#i am unfortunately not hot enough to participate but its would be a fine day 😌✨️

[lexa-griffins]

Instead of Thursday, what about whoresday?

Every day is whore's day if you want it too 😌

Do you guys remember that virgin whore au I had? I just remembered it because of this ask, thank you anon ✨️

[gyucore]

long live the king

pairing: mage!hueningkai x noble!reader

tags: fluff, royalty au, friends to lovers, hueningkai can do magic

word count: 3.3k

prompts:

011: "May I have this dance?"

019: "I don't think anyone could ever be as lovely as you."

020: "You look incredible in that."

Tonight had been advertised as the night to end all nights— a masquerade ball held by the king at the palace, and a brightly lit ballroom decorated with gold and the continent's finest silk, adorning the kingdom's rose insignia. Entertainers and musicians positioned around the vicinity to perform their best acts and tunes, and the gates were left wide open to welcome everyone who wanted to join in, given that they tried their best to dress for the occasion.

Today was an event open to all the kingdom's citizens, from high seated nobles to common men by the streets, everyone was welcome to participate in the king's annual ball. However, that fact didn't matter for a family such as yours. Your father was the Marquess, which meant that you were invited to every single ball or gathering held by the nobility for the nobility. At least, that was how it had been until the incident.

The peering eyes of both the nobles and commoners alike have left you frozen on your spot by the pillar. Your bright red ball gown, although beautiful, was not helping you hide away from the eyes of the crowd. It was evident they were all thinking the same thing.

The unfortunate daughter of a fallen marquess.

News had gotten out about your family's crisis and had spread to the public like a disease. The Grand Marquess losing money, property, and power: The fall of a great noble. The story made headlines for weeks on end— rumors mixing in with the truth, and eventually, everyone had drawn the same conclusion. Pitiful.

You worry about your parents at the other end of the room, doing their best to mingle with the other nobles. The heavy atmosphere was weighing down on your chest.

Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, you try to think of the things that calmed you down: the rustic smell of old books at the public library, the warm feeling you'd get when the rays of sunlight touch your skin as you sit by the window with your face buried deep into your favorite classic, the bright smile the common mage boy would give you everytime you crossed paths—

"Wow."

A familiar voice brings you back from your thoughts.

"You look incredible in that." The same bright smile you'd envisioned earlier now stood in front of you.

You gaze in awe at the man before you, dressed in what you could only describe as the most beautiful and elegant ensemble you'd seen tonight. The way the white suit hugged his waist left little room for the imagination. You doubt even the king himself could top this off.

"Lady Y/N. I believe fate must have brought us together in this fine evening." The man gently bends down, taking your hand and planting a kiss so fleeting that you barely felt it. Even with the golden mask on, you could easily tell who it was.

"Kai.."

"Ah, and here I was hoping I'd be a little more mysterious tonight." Kai holds back his laughter as he gazed upon you once more. You can't help but do the same.

Tonight, he looked nothing of a common mage but that of a king himself. If you hadn't known him beforehand, you would've mistaken him as so, especially with tonight's main event— the reveal of the king's successor. But alas, what the mage boy had going on for him was merely for appearances. A commoner like him could never be king in a world where even dreaming of becoming one was considered to be of highest absurdity.

"I thought you said you weren't attending?"

Kai shrugs, folding his hands behind his back. "And refuse my lady when you so graciously asked me out?"

His response catches you off guard. "I don't recall ever asking you anything of that sort."

"You asked if I'd attend."

"And that counts as asking you out?"

Kai chuckles. "When you asked me with such a cute look on your face, it was difficult to think you weren't looking forward to me being here."

And he was right. Given your circumstances, Kai being here with you was like a breath of fresh air. You'd been praying all night that he'd magically arrive to help you take your mind off of things, and you felt like crying out in joy when he actually did.

Kai looks around, seemingly getting a sense of the pressure you were in. "Shall we take a stroll around the garden, my lady?"

You follow his line of sight and spot the royal garden just outside the window. "I'll let you accompany me if you drop the whole my lady business."

Kai purses his lips as he takes your hand in his. "Can't you let me be fancy for one night?"

Every moment you'd spent with Kai up until this point had been the highlight of your days. As the daughter of the Marquess, you'd spent most of your time holed up inside your manor. Women barely got any education aside from the usual classes on manners and societal etiquette, and that included nobles as well. But that never stopped you. Once a week, when the guards changed shifts by the gate, and the maids and butlers were all busy with the weekly general cleaning, you'd take the opportunity to slip out in disguise, undetected by anyone. The main goal was to get to the public library and obtain access to educational material— ones that didn't involve any prim and proper rubbish that you've read over a thousand times.

The first time outside was rather difficult. You barely managed to get inside the library's more educational section while passing as a man. However, every succeeding attempt became easier and easier until coming out in secret and gaining access didn't seem like that much of a hassle anymore.

At the library, you were free to read any book you want, and used this opportunity to brush up on some business and economics as well as some of the basic sciences. You spent the first few months stocking up on knowledge until you felt it fine to relax a little and start reading novels to pass the time without the help of a disguise.

There was a section in the library that you hadn't checked; one that you'd deemed unnecessary as it only contained children's literature. It wasn't until you'd heard the sound of a man's voice followed by children's laughter that you felt compelled enough to take a peek.

"And then, the dragon swooped down onto the village and attacked the innocent villagers! ROARRR. Breathing fire as hot as, well, uh— FIRE!"

You slipped up and giggled at the young man's amusing narration, piping down a bit after realizing that he had noticed you from behind the shelves, throwing a knowing smirk your way.

It was then that he pulled down his cloak. Wavy brown locks gracefully reaching the back of his neck, bright eyes that could make any person let their guard down— he looked around your age which made you feel more at ease.

The young man steps back, dramatically breathing fire out of his mouth as the children cheered. Some were yelling at him to continue until only smoke came out, and you swore you heard one of them ask if he could make the fire turn green. Ridiculous, you think. But you were no different from these children, only being able to stand there in awe at the young man's trick. Perhaps turning the fire green wasn't such a terrible idea.

You've heard of mages among the commoners before, and had met a few that visited your manor but this was the first time you'd seen one in action. The flames that came out of his mouth looked awfully hot but the young man didn't even blink or showed any signs of pain.

He stops the fire and clears his throat, now kneeling down to face the children. "The villagers were worried sick! What would happen to their crops, their produce, their livelihood? If only a hero would come along and save them!" He makes an overly exaggerated wail before gasping.

"Well, who do we have here? A warrior has come to save the villagers!" The young man points at your direction and you feel your blood run cold as all the children in the room had turned their attention towards you, hopeful.

"A young maiden has arrived to slay the evil dragon!"

You quickly shake your head at his statement, holding your arms out in a cross. "No, kids. Don't believe what this man says. I am not a warrior, and I'm certainly not here to slay any dragons"

The young man raises a brow, getting up from his spot. "Then why do you have the magical sword that was forged to slay the mighty dragon?"

"What sword?"

The young man snaps his fingers. "That sword."

The weight on your hips dip on one side and you couldn't believe your eyes as a sheathed sword had magically manifested beside your waist out of thin air. "How did you— wait, is this a real sword?! You can't play around with real swords in front of children!"

The children turn towards the young man in confusion.

"Well, kids. Do you want the kind lady to slay the dragon with a real sword?"

"YES!" The children cheered.

The young man turns to you with a smile. "You gotta give the kids what they want, Miss."

An exasperated expression makes its way to your face. "I am not slaying any made up dragons!"

"Now, what's all this talk about slaying dragons?"

Taehyun, one of the stricter librarians, had come out of nowhere, surprising everyone. His eyes scan the room and quickly notices three things: (1) the dangerous sword hanging on your waist, (2) the excessive amount of children in the room when the sign on the way in definitely mentioned a capacity of only five, and (3) someone let the mage boy inside the library again. The culprit was evident.

"Jung Kai, I swear to the heavens I will—"

"Alright kids, time to go! We'll end the story next time!" The young man, Kai, rushes the disappointed children out of the section before they heard something they shouldn't.

You were about to walk away yourself but was quickly stopped by Taehyun's hand blocking your path. "Kai, didn't I tell you that you're not allowed to perform magic inside the library? And seriously," He confiscates the sword on your waist, holding it up in the air. "Violence?"

Kai looks at you and grins. "I suppose we could've gone with a more romantic ending. Something like the warrior's kiss saving the dragon from his curse, and he turns back into this super handsome, super cute, and super macho mage."

The way he shamelessly described himself left you speechless, and you steal a glance at the librarian who looked as equally disgusted as you are.

"Just clean up the mess before you leave. And that means you too, Miss Dragon Slayer."

"But I didn't even—" You cut yourself off after Taehyun dismisses himself from the room.

The section falls silent and Kai walks up to you, a smile ever present in his face. "I'm guessing this is the start of our new friendship?"

And that was what started it all. Everytime you'd visit the library after that, you seemed to bump into Kai more often than you liked. He saw through the disguise the first time he saw you wearing it and had promised to not utter a single word to anyone. The mage boy was much more reliable than he seemed to be, often helping you in your studies and teaching you more than the books ever could. Sometimes, he'd convince you to take a stroll around town and had shown you sights and wonders you wouldn't have expected to see inside the kingdom.

Before you knew it, Kai had become someone you'd cherished, and someone whose company you genuinely appreciated. He was patient and understanding as your makeshift mentor, and was this fun and outgoing guy whenever you two were out together. Kai became the first friend you'd made on your own regardless of status and the only friend you wished to keep by your side.

"I take it that the people in the ballroom were too much?" Kai speaks the moment arrived at the garden.

"Please. I couldn't even breathe in there." You play it off with a chuckle but thoughts of worry still plague your mind. "I'm guessing you probably know by now."

"About what? The fact that you're the daughter of the Marquess or that the Marquess has been in a crisis for a while?"

"Both."

Kai reaches for your hand, holding it reassuringly. "I've known for a while but that doesn't change anything now, does it? We became friends without the burden of our status, and we'll stay as friends regardless."

You hated this, hated how he always knew exactly what to say. The heat rushes up to your face and you squeeze his hand tighter, avoiding eye contact. "Thank you."

But truthfully, there was a little voice in Kai's head that wished you could be something more. Not after you'd shared those intimate moments alone at the library at dusk, not after he rushed in to catch you in his arms when you fell while shelving a book on the top shelves, and especially not after you almost shared a kiss after saying goodbye that night he'd helped you sneak back in.

Even now, as he lovingly gazed at your silhouette beneath the moonlight, he'd hoped that he'd have the chance to tell you how he felt. But then again, the chance could be right now at this very moment. The two of you were, afterall, at the king's ball.

"So, how were the gentlemen earlier?"

"What?" You raise your head to face Kai.

"I've no doubt that hundreds of people had been lining up to dance with you all evening." Kai grins as he gently lets go of your hand.

"Please, I haven't danced at all tonight."

"I find that quite hard to believe."

You sigh, recalling the events from earlier. "No one would want to be seen dancing with a fallen Marquess' daughter now would they?"

"Not when you look this beautiful?" Kai jokingly walks around you and you shy away from his gaze.

"You know I never say things I don't mean, Y/N." Kai bends down and holds your hands in his. "And believe me, I don't think anyone could ever be as lovely as you."

"Is flattery your main personality trait now?" You say as an attempt to not let his compliment affect you any further than it should but fail miserably so.

Kai stands before you with an unreadable expression. You'd argue this was the most serious look he's ever had since you'd met him.

"Care to dance?" Kai asks, leaning in closer, your faces merely inches apart. You feel your heart beating loudly in your chest, and you're almost afraid he might hear.

The moonlight casts a shadow on Kai's face, and despite the darkness, his eyes glistened, reflecting your own as you stared into his. You've never seen anyone look so beautiful. And here he was, telling you that you're the loveliest person he's ever known.

"Right now?"

Kai nods, taking off his mask and tossing it over to the side. "And I'd like it if we could dance without our masks too. I've been wanting to get a good look at your face all night."

You chuckle, removing your mask and tossing it to to the ground next to his. "And how do you suppose we dance without music? My reputation's already dirt at this point and I do not want to be branded as the crazy noble dancing at the royal garden in complete silence."

Kai fails to suppress his laughter, holding on to your shoulder to maintain himself upright. "Well, I wouldn't want to let my dear lady look crazy now would I?"

"And what are you planning to do?"

"Well, I am a mage." Kai smirks as he manifests a scepter out of thin air, leaving a trail of golden dust flurrying down.

This was the first time you've ever seen it in person. Kai had mentioned how he needed the aid of his scepter to perform high level magic, but he'd never taken it out in front of you until now. One look at the scepter and anyone could tell not just any old mage owned the darn thing. It looked majestic by all means, intricately decorated with gold and topped off with a brightly colored red gemstone you couldn't seem to identify. You'd heard that mages often created their own unique gemstones as a manifestation of their mana but for Kai's to be red, which had been said to be a quite powerful variant, made you wonder just how powerful your friend had been.

"And here we go." Kai takes the scepter in his hand and drives it into the ground. The impact causes a wave of light to burst from the scepter and spread throughout the reaches of garden. In a split-second, the wave of light rushes back into its source, compressing into a huge orb of light lifting up into the sky, rivaling the moon with its glow. The orb splits into smaller pieces and starts to dance around the garden, leaving you in awe at the spectacle.

Kai finds himself grinning from ear to ear at your reaction. He'd studied magic as an expression of rebellion against his father but now, he'd found another purpose to perform these little tricks of his. He places his hand on your waist and pulls you closer. "Wait for it."

The orbs of light find their places around you, slowly taking the shape of various instruments you've seen inside the ballroom, from strings to percussions, and even wind instruments. Smaller pieces of light continued to hover the surroundings, resembling glowing fireflies in the dark.

"Kai, this is beautiful." You look up at the young man, and he steps away, bowing his head as he plants yet another kiss on the back of your hand.

"May I have this dance?"

His eyes meet yours and you feel your heart skip a beat. It was rather difficult to explain. The Kai in front of you right now had been the same Kai you've always known, but somehow.. different.

You raise your hand for him to take, guiding your other hand to find perch on his shoulder, and his finding its place on your waist. With the first step, the instruments started playing. It's a piece you've heard before, one that Kai had fondly hummed nearly everytime you were together at the library.

It was as if the world had faded into the distance, and at this moment, there was only you and him, dancing alone in the garden. He pulls you close, his hold gentle and warm. Kai spins you around. The heel of your shoe collides with a rock, and you nearly stumble back until Kai manages to grab you by the waist on time, pulling you back into his arms.

You spot the smirk on his face under the moonlight, and you press a finger against his lips. "Not one word."

"I wasn't going to say anything." Kai lets you go, and you quickly grab a hold of his arms to find balance.

"Of course you weren't."

"Well, I do have something I have to tell you. A few things, actually."

You cock a brow at him, and he steps forward. "I'll tell you the most important part first."

"And that is?"

Kai reaches out to cup your cheeks, gazing into your eyes as if asking permission. You didn't need to say anything for him to understand, and he closes the gap between you, pressing his lips against yours. The feeling was foreign but certainly welcome, and you soon close your eyes and reciprocate, wanting to feel more of his soft lips, and wanting to hold him closer and closer.

For long had you held out on this, on actually acknowledging your growing feelings for the lad in fear of having to live with the thought of him not feeling the same. But in this moment, you felt a heavy burden being lifted from your shoulders.

"Kai, I.."

The light from the orbs dim down and soon dissipates. Kai pulls away, gazing upon your flushed face. "You mean the world to me, Y/N. I don't think my life would ever be the same without you."

The trumpets blare in the ballroom, a signal that the new king was to make an appearance soon. You feel Kai's hand around yours. "As for my other confession, I think it's best we head back first."

He leads you back into the ballroom, and disappears the moment you find your parents in the crowd. You join them in the center as everyone gathers to get a glimpse at the new king.

The herald makes his way beside the grand staircase, straightening himself up to make the announcement that every citizen had been waiting to hear all evening.

"Presenting the next in line to the throne, to rule the vast lands of our esteemed nation, and lead us into a continuing era of prosperity! Our future King, His Royal Highness, Kai Kamal Huening!"

The doors open, revealing Kai, your Kai, adorned in the royal family's crest, robes, and jewelries as he made himself known to his loyal subjects.

Behind him was public librarian, Kang Taehyun, who had been revealed to be serving as one oc the King's advisors, and now, for the new monarch.

"Long live the King!"

Kai could pick out your from the crowd in a heartbeat, hos gaze meeting yours as he flashes you his signature smile. You couldn't believe what was happening— Kai, your best friend in the whole world, had just confessed his love to you. And now, that same Kai had revealed to you and to the public that he had been the future ruler of the country all along. The crowds cheered.

"Long live the King!"

"Long live the King." You whisper to yourself, wondering what the future has in store for you.

[piratewithvigor]

Eldritch Horrors Anonymous: A Wrestler Fic

Dr. Shelby's led plenty of support groups before and helped plenty of people in them. But these people aren't exactly people...

(I spent the last two days binging matches and assorted other videos to try and get the characterizations right, so let's see how this goes)

Plenty of bad crack below

When Dr. Shelby had been approached with the idea of running this group, he’d been… unsure. Possibly even apprehensive. He’d led groups for violent individuals before; anger management was the most memorable, but the coordinator nearly begged him to start this one. She’d had some of these individuals in other groups, but none of their problems truly seemed to stem from the focus of the groups they tried. They had a unique problem. A unique struggle that needed support from others just like them.

It was the night of the first meeting and he wasn’t quite sure what the outcome might be. The community center had been advertising it for the last few weeks and he’d heard about some interested parties, but the exact number was a little unsure. He’d been told a ‘handful’, which wasn’t frustrating as an imprecise number until it came time to set up the chairs in the room. Six seemed like a good number. A couple, but not too many. Colder drinks were set out on a table along the edge of the room. Nothing too hot. A lot of those coming had problems with heat. As well as with machinery. Some of them had habits with… well, with making it explode.

God, he hoped nothing exploded during this meeting.

The flyer stapled to the bulletin board said the meeting started at 6 and it was 5:55 when Dr. Shelby sat down in his chair opposite the semi-circle. The noticeably empty semi-circle. A part of him was disheartened that the room was empty, but a much more selfish part was deeply relieved. He’d spent a few days reading articles about these individuals and how best to help them. Unfortunately, not much research had been done besides describing the pain they inflicted in such gruesome detail that Dr. Shelby had felt the need to make himself a cup of tea.

But those were laboratory settings. This was a friendly support group. No one was being forced to be there, or even being paid. They were coming because they wanted to.

By 6:03, he was tempted to just start packing up. Maybe no one was coming. Maybe the group was a bad idea in the first place. He’d been told to wait until 6:05 for people to arrive, but even just two more minutes seemed like too many to just sit there.

He was shaken from his thoughts by the large metal door on the other side of the room creaking open slowly. A hand gloved in black leather wrapped around and Dr. Shelby tensed for a moment until the owner of the hand appeared. A pleasantly-dressed gentleman in a neat sweater, a short beard and his hair pulled back looked around the room before spotting Dr. Shelby and seeming to relax.

“Excuse me, is this Eldritch Horrors Anonymous?” He asked, smiling warmly.

“Uh, it’s supposed to be,” Dr. Shelby nodded. If anyone had shown up, he wanted to add, but bit his tongue back.

The man’s smile widened and he turned back from the room to call over his shoulder. “Found it, guys! We’re supposed to be in here!”

Guys? There were more?

Maybe the night wouldn’t be such a bust after all.

The man stepped inside the room and pulled open the door politely. Dr. Shelby couldn’t see the people until they entered, but it didn’t truly matter; no amount of time could have prepared him for the group joining him.

The first one to nearly skip through the door looked like a child at first glance. Definitely not an eldritch horror. She wasn’t much taller than one and with her long blonde hair pulled into pigtails and a doll clutched to her chest, she looked even more like one. She paused long enough to thank the man holding open the door before taking a seat in the middle chair of the semi-circle, directly across from Dr. Shelby. It wasn’t until she was fully seated that he got a proper look at her face. Her strikingly icy eyes were surrounded by thick black rings and every time the hairs in front of her face moved, Dr. Shelby swore he saw black liquid dripping from her scalp. The chill that went down his spine was either negated or enhanced by her wide, jubilant grin. He wasn’t sure which.

The man who sat beside her also seemed confusingly normal at first glance. A plain black t-shirt and leather jacket. Perhaps a little more… edgy than Dr. Shelby would have preferred to dress, but he seemed like an equally charming young man.

Unfortunately, a pattern of three seemingly normal people did not necessarily mean the group would be.

The next one to enter the room had to quite literally duck to pass through the door. Dr. Shelby guessed him to be seven feet tall, give or take a few inches. He was wearing a black suit that covered most of his body, save for his face, which had its own covering of a deep red mask. He didn’t smile like the others had so far. Not even a polite half-smile of acknowledgment. Just sat down in one of the chairs that looked like it might prove to be a little too small.

Dr. Shelby had been so focused on keeping his expression steady while watching the masked member of the group that he hadn’t noticed one final member sneak in through the door and sit on the other side of the circle. He had an oversized alarm clock clutched in one hand, a paper bag in the other and a steady, intense smile in Dr. Shelby’s direction. Though his face was just as covered in red, he seemed to be the exact opposite of the stoic masked member.

“I think that’s everyone,” the man holding the door declared, taking one last glance down the hall before starting to let it go. He was intercepted by a gloved hand pushing back against the door.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” A final member slid in, face covered in white and black paint and a long leather coat stretching to his ankles. “All the hallways here look the same.”

“We had that problem too,” the man holding open the door nodded. “Kept walking around in circles trying to find the room. And it didn’t get much easier after the flyer got a hole burnt through it right where the room number was listed.”

“I said I was sorry,” the masked member grumbled.

Oh God, he burnt things unintentionally?

“Don’t worry about it, you’re all on time,” Dr. Shelby interjected, hoping to avoid any conflict between the members before the meeting had even technically started.

The final two men took their seats. Six? Not a bad turnout. Might as well get started.

“Welcome everyone, my name is Dr. Shelby.” A collection of polite nods came his way. “Now, you’re all here because you face the same struggle every day and you wanted to meet people like you. Am I right so far?” Everyone nodded again. “Good. I’ve led a lot of support groups just like these and almost everyone in them has felt major improvements knowing that they have a safe place to share their feelings every week. Why don’t we go around the circle and introduce ourselves and share what brings us here?”

It was always a risky move. Especially with brand-new groups. Some of them were bound to be a little more shy or wouldn’t really want to participate until they felt more comfortable with the other members. Dr. Shelby hoped there would at least be one outgoing one amongst them.

Dr. Shelby knew he wasn’t masking his fear very well. He’d perfected the perpetual smile; it was necessary when leading support groups, but he couldn’t always control his eyes.

The group all looked amongst themselves before the man in the sweater held up his hand.

“I can get the ball rolling,” he smiled, standing up. “My name is Bray and for the last few months, my body gets periodically taken over by my dark half named The Fiend, an entity whose sole objective is to cause as much pain and suffering to those around him as physically possible.”

“Thank you, Bray,” he tried to say with as even a voice as possible. “Who’s next?”

“I’ll go,” the girl smiled, standing up with a flounce. “My name’s Alexa and this is Lilly.” She spun the doll around to reveal the most grotesque face Dr. Shelby had ever seen. He wasn’t certain from across the circle, but it looked like the teeth sewn into the mouth were real. “The Fiend showed me the way into the darkness, and Lilly took it from there.”

This is normal for them. It’s not going to help anyone here if you start looking like you’re scared.

But darn, is that doll ever creepy.

The man with the red face paint stood up next.

“I’m the Boogeyman!” He grinned with wide eyes, looking around at each member of the circle erratically. It was only as he began to move around that Dr. Shelby noticed the paper bag he was clutching seemed to be dripping some kind of dark liquid.

“Thank you for introducing yourself… Boogeyman. If it’s not too personal, do you mind if I ask what’s in your bag there?”

“Worms.”

“Worms?”

Boogeyman unrolled the bag and pulled out a handful of dirt-covered, very much alive earthworms before shoving said handful into his mouth. No one around the circle seemed all that disgusted. Like it was a regular Tuesday evening for them. Except for the man with the white face paint who seemed like he was as pale as a ghost underneath.

“I’ll, uh, that’s fine for this week, Boogeyman, but I’ll please ask you to leave your… worms at home next week. We’re not really supposed to have food in this room to keep it peanut-free,” Dr. Shelby explained, holding back the sick feeling knotting his stomach. “But if anyone is thirsty, I’ve got bottles of water and juice boxes on the back table. Feel free to help yourselves.”

Boogeyman nodded and carefully put his worms back into his bag as he sat down. The man with the white face paint immediately raised his hand.

“Yes, your name is…”

“I think I might be in the wrong place.”

Dr. Shelby looked him over. He didn’t look eerily normal like Bray, and he didn’t seem to have brought a bag of worms as a snack. Looked like he fell somewhere in between.

“You seem like you’re in the right place. This is Eldritch Horrors Anonymous; I don’t know where else you’d be tonight.”

The man’s expression changed from nerves to sheepish understanding. “I thought this was Troubled Goths Anonymous. I couldn’t find the flyer and followed Boogeyman in. My mistake.”

Dr. Shelby nodded understandingly. “Right room, wrong day. Troubled Goths Anonymous is Monday nights.”

The man stood to leave with his hands up apologetically. “It was great to meet you all, but I don’t belong here. Best of luck to you… eldritch horrors.”

“Oh, be careful when you come back on Monday. That’s also when they host Troubled Punks Anonymous. Very similar groups, but people seem to have very strong preferences of one over the other.”

The man nodded and left the room as Dr. Shelby turned back to the remaining members. “Some of you came here from those groups, right?”

“Troubled Punks Anonymous kicked me out a few days ago,” Bray sighed, his perpetual smile dropping for a moment. Everyone murmured their sympathy and Alexa patted him on the knee. “It’s alright, though," he continued. "You all seem like a much better fit so far.”

“That’s the point of this group,” Dr. Shelby smiled. “Now who’s next?”

The man in the leather jacket looked towards the man in the mask before shrugging and standing.

“M’name’s Finn. Sometimes the rage o’ battle brings out the Demon King Bálor from within me ‘n with the openin’ o’ his great eye, enemies are laid to waste a’ his feet,” he explained, about as casually as one would talk about what they did over the weekend.

“Glad to have you here, Finn.” It was getting easier to digest the stories of the people around him as he heard more. Maybe he’d even be able to hear the last one without faking the comfort of his smile. “And last, but certainly not least…” He turned towards the masked man expectedly. There was no smile, polite or otherwise. But he also didn’t seem like he was hesitating because he was shy. Just… grumpy.

“You don’t have to introduce yourself if you don’t feel comfortable, but we’re still a small group and as far as I can tell, all very friendly,” Dr. Shelby pushed a little further. The other members nodded in agreement. Even Boogeyman, who had snuck another worm from his bag into his mouth.

“Fine,” he grumbled, standing up. “I’m Kane. I’m the devil’s favorite demon. I grew up in a basement, suffering severe psychological and emotional scarring when my brother set my parents on fire. From there, I shifted around a series of mental institutions until I was grown, at which point I buried my brother alive... twice. Since then, I’ve set a couple of people on fire and abducted various co-workers. Oh, and I once electrocuted a man’s testicles. Years ago, I had a girlfriend named Katie, but let’s just say that didn’t turn out so well. My real father is a man named Paul Bearer who I recently trapped in a meat locker. I’ve been married, divorced, broke up my ex wife’s wedding and attacked the priest and for reasons never quite explained, I have an unhealthy obsession with torturing Pete Rose.”

Okay, maybe they can get weirder.

“Thank you… Kane.” He paused a moment before remembering back to the list that he’d been given a few days before. “That name sounds familiar; I think I was told to expect you, but they said you might be coming with your brother.”

“Probably won’t happen.”

“Why not? Is he not an eldritch horror?”

“He is. He just won’t come. Has better things to do.”

“Like what?”

“He said ‘watching paint dry’.”

“Maybe when you see him again, you can tell him we’re more fun than watching paint dry,” Alexa suggested, bouncing Lilly on her lap.

“That’s right. And that goes for all of you,” Dr. Shelby mentioned. “If anyone knows someone who might need a support group like this, go ahead and invite them. This isn’t Fight Club; it doesn’t have to be secret.”

The group chuckled a little at his attempt at a joke. Even Kane cracked a small smile.

Dr. Shelby relaxed a little in his seat. These people might dress strangely and have bizarre interests, diets and backstories, but deep down, they were just like anyone else. Maybe he could help them after all.

[dappersheep]

Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (2/3)

Welcome back. Before we get started, disclaimers again! I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the history and future of the game. What I am entitled to are the thoughts and opinions written within this post. You may or may not agree with the points spoken of here. This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.

We are now on the second part, so let's go forward under the cut!

Elex

And here we have our beloved global publisher that most of seem to have Stockholm Syndrome for. Don't lie, at least half of us are still playing this damned game due to sunken cost fallacy, sunken time fallacy and the cute/hot jpegs.

In 2018, everything started out fine. Sure, maybe we had some translation mishaps here and there -coughwe'llgettothatwreckagelatercough- but overall, Elex was running the game fairly well. Rewards were on time, we had active social media and support, and a discord was set up!

Hint: Please note I use quite a bit of sarcasm in most everything I say.

And then somewhere along that road, things got derailed. And I mean it like, we're in the midst of a trainwreck in slow motion and we've only cleared the initial collision and still hurtling forward or backward into a steel wreckage ticking inferno.

Problems started cropping up as early as late 2018, just a few months after the game was launched in July.

⦁ Art contest mishaps. You know when you hold an art contest on Facebook out of all places with its shitty tagging system, you're bound to have entries lost to the void, people forced to register an FB account just to participate (seriously, who even has an FB account that isn't just there to appease family members?) and having to wrestle with figuring out how FB's tagging system works. Add to that the panel of judges happen to be Elex staff who don't have a good eye for good artwork (we actually had a kiddy figure drawing win over a well drawn one during the last contest!) and that they ALSO weren't very good at organizing such contests on FB... well, we had several grievances over that.

⦁ Region blocked FB announcements. Strangely enough, I stopped getting announcements around Father's Day of 2019 while everyone else outside of SEA kept getting updates. Turns out that someone on Elex's staff really didn't like SEA players or was just really bad at fixing the settings for the group and never bothered to revert it back. It didn't matter in the long run though, because...

⦁ Abandoned social media platforms. FooFan Twitter, FooFan Facebook... they all floated slowly into the void and was never heard from again. And this was before the 2020 pandemic.

⦁ Remember what I said about Discord? Yeah, apparently, they opened one up a little too early and the staff in charge of it knew zero about how to setup and mod a discord community, and didn't even have the manpower needed to mod the influx of members that came in! Suffice to say, they had to get help from top players and mods from the FB groups to come in and sort things out because someone kept pinging @ everyone every few seconds other than the usual chaos that comes from a server with no filters and people trying to turn the discord into Global Chat 2.0, minus Russian hours.

⦁ Also in line with the point about abandoned social media platforms, they've also mostly abandoned the discord too and only pop in once in a while to check the bug reports or lost accounts. You have a slightly better chance of response with the in-game support. Only slightly. And there's a running joke with several variations on the main discord that the Owner account of the discord server was manned by an intern-kun who never bothered to pass it on to the next unfortunate soul left to maintain this game.

⦁ Favoritism. Funtoy is also guilty of this but they don't publish the game for Global. If you're a top spender the likes of maxing out your cash rebates within the three months or so and you kept spending even beyond that, Elex could possibly invite you to a funky little club where your voice is more important than say... 99% of the playerbase. On top of that, if you keep spending, you could technically also ask for stuff like getting this frame over that frame, or well.... delay certain features from coming to Global for over a year. Now you can simp AND be heard! (Note: In 2021, it's possible that that club may be dead too, as all things shall be)

⦁ SJW Friendly. I don't know if Funtoy themselves have anything to also do with this particular decision... but it's saying something that after a certain little tiddy tantrum from the community side, Elex decided not to announce anything about a certain event's fate and when asked by it by other parties (not me) they either lie through their teeth, or beat around the bush with a non-answer.

⦁ Partial translations, mistranslations. Now, I understand that a lot of Chinese grammar and semantics are confusing to translate properly into several other languages, but you'd think Elex would have given their translators more context to the character or the mechanic to avoid such mistranslations that later set off gender debates or worded the skill/artifact description a little clearer. That is... unless Elex really is hands-off trying to get to know this IP from the start and only gave it the most bare minimum of English where they can cut costs for it, so people can understand it 'well enough' to throw money at an obviously not beta-read quality game.

⦁ No translations. Yes we do have certain parts of the game that are in Chinese since forever since xx patch. Some characters' voiceline texts are still in chinese, especially during the Pledge scenes. More recent artifacts are also in chinese with no announced translation in sight. And don't get me started on the Food Soul bios, or lack thereof.

⦁ Delayed events. Prime example? We had weeks of minor events/no events and still Elex managed to eff everything up for our second Anniversary in July 2020. We ended up getting the Croissant event in late August with barely any apologies and compensation for the delay... and this likely would have never arrived as 'early' as it did if people hadn't been railing about where our Anniversary event was. As it stands, we are several minor events behind CN, at least a year and a half's worth behind. I know Global had requested heavily for more spaced out events (to save resources, not that it actually worked with all the nerfed rewards we get) compared to CN but this is extremely ridiculous.

⦁ Delayed permanent features. Hm... Guild Wars, Sky Tower, Bar, that Wuchang Fish Showdown... several Quality of Life updates.... that new permanent pool update... Food Souls still missing their JP voice packs... Food Soul Bios... *slowly ticking off more than I have fingers and toes*

⦁ Customer Support is whack. You'd be lucky if you got someone who understood your problem/inquiry right off the bat AND did something about it efficiently. You'd be luckier if they answered you honestly if you were inquiring about event updates or other buggy features or reporting hackers.

⦁ The Great Turkey and Apple Incident of 2020. Well, if you were around for that little SNAFU during the Turkey re-run event, you'd know a percentage of people suddenly got logged out of their accounts and had a baller of a time trying to get their accounts back. You were especially unfortunate if you were playing on an iOS account because even if you did bind it (like a responsible player should be doing), you probably still wouldn't get it back in time to rank properly during Turkey. Some Android players also experienced this, but it wasn't as bad as what the iOS players experienced. And then there was the compensation mishap for that too.

⦁ Hacker-chan and not-so-uwu Hacker-teme. Hacker-chan is a meme. Hacker-chan was a harmless player who regularly topped in Top Showdown every week for a time to send a message to Elex just how easy it is to hack the game in certain rankings and invited Elex to ban them every time, just to test how competent Elex is. In the end, Elex has proven to be incompetent and also glaringly stupid about how their published game works. Hacker-teme is a collective of individuals over time who have cheated the game during important ranking events or in somewhat important permanent battles. If you tried to report a Hacker-teme with evidence to prove it -and trust me, people repeatedly have-, Elex would tell you that they're not cheating and/or lie through their teeth that they're 'investigating the case' and then not do anything about it and let them keep their event ranking and thus get the rewards while someone who actually worked hard/whaled hard to get the spot gets denied. In one case, they believe that if an account has rebate points and the player level is at least around level 80, then the hacker-teme is obviously playing the game fairly. Never mind that their units happened to have low to no artifact nodes opened, and not high in ascension.

And that is the end of the Elex saga. I'm aware there's likely more things about Elex that I've missed, but feel free to add on to this analysis post with your own thoughts.

The last part of this trilogy is probably what many of us are waiting for, for obvious reasons.

[thepancakeboi]

38. “Wow, you’re hot.”

When we had learned that one of the games in Sae’s Palace was a battle arena, I never would have guessed that I wouldn’t be participating. Unfortunately, the rules state that only one person can participate, and, as much as I hate to admit it, Joker’s versatility with his Personas makes him the best candidate. I can’t reveal my secrets now, can I? It would certainly be interesting to see how far I could go massacring my opponents alongside my Persona. That will have to wait for another day.

Instead, I find myself among a cognitive crowd of people and the rest of the Phantom Thieves. The room encircles a central area that likely serves as the battleground for these three fights. I’ve distanced myself from the others, preferring to watch this fight alone. This is the best chance I am going to have to truly watch Joker fight without any distractions. I don’t need the Thieves’ prattling to get in my way.

The simulated crowd erupts into cheering. It’s obvious why. Joker waltzes into the arena like he owns the place. He’s playing the part up for all it’s worth.

“Now then, our gripping battle is finally here! The idiot leader of the adult-defying thieves has come!” an announcer’s voice calls out from over the loudspeakers. Oh, this commentary is going to be good. “Odds are 1.1 to the house, 23.0 to the Phantom Thieves! Wow, the Phantom Thieves are surprisingly popular! It’s rare to see odds in the double digits! Now, let us begin our serious one-on-one battle! Bring out the first contestant!”

The first opponent, or should I say, opponents, appear in the form of two human-sized bipedal elephants. These are the same as the one we fought to get a member’s card in the first place. Joker had called it Ganesha. “Uhhhh, what the hell!?” Skull yells loudly enough for even me to hear him. “There’s two of ‘em!”

Clearly, they weren’t planning on giving Joker a fair fight from the start. That’s not surprising. I had anticipated this happening. I just hope my faith in his skills isn’t misguided. You better not lose, Joker. I did bet a lot of coins on you.

“Now then, it’s time for this hellish trio of battles to begin!” the announcer continues. “Ready...”

Joker’s eyes unerringly find me in the crowd.

“Set...”

He grins, mouthing “watch this” before turning his attention back to the two Shadows he has to face.

“Go!”

The Ganeshas waste no time rushing at Joker, swords at the ready. He just...stands there, looking around the room. What is he thinking!?

He waits...and waits...

Only when they’re nearly on top of him does he take action. He spins in a clockwise rotation, a thin, nearly invisible line shooting away from his extended left hand and latching onto a beam on the ceiling. I recognize what he’s doing just as he’s lifted into the air by the grappling hook. The Ganeshas end up swiping at empty air, their inertia causing them to nearly trip over their own feet. Joker releases the grappling hook well before he reaches the ceiling, doing a couple of front flips as he lands. He’s already showing off an awful lot. That’s saying something when it comes to Joker, who constantly does a backflip before going into what the Phantom Thieves call an “All-Out Attack”. Not that I can say anything, considering I’ve taken to doing the same. Turning his head to look at me, Joker has the audacity to wave at me during this fight. Is he even taking this seriously?

One of the Ganeshas rushes recklessly again, likely hoping to catch Joker off-guard. It’s too bad that Joker sees it coming and backflips into the air, sailing high over its head. He cocks his gun mid-flip, firing bullet after bullet into the Shadow’s back. I can feel a murderous intent from the two Shadows. Joker deploys his grappling hook and flies clear out of the way of the other Shadow trying to avenge its injured comrade.

It’s impossible not to laugh at the pathetic Shadows stumbling around, making fools of themselves as they try to land a single hit. Using his trusty grappling hook and acrobatic skills, Joker moves all over the arena, confusing them tremendously. It’s almost a show. The thief flips and spins as he goes like he has to show off at every possible moment. I for one can’t take my eyes off him. His movements flow one into another, captivating the cognitive audience as well. These weaklings are no match for him. So why doesn’t he just finish them off quickly as he should? He’s wasting time.

As if hearing my thoughts, Joker’s hand reaches for his mask. Playtime’s over. He summons the paperlike Persona Shiki-Ouji. “Ravage them!” he yells as a myriad of pink and cyan blobs assault his opponents. The two Shadows collapse under the barrage, one of them being taken out by the attack. The other one struggles to get back up, but it’s no use. This Ganesha is as good as dead. Joker uses his grappling hook to swing around the Shadow, his dagger cleaving right through its neck. He lands right where the Shadow is as it explodes into black dust. Joker stands right in the middle of it, looking cool as ever.

I know that I’m staring right now. I don’t care. He made that fight look simple, and he looked good doing it. “Wow, you’re hot,” I whisper to myself, hoping the announcer’s derisive voice echoing through the room will drown out my musings.

Oracle walks up to me a few seconds later. Thank goodness I- “Mwehehe! I’m gonna tell him.”

“What-” I start to ask, only to realize she had heard me after all, despite my precautions. “No.”

“I’m gonna tell him,” she repeats with a mischievous grin.

“Please don’t tell him.” The last thing I need is for Joker to think I find him attractive. Granted, he is quite attractive, but that’s beside the point.

“He’ll find it cute after you guys were holding hands!”

“What are you talking about?” I can hear my voice pitch higher. There’s only one event she can be referencing, and if she saw that...god, I hate how worried I sound.

“In the House of Darkness!”

She had noticed after all. Joker had sensed my...unease upon first entering the maze and had grabbed my hand to calm me down. That was all it was. It meant nothing, even if he had continued to hold my hand through the entire thing except in the rare instances we had to crawl through the vents. Not that trying to convince Oracle of this will help. “Don’t tell him or else,” I say, trying to sound confident once again.

“You can’t stop me. If you try, I’ll tell everyone you’re so scared of the dark you held Ren’s hand!”

“Are you...blackmailing me?”

She laughs. “Maybe.”

“Damnit,” I hiss.

Seeing no way out of this predicament, I turn my attention back to the fight just as Joker slaughters three Rangdas all at once with a well-timed Makouga from Isis. They certainly didn’t last long. He laughs jovially as he remarks, “Now that’s comedy!” He sounds slightly surprised as if he himself hadn’t expected them to be destroyed so easily.

“Bullshit! Why the hell aren’t you dying, you goddamn Phantom Dweeb!?” the announcer yells, clearly annoyed that Joker simply refuses to lay down and die. Wait, when did the announcer start calling him a ‘Phantom Dweeb’? What even is a dweeb? Never mind; that’s not important. “I have a bet on this too! Grr, there’s no way in hell you’re getting away with this! Time for our final contestant!”

What an inane fool the announcer has to be to think the cocky, rebellious boy that is Joker is going to accept defeat. He’s been defying the odds stacked against him since April, and that isn’t changing now. He’ll keep fighting.

Even if the enemy that materializes in front of him is a hulking humanoid at least three times his size.

“Yowza... That’s a big one,” Oracle says in shock. At least Joker’s final foe takes her focus off of me. Hopefully, she’ll forget my little comment from earlier.

“Go, grind his bones to dust! Let the extreme third battle begin!”

Thor looks down at its foe. “Let’s get this over with,” the Shadow says. To it, Joker must look like a puny opponent. It’ll learn soon enough not to underestimate him.

Joker looks like he’s still chuckling despite his opponent’s size. He takes off his mask, but the Persona he summons isn’t Shiki-Ouji. “Magatsu-Izanagi Picaro!” he calls. Something about this Persona’s appearance feels...familiar, somehow. Perhaps...? “You need proper punishment.”

I raise an eyebrow because, even though he’s looking at Thor, the way he’s positioned makes it seem like he’s directing it at me instead. Does he not understand proper phrasing?

A black and red mandala appears on the floor right under Thor’s feet. The Shadow is surrounded by red symbols swirling faster and faster around it. The symbols are impossible to make out from this distance. Whitish-red streaks of light build up in intensity from all sides before a large beam shoots down on Thor in an explosion of energy. “What a powerful attack,” I remark idly to myself.

In a completely unnecessary move, Joker uses his grappling hook to move in my direction and away from Thor. The Shadow is preparing for an attack. He once again does nothing to stop the Shadow charging head-long at him. I soon see why. Shiki-Ouji suddenly materializes in front of Joker and grabs Thor mid-rush, holding the Shadow back before Joker commands his Persona to use Dormina.

Thor falls asleep almost immediately while standing up. It still amazes me how Shadows can be so dumb as to fall asleep in the middle of a fight. I nearly start as Joker walks right up to me and leans against the glass separating the two of us. “Hi, Akeppi.”

“What are you doing, Joker?” I respond.

“Nothing yet.” He hums in thought. Like the shameless flirt he is, he asks, “Enjoying the show?”

“Perhaps you should save your questions until after the battle is won. You’ll have plenty of time to ask for my opinion later.”

“Fine,” he says, whining a little as he turns around. Just in time too, for Thor is starting to stir from its forced slumber. He casually takes his mask off, resummoning Shiki-Ouji to attack with Mapsi before his opponent fully wakes up. It doesn’t bring Thor down as it did previously with the Ganeshas, but it still must have hurt. Just as it gains lucidity, Joker has Shiki-Ouji use Dormina again. He doesn’t waste time talking to me again. Instead, a bunch of circular pink, yellow, and cyan beams surround Thor before striking all at once and send the Shadow reeling onto the ground. With a cocky grin on his face, he uses Psio again for good measure.

“Yeah, keep smiling, buddy,” Thor growls as it pushes itself to its feet. It swipes its electrified hammer at Joker, who deftly backflips away. However, the electricity shoots forward and hits him head-on.

Joker, you fucking idiot. Sure, other than looking a little disheveled, he’s no worse for wear. He’ll be okay, but he shouldn’t have let such an obvious attack hit him.

Something inside Joker seems to snap. The glare on his face is fiercer than I’ve ever seen from him. He looks utterly enraged...and somehow even hotter at the same time. His Persona disappears, but even with the mask, I can sense the fiery rage in his eyes. Pulling out his gun, he jumps to his right, twirling in mid-air as he shoots a couple of bullets. He somersaults as gravity brings him back to the ground. However, he isn’t done. He leaps straight into the air from his crouched position. It’s almost impossible to perceive what happens, but he seems to combine the twist from earlier with a front flip, followed by another spin in the air as he proceeds to fire bullet after bullet in mid-air while upside down. He uses his feet and left hand to take the brunt of his fall. Thor collapses to its knees shortly after, the continuous gunfire too much for it to handle.

Joker stands up and looks contemplatively at his left hand. Is he seriously thinking of using the grappling hook now? With a shrug, he looks back at Thor and does a running leap into the air. He performs a couple of front flips before his momentum brings him to Thor’s head. With a level of dexterity only Joker could pull off, he straddles Thor from below, his legs wrapped around the Shadow’s neck. His left hand grabs a hold of one of the horns on Thor’s helmet while he points the gun right at Thor’s face. “You’re done!” Joker yells as he shoots at point-blank range.

The Shadow crumbles into black dust, but not before Joker pushes himself off its body, twirling in the air and backflipping so he lands crouched on the ground facing me. He grins as he hops to his feet, pirouetting before he poses, right arm outstretched and left hand resting on his chest.

I blink, startled. I know exactly where that maneuver came from. I’ve done that exact same thing once or twice in those All-Out Attacks. How did he manage to figure out how to copy it so quickly...?

The announcer groans in disappointment, having no comment on the fact that Joker just won their rigged game in style. I can’t help but grin as I give my own snide remark.

“Once again, justice prevails.”

Prompt list

[haikyuu-appreciation-club]

heyy can i request head canons with the haikyuu captains or the karasuno first years with how they would react to a haunted house. just to get in the spirit of halloween :)

heyyy anon!! yes ofc, i love that request :)

i hope you don’t mind but i decided to go with the karasuno first years bc i have a lot of ideas for them. If anyone wants though i can make a part two with the captains :)

alsooooo im sorry if anyone seems ooc, this is just how i think they would react + this is my first headcanon sooo forgive me if it isn’t the best <3

anywhooo, ty for the request, i hope you enjoy !!

•Haunted House w/ the Karasuno 1st Years•

[art credit : @boonooniee on twitter]

warnings: a few curse words

genre: crack

characters: hinata, kageyama, tsukishima, yamaguchi, and yachi

•Hinata•

surprisingly enough, this whole thing was his idea

he just wanted to spend time with his friends 

he had to practically beg everyone to go, half of the group was scared out of their minds and the other half just weren’t interested in the slightest

when everyone finally agreed, he was quite literally jumping for joy

days leading up to it, he would not shut up about it

this boy was beyond excited

“Are you guys excited for the Haunted House? It’s gonna be so much fun!”

he was all smiley and giddy about it until he was standing at the entrance

now he was about to shit himself

“Heh um, who wants to go carve some pumpkins?”

mans had to be dragged in that hoe

he kept trying to tell himself that everything was fine and this would be super fun

then the first jump scare happened, and every ounce of courage in that tiny body was gone

he was clinging onto anyone that was in proximity of him

at some point he got a little bit of courage back and started to threaten to beat up one of the decoration

yeahh that “decoration” was one of the actors

that boy literally screamed and tackled the nearest person poor yams

now tiny yelps could be heard whenever he suspected something was about to pop out at him

at one point he literally started to hold his breath and Kageyama had to smack the back of his head so he would exhale

he finally reached the end after one of the actors chased him all the way to the exit

had to stand there for a minute to catch his breath after he realized the actor went back to their post

on the walk back home he kept talking about how it “wasn’t so bad”

luckily Tsukki had gotten a video of him jumping on Kageyama and knocking him over to remind him just how bad he seemed to think it was

little pouty after he realized that video was sent to the team group chat

he cheered right up when Yachi suggested they go get hot coco though

•Kageyama•

no

just no

he did not want to spend his time going to a haunted house

he had volleyball to practice 

which is why, initially, his answer was no

but Hinata would not stop asking him about it and it was making it impossible for him to focus 

he thought that if he agreed he would finally get some peace and quiet

ohh boy, was he wrong

Hinata would now not stop talking about how excited he was

Kags definitely had mixed feeling about all of this

he wasn’t the worst when it came to scary stuff but he’s never actually had to experience anything like a haunted house before

he figured if he could handle scary movie, he could definitely handle this, right?

he was a little nervous once they arrived but he would not let himself get startled so easily

mainly because he didn’t want to freak out the others 10x more and also because Tsukishima would never let him hear the end of it

so he decided he would suck it up and get through this without getting the absolute crap scared out of him

at first things were actually going pretty good, just some gory decorations on display

maybe this would actually be kind of fun

then one of the actors popped out and all hell broke loose

everyone was now terrified well except tsukki, mans got the popcorn out

Kageyama was trying his very best to play it cool but on the inside he was losing his shit

this was definitely so much more terrifying then the movies

Hinata and Yachi’s screams were not helping either 

he tried to mask his fear by yelling at Hinata any chance he got

Tsukishima saw right through that,

“Oh? is the king getting scared?”

yes, yes he was

but Tsukishima did not need to know that

flinched at anything that could potentially pop out at him

got knocked over by Hinata a few times

Yachi had a death grip on this mans arm half the time to be honest he kind of felt less scared with how scared she was so he didn’t mind

ended up using Hinata as a shield a few times

he got to the end after what felt like an eternity

never wanted to do something like that again

Tsukishima unfortunately got most of his unfortunate experience on camera

cue the never ending teasing

Yachi had told him it was okay and asked if he wanted to get hot coco with the rest of them bby is too kind

sir was definitely in the mood for some hot coco after that nightmare

•Tsukishima•

“No.”

that was his immediate answer

its’s not as if he was scared to go mans knows everything is fake and does not care in the slightest

he just did not find them as entertaining as most people did

and going with the others?

yeah, count him out

but Hinata was determined

Tsukishima was ready to resort to violence when Hinata had bothered him about it for what felt like the millionth time

when he realized that that midget would not shut up until he got the answer he wanted, he finally caved

“Fine. Just shut the hell up, would you?”

Hinata did not shut up

listening to Hinata go on and on was worth it once they got there though

this was one of the most entertaining things he’s seen in a while

everyone was already loosing it before they even got inside

teasing was at the max today yams was the only exception

Hinata was the main target of his laughs

Yachi was runner up but he didn’t really have to try, miss girl was scared of everything tbh he went a little easy on her bc he lowkey felt bad

he even got to poke fun at the king himself

documenting everyone’s misfortune and sending the videos to the gc

purposely walked in front of the group so they’d bump into him and get scared

he and Yamaguchi were the first one to reach the exit so he got to watch everyone run for their lives

now he was really running his mouth

told Hinata he never wanted to do something like that again though

in reality, he had a lot of fun

he surprisingly agreed to get hot coco with them afterwards mainly because he knew the cafe they were going to had strawberry shortcake

•Yamaguchi•

oh no

Yamaguchi was definitely not one to willingly participate in things like this

he honestly was about to refuse the offer until he found out Tsukki was going 

he decided it was now or never to get over his fears I’m convinced that if Tsukki jumped off a bridge, Yamaguchi would too

Hinata talking about how excited he was did nothing to calm his nerves

every time it was brought up he would try to change the topic 

he preferred to pretend as if it wasn’t a thing that he was actually involved in

As soon as they arrived, Yams was clinging onto Tsukishima for dear life

he was very grateful that Tsukki didn’t deny his attempts to use him as a human shield

It didn’t start off too bad

sure there was a few props that were uncomfortable to look at but for the most part he thought he could actually get through this pretty easily

he had even loosed his grip on Tsukki’s arm a little bit

then things started popping out at him

sir did not sign up for all of this

he was right back to cutting off the circulation in Tsukishima’s arm

Yamaguchi wasn’t the type of person to scream when he got scared 

he preferred to shut his eyes as tight as he could and repeat that he was okay over and over again in his head

if he wasn’t so terrified he would probably be laughing right along with Tsukishima 

but at the moment all he was focused on was getting the heck out of that place

funny enough, he didn’t even notice that they had reached the end until Tsukki told him he could open his eyes

poor baby was pretty much on the brink of tears after all of that

Hinata apologized profusely as Kageyama scolded him 

he felt much better later, laughing at all the videos Tsukishima took with some hot coco in his system 

•Yachi•

poor girl 

when Hinata suggested going to a haunted house she felt her heart drop to her stomach

she agreed none the less though, figuring that it would make Hinata sad if she refused seeing how excited he was

leading up to it, she was still scared out of her mind but some of Hinata’s excitement had surprisingly rubbed off on her

maybe she could get through this

her mind changed when they actually arrived

nope nope nope nope nope nope

definitely could not get through this

she was furiously nodding at Hinata’s offer to get the heck out of there  but that idea had been shut down 

she tried to gravitate towards Tsukishima, since she figured that he was big and he could be a shield or something of that sort

she ended up taking off in the other direction once he began telling her about all the scary stuff that was inside he was just teasing but poor baby definitely did not sense the sarcasm

she opted to clinging to Kageyama since sticking around Hinata and Yamaguchi just made her more nervous

“Kageyama-kun, am I going to die in there”

once they got inside she calmed down a little bit

the decorations at the beginning were mostly just bloody props and Kageyama kept hitting them to show her they weren’t real we love big brother Kags

it was probably just a coincidence that every prop he hit ended up smacking Hinata in the head

then the jump scares begun and Yachi was just about ready to faint

miss girl was just babbling nonsense, trying to distract herself from how terrified she was

every single jumpscare she would let out a squeal and shut her eyes

she ended up bumping into Tsukishima a few times which just made her even more terrified I mean, mans is huge and it’s dark what do you expect 

almost got lost

she had run in the opposite direction and Yamaguchi thought one of the actors kidnapped her

Hinata started flipping out

Kageyama just started yelling at him

Tsukishima ended up spotting her running back to the group after getting chased back by one of the actors

someone was now in front and behind her at all times

by the end of it Yachi was on the cusp of needing medical attention 

she suggested getting some hot coco once she calmed down mainly just to get her mind off of everything she just had to experience

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[botan-shirabuki]

Summer of Smut Writing Challenge: Sweet and Sticky

Pairing: SLBP Totoyomi Hideyoshi x MC (OC)

Theme: Day 1 - Popsicle licking

Summary:  A Modern AU where a lon

Rating: NC-17/Explicit (for semi-public graphic oral sex)

Word Count: Approx. 4.4k

Notes: Well since I’m back writing again, I decided it was time to participate in my first writing challenge brought to you by @voltage-vixen ! This was so much fun to come up with, and I’m excited to share what else I came up with!

Since this was my first fic, it was a bit longer than I initially intended, but I am proud of what I wrote. I recently started to love Hideyoshi, so I had to contribute to his tag on Ao3 LOL.

Also, I wrote this with my MC Nomi as the female protag. I was told to have fun with this and I’ve always wanted to share a fanfic starring my ocs so I’m starting with this!

Ao3: here

"I don't think I've been this exhausted since high school."

"Ah, then maybe I should take you out here more often."

Nomi toweled off the sweat on the back of her neck as she smiled at her boyfriend. She and Hideyoshi had just finished a bike ride following the shoreline for the past hour. Admittedly, she wasn't much of an athlete, but Hideyoshi was eager to show her the view of the beach and surrounding area from the top of the hill at the end of their trail, so she agreed. Now, her thighs burned like crazy as she walked her bike back to the rental station. 

Despite his casual tone, Hideyoshi was clearly worried about her. He had asked her multiple times along the way if she wanted to turn back before they got to the end of the trail,  but each time she insisted she'd be fine. He mentally scolded himself for not turning back anyway as she spent half an hour sprawled out on a bench when they got to the top. As retribution, he helped her reapply all of the sunscreen she sweated off before they headed back.

Now, as they chatted away, Nomi felt no hard feelings at all. She knew she would regret it the next morning, but any time spent away from school and with her sunshine boyfriend was time well spent in her book. The two were by the beach near the bike station when an unfamiliar voice called out to them.

"Excuse me? Miss?"

Nomi turned around to see an unassuming young man approaching her with a camera. He had a polite smile on his face as he waved at her. "Hi, I work for a local travel agency and we're trying to get some updated photos for our website. Would it be alright if I took some of you?"

Suddenly, very self-conscious, Nomi felt her cheeks heat up. "Oh, me? I don't know, I feel like I probably look pretty gross right now..."

"Oh don't worry about it! I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't think you looked the part," he looked towards Hideyoshi, "Would it make you feel better if he was in it with you?"

Nomi turned to Hideyoshi, her eyes full of uncertainty as she waited for his word. She couldn't read his expression behind his smile. "I think that would be great!" His tone was totally cheery, easing away any apprehension she initially had.

"Okay then I'll do it!" Nomi gave the photographer a smile and a nod. "Is there anything in particular you want?"

The photographer nodded and circled them around to their other side. "I was thinking you two smiling and pushing your bikes with the beach in the background." 

They proceeded to cooperate with him and arranged themselves so they could get the ideal shot. After a few pictures of them smiling at the camera and holding their bikes up, the photographer suggested changing things up.

"Why don't you two uhh, look at each other. Really sell that you're in love!"

"Sell that we're in....ahahaha...." Nomi hadn't meant to laugh, but the concept of making it known that she loved Hideyoshi through a photo baffled her. What did that even mean? All she could do was laugh, something she often found herself doing when she was uncomfortable. When she looked up at Hideyoshi, he was smiling at her. This time, his affection for her shined through his amber eyes. Anytime he looked at her like that made her bashful, but remembering that they were in front of a camera made her almost double over in coy giggles. "I'm sorry, I'm not very good at this."

"Oh, no, I got some great shots, thank you two so much!" The photographer didn't seem upset at all. In fact, he too had a smile on his face, as if their energy had affected him through the lens of this camera. "If you don't mind, could I have your information so I can send you release forms and the final photos?"

As they exchanged emails and business cards, Hideyoshi remained quite personable and friendly. But Nomi could sense that he wasn't all the way there. His eyes didn't have that gleam to them, but she couldn't think of a reason why he would be that way. She nodded and followed along with their conversation until the photographer gestured to her again.

"I'm honestly so glad you two agreed to do this. My client told me that cute girls tend to catch the most attention, so I'm sorry if I came on too strong."

"Cute? You're too kind," Nomi could feel her awkward side jumping back out again. She never knew how to take such compliments.

Hideyoshi merely shrugged, "I can't blame you at all, she's as cute as they come." He nodded to the photographer one last time, "We'll stay in touch then, yeah?"

The photographer smiled, "Of course! Enjoy the rest of your day," before he left, he turned back to them, "Oh, and by the way, on the other side of the bike station is a brand new artisanal popsicle stand. It's been a big hit since it opened and I highly recommend it!"

"Ooh, artisanal! Let's try them!" Nomi couldn't help but perk up at the mention of food. "That would be perfect, thank you so much!"

After parting ways with the photographer and paying for their bikes, the two got in an unexpectedly long line for popsicles. They had waited 15 minutes before Nomi's aesthetic decision to not wear a hat began to bite her in the ass....or.....on the forehead.

"Ahhh, I'm burning up. Will you watch my stuff while I go cool off really quickly?"

Hideyoshi maintained a neutral, yet positive face. "Sure thing. You wanted the blueberry peach jasmine, right?"

As she shimmied out of her shorts and shoes and took her hair out of its scrunchie, she kissed him on the cheek. "Yup, you know me so well! I'll be back soon, I need to go before I turn into a hash brown!" With that, she scurried off across the hot sand. Hideyoshi watched her go, and as an unfortunate result, watched the eyes of several other men -in the line and nearby- follow her too.

Without much else on her mind, Nomi made her way out to where the water was waist-deep and dipped her head beneath the surface. The water was cool enough to instantly soothe her sizzling scalp, yet not cool to the point that it would make her shiver if she stayed in for too long. Realizing this, she slicked her wet hair out of her face and waded in the water for a bit, riding along the gentle waves as the sun kissed her face. The warm breeze that had her sweating buckets earlier now provided a gently relaxing breeze.

Nomi found herself staying out there for a little longer than originally intended. The salty residue in her hair felt gritty to the touch as it dried; she submerged herself one last time for good measure and made her way back out of the surf.

Her thighs felt like they were tied to weights as she trudged out of the water. Her neck felt heavy as water trickled down the back of her thighs. When she set foot on the wet sand, she considered plopping down right where she stood, she was so tired. Maybe she really had underestimated how out of shape she was. Her head was facing the water when she heard it:

"Oh no, look out!"

Wha--? Bonk.

Something bounced off the back of her head. Her exhaustion caused her to stumble forward, so much so that she felt herself toppling forward when somebody caught her by her shoulders. When she caught her balance, she turned around to see a generically handsome stranger.

"I'm so sorry, are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm sorry for..." Nomi trailed off when she realized she had nothing to be sorry for. "I was...in the way, I guess?"

He smiled, "Nah, you're good, you're good." His eyes raked over her, quickly, but not fast enough so that she didn't notice. "Hey, actually have I seen you around here before?"

Great, now Nomi wasn't just uncomfortable, she also had no idea how to answer that. "...I...was just by the popsicle stand a few minutes ago....?"

"No, it must have been from somewhere else," he pondered, though his eyes wouldn't leave her.

Nomi's eyes darted around, nervous and confused, "I...don't know what to--"

"Nomi!"

She turned her head to see Hideyoshi standing with their popsicles in one hand and her shoes, shorts, and bag in the other. His lips were pressed into a firm line. "You ready to go?"

"Oh! Of course," The fact that he would let his irritation show so plainly on his face would normally make her want to solve whatever issue there was, but at that moment, she honestly just wanted to leave. She nodded at the guy as she started to walk towards Hideyoshi, "Uh, see you, then," she barely mumbled out.

His once charming enough smile had faded into a neutral expression and he waved once. "Likewise."

---

The two of them made their way off the beach and to the parking lot where their car was. There was a small storage shed at the top of a short set of stairs facing away from the shore and, more importantly, the sun. They sat, leisurely enjoying their chilled treats and talking about whatever. Nomi was glad things were normal between them, but she couldn't forget the look on his face back on the beach. Of course, he wasn't thrilled to see some stranger attempt to talk to her, but she sensed there was a little bit more to it than just that.

"So...how was the line?" she started, trying to figure out how to pry.

 "It wasn't too bad. It sped up when I got to the front." He didn't give her much to work with.

"Oh, good..." she began, staring at the sand still clinging to her feet. "The water was really nice, we should have gone out there earlier."

Hideyoshi shrugged. "We could always come back tomorrow."

Nomi nodded, but carefully continued on, "And that guy--"

"Pear and ginger." Hideyoshi cut her off, but the way he did so made it seem like it wasn't totally on purpose. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye to see him staring at what was left of his popsicle. "I would have never thought to mix those two flavors, let alone sell them as a popsicle."

Nomi let out a little laugh. "Yeah, they really know what they're doing with these flavors." Her eyes returned back to her feet. Well if he wasn't going to bring it up, then maybe it wasn't that big of a deal after all. She sighed and relaxed her shoulders before she set her focus back on the brilliant berry color of her own. "The bar was probably pretty low to begin with, but this is the best popsicle I've ever had." With that, she closed her lips around it, drinking down the juice that had melted while she was talking. It was thoroughly sweet, yet still so very fresh tasting. Nomi found herself making a small noise of satisfaction bubbling up from the back of her throat as she swallowed.

"You don't even notice it, don't you?"

"Hm?"

She turned back to him, surprised by his statement. He was looking right at her, his previous facade of content replaced with a rather wistful look in his eyes. What was going on in his mind?

"What do you mean?"

Hideyoshi smiled a little, "People really love you. There's something about you that draws them in, whether they know you or not," his smile deepened as he recounted a feature he loved about her. "And of course I understand why: it's because they can tell what a great person you are from the start."

Nomi felt her cheeks tingle from hearing such a compliment. "Hideyoshi, I..."

"But of course," he seemed to take a mildly self-deprecating tone, "when I see other people drawn to you, a totally irrational part of me wants you all to myself, even though I was drawn to you in the same way. But it's unfair to you to try and keep you like that." He ended it with a sigh, like he was letting out a breath he'd been holding, and put his popsicle back in his mouth.

There was a moment where they didn't speak, the sound of crashing waves and distant chatter filling the silence, before Nomi finally got her words together. "I don't think you should worry about that because you have me." After she got that out, she felt more confident in what she was saying. "You do have me all to yourself! Of course, I can't just never talk to anybody else ever again, but hey," she placed a reassuring hand on his knee, "I'm here with you. I'm having a great time with you. There's nobody else I'd rather spend a day like this with."

For a moment, he seemed surprised by her confession. When he smiled again, his eyes had that gleam to them that she loved. "Nomi..." He moved in closer to her on the step, their eyes locked. "Thank you for saying that." He reached out and placed his hand on her forearm, right above her elbow.

Nomi didn't think much of it as she continued on, "I mean it, I don't think there's a thing I wouldn't enjoy doing with you!"

Hideyoshi froze, but then he had a sly glint in his eyes. "Oh, anything?" he asked, lifting her forearm and leaning in towards her. "Well in that case..." Without waiting for any reaction from her, he stuck his tongue out and licked a trail up her arm all the way up past her wrist and into the center of her palm.

"H-Hey!" Nomi said, suddenly flustered to high heaven.

Hideyoshi didn't back away. His face was so close to hers that she could faintly feel his cool breath fan across her chin and neck when he spoke. "You let your popsicle melt in your hand that whole time." There was a chuckle in his voice as he winked at her.

"I--oh!" Nomi stammered when she looked at her hand. Sure enough, what was left of her popsicle was a smaller shape than she last recalled; the violet ice had a completely shiny exterior and a matching trail of liquid trailing down her fingers to pool at the point of her palm where Hideyoshi had just finished licking. "Darn it, I really liked this too," she stuck the remaining lump of ice between her lips to slurp off the excess melting, unable to stop the little satisfied moan she made at its impeccable marriage of flavors.

"Don't worry too much about it. We can always go get another of we have to," He seemed somewhat casual about her getting another one, but he was still right up near her face and his eyes were now focused towards her stained lips. "You know, I saw that guy on the beach throw that ball at you."

Her eyes widened, but his closeness kept her from having any more of a reaction. "He did? What for?"

His thumb was rubbing a small, soothing circle on her wrist, though it only made her heartbeat pick up. "Probably so he'd have an excuse to talk to you."

Nomi's eyes darted side to side, "What would he have possibly wanted with me?"

Hideyoshi's smile was unmistakably amorous by then. "I think I have an idea." 

Slowly and gently, he lifted his hand holding his popsicle to her mouth. Her lips were already parted enough for the tip of the wooden stick poking out to slip between them. She let out a surprised "Hmm?" when she felt the cold wetness of the ice part them further so it could slide across her tongue. Her eyes locked with his again. She let out another instinctive moan as the sweetness of pear and tang of ginger enveloped her tongue. Encouraged by her reaction, he Slowly dragged it out of her mouth before pushing it back in. He watched her wide, deep blue eyes stare back at him, flustered, but nevertheless wanting and curious. He ran the popsicle across her tongue like that, completely enchanted by the visual, until a small trail of its juice dribbled out of the corner of her mouth and down her chin. Without hesitation, he took the popsicle out of her mouth and licked up the trail just as he did on her arm until he reached her lips, which he claimed in a passionate and skillful kiss. 

Nomi made yet another surprised noise, but she accepted the kiss with her open mouth. Their cold lips came together fervently, as if in an attempt to warm each other back up. Hideyoshi had her back up against the railing, so she turned her whole body towards him for a more comfortable position. From there, she returned his kiss in full force, grasping at the back of his tank.

"Is this what he wanted?" she breathed when they parted for air. She took the rest of her popsicle and sucked down the slushy remainder before tossing the stick aside.

"Hells yes," he said, his voice already husky. His lips traveled down to his neck while his hands on her hips travelled upward until his thumbs and index fingers hooked under the strings of her bikini. Her head fell back against the wooden poles behind her, giving him better access to the column of her neck. She had been so abruptly aroused that she didn't even consider that they were out by a public beach during the middle of the day; they had been alone by the parking lot for so long it didn't seem like an issue. She didn't even feel particularly exposed when he pulled the triangles of her top aside to gently graze one of her breasts with his teeth.

"Hideyoshi!" she gasped, tugging on his shirt in a bid to get his attention.

He looked up at her from where he was nibbling at her tan lines. "Nomi?"

She found herself choking on her words. She was never really any good at voicing her desires. "There's...something I want to do, actually."

His eyes were burning with desire, and now intrigue, "Oh? And what is that?"

"Um..." she glanced aside to the top of the stairs where the last bit of his popsicle was now melting into a puddle on a wooden plank. "I...the popsicle..."

He was rolling one of her nipples beneath his thumb, "What about the popsicle?"

"Mmn--! I..." Her head was spinning with need, but she took a breath and finally got it out. "I...want to do that again. With you."

His hands toying with her paused. His eyes were equally lustful and serious. "Is that what you really want?"

Nomi nodded, "Yes, I really want to do it," she placed a hand over his, "I want you to know that I'm all yours."

He couldn't help but smile at her sentiment. "You're so cute, you don't even know," he said, getting up off of her and sitting upright on the stairs with his legs spread. "Come here."

On clumsy legs, Nomi got up, not even adjusting her top as she positioned herself on her knees on a lower step. She was a little unsure of what exactly he wanted her to do, so she sat awkwardly, waiting for further instruction.

Hideyoshi took her scrunchie off of her wrist so he could carefully tie her hair back out of her face. The way he lovingly combed through her hair -though it was still damp from earlier- eased her anxious excitement and only made her want it more. He took her hands and slid them up his thighs until they reached the waistband of his pants. "Do you want to do it?

Nomi nodded. She appreciated him asking her. They had done this a few times before but she always felt clueless when it came to starting anything. The fact that she even initiated this, in public or not, must have been baffling to both of them.

She hooked her fingers beneath his shorts and the two of them cooperated to shimmy them down just enough to release himself. He was already half hard, she felt like a novice for not having noticed any earlier. Encouraged by his gentle hand in her hair, she started giving him little licks along the shaft until she finally got the gumption to put him in her mouth. Very carefully, she wrapped her lips around the tip, gently sucking and lapping at it with her tongue until she heard him sigh.

After releasing him from her mouth with a wet smacking sound, she started to work her tongue along the sides of his shaft, getting it wet as her mouth continued to water. His hands were back to pushing her hair behind her back, keeping her long ponytail from tumbling down over her shoulders so he had a perfect view of her. She realized her hands were tightly grasping his shorts when he took one of them and placed it around the base.

"Keep going," his voice was low and heady, just quiet enough so she could hear him while the waves crashing in the background protected them from any potential listeners.

Nomi was more than eager to do so. She took him into her mouth again, this time, relaxing her tongue and bobbing her head back and forth on him until she could fit most of him in her mouth. It was exhilarating feeling him get harder and harder with each stroke of her tongue. She was salivating more than she would have liked to admit, so she pulled back and sneakily leaned to the side of his knee to let the excess pour out. She wouldn't have felt good ruining his shorts like this.

"Haha...you're so cute, Nomi," he was laughing, but his voice was so breathy it made her ache. "You don't have to do that."

Nomi glanced up, then hid her face in her palm. "Ah, I'm sorry!" she said meekly, "I'm so bad at this..."

"Oh no, you're doing great," Hideyoshi assured her. "Here," he lowered his shorts so they were at his ankles, "so you don't have to worry about that."

"Alright then...here I go..." she wanted to kick herself for that last part. To avoid any further embarrassment, she licked a bold stripe up the top of his shaft before sucking it back into her mouth and keeping her jaw loose.

"Mmm...Nomi," he groaned under his breath as she worked. He moved her hand to cup his balls so he could hold himself in her mouth. She let out a cute little moan, similar to the one she made when she was enjoying her popsicle, once she finally got him all the way to the back of her throat. She kept him there for as long as she could until she pulled back to take a breath. He held her head at the back so she wouldn't pull too far away and as a result, her excess drool slipped out over his head, making him even slicker. 

He was now fully erect in her mouth. She could taste his precum against her tongue, which made her sigh around him. As she was getting more and more into it, she found herself hooking her finger in flyaway hair that kept getting in her mouth. "I've got you," Hideyoshi whispered, pushing her hair back yet again. This time, his hands stayed at the back of her head underneath her ponytail. "Is it alright if I start moving?"

"Ah-huh," was all she could say with his dick in her mouth, but it was all the confirmation he needed. He started to gently thrust himself in and out, revelling in the feeling of her warm, wet tongue on him. She looked up at him and he thought that sight might have stopped his heart. She accepted him so openly, yet there was a certain innocence to the look in her eyes. If she felt this good now, he could only imagine the hell she could raise once she got more experience.

He kept moving until her eyebrows pinched together and she sputtered and around him. He let go of her head and pulled himself from her, stroking at the base. "Sorry, was that too much?"

Nomi wiped her wet chin with the back of her hand as she shook her head. "No, I'm okay."

He swept his fingers underneath her chin, "Then is it alright if I touch you too?"

Nomi smiled provocatively, "I would love that, please do." When she went back down on him, she felt the solid warmth of his torso on the back of her head. She undid the button of her shorts so he could slide inside her bikini bottoms from the back. His skillful digits made quick work of her. She was already so turned on, that he had her thighs shaking as he fucked her with two fingers. She moaned and moaned around him, to the point where she forgot she was supposed to be pleasing him.

"Actually, can you stop? It's too distracting!" she giggled when she came up for air. By then, she was fully stroking him with her hand, getting the full range of motion out of her wrist.

"Ah...of course," he sounded positively wrecked then, but he did as asked. But before Nomi could get fully into it, she was being pulled into a wet, fierce kiss.

"Hideyoshi?!" she asked, her voice throaty and shocked.

"How about we finish this in the car, yeah?" he whispered. He had his normal flirty smile on, but he looked positively wrecked. "I'd prefer there to be no sand where I lie you on your back."

She must have looked the same, though, "That would be perfect."

And so, they haphazardly made themselves decent so they could run back to their car. After they finished fucking, they went back to the same popsicle stand for seconds, as there were other flavors Nomi wished to try. They sat in the same spot, got turned on by the memory of what happened earlier, and went back to their car for another round. They continued this loop until they were the only two people on the beach and he really did have her all himself.

[nagichi-boop]

hi!!! can i get a matchup pls??? • im 170cm, very pale, i have a few freckles on my face and i have this mole below my left eye (other ppl look good w it why does mine look like dirt??? 😖), i lean more on the thick side but unfortunately not that thick 😔🤘, my hair is always up on a ponytail!! bc its rlly hot in my country, i only let my hair down at home. oh!! and my hair is shoulder length 🍰

im really quiet at first but when you get close to me i can get rlly loud. not all the time tho, talking too much exhausts me :d i appear as a very boyish person to others so i hide the fact that i like stuff like sanrio, pokemon, star butterfly vs. the forces of evil- ok i gotta stop. i like sending my friends weird memes at 3am. the reaction they give in the morning feeds my soul 👌 🍰

im a multimedia arts student!! i love editing photos and videos so thats what i do a lot on my free time. i write and draw too! but im not confident in it yet. im considered tall in my country so a lot of professors recommend me to be a student athlete, but i h a t e sweating.. i like watching people play tho! (but i almost never cheer even if its my brother or a friend im shy ok iM SORRY) this was hella long :000 i apologize bsbsjsb and thank you in advance!!! ❤ 🍰

Hey! Thank you for your request! I'm sorry it took so long for me to get to. Hope you like it anyways!

I'd ship you with...

Kuroo Tetsurou!

• I'm gonna assume you are in the class same as Kuroo for this, hope that's okay.

• He was walking with Yaku having another debate about their preferences for girls when he suddenly pointed at you and said "like her!", which caused you to freeze. Kuroo also froze as he realised what he did. He then ran up to you to apologise and explained that he was arguing about preferences and he was saying that you looked attractive. He then awkwardly blushed and jogged off, apologising as he went back to Yaku and the team.

• Honestly you were really shocked about the situation. Like...what just happened? This boy suddenly just came up to you, said you were attractive then left.

• You then saw him and Kenma the next day and he stopped and stared at you for a moment, before going over to you looking slightly flustered. He then said in a slightly nervous voice, "Uhm, I'm sorry about what happened yesterday, but the truth is I have kind of noticed you for a while. You look really pretty and I kind of wanted to talk to you. I noticed as well that you tend to doodle in class and when I glanced over, I thought you drawings were super cute...a-anyways, we don't have volleyball practice after school today, so did you want to go to a café with me later? My treat."

• Kenma quietly judged Kuroo because of how creepy he was being but also because he knew exactly what he was doing.

• You agreed without thinking since the whole situation caught you off guard, and he happily thanked you and walked off, saying he'd come find you after school. Then after he left, you realised what you'd done.

• You waited for him outside the school and he finally caught up with you, but Kenma was also with him. He then took the two of you to a cat café because of course he did and Kenma, who read the mood and realised he was third wheeling, left the two of you alone to talk while he went to play with the cats.

• It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but after Kuroo settled down a little, he became super easy to talk to and was really good at keeping the conversation going, which helped you to relax as well. Before you knew it, the two of you started sharing memes and cackling at them together. You could feel Kenma's judgement from across the room.

• Kuroo asked if he could have your number and you agreed. You sent him a 3am meme hoping he wouldn't get mad, and the next morning he sent you a bunch of messages about how he was wheezing and he couldn't breathe because of how funny the memes were, so you decided to add him to your target list of sending memes. Eventually, Kuroo started to participate as well, sending you memes as well as people on his team. Some found it funny, but others Yaku and Kenma got mad at Kuroo, which only motivated him to do it more. He also started to occasionally send some to your friends as well.

• You were afraid to be more open with Kuroo because you didn't want him to think badly of you because of the less "boyish" things you liked. One day, though, he caught you looking at pictures of Sanrio plushies on your phone, which made you panic. But he just smiled and said, "I like those too," which was really shocking. You assumed he was just trying to be nice, but then he pulled out his keys, which had a Kuromi keychain attached.

• (Apparently, he and Kenma found out about the Sanrio characters when they went to an arcade as kids and they bought each other keychains. Kenma bought Kuromi for Kuroo and Kuroo bought Gudetama for Kenma. Kenma's keychain was attached to the case for his Animal Crossing Switch. He told you to keep this a secret since he knew Kenma would get embarrassed, but it eventually came up in conversation at one point and Kenma showed his keychain.)

• As you and Kuroo got closer, so did you and Kenma. He was really good at noticing when something was off and he'd listen to your concerns. You also realised that you had a lot of common interests and you felt comfortable sharing your hobbies with him and Kuroo. When Kuroo saw the two of you talking comfortably about Pokémon one time, he had a really sincere smile on his face because he was amazed at how well the two of you got along and how you glew when you talked passionately about your hobbies. He fell in love with you a little more.

• You realised one day that you weren't exactly sure what your relationship with Kuroo was. You were friends of course and you'd spend a lot of time together, but you wanted more, you were just afraid to say since you didn't want to ruin what you had. Kenma noticed you seemed to be deep in thought and you told your feelings to him, to which convinced you to confess to Kuroo, saying it would make him happy.

• You nervously said to Kuroo that you'd like to date, and he just kind of froze and then said in a cracked voice "s-sure!" He then apologised for the strange response and then confessed that he'd had feelings for you for a long time, he just didn't know how to tell you. He then kissed your hand and thanked you for confessing, then he ran off to get ready for practice.

• Kuroo seemed to be a little bit more on edge with you now you were dating. When you confronted him about it, he said he wasn't sure how comfortable you were with displays of affection and the reason he was on edge was because he wasn't sure whether he was okay to hold your hand, hug you, kiss you, etc. You let him know what your terms were and he relaxed a little knowing what his boundaries were.

• You were glad Kuroo was taller than you because you loved being able to bury yourself in his chest or shoulder whenever he hugged you. And despite his tough-looking exterior, he really loves cuddling and he's super good at it and showing his affection in soft ways.

• Kuroo really loves watching you draw and edit. He either quietly watches you do it or he sits off to the side and let's you get on with it, maybe looking at you every now and then and smiling at how pretty you look. Either way, he is fine with quietly hanging around when you work and he does his best not to disturb you, but also likes to encourage you to take breaks and cuddles you when you do so you can recharge.

• The first time you let your hair down in front of Kuroo he just...stopped? You got confused because you didn't know why he reacted like that, but he had to turn his head away and cover his face because of how much he was blushing. Even if you don't think highly of yourself, to him you are the most stunning, attractive person ever, both in terms of how you look and your personality.

• Kuroo really appreciate you supporting him during matches, even if you don't go crazy cheering for him. Just knowing you're there is enough for him to feel grateful.

• The club members love you as well. Not only are you Kuroo's weakness which they sometimes like to exploit for entertainment, you also get along with everyone super well. They were so shocked when they saw Kenma talking to you so naturally. They started inviting you out whenever they'd go out as a team since you were practically a part of it now.

• Kuroo is super good at showing how much he loves you, even just through little things. You also make him super happy just by being you. Arguing with Yaku that day was the best thing to ever happen to him.

I was gonna pair you with Yaku but I felt like I was only doing that since I've already done Kuroo as a matchup before, but honestly I think Kuroo is a super good match. Hope you enjoyed this!

Sorry this is so long btw, I am in Kenma and Kuroo loving hours, so this was fun to write! To be honest, I could have written more if I wanted to, but I didn't wanna drag this out too much.

[glacialispictorem]

Actually I was tagged twice for this... Tagged by @laminath a.k.a @grain-crain-drain​ and @mirrorworldangel​.

50 (yes fifty!!) Things You’ve Never Been Asked…. Let’s lighten the mood & have some fun! I always enjoy reading these and seeing a quick glimpse into my friend’s lives.

1. What is the colour of your hairbrush?

Yellow....

2. Name a food you never ever eat.

Certain types of squid, but for a good reason... I have allergies on specific types of squid particularly the pink squid.

Oddly enough, I’m not allergic to Cuttlefish.

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold?

I run cold on my body.

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Doing my artworks.

5. What is your favourite candy bar?

Hmm... I’d say a Mars bar, but if I’m going for something more accessible, any of the Goya chocolate bars which I’m noted to stash a lot whenever I shop for groceries.

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports game?

Nope... and never, I am unfit to even participate in sports due to my perfectionist nature.

7. What is the last thing you said out loud?

"Seriously?!” - my deadpan reaction when someone does something dumb and unfunny.

8. What is your favourite ice cream?

Strawberry, Chocolate and Mango flavors.

9. What was the last thing you had to drink?

Water

10. Do you like your wallet?

It works fine for me.

11. What was the last thing you ate?

Lunch.

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?

Nope, the next time I’ll be buying clothes is once the Holiday seasons kick in.

13. The last sporting event you watched?

Again, not a fan of sporting events.

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

Caramel popcorn

15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to?

A colleague of mine.

16. Ever go camping?

Looks nice on paper, but nope. I am too impatient for that... unfortunately.

17. Do you take vitamins?

I take my vitamins with Iron. The “Iron” part? That’s because I’ve been stricken with anemia before.

18. Do you go to church every Sunday?

Saturdays... but not often these days.

19. Do you have a tan?

Nope. I have a fair complexion which makes me an oddity in the family. It is said that I inherited my fair complexion from my maternal grandmother.

20. Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza?

DO. NOT. MAKE. ME. CHOOSE!

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw?

Yes, but I also can gulp down a glass of soda if a straw isn’t available.

22. What color socks do you usually wear?

Black or grey

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit?

I don’t drive vehicles.

24. What terrifies you?

Nightmares... and spiders.

25. Look to your left, what do you see?

Old stuff and the computer’s CPU.

26. What chore do you hate most?

Cleaning the toilet, double if there are spiders inside the bathroom.

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent?

“Mozzie, is that you?!”

28. What’s your favorite soda?

Orange soda... however, I usually drink soda to “remove some gas” from my stomach.

29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive?

Both, can go either way.

30. What is your favourite number?

Seven

31. Who’s the last person you talked to?

Some folks in the Discord voice chat.

32. Favourite cut of beef?

All taste good but I incline towards tenderloins for those juicy steaks.

33. Last song you listened to?

It’s a Eurobeat song, NEO - Midnight Love. I’m looking for some fast-paced badass music if ever I will be kicking ass in games.

34. Last book you read?

A French to English dictionary.

35. Favourite day of the week?

Friday. More excuses to indulge after the night shift.

36. Can you say the alphabet backwards?

Nope.

37. How do you like your coffee?

A dash of milk, sugar and maybe a bit of chocolate. If available, I add in cinnamon because I’m a posh little boy.

38. Favourite pair of shoes?

Casual running shoes.

39. The time you normally get up?

10 A.M or 11 A.M. The latter happens if I get a bad case of insomnia.

40. What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets?

Sunset. The beginning of the night, the rise of the moon!

41. How many blankets on your bed?

None because it’s bloody hot right now.

42. Describe your kitchen plates.

Pretty plain, just white plates. (”NO ROOK NOT YOUR PLATES!”)

43. Describe your kitchen at the moment?

A bit of a mess but that will be solved later. If it weren’t for those damned water shortages, I’d have the dirty dishes and pans cleaned in a jiffy.

44. Do you have a favourite alcoholic drink?

Red wine. I am not very tolerant of alcohol and I can get drunk easily.

45. Do you play cards?

No.

46. What colour is your car?

Teal.

47. Can you change a tyre?

Nope.

48. Your favourite state?

When I’m at my 100% focus, that’s great... The only issue is if my senses suddenly shut down at the wrong moment.

49. Favourite job you’ve had?

I’m fine with it.

Before we get to #50... I’m going to tag @amberarmedheart, @blossomsinthemist, @dippy-ecks, @luckyraeve and anyone else who would like to do this.

#50 is under a “Keep Reading” tag due to Content Warning.

50. How did you get your biggest scar?

WARNING: Mention of Depression

Not exactly large scars, but my hands and arms have scars of self-inflicted puncture wounds. That was around during college where my depression was at its worst. Not helping that I am a very critical and severe perfectionist to boot.

Whenever I end up failing at something that’s where my self-loathing kicks in and self-injury happens hence why I have these scars on my hands and arms.

[thewalkingdead-imagines]

TWD ~ Negan Imagine - “Guardians”

Summary: After Michonne’s headiness and plans for closing Negan’s cell windows provokes a frustrating fight between her and the reader, Negan steps in to cheer his girl up the last part / all other previous parts (None of the previous parts have to be read to understand the plot!)

Voices echoed through the tall hall of the church, angry voices stuck in a thick discussion. You were part of it too, had been to be more exact until a few minutes ago, you were tired of it by now, frustrated even more.  It was only a half day ago that Negan had returned to the cell, not more than an hour or two ago since Michonne and the others had returned from the Hilltop with devastating and chilling news. Jesus was dead, killed by a new emerged threat, a group that was walking disguised as the dead within them, killing everything that was coming into their way. Michonne and the rest had managed to catch one of them on the day after, the daughter of their leader who was now caged up in the one of the Hilltop’s cells, waiting for what else was to come. The Hilltop wasn’t the only community that was struggling, the Kingdom was too, but not with the living dead, but their supplies. Their fair should save them, bring them back into the game but as always, Michonne had disagreed to let Alexandria participate, not even after a second plea of Carol. And this wasn’t everything that had prattled down on you just a little while ago, Rosita was fine again, but pregnant and not from Gabriel but Siddiq, after a short and unmeaningly affair before Rosita’s relationship with the priest had even begun. The whole mood in the council’s meeting room was already tense, but putting these two men in here didn’t add up to a better atmosphere. The cherry on the top really was Michonne right now, her repeating lecture on safety concerns that was slowly but surely cutting Alexandria off of every other community, fueling your frustration. It was the same damn thing every time, about every little thing. No matter what the council decided, Michonne did in the very end what she wanted, almost as if the council only existed anymore to make it seem like she wasn’t the only source of power in Alexandria. It was nerve-recking, especially after you had fought for their trust and a place on the council for so long, a council that now didn’t seem to even exist anymore. You had often discussed with her about this, just like the others, but today you were zooming out, trying to process the everything that was happening around you, including Negan’s return to the cell. You’d been there when the door had fallen into the lock again, watching as he laid the new leather jacket next to the bed and slipped back into the prisoner’s clothes and you’d lie if you’d say your heart hadn’t been caught up in a row of stings. Negan seemed fine with it, more than you had ever thought, but you kept seeing him before your inner eye. In the woods, in freedom, with his arms wrapped around you and your head buried into the soft leather that gave you flashbacks to the time before the prison. You wanted him here with you in Alexandria, but you wanted him to be a free walking men as well, and those two components didn’t fit well, at least not to everybody but you and him. A thick sigh left your lips as you leaned yourself against one of the church’s benches while another row of voices echoed through the hall, strong enough to catch your attention this time.  “What does is mean for Alexandria to survive if it means that the Kingdom falls?”, Siddiq asked, stepping closer towards Michonne, his eyes filled with disbelieve as nothing more than coldness pressed in over Michonne’s face. “It means, Alexandria survives.” And with these words she shot him any even icier glare, holding his glance for a couple more seconds before breaking it off and pushing herself past the table the others were surrounding. She was rushing as fast out as always after such discussions, leaving a tension in the room that you could almost cut with a knife. “Great”, you heard Gabriel scoff, propping himself with his hands onto the table while he squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.  “We should go back to work, we can’t do anything more for the moment”, you heard Laura say as you pushed yourself away from the bench’s backrest and glanced at Siddiq who was still standing right where Michonne had left him, before he forced himself out of his trance and nodded slowly. “Yeah”, he grumbled, the annoyance clearly stuck in his voice before he let a sigh fall from his lips and glanced at you, “Lets get back to the infirmary, at least what we’re doing there is useful.”

The sun was already beginning to vanish behind the skyline of Alexandria’s walls and the tall trees behind them as you slipped your arms through the sleeves of your jacket, ready to leave the house after taking a hot shower that had washed a little bit of the load of stress the day had put on your shoulders until you had finished work a half hour ago. A uncomfortable tension had laid over the infirmary all day, fueled by Siddiq’s frustration because of Michonne’s decisions, paired with the Rosita drama that wasn’t much of a good mix and you were everything else than cheerful after this morning’s meeting as well. You had never thought you would say so, but by now, you were glad that Michonne had moved out of the house and into one of the townhouses. The reasons back then had nothing to do with the situation now, instead her decision had been urged by the pain Rick’s death had forced up, leaving stains all over the house as well as it had been supported by the more fitting rooms for the kids in the townhouse, still you were unfortunately glad about it now. You tried to shake the thoughts about Michonne off, letting a relieved sigh out as you now felt the smooth leather hugging your body, rising your anticipation to come back to Negan as you walked into the hallway, ready to finally leave. You were already swinging in a more comfortable mood before the door suddenly flew open, squeaking in protest as it arched by the power the push had forced on it. Your eyes widened immediately as your gaze glued to the entrance, catching the woman who was standing in the doorframe, furiousness in her eyes, brows puckered in anger and a chest that was rising and falling harshly. “You’ve been talking to him?”, Michonne hissed as she stepped into the house, rising the confusion within you as she threw the door back into its lock. “What?”, you asked, watching as she moved closer and let out a bittersweet huff. “You’ve been talking to Negan about the council?”, she growled, shooting you a dangerous glare, “Bad enough that he’s eavesdropping on us but that you slip him intel-” “I’m not slipping him intel”, you cut her immediately off, feeling how the frustration of this midday was boiling up again within you, mixing with new ones fueled by her accusation,”I’m talking to him, did you expect anything else?” “I expected you to be responsible”, she growled, her eyes narrowing in even more anger, the very same one that began to grow in you as well. “I am”, you quickly and firmly retorted before she could throw anything else at you ,”He isn’t doing any harm. Think he’s proven that enough.” “Oh so you two agreed in advance about what to say?”, she snapped as you just stared in utter confusion at her that drowned the frustration for a tiny moment. “Your boyfriend just told me to trust him a little more. Even let him be an advisor in matters of leader decisions”, she hissed with another bittersweet chuckle, as if she had talked to someone out of his mind. “Michonne-” “I don’t wanna hear it, (Y/N). I’m closing his windows and I strongly advise you to not talk to him about anything concerning the council anymore”, she cut you off in the matter of a millisecond, leaving you to process what she had just said that made you snap out of the frustration that had whirled back through you, and instead filled you with shock. “You’re closing his windows? Michonne you can’t do that”,you said, the bitterness gone out of your voice and replaced with instant worry about Negan ,”It’s his only way to get some of the world outside that cellar.” For a moment, you forgot her as fear flooded your veins. He already once had nothing but the cellar, he had once been completely cut off and you had seen to what that had pushed him. Shit, you had seen him on the edge of losing himself.  What if taking the window away, the interactions with Judith, simply hearing other people’s voices and having day light, what if that would urge him to fall back into a hole again, or to at least make him tangle on its edge? “Well that’s the plan”,Michonne brought you back to reality, befuddling you even more with her icy coldness, “He is a threat.” “He’s not he-” “He’s a monster, nothing else. In case I need to remind you again he killed two of our friends. He took Glenn’s chance to be a father”, she growled and with that, she shifted a switch within you. You’ve had to hear these things over and over again over all these years until it seemed like a record that played on endless loop, all while the people who called him a monster had done just as monstrous things, with the only difference that they were now playing the innocent lambs. “And Rick didn’t? From Gracie’s dad by massacring him? We didn’t kill a whole fucking outpost?!”, it suddenly shot out of you, anger raging in your voice as you passed past the points of keeping your calm. You weren’t one of the people to go off by the littlest inconvenience, but this was too much by now. Too much frustration, too much anger, too much injustice and hypocrisy. “Don’t take his name-“ “What? Cause it’s the truth?!”, you snapped before she could yell further at you and forbid you to speak. Rick was a risky topic, but she wasn’t taking a single fuck about your feelings, about your issues no matter if they were of personal matter or about her leading style, so why should you? Why should you if those things she was saying were turning things upside down, pushing them to let them shine in false light just because she liked it that way. “I’m so fucking tired of you all being huge fucking hypocrites acting as if you’re saints and he’s the devil. you’re judging with double standards”, you hissed, trying to not turn your voice into a shrill yell while the frustration you had build up was pushing further and further in on you,”He’s done fucked up stuff but so have we, so have you. He’s been for seven and a half years in there, if we’re going by your logic��we all would need to be locked up” Your breaths were heavy and harsh, almost as if they were cutting cracks into your throat, but you didn’t care. This goddamn injustice was going on and on for years now, sentencing him to a whole life in prison while she wasn’t an ounce better and was allowed to live her life freely, as if she hadn’t massacred people without the bat of an eyelid. You had all done the most terrible things to survive, but only for him it got turned into the most horrible deed a human being could do. “Careful”, she warned you, stepping closer as her eyes bored into yours. “So this is gonna be like always, huh? Someone has another opinion and you shut it down, no matter what”, pure frustration was speaking out of you, calmer now but still firm, fueled by the discussion from earlier. She huffed, shaking her head before her eyes arrowed once more dangerously. “Do you really want to test me?”, she asked, a just as dangerous calmness spread over her face,”I can take your privileges of seeing him, just like that.” For a moment, you just stared at her in disbelief, shocked by the person in front of you that didn’t seem at all like the friend you once had, and pushed into more fear of actually having to fight for seeing Negan. “You can’t-“ “Yes I can”, she cut you off, glaring at you before she took a step closer to you, her voice dangerously calm,”And you know what I’ll do too? I’m excluding you of the council. You’re endangering us by slipping a prisoner intel.” For a second, you felt like you were falling into a hole yourself, as if she had pulled the rug from beneath your feet.  You had fought for your place there, no matter what you were thinking about the current situation. This place at the council had taken much time and work, she couldn’t just take that away from you. She couldn’t just exclude you because of a disagreement, “For the last time, I’m not slipping him-“, you tried to defend yourself one last time before you caught in her glance that it was over for now, that no matter what you would say now would make the situation any bit better, but would actually make it worse, in the most horrible case for Negan too. ”I really don’t know you anymore. I always thought you’d be the reasonable one. Turns out you’re not”, you huffed, pain finding its way into you about the friend in front of you that was completely lost now. “If you think that. Then so be it”, she coldly retorted, as if nothing of what you had said just nearly touched her, nor made her care, letting the shock and frustration overshadow the pain within you quickly. This was the situation seven years ago all over again. Negan was the monster, you were the traitor and everybody else was the knight in shining armor. And these old, conserved feelings let more anger wash up in you, along with the thought of what could await Negan now that she really seemed to go through with her plan no matter what you said. And this all was pressing in on you, like a burden that was collapsing on your shoulders. You stared at her for a moment longer, a small part of you hoping that she’s still change her mind, let at least shine through that she cared a little but nothing, There was nothing but coldness in her eyes. “Screw You, Michonne. Seriously, screw you”, it slipped out of your lips, your voice trembling as you couldn’t keep any of your fury cooped up anymore that mixed with the deep rooted agony.  You didn’t care if you were being the one fleeing right now as you shoved yourself past her and rushed out of the house, you were just done with the whole day so far. You just wanted to get to Negan now.

The way to the cell felt longer than usual. With each step you could feel more tears forcing themselves into your eyes, turning your view into a blurry mess while all the thoughts and things Michonne had said were pressing in on you. You were able to keep them in for now, keep them from spilling over but while you kept them in it felt like you were bottling them dangerously up, forcing them to escape later with a harsher pressure. It felt like the old times, like all these years ago and you hated every single bit of it. Your whole body stayed tense until the very moment you stepped into the cell and felt Negan’s worried glance on you until his strong arms wrapped around you and finally pulled you into his soothing embrace. ”What happened?”, you heard him ask as you buried your head into his warmth, the tone in his voice indicating that part of him already knew what this was all about, still, you answered. ”Michonne happened.”

Negan’s arms were still wrapped around you as you found yourself sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning into his side while you tried to put the day into words and listen to his own encounter with Michonne as well, to her mocking in response to his statement that he had changed, to what she was planning to do with the cell, and on top of all, to Judith who had just tried to get help with her homework and was now most certainly in trouble as well. The words just kept spilling out of your both mouths, as if the bottle was finally opened and all the suspense could flow out. ”Shit...I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned you in any fucking way, I-”, he grumbled, utter guilt stuck in his voice after hearing of your exclusion of the council, made my Alexandria’s leader herself. ”This isn’t your fault, she would’ve known either way”, you mumbled back, glancing up into his hazel eyes that ran over your face, brushing over your features as he slowly nodded, before he gulped thickly. ”The thing about the windows..., don’t worry, alright?”, he asked, holding you a little tighter as he glanced from you to the windows and back, all while you shook your head and felt the next rush of frustration coming over you. “No Negan, this isn’t fair”, you said, the mumbling from before turning into a tense and now also trembling mess, ”She can’t just keep pretending that she’s the saint and cut you off from everything as if you’re some blood thirsty monster.” Your breath was heavy enough to make your chest shake harshly as all the thoughts that had rushed through your head during your argument with her streamed back into your head. You had told him everything, everything but about your fear of a relapse. You just didn’t want to worry him even more or worse, provoke a backslide all the more by showing him your fear. But you couldn’t fool Negan, couldn’t in the past, couldn’t do now and as his arm around you tightened and his eyes kept sticking to your face, as if he was trying to read your thoughts you knew already what he was gonna ask next. ”There’s more, huh?”, his own voice was filled with concern, paired with the knowledge that you were keeping something from him to not worry him more than he already was. A thick sigh fell from your lips as your glance wandered from him to the cement ground for a moment, realizing as always that you had to tell him, no matter the effect it could have. “I’m just...I’m afraid”, you mumbled, licking your lips nervously as you glanced back up at him and allowed a shivering breath to leave your lips before you rose your voice,”I don’t...I don’t want you them to push you into that hole again.” “I won’t fall into that hole again, Baby”, he retorted in the matter of seconds while his tension filled glance grew softer and his arms held you a little tighter. “Come on, as long as I got ya I’ll be all fine”, he added in the very next moment, watching your reaction closely as he gave you a small chuckle that paired with a small grin ,”Seriously, things are different now than they were back then.” “I know...I’m just frustrated...”, you mumbled, feeling how he reached up and let the palm of his large hand cup the side of your face to let his thumb brush over it, brushing of some dried tears and soothing you with his touch. “I know, Sweetheart”, he muttered with a nod, leaning in to press a small kiss to your lips while you softly nodded and allowed yourself to sink for a moment into him. “But this isn’t done...I’ll talk to her again when things have calmed down a little. I won’t let her take this away from you”, you added as soon as his lips parted from yours, giving in to an inner urge to not loose the very last hope you had, maybe to not go crazy once for all. “You first get back into the council, that’s more important than my windows”, he softly chuckled, pulling you closer before you quickly shook your head.  “No, it’s not”, you mumbled with a soft sigh, “Council’s one shitshow either way, as long Michonne doesn’t change it’s just sham.” Negan just softly nodded, keeping you close as he leaned in for another kiss and let his lips caress over yours, allowing to let the frustration beat the retreat a little and instead fill you with comfort until he backed a little away and gave you a slight grin. “Whatever comes next, we’ll get through this. Fuckin’ know it”

“Come here”, Negan mumbled as he settled a few soothing kisses and touches later into the pillow at the end of the bed, spreading his arms and nodding with a soft smile towards them. Slowly nodding you responded by shifting towards him over the sheets, sniffing just slightly for the last time before you dove into his embrace. With a soft hum you nuzzled your head into the curve of his neck and moved your leg over his hip, allowing you to sink into his side as your arm slung around his torso and hugged him back. His arms were holding you tightly as his lips pressed a warm kiss to your forehead, allowing his beard stubble to tickle your skin and form a small smile on your lips.  “Y’know, I still got something for ya....hope it lifts your mood a little”, he mumbled after only  few moment had passed as he shifted a little and stuck his fingers into his pant’s pockets, rummaging as you hummed in confusion and heard him letting out a low chuckle. “Won’t be my dick this time, I promise”, he laughed quietly before the movements stopped as he slowly got his hand out of his pockets. “Don’t know if you thought I forgot about it but damn, I didn’t”, he mumbled, as he formed his hand into a fist, hiding what was hidden within, “Couldn’t repair your bracelet but I...well lets say I improvised a little.” With these words and another small chuckle he opened his hand, revealing what was hiding in its large palm.  A ring, the one that had just a small while ago laid in the box with the goods he was trying to repair. Before the troughs of its metal had been empty, its stones gone for years but now they were filled up again with the tiny white diamonds that had once belonged to your bracelet. “Finished it before gettin’ out...just weren’t sure when to give it to ya, so now seems like a good moment”, he said, a little tension stuck in his voice as you slowly lifted yourself a little, enough to prop yourself on one elbow and glance at the small good in his hand. “It’s beautiful”, you mumbled, feeling how a larger smile was growing on your lips as soon as you touched the ring and realized how many curses he must have lost over it, trying to glue the small stones with his large hands to the thin ring. He’d lost his patience over all the other goods, but he had finished this one, no matter how many nerves it must have cost him. “Damn glad you like it”, you heard him mumble as he shifted a little up in the pillows as you glanced once more at the familiar stones that twinkled in the light before you looked up into Negan’s hazel eyes. “’Course I do...thank you so much”, you said, keeping the smile on your lips as you leaned in and kissed him softly, caressing your lips over his as his touch made the frustration vanish some more and brought you deeper into this moment in which you could forget about the rest of day that suddenly seemed to become much better. “How much did you curse over it?”, you chuckled softly against his lips as he leaned in to peck you once more. “Oh way too much...doesn’t matter tho”, he mumbled, pulling you into another kiss until you could feel him tensing a little as soon as your lips left his.  “I just..I want you to know what I want that little fucker to represent”, he mumbled as you backed a little away, enough to glance into his eyes and catch the muscles in his face twitching, almost as if he was nervous. “Meant what I said...as long as we two got each other everything’s fine as hell, was always that way”, he grumbled, sitting himself a little more up as he still held onto the ring in his hand, “You and me, that’s all we fucking need.” “Yeah”, you mumbled with a nod as you reached up and caressed your fingertips over his beard stubble, smiling softly at him. You could feel him shifting a little more, enough to sit straight up and reach out to your legs to pull them over his legs and hug you closer as he cleared his throat softly, clenching his jaw as he grew a little more nervous. “I know I can’t marry you the damn real way here...shit, can’t even propose the fuckin’ way I’d like...I’m just”, he stopped, shaking his head as he run one hand over his stubbly jaw ,”Talkin’ too much” Your heart was already speeding up as you heard his words echoing through your head and felt how his hand that was still holding the ring was beginning to trace over your leg, nervously fumbling on the loose threads.  “I just, I want you to know that we both are set in damn stone,...real damn marriage...not how it was with- them...”, he mumbled, struggling on that one word before he glanced up at you and pulled you a little tighter against him,”The fucking real way.” The smile on your lips grew wider as you watched him relax a little in response to your reaction, grinning as he bit his lip.  “And shit, we’ve actually been having that for all this time...no matter if we talked about it or not...you’re mine and holy shit I am fuckin’ yours, with neck and crop...and dick”, he chuckled with a wider grin, playfully squeezing your waist before he stroked softly along it, “And that won’t fuckin’ ever change.” “We’re the real damn deal”, he added with a soft chuckle, holding you close as you nodded softly, feeling the warmth spreading further through your body, sweeping into every little inch of yours and turning the rest anger into happiness. “Yeah”, you mumbled, running your hand up his chest until you let it rest on its center and glanced happily at him,”We are.” Negan’s smile grew even wider for a moment before a new little wave of nervousness washed over his face and he cleared his throat as his fingers fumbled on the ring. “So...Sweetheart, will you marry me?”, he asked, his eyes fixing on yours as happiness streamed through you for yet another time,”Right here and now?” “Yes”, you said, nodding eagerly as you watched him light up,”Yeah, I will.” Overwhelmed, you grasped his face softly, glancing at the love of your life before you let out a happy sound and leaned in to press your lips to his, caressing them tenderly while your whole body tingled with joy. “Shit, I wanted to kneel for this-”, rumbled against your lips as soon as they softly parted, only for you to shake your head gently. “Shh, it’s perfect”, you hushed him, not allowing him to doubt himself right after he had given you a declaration of love that was perfect in itself, regardless of the fact that you were laying in the old bed inside his cell. You hummed against him, dropping your hand from his face and sliding it back down to rest it onto his firm chest while you moved slightly away to look at him. “Now that finger looks a little naked, huh?”, Negan grumbled in the next moment, nodding down to the hand on his chest before he glanced for a short moment up to grin at you and moved the ring closer towards it. It only needed another soft nod of yours for him to pick your hand up and slip the slim ring over your finger, just as smooth as you had once done it when you had tried its damaged form on months ago, even though it felt so much better now. And as your lips crashed onto his this time it felt like you were giving each other a silent promise on top of it, sealing off what had already been clear to the both of you all these years. Of course, you couldn’t marry with all the bells and whistles but Negan was right on this, as long as you both knew what your relationship meant to you, it was more than enough.  “Y’know, if you wanna and if the situation will ever allow it, we can do it with all the little shit...hell, I can do more to make this all better...I-”,  “You don’t need to...I meant it, this is already perfect”, you muttered back, a soft smile still curling your lips as he stopped for a moment and backed away, enough to glance at you and raise his brows.  “Negan, this is all I need. If we ever can get married the official way, I’ll marry you again without batting an eyelash, but you don’t need to do more...giving the ring now so you can cheer me up and take care of me is so genuine and sweet, and real. That’s the best”, you said, glancing from the ring to his hazel eyes that began to soften even more, just like the smile on his lips that grew larger and the warmth in you that took over once for all. You could still feel the smile as his lips caressed once more over yours, kissing you deeply as he held you tighter, as if he was never planning on letting you go again. “I love you”, he grumbled against your lips, pecking them as he sighed contently, “More than fucking anything.” “I love you too”, you mumbled back, smiling softly as your fingers caressed over the salt and pepper stubbled, electing a small purr from deeply within his chest before he shifted a little with you on the bed, enough to move the both of you into the pillows to hold you even tighter. “By the way...I’m not fuckin’ sweet”, he mumbled with a low chuckle as soon as you had cuddled deeper into his embrace, urging a small laugh to fall from your lips as you backed away again and glanced into his playful and teasing eyes. “Yeah, you are”, you softly chuckled, grinning at him as you ran your hand over his firm chest, up until you could rest it on his neck and caress the sensitive skin while the tiny diamonds of the gift that was stuck to your finger twinkled in the rest sunlight,”No way you can prove me wrong on this.” “Oh I could think of a way or two”, he thickly chuckled, grinning suggestively at you while his tongue slipped slowly over his lower lip, “Want me to try out?” “Sure”, you chuckled back, already feeling how he was pulling you closer before you shot him a playful grin, “Still, you won’t convince me.” “Oh, you’ll see, Baby. You’ll fucking see”

part 51 / “Scars”

(The gif isn’t mine/ it was originally posted by dancing-at-the-funeralparty) tagging:

@agespenst @imaginesforthepeople @porgs-r-us @squidgy84 @toxic-ink@Nobodylastname @nice-shoes-nerd @thegirlwiththelyrics99 @tolieboy @writteninthestars288@magical-spit @straightestgay-voice @xsnak-3x @myrabbitholetoneverland  @dasani-saraai @negan-is-god@harry-titss@traumbruch @negans-network@theblankestostares @amysuemc@ashzombie13 @trashimaginezblog @jeffreydeanneganstrash @sweetwittlebosco @futureofdestiel @bananakid42 @dragongirl420 @kalliewinchester-queenofhell@futureofdestiel @timeladyrikaofgallifrey @osakamilk @kattyshea20 @dinodiegos @missmotherhen @kinkygamertrash @beahippie23 @xabeautifultragedyx @negansmagic@starwarsandstufff @bdohe21 @lovesjdm @vanilla-negan @to-pick-ourselves-up-7 @roselover159 @mamarhee @the-writingdead @traumbruch @bellawindixon @dlb1999 @thelittlewolf45 @collette04 @ask-kakashihatake @princessbelgoof@adixon13@botanicalthoughts @nijiru@cheyanhicks @jtklover123 @twentyonewalkerss@originalwinchestervamp@readytourie@ijashanaa @i-am-lady-anarchy @marauderspads@humble-thumb @hp-hogwartsexpress @mydeliciousdandelion @warriorqueen1991 @unholyjs @kentuckywalker @mydeliciousdandelion@dancing-in-embers @gackts-guwashi @ugh-abbyxx @frozenhuntress67 @hela-rious48 @thoughtfullyoptimisticgalaxy @xojeffreydeanmorgan @thelittlewolf45 @babygirlmeepi @thehybridsqueen@blueeyedsoutherngal @naniky @negans-network @the-wintergirl @fangirl-and-medstudent-help@lovesjdm @oofasaurus

(In case you want to be tagged or untagged for specific things or everything I write, just let me know! Also: The gif is not mine, I got it from google so credit to the original owner)

[moseswilhelm]

Now that you’re all gone, I’ve got a few squishy bits to air out. I don’t feel normal. Whether that means quirky or broken or eccentric depends on the day or hour or seconds between the particular anxiety of waiting on someone to respond to a long string of text. Internally, I’ve cycled between deciding if I am alien, demon, mutated evolution, a plaything of God, a challenge, or just plain old mentally ill. We can guess the healthier option, but there isn’t much use or fun using that.

Knowing you’ve lacked socialization in your youth doesn’t really mean much in trying to solve that problem in the same way that knowing you were just shot won’t help close the wound. What I am trying to say is I wasn’t socialized when I was young and that consistent distant feeling from your peers comes from that.  Hearing that you think differently, or have an interesting brain is a nice little compliment albeit a little condescending. Unfortunately, you can’t really monetize excellent explanatory metaphors without the true meat and potatoes of capitalist society: focus. Arguably, effort and hard work and all that, but the measurement of how much you’ve put into something gets a bit blurred when you’ve somehow acquired detail knowledge of the economic turmoil that initiated the Pontic Wars. Someone please give me money for that. Easily an entire week got a bit lost in trying to understand centralized economies in the classical era and not one person paid me. Outrageous. I think writing was my way of trying to accomplish that level of usefulness that we are all trying to achieve. I knew that whatever I went through as a kid helped me develop an approach to understanding things in a unique way, but this is arguably not even useful to myself let alone the world as a whole. Unfortunately this hobby/career is top tier ADD nightmares and require a level of focus and drive comparable to Stephen King just ripped on coke. I neither have the proclivity for weird child orgies and dog monsters or coke.  Well thats a lie, coke suits me just fine but my scantron has enough bubbles filled out and I’m already late turning in my “how much of a trainwreck are you” buzzfeed quiz.  I see you, red squiggly telling me that “thats” needs an apostrophe. Fuck off, this is art and I refuse to change. Hey, what do you think happens when you’re told that confidence has to come before... y’know... actually being proud of yourself? Arrogance and self-absorption, obviously. You learn very quick that empty confidence is just as meaningless as no confidence, so to kind of fake it you have to really inflate things you have no right inflating and they are inflated on a scale comparable to those around you. Which is arrogant! Its awful! People can do different things at different levels and still be valid! Confidence is valued at an extremely high level to the point where the confidence to present yourself is a bit more important than the character you are supposedly proud of... evidenced plenty by the folks in the public eye known specifically for their charisma and yet somehow failing to actually be a person worth being around. That said, it can get tangled up in actually being proud of yourself. Shocking, I know, but you can’t really lump people who have characters worth being proud of to those just decent at faking it.  Faking it. I know imposter syndrome is a thing. I am certainly not really alone in the concept of “oh god I’m faking it” so I won’t really pretend I have some magic insight on the concept (I’m lying I’m absolutely going to present myself as someone with Answers welcome to the fucking show) but when does “holding it together” and “how you present yourself” become imposter syndrome.  “Hi this is me who has to be this way in order to balance between seeming different enough to stand out but not so different that you feel disgusted at the concept of change, nice to meet you” I mean what the fuck is a person anyways. Thats not a question. Not even a rhetorical one so if you answered aloud in your head I’m sorry but my psyche is not emotionally prepared for audience participation right now so clam up. Finding yourself is always a precarious as hell phrase because that often means one of two things: 1. Learning not to care about how others feel about who you are, despite all evidence of existence point out that this is the absolute most important aspect of your life 2. Presenting the parts that you were afraid to present to people.  Look, I get it, you can’t please everyone and I’m not really here to talk about how to please anyone. In fact, I’m not even here. This is a lucid dream you’re having in your chair and shortly you’ll wake up and not remember if you were sleeping at all. Its fine, you’re fine.  You have to please someone though. I think we underestimate the value of the tutorial level of life regarding this. You are given a set amount of people who are, usually, just going to be pleased by your existence. This always sets up your expectations of how that looks, how it feels, and how important it is. I mean imagine if right now I decided to criticize the immense value society puts on children. You’d hate my fucking guts! “Look at this asshole, kids deserve to be cared for” To be clear I don’t disagree with that. I think a lot of the current “you are valid” rhetoric is based on the concept that adults deserve to be cared for as well. This sorta rounds off my point that attention and reassurance is an important part of being cared for. In my opinion, this gets overlooked very often in favor cheap performative actions like hitting a heart button and oh my god I’m like a baby boomer writing for the new york times okay hold on I promise this isn’t a cynical criticism of millennials.  People want to be heard. Importantly, people want to be understood. Spicy hot fucking take. Its a bit more than “this person knows who I am” although thats precisely how its framed. People want to be cared for, and this means knowing the... other person knows who they are caring for. Ah holy shit this is why I use metaphors.  You have a snickers bar and you are hungry. Congration, you done it. Its the middle of the day and you never had any breakfast and frankly your bank account could use a break from pleasuring Starbuck’s atm reader so you somehow found the last snickers bar in a box you bought off of impulse bought off of Amazon and immediately regretted because it was gone two days later. Or so you thought. As you threw away the cardboard you hear the tell-tale tumble of a forgotten rod of peanuts and caramel that must have gotten jammed in the back of this thing. It was, however, 7am and you had to get to work and maybe having bubbleguts while dealing with people is not your recipe for a good day so you throw it into your purse or bag or whatever the fuck and move on.  “Lunchtime” rolls around and as you do the mental gymnastics required to find the conclusion that food=energy in between bouts of fury over why your workday insists on starting at 8am and how you can’t seem to cope with falling asleep early enough for that not to matter, you remember your snickers bar. Reaching into whatever bag you put it and coming to the horrifying dread of realization that you left this bag in your car in fucking July, you find the sweet sugared respite in a corner. Squeezing it a bit just to test, you are surprised to not find it in the horrible (and yet delicious) state of melted confectionary. Your stomach grumbles a bit as you fidget with the perforated candy wrapper, vaguely thinking to yourself that it might be interesting to read the ingredients as you eat this thing like that isn’t going to fill you with inexplicable Eldritch dread. Nobody needs to know they are ingesting something that might have been made in a facility that also processes every other nut you can think of, delightfully shortened into “tree nuts”. I wonder if anyone has cross referenced all the allergen warnings to deduce which candies are made in the same factory, or if that information is just freely available. What if we kissed in the snickers production facility??? haha jk but...? Anyways, as your mind cycles through a list of stale memes you manage to unsheath this uncut chocolate delight from its wax(???) plastic prison and proceed to take your first, and arguably best, bite into this lunch.  Your teeth sink softly into it, as you would expect. In fact, expectations haven’t really filtered into your skull soup you call a brain, so all manner of things can just slip through your recognition. Not this, however. Instead, fireworks of electric signals screaming “BITTER POISON” shock your brain from its previous state of vaguely functioning. Now you truly see the color of light, feel the air cocooning your skin, the squirm of your organs in your belly. Full panic ensues. You are not human, you are animal, and you have taken in a poison thing.  You spit it out right there on your lap.  You stare at the sad and ruined chocolate mutant nestled grossly in between your legs as your brain high fives itself for saving your life before frantically scouring your subconscious for whatever Vine gives it enough dopamine to not just fucking kill yourself right here. What happened? The fugue of panic washes your perceptions with a mixture of justifications for this travesty. It probably just went bad, but that didn’t taste spoiled (you consider yourself a mild expert having scraped clean many an old collection of halloween candy collections in August the year after the fact) so maybe it melted and rehardened? Baking stuff is weird so maybe that broke down some of its components. You pick it up (holy shit that is slimy. Of course its slimy, just touch it) and its insides look fine. I mean, how often do you examine the insides of a partially chewed bite of snickers? No weird colors. The remaining chocolate lasagna brick also looks exactly what you’d thought it be.  You jokingly think to yourself that maybe you had a stroke but despite the apparent hilarity of that possibility you do the smile thing in the selfie camera of your phone. Everything seems fine, but now you’re getting mad that some turn of events has just ruined your perfectly good slab of sugar and fat that surely would have made the rest of the day bearable (and full of indigestion) Now that is a metaphor. 

[wolfplatinumravenous]

AU

One Sides to Every Story

 Solaria saw that her Queendom was in dire need of saving and guidance. To stand upright and firm against monster tyranny, or so she thought. She trained rigalessly every day, building up the endurance needed to combat 12 odd foot monsters, and stamina for the small and winged ones.

 Finally the time had come, she was the perfect warrior. However, there was no way to know that for sure. She needed to test her newly created might, and just her luck one of the surrounding villages that was near the castle was being attacked.

 There was several lizard like men and women, burning homes and eating livestock, simply wreaking havoc. Solaria was shocked at the sight of it all, but something soon caught her eyes. A lizard like man with long dark flowing hair, and sinister eyes with a devilish smile ready to take the life of a villager. Solaria lunged at him, she swung her sword and disarmed the lizard man.

 "Who are you," she exclaimed.

 "That was rude," he barked back.

 "I've asked you a question, lizard man. Who are you?"

 "Toughie Chew. I am the son of King Seth and the Prince of Suptarcius."

 "Tough chew- I'll call you Toffee! Why are you attacking these mewmans? What have they done to you?"

 "They have done nothing, why I’m simply following orders that were given to me."

 "Orders, what orders?"

 Not wanting to continue the dialogue much further, Toffee told Solaria that his father requested that he attack the village and kill all the villagers. '"Mewmans are an invasive species who have lived in Mewni for far too long, and needed to be eradicated…"'

 Unable to stand to hear what more he had to say, Solaria impatiently attacks him again and they both are caught in some sort of dance. Parrying each other swings thrusting at each other, and dodging, neither are able to attack. Until Toffee loses his footing. Finally Solaria is able to get the upper hand and uses her magic to cut off Toffees finger. Tired of losing limbs he calls for a retreat.

 "Next time Queen of Mewni." And he fades into the shadows.

 Although she was the perfect warrior, the people of Mewni were not. So she decided to go around fending off monster attacks and to hopefully once again come into contact with Toffee Prince of Suptarcius.

 A couple of years have passed since Solaria's meeting with Toffee of Suptarcius, and she was growing impatient by the minute. It was until then on her journey throughout the queendom she stumbles upon a village being attacked. A winged monster was flying above the villagers attacking them with some type of acidic like liquid. Again, her queen charges into battle, fighting off the monster. Then unexpectedly, a masked warrior falls from the sky and begins attacking Solaria.

 "What are you doing, can't you see I'm helping you?" The warrior does not speak but only continues her blocks and punches. The warrior, very agile, tucks backflips, and with a swift kick is able to bring the queen down on her bottom.

 "Why-uh, just who are you?" Again not given a single response, the warrior motions over to the winged monster and begins helping it up. She walks over to a barn and brings out a baby winged monster.

 "She wanted her baby, had you stopped and noticed its flight and attack patterns, you would have realized this sooner. Instead of mercilessly trying to kill it."

 The warrior hands the baby off to its mother, and begins walking away. Utterly dumbfounded, her queen rustles her sword off the ground and begins chasing after the warrior who was able to defeat her for a monster.

 "Hey! Now j-just wait a minute. Why would you help a monster? Don't you know who I am?"

 "No."

 Solaria scoffs "I am Queen Solaria, A warrior."

 "Well which is it? Are you a Queen or a warrior?"

 Solaria blushes "I-am-fighting off monster attacks for my people! Mewmans everywhere sing me praises and of my heroic deeds."

 "No, they sing about a bully, who goes around bullying monsters."

 Solaria now flustered "Bb-bully? But monsters are evil, disgusting, tricky things. They need to be stopped!" the masked warrior continues her pace ignoring her queen.

 Now frustrated. Solaria swings her fists at the warrior, only to miss and be met with mockery. "So you can't when an argument, you resort to punches?" The warrior backflips onto a boulder and does a hair flip.

 "Listen word of advice, it's your opinion, that doesn't make it fact. Not all monsters seek destruction, some want to live in peace with their families you know? Well, I guess you don't in your case." The warrior soon springs away and the Queen once more is left with no words, well perhaps a sentence.

 "At least I don't wear a mask to hide who I am!"

 Since then, everywhere Queen Solaria went to help towns and villagers from monster threats. There they were, the masked warrior helping the monsters. Proving, in more ways, that the big monster threat was mostly a monstrous misunderstanding.

 "Ah! Why do you keep popping up everywhere I go? Are you stalking me?"

 "As if, don't go getting cocky on me now. It's not a good color for you." Queen Solaria tackles the masked warrior onto the ground.

 "Ha-ha, who do you work for? Is it Toffee, Toughie Chew Prince of Suptarcius perhaps?"

 "Ah, get off me. What no, the Prince of Suptarcius is evil. He only seeks destruction and to conquer Mewni, I would never work for him."

 "You lie-" the masked warrior is able to pivot the queen to the ground.

 "No! It's the truth, I only protect the weak and helpless monsters that only lose their homes or families. The Suptarin’s are fair game and monsters who decide to work for them."

 The queen knocks the warrior off of herself only to tackle them once more. '"How can I be sure I can trust you?"' She says, and the warrior only mocks how long the queen has pivot her to the ground. Solaria blushes and begins backing off. The warrior remarks that she can't and only the queen needs to have faith, but she does suggest they come up with a plan to take down Toffee. The warrior has steadily been keeping tabs on Toffees moves and whereabouts for a while, only to avoid him. However, he's been recruiting monsters none voluntarily, so the masked warrior saw the need to step in.

 After hours of arguing and mockery, they finally agreed upon a plan. The masked warrior is skilled in stealth and projectiles, while the queen is more of a heavy hitter, so going incognito was the best option even against the queen’s wishes.

 It took them some time but, they were able to locate were Toffee was currently residing.

 They needed a miracle; the masked warrior did some cool flips and parkour around the hideout Toffee was occupying. The queen was told to wait somewhere by the entrance, once the area was clear she would signal too her. Unfortunately our queen is not a patient puppy, as soon as her eyes made contact on a Suptarin she sprang into action.

 Solaria swings her mighty red sword, catching attention from all around her. Of course this causes the masked warrior to face palm.

 "Where is Toffee!?" She barks. Multiple monsters and Suptarins were surrounding her now, what seemed hopeless proved to be their downfall. In a matter of seconds Solaria had them bruised on the ground balling. Hard to believe this was the same mewman from the village of the winged monster, the masked warrior thought. But there was no time to guak in awe, the hot blooded queen just blew their cover.

 Sure enough, Toffee finally appeared stepping out from the group of weeping monsters and greats the warrior queen. "We meet again, Queen of Mewni. Did you have fun playing hero while I was away?"

 "Toffee, face me you coward~!"

 And just like that they were caught yet again in another dance. Both unable to land a single hit, but Toffee was cunning then that. He signaled for the non-volunteer monsters to help aid him, in turn the masked warrior saw it the right time to get involved.

 "Do not injure the volunteers, they aren't here by choice."

 "That's a little-uh difficult, huh at the moment."

 The masked warrior knocked out the non-volunteer monsters so they could remain out of the fight and stay safe from both Toffee and Solaria. As the fight continued Solaria's mind became focused and single minded, so that means she couldn't gage what was going on around her. She entered tunnel vision mode.

 Evidently, a non-volunteer slipped by, the moment Solaria was finally going to land, possibly a fatal blow. The masked warrior stepped in, and once she determined Solaria had no intentions to halt her attack, she punches her square on the jaw. Toffee unfortunately, was able to escape however, the volunteers were safe.

 "I had him, I had him why did you stop me?"

 "Told you, not to harm the non-volunteers! If you injured a single one, I would be breaking my vow, and I'm a warrior of my word."

 Solaria could not get anywhere in the argument and she remembered the advice the masked warrior had given her when they first meet. "Alright I yield. However, I do believe I'm owed something, for my participation. Monster sympathizer."

 "What did you have in mind?" She says reluctantly.

 "Do not fear, you know of me and I know not of you. After we fought in arms side by side today, I wish to know your name." Before the warrior could answer, a monster in hiding thought it the perfect opportunity to get in good graces with the prince. He decided to sneak and strike the queen with her back turned, he succeeded but not before the masked warrior could knock him down.

 Solaria is out cold, and the masked warrior had no choice but to take the queen someplace safe.

 They had finally arrived to a beautiful creek with a weeping willow tree perched nicely on the corner. It was night but the moon was full, and the forest animals were out playing.

 Solaria is soon awoken by beautiful humming, the warrior had her mask off and her caramel face and dark brown eyes were now revealed. "Beautiful," the Queen whispers. The warrior opens but soon scowls her eyes.

 "You were hit, but it looks to me that you’re fine now." She raises up and the warrior queen whose head was nestled gently in her lap had, now fallen on to the cold ground hard.

 "Ow-"

 "My name is, Leona Goldiebird. My origins, unknown; I was found by a family of Sparrow Tooth

 (Hint: Saber tooth cats with Sparrow wings)

 Who took me in and raised me as their own. I will do anything for them, for monsters that is my vow, my word and I am a warrior of my word."

 The Queen was hesitant in this new information she was just given. But she made a quick decision, "I care not, of your past but I do desire a future in which you and I stand together side by side. Against Toffee and the Suptarins, are you with me?"

 "I shall stand by your side, only if it's to end the Suptarins cruel rain?" Solaria agreed to not harm non volunteer monsters that are forced to join the Suptarins army and perhaps, though both don't know yet, to unit Mewman and Monster kind.

 Two more years went by,

 In that time Queen Solaria had fathered a child, princess Eclipsa. But our queen didn't sit idly by only to become soft.  No, she went around to all the villages and towns to gather an army. Or I should say tired?

 "Are you sure it's alright to bring a child with us?"

 "Well how else am I to feed her?"

 "Of course." Lady Leona said reluctantly.

 As promised Solaria did not harm the forced volunteer monsters in Toffees army. But to make sure of this Lady Leona decided to stay near Queen Solaria, a bond grew and became strong between them. They soon began seeing each other in entirely different light, giving one another nicknames as well. After every battle, the queen and lady Leona helped the monsters to safety far away from Toffees reach. And during each battle, if her queen failed to restrain herself with the volunteers, Lady Leona would punch her right in the face. Don’t worry her queen is quite durable.

 "This is starting to get a little repetitive, don't you agree?"

 "Yes, how is he able to recruit so many monsters, volunteer or not?"

 “No, well yes but I meant punching me in the face. My face, it hurts you know.”

 “I’m sorry solar bear.” Both Lady Leona and queen Solaria thought it best to figure out how Toffee is able to gather so many monsters. But they needed an army themselves and mewmans were proving to be difficult to convince.

 "Won't the monsters help aid us, don't they wish for peace?"

 "No, I'm afraid that don't see it to be their fight. They feel it's a war between you and the Suptarins." The queen thought since they could not fight monsters with monsters perhaps she could create her own.

 "I really don't think that's a great idea Solaria, why don't you give me time. Let me try to find a way to make peace with them."

 "Alright, only because I need time to be with Eclipsa."

 "Thank you Sol." Six months would come and pass but lady Leona still hadn't come up with a way to draw peace in the queendom. Solaria would suggest to scratch the whole idea of peace entirely.

 "For now we should focus on Toffee, in just six months his forces have progressed. Where on the defense now."

 "My apologies, I think I have a plan for that."

 Lady Leona had figured out how Toffee was acquiring new recruits. He was feeding propaganda to the monsters of his kingdom. However, this meant going on a long journey to Suptarcius.

 "Traveling to Suptarcius is dangerous mentally and physically exhausting. Are you up for it?"

 "Well this means I will be traveling with you and you’re nagging, what the heck I'm up to anything!"

 Taking extreme offence to what the queen had said, they were off. Princess Eclipsa remained back at home in the castle per Lady Leona's wishes. "The journey will take months, years even we only have one shot at this." They came across many monsters, villages and towns in need of their assistance. Toffees generals were scattered stationed near mewman inhabited areas terrorizing, and putting them into slavery.

 Finally their efforts paid off, in just a sort time they were able to gain at least a small troop.

 The villagers had fallen for the two heroes’ strong will and fearlessness. "Leo, can you believe this. Gush, it just only feels like two years ago we were struggling to put together an army."

 "It was only two years ago and six months, but I get what you mean Sol."

 "Here you go."

 "What, but this-I thought this was the last of the Snookers. You never share, you almost tore Billy’s arm off?"

 "Well I wanted you to have it, go on now."

 Someone far off into the distance, '"K-I-S-S-I-N-G-"'

 "Who said that, was it you Bill-y?"

 More of them now, '"Ooo."'

 "Sol, don't pay any mind to Billy. He’s just teasing."

 "Yah, I suppose your right, as always Leo." Lady Leona pulls out a brush from her brown bag.

"Would you mind?" She gestures for Solaria to brush her hair. The queen grabs the brush and begins stroking top to bottom.

 "Your hair, it's quite lovely Leo."

 “Ha-ha thank you, I could do yours if you'd like."

 "Mm, that would be nice, only if I had any. Hair that is."

 "Well stop shaving it off yah goof." They both giggle and laugh under the full moon, the queen asks if Lady Leona could hum for her like she did when they were at the creek. Lady Leona begins humming the tones song to her from when she was little girl. “This takes me back to the creek, does it not? I sure would like to visit there again, with you.”

 "Your hair is, lovely." Just like that the queen takes a quick peek around her to make sure no one was watching, and sniffs Lady Leona’s long plum purple hair. "What's wrong?"

 "Nothing! Just keep humming." Solaria said frantically now roughly brushing lady Leona’s hair.

 "So how's you know who?"

 "Who? Oh, he's good um. He and Eclipsa are having some daddy daughter time while I'm away."

 There was a long awkward pause. "Are you planning, to tie the knot soon?"

 "What? Oh, um you know I-I mean we, we decided to not-too not do that. You know with the whole war and everything, there's no time. For a wedding that is." She says nervously.

 "I see." Lady Leona blushes turned away from Solaria.

 Queen Solaria begins scratching the back of her head, anxious in the silence they both found themselves in again. "What about you? Are-do you plan to-to tie the knot soon." Solaria says regrettably.

 "I-nope, simply no time for that. With the whole war and everything." She says sadly looking away.

 “L-look Leona, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you-”

 “Wait! Just one sec solar bear. Whatever it is you have to tell me, could it-could it wait after we defeat Toffee?”

 The queen was hesitant but, when she looked deep into Lady Leona’s big brown eyes she nodded her head in agreement.

 The queen, Lady Leona, and the troops made it to Toffees castle. The fight was long and rigorous, and many were severely injured in the process on both sides. Not wanting to lose anymore generals and troops, Toffee suggested a truce.

 “What are you doing Toughies? Calling for a truce when you got them on the run!”

 “Toffee.”

 “What!?” Toffee explained to his father Seth of Suptarcius, that he had become quite attached to the nick name Toffee. Not happy with his son’s response Seth gets ready to strike him, but Toffee soon gabs his way out of punishment.

 “Listen father, my plan is to lure the mewman’s into a false scenes of security. I would offer them a chance of peace, and they would gather in one location.” “Go on.” Toffee explained further that once he had the queen and Lady Leona where he wanted them, he would finally end the game once and for all. “Good, do not fail me.”

 Toffee would succeed, he sent a messenger and had the queen and Lady Leona fooled in believing he wanted peace. Finding a peaceful looking monster and forcing him to pretend to be a minister sent from the King and Prince. The queen would stay behind with the troops and Lady Leona would agree to continue on ahead believing deep down that this is what they had been waiting for.

 While they were separated from each other Toffee would pick them off one by one. Solaria was able to escape seeking out Lady Leona, to find and warn her of the trap. However, she would be too late. Their troops were cut down, and Lady Leona would be cut down by a size shifter right in front of Solaria.

 “Noo! Leo, Leo look at me. Leona! Leona! Please-please don’t go.”

 “Solar bear? I-I’m sorry I failed you, I t-tried-“

 “NO! You did nothing wrong, this was all Toffee-“

 “Solaria please listen, I don’t know how much time-I have.” Leona would go on to confess her love to Solaria, and with tears in both of their eyes Solaria bids Lady Leona fair well with a long passionate kiss.

 Not seeing any reason to kill off queen Solaria, Toffee once again fades into the shadows. Queen Solaria would cry out in anguish and would remain by Lady Leona side until there was no more flesh left to be seen of her. Then Solaria would barre her beloved and vow vengeance on those involved in the death of Lady Leona Goldiebird, and the first thing to come to her mind would be creating the Solarian warriors.

 When Solaria returned home she was no longer her optimistic vibrant self her brother, daughter, and the rest of the mewmans could see. She had looked like death himself completely soaked, pale as white, and starved. She locked herself in her room finally writing in the book of spells she was putting off for so long. She no longer followed the rules agreed upon Lady Leona and herself, all monsters were the enemy.

 Solaria would go on to recruit Mina Loveberry, and successfully transform her into a Solarian warrior. Mina would pledge her loyalty to the current queen and only to her as she is. Together they would be an unstoppable force however, when there was no longer any monster left to fight, or Toffee of Suptarcius to seek revenge. Solaria found herself at the beautiful creek with the weeping willow tree, and no longer able to force away the memories of Lady Leona. Queen Solaria realized she wasn’t honoring Lady Leona’s wishes, this was not the vision lady Leona had sought and died for.

 “I need to make this right, perhaps there is still a chance for peace. Mina and I should be able to accomplish it.” Unfortunately for the Queen, Mina did not agree at all with her plans of peace.

 “What are you saying your majesty? This is what we’ve been fighting for, this is what you’ve been promising me, the mewmans of Mewni. You’re telling me you’re just going to throw that all away for some-some dead girl?”

 “You don’t understand, this was a promise. I keep my promises for I am a warrior Mina.”

 “Why I-I-I-I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

 “That’s alright I wouldn’t expect you too. Your mind is falling apart any way.”

 “No! I want let you, you are not Solaria-“

 “Mina, Mina what are you doing?”

 “You are not the queen of Mewni, My queen would never say anything this-this, weird. I’ll take you out myself you imposter!”

 “Mina! Noooo!” and just like that Mina Loveberry took the life of Queen Solaria, blaming it all on an attack form raiders. However, the story seemed a little farfetched giving how strong Queen Solaria was. Queen Solaria went down in history as the greatest warrior against monster kind, Solaria the Monster Carver.

 The End

>Solaria Butterfly AU Prequel written by: Wolf Platinum Ravenous<

[leonalmalsy]

Gift of the Magi - A Ryuann fic

Third year student Ann Takamaki couldn't believe what she was reading. Even after a third careful read through, the words almost seem to taunt her.

Shujin Academy Fundraiser

Shujin is raising money to fund our extracurricular activities. Join us May 5th. There will be games and food.

Don't miss our auction, where students can win a date with our third year beauties.

Ann's perfectly manicured nails ripped apart the flyer in a rage.

"How can they do this?" The twin tailed woman huffed. "I never agreed to this." With a stomp of her feet, she resolved to see the principal.

The new principal was a tall and lanky man, unlike their former principal. He had a look of a man struggling to tread water, which wasn’t far off the mark. After the disgrace of Kamoshida and the sudden death of the previous principal Kobayakaba, the new guy was simply overwhelmed by the negative press that Shujin had been receiving. There have been rumors that people have seen him duck into his office any time a police car whizzed by. Clearly, he wasn’t the best person for the job. How could such a man come up with this idea?

Ann knocked on the door of the prinicipal’s office. A meek “Come in” was the response.

“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you.” Ann said in her softest voice, even though she was a torrent of rage on the inside.

“Not at all. My doors are always open to the students of Shujin.” The principal’s words didn’t convince her that he really meant what he said.

“I just read the flyer for the fundraiser.” The blonde acknowledged.

“I am glad that you brought that up.” The principal took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow with it. In Ann’s eyes, it made him look smaller than he actually was. “This school’s reputation has been going downhill since last year. Kamoshida-sensei’s perversions tainted the Volleyball team. Then there is the matter of both Suzui-san’s attempted suicide and my predecessor’s sudden suicide. And there have been rumors that the so-called Phantom Thieves were actually students in this school. The benefactors who helped pay for tuition are threatening to withhold their money. Without them, we may have to seek out alternate sources of income.”

Ann’s rage softened. Being part of the Phantom Thieves last year was the best year of her life. But it did come with some baggage. She remembered having to endure Kamoshida’s perverted advances and Shiho’s attempted suicide. And even though they had nothing to do with it, Principal Kobayakawa was killed in their name. So was Haru’s dad. Shujin had been engrossed in scandal ever since.

“I know I am asking a lot of the third year students but without funding, Shujin may have to close many of its extracurricular activities." He continued, unaware of the guilt bubbling up in Ann. "If we cut them, less money will come from benefactors. It will lead to a downward spiral."

Ann bit her bottom lip. The guilt trip combined with the pathetic sounding voice of the principal created a potent combination that wore on her resolve not to participate in the fundraiser.

"Takamaki-san, I understand your reservation about being auctioned off. But think of the money that you could bring to the school? Would you deprive your fellow students of the funds they need in order to thrive?”

The guilt came in waves now. Ann’s face made a powerful grimace. She knew where this was going. This feeling was just like the time she had to pretend to pose nude for Yusuke’s painting.

“Okay. Fine.” She spat acidly. The new principal didn't bother to read her mood. Instead, he thanked her profusely for agreeing to the auction.

After leaving the office, Ann was more pissed than when she went in. She couldn't get out of this situation because of her guilt. Terrible thoughts swirled in her head. Who was going to win her? Were they going to expect something from her? Would this make the rumors about her and Kamoshida worse?

"I need to find another way out." She thought out loud. "If only I was a Phantom Thief again."

That's when it hit her. There was another way out. She could only hope that he didn't leave for the day.

As it happened, he was behind the school, running. Ryuji Sakamoto, middle school friend, ex-track star, dyed blond, and phantom thief. The two of them had spent an amazing year with an amazing group of people. At times, it all felt like a dream.

Unfortunately, the Phantom Thieves didn't meet up as frequently as they used to. Makoto was accepted by a prestigious college and spent much of her time studying. Haru was working to improve Okumura Food's image. Ren and Morgana moved back to Ren's hometown. Yusuke is still going to Kosei but he'll go days without contacting them and then show up later, hungry. Futaba was going to a different high school than Shujin in order to open herself up to people other than the Phantom Thieves. This left her with Ryuji.

After the Phantom Thieves, Ryuji continued training his body, especially his legs. Although he would never regain his former speed thanks to Kamoshida and he would never rejoin the track team, the bleached blond reasoned that it was still no excuse to break routine. Of late, he made a habit of roping Mishima into his workout. And as he finished his set, there was the blue haired youth, wheezing towards the finish line.

"Sakamoto. I can't anymore." Mishima wheezed out every word as he collapsed on the grass.

"That was a good run, Mishima." Ryuji smiled as he chugged a liter of ice cold water while tossing another to the guy on the floor.

"Good? It was torture." The blue haired youth coughed as he guzzled down the water like he hadn't had it in forever. "And you do this for fun?"

"Com'n." Ryuji laughed. "If you're serious about getting into shape, then you can't do this half-assed."

"You're one to talk, Ryuji." Ann retorted, announcing her presence.

Ryuji grimaced. "Did you come all this way to mock us?" His voice was quite blase. He was used to her comments by now and was too tired to come up with one of his own. Oh...wait. "You know, you could stand to lose a couple of kilograms yourself. Otherwise, that brown haired model is going to take the number one spot."

Watching her flustered face made it all worth it. He cracked up laughing.

"That is never going to happen. Mika-san is going to have to settle for second place." She seethed. "To think I wanted to come to you with my problem."

The dyes blond youth stopped laughing. "Sorry. I'm good. Tell me."

Ann pursed her lips. "Fine. But let's go somewhere else."

"Fine with me." Ryuji shrugged his shoulders. He looked at Mishima's prostrate form. "You gonna be good, Mishima?"

"Chest on fire. Death close." He wheezed out every word.

Ryuji motioned with his head for Ann to follow him. They walked a bit so that they were behind the school.

"What's up?" He asked.

"Have you read the flyers about a fundraiser?" Ann asked.

"What about it?" Ryuji had seen them posting something about a fundraiser. But that didn't really catch his interest. So he paid it no mind.

"Did you read the part about third year girls being auctioned off?" She couldn't keep the rage out of her voice.

"F'real?" He exclaimed. "Why?"

"The principal said that because of the Phantom Thieves, benefactors are not investing in the school." Ann explained. "So the third year girls are going to be auctioned off to date their highest bidder."

A perverted grin started to creep across his face. "Is that how it's going to be?" Ryuji could just imagine it. A date with one of the third year girls. He could almost imagine it. She would have a hot body and call him Sakamoto-sama or Sakamoto-senpai.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Ryuji." The blonde demanded, stamping on his foot. "This is serious. I'm gonna be on that auction."

"If you don't want to be in the auction, just tell the principal." The dyed blond youth stretched his limbs, only stopping when he heard that satisfying pop. "I heard he's a real pushover."

"That's the thing. He guilt-tripped me into doing it by using our year as Phantom Thieves against me." Ann couldn't keep the frustration out of her voice. "He said that it's thanks to them that benefactors haven't been giving money. The school could go broke."

Ryuji saw the look of desperation on her face. "What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to buy me."

I need you to buy me. That's what she said that day. Ryuji had agreed, mostly because she was his friend. How could he abandon her in her time of need? But he couldn't help but feel weird. Why come to him? He wasn't loaded and he didn't have a high paying job like Ren did. He made enough money to help ease his mom's burden and to have extra on the side. She must have been really desperate.

The auction was taking place in the gym while the rest of the fundraiser was being hosted in the auditorium. In truth, Ryuji wanted to see everything the fundraiser had to offer but he didn't know when Ann's turn was going to be so he had no choice but to stay in the gym.

"Hope I have enough." He grumbled after taking a seat.

Nine girls came and went before Ann came on stage. Unlike the other girls who dolled themselves up, Ann was in her school uniform. She crossed her arms and gave off an aura of "leave me alone".

"Next up is Ann Takamaki," the MC announced in a flourish. “A part-time model whose naturally blonde hair lights up any room.”

Ann blushed. Hearing the announcer describe her like that threw her off-guard.

“How about a twirl, Ann-chan?” The announcer cooed.

Ann set her glare at the MC. He must have caught it because he immediately looked away. “Well, what are my starting bids for Ann?”

500 yen, someone yelled out.

600

700

900

1200

Ann was stunned. The offers steadily rose, easily clearing 2,000 yen. From there, the increments increased by 500. She was barely registering the numbers, instead, trying to find Ryuji in the crowd.

4500

5000

5200

Her eyes scanned the room, looking for bleached blond hair. How difficult could it be to find him? A horrid thought crossed her mind. What if he abandoned her? She clenched her fist. She would make him pay if he did.

“7000 yen-” the announcer cried “-going once”

“8000 yen.”

Ann’s head whipped around sharply to where the voice originated. Sure enough, it was Ryuji, standing on his chair and yelling out his bid.

“Sakamoto’s bidding on Takamaki?” Perhaps that was meant as a whisper but Ann heard it loud and clear.

“Why should a punk like him date a pretty girl like Takamaki?” Another yelled.

“8250″

“8500″ Ryuji yelled in response.

Ann’s eyes widened. The bidding was much higher than she expected. At first, she was worried that Ryuji wouldn’t help her at all. Now she was worried that Ryuji wouldn’t have enough to win. Something akin to a gut punch made her stomach flip. She got the feeling that if Ryuji didn’t win, he would feel massively guilty, like he would be letting her down. Her eyes began to water. She wanted to tell Ryuji that it was okay, that he didn’t need to waste his money on her. But the words didn’t come,

8600

8700

8800

Back and forth they went in increments of one hundred until

“9500″ Ryuji yelled.

“Going once, going twice,”

“10,000″ the student who Ryuji was in a bidding war with announced triumphantly.

“10,000?” The announcer gasped incredulously. “10,000 going once”

Ann couldn’t bear to look Ryuji in the eye. She didn’t want to see his dismayed face.

“Going twice.”

“12,800.” Ryuji bellowed, holding the money in his hand.

An audible gasp emptied the air in the auditorium.

“12,800. Going once, going twice, sold to the blond guy still standing on his seat.”

Ann nearly burst into tears. It took all her strength to stay on her feet. Ryuji had come through for her.

Ann and Ryuji walked to the train station after the fundraiser was over. Neither said anything. Ann couldn’t express into words just how grateful she was. Ryuji had gone above and beyond to help her out.

“Thanks, Ryuji.” Her voice had cracked a bit due to her gratitude.

“Huh,” Ryuji snapped his attention to his friend. “Oh, it was nothing.”

“It was not nothing,” Ann told him, stamping her foot to get his attention. “I know I kinda sprung that on you last minute but you pulled through for me. So thanks.”

“Come on,” Ryuji scratched the back of his head. His cheeks started to stain pink. “You’re my friend. We’ve been through so much together. Of course, I’d help you if I can.”

That made Ann smile. It was just like Ryuji to make everything so simple. But that’s one of the things she liked about him.

“I have an idea,” The twin tailed girl spoke. “How about you and me hang out this Sunday? I’ll take you to my favorite crepes place.”

Ryuji stretched out his limbs. “Sure. I’ve got no plans that day.”

“Then it’s settled.” Ann pumped her fist in excitement. “You’re gonna love this place. I swear, you’ll be a sweets junkie at first bite.”

Sunday came. Ryuji walked down Central Street, looking for his friend. Thanks to her unique looks, he didn’t have to look hard. She was standing in front of the movie theaters. 

Ryuji waved at the blonde. “Sorry. Were you waiting long?”

Ann shook her head. “I just got here myself. Now let’s go. These crepes are going to rock your world.”

Ryuji faked a grimace as Ann dragged him towards their destination. Inwardly, he smiled. It was great that things haven’t changed that much since their days as Phantom Thieves.

Ann didn’t lie when she said the sweets in this place were out of this world. Even though he wasn’t a sweets person, the crepes were made to perfection. Each bite was a cacophony of flavors that complemented each other. Ryuji could see why Ann loved these things. He was in flavor town. Ann herself had polished off eight of them before they were done.

“Crepes are love. Crepes are life.” Ann sighed as they left.

Ryuji scratched the back of his head. “How can you eat so much sugary sweets and not gain so much weight?”

“Maybe my metabolism is just that great,” the blonde laughed.

A wicked grin crossed the ex-runner’s face. “Or maybe it just goes to your breasts.”

“WHAT?” She screeched.

“I can see it now,” Ryuji leered playfully. “Every crepe adds one centimeter to your bust size.”

Ann took a swipe at him. However, Ryuji had anticipated this and dodged her attack.

“Get back here and take your punishment.” Ann yelled, shaking fist and chasing after her friend.

Ryuji just laughed and ran away from her, watching as she chased him.

Ann and Ryuji spent the day hanging out in Shibuya, enjoying some of the sights and sounds of the city. Ryuji introduced Ann to the joys of the arcade and Ann took Ryuji to the underground mall to window shop. Near the end of the day, their travels led them to a sneaker store. Ryuji had stopped to stare.

“I didn’t know you were that into sneakers,” Ann said.

“You can’t be a good runner if you don’t have good sneakers,” Ryuji explained. “Arch support and cushioning are important for speed.”

Ann didn’t know that. She could understand shoes for fashion and for comfort. But a shoe for speed, that was something else entirely. It was quite eye-opening to step through the looking glass and see Ryuji’s world.

“Ahh, Ryuji-chan” a woman’s voice called to him. “You’ve come.”

A middle-aged woman stepped out of the store and greeted him. She was somewhat plain, a dusting of gray hair and wrinkles here and there. But her overall cheerful demeanor made her shine bright.

“Obaa-san,” Ryuji greeted in a friendly manner. “I didn’t know you were working today.”

 The store owner noticed that Ryuji wasn’t alone. “Oh, hello. Are you Ryuji-chan’s girlfriend?”

Both teenagers blushed at the implication. “N-n-no. We’re just friends,” Ryuji insisted.

The store owner gave them a wan smile. It was almost like she didn’t believe them. However, she let that go for the moment. It wouldn’t do to give her favorite customer the third degree.

“So what brings you in, Ryuji-chan? Are you here to buy the sneakers you’ve put on reserve?” She motioned to sneakers that were out on the display window.

Ann couldn’t stop her eyes from following to where the sneakers were. She read the tag. It was Assassin brand sneakers, a simple pair of white sneakers with red laces and black soles. Apparently they were sneakers popular with runners. Even knowing little about sneakers, she knew that these Assassin sneakers were very good. Then she read the price tag. It was 12,800 yen. The number struck her as familiar but she couldn’t place why it was.

“About that,” Ryuji started. “I don’t have the money this week. Can you hold it in reserve for another week while I scrap together the money?” He ended his request by clasping his hands together in an imploring manner.

The store manager looked at him in sadness. “I’m sorry, Ryuji-chan,” she apologized. “But you know our policy. We can only reserve sneakers for four weeks, no more, even for you. I’m really sorry.”

Ryuji hung his head in defeat. “I understand.”

As the bleached blond walked towards the back to look at other sneakers, a realization came to Ann. She knew now why the price tag was so familiar. It was the same amount of money Ryuji used to win her lot in the auction. It hit her all at once. Ryuji had been saving up enough money to buy a pair of rare sneakers he wanted. And along comes Ann Takamaki, without any consideration of Ryuji’s feelings, and demands that he use his hard-earned money on her. A sickening feeling bubbled in her stomach as it dawned on her. She had used Ryuji in the same way that she herself didn’t liked to be used. And she felt guilty because of it.

“Miss, are you okay,” the shopkeeper asked.

Ann snapped out of her self-loathing party to pay attention to her surroundings. “Sorry. I was out of it.” Her light-blue eyes turned towards Ryuji. He was examining another pair of sneakers, feeling the weight and texture of it.

“I’ve known Ryuji-chan ever since he started doing track,” the shopkeeper told her. “He is brash and impulsive and not so quick on the uptake.” Ann couldn’t help but smile at the words. “But despite all of that, he has a good heart. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah, he does,” Ann agreed. The shopkeeper had no idea. Ryuji helped her with Kamoshida, had defended countless times a Phantom Thief. Hell, he nearly died saving them in Shido’s Palace. And now, he spent the money he would have had to buy the sneakers he wanted but instead, he spent it to spare her from being bought by someone else to do gods know what by gods know who.

The two watched Ryuji compare sneakers.

“So, tell me the truth. Are you Ryuji-chan’s girlfriend?”

Ann flushed magnificently. The contrast between her red face, blonde hair, and blue eyes was something to behold. “No,” she squeaked, unable to control the volume of her voice. “We’re just good friends.”

The shopkeeper made a sound, indicating that she wasn’t sure that was the case but she didn’t say anything else beyond that. Thankfully, Ryuji sauntered up to them, preventing things from becoming more awkward.

“Welp, I’m finished. Ann, you ready to go?” He asked.

Ann’s guilt started to double back on her. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

“Thanks for stopping by, Ryuji-chan,” the shopkeeper waved goodbye as the two teens left her store. “Say hello to your mother for me. Please come again.”

The train ride back was quite silent, unbearably so. Ann was in a pool of self-pity for using Ryuji without any consideration. As for Ryuji, he was trying to figure out what was going on with Ann. Finally, they had come to their stop. Ann and Ryuji hopped off the train and headed into the street. This intersection was where they had to go their separate ways.

“Well,” Ryuji turned towards the direction of his apartment, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ann. Today was really fun.”

As Ryuji walked away, Ann couldn’t help but shout at him to wait. Ryuji turned around to see his friend’s face filled with determination, like she wanted to tell him something important.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” Ryuji asked.

“I’m sorry,” Ann cried out.

The bleached blond furrowed his eyebrows. “For what?”

“I didn’t know you were saving your money for something else.” Ann’s guilt came back as a tidal wave. “I bothered you with my problem, never thinking that you had your own thing going on.”

“Ann...”

“I used you. And now, you can’t afford to buy the sneakers you wanted, simply because I made you spend your money on me.” Tears had come unbidden and started to stream down her face. Ann bowed her head so that Ryuji didn’t see her crying. The last thing she wanted was for him to see her cry.

“Ann, listen to me.” Before Ann realized it, Ryuji had closed the distance between the two of them. “You didn’t make me spend my money. I spent it to help you.”

“But...”

“Ann,” he said in a voice that would brook no other rebuttals. “You asked for my help. I helped you. You’re my friend and that’s more important to me than any sneaker that has ever or will ever come out.”

Ann was stunned by his frank admission. He helped her simply because they were friends. It remind her of the shopkeeper’s words. He has a good heart. Truer words were never spoken. The fact that he would lose out on something he wanted just to help her solidify the fact that underneath his headstrong attitude was an amazing person. Sure, she may deride his somewhat perverted nature and may mock his intelligence once in a while, the fact remains that Ann was very lucky to have Ryuji Sakamoto as a friend.

“Ryuji.” Ann whispered. “Thanks. For everything.”

Ryuji grinned. “No problem.”

As Ryuji was about turn away to go home, Ann called out to him once more. “Can you do me one more favor?”

“Hmm, what’s up?”

A dusting of pink tinged her cheeks. “Can you close your eyes for a minute?”

“Huh? Why?” Ryuji didn’t understand why Ann was requesting this.

“Please?” Her voice came out more earnest than she expected.

Ann’s request threw him off. So he did as she asked and closed his eyes.

Years later, if you had asked Ann what compelled her to do what she was about to do now, she wouldn’t be able to give you a clear answer. But her body moved on its own. Lo and behold, Ann’s lips pressed against the corner of Ryuji’s lips. That’s not what she meant to do. It was suppose to be a kiss on the cheek. How did that happen? Did she close her eyes just before the kiss? But she couldn’t take it back now.

As for Ryuji, once he felt the pressure from Ann’s lips, his eyes shot open. Ann was kissing him. ANN. TAKAMAKI. WAS. KISSING. HIM. On the list of things that could happen to him, this was not one of them. And before he could react, she pulled away.

“See you tomorrow,” Ann quickly shot out before she sprinted away.

“Ann, wait.” Ryuji sprinted after her. There was no way that he could let her go away without giving him a chance to speak. Thankfully, he was still much faster than his fellow Phantom Thief so he caught up with her instantly and grabbed her arm.

Ann didn’t turn around but neither did she struggle to break free. “You don’t have to say anything,” she said in an even tone that betrayed nothing. “I just wanted to thank you. That was the best way how.”

“Ann, listen, I.” The kiss flustered Ryuji to the point that he didn’t know what to say. That was a first for him.

Ann wanted to see the look on Ryuji’s face but she was too embarrassed. But she was sure it was rather silly.

“Next week,” the bleached blond started. “If you’re free, you wanna hang out? You know, just you and me.”

Was she hearing right? “Are you asking me out on a date?” Ann still didn’t look at him. She wasn’t sure she could handle it right now.

“It doesn’t have to be a date,” he offered, letting go of her hand and waving his own in a frantic manner. “It could just be two friends hanging out.”

Ann waited a beat. “I’m going to see Shiho next week.”

“Oh.” Ryuji was deflated. He turned to walk away, not wanting to make things more awkward than it was.

“But, I’ll be free the week after that,” she offered. “We can go then.”

Ryuji turned around and saw that Ann was finally looking at him. She was smiling. That made him smile.

“Alright then,” Ryuji grinned. “See you at school tomorrow.”

“Yeah”

It was strange. Who would have thought that a school fundraiser could lead to something like this? Neither Ann nor Ryuji expected that this event could bring them closer. And yet, it did. And soon after, the two of them started dating. Who would have guessed? Perhaps it’s not surprising that two former Phantom Thieves still in the same school would deepen their relationship. But it was a welcomed surprise.

More than half a year had passed and their relationship was only getting stronger. Christmas came and the Phantom Thieves got together, spending their holiday at Leblanc. It was a small but wonderful celebration.

A small plastic tree was set up on top of one of the booths. The gang had left their presents for each other under it. Ryuji saw a rectangular box with his name on it. Getting greedy, he grabbed and shook its contents.

“Oooh, I wonder what Santa-san left me,” he chuckled.

“You still believe in Santa? Lame,” Futaba cackled.

“You’re just not into the holiday spirit.” The bleached blond accentuated that statement by sticking out his tongue. “I’m gonna open it.”

With little preamble, Ryuji tore into the present. It was a sneaker box. When he opened it, his mouth stood agape. There it was, the Assassin sneakers that he had wanted from months ago. Only one person knew about that.

“Ann?” He didn’t trust himself to speak. “How did you...”

Ann gave her boyfriend a saucy wink. “You forget that I’m a part-time model. After that day, I got in contact with people to get that pair.” She told him of just how difficult it was to get it. “The hardest part was getting a pair in your size. But the shopkeeper helped me with that.”

Ryuji immediately hugged Ann tightly. “You’re the best girlfriend a guy could ask for.” He kissed her temple to punctuate that.

Ann fake-struggled to get out of his embrace. “Let go. You’re embarrassing me.”

Ryuji just laughed and hugged her tighter.

[hazelnut1313]

The cons far outweigh the pros.

I’m sorry, but I can’t bring myself to play My Candy Love anymore.

When University Life was announced, I was as excited as anyone. We all had the expectation that our boys would be coming back, the characters would have new models and some development to them personality-wise, and that we would be continuing the relationship we had with our date of choice since 2012 or whenever we joined the site.

I joined MCL right when episode 17 came out, when the Deborah arc was about to be completed. Which is now around 4-5 years ago I think. The art style has improved since then, and so has the relationship we had with our date. I played with the expectation that this game would be an otome, as advertised. Meaning that Candy would actually build a relationship with her date, and you know, ACTUALLY GO ON DATES??

Instead, we are given 40 episodes of build up, where the MC is running around solving other peoples problems, the relationship with our date not even happening until episode 30. Ten episodes later, the characters graduate and even they blatantly say “Well it’s not like we are going to disappear!”

Well apparently they do?

University Life completely flipped the game, and not in a good way. The new sprites look cool yes, Nathaniel is looking FINE, but that’s not doing much to help the fact that Beemov has apparently decided to take a nose dive when it comes to the respect its players have in them.

You have repeatedly asked us to trust you, and yet treat us like idiots. Yes, we realize it’s a game. We’ve realized that since day one. You obviously realize that since you MADE the game. However mocking players who are understandably upset at your choices in regards to the changes to MCL’s system is shocking, considering you are supposed to be a business. If there is nobody to consume your product, the business fails. That’s how it works. Getting miffed that people are complaining about your product and then saying “Well don’t play it then” is a surefire way to get your fandom to just hate you and also just makes you look bad. A better way of dealing with criticism would be “Well why don’t you like it? I can’t guarantee I’ll deliver all the results you want, but I am willing to listen.” Or at least something like that. The community is what sustains your business. Remember that.

The removal of 3/5 of the main boys was a mistake. You are alienating 60% of your players in favour of the 40% who played Castiel and Nathaniel’s routes in High School Life. Not only is this unfair to the rest of us, but it is also a poor business move. I understand that there is a limit to the number of routes you can code, but in that case at least remove ALL of the old main routes if you want a new, fresh game? 

The new routes themselves seem pretty okay, but two I have issues with. As a bisexual person, I am thrilled at a Priya option, yet kind of disappointed that it was at the cost of the boys? Was it too much to hope for both? For some reason in this game dating a teacher is more important than continuing the relationship with the boys we know and love while also gaining Priya as a female option?

Having a teacher as a dating option just...disgusts me. I know the MC is like 22 in game now but she is still in a school environment and it doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t care if people find him hot or whatever, he’s still a teacher in a school environment, in a position of authority. It’s disturbing.

Now the AP system. What a mess.

It’s probably one of the main reasons that I’ll be dropping MCL, just from my disgust at such a blatant money grab. For some reason, Candy monologuing to herself counts as a dialogue, which makes 0 sense and is also mind-numbingly irritating since Candy thinks to herself a lot. Others players report that it takes 1000 AP just to go through the first episode, and since you put a 1000 AP cap on, means that the majority of the die-hard players you will have left will need to wait at least 3 months or so to get enough AP to play the next episode without spending money out of their own pockets. Since you’ve apparently applied this to HS life as well, I’ve lost all enthusiasm for playing your game, HSL or UL. From this point on, I will quietly observe the content people state about UL to see if it gets better from here, but I won’t be participating in supporting you as a company anymore. I was willing to have faith in you, or at least see your side of the story, but I am floored by the blatant disrespect you as a company have shown your customers by refusing to address our concerns and even mocking us while you plug your ears from gentle criticism by people on here and on the MCL forums who genuinely loved your game. I want you to do well as a company, I really do, but if you continue on this path of treating us like trash and invalidate our feelings about things that directly affect us, unfortunately there is a high chance that less people will find interest in your game, and therefore limit you as a company.

[dwollsadventures]

TDG Prologue 3 - Devil

After a century of imprisonment, one prisoner is finally being released. The prison guard assigned to walk him out is troubled by a single fact gnawing at his heart: Seth Farofeil Locke is the devil himself. -- AH It's finally done. The revision of the final prologue!!

If you've ever wondered who the fellow with the rainbow glasses you've seen in my galleries is, this is him. And the primary antagonist of the gang, even if he doesn't show up right away. 

My original plan was to finish writing and publish it on October 30th, but I got influenza and panicked that it was actually the plague. Turns out, it wasn't! Still pretty dangerous and I've been feeling like shit, but still a big weight off my shoulders. Halloween is as good a day as any to publish it though. It is sort of scary in some parts. 

Warning though, there is some verbal violence and mentioning of some violence (towards people and animals), and strong language as well. On par for demonic stuff, but he doesn't actually do any of it. 

The next updates, writing-wise, include some cover art for this story and the actual first part of the TDG Acronym Pending. 

Enjoy whenever you want, regardless of how thin the veil between the dead and the living is, and have a happy Halloween!

--

On this day, October 30th, 1961, a man was released from prison and nobody was happy about it. Except the man in question of course.

               Under the fluorescent lights of the block, there was no noise except for the footsteps of the guard, miserably marching towards his cell. The absence of noise let the footsteps and their echoes bounce around, until they became so distorted it sounded as if a giant were walking through the halls. Walsh normally liked the silence of the prison. Now it was more awful than anything he could imagine.

               Despite the early glow of morning light betraying the fact it was nearly six am, every inmate in the block was awake. Staring at Walsh. He wanted nothing more than to shout at them, to tell them to mind their own damn business and keep their faces away from the bars. Under normal circumstances he would have, too. Now he didn’t trust his own voice not to crack.

               The pressure of all that attention hammered away at the officer’s mind. It was as if he were an inmate being wheeled away by a couple of officers for the electric chair, an act Walsh had participated in a few times, but never on this end. His fingers itched for weapons he wasn’t allowed to bring with him.

               In the darkness every haggard face looked at him anxiously. They all knew where he was going. The younger inmates may have noticed the similarity to a cartoon, where an unfortunate soul looks at the trail of gunpowder light as they sit on a box of dynamite. No such connection happened. Firstly, because there were very few young prisoners in the high security Galgenvogel.  Secondly, the only person in the prison who might have laughed about the situation was Locke himself.

               He was the reason they were all awake. Some of them hadn’t even been able to sleep the night before, others made each other promises to wake them up before it happened. They weren’t sure what was going to happen. Most of them had never thought Seth Farofeil Locke was capable of being released from prison. Even those not skilled in algebra knew Locke equaled prison. It was like watching a fundamental piece of the universe disintegrating in front of their eyes. But if anything was going to happen they wanted good seats.

The guard continued his resolute march with his attention on the path in front of him. The scuffed steel walkway seemed so solid compared to the rows of strained faces. That comfort was short-lived. Even the honest steel in front of him seemed to melt before his eyes, twisting the floor into the red-hot road leading to Hell. Walsh’s prison was melting before his very eyes.

Galgenvogel Penitentiary was known for two things: being the oldest operating prison in Illinois, and being a huge, dull block of brutalist efficiency. Its walls were blank concrete and metal, so thick a tank would need a week to bust in and so sleek even spiders had trouble scaling them. The inside of the prison was the same; metal had only been integrated decades ago and the dark iron railing stood plainly against the dreary grey of the stone walls. Though it was primarily a medium-security prison the stark dress did nothing to correct many people’s assumption that the single maximum-security unit was its sole purpose.

Even the uniforms worn by the inmates were devoid of color: white for general circulation, black for high-security, and grey for those on watch in circulation.

Walsh, the senior-most guard, had always expressed his opinion that a good monochrome always made them feel like they were in prison. He'd go on to say that all this orange and blue and green was part of what was wrong these days, with the recidivism rates as high as they are; gang-bangers jumping in and out all the time, swapping one color for another, it made him sick.

If there were a better representative of Galgenvogel than Walsh, he'd probably shouted at them. Walsh was, in his army days, lauded by his superior officers for being "big". It had gotten him high praise and higher wages back then. Now, with nearly forty years working under his belt, he was merely big. He was as grey as the building, though usually pink in the sunlight, with a topping of black hair and a big black moustache which his wife said made him look distinguished. Galgenvogel didn't hire guards for their kindness, nor their smarts, nor their sense of justice (although Walsh did consider himself a rather judicially minded man), especially in the Twenties. All the other prison guards looked up to him. A man of his seniority and experience was highly valued in a prison like Galgenvogel. There wasn’t a nook or cranny left that he hadn’t personally reported on.

Everyone at the prison, barring the inmates, whose opinion didn’t count, knew that Walsh was a good man. Raised Christian right around Chicago with a big family and a modest one of his own. If he could name a stain upon his soul, one singular sin that made even him question his own placement in the divine firmament, it was this belief: that Seth Farofeil Locke was the devil himself.

This wasn’t some crazy delusion, he assured himself. It had taken him nearly a decade of knowing Locke to fully accept it. He had all the evidence he needed as well.

It was a secret he was loath to share with anyone. His fellow guards, the wardens, even his own wife. In his day Walsh had dealt with gangsters and dragged murderers and lunatics to the electric chair. He placed himself as a stalwart wall against the criminal darkness to protect the innocent. The fact this one, singular man posed the greatest challenge he had ever known drove Walsh up the wall.

To Walsh’s knowledge Locke was as clean as a whistle. He had never thrown a punch, participated in a riot, or said anything to incite violence in others. Which wasn’t to say every word out of his mouth was clean and shiny. No, Locke had a special way with words. His tongue could infuriate the most stoic and subdue the most homicidal. Never once had he gotten a job or joined in on any of the other inmate’s games or activities. He’d checked out two books from the prison library during his entire stay at Galgenvogel and had never bought anything from the commissary.

Locke was perfectly fine to eat whatever the prison gave him, sleep whenever the guards told him to, do anything to waste away the days until he got released. Even if it meant staring at a wall for hours on end, looking at the strange shapes the bars were morphed into by the dying sunlight.

Once Walsh had gotten permission to throw Locke into solitary for three days after he was late for a count. For three days he heard nothing and saw nothing. On the last night of the third day Walsh escorted Locke back. He had asked him about his stay in the hole. Locke shrugged noncommittally and simply replied, “been in worse holes”. And that was that.

Walsh hated him. None of the other inmates made him feel as old and slow as Locke did. The guard was a big man, even in a profession where that wasn’t much to distinguish him. Galgenvogel let him carry big weapons, weapons they got from the army when they didn’t need them anymore. There hadn’t been a man Walsh had met that couldn’t be beat down given enough time. Except Locke. Everything passed over him like a gust of wind. Physical force, verbal haranguing, harsh punishment, it was all the same to him. He was the only prisoner Walsh had ever needed to use his brain to combat.

For as long as he’d been at Galgenvogel the two had been caught in a fiendish game of cat and mouse. Just when Walsh thought he had him, Locke slipped between his fingers once more and the game continued. All those chases over all those years for it to end like this.

In front of his cell, waiting for the watchtower to unlock it, he was face to face with the present. Without the lights on it was as dark as the mouth to a dragon’s cave.

Walsh could feel the inmates’ stares burn into his back like lashes as the cell door clicked open.

Locke was waiting for him. He sat on the edge of his bed in civilian clothes given to him by the prison. No one else was inside. For some reason or another, Locke was always alone.

In his hands were probably the only personal possessions Locke had ever had, two red dominoes. At least, Walsh thought they were dominoes. They looked like dominoes at least, the color of redwood and smoothed by years of being passed from hand to hand, slipped between his fingers like a magic trick.

Once Walsh had gotten them from him during an inspection. Despite his probing they weren’t laced with drugs. The symbols on them looked like pieces from a mahjong board, and despite his insistence none of them were gang signs. During the week they were gone, Locke stuck to his cell and shambled around like a ghost. Afterwards the correctional officers classified them as “depression-alleviating equipment” and that they were not to be taken from him anymore.

Regardless, the prison guards tried their best to sneak them away from him, often failing. To their knowledge none of the other prisoners had ever laid hands on them.

One night, one of the junior guards thought he saw them sitting on Locke’s eyes while he slept, like coins for the dead. Walsh was the only guard at the prison who made the effort to keep an eye on Locke. Amongst the staff Locke was a taboo subject.

Now the dominoes were simply jingling in his pockets. Locke stood up and nodded to Walsh. He wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible. He did not look back at his cell as he left.

With little pomp and circumstance, he led Locke out and towards freedom.

As Locke made his way across the block, the other inmates stared. On their faces was a mixture of confusion, contempt, pity, and relief. No one wished Locke goodbye and good wishes. No one shook his hand. No one said anything. They just kept staring at him.

The penitent theater gazed upon the two actors on the steel stage, breaths held in anticipation. Would he burst into flames as soon as he crossed the threshold? Or would snakes shoot out of his orifices? Would he make a mad dash for the warden and slice up anyone he met on the way? They didn’t know. They just kept waiting.

Walsh was by no means a shy man. He was a regular at the baseball stadium and his boisterous cheering could carry over the roar of a Cub's game straight out to the parking lot. Now, with hundreds of faces staring at Locke, he felt like an extra in a movie, the ones all dressed in black so they could move props without getting in the way of the actors.

By the time they’d crossed the barrier out of the block Walsh’s throat felt like it was tied in knots. He picked up his equipment, including his gun which he felt immeasurably safer carrying, and wiped off his brow.

If the walk affected Locke at all he was doing an amazing job at hiding it. He just kept staring ahead, twiddling the dominoes in his hand.

To break the silence Walsh cleared his throat and asked, “No one to say goodbye to back there?” Partly to ease the tension, partly to get a name to interrogate later.

Locke shrugged.

The continued walking out of the depths of the prison. Windows now let the early morning light in, basking the two in pink light which made Locke’s hair look like wildfire.

No friends, not a single one. During his initial investigation Walsh had spoken to some of the correctional officers, to see if Locke had gang affiliations or something of the sort. Perhaps a past inclination to associate with fellows of a darker nature. Anything that would seem more likely than him being a… demon. Walsh felt too embarrassed to even think the word now.

Luck did not favor Walsh. Everyone in the prison knew Locke, he was tied to the building, like an incarcerated genie. The C.O.s had noticed other men tended to seek out Locke for little things; favors or information. And he never ate alone. There was always one group that could manage to find space for him on the bench. A young Walsh found that every man who Locke hung around with expressed dislike, even hatred for him. Locke didn’t keep his mouth shut. Jokes leapt off his tongue as easily as flies, often spiraling into venomous spiels. Personal ones, too. He had a knack for figuring out secrets and what made people tick, and how to tic them off. Yet regardless of their opinion, they always kept coming back to him. Just like he did.

Walsh was the senior-most prison guard. The rest of his sign-on buddies had left, one by one, due to injury or stress (being sissies about it, he reflected) or plain old retiring. Not Walsh. When he first came aboard it was in the twenties. After his service in the Great War, back when it was called the Great War, he'd gotten a job at his home-town's police station but got an even better deal at Galgenvogel from his old sergeant. There he avoided all of the nonsense that the market-crash brought with it and rode a secure wave all the way to the prison equivalent of tenure.

Back then he had a lot more friends, people who he could reasonably confide in. Never in a million years did he share his secret suspicion, but there were at least other people willing to acknowledge that something about Locke didn’t seem right. His old friends helped him even though they didn’t know what he was actually looking for.

The older prison guards never helped him. All he got from them were shifty eyes and downcast gazes. He’d never liked the spineless old men. He’d vowed never to give the new recruits the same treatment. Some of them wished he would, always prying into their lives, lecturing them like a father. 

Locke’s official paperwork didn’t offer much enlightening evidence. The three sheets of paper that constituted his record were from decades ago and tended to get details wrong. Eye color and hair color shifted twice and all three listed his age as 33 even with multi-year gaps between the writing.

One record noted a visitation in 1914 with two of his brothers. Frustratingly the names were not listed, and no other report mentions any kind of family. Walsh reasoned they were probably former accomplices of whatever put him in jail. Even a few years into the job he’d grown suspicious of visitors into his prison. Half of them were probably making sure the inmates didn’t squeal on those outside.

Within time both the paper trail and his patience puttered out. Walsh was not a book-learned man and he had no aspirations of following the paper trail.

He had all but given up his notion when one day a key landed itself in his pocket. To this day Walsh could still not recall how it got there. In the back of his mind theories crawled like spiders, but he tried to ignore them.

The key was for a lockbox in the archives. A separate building from the blocks and main center which went underground. In the cramped, dark underground room he found his key’s home. Prison records of Galgenvogel from the years 1860-1870.

Walsh knew the prison was old. Just knowing didn’t prepare him for what he found. Reports of arrests and prisoners, hand-written in curly font that made his eyebrow twitch. Though he assured himself he didn’t have to deal with any of this pencil-pushing crap, he kept reading. And reading. And reading.

Until one report for September 31st, 1861. A prisoner report appended with an arrest report and various court documents. They read that, on the night of September 13th a man claiming to be Seth Farofeil Locke was discovered in the garden of a wealthy family from the Gold Coast of Chicago. Alongside him was the family’s sole daughter, Lily Lyehope, hung from a noose. Mr. Locke was arrested, pled guilty, and sentenced to life in prison at the newly opened Galgenvogel where the judge ruled that he, “shall be confined there for the rest of a man’s natural life.”  

Walsh didn't know what to think. Obviously, there must've been some kind of mix up. Locke was probably this guy's son, or grandson. When he got back to the guard tower, the key had disappeared from his pocket.

One week later, there was a fire in the archives. The newer records were kept intact, but everything from sixty years or so ago had been tragically destroyed. This was when Walsh’s suspicions were confirmed true.

No matter what he tried to do to forget, it never left his mind. Even on the days when he didn't think about it, the memory sat in the back of his thoughts waiting for the moment to pounce on his uneasy mind. He'd come to the prison a young man and became an old one through his years of service. Walsh gained weight, lost hair, got wrinkles, grew stiff in the joints, learned to cope with his inevitable death, and even lost a finger to a man on death row. When he joined, all those years ago, he thought Locke was a young man. Time passed, and he figured he was just young-looking for his age.

As Walsh walked Locke through door after door of prison security, watching him sign legal papers, he realized Locke was the exact same man as he’d met forty years ago. The only thing that was different was the uniform.

Walsh was possibly the only man alive who knew the truth. 

Around this time the façade began to crumble. He couldn’t help it. All the inmates knew Locke as the guy who was in before them, who knew the prison and everyone in it. Even the ones given life sentences, who’d been in the prison longer than Walsh had. One night, after several before devoid of sleep and full of phantom Lockes watching him from the darkness, he’s snapped and beaten a man giving him trouble well beyond the point of reason.

The warden gave him a few nights off for paid vacation, ‘to rest your mind’. It was the worst vacation of his life. At home he wrestled with the thoughts until he got an ulcer. At first, he thought he needed to hightail it out of there, get his family away from the demonic threat in the prison. Walsh did not decide to do that.

Why did he join as a prison guard in the first place? Why did he go to Europe as a young man? Because he wanted to protect people. He wanted to be a warrior, a defender of the innocent. So, he marched back to the prison reassured of his new position as the last defense against the fiends of Hell.

When he got back, he never asked about the beaten prisoner.

His mission had started ever since then. Walsh was a man who operated best when he was following orders, and as far as he could concern these orders were heaven-sent.

Not being able to tell his wife and kids was the most aggravating part. If they knew the kind of danger he was putting himself in front of every day, they would show him more respect.

It had been long and hard. These forty years took a toll on Walsh, harder than even the trenches. Keeping track of him wasn’t that hard. He never left the prison and only ever switched between general circulation and high security once. And, compared to his other duties as a prison guard Locke wasn’t dangerous. The only damage he’d ever inflicted on anyone in prison had been rhetorical, his tongue could be razor sharp when it needed to be. In truth, after his vacation Walsh had never needed mental help dealing with his feelings, like some of the other pansies he worked with. But it was still hard. If not literal hardship, then poetic hardship.

Excluding his many hardships and daunting heavenly mission, Walsh reflected that his career had been successful. Whenever he didn’t have to deal with Locke the job was steady, and he could probably sink into a comfortable life after retirement. It looked like it was all smooth sailing for Walsh.

“And what do you plan to do after re-entering society? Do you have any careers in mind?”

“Yes sir, one of my buddies hooked me up with a gig. Sweet by the looks of it. Everything I’ve ever wanted to do and more, just need to take the bus to Toledo.”

Seeing him sign his name in the warden’s office and talk with him about his plans for after he got out, it didn’t seem real. None of it did. Locke was leaving. Ever since the retrial last week, life seemed like a dream.

Walsh was called in for an inmate’s trial. Nothing new, he’d done it before, usually to provide first-hand evidence of their behavior and infractions. Informing a court with a rapt audience of some ne’er-do-well’s bad conduct was one of the little joys of the job.

When he heard the judge proclaim Locke’s name, and saw him walk in through the courtroom doors, his heart had sunk. Lights flashed before his eyes. Something was wrong. How could he have missed the name?

It was an especially hot day. A stroke of misfortune on the weather’s part brought an October heat wave. No one questioned Walsh’s perspired brow, his dry throat.

His eyes were glued on Locke the entire trial. All he did was sit there, looking thoroughly disinterested with the theatre of law and order. If the men next to him were suspicious of Walsh’s rapt gaze, they didn’t say anything. Or Walsh didn’t hear them. They didn’t matter anyway. How was Locke going to squeeze his way out of this one?

Finally, he was called for a statement.

From his spot, he could see the jury, the few seated, the lawyer, and Locke. Everyone except Locke and his lawyer was anxious and fidgeting in their seats. Even the judge had to clear his throat after a failed start-up.

“Now, Mr. Walsh, are you able to corroborate Mr. Locke’s… age?”

The pause caught him off guard.

“Age, your honor?”

The judge’s eyes swiveled around, as if he were scared the defense was listening to him.

“Yes, Mr. Locke’s age. Sir Nemo, his lawyer, has claimed Locke to be 132 years old. And thus, he has more than served his life sentence. Is there anything that you can do to confirm or deny this?”

Walsh realized it now. In any other circumstance the whole court would have been called out. But this was Locke they were talking about. His freedom hinged entirely upon Walsh’s testimony.

He wanted to lie. If it meant foiling his plans Walsh would have told the court Locke was born this morning. Something stirred within Walsh, in this moment. He had placed his hand on the Bible. He had put his faith in it entirely. Now, in his heart, he knew if he did the right thing and told the truth, Locke would be forced to give up and maybe even burst into ashes.

Walsh spoke. He told the court nothing but the truth. About the report he’d found, about how Locke didn’t age, about how he seemed to exist separate from the stream of time. He poured every inch of honesty into his speech. Pure, unadulterated faith exuded from Walsh’s pores.

It was the first time the Good Book had failed him.

His lawyer successfully managed to convince the court that the language, “rest of a man’s natural life,” technically did not qualify as an actual life sentence. Furthermore, by any medical assessment, Locke had fulfilled his time and more. No one argued. No one wanted to be in that sweltering courtroom anymore. Even releasing a murderer seemed like a small price to pay for their peace and comfort.

The gavel struck Walsh in the head and the judge’s words poured out of his ears. Seth Farofeil Locke has served his life sentence and was free to go.

Days afterward Walsh moved through the world like a ghost. His eyes were blank, and he responded to others in mere mumbles. It was as if the life had drained out of him. He didn’t tail Locke. He didn’t listen in on the inmate’s gossip. He didn’t believe it.

Locke, meanwhile, was more alive than he had been in the last century. He was getting around and talking to people. Not trading information either, he was really talking to them: sitting with them at lunch to discuss life outside, learning how to play poker (which he developed quite a knack for), even spending evenings at the library. The color had returned to Locke’s grey life.

At one point he had even gotten Tony Larone, Tony Larone the biggest meanest brick wall ever given sentience, Tony Larone the man who during Prohibition killed his two buddies after they ratted him out, Tony Larone who hadn’t smiled since Hoover was in office, to laugh. By Galgenvogel’s standards, it was a miracle.

The closer his release date came, the more Locke flourished and Walsh wilted. For the briefest moment he had considered calling in sick. Only for a moment though. He needed to see this to the end. It was what he was owed, for all those years that had been stole from him. It was hard though. Walsh’s lucidity was slipping. He kept seeing things; fire in the skies and snakes biting their own tails populated his waking and sleeping hours.

Two nights before release Locke was making more phone calls than any other inmate. He could be seen writing in a pad all across the prison and said he was working on his “escape plans”.

During a routine check in the library, before closing, Walsh found that pad. Open to the most recent page, written in cursive so ornate it looked like calligraphy:

Events of Importance: Civil War Abolition of slavery Forty-five hundred dead Indians 2 World Wars “Adam?” bombs

IMPORTANT! Remember to use “burn” cars, so mortals can’t track

Contacts (revised): Go to Toledo, by Walbridge Park. Meet Amon. Best bet to get into Hell. Make sure to bring necessary ingredients for Hellmouth

He walked to Locke’s cell and handed it to him.

None of it phased Walsh, who was so convinced the last week had been a dream that such blatant evidence which confirmed his decades-long conspiracy was clearly lazy effort on his subconscious’s part.

That was how Walsh was treating most of his day-to-day life, actually.

It wasn’t until he saw Locke finish writing the last curly “e” on his signature that reality came to drag Walsh into the terrible present. That was it. The last bit of paperwork, the last performative bureaucracy needed to prove to the world that Locke was no longer an inmate. All he needed to do was wait for the bus.

For no real reason, except perhaps shock, Walsh sat across from him in the waiting room. Soon, when the officer at the front desk left (“it’s seven am, not like anything’s going to happen in here”) they were alone, together.

Locke, in denim from toe to tip two sizes bigger than his body, looked out the window at the rising sun and the gathering storm clouds. Red dominoes slipped between his fingers faster than the eyes could see.

Walsh simply looked at the floor.  

Why am I so beat up about this? He couldn’t find an answer. Locke was the devil. He should be glad to see him leave and slam the door on the way out.

But… did he ever do anything particularly devilish? Not that Walsh could recall. There was the arrest record and the archives being burned. And the writing pad with his plans to go to Hell. Aside from that though, Locke never gave Walsh any problems. Locke even spared Walsh the verbal lacerations he so readily gave out to others.  

They weren’t friends. No, Locke was his nemesis. His villain. Walsh watched over him for years, decades even. He’d known Locke for too long. Longer than anyone, really. Longer than his work buddies. Longer than his neighbors. Longer than his wife.

They couldn’t be friends. Just because they’d known each other for so long didn’t mean they were friends. Walsh wasn’t friends with his kids. The brats hated him! A friend was someone you knew.  Someone you set boundaries with and met with every day. Which. Walsh did do. There was probably no one alive that knew Locke as well as he did.

Friends enjoyed each other’s company though. Did Walsh enjoy Locke’s company? It was so rare that they weren’t surrounded by thugs and criminals that he didn’t really know. Perhaps, compared to the rest of the trash at Galgenvogel, Walsh did remember Locke with something akin to fondness. Maybe Locke would too.

Galgenvogel. Locke and Galgenvogel, the two were intertwined in Walsh’s head. And Walsh liked his job at the prison. Even with the bruises and scrapes he wouldn’t give up a minute of it. Now that he thought about it, Locke was an integral part of that. He was challenging. No other person had ever put Walsh through such a rigamarole as Locke did. Walsh liked that challenge.

Were they friends?

Something clicked in his head. He was sad to see Locke go. A part of Walsh was leaving through that door with him.

Maybe when Locke got his feet on the ground they could meet up, outside of the prison. That would be nice, he reflected. Walsh had never mentioned his work to his family, but that was a good thing. He didn’t want to introduce them all to Locke the Jail Devil, he wanted them to meet Locke the friend.

Wind and the smell of rain tore into the waiting room as the door opened. The bus driver stumbled through, chilled to the bone. Every evidence of that morning’s sun was gone, replaced with rain so cold it nearly froze on contact. The bus was in dire need of fuel so the inmates, or inmate as it were, could wait inside for a little bit longer. 

Locke asked if he could wait on the bus.

“’S cold as dick, but if you wanna freeze I won’t stop you.”

The bus driver headed out into the cold once more as Locke stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

Spurred on by emotions unfamiliar to him, Walsh cried out “Wait!”

Locke didn’t bother to look back, but he did stop moving.

Gathering up every atom of emotional intelligence within him (which wasn’t very much) he tried to come up with a speech on the spot.

Then, Walsh said, “Before you go, I, uh, wanted to tell you something. I know you’re the devil. Or, a devil, I’m not really sure how all that works. Maybe should have paid more attention during church. But I also know you’re not as bad as all that. Throughout all the years I’ve known you, you’ve been nothing but a stand-up gentleman. And I’ve known you for quite a few years! More than half of my life to be honest. In that time, I think I’ve really gotten to know you. Really know you. So, all I’m saying is, if you ever stop by Chicago, you’d be welcome at my home. I don’t care if it’s a sin because your friendship has been worth it.”

Sweat poured off Walsh’s brow. That took more effort than he thought, he wasn’t sure how the actors did it.

Locke stood stock-still. Walsh’s perspiration began to feel like ice-cold water.

Silence stole the sound from the room. Even the clock’s tick was hushed. The only sound at all was the hazy ghost of Walsh’s speech.

Locke broke the silence, “You think we’re friends?”

If the flow of the universe were a song, his voice sounded like a discordant string killing the rhythm..

“You really think that?”

Now he had turned around. Walsh’s stomach turned sour.

“I knew you were stupid Walsh, but really? Has dementia climbed into your hollow skull already? I’m not joking is there genuinely something wrong with you?”

Though Locke spoke no quieter than a whisper in his calm, mocking tone, every word rang in Walsh's ears louder than a church-bell.

“There has to be. Why else would you think that any sane person would ever consider you a friend?”

Walsh had sat back down, trying to stammer out an apology. His voice was too quiet though, everything he said was drowned out by Locke.

“I’ve got it. You don’t know how abhorrent of a person you are. Well, allow me to add a disregard for reality to your list of mental deficiencies. Fortunately, unlike all of your other personal failings, this one I can fix.”

From where Walsh was, Locke seemed to loom over him. Shadows from outside crept through the windows and flanked him, making him seem all the taller.

“Of all the human beings I have encountered here, you are the worst. The thinnest, lowest scrapings at the bottom of the barrel of humanity, and that’s saying a lot. For a century I have been sitting in this stone midden surrounded by all sorts of gnats. I was told this place was a cage for the worst they had to offer. And yet? Most of them are shmucks, no worse than every other asshole out there, just the ones unlucky enough to get caught.”

Locke’s head scraped the ceiling, and his feet cracked the tiles of the floor.

“Even when I was in the very blackest of pits with actual monsters did I ever encounter one as repugnant as you. You willingly came here, not to preach justice and peace and kissing your grandma on the cheek, but to fight and strike and kill other men. The fact you’re in a prison is only an excuse to get away with it.”

Walsh tried to shrink back, dive into the crease between the chair's back and seat, but Locke grabbed him and held him in his hand. Everything was dark, but Locke stood blazing bright commanding Walsh's attention. All he could do was faintly whisper “No…”

“No? I’ve seen you Walsh. I’ve seen the shine in your eyes as you beat men to an early grave. You don’t care what they did. You willingly sign up to drag them off to the electric chair. You’re an old man and you still come here every night salivating for the chance to show how big and tough you are to some scared sap who stepped out of line. To remind them of how stronger you are than them. I bet you’ve jerked yourself off thinking of that feeling.”

He felt an irritation in his pants, like a hand made of brambles had grabbed his unmentionables. Walsh tried, unsuccessfully, to blink the tears out of his eyes.

“I was planning on leaving this place to go to Hell Walsh. Hell. But as I am standing here looking at your flaccid, dickless form, a thought has crossed my mind. You’re going to end up there. If I go to Hell, I will probably see you there. And now, I’m having second thoughts. Is it worth it, to continue this plan I’ve been working on for the last century, if I have to suffer the misery of being in your presence again?”

Locke was a giant now. His hair stood up and twisted like plumes of flame, his hands twisted into eagle’s claws. Between wolf-like teeth venom dribbled from his mouth.

“You are lucky I don’t have a choice. If I could, I would dive into the grave and burn every forest and scorch every sea so that I wouldn’t have to see you.”

Acting on impulse, with his last bit of strength, Walsh rose up and struck Locke. He faltered, for a moment. Then, Walsh looked down at his hand and saw how feeble of a gesture it was. Walsh hadn’t even reached half-way.

“You're as strong as an ant and as loud as a spider Walsh. I could kill you with my thumb, but you're so disgusting it wouldn't make a difference. Nobody would even notice you were gone."

A third voice came from the door. "Uh... bus is ready."

The bus-driver had walked in, wondering what was taking them so long. He found the inmate, excuse me, former inmate, talking to the guard, who looked terrified out of his mind. Weirded him out something fierce.

Shadows retreated behind their master like faithful dogs and the room returned to its previous state. No sign of the insidiousness from before could be seen.

Locke grabbed his things and left without saying another word.

Walsh only noticed he was gone when he heard the firing up of the engine and saw the bus leave Galgenvogel's gates for the last time.

As the bus left, the front-desk guard came back. No one was in the waiting room. Which was weird, since Walsh should have passed him on his way back. The chair he sat in was empty, save for a small wet patch on the seat. Later, he would call for the janitor to clean it. Later still, he would have thought it worrying that Walsh wasn’t anywhere to be found, except he was a little preoccupied with the world ending.

--

On the long stretch of highway between Chicago and Toledo, there's nothing to see. There isn't even a "whole lot of nothing", that would be much too imaginative and witty to describe the eye-watering boringness of the road.

Standing out like oases in the Sahara are the few towns you get the pleasure of driving through on your way there. Compared to the start of the drive and the destination they're nothing to sneeze at, but after a couple of hours behind the steering wheel they seem like tiny spots of Heaven.

In one such town, no more than a clump of streets shooting off from the stem of the highway, Ma and Pa's corner-store makes a modest living. Most of their customers are travelers desperate for a reason to stop driving or locals ready to spend an hour chatting with the owners, the eponymous Ma and Pa, while picking up a little grocery.

Because they were on the road they got a lot of people. Truckers, business trips, family-outings, reunions, the local sheriff, census workers, teenagers, and even the odd honeymooners.

They'd never seen one like this before.

Ma had been at the front for a few hours catching up on her stories when she'd heard the tinkly bell of the doors. As soon as she finished customarily thanking him for coming in, she was tearing across the pages of the Yellow-Book looking for the number of the nearest sheriff's department. Something set her nerves off.

It wasn’t the way he was dressed (which made him look like he’d escaped from prison). It wasn’t the way he talked (like a heathen). Nor was it his attitude (which put Ma in mind of those no-good greasers she saw on the telly). She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it just felt like, when he walked into the store, she felt the inexplicable urge to punch him.

The wind outside wasn’t helping her nerves either. As soon as he’d come in it had picked up, and now it was rattling the door. Bird feeders and wind chimes tried to use metal wings to fly away.

Before skulking off he drawled out, "You got candles and salt? Last dump pointed in this direction for 'em."

Ma, barely fending off the beginning of a heart-attack, pointed towards aisles three and five.

He grabbed one of the shopping baskets, knocking six of them over in the process, and walked off.

A cluck made her eye twitch. As if that hadn't been enough, for God knows what reason he'd walked in with a chicken tucked beneath his right arm. This was probably the detail that made her ignore all the warning flags and sent her into a murderous rampage. The mere thought of having to clean up chicken mess from the floor made her fingers itch towards the club under the register.

She'd expected to smell alcohol on him, but the smell filling her nostrils was more like burnt pitch, or a campfire.

Ma was having trouble deciding whether or not he was breaking out of prison to rob them or coming back from some hippy commune to sneakily pilfer something but figured the sheriff could handle either option.

In the backroom Pa sat in his chair watching the chattering television, completely unaware. The way he was looking at it made her blood boil even more. Shame on him for watching that damned thing more closely than the services at church, oblivious to the fact that we are in the midst of being robbed!

She moves to wave at him, hoping he'll notice her, but stops once the stranger walks towards the counter with his purchases.

Regaining her composure, she says on instinct, "Will this be everything?"

He mutters "sure" without looking her in the eyes, instead gazing at the swirling clouds outside. Only the last vestiges of human decency keep her from tearing his limbs off.

Ma would never consider herself a criminal, but she possessed a long and extensive knowledge of heists, robberies, and murders after reading several hundred crime novels throughout the latter half of her life. Even she was stumped as to what crime he could commit with five novelty Christmas candles, a bag of salt, and a chicken.

While ringing up his purchases, she tries to look at his coat to see if there were any bulges that hadn't been there before. But it appeared he had stolen nothing. Nothing that she could see at least.

She does notice that, in his free hands were a small rucksack with nothing but spare change, a slip of paper with a phone number on it, and a pair of dominoes with red markings on them. And his wallet, from which he fished out a five-dollar bill.

"Two twenty-five is your total, would you like a bag to put this in, sir?" He didn't deserve a dear now, much less a dearie.

"Yes, if you'd so please."

She put the strange things in his bag and tried to swipe the peanut bowl away from the chicken, who was pecking at it to get closer. This and the rough, automated noise of the receipt printing only served to worsen her temper.

Just standing next to him made her stomach turn. Which was odd, because, when she got a better look at him, he was quite good looking. If he shaved the curtains over his eyes, he actually reminded Ma of one of her old flings. Back before she was Ma, before she met Pa, when she hung around the wrong crowd.

Together they’d been the talk of the town. Her own mother hated him, which just made him all the more attractive. No boy she’d ever met before had his own car. He’d even let her drive it all the way out to Chicago.

Which made it all the more heartbreaking when he drove up to prom with her sister. Ma stood in front of them in disbelief, and they walked past her without even a ‘how do you do’. It made her so mad.

When she got home, she tore her sister’s room apart. Broke all of her nails clawing the wallpaper and ripping the pillows to shreds. Throwing paint into her wardrobe. Flooding her restroom. Putting a bit of rat poison into the cat’s dinner bowl…

A knock against the window made her look up. There was a crack in the glass.

She looked around, but the wind outside was so violent that it must have carried whatever broke the glass just as fast as it brought it. Ma shivered. She had the willies, the creeps, and the heebie-jeebies all at once.

The receipt was cold, the ink dried. Ma looked over, but the man was gone. She was alone. Just like the night of prom.

Next to her, the sunglass rack spun and nearly gave her a start. Her stranger was standing next to it, with a look of such genuine mystification that you’d think he had never seen a pair before.

In fact, Locke had never seen a pair of sunglasses before. Certain fashion trends had eluded him while imprisoned. The officers weren't allowed to wear them while working, and the inmates only got them if they were working outside.

Spectacles he'd seen before, but the tinted glass framed by wired metal seemed so astoundingly simple he wondered why no one had done it earlier. He wondered why he didn't do it earlier.

Something that obscures your face without hiding it, were the first thoughts on his mind. The second, third, and fourth whizzed by so fast that they could not be recorded in print.

He spun the rack around, marveling at the different types, until he found one that spoke to him.

A pair tinted so brilliantly rainbow that you could see nothing through them. Locke slipped one of the domino-like objects from his left hand and placed them beneath the glasses. Looking down, through his right eye, he couldn't even see their silhouette.

Ma, in the process of extending her neck vertebrae so she could see what the stranger was doing, nearly cried out when a shriek so loud it rung her ears pierced the air. The shocked woman rubbed her ears, not sure if that was the lightning outside or some sort of shrill laughter.  

He turned around, glasses set firmly on his face and asked, "How much for these?" His teeth were as bright and sharp as a fork of lightning.

She responded weakly, clutching her chest, "A dollar."

Looking at the change in her hand, "Well then, I reckon you can keep the rest of that!"

With a spring in his step, he grabbed all of his things and left the store. The swing of the door once again knocked over the shopping baskets, excluding the one he walked out with.

Ma did a few things when he left as soon as she was sure she couldn't hear his footsteps in the distance.

First, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Second, she put the rest of the change in the cashier.

Third, she scoured the path he walked, looking desperately for a speck, an atom of that chicken or its droppings.

Once she was content that her store was clean, she, Fourth, went to go holler at Pa.

During this entire exchange, Pa, the doting husband of Ma for fifty years, was only visible as the back of a head outlined by the white glow of the television he was watching. Normally the two ran the shop together, but during their long periods of down time he liked to watch the TV while his wife read her stories. They kept the TV in the backroom, so he wouldn't be tempted to watch it on the job.

In any other circumstance he would get up and go to the front counter with his wife when he heard the little bell of the door. When Ma opened the backroom's door fully, he was still glued to the TV's screen.

She grabs him by his shoulders, dragging him towards the phone at the counter.

"Henry, I don't know why you didn't come in, but there was a hippy in our store, and he robbed us! I want you to get on that telephone and call the sheriff right now-"

"Judith-"

"He just left, but mark my words I bet he's heading to Chicago-"

"Judith-"

"Oh, I was this close, this close to getting the broom out and walloping him-"

"Judith there's something on the tele-"

"Yes Henry? Yes, I bet you know all about it. Honestly, the way you were looking at it, you'd think it married you instead-"

"You need to see this honey-"

"Oh, and he's got some damned chicken from the Hicken's farm, I don't know what he's planning on doing with it, but mark my words it's nothing good-"

"JUDITH."

Pa shouts, making the entire store seem so much more silent. Ma makes to get at him but stops when she notices the shell-shocked expression on his face. He looked more scared than he'd ever been in his life. Taking his wife by the arm, he shows her to the backroom, to the tiny black and white screen.

Images and videos flash across it, every channel dominated by the same headlines. 'MONSTERS SEEN ACROSS AMERICA', 'SEA-LINER TORN APART', 'WEIRD SYMBOLS SEEN IN SKY', 'GIANT FIGURES STAND OVER LONDON' and countless more. On their own local station, the reporter acts on instinct, relaying all the news in a stammering panic. Monstrous beings and supernatural entities are being spotted all over the world, with disasters playing out in real-time. Volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, storms, it's as if the very earth were waking up and releasing beasts from beneath the surface. Tears dot the reporter's eyes as news of carnage slowly devolves into unintelligible sobbing at the last headline, 'THE END OF THE WORLD'.

This all goes unheard. Soon the reporter falls onto the ground like the couple in their store. A sound tears across the sky, louder than anything in the world. Ma and Pa clutch their ears as they feel their own skeletons vibrate in tune with the sky's scream. All they can do is watch deafened from the floor at the other's expressions of pain, holding each other close.

Outside on the highway, cars have stopped, many crashing into each other. Drivers and passengers alike release horrified screams as they begin to feel the universe's dying moans drill into their skulls. Hundreds of thoughts swirl together, thoughts of the terrible, imminent end to life as they knew it, all suddenly realizing that they were unprepared for it. In their car-seats children wail with their parents, unable to come to understand the finality of life, but still just as scared. Of all the people in the road, only one can hear it all.

Locke walks down towards the city in the distance, ignoring the screams. All the panic choking the hearts of the mortals on the highway is, to him, one more straw on the proverbial camel's back. It'd take more than that to break his camel. He hadn't spent a literal century sitting on his ass to run around screaming like a baby after the first sign of the end of the world. Besides, the world wasn’t ending. He would know if it were ending. It was simply getting more interesting.

The hen can't hear it either. To her, humans were doing weird, distressing human things. Rainwater plasters her feathers down, making her a sodden heap unable to escape the creature’s grasp.

Locke tests out his reflection in the shiny black window of a truck lying upended in a ditch. To the best of his ability he can't see his own eyes past the rainbow reflection.

The man who was driving the truck begins trying to crawl through the window, cutting himself on the broken glass. Locke does not try to help him.

"These things are a damn life-saver."

He once again models them for himself, but the glasses fall off the bridge of his nose to the grass. Locke gets on his knees and gropes around for them.

Once he stands up, he finds the dominoes still in their place.

"Gonna have to do something about that."

Locke walks past the people, recovering from their twenty seconds of utter hell. They take no notice of him and he does likewise. Blood fills the nostrils of the hen, who begins wiggling in his grasp. The grip on her tightens, doing nothing to calm her down but making her move around less.

With a knife, which he did indeed steal from Ma and Pa, Locke carves a few tiny symbols into the thick temples of the glasses without looking at them.

After they're drawn, he takes the hen's neck and makes a slight incision on her forehead. Blood pools fast as he wets his finger in the red liquid. The minuscule symbols are coated in a small layer of blood, activating, so to speak.

Locke bends down ninety degrees, yet the glasses stay on. He shoots back up, throwing his head from side to side, and they stay glued to his face.

"Perfect."

Today would have been perfect too, were it not for Walsh. He’d had the entire day planned and all it took was his dumb ass to sour it all for Locke.

Light shone through the clouds.

By coincidence, rainbow-shaded lenses looked up and met their match. Further along the road, the clouds were clearing from Toledo and the rain met with the sun, forming a real rainbow. From where he stood it looked like the bridge to a new era.

Locke smiled. Oh well. It wouldn’t do to let one little mortal ruin his big day. Now that his punishment was over, it was time to show all those assholes what a real bad guy looked like. First though, he had to go take his purchases and make a few calls down-under.

And Locke didn't know any Australians.

[slobberchops]

Day 17: I almost lost track of all time.

I missed the opportunity to start one of those journals where the title is something like “Day 4: I am down to my last pair of socks”. This is very regrettable, but better late than never I suppose. This is day 17, and it naturally seemed like a much longer time ago. But here we all are. In the lock-down.

This is mostly from memory and Google location history.

March 9, 2020 - Day 1: It was supposed to be voluntary

I mark the beginning of my personal lock-down as the first day of which the company I work for shut their offices and told everyone to work at home. I was going to stay at home this week anyway because one colleague of mine had her last day at the company and the only remaining person on my team who would come to the office regularly had just returned from a vacation in Japan and was already under a two-week “self” quarantine, whatever the hell those are. Shortly before my colleagues quitting party at a mostly unpopulated bar the company announced that all offices would be closed and everyone would work from home. How lucky we are to work in a place that could do that.

Northern Italy has gone under lock-down over the weekend, and I thought that I still had some time left before things became too hot to go outside here.

My fear of course is that I didn’t believe that the Western countries would attempt to disrupt day to life in such a large scale way. It’s not that I didn’t think that they should lock-down, in fact I think they should, but I didn’t think they were willing. I was really worried that the West, especially the United States, would just take it. I could never imagine the current US government making such a commitment to the health of their citizens and honestly thought that a potential %2 mortality rate was acceptable to them. Unfortunately, I may yet be proved right.

On Saturday I had borrowed a friends car and went with a colleague to our now shuttered office to retrieve a pair of monitors for working at home and a chair for her. I also used that car to pick up a small green Ikea table from a friends place over in the Inner Richmond which was a good idea because my newly occupied apartment until then had no tables.

I had my cleaners come over while I set things up to work. I put the little green table in the kitchen where I would work under my rack of hanging pots and pans. Naturally this will mean my instant death if we should also be stricken by an Earthquake, but then maybe I would be one of the lucky ones.

March 11, 2020 - Day 3: The line went around the whole shop

I went shopping. There I encountered the first of the very large lines going around the whole shop. I was running low on food, so I stood in the line. I needed to shop in preparation for movie night. In retrospect this was a bad idea, the first of plenty.

March 12, 2020 - Day 4: Movie night

I had been determined to host movie night ever since a friend restarted the perhaps decade old tradition, and this was the night I would do it. I knew that this would be the last gathering. I made some very fine adobo mackerel and a really fabulous filipino mung bean stew to support vegetarians where I even substituted the fish sauce with fake fish sauce. We watched the movie “Snowpiercer” which is more or less about the end of the world, nothing unusual. Everyone asked me why my workspace was in the kitchen.

March 13, 2020 - Day 5: Fine!

I moved my workspace into the living room.

March 14, 2020 - Day 6: I still don’t have any hand sanitizer

Since soap and water is enough to kill the virus I figured it wasn’t worth joining the rush to get hand sanitizer. This was a misjudgement on my part. If you have to go outside, it’s good to have it with you just in case. I did one last survey of pharmacies, and no, there none available. The Walgreens on 24th and Potrero has been almost cleared of everything. What are people buying all of this stuff for? Oh well, I’m not going to go outside much anyway.

March 16, 2020 - Day 8: Lock-down day

I tell my cleaners to come every week instead of every fortnight. I think I need the cleanliness and figure they will appreciate the work. And so, someone shows up and cleans. I am grateful.

By mid-day San Francisco pulled the trigger. Midnight begins the lock-down. This means the bars are shutting. It means more than this, but in San Francisco, the bars are the only things that matter. This is when the hoarding starts.

Under normal circumstances, and by normal I mean normal pandemic circumstances where food supplies are not yet expected to be disrupted, there is no way that I am willing to participate in panic buying. But the problem, see, is that I am expecting a friend to drop by for lunch on Tuesday. I was concerned about him coming for lunch as he is 64, but after only a few days of not even being in lock down, he needs to get out of the house. Ok, I don’t tell people what to do. And thus I must shop.

I take my favorite little reusable bag that I picked up from a supermarket in Amsterdam and I go to the Safeway. Walk past the absurdly long line for the pot dispensary and into the store... No. It’s already missing too many things and is too annoying. There are plenty of small shops on Mission and they have not been running low on anything.

I pop down to one of the pharmacies nearby to make one last check for hand sanitizer. I wasn’t expecting to find any. I managed to get the last large bottle of Rolaids, which to my great sorry is a necessity and thought to pick up some Nyquil... you know... in case... Also picked up a bottle ibuprofen shortly before the WHO told everybody not to use it for COVID.

The kids on the queue in front of me were picking up eggs and groceries... I had the feeling this was not going to be a good time to go shopping.

It wasn’t. The small shop I went to had people on line around the shop and was also running out of stuff. I lost my poor little Dutch grocery bag and had to use those little produce bags to shop for what I needed. For the love of the gods they were out of onions! It was so annoying because I was not panic buying, I just needed to go shopping!

It was obviously a terrible idea to go shopping. I should have canceled the lunch and waited until the next day. No matter, my friend wisely cancelled on me anyway.

March 17, 2020 - Day 9: Egg Dosa

Found onions at the little Indian grocery store a block away from me. And also, picked up more dosa batter. Dosa batter makes me run out of eggs. Because Egg Dosa makes me run out of eggs. Egg Dosa is like an Indian Egg Hopper, and this at long last the HP-18 (Hopper Pan model 18) is fulfilling its destiny.

March 20, 2020 - Day 12: The last clean laundry

I picked up my laundry from Tim’s. I don’t believe he will be able to stay open for long. He makes me bump his elbow before I leave. This is the last human contact I have had, and the first since I kicked a whole bunch of peoples feet on movie night.

This night I also have a large video event with a bunch of friends. Drank more than usual. One of those people is a doctor, and he is telling everyone to really avoid going anywhere, even more than we are being told by CDC or the governor or whatever. This is a person who can largely expect to be doing two things at any given time for the next who knows how long: sleeping; and inserting tubes into peoples lungs. It’s true this is what he normally does anyway, but he sometimes finds time to do something else. And so I resolve to do what I’m told.

March 22, 2020 - Day 14: Hand sanitizer at last!

A good friend has managed to procure for herself a pair of hand sanitizer bottles. 75% alcoholic content. Now I don’t have to waste all that Aquavit that my friend brought me back from Norway. On the way over I donated my remaining unopened N-100 mask from the fires to some UCSF students that are collecting. But when I arrive, in addition to giving me hand sanitizer my friend gives me 8 more N-100s and a pair of N-95s.

March 23, 2020 - Day 15: Easy come, easy go

I donate the N-100s and N-95 to a UCSF hospital. That evening some Chinese punk gives 1 million N-95s to the city of San Francisco. Show off.

I work with a neighbor to try to organize some home services for stranded people in my building.