them as if it were nothing, the thieves robbed all houses of information related to secrets of the state and disappeared into the back streets and alleys of Uwagami Town.

The Metropolitan Police Department identified the case as a large-scale beta case due to the clear criminal techniques and the testimony of police officers describing them as “physical abilities that would usually be impossible”. The command of the investigation was transferred to Scepter 4.

Sukuna only came to know about it much later.

[perseusjackson-jasongrace]

Empires on the Horizon I

Jason is a CEO: Part I

Here’s my masterlist for the next part and my other stuff

i fear it might break me

then break

break

let spirit crack you open

-a letter to the king

There was something almost sinister in the whiskey-induced haze of a Manhattan skyline. The buildings nothing but dark blocks, uneven stairs.

There was something lonely about the haze too.

But Jason Grace couldn't give two shits about the blackening playground of buildings, couldn't give two shits about the incredible view from his twenty-second story window, couldn't give two shits about anything except his whiskey bottle and the burn because today could only be described as hell. Worse than hell maybe.

His son of a bitch ex-boyfriend and his son of a bitch new girlfriend, well ex-girlfriend now, had decided to christen his office. The deal he'd been working on for months didn't get legal approval, which meant everything had to be redrafted. And on top of everything his sister called to tell him she’s setting him up on a date with a quote, unquote ‘lovely girl who seems just right for him.’ He wanted to slam his phone across the room, and he would have if he didn't believe she had the supernatural abilities to know when he was pissy.

The shrill ring of said phone interrupted his anger.

"Talk to me"

"Hello Grace, you sound like shit."

"I'd sound better if you didn't fucking call me, you ass."

A laugh echoed down the phone.

"What do you want Valdez?" A smile played at Jason's lips, despite his day.

"Just wanted to check in and see how you were doing," Leo Valdez sighed, "I heard what happened with bimbo and brainless today."

He winced, "I don't know if I want to burn my office or throw them in an unmarked swamp to swim with the crocs."

"We can do both." His friend replied, conviction lacing his words.

He chuckled darkly shaking his head, "I think I'm just gonna drown myself in the good stuff tonight. I'll face the world tomorrow."

"Okay, I've sent over a tub of your favourite ice-cream. Sorry I can't be there; The lady has been raving about this theatre show for months. I'll be dead if I bail now."

"No worries Firefly, thanks for the ice-cream. Let's meet tomorrow for dinner?"

"Sure bro. I'll book us at the Labyrinth."

"Great and bring your better half!"

A laugh was the only reply before the call ended.

Jason collapsed onto the couch, folding his body into the corner of the seat and taking a large swig from the whiskey. Every time his mind wandered to the horrors of the day he drank. It took a horrifyingly short time to see the bottom of the bottle. The world blurred and tilted, swayed like young trees fighting against the wind. Tears spilled hot and fresh down his cheeks- he didn’t bother to wipe them away. Today he was allowed to cry, today he was allowed to break. It was okay, okay...

“OKAY!” He yelled, trying to untangle his legs from the blanket and wipe the drool on his mouth.

The banging at the door started up again and he cursed a blue streak. With a growl he yanked the door open, “What?”

“Well good morning to you too Mr. Grace,” A cheery-faced Hazel Levesque greeted.

“Hazel,” He sighed “Hi, sorry I- come in,”

“Everything okay Boss?”

“Had a bit of a rough day yesterday, I’m sure I smell like the inside of a whiskey bottle,”

“Uh-I don’t know if I should say anything to that,”

“Good call, I might burst into tears if you do.”

She gave him a wide-eyed look but he waved a dismissive hand, picking up the pillows he had flung in rage and the bottle he had discarded just before he crashed on his couch.

“I’m going to go shower; I’ll update you over some breakfast.”

She gave him a long look before nodding and taking up a set at the kitchen counter. He thought about explaining or offering her something to drink but his soul was exhausted; at the very least he could help himself to a shower before he had to face the world.

The water scorched his back, his forehead pressed to the cool tile. He considered himself lucky for having eaten before he got drunk, otherwise he would have spent the morning with his head in a toilet bowl. His brain pounded against his skull but the alcohol was only half to blame; crying for two hours had its fair contribution.

“Okay you can do this. You’ve gotten through a lot of shit, you can get through this.” He stared himself down in his mirror, fixed the clasp on his watch and shouldered his suit jacket.

With a deep breath he stepped out of his room, his business face firmly in place.

“Shall we grab coffee at Reedpipes, you can update me on my schedule on the way.”

“Sounds good Boss let’s go,”

And within a matter of moments they were stepping into their favourite café. Flowers bloomed in the middle of every table and ivy wrapped around the industrial fixtures above them. A bright hello sounded from the barista’s station.

“Good Morning Grover,” He smiled, at the bearded man already frantically working on their orders.

“How’s it going? I haven’t seen you in a hot minute.” Warm eyes twinkled up at him. It took immense self-control not to burst into tears.

Grover, oblivious to his turmoil prattled on, “Hazel how’s the strawberry pot coming along? Did the compos-“

Jason zoned out, the world becoming a blur of sound and moving colours. His mind hurtled him back to yesterday when he had walked into his office– oh gods it hurt to think about. The evidence of them had been everywhere. Clothes strewn on the floor, his papers and trinkets thrown like a hurricane had swept through. And they had just grinned, like they were waiting, like they planned for it. His stomach flipped, ache and regret flooding him.

“Mr Grace!” A small hand shook his shoulders.

He startled back to the present, “Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s okay” Hazel gave him a weird look, “I’ve got our coffees let’s grab a seat.”

He nodded letting her lead them to a little wooden table in the corner of the shop. Sun was just starting to filter in, and the beams caught on the subtle gold accents rimming each table. Once they had settled in across from each other she handed him his cappuccino and took a long slurp of her iced coffee before setting her intimidating golden eyes on him.

“Spill Boss.”

He sighed, running a hand down his face.

“Yesterday I went back to my office after the meeting with Titan Industries, we need to do a redraft for that by the way,”

She nodded, already tapping on her phone to diarise an appointment with the legal team.

“So I get the office and Piper and Luke–“ He gulped, steeling himself, “They decided to use my office as their playground.”

He didn’t know how to put it delicately and little Hazel shouldn’t have to hear his real thoughts on the matter which mostly sounded like ‘fucking fucks, stupid dumbass wankers’ and various other curse words

“Oh Jason,” She gasped softly, reaching out a hand to squeeze his, “I am so sorry. Why are you even coming in to work today? You should have taken the day to yourself.”

“I still have a business to run Hazel, and besides I can’t let their selfishness stop me.”

“You are allowed to be hurt Jason.”

“I know, I know. But I can be hurt this weekend, right now we need to redraft that stupid contract and I need to make some calls about the new buildings starting this week,”

“Right will add that, don’t forget we need to get your suit for the alumni dinner on Friday,”

“Ugh I forgot about that, okay just pencil that in for some time today and maybe call Drew or Silena to find out if they can have a few ready for me to try on. Also I have dinner with Valdez tonight so no calls after six thirty.”

“You got it Boss, and hey­–“ She tugged at his sleeve making sure he looked at her, “If at any point you need to stop, you let me know. And if I see you neglecting yourself like you did last time, I will book a trip to the smallest island in the middle of the damn ocean and throw you on a plane myself,”

He laughed at his fiery assistant, and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, “Yes ma’am.”

***

Jason’s day wasn’t going great, but it was at least fifty times better than yesterday. All his belongings had been moved to the floor above and his tainted office was being cleaned out. He didn’t know if he wanted to go back there ever again but maybe he could convert it into a room for his employees. At least they won’t be haunted by the events that occurred. His call with Miss Arellano had gone surprisingly well even if the drafting of this stupid Titan Industries project was proving to be a real pain in the ass. He didn’t even know if it was worth it to do this much readjusting.

“Hey boss,” Hazel knocked at his door, “Frank is here to take you to your suit appointment,”

“Damn is it already four?” He frowned at his watch, “Alright give me two minutes to finish this email and then I’ll be ready. You should go home for the day.”

She snorted, “Thanks, but I got some admin to catch up on. You mind if Frank comes back to drop me off at home afterwards though?”

“No problem, you know he would be happy to do it.”

And maybe if Jason hadn’t been so distracted, he would have caught the blush his assistant was trying so hard to stop.

“Right well, let me know if you pick out a suit or if I need to reschedule. Also Mr Valdez called to confirm your reservation at the Labyrinth for seven thirty.”

“Thank you,” He gave her a brief smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes before turning his attention back to his blinking cursor.

***

“Hello ladies,” He entered the open, marbled boutique that was Aphrodite’s Armour.

“Jason!” A sweet voice squealed, coming towards him for a hug.

“Hello Silena, how are you?”

“Much better now that my favourite customer is here,”

“Aww,” Another voice pouted, “I thought I was your favourite customer?”

“Babe you don’t count,” Silena laughed, booping her fiancé on the nose.

“Well if it makes you feel any better Drew, I know she’s lying because she says that to all the customers.”

Silena gasped, smacking his arm, “I DO not.”

“Yes you do hun,” Drew laughed, “You here for your suit Mr Grace?”

“Yea it’s for the alumni dinner at SPQR University this Friday,”

“Oh yes we’ve heard a lot about this dinner. We’ve had all manner of folks come in these last few days.” Silena nodded, already making her way to the back of the store.

“I’m sure. It’s the big charity dinner where they get all the ‘successful’ alumni together and then milk us for all we’re worth.” He shook his head with a smile.

“Ah you rich people can afford it,” Drew scoffed, smirking at him over her shoulder.

“Yes I do agree,” He nodded, “Where’s my favourite of you lot?”

“Oh Charlie isn’t in. It’s Wednesday so he has to go to his sites.”

“He’ll be sad he missed you though, I think he has some project he wants to pitch.”

“Tell him to give me a call, I’m always happy to talk business.”

“Yes, although I’m sure he’ll be much happier to get down to business with you,” Drew cackled.

“And how would his two fiancées feel about that?” He raised a blonde brow.

“Quite excited,” Silena bubbled, a glitter in her eyes.

Jason let out a real laugh for the first time all day, “Sorry darlings but I don’t think I’d be much fun right now.”

Drew gave him a kiss on the cheek “Well, we’ll be here when you do.”

“Much appreciated,” He grinned.

“Okay, I think I have the perfect one!” Silena moved from behind the racks shoving a black bag into his hands, “Go try it on.”

He stumbled into the changing room and pulled out a gorgeous maroon suit. The lining was a deep blue and the detailing on the seams matched it perfectly. He knew immediately this would be a favourite of his and got confirmation when two minutes later he stepped out to gasps and applause.

“Mr Grace,” Drew’s eyes were wide.

“This is the best one yet,” Silena sighed, assessing him.

“Thank you ladies, it really is beautiful.”

“I think the wearer may be more so,” A low voice from behind them said.

Jason’s head shot up only for his gaze to land on the most exquisite person he had ever had the privilege of laying his eyes on. The beautiful stranger stood with their hands tucked in their pocket and an appreciative look on their face.

“Oh Mr Jackson we didn’t think you’d be here so early.” Silena jumped into action, ushering him through the door and out of site.

Jason was standing stock-still unable to get the image of sparkling green eyes and molten brown skin out of his head.

“Who was that?” He breathed.

Drew was pulling at his suit, synching it and marking the fabric with needles.

“Oh that was Mr Jackson, he comes in here fairly often too. It’s a wonder you haven’t met before, I’m sure you run around the same social circles, what with your fancy parties and all that,” She was mumbling around a mouth full of measuring tape.

“I’ve never seen him before in my life. Trust me I would remember a face like that.”

That got the seamstress’ attention, “Oh someone has a crush,”

“How could you not? We did see the same person, right? Tall, wonderful curly black hair, unbelievable sea green eyes, a voice like crashing waves and earth and-“

He was cut off by her laughing.

“What?” He frowned.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone fall so hard from a five second interaction.”

He blushed, looking away from her all-knowing gaze, “I’m just saying what I saw.”

“Well I’m pretty sure he’s going to the dinner on Friday so maybe you can talk to him there.”

‘He’s what?” He whipped around to look at her, eyes comically wide.

“Yea, he was telling us all about it when he came in earlier this week.”

“Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,” He muttered, heart racing.

“Oh don’t panic, he’s honestly one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.” She shrugged before pulling at his arm to take the measurement, “Alright, all set to go. You can pick up the suit tomorrow afternoon or we can send it tomorrow evening?’

“Uh yea, send it.” He said distractedly, already pulling on his clothes.

Drew gave him a cheeky smile, “Goodbye Mr Grace,”

“Bye Drew, tell Silena I said bye, and tell Charlie to call me.”

He stepped into the entrance of the shop, but the beautiful man was nowhere to be found. With a final glance around he made his way into the street, ready for dinner with his friends.

“Hello Grace, glad to see you haven’t gone full hermit,”

“Hello Leo,” He snorted, “It was the ice-cream you sent last night. It gave me hope.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” His friend laughed, “How are you though, seriously?”

“I’ve seen better days, but I’ve seen worse too. I’ll get over it.”

“There is no doubt in my mind Jason Grace,” A soft reassurance floated towards them.

He smiled, pushing out of his seat, “Hello Annabeth,” He enveloped her in a hug.

“Hello my darling,” She gave him a gentle smile.

He let her go and she moved around him to give Leo a quick peck. He smiled at her with overflowing adoration and muttered a soft, “Hello love,”

“Tell us what happened?” She sat down next to her boyfriend and reached out to squeeze Jason’s hand.

So he took a deep breath and relayed the story of his nightmare yesterday. By the time he was finished the couple looked like they were ready to storm the castle and beat Luke and Piper with sledgehammers and drawing compasses.

Annabeth’s grey eyes were hard and stormy with anger, “I’m going to kill them,”

“Don’t worry babe I’m there to help.” Leo said vehemently.

Jason couldn’t help but smile at the protectiveness of his friends, “Thank you guys but I’m fine. Really.”

They gave him a dubious look, their expressions so similar it was comical. He gave them another, hopefully, reassuring smile before they launched into a discussion about work.

Both were engineers with too many degrees to count and an abundance of knowledge circling between them. It was almost scary how exquisitely their minds worked. Jason had recruited them time again for his projects– from designing the education center to building the water systems and electricity grids in the downtown area. His work helping small businesses and improving ‘run-down’ neighbourhoods would be a thousand times harder if he didn’t have them to help him in design and implementation. Annabeth, as the civil engineer, often went to sites with him and over saw a fair few of his community projects. Leo was a mechanical engineering professor at the university they all attended but he was always willing to help if need be. Jason was eternally grateful for that because he didn’t trust many others to oversee his works.

When dessert had been cleared away sometime later the three were laughing and ribbing each other like they were back in college and not big-time owners of various companies.

“Okay, okay,” Leo gasped, “No more of your stories man. Annabeth doesn’t need to know all my secrets.”

The lady in question snorted, digging her elbow into his side, “You wish you had secrets. If you can’t recall I was there for ninety percent of your dumbassery in varsity and I’m here for one hundred percent of it now.”

“You don’t know what happened on our guys nights,” Leo narrowed his cassiterite eyes at her.

“Keep telling yourself that honey,” She smirked.

Jason watched on in amusement as Leo’s face morphed into panic.

“Tell me she’s lying Grace?”

Annabeth’s smirk was wicked, “Oh yes Valdez I know about the ‘pants on fire’ situation, and the ‘jumped off a Ferris wheel situation’ and the–“

“Okay stop. How did you ever choose to date me knowing all these things?” He looked at her with some mixture of horror and wonder.

She shrugged, “I figured if you were smart enough to get a PhD and a Masters you were smart enough to know when I’ll kill you for doing something stupid.”

Jason burst out laughing, “She may be taking your space at the top of my favourite’s list Firefly.”

His friend gave him a look of disgust, “That’s just rude, we’ll see who takes your phone away next time you’re drunk on vodka,”

They all dissolved into fits of giggles after that and Jason felt his heart grow a hundred times lighter.

“Are you guys going to the dinner?”

Annabeth nodded, “I heard the university has a proposition for us this year.”

“I’m mostly excited for the mini tacos,” Leo grinned.

“You’re always excited for the tacos,” She rolled her eyes playfully.

“I can’t help it, there’s just something about them, you know?”

Jason couldn’t help but agree. They really were delicious.

“I guess I’ll see you guys there.”

“You can count on it,” Annabeth gave another of her dazzling smiles, reaching forward to rest a hand on his arm.

“And don’t worry bro I know for a fact Luke isn’t going to be there.”

“Yea I know,” He sighed, “I asked Hazel to check this morning.” They stepped into the chilly night.

“Call us if you need anything,” Leo gave him a look before pulling him in for a hug. Annabeth echoed the sentiment and gave him a kiss on the cheek. 

He watched them walk towards their car, fingers intertwined, Annabeth’s blonde curls resting against Leo’s shoulder. A flutter of ache washed through him at their closeness, their easiness. He had had that once. Until Luke had gotten greedy with his ambition. And he may have had that with Piper if she hadn’t decided to screw his ex.

His life was a mess.

Yet when he crashed into bed that night he felt more hopeful and loved than he had in a long time. He slipped into sleep with a soft smile playing on his lips.

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

Okay what are we saying? How do we feel? GIVE ME THOUGHTS!

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[wickedmilo]

TWILIGHT TALK IS PROHIBITED | MILO & EDDIE

PLACE: Eddie’s apartment TIMING: A looong time ago SUMMARY: Milo begrudgingly helps Eddie with his research on vampires WRITING PARTNER: @specterchasing CONTENT WARNINGS: Drug tw, addiction tw, substance abuse tw

Eddie’s legs bent at the knees underneath the coffee table as he opened a tattered leather-bound book placed atop the reclaimed wood. A bottle of vodka and a pitcher of lemonade sat close by, ready to refill his and Milo’s glasses when the time came. Jack White sang softly in the background; a song about youth and friendship. Eddie put it on tonight’s playlist with Milo in mind, hoping it brought him some added familiarity. He imagined his undead friend didn’t encounter much of that anymore, death made a habit out of confiscating comfort. 

His glasses slid halfway down his nose as he skimmed the text only for him to quickly push them up again in mild irritation. “It’s in here somewhere,” he mumbled. Eddie’s elbow rested on the table with his hand pushing hair away from his forehead. He looked more dishevelled than usual, a common occurrence when he shifted into research mode. Most people didn’t get a chance to see him like this, not that they made an effort to. 

“Got it,” he announced, letting his hand fall from his face. “Older, stronger vampires may have additional skills such as enthrallment, transforming into mist or bats, and throwing their voice,” Eddie read the text out loud before looking up at Milo. “Like I said, vampires are basically party city magicians with an allergy to sunlight. That’s why they do so well in Vegas.” He punctuated his sentence with a sip of his drink. 

Teaching Milo about vampires felt strange all things considered, but he needed to bring the subject to the forefront. The more normal it felt to talk about, the more likely Milo would be to tell him the truth—or, so he hoped. 

He studied Milo’s face for a moment and suddenly grinned. “I just realized we match tonight.” Eddie tapped the frame of his glasses. Why vampirism didn’t negate eyesight problems was beyond him, but he liked the emphasis they put on Milo’s eyes. 

Sprawled lazily on Eddie’s couch, cocktail in hand (if you could call lemonade and vodka a cocktail), Milo felt more at home than he had in weeks. He was comfortable, content just to enjoy his friend’s company, even if the subject they were studying wasn’t exactly one he was able to enjoy. Taking a sip on his straw, still scanning the book resting in his lap, the only way he was managing to stay so calm was by putting some distance between himself and the information. If he read it quickly, and made no effort to actually process what he was reading, then he may as well be reading a math book, or a book on structuring essays. Part of him wished, more than anything, that Eddie wasn’t so determined to learn more about vampires. Literally any other supernatural creature and he could throw himself into the research. But his subtle coping strategy needed to be enough for now. The alcohol dulling his sense of anxiety, and the resurfacing memories of his violent death, he focused on the sound of the White Stripes, unable to believe Eddie remembered how much he enjoyed them.  

“What is it you’re looking for again?” He asked, pulling a few pages of loose notes out of his book, setting them carefully on the coffee table so they wouldn’t get crumpled. “I’m telling you, Rio made me watch Twilight and it has all the information you could ever need.” Grinning at Eddie, taking in his tousled hair, and the glint in his eye that he only ever seemed to get when he was searching desperately for information, he felt a rush of affection, followed by a familiar wave of guilt. It still plagued him, the voice in the back of his mind telling him he should be honest. But it wasn’t an option, there were too many things holding him back. The most recent being the sense of normalcy his friend somehow helped him sink into. Would they still have that if suddenly Eddie was asking about his diet, and his fangs? His aversion to sunlight? Even with Orion things were different. Rio was a hunter, they were clinging to the same lifeboat. Eddie was human. Perfectly, beautifully human. And sometimes, when he was with him, he managed to feel human too.  

“Oh, hilarious.” he deadpanned, sitting up a little straighter to glance over at what Eddie was reciting from. “That is such bullshit, there’s no way anybody can actually turn into a bat.” At least, he didn’t think there was. Honestly, he was starting to wonder whether anything might be impossible. “Also humans can throw their voice so, you know… not that impressive.” He added, taking another long sip of his drink. Confused for a brief moment, he only realised what Eddie meant when he pointedly tapped at his glasses, and he laughed sheepishly, pushing his own further up his nose. “Yeah, yeah, I know… the nerd Milo is back. I lost my glasses the night I-” He broke off, his grip tightening on his glass as he realised how close to tipsy he was. Maybe he should slow down a little. “I got- I got way too drunk…” He finished his sentence, playing off the comment as casual. It wasn’t technically untrue. “Woke up in an old building... glasses nowhere to be seen.” He caught Eddie’s eye, offering him a smile to counter the dark truth behind what he was saying. He couldn’t think about that right now, he didn’t want to think about that. “I finally picked up a new pair… I took a photo of you to the opticians and told them I wanted to be as hot as you are. They gave me a set of your frames.”  

“I’m thinking about getting a sign that says any and all Twilight talk is strictly prohibited within this apartment,” Eddie mused, but a telltale grin tugged at the corners of his lips. He liked that Milo still made jokes, even about this. Take away his sense of humor and he wouldn’t be the same person Eddie spent years trying to impress. He tried not to think about how important Milo’s attention used to be almost as much as he tried not to let it matter that much again. His efforts were fruitless, of course, but he liked to pretend he had a say in the matter. 

Bullshit. Eddie laughed at the response, delighted to fall back into their old routine so effortlessly. “Yeah, that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make,” he said, referring to Milo labeling vampires as unimpressive. “Vampires aren’t that different from humans. Higher vamps, at least. Blood and shadows, big deal. They’re still just like us in the ways that actually count.” Referring to Milo as human was easier than he thought it would be, maybe because that’s what he’d known him as for so long. “I’ve known plenty of people who like their steaks rare and prefer working night shifts, it doesn’t mean they’re monsters.” 

Eddie took another drink, deeper this time, and felt the alcohol swirl his thoughts with heightened efficiency. So far, he’d been taking it easy. Eager as Milo was to see him drunk, Eddie didn’t look forward to the behavioral shift. People thought he came on too strongly sober; they had no idea how much he held back until he had a few drinks in him. 

The story Milo told left Eddie with questions. It made sense and sounded legitimate enough, but a nagging thought induced suspicion. Before he could press, however, Milo blindsided him. His cheeks burned even though he knew full-well it was sarcasm. “It’s not healthy to set unrealistic standards like that for yourself,” he replied, trying not to show his embarrassment. “It’s a good look though, even if it doesn’t compare to the original.” He gestured to himself with a flourish of his wrist, quickly avoiding eye contact by taking another drink. 

“Honestly, I’ve had enough of that franchise to last me a lifetime… or two lifetimes.” Milo admitted. “But the jokes are too good… I can’t stop myself, it’s becoming like, a legitimate problem.” For someone who supposedly didn’t enjoy the series, he couldn’t seem to stop bringing it up. He enjoyed the way it made people laugh. The way it made what he was feel more trivial, and light-hearted. Not failing to notice the way Eddie’s lips curved as he struggled to repress a smile, he decided immediately that all talk of Twilight definitely wasn’t prohibited within his apartment. “You think vampires are unimpressive?” He raised his eyebrows, settling back down against the couch cushions behind him. “Maybe don’t say that to any big scary ones.” He was careful with his words, not wanting to imply he was human any more than he needed to. It felt too much like lying when he looked into Eddie’s eyes. And considering he himself was far from a big scary vampire, he figured it was a fair comment to make.  

Faltering a moment, genuinely taken aback by Eddie’s perspective, he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. This was Eddie. He already knew the way he saw the world, he had seen his many, many Youtube videos. If anybody was going to sympathise with the supernatural, it was the boy sitting opposite him. But it still meant more than he could know. Especially after Dani, and her harsh, unforgiving worldview. Stopping himself, before he could say thank you and completely give himself away, he took another drink to delay his response. Allowing a few beats of silence to pass, he composed his expression, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. “Yeah… I agree.” He admitted, curious to hear more about the bloody steaks. “Is this a werewolf reference?” He asked. “Look, if we’re changing the species you need to give me a heads up, otherwise I’m going to get lost.”  

Glancing up at Eddie, his face flushing red, the scent of blood became stronger as it rushed to the surface of his skin. Pointedly ignoring the shift, focusing instead on the strong, almost overwhelming scent of vodka, it wasn’t too difficult for him to stay grounded. “Hm, maybe you’re right. The hair is probably unattainable.” He laughed at his own joke. “And honestly, probably responsible for 70 percent of your views. You know that, right?”  

“Becoming?” Eddie teased. “You’ve been talking about that series since high school. I’m starting to think you’re a genuine Twihard.” He remembered the comments about sparkling vampires, remnants of a time when Milo had some innocence to spare. Eddie’s smile faltered at the thought. He had so many questions, so much pent up anxiety over what happened to his friend. Did it hurt, were you scared, are you safe now? His concern contributed to why he wanted Milo around so often. Keeping him close meant no slayers. If hunger struck him, Eddie had that covered simply by being alive. “You see any big scary vampires around here?” Eddie asked, glancing around the room with a smirk. Milo didn’t need to know how worried he was, not yet. 

Eddie watched as Milo chewed on his bottom lip, wondering what he must be thinking. Talking about vampires, especially their moral standing, couldn’t have been easy. He hoped he wasn’t the only one reminding Milo that he still deserved his place in the world. When he agreed, Eddie let out a breath of relief. It felt like he did something right. “You’ll get lost either way, Summers,” he said with raised brows. 

“There’s more to me than my hair and my viewers know that,” Eddie corrected him pointedly. “I also have an irresistibly cherubic face and endless sex appeal.” By some miracle, he managed to keep a straight face for a few seconds after his shameless display of egotism. He meant it as a joke, for the most part. Tonight should have been about vampires, he supposed it was for a moment, but vodka had other plans. “And there’s the first sign I’ve already drank too much,” he asked, grinning apologetically. 

“Fuck you, I hadn’t even seen it back then.” Milo laughed, unable to deny what Eddie was saying. Technically he did bring it up whenever Eddie decided to talk about vampires, but to make him laugh. In the same way he was trying to amuse him now. Laughing again, the irony of Eddie’s question was too great to ignore, and he made a show of scanning the room. “I do not.” He agreed. “Unless you’re a vampire and you’re just not telling me?” There it was again, the guilt weighing on his shoulders. It shouldn’t be hard to keep the information to himself, to be selfish. He had always been selfish. But something about it this time felt so wrong, as though he genuinely had no justification. Eddie was a good person, who fought so hard for what he believed in. And here he was, not-living proof of the fact that his friend was right. Eddie’s years of facing ridicule and skepticism weren’t for nothing.  

Pulled out of his thoughts by the following comment, he offered a tired smile. “Yeah, that’s probably true.” He admitted, struggling not to dwell on how lost he already felt. In every element of his life, he was lost. A few people were trying to show him the way. Luis, Harsh, Rio, Macleod… and it definitely made things easier. But when he looked to his future he still just saw an endless nothing. A terrifying void. He wasn’t sure when, or if, that was ever going to change. “At least you’re with me though, right? You’ll keep me safe from the steak-eating night dwellers?” He teased, hoping to make light of the situation. He didn’t want this, he wanted to avoid thinking about what he was, and just enjoy Eddie’s company. Not for the first time he wondered whether he really should have insisted on studying another creature. 

His smile growing as Eddie continued to joke about his hair, he finished what was left of his drink. As far as he was concerned, the more alcohol there was in his system, the easier it would be for him to stay in the moment. To pay attention to his friend without getting lost in his thoughts each time something managed to trigger an emotional response. “Oh, I think it’s a sign that you haven’t drunk enough.” He countered. “I want to hear more about your sex appeal.” 

Eddie let out a clap of laughter at his friend’s rebuttal. Something about hearing Milo say ‘fuck you’ never failed to amuse him. With how much his parents hated cursing, it felt like a minor act of rebellion even hearing language like that spoken so casually. “Definitely not a vampire,” Eddie said through pursed lips. He wished things were easier for Milo, that trust would come more easily to him, but he understood why that wasn’t the case. “Believe me, I wouldn’t last a single night as one with the way I run my mouth.” He meant it. Eddie had a lot of respect for any supernatural creature who managed to survive a world hellbent on either denying their existence or ending it.

When Milo led the conversation towards his safety, Eddie felt a pang in his chest. The comment had been light-hearted, more of a joke than anything else, but it hurt to know he couldn’t admit to how badly he wanted to protect him. Not that he could even if he tried. In a way, he already failed once. “Exactly,” Eddie replied with a firm nod, trying to keep his tone as light as Milo’s. “Stick with me and your future will be completely free of steak dinners and shadow stalkers.”

He wanted the conversation to flow more freely, to not get so wrapped up in his thoughts. Maybe Milo had a point, maybe he hadn’t drunk enough. Eddie poured more vodka and lemonade into his glass and immediately downed half of the mixture. “It’s already fully on display, I dunno what else you need to know,” he said with a laugh. 

The background music changed to something he didn’t remember putting on tonight’s playlist.  

Uh, let's go to the beach-each

Let's go get a wave

They say what they gonna say

Have a drink, clink, found the Bud Light

Bad bitches like me is hard to come by 

Eddie cleared laughter out of his throat as he wobbled to his feet. “Are you drunk enough to dance?” His brow raised provocatively as he looked down at Milo. “Because I am,” he announced in a sing-song tone. 

Milo grinned, his eyes shining as he imagined that particular Youtube video. “I can almost see it now,” he said, dramatically raising his hands so that he could project a title into the air before him. “My Name Is Eddie Carridine, Vampires Are Real. Oh, And I Am One.” Pretending to think for a moment, he wrinkled his nose. “It’s not as catchy as your regular titles, maybe you could make a pun instead. Keep it short and sweet, y’know?” Watching his friend as his expression seemed to falter, Eddie’s smile slipped incredibly briefly, though he still managed to catch the shift. What could be bothering him? He almost wanted to ask, but with the atmosphere once again becoming lighthearted, and fun, he wasn’t about to risk bringing the mood down. Especially not when they were both drinking, that was very obviously a terrible idea. Smiling affectionately at the mention of being safe from other supernatural creatures, he momentarily forgot about Eddie’s demeanour. It was so obvious he meant every word that he said. This was someone who, despite only just reconnecting with him, genuinely wanted to fight for his wellbeing. He swallowed his emotion, refusing to show how overwhelmed he was by the sentiment. “Do I want to know what a shadow stalker is? Or did you just make that up?” He half teased, a laugh escaping him when Eddie insisted his sex apeal was on full display. “Shit, you’re right.” He pushed his hair back away from his face, leaning forward to pull the pitcher towards himself so that he would be able to refill his empty glass.  

Sadly he didn’t get the chance to, because he was quickly interrupted by an unexpected change of song. Even without his sensitive hearing, it would have been jarring. The iconic lull of Jack White’s voice was suddenly replaced by loud bass, and fast paced rap. The woman’s voice was loud, and unique. She carefully warped her words in a way that was instantaneously recognisable. “Uh, Eddie… your terrible taste in music is showing.” He laughed at his own joke, only spurred on when Eddie unsteadily jumped to his feet. Staring up at him, an expression of disbelief written across his features, he struggled to keep up his act of indignance. He was well on his way to being drunk, but was he intoxicated enough to warrant dancing? To let Eddie in on the fact that he secretly knew every word of Starships by Nicki Minaj? “Oh, jeez…” He muttered, abandoning the pitcher to pick up the bottle of vodka, taking a long drink straight from it before shooting his friend a look that told him, no, he wasn’t drunk enough, but yes, he was about to join him. He only ever danced to amuse people, to make them laugh. And this felt like the perfect opportunity to do exactly that. So he got to his own feet, the bottle still firmly in his hand, and began to dance in the same way he always danced; like a white guy in a 90’s music video desperately trying (desperately failing) to look cool. The moves were easy, and undeniably enjoyable. No matter who he was with, they always seemed to spark joy in his company.  

Milo’s levity managed to uplift Eddie’s mood. When puns were mentioned, his eyes immediately lit up. “How I Died In Vein,” he offered with a laugh. “In parentheses—Not A Type-O.” Admittedly, his title suggestion made more sense in written form than it did when said out loud, but he figured an explanation would be overkill. Joking about vampirism led him to hope the concept might be on the table for normalization.  

“Are you telling me you don’t know what a shadow stalker is?” Eddie feigned disbelief. “As their name suggests, they lurk in the shadows and demand unsuspecting passersby to answer three riddles. If you get two out of three answers wrong, they legally become your step-dad.” Surely, Eddie didn’t need to tell him shadow stalkers weren’t real after that but, if his description didn’t give it away, the impish grin he wore would. 

When Milo started dancing in all his whiteboy glory, Eddie nearly doubled over in laughter. “Don’t make your body do that, it deserves better,” he said through his sudden bout of hysterics.  

“Wow.” Milo reacted with obvious sarcasm, choosing not to comment on the fact that the wordplay was actually pretty clever. He wasn’t about to give Eddie the satisfaction. “I hate it. I hate everything about it.” Raising his eyebrows as he was questioned on Shadow Stalkers, it was only after the mention of step dads that he realised his friend really was just teasing him. He laughed, shaking his head at the prospect. “Shit, I argue with my actual dad too much to want a second one.” He admitted. The last thing he needed was two paternal figures lecturing him on his behaviour. Enjoying Eddie’s smile, he held his gaze, offering him a grin that came incredibly easy. He was grateful to move past the subject of vampires. At the very least in a serious context. And it felt good, being able to relax again. 

Throwing in a few extra moves when his friend told him to stop dancing, a genuine peal of laughter managed to escape him, somehow managing to catch him off guard. It was unlike the laughter from before, that felt natural but still very much controlled. This laughter escaped him without his permission, the irony far too great to ignore. “You’re the first person to tell me my body deserves better because of my dancing.” He explained, thinking back on every time somebody had said those exact words to him. Usually followed by the mention of rehab, or detox, or health retreats that sounded suspiciously like sobriety cults. “I can do better, you know? But dancing well is nowhere near as fun, and it never manages to get the same reaction so… don’t tell me you aren’t enjoying it.” He grinned, his cheeks aching with just how genuine his smile was. There weren’t many people who could make him feel comfortable, who could make him feel safe, and at home, and at peace with who he was. Eddie Carridine might just be one of them. 

[stephkaylor]

FAVES and FAILS: The Vampire Diaries

So I have decided that since The Vampire Diaries has a spin off, The Originals, I am going to divide the characters based on where they appeared the most. So on this list I will be talking about the Salvatores, the Petrova/Gilbert line, the Bennets and Caroline, etc. but I will discuss the Mikaelsons, Hayley, etc. on their own list with the other characters that appeared on The Originals mostly. As always, spoilers are abound as I will discuss storylines and character arcs below, so be warned of that.  In any case, here’s my FAVES and FAILS for The Vampire Diaries. 

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER: Damon Salvatore

Could it be anyone else? I don’t think so. He’s a delightful little sociopathic shit and I love everything about him. He is 99% id and 1% ego, if that, and even when I hated him, I loved him (god, I sound like Elena…). In any case, love this man, five stars, would recommend, chef’s kiss. 

LEAST FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER: …I think Matt Donovan…?

Ugh, it’s hard to pick between Matt, Tyler, and Jeremy, but I think it has to be Matt. I never enjoyed his judgey attitude against everything supernatural, he seemed pretty whiney most of the time, and he was just genuinely uninteresting for the majority of the show.  Not into it. Pass.

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER: Katherine Pierce (Katarina Petrova)

I thought about giving this post to Caroline by default, but if it comes down to it, Katherine nudges her way into the top spot. Katherine gave no fucks, knew what she wanted and was unapologetic about how she went about getting it, and an all around bad bitch. Was she primarily evil? Yes. But, to be honest, it never really bothered me. 

LEAST FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER: Bonnie Bennet

God, this woman was annoying. She was hypocritical, judgmental, and far too holier than thou for me to swallow her bullshit. She constantly played favorites with Caroline and Elena (I’m sorry, you hold Caroline becoming a vampire against her for like two seasons, but when Elena becomes one, it’s not her fault? Sure.). She hated all supernatural creatures because they “go against nature”, but it’s totally chill for you to perform sacrificial magic to get what you want, unleashing a terrible evil in the process (but it’s not her fault). How she nearly excommunicated Caroline just because she stayed with Stefan after Stefan killed Enzo, as if it was her fault in any way. How everyone treated her like she was a special little unicorn because she’s a Bennet Witch and she’s so magical, like, please, gag me. I could go on, but I honestly cannot be bothered. Hard pass. 

THE CHARACTER THAT DESERVED BETTER: Caroline Forbes

She was essentially shunned by all of her friends and family for becoming a vampire, even though she didn’t choose to become one at all. Also, she was basically used as collateral damage for the entire Salvatores and Gilberts versus The Mikaelsons debacle just because Klaus liked her. She was always the second choice no matter what the situation was (unless it’s her being impregnated with magical twins without her consent and then guilted into carrying the babies, but poor Alaric just lost his wife. I’m sorry, unless it’s your uterus, shut the fuck up). I’ll just be over here doing what exactly NO ONE on the show did, and pick Caroline first.

DEADWEIGHT CHARACTER WE SHOULD’VE DUMPED IN 2009: Tyler Lockwood

I couldn’t pick Matt twice, so Tyler, I guess. He was selfish, a terrible boyfriend to both Caroline and also Liv later, and if I have to hear that boy whine about his fucking sire bond one more time I will literally throw my laptop off of a bridge. 

UNDERHYPED CHARACTER: Lorenzo “Enzo” St. John

Honestly, he’s one of the one things that made the last few seasons of the show bearable.  His delightful British rogue was a lovely way to fill the void that the Mikaelsons left in my heart, his devil-may-care attitude was man-made-manifest of what I was always thinking while watching the show, his BFF relationship with Damon and later Caroline was a joy to watch, and he was way too good for Bonnie. 

OVERHYPED CHARACTER: Alaric Saltzman

He is marginally more bearable right now on Legacies, but he annoyed the shit out of me while he was on the first show. Does he hate vampires or is he best friends with them? Does he want to be a hunter or does he want to stay away from anything supernatural of any kind? Also, he (along with nearly everyone else) basically guilted Caroline into carrying his magical siphoner babies, which is a touch too icky for me…

SHIP YOU WOULD SELL YOUR SOUL FOR: Delena (Damon and Elena)

Could it be anyone else? I never shipped Stelena, as I found both Stefan annoying and Elena too woe-is-me while she was with him. She made Damon want to be a better person and he made her embrace who she really was, monster and all. They had a perfect balance between themselves, and it was a joy to watch. He got the girl, guys. 

SHIP YOU JUST WERE’N THAT INTO: Steroline (Stefan and Caroline)

They were just too…meh. I was entirely uninterested in them, whatsoever, and isn’t that even worse than a ship that you hate? I used their scenes for a bathroom break or to get a snack, as I was guaranteed to miss nothing interesting or important while they were on screen. 

CHARACTER YOU LOVE TO HATE/FAVORITE VILLAIN: Kai Parker

What does it say about me that all of my favorite characters are violent psychopaths…? I’m just going to leave that to be unpacked with the future therapists I’m bound to hire. Kai was the perfect evil. He was powerful, purposeful, and unapologetically demonic in the very best way. I could watch him terrorize my favorite characters forever and not get bored.  Perfection.

FAVORITE STORYLINE: Stefan and Damon’s Brotherhood

If you don’t think this is what the show was about at it’s core, you’re wrong. They loved each other, they hated each other, they died for each other, they killed for each other, and, ultimately, they let nothing and nobody come between them. If you asked me who Damon loved more, Elena or Stefan, I COULD NOT answer you, and isn’t that just the fucking point?!

STORYLINE WE COULD’VE DONE WITHOUT: Magical Babies

I know that a major reason this was even a storyline is because Candice Accola got pregnant, but still…how? Like…she is a vampire..? She is unable to biologically change…? Like can someone grab me a biology textbook and explain how this a thing that can happen BIOLOGICALLY, please? I get that they are mythical creatures, so science doesn’t mean much here, but it just doesn’t make sense in any universe. Also, as I said above, the fact that Caroline was impregnated without her consent and then largely guilted into carrying the babies is a touch too rape-y for me…

BIGGEST PLOTHOLE: Do they go to school, or…? 

Like, are they just compelling the teachers to not notice them not attending class like 90% off the time? Also, how do the people in Mystic Falls not know anything about the supernatural? Like, they aren’t subtle AT ALL so how do they keep sliding under the radar? Also, in a lesser way, how are hybrid witch/vampires a thing? Like, I thought if a witch dies (like they would have to if they become a vampire), they lose their magic…?Make it make sense, Julie!

MOST HEARTBREAKING MOMENT: Damon Dies (the first time)

Honestly one of the saddest moments in the entire series was Damon’s ghost watching Elena lose it when he doesn’t make it back from the Other Side. They were finally happy and together and they can only enjoy it for like five minutes before it goes to shit. Why, Julie??!

BIGGEST EYEROLL MOMENT: Magical Babies (again)

I try to not use something twice on this list but COME ON. This was ridiculous and I do not support this in any way.  (Also this twin bullshit is still fucking annoying on Legacies, if anyone was wondering).

MOST SHOCKING MOMENT (any spit-takes?): Elena forces Kathrine to take The Cure

This was one of the moments that I literally gasped aloud. Most of the time the foreshadowing on these shows is seen from miles away, but I honestly did not see this coming at all. Also, Kathrine was basically the LAST person who wanted that cure so it’s crazy that she was the one to end up taking it and turning human.

MOST BADASS MOMENT: Kathrine kisses Damon at the end of Season 1

Like I said before, she is the original BAD BITCH of the show (not an actual Original, but you know what I mean…) and this was an amazing entry for the character who would be, largely, the villain of the series. It played on the feelings that Damon is developing for Elena, it finally introduced the person who started it all for the Salvatores, and it showed us exactly who she is at her core, and that she isn’t sorry about it at all.

SERIES FINALE SATISFACTORY LEVEL (use no words, just gifs):

OVERALL MARKS OUT OF TEN (10 being this show has changed your life for the better, you happily rewatch the series over and over, and the show has made your life better in some way. 1 being this show gave you nothing but trust issues, a stomach ulcer, and high blood pressure, and you honestly do not know why you did this to yourself) 

7 out of 10. 

I look back on The Vampire Diaries with the kind of fondness that only comes from a bizarre mix of nostalgia and incredulity. When scenes from this series show up on my instagram feed or on my Youtube recommended page, an involuntary smile creeps across my face without me realizing. I could do without like half of the characters and some entire seasons were completely unnecessary to watch, but it gave me some of my very favorite characters and ships, and spawned an entire universe that I still enjoy to this day. This magical, crazy, beautiful world was a joy to experience, even when it made me want to beat my head against a wall at least once per season.

If you want to see the other ones I have made, here's the original post with links. x  Hope you like these! (I say to probably no one...)

[curetapwater]

Long post warning. I really like the Haunted Mansion so here's an essay I spontaneously wrote.

Maybe a hot take, but the attic scene in the Haunted Mansion never made sense from a tone perspective. The emotional arc one is supposed to go through on the ride is that you enter the place and it's unnerving because it's dark and mysterious. The ghosts are invisible to you, things are moving on their own and contorting oddly among other strange things depending on the version, there's a low hum of Something Off lurking in the audio track that increases in volume until you realize you're hearing ghosts. Unlike the rest of the park, the Cast Members here aren't expected to smile and they speak to you curtly. You see a dead body hanging from the ceiling before you even get to the loading area. Madame Leota's séance is meant to be the turning point. She contacts the ghosts, you're told the ghosts are starting to get more comfortable in your presence and are starting to show themselves, then hey! Suddenly you're in the swank-ass ballroom scene where the ghosts are completely non-threatening. They're not scary, they just wanna have fun like us! This tone is carried over to the graveyard scene in which the cartoonishly-designed ghosts are continuing to party and now the song that's been building up since you set foot in the mansion is being joyfully sang by them. You meet some goofy ghosts who sit in your vehicle. The ride ends and you realize you were scared for no good reason. This arc is very smooth and makes sense.

Except jammed between the two "oh, I was being silly and the ghosts are actually harmless" scenes is the attic scene. Depending on the year and location, the tone here ranges from disquieting to vaguely threatening to openly threatening. I personally find every version to be creepy for different reasons. In earlier versions (and present-day Tokyo) the music suddenly drops out and is replaced by the ominous sound of a beating heart, with the climax of the scene being your confrontation with the ghost bride, whose intentions are unknown. All you know is that you need to leave. Especially when there's ghost heads popping up out of hatboxes and yelling at you. Judging by the placement of the Hatbox Ghost at the end of the scene in the original 1969 version, the implication seems to be that the bride beheaded her husband and they're now trapped in this attic together (or. that would be the implication had the lighting trick worked). The current version in the US parks goes for a far more openly threatening tone, with the visual storytelling rendered far more blatant to the point that the bride, now named Constance Hatchaway, brandishes an ax and straight-up tells you that she murdered a long string of husbands for money. One is obviously more subtle and I'd rather not declare one definitely better than the other. What I will say is that all versions of the scene throughout the years are very interesting examples of environmental storytelling and produce very interesting feels in the rider in a vacuum.

But the attic scene does not exist within a vacuum. It is sandwiched between two scenes that it (at least to my understanding) has little narrative connection to and I feel breaks up the tonal arc of what's otherwise probably one of Disney's best rides in terms of storytelling. What is the rider supposed to feel going from the ballroom to the attic to the graveyard? In my experience it has been "what a release of tension, the scary part is over now that I see the ghosts just wanna have fun oOOHH except this one that's a serial killer AAAAAA I AM SCARED ooh aha funny song the ghosts are nice again."

This is punctuated by the fact that (correct me if I'm wrong, I've only been on the Disney World version) I'm pretty sure the attic is the only scene that doesn't include some variation of Grim Grinning Ghosts, which I think further contributes to its out-of-place feel. When you first walk in, it's a slow funeral dirge, so quiet it's almost a low hum that's hard to distinguish from a supernatural presence. This dark feel to the song persists until you get to the ballroom, where it suddenly picks up into a more cheerful waltz (still a little off in terms of rhythm, but the guy playing is dead so I'll give him a pass). This should logically be followed by the graveyard scene where the song picks up further into an all out 999-part happy chorus of singers. And as you exit the ride building, you hear the final lines of the song sang quietly a cappella to the point that you have to listen to make it out, signifying the end of your journey and return to the world of the living. Except the attic scene, which either has no music or has a spooky version of the Wedding March instead, cuts into this otherwise seamless flow.

And idk how this could be improved upon because first of all I'm not a ride engineer but also because I couldn't stand to get rid of the scene because it's so cool on its own. Not to mention it doesn't make logical sense if you place it before Madame Leota's séance because (1) you're not supposed to actually see any ghosts until that point and (2) the Ghost Host doesn't ditch you until the ballroom scene so why would he take you to the attic, especially before more appealing rooms like, say, the ballroom. But in its current placement it does not work in the context of the ride's emotional story. It confuses you by leaving you with the impression not that you were silly for being scared, but that most of the ghosts turned out to be fine but That One Ghost was actually scary and you were right about her. It's the ride equivalent to a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment. So uh. A lot of conflicting thoughts on this scene I guess. I am very fascinated by its history though.

[grelleswife]

sooo how could you see a vampire chronicles kuro crossover going? c'mon I know you probably thought of combining your two big fandoms ;)

Hi, anon! Embarrassingly enough, reading IWTV did kick my mind into gear for thinking about Kuro vampires, though what I have so far is definitely more of an AU than a true crossover. My ideas are rather messy and incoherent at present, but a few highlights include:

The time period is still the nineteenth century

Madame Red's backstory is similar to canon--she loses Rachel, Vincent, and the twins in the attack on the Phantomhive manor...only this time, O!Ciel doesn't return

In this AU, she carried such a torch for Vincent that she never married, and poured all her energy into her medical career.

One fateful night, An is accosted by a former suitor, who has been stalking her for the past few weeks after she spurned his marriage proposal. Although the vengeful nobleman attempts to stab her, An manages to wrest the knife from his grasp and badly wound him...then, just before An makes the killing blow, a glamorous vampire by the name of Grelle Sutcliff appears, asking Madame if she can drink from the cad ("I'd love to watch you finish him off, darling, but sipping at tepid blood from a corpse that's already starting to cool is awful for my complexion"). Though An is understandably bewildered and more than a little freaked out (Has her narrow brush with death driven her insane? Or is this gorgeous woman really a vampire?), she hands over the scoundrel to Grelle, who cheerfully drains him dry. Afterwards, Grelle helps An dispose of the body.

Madame then notices that Grelle accidentally spilled a little blood on her dress while drinking from An's stalker. She offers to take Grelle back to her place to freshen up and pick out a new dress from An's wardrobe, if she wants one. Grelle did save her from a murderous creep and help dispose of the evidence, so An figures it's the least she can do.

Grelle being Grelle, the unabashedly bisexual vampire falls head over heels for An. Grelle's been hoping to find a mate (a "companion of the night"), and the gods of love practically dropped this brilliant, passionate woman right in her lap!

Once she realizes that Grelle has no intention of harming her, An is enthralled by the vampire, and drops not-so-subtle hints that if Grelle wants to swing by her lavish townhouse to hang out, or go to the theatre with her...well, she wouldn't say no. Thus their courtship begins.

Though not without its challenges, their love blooms like a nocturnal rose over the coming weeks. Once they've established that trust, Grelle starts testing the waters to see whether An is willing to be turned--showing her the beauty of the night life and demonstrating the supernatural powers that she wields as a vampire. Since losing her family, An doesn't have many close ties to the human world, and she adores Grelle, so it's not exactly a hard sell. An amazing wife AND fangs? ;) How can you refuse that?

Grelle gives An the Dark Gift, and they live eternally together. >w< Along the way, they adopt (and turn) Doll, a young circus performer left on the brink of death after a horrific tightrope-walking accident, resulting in a happy undead family of three.

Other aspects of the AU:

Agni and Sebas are also vampires (Soma and O!Ciel are their fledglings, respectively). Sebagni is a thing because I say so. >w<

Although vampires do have certain commonalities (i.e. enhanced senses, clawlike nails), there are different "lineages" of vampires with their own unique gifts. For example, Grelle's "bloodline" has the ability to shapeshift. Agni and Soma can perceive people's auras and emotional states (and exert influence over them, though this is a power they exercise judiciously), while Sebastian and O!Ciel have the ability to read minds

If a vampire lives in an area for long enough, a particular type of flower starts to bloom there. Since specific flowers are associated with each bloodline, this is one way to tell whether a coven of vampires is present. For Grelle and An, those flowers are spider lilies; for Agni and Soma, lotuses; and for Sebas and O!Ciel, black roses.

Another feature that varies by bloodline is eye color; for Grelle's, Agni's, and Seb's lineages, these are green, gold, and red, and any fledglings they make also acquire that eye color as soon as they "awaken" as vampires.

I have a few more ideas for the storyline, but I'll stop rambling now! XD

[waywardaardvark79]

Supernatural Rewrite:  Season 1: Pilot

Summary: Y/N Singer joins Sam and Dean on the road. A rewrite starring you. 

Pairing: eventual Dean x Reader

Warnings: language, show level violence

Word Count: 11,758

A/N: I’m going to try to do at least one episode a week. No set schedule. Flashbacks in italics. 

The car slowed to a stop in front of an apartment building and you peered out the passenger side window, shaking your head at his ridiculous plan.

"This is really the way you want to do this?" you asked, your attention still on the building in front of you.

"You got a better idea?" he asked as he turned off the engine.

"Well, Dean, there are these things called phones. You see, you use them to talk to people, so maybe we could try one of those instead of breaking in, in the middle of the night. " you said, turning in your seat to face him.

Dean rolled his eyes, "You think you could go five minutes without being a smartass?" he asked as he opened his door and got out.

You quickly followed after him, stepping in front of him to block his path, "Dean." you breathed out, frustrated that he was so dead set on ignoring your logical suggestions.

"Come on, Y/N. You know he wouldn't pick up if we called, and besides, the breaking in thing worked on you." he said, a smirk on his face as he stepped around you.

"Shh." you warned, your hand coming up to clamp over his mouth. "Someone's here." you whispered, your other hand coming up to place a finger over your lips, urging him to remain quiet.

You climbed off of him, grabbed his t-shirt from the floor and pulled it on before grabbing your gun from the nightstand.

"Fuck, is it your Dad?" he asked, panic in his voice as he stumbled from the bed, making entirely too much noise as he rushed to put his clothes on.

You gave him a dirty look, annoyed that he was being so loud. "No, he's not gonna be back for a few days. Now, shut up and stay put." you whispered before making your way to the door and easing it open.

You stepped out into the hall, weapon raised and made your way to the stairs, making sure to remain absolutely silent as you crept down them.

You came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, your gun still raised as you scanned the room for the intruder, listening intently for any sound that might give away their location. Rustling in the kitchen caught your attention, and you headed in that direction, taking a deep, calming breath as you prepared yourself for a fight.

"Son of a bitch." someone mumbled, and you lowered your weapon before flipping on the kitchen light.

"What are you doing here? I could have shot your dumb ass." you said, as you placed your gun on the table and took a seat. "You ever hear of a phone or knocking?" you asked.

Dean turned to face you, leaning back against the counter  as he raised his beer to his lips and took a drink. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, taking in your state of undress.

"Actually you are, so why don't you tell me why you decided to break in to my house in the middle of the night so I can get back to it." you said, crossing your arms over your chest, an annoyed expression on your face.

"Bobby know you have somebody over?" he asked, instead of telling you why he was there.

"He's not here. He probably won't be back for a few days. If you would have called I could have told you that and saved you the trip." you said.

"I didn't come here to talk to Bobby. I came to talk to you." he said, the sound of someone coming down the stairs catching his attention. "You know, Bobby would be pissed if he caught you." he said, a smirk on his face.

"Well, like I said, he isn't here, and I'm an adult, Dean. I can have people over if I want to." you argued.

Dean cleared his throat, "You better get down here boy!!" he yelled, doing his best Bobby impression.

"You're such an asshole." you said, the panicked footsteps of someone racing down the stairs meeting your ears.

"Mr. Singer, I promise it isn't what it looks like. I can explain." your date rushed out as he skidded to a stop in the kitchen, surprised to see Dean standing there and not your father.

Dean scoffed, "Really, Y/N? Jake Bradley?" he asked, shaking his head as if he was disappointed in you before turning his attention to Jake. "Yeah, date's over asshole, so go ahead and get out of here."

"Dean." you barked out as you stood from your seat and made your way over to Jake's side.

Dean blew out an annoyed breath, "Look, I need to talk to you...alone." he said.

You looked up at Jake, "Go back upstairs, and I'll be there in a minute." you said, eager to get back to what you were doing.

"Yeah, that's not gonna work. It's, uh, It's about Sam, and the...family business." he said, knowing that you would know what he meant.

You threw your head back and sighed, "You gotta go." you said to Jake as you grabbed his arm and started to lead him to the front door.

Jake looked down at you confused, as you pulled open the door and gave him a gentle shove outside, "Y/N, what's going on? Is everything ok?" he asked.

"Everything's fine, Jake. I just have to deal with this right now, sorry, but I'll give you a call sometime." you said before closing the door, not giving him a chance to reply.

"You know that guy's a total tool." Dean said from behind you.

You scoffed, "You think every guy is a total tool. It's not like I was planning on marrying him. We were just having a little fun." you said as you turned to face him. "Now, what's going on with Sam?"

Dean told you everything that happened. He told you about the blow up between his dad and Sam. How it started when Sam said that he wanted to go to college and ended with Sam deciding to leave for school and John telling him not to come back if he left. You listened intently as he unloaded everything on you, not saying anything until he was completely finished speaking.

"I'm sorry, Dean." you said, knowing how much he was struggling with it.

"Did you know? Did you know he was going to leave?" he asked, knowing just how close you and Sam were.

You had grown up with them, and since you were the same age as Sam the two of you clung to each other whenever they stayed with you and your dad. You had quickly come to consider the youngest Winchester your best friend, the two you of you doing everything in your power to annoy Dean any chance you got.

"I knew that it was something that he wanted to do, and he had said something about us going together, but I told him that college wasn't for me. I knew what my life was going to be, and he dropped it after that. He never brought it up again. I didn't know, I promise." you said, completely honest.

Dean nodded his head, and bit down on his bottom lip in thought, his concentration breaking once you stood up from the couch.

"Where ya goin'?" he asked.

"To pack a bag." you said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"A bag?" he asked, confused.

"Yeah, you're gonna need back up. I can't have that pretty face of yours getting maimed ." you teased.

"Bobby ain't gonna like it." he said.

"I'm an adult and it's my decision, so I'll handle my Dad." you said, knowing that Dean wouldn't argue with you too much about coming along with him.

And that was it. Bobby wasn't thrilled with your decision, but he knew there was nothing, short of locking you in the panic room, that could keep  you from doing what you wanted to do, and you had been on the road with Dean ever since. 

You sighed as you followed behind him, "Yeah, well, I never was the smart one." you said to yourself.

Dean was busy trying to open the window as you stood behind him on guard.

"Got it." he whispered as he raised the window and climbed inside, stepping out of the way to allow you room to follow after him.

You climbed inside the window, and let him lead the way, the two of you silently making your way through the dark apartment.  Out of nowhere you saw someone grab Dean and you jumped back, making sure you were well out of the way of the fight that had broken out in front of you.

You watched as Dean finally managed to pin the man to the floor.

"Whoa, easy tiger." Dean said, looking down at his prey.

You could hear the other person breathing hard, "Dean?" he asked, clearly confused.

Dean didn't reply. He just laughed.

"You scared the crap out of me!" Sam admitted, as you chose to remain hidden.

"That's cause you're out of practice." Dean said.

You watched as Sam grabbed Dean's hand and yanked on it while slamming his heel down into Dean's back, quickly gaining the upper hand, causing a smile to spread across your face.

"Or not." Dean breathed out, tapping Sam where he held him, "Get off of me."

You watched as they got to their feet, still choosing to keep yourself hidden in the shadows.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam asked.

Dean looked in your direction, "Well, we were lookin' for a couple beers." he said, turning back to face Sam.

"We?" Sam asked, confused.

"Hey ya, Sammy." you said, finally making your presence known.

"Y/N?" he asked, shocked that you were there.

"Yep." you said, popping the p and stepping up to Dean's side.

Sam shook his head, looking back and forth between you and his brother, "What the hell are you guys doing here?" he asked.

Dean looked over at you and you gave him a subtle nod, "Okay. All right. We got to talk." he said.

"Uh...the phone?" Sam asked.

You scoffed and nudged Dean with your elbow, "Told ya." you said.

He glared over at you, "Not a word." he said, before looking back at Sam, "If we would have called, would you have picked up?" he asked.

The light suddenly flipped on before Sam could reply, and you blinked your eyes a few times, trying to get them to adjust to the light.

"Sam?" you heard someone call out, the three of you turning your heads in unison towards the voice.

"Jess. Hey. Dean, Y/N, this is my girlfriend, Jessica." Sam said, introducing you.

You rolled your eyes when you noticed that Dean was openly ogling her.

"Wait, your brother Dean? And Y/N, she's the friend you always talk about?" Jess asked as she looked between you and Dean, a smile on her face.

Sam nodded his head, and Dean moved closer to her, a grin on his face.

"Oh, I love The Smurfs. You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league." he said.

"Just let me go put something on." Jess said, looking slightly uncomfortable as she turned to go.

"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it." Dean said, stopping her.

You cleared your throat, and walked over to Dean, grabbing onto his arm and jerking him back from Jess, his eyes remained on her and you could tell Sam didn't care for it.

"Excuse him." you said as you roughly pulled him back. "Can't take him anywhere." you added.

Dean jerked his arm from your grip, and shot you an annoyed look, "Anyway, we gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business." he said, "But it was nice meeting you."

"No." Sam said, as he walked over to Jess and put his arm around her. "No, whatever you guys want to say, you can say in front of her."

You sighed, of course he wouldn't make it easy you thought to yourself before you looked over at Dean who nodded.

"Okay." you said, after getting his approval, looking at Sam and Jess straight on. "Um...your Dad hasn't been home in a few days." you said, choosing to keep your statement vague in front of Jess.

Sam scoffed, "So, he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later." he said.

You ducked your head before looking over at Dean, gesturing for him to take the floor.

"Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days." Dean said, looking directly at Sam.

Sam's expression remained neutral as he took everything in.

"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside." he said.

The three of you were walking down stairs a few moments later, Sam quickly getting dressed before joining you and Dean.

"I mean, come on. You guys can't just break in, middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you." Sam said.

You looked over your shoulder to face them, "I tried to get him to call first." you said, before turning your head back around and continuing down the stairs.

"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing, and we need you to help us find him." Dean said before Sam could reply to you.

"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst, or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine." Sam argued.

You came to a complete stop and turned around, forcing Sam and Dean to come to a stop, too.

"Not for this long." you said, looking up at Sam.

Dean nodded his head in agreement, "She's right. Now, are you gonna come with us or not?" Dean asked.

"I'm not." Sam blatantly said.

You scoffed and started back downstairs, "Come on, Dean. Let's just leave him alone." you said, not looking back at them.

Dean ignored you and stayed put, "Why not?" he asked, looking at Sam.

" I swore I was done hunting for good. " Sam replied, not budging.

"Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." Dean said as he started to walk downstairs, Sam following after him.

You were waiting at the bottom of the stairs, your arms crossed over your chest as you listened to their conversation.

"Yeah, when I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45." Sam said.

Dean came to a stop, "Well, what was he supposed to do?" he asked.

"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say don't be afraid of the dark." Sam argued, his voice raising.

"Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course, you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there." Dean shot back, looking over to you for back up.

You slowly shook your head, not wanting to get in the middle of their argument, "He ain't wrong, Sam." you said, taking Dean's side, shocking Sam because you usually always sided with him, but that was before. 

"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her, but we still haven't found the damn thing, so we kill everything we can find." Sam said.

"Yeah, and we save a lot of people doing it, too." you shot back, before turning away and heading towards the car, completely frustrated with him.

Sam watched you walk away before turning to Dean, "You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" he asked.

Dean rolled his eyes, annoyed with his brother, and started off in the direction you had went.

"The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors.” Sam continued to rant as he followed after his brother.  

You were leaning against the side of the Impala when you spotted them.

"So, what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?" Dean asked, taking a spot next to you.

"Not normal. Safe." Sam said, looking between you and Dean.

You looked over at Dean and put your hand on his shoulder, "Come on , De. Let's go. He isn't gonna come." you said.

Dean looked down at you before turning his attention back to Sam, "And that's why you ran away." he said before looking away from him.

"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone, and that's what I'm doing." Sam said.

You shook your head at his refusal to help, "Dean." you started to say before he cut you off.

"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Dean said, Sam choosing to remain silent, "We can't do this alone." he added.

"Yes, you can." Sam said, causing Dean to look down in defeat.

"Yeah, we probably could, but we don't want to." you said, trying to back up Dean.

Sam sighed and looked down, no longer able to stand the intense stare you were fixing him with, "What was he hunting?" he finally asked.

You glanced over at Dean who was trying to keep his excitement at bay as he quickly walked to the trunk and popped it open, raising the spare tire compartment and propping it open with a shot gun as he started to dig through the clutter.

"All right, let's see, Where the hell did I put that thing?" Dean asked as he continued to search for the folder he needed.

You shoved him aside, and started to search for the file yourself, thinking you could find it faster than he could.

Sam smiled down at you before turning his attention to Dean, "So, when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" he asked.

"We were workin' our own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing down in New Orleans." Dean replied, turning his attention to you to see if you had found the file yet.

"Wait, we? Y/N was with you?" Sam asked, thinking that Dean had only just picked you up for the trip to come out here and see him.

"Been with him since you left." you said, not looking up at him as you continued your search.

"And Dad let the two of you go on a hunting trip without him?" Sam asked Dean, choosing not to reply to you.

"I'm twenty six, dude." Dean said, as you pulled out the file you needed.

"It was only because I agreed to go along with him." you teased, as you held out the file for him.

"Only because I agreed to go along with him." Dean mocked, doing his best impression of you as he snatched the folder from your hand.

"That sounded nothing like me." you said, rolling your eyes, causing Sam to chuckle as he looked between the two of you in amusement.

"All right, here we go." Dean said, ready to get down to business. "So, Dad was checking out this two lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California."

"About a month ago, this guy. " you took over, grabbing one of the papers from the folder and passing it to Sam. "They found the car, but he vanished, completely MIA." you said as Sam read over the page you had handed him.

"So, maybe he was kidnapped." Sam said, glancing up at you.

"Yeah, well here's another one in April." Dean said, taking over for you, "Another one in December, 04, 03, 98, 92, ten of them over the past twenty years." he said, tossing down the corresponding article for each date he mentioned.

You took the article back from Sam before picking up the rest of the stack and placing them back in the folder, "All men, all the same five mile stretch of road." you added as Dean pulled a bag from the trunk.

"It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. We hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." he said, as he grabbed a tape recorder. "Then, I get this voicemail yesterday." he said as he pressed play, the staticky recording starting to play.

"Dean, Y/N...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may...be careful you two. We're all in danger." John's voice said from the recording before Dean pressed stop.

"You know, there's EVP on that." Sam said, after listening to the message.

"Guess you're not as rusty as I thought." you said.

"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Dean asked, Sam shaking his head at the two of you.

"All right. I slowed the message down. I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what we got." you explained, signally for Dean to press play again.

"I can never go home." a woman's voice said before Dean pressed stop.

"Never go home." Sam said as Dean dropped the recorder and grabbed the shotgun to close the compartment before standing up straight and shutting the trunk, the two of you leaning against it afterward.

"You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing, and neither has Y/N." Dean said, knowing how hurt you were that Sam had cut you out of his life too.

Sam looked away in guilt and sighed before turning back to face the two of you, "All right. I'll go. I'll help you guys find him." he said. "But, I have to get back first thing Monday, just wait here." he added.

Sam turned to go back to the apartment, but stopped when Dean spoke up, "What's first thing Monday?" he asked.

"I have this...I have an interview." Sam replied, not going into any detail.

"What, a job interview? Skip it." Dean said, and you knew he was pushing his luck .

"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate." Sam said.

"Law school?" Dean asked, a smirk on his face.

"So, we got a deal or not?" Sam asked.

You waited for a moment for Dean's reply and spoke up when he didn't give one, "We'll have you back first thing Monday." you assured him, Sam nodding his head before excusing himself to pack a bag.

"Told ya, it'd work." Dean said to you as he walked around to the driver's side door.

You shook your head, "You got lucky, Winchester. I'd like to think I had a lot to do with him agreeing to come." you said before climbing into the back seat. 

Dean pulled into the gas station and came to a stop in front of the pump before shutting off the engine and climbing out of the car, you following behind him.

You stretched your arms over your head, "I'm gonna grab some breakfast." you said with a yawn before turning to head inside.

Dean was pumping the gas and Sam was sitting in the front seat, the door open as he rifled through a box of cassette tapes.

"Hey!" you called out, catching their attention, "You guys want breakfast?" you asked, your arms full of junk food.

Sam leaned out and looked at you, his nose scrunching up at what you had bought, "No, thanks." he said before adding, "So, how'd you pay for that stuff? Dean and Dad still running credit card scams?" he asked.

"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career." Dean answered for you as he put the nozzle back on the pump. "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards." he added before taking a soda and a bag of chips from you, giving you a bright smile when he realized that you had bought his favorite.

"Yeah, and what names did you write on the application this time?" Sam asked, as he swung his legs back inside the car and closed the door.

"Uh, Burt Aframian." Dean said, climbing into the car after you, placing his chips and soda down. "And his son, Hector."

"Don't forget his daughter, Louisa." you added, as you opened your bag of chips.

Dean smiled, "Scored three cards out of the deal." he said as he closed the door.

"That sounds about right. I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection." Sam said as he rifled through the box.

You raised up, popping a chip in your mouth before laying your arms across the back of the seat, "Why?" you asked.

Sam glanced over at you, "Well, for one, they're cassette tapes, and two, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica." he said, holding up the tapes as he named them.

You snatched the Metallica tape from him and passed it to Dean, "Be careful. I had those all organized. That's Dean's side and that's mine." you said, scolding Sam as you pointed to the box.

"It's the greatest hits of mullet rock." Sam laughed out, shaking his head.

"Well, house rules, Sammy." Dean said as he popped the tape in the player. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole." he added, as he passed the Metallica box back to you before starting the engine.

You grabbed the box from Sam's lap, needing to fix the mess he made of your organization system, "Really, Sam?" you asked, taking in the destruction before leaning back into the back seat and popping another chip in your mouth before starting to fix it.

"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve year old. It's Sam, okay." he said, looking over at Dean.

"Sorry, I can't hear you. The music's too loud." Dean said before pulling out of the gas station, and hitting the road. 

You looked out the window, Jericho 7, the sign read as Dean drove by while Sam was busy talking on the phone.

"Thank you." he said before hanging up. "All right, so, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So, that's something I guess." Sam said.

"Hey, look." you said, from the backseat, leaning up to point out the police cars that were on the bridge ahead of you.

Dean pulled over and the three of you watched the scene for a few moments before you tapped Sam on the shoulder, "Glove compartment." you said, gesturing for him to open it.

Sam opened the glove compartment and passed you the box inside. You opened it and started to search through the box of ID's, picking three and passing one to Sam before handing the other to Dean, "Let's go." you said.

"Marshals." Dean groaned, his eyes on you through the rearview mirror.

"Hey, you picked last time. It's my turn, so shut it." you argued before shooing both of them out of the car. 

The three of you walked into the crime scene like you belonged there, you sandwiched between the two of them, both of them towering over you.

"You fellas had another one like this, just last month, didn't you?" Dean asked, taking the lead like he always did.

"And you are?" the officer asked, eyeing the three of you suspiciously.

You and Dean flashed your badges in unison, Sam lagging behind a few moments, "Federal Marshals." Dean answered for the three of you.

"You three are a little young for Marshals, aren't you?" the officer asked, as he studied the three of you.

You giggled, "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you." you said, batting your lashes and giving him a flirty smile as Dean walked over to examine the car. You were used to playing the distraction.

"You did have another one just like this, correct?" Dean asked, peering into the car.

"Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that." the officer said, watching Dean as he looked over the car.

"So, the victim, you knew him?" you asked, pulling his attention back to you.

The officer nodded, "Town like this, everybody knows everybody, ma'am." he said, as Dean circled the car.

"Any connection between the victims besides that they're all men?" Dean asked.

"No, not so far as we can tell." the officer replied.

You walked over to Dean, subtly signaling Sam to join you, "So, what's the theory?" you asked, wanting to know what they had so far.

"Honestly, ma'am, we don't know, serial murder, kidnapping ring." the officer said.

"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys." Dean said, causing Sam to stomp down on his foot.

"Thank you for your time, gentleman." you said, knowing it was time to leave.

Sam started to walk away first, you and Dean following behind him, the officer watching the three of you intently as you walked away. 

Dean reached up and smacked Sam on the back of the head, "Ow! What was that for?" he asked.

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?" Dean asked.

"Why do you have to talk to police like that?" Sam fired back, as Dean looked up at him, moving in front of him, forcing him to stop walking.

"Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." he said just before you cleared your throat, Sam and Dean both taking notice of the sheriff and FBI agents that were standing there.

"Can I help you gentleman?" the sheriff asked, before adding, "Lady?" after he noticed you behind them.

"No, sir. We were just leaving." you said, as you grabbed on to Sam and Dean.

Dean nodded at each of the FBI agents as they walked by, "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully." he said, before you jerked his arm and started pulling him back to the car, the sheriff watching as the three of you walked away. 

You spotted a young woman tacking up posers with the victims face and the caption reading, MISSING TROY SQUIRE.

"I'll bet that's her." Dean said, taking notice of her.

"Yeah." Sam replied as the three of you walked up to her.

"You must be Amy." Dean said, the girl turning on her heel to face him.

"Yeah." she said, as she looked at each of you.

"Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, and this is Sammy." Dean said, introducing the two of them, but not mentioning you.

Amy looked at you, waiting for you to introduce yourself. You were about to say that you were an old family friend when Dean threw his arm around your shoulders and pulled you into his side, "This is my girlfriend, Y/N." he said, as he smiled down at you. 

"He never mentioned you to me." Amy said as she walked away, continuing to hang posters, the three of you following after her, Dean's arm still wrapped around you.

"Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much. We're up in Modesto." Dean effortlessly lied.

"So, we're looking for him too, and we’re kinda asking around." Sam said, a kind smile on his face. He always was good with people.

Another young woman walked up and put her hand on Amy's arm, "Hey, are you okay?" she asked, looking at the three of you.

"Yeah." Amy replied.

"You mind if we ask you a couple questions?" Sam asked, trying to move things along.

The five of you walked into a diner, Amy and her friend sliding into one side of the booth.

"I don't think we're gonna fit." you said, looking at the small space, and the two large men beside you.

Dean gestured for Sam to go first and he slid into place, "Sure, we will, honey." Dean said, shooting you a wink before sliding in next to Sam and patting the little bit of room next to him.

You plastered a smile on your face, "That's ok, honey. I'll just pull up a chair." you said, stressing the word honey, and rolling your eyes as you turned to grab yourself a chair.

You pulled it up to the table, Dean reaching to pull it closer to him, a smirk on his face because he knew he was annoying you and the only thing you could do was play along.

"I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and...he never did." Amy said, telling the three of you her story.

"He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?" Sam asked.

Amy shook her head, "No, nothing that I can remember." she replied.

"I, uh, like your necklace." you said, taking notice of the pendant she was wearing.

Amy looked down at it, and held the pendant up, a pentagram in a circle, "Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents-" she said, laughing. "With all that devil stuff." she finished.

Sam chuckled a little and looked down for a moment before looking back up, "Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil, really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing." Sam added, not being able to help himself.

Dean looked over at him, "Okay, thank you, Unsolved Mysteries." he said, causing you to laugh under your breath as he leaned across the table.

"Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared something's not right. So, if you heard anything." he said before you elbowed him.

"What my boyfriend is trying to say is that anything you've heard could be helpful, no matter how small the detail or how strange you think it may be." you said, a warm smile on your face, hoping they would open up and spill something.

Amy and Rachel looked at each other, "What is it?" Dean asked.

"Well, it's just...I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk." Rachel said.

"What do they talk about?" you and Dean asked in unison, Sam raising an eyebrow at how effortlessly the two of you worked together.

"It's kind of this local legend. This one girl, she got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago." Dean glanced over at Sam, who was watching Rachel,  attentively nodding for her to continue. "Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up, well, they disappear forever." she finished, and you looked over at Sam and Dean, giving them a subtle nod to go before standing from your chair. 

The three of you were crowded around a computer in the local library, Dean in the middle and you and Sam on either side of him.

You watched as he typed in "Female Murder hitchhiking", no results showing up on the screen a few seconds later. He tried again replacing hitchhiking with Centennial Highway, only to get the same response, no results.

"Let me try." you said, trying to work your way in front of the keyboard.

"I got it." Dean said, smacking your hand away.

You looked over at Sam, and nodded your head, hoping he would catch on to what you were doing before pushing Dean's chair out of the way, giving Sam free reign of the keyboard, "Hurry, Sam." you urged, trying to hold Dean back.

"Dude!" Dean said, as he shoved your shoulder, annoyed that you pushed him away. He always hated to relinquish control.

"I told  you to let me try." you said, shoving him back, the two of you starting to squabble like children.

"You're such a control freak." he breathed out, frustrated with you.

"I am not. You are." you shot back, kicking his chair.

"Guys, if you could stop acting like children for five minutes we might be able to figure this out." Sam scolded, frustrated with how the two of you were behaving.

"So, angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?" Sam questioned, trying to get the two of you to focus.

"Yeah." you and Dean said in unison, the two of you still subtly swatting each other.

"Well, maybe it's not murder." Sam said, choosing to ignore you and Dean.

"You read my mind, Sammy." you said, the cold demeanor you had towards him slipping a little as you pinched Dean hard on the thigh.

"Son of a bitch." Dean said, under his breath, his hand rubbing over the sore spot on his thigh.

You scooted your chair closer to the computer, satisfied that you had won the battle and watched as Sam replaced the word murder with suicide, quickly finding the article you needed, entitled Suicide on Centennial. You smiled brightly at Sam before turning to face Dean, sticking your tongue out in victory, taunting him that you were right.

"Oh, that's it." Dean quietly said before throwing his arm around your shoulders, quickly pulling you into a headlock, "Not so cocky now, are you, Sweetheart?" he asked, a smirk on his face.

"Let me go." you seethed, your hands coming up to try and pry his arm from around your neck.

"You gotta tap out, and admit I'm the better hunter." he said, chuckling under his breath at how pissed you were getting.

"Guys!" Sam hissed, completely done with the two of you, "No wonder the two of you needed my help. I don't see how you guys ever get anything done." he said, shaking his head.

Dean released you, knowing that it was time to get to work, "You got lucky." he said before turning his attention to the screen.

"You're the lucky one, Winchester. I was a couple of seconds away from kickin' your ass." you said, needing to have the last word.

You looked over the article that was dated April 25, 1981, just as you started to skim over it Sam gave you the summary.

"This was 1981. Constance Welch, 24 years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, and drowns in the river." he said, summarizing the article.

"Does it say why she did it?" Dean asked, instead of reading for himself.

"Yeah." you said, your eyes on the screen as you read.

"What?" Dean asked, waiting for either you or Sam to tell him what happened.

"An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back they aren't breathing. Both die." you explained, Dean raising his eyebrows after you were finished.

"Hmm..." he hummed out, looking at the picture of the bridge on the screen.

"Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it, said husband Joseph Welch." Sam said, taking over for you.

"The bridge look familiar to you guys?" Dean asked, his attention still on the screen. 

The three of you walked along the bridge later that night, stopping to lean on the railing and look down at the river.

"So, this is where Constance took the swan dive." Dean said, looking down at the water.

"Guess, so." you breathed out, turning around and leaning your back against the rail.

Sam looked over at Dean, "So, you think Dad would have been here?" he asked.

"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him." Dean said, as he walked down the bridge, Sam following after him and you choosing to hang back a little bit.

"Ok, so now what?" Sam asked, looking between you and Dean.

"Now, we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while." Dean answered, and you walked towards them, preparing yourself to break up the fight that you knew was going to break out.

Sam stopped walking, "Dean, I told you, I've got to be back by Monday." he said, causing Dean to stop walking and turn around.

"Monday, right, the interview." Dean said, and you stepped closer, ready to separate them if need be.

"Yeah." Sam said.

"Look, we'll have you back in time." you said, trying to stop anything before it started.

"Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?" Dean asked, causing you to step closer and slowly start to ease yourself between the two of them.

"Maybe. Why not?" Sam defensively asked.

"Let's not do this." you said, knowing that nothing good could come of it.

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?" Dean asked, causing you to reach out and put your hand on his chest.

"Dean." you said, giving him a look, silently urging him to knock it off.

Sam stepped closer, "No, and she's not ever going to know." he said, defending his decision.

"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner, or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are." Dean said.

"And who's that?" Sam asked, the situation escalating.

"You're one of us." Dean said, gesturing between himself and you.

Sam stepped in front of Dean, pushing you out of the way, "Here we go." you said to yourself as you shook your head.

"No, I'm not like you, either of you. This is not going to be my life." Sam warned.

"You have a responsibility to-" Dean tried to say before Sam cut in.

"To Dad, and his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like, and what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone, and she isn't coming back." Sam said, causing you to shake your head, you knew that he had took it too far.

You watched as Dean grabbed Sam by the collar and shoved him up against the railing of the bridge. "Come on, guys. Knock this shit off." you said, trying to pry them from each other.

"Don't talk about her like that." Dean gritted out, ignoring you.

"I said knock this bullshit off." you said, wedging yourself between them, and pushing them apart, Dean finally releasing Sam, and Sam starting to walk away. "Sam!" you called out, nudging Dean as you spotted Constance standing at the edge of the bridge.

Sam walked back over to the two of you, and Constance turned to face the three of you, looking at you for a moment before stepping off the edge of the bridge.

The three of you ran over to the railing and looked over, "Where'd she go?" Dean asked.

"I don't know." you said, shrugging your shoulders.

A loud rumbling caught your attention and you turned to look, your eyes widening when you saw the Impala's headlights come on, "What the fuck?" you breathed out.

"Who's driving your car?" Sam asked, his attention also focused on the Impala.

Dean pulled his keys out of his pocket and jingled them. You and Sam glanced away from the Impala to see the keys in his hand. You swallowed nervously as the car jerked into motion, heading straight for the three of you.

"Dean, Y/N, go! Go!" Sam called out, turning to run.

You felt Dean grab your hand and pull you along with him. You were doing your best to keep up with them, but the car was moving faster then the three of you were. It was starting to get too close and you saw Sam and Dean exchange a look before Dean looked back at you over his shoulder as you approached the railing.

"Oh, fuck." you said, knowing that their plan was to go over the edge.

You closed your eyes, your hand squeezing tighter onto Dean's as the three of you dove over the rail, the car coming to a halt once you were out of sight. 

You forced your way to the surface, your head popping up from the water just in time for you to take a deep breath. You started to frantically look around, searching for Sam and Dean, "Sam? Dean?" you called out, shrieking when you felt someone grab your jacket and start to pull you.

"Dean? Y/N?" Sam yelled out, as Dean dragged you out of the water and onto the muddy bank with him, both of you panting.

"What?!" Dean yelled back, annoyed as he collapsed next to you.

"Hey! Are you guys alright?" Sam asked, looking down at the two of you, soaking wet, coated head to toe in mud, and lying flat on your backs next to each other.

Dean held up his hand, signaling that both of you were ok, "We're fuckin' super." he called out.

Sam kept his focus on the two of you and laughed, relieved that both of you were fine before scooting away from the edge of the bridge and disappearing.

You looked over at Dean, "Why didn't we do that?" you asked, referring to how Sam had managed to hang onto the bridge.

Dean sat up and got to his feet, holding out his hand to you to help you up, "Hey, I was just following your lead." he said as he pulled you to your feet.

"My lead? My lead?!" you yelled, shaking your head at him, and grabbing a clump of mud from your shirt and tossing it at him.

Dean just laughed. He always loved riling you up. He got behind you and started to push you up the embankment so the two of you could rejoin Sam on the bridge. 

The two of you finally made it back to the bridge, and you were pulling off your boots, emptying the water from them while Dean checked over the car.

He shut the hood and leaned against it, "Your car all right?" Sam asked, as  you walked over and leaned next to Dean.

"Yeah, whatever she did to it seems all right now. That Constance chick, what a bitch!" Dean yelled.

You chuckled, "You got that right." you said, trying to pick mud from your hands.

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So, where's the job go from here, genius?" Sam asked Dean as he settled on the hood next to you.

Dean threw his arms up in frustration, flicking mud from his hands with the movement.

Sam shook his head before sniffing the air, and looked between you and Dean, "You guys smell like a toilet." he said, a smile on his face.

You looked down at yourself and groaned, "These were my favorite boots." you said, shaking your head before looking up at Dean, "I get first shower." you said before leaning up from the hood and going to take your place in the backseat. 

The three of you were standing at the motel check in desk, you and Dean both still completely covered in mud. Dean tossed down his card, and the clerk picked it up to look at it.

"One room, please." Dean said, causing you to whip your head around to face him.

"One?" you asked, your eyebrow raised, a bit of panic in your voice.

You and Dean usually shared a room when the two of you were on the road, but each of you had your own bed. Now, with Sam joining along you had thought that you would get your own room. Dean looked back at you and shrugged his shoulders, a look on his face like he didn't know what the big deal was.

"Nevermind, just get the one." you said, waving him off, thinking you would probably just have to bunk with Sam like you did when you were younger.

Dean turned back to the clerk, "Just the one." he said.

"You guys having a reunion or something?" the clerk asked as he read the name on the card.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, confused by the question.

"I had another guy, Bert Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month." the clerk said, your body tensing at the news, Dean looking back at you and his brother over his shoulder. 

You were crouched down, working on picking the lock to John's room while Sam and Dean kept watch. You got the lock open and pushed the door open before standing up, and putting your lock pick back in your pocket. Sam had turned around when he heard the door open, and quickly stepped inside. Dean was still standing guard, his back to you as you shook your head and yanked him inside the room.

Sam closed the door after you and Dean stepped in, every vertical surface in the room was covered with papers, maps, newspaper clippings, pictures, and notes. There were books on the desk and numerous different things spread on the floor and bed.

"Whoa." Sam breathed out, as he took in everything around him.

"John's definitely been here." you said as you took a few steps into the room, Dean flipping on the light next to the bed.

Dean picked up the half eaten burger next to the bed and sniffed it, recoiling afterward, "I don't think he's been here for a couple of days at least." he said to you.

Sam bent down and ran his finger through the salt on the floor, and looked up at you and Dean, "Salt, cats-eye shells, he was worried." he said.

"Trying to keep something from coming in." you said, as you looked down at the salt.

Dean was looking at the papers covering the wall, "What have you got here?" Sam asked.

"Centennial Highway victims." Dean said, you and Sam nodding as you looked over the papers. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs." Dean added as Sam crossed the room to look over the other papers pinned there. "Ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?" he asked, looking over at you, you shaking your head. 

Sam turned on the lamp, "Dad figured it out." he said, causing you and Dean to turn and look.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked as the two of you went to look at what he found.

"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch, she's a woman in white." Sam said.

Dean looked at the photos of Constance's victims, "You sly dogs."  he said, turning back to Sam, "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness." you added.

"Well, Dad would want to make sure. He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?" Dean asked.

"No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." Sam said, tapping the picture of Joseph Welch, "If he's still alive."

Sam started to look over some of the other papers, while you and Dean looked at the picture below the Herald article of a woman in a white dress.

"All right, Why don't you, uh, see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up." Dean said to Sam.

You reached out and grabbed him, "Uh, pump your breaks, Winchester. I called first shower." you said, pulling him back as you hurried around him to the bathroom.

Dean sighed, "You take forever." he practically whined.

You furrowed your brows at him, "Are you kidding me? You stay in there until you're all pruney, and there's no hot water left. Makes me kind of wonder what you're doing in there, De." you said, narrowing your eyes at him.

Dean swallowed loudly, "You, uh, go ahead." he said, Sam chuckling in the background.

"Don't worry, I'll save you some hot water, so you can, uh, do whatever it is you do." you teased before turning on your heel and heading into the bathroom.

Dean watched you walk away, his eyes on the door even after you had closed it. He grabbed your bag from the bed, cracked open the bathroom door once he heard the shower running and stuck it inside.

Sam cleared his throat, "So, are you two-" he trailed off, trying to hide the smile on his face at Dean's reaction.

"What?! Me and Y/N?" Dean asked, pointing to the bathroom door, his voice an octave higher than usual.

"You guys just seem...close." Sam finally said, thinking about how the two of you bickered like an old married couple.

"No, no, no.  I mean, we're close, but she's my...we're...we're partners, just partners. She has my back, and I have hers." Dean said, not looking at Sam as he rifled through his bag.

Sam nodded, "I'm glad you have someone, and I'm really glad it's her." he said, a sad smile on his face as he thought about how close the two of you used to be. "I kinda think she hates me." Sam breathed out.

Dean stopped searching through his bag and looked over at his brother, "She doesn't hate you. She...Y/N doesn't forgive so easily. You know that. When you left and cut her out, it hurt her, and once you hurt her she puts up this wall, and it's hard to get her to drop it." Dean said. "An apology probably wouldn't hurt, though. It would be a start." he added.

Sam chuckled, "I'm a little scared to talk to her." he admitted, you hadn't exactly been very welcoming to him.

Dean laughed out loud, "She can be a little scary when she's mad." he said before looking over at Sam, "She loves you, Sammy, but you...you hurt her, and it's going to take her some time to come around. If you really want things to get back to the way they were between the two of you then you're just gonna have to talk to her, and make an effort." he said, just as the door to the bathroom opened and you stepped out.

"Thanks for my bag. It's all yours." you said, toweling off your wet hair.

Dean grabbed his clothes from his bag and started for the bathroom, but Sam spoke up and stopped him, "Hey, Dean." he said, waiting for Dean to look at him. "What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry." he said.

Dean held up his hand, "No chick flick moments." he said, causing you and Sam to laugh.

"All right, Jerk." Sam said.

"Bitch." Dean said, a sad smile coming to your face as you were instantly transported to the past, memories of the three of you growing up together flashing through your mind. 

You sat down on the end of the bed, neither you or Sam saying anything to each other. Sam kept trying to work up the nerve to talk to you, apologize for how things were between the two of you now, and tell you that he knew it was his fault, but he just couldn't do it. Every time he would start to speak he would chicken out, afraid of what you would say back. You always did have a sharp tongue.

Sam was pacing back and forth, holding his phone, finally sitting down on the bed as he listened to a voicemail.

You were laying on the end of one of the beds, waiting for Dean to get out of the shower, your stomach grumbling loudly, causing Sam to look up at you.

Dean finally came out of the bathroom, and grabbed his jacket from the bed beside you before shrugging it on one shoulder, "Hey, guys. I'm starving. I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You guys want anything?" he asked looking between you and Sam.

Your stomach growled loudly, answering for you and Dean held out his hand to you, a smile on his face. "Guess I could eat." you said as he pulled you to your feet.

"Sam?" Dean asked.

"No." he replied, busy on the phone.

"Aframian's buying." you said, trying to entice him.

Sam just shook his head, "Mm-mmm." he hummed out, too worried about the message. 

You and Dean walked out of the room, Dean pulling his jacket the rest of the way on as the two of you crossed the parking lot. You noticed a police car and grabbed onto Dean's arm, turning your head to see two officers talking to the motel clerk before the clerk pointed to you and Dean.

"Fuck." you whispered, squeezing his arm as you thought about how screwed you guys were.

Dean pulled out his phone, "Dude, five-oh, take off." he said, alerting Sam.

You couldn't hear what Sam was saying, but Dean quickly spoke up, "Uh, they kinda spotted us. Go find Dad." he said before hanging up the phone and turning to face the officers, a smile on his face.

"Problem, Officers?" you asked, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Where's your other partner?" the officer asked.

"Other partner? What, what other partner?" Dean asked, pretending he had no clue what he was talking about.

The officer glanced over his shoulder and jerked his thumb towards the motel room, signaling for the other officer to check it out. You and Dean watched as the officer headed to the room, and both of you began to fidget.

"So, fake US Marshals, fake credit cards, you two got anything that's real?" he asked, looking between the two of you.

"Her boobs." Dean said, a grin on his face.

You internally cursed him before deciding to just go along with him, "You're damn right, they are. So, are his." you said, mirroring the grin on his face.

The officer didn't find either one of you funny and you were both being slammed down on the hood of the police car a few moments later.

"Hey, don't be so fuckin' rough with her." Dean said, not happy with how roughly you were being handled.

"I mean, usually the guy at least has to buy me a drink before he gets me into cuffs." you sassed, as you were being cuffed. 

Sheriff Pierce entered the room you and Dean were being held in holding a box. He set the box down on the table before taking the seat across from the two of you.

"So, either one of you want to tell us your real names?" the sheriff asked.

"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent." Dean said, the sheriff shaking his head before looking over at you.

"Joan Jett." you calmly said.

"I'm not sure you guys realize just how much trouble you're in here." Sheriff Pierce warned.

"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?" Dean asked.

"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall. Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. The two of you are officially suspects." he said.

"That makes sense, because when the first one went missing in 82 he was three, and I wasn't even born yet." you argued.

"I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So, tell me, Dean, Y/N." Sheriff Pierce said, as you tried to remain indifferent to the fact that he knew your names, watching as he tossed down a brown leather covered journal, "This his?"

Both of you stared at it as Sheriff Pierce started to flip through the journal, "I thought that might be your names. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out, I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy." he said, you and Dean both leaning forward for a closer look. "But I found this, too." he said opening the journal to a page that read, "Dean Y/N 35-111".  "Now, you're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means." he said.

"I don't know how many times I got to tell you. It's our high school locker combo. We shared and she could never remember it." he said, again.

"We gonna do this all night long?" the sheriff asked, annoyed that the two of you had held out this long.

A deputy walked into the room before either one of you could answer him, "We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road." he said.

Sheriff Pierce looked at the two of you, "Either one of you have to go to the bathroom?" he asked, both you and Dean shook your heads in unison. "Good." he said before grabbing your left hand and cuffing it to the table, gesturing for the deputy to throw him another pair of cuffs as he took your right hand and handcuffed you to Dean before leaving the room.

You waited until they were both out of the room before pulling your right hand, and Dean towards you. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked.

"I got a bobby pin in my bra." you said, trying to move your hand to get it.

"A bobby pin?" Dean asked, a bright smile on his face.

"Yeah, reach in there and get it." you said, turning to face him.

Dean quickly took his free hand and ran it under your shirt, groping around in search of the pin, "Oh, come on, Dean. Now, is not the time to cop a feel. It's on the left cup by the strap." you instructed, Dean quickly grabbing it and pulling his hand free.

He had the two of you out of cuffs in no time, both of you watching through the window to see when you could make your break for it. Dean pulled you out of sight as the deputy approached the door. Once the coast was clear, the two of you escaped down the fire escape, Dean carrying John's journal with him.

The two of you managed to find a phone booth and Dean quickly dialed Sam.

"Fake 911 phone call? Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal." he said, as you were trying to catch your breath.

"You're welcome." Sam said, a grin on his face.

"Listen, we gotta talk." Dean started to say before Sam cut in.

"Tell me about it. So, the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white, and she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad's next stop." Sam rambled out.

"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Dean asked.

"I just can't figure out why Dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet." Sam said, still not listening to Dean.

You jerked the phone from his hand, "Well, that's what he is trying to tell you. John's gone. He left Jericho." you said before passing the phone back to Dean.

"What? Y/N, how do you know?" Sam asked, still thinking he was talking to you.

"We've got his journal." Dean said.

"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing." Sam said.

"Yeah, well he did this time." you said, able to hear what Sam was saying.

"What's it say?" Sam asked.

"Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going." Dean answered.

"Coordinates. Where to?" Sam asked.

"We're not sure yet." Dean replied.

"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?" Sam asked, the sound of screeching tires ringing out afterward.

"Sam? Sam!" Dean yelled into the phone, panic on his face at Sam's silence. 

You and Dean got to Constance's house as quickly as you could, both of you spotting Sam inside the Impala, what you assumed was Constance on top of him. You raised your gun and fired off a shot, shattering the window and startling Constance. You and Dean approached the vehicle, Dean shooting now, until Constance disappeared, giving Sam enough time to sit up and start the car.

"I'm taking you home." Sam said, before driving the car through the house, both you and Dean staring after the car.

The two of you hurried inside through the wreckage, Dean making his way to the passenger side of the car, "Sam! Sam! You okay?" he asked.

"I think." Sam said, in a daze.

"Can you move?" you asked, looking in at him.

"Yeah, help me." Sam replied, Dean leaning in through the window to give Sam a hand.

"There you go." Dean said as he helped Sam from the car.

"Guys." you said, your attention on Constance who was looking at a photograph.

All three of you were looking at her now, and she glared at you before throwing the picture to the ground, a large bureau scooting towards the three of you and pinning you against the car. The lights began to flicker and Constance looked around, scared as water started to pour down the staircase. You watched as she walked over, a boy and girl standing at the top of the stairs.

"You've come home to us, Mommy." they said,  in unison, holding hands.

Constance looks at them, distraught, and suddenly they are behind her. They embrace her tightly and she screams, her image starting to flicker in a surge of energy. She is still screaming as her and the two children melt into a puddle in the floor, giving Sam and Dean the chance to push the bureau over and free you.

"So, this is where she drowned the kids." Dean said, you and Sam nodding in agreement.

"That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them." Sam said.

"You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy." you said, slapping Sam on the chest where he had been injured.

Sam laughed through the pain, "Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you two. What were you guys thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freaks?" Sam asked.

"Hey, we saved your ass." Dean said before leaning over to look at the car. "I'll tell you another thing, If you screwed up my car." he said before twisting to look at Sam, "I'll kill you." 

The three of you were back in the Impala, tearing down the road. Sam had the journal open to the coordinates John had left you and Dean, a ruler in his hand and a flashlight tucked between his chin and shoulder. You raised up and grabbed the flashlight, holding it up for him so he could figure out where John went.

"Okay, here's where Dad went. It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado." he said, you and Dean nodding.

"Sounds charming." you said, as you looked down at the map.

"How far?" Dean asked, glancing over at Sam.

"About six hundred miles." Sam answered.

"Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning." Dean said, causing Sam to give him a hesitant look.

"Dean." you breathed out, knowing how upset he was going to be that Sam wasn't going to come with you guys.

"You're not going." Dean said.

"The interview's in like, ten hours. I gotta be there." Sam said.

"Yeah. Yeah, whatever." Dean said before glancing over at Sam. "We'll take you home." 

The car came  to a stop in front of Sam's apartment, Dean still frowning as Sam got out and you took his spot.

Sam leaned down and looked through your window, "You guys will call me if you find him?" Sam asked, you and Dean nodding your heads. "And maybe I can meet up with you guys later, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah, all right." Dean said.

Sam patted the car door twice and turned away. Dean leaned over you, one arm going over the back of the seat, "Sam?" he called out, causing Sam to turn around. "You know, the three of us made a hell of a team back there." he said.

"Yeah." Sam said as he looked at the two of you.

Dean leaned back over in his seat and was getting ready to pull off when you stopped him, "Wait!" you yelled, jumping from the car.

You ran towards Sam, "Sam!" you yelled, Sam turning to face you. You didn't say anything else as you ran up to him and threw your arms around him, squeezing him tightly as you buried your face in his chest.

Sam was shocked, and was almost hesitant to return your hug, but he quickly came to his senses and wrapped you in his arms, "I'm so sorry, Y/N." he said, against the top of your head. "I screwed up."

You pulled back and looked up at him, "Yeah, you did." you said, shaking your head. "Learn from your mistake and don't be a stranger, ok." you said, giving him one last squeeze before pulling away from him. "Love ya, Sammy." you said, a smile on your face, before turning to head back to the car.

"Love you, too." Sam said, under his breath as he watched you and Dean drive away. 

You and Dean were silent as you drove away from Sam's apartment, the situation not sitting right with either of you. You watched as Dean gripped the wheel before quickly turning the car around.

"What are you doing?" you asked, bracing yourself.

"Something's not right." he said, as he sped back to Sam's apartment.

The car came to a quick stop in front of Sam's apartment and Dean jumped from the car, you following quickly behind him.

"Y/N, stay here." he warned, and for once you didn't argue with him.

You were leaning against the side of the car when you noticed the flames, everything in you itching to go inside and find them. They all should have been out by now. You were pacing nervously by the side of the car when you finally noticed Dean dragging Sam from the building, no Jess, just Sam and your heart sank.

You were standing next to Sam at the trunk of the car, neither one of you saying anything to each other as Dean watched the firemen and police rushing around the scene. Dean finally walked over to you and Sam, you standing between the two of them as Sam loaded a shotgun. Dean looked down at the trunk, then over to you and Sam, whose face was set in desperate anger. Sam looked up, sighed, then nodded at the two of you before tossing the shotgun into the trunk.

"We got work to do." Sam said, before shutting the trunk.