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existslikepristin · 3 years

Text

Movie Night

More backlog. Again, sorry for the formatting. I have no clue what I'm doing. You can find this on AFF here if you prefer: https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1462862/movie-night

Tags: TheLounge, Gfriend, mostly SinB, Eunha, maleOC"you", sexy in-character stories (referencing butt stuff), oral stuff, "CAUGHT" like in dumb pornos, vote story, backlog story

~~~~~

You sigh quietly for the thousandth time. You have no idea how long it's been since Eunha and Yerin left you in this chair. There isn't even a clock on the wall ticking down. It's not possible that they just forgot about you, right? You've been friends for a couple of years, so that can't be it, can it?

You groan and kick back and forth against the ropes holding you down. The chair isn't too heavy, so you end up moving a few inches to the side. It hurts to rub so violently against the rope, and you nearly tip over, so you decide against trying again.

Thankfully, it's right after that when you hear the door open. At least, it may be thankfully. You can't see the door, so it could just be some random person who's about to be traumatized by a naked dude tied to a chair. You hold your breath, as if it's going to make any difference.

"Shit-damn, man. Eunha got you good."

You never thought you'd be quite so happy to hear SinB's attitude-laced voice in your life. She ruffles your hair as she walks around you to sit on the bed. It's been about a month since you've seen her actually, other than a passing glance at the dorm when you were picking up Yerin for dinner. SinB looks like she might have put on a tiny bit of weight since Gfriend's last comeback. That or you're just going insane from your solitary confinement. She's wearing a red and black plaid lumberjack style shirt over a black tank top, tight navy blue jeans, and black combat boots. Her hair hasn't changed much, just past her shoulders, dark brown, straight. But she does have a single pink extension in. It looks... honestly a little tacky. "The fuck did you do to deserve this?" she asks after she sets down her purse. She leans over and lightly flicks the cage on your dick.

Well, if you recall correctly, you shoved a gigantic butt plug into Eunha with minimal lube, causing presumably severe pain, compromising her ability to perform the first night of her first solo activities, walked out of the room (that part was Eunha's idea though), and never apologized for any of it.

As you contemplate how much of that you're going to share with SinB, she reaches into her purse and pulls out one of those excessively jagged knives with skull and bat wing decorations that you can only find in gas stations in the middle of nowhere. She clicks the blade open and you can see at least part of a quote engraved into it, "...fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

So two things: First, is SinB turning into a creepy trucker? Second, how much of the story do you tell her?

Options: 1. (Picked:) Tell her everything. Don't want to lie to someone with the fucking bible on a knife. 2. Embellish the story so she knows what happened, but make it sound... less bad? 3. Tell her you don't want to talk about it. You just want to get out of here. 4. Tell her that her hair is fucking stupid and she should be ashamed of the pink streak. (Obvious bad end option)

~~~~~

Mostly to avoid being skewered by religious text, you roll your eyes and give SinB the whole story, as it actually happened. She seems very entertained, doing everything from chuckling about being able to see the plug through Eunha's shorts to full-on burst laughing at your description of getting stabbed with a drugged needle. She wipes some small tears from her eyes while she stands back up from the bed, "Oh wow! You got tranquilized? That is fuckin' rich."

SinB crouches down in front of you and starts to cut at the ropes around your ankles. They're strong, so it takes a little work on her part. You think she could untie them instead, but then you look down and find you can see down her tank top. For whatever reason, she decided to go braless today. It's not that you haven't seen SinB's tits before. She has walked around the dorm naked a couple of times when you've been over. Of course, she would berate you for not immediately turning away each time. You figure you won't give her that satisfaction this time, and turn your head away to avoid staring at her jiggling cleavage.

"So, is that it?" SinB asks when she finishes cutting your legs free and moves behind you to start on your arms.

"Pretty much, yes. Unless you want me to elaborate on Eunha and Yerin eating out each other's asses in front of me."

The sarcasm runs down the back of your neck like slime, "Oh yes. Tell me all about it and make me want it. Put your tongue in my ass just like them and give me the story like a suppository."

You groan loudly. Can you say anything around this girl without getting a response like that?

SinB chuckles, "Fine, fine. Watch your fingers."

You feel SinB grabbing your hand to move it out of the way of her sawing. You can't think of a time when the two of you have had this kind of contact before. She's being oddly delicate. Weird. Once your hands are free and she cuts the ropes holding your chest upright, you lean forward to get the stiffness out of your back and rub at your wrists. You get the feeling you'll be sore for a while.

SinB snaps the deadly knife shut and drops it back into her purse before flopping onto the bed on her back. Her tank top lifts from the action to reveal her sculpted stomach. "Today was at least a bit rough for everyone, it sounds like, eh?"

Past experience tells you this is some kind of bait to lead into a joke at your expense, but you're just curious enough to bite. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there's the whole thing with you and Eunha. And... actually I guess Yerin had a good day. But like, Sowon had to take the van in for repairs this morning, Yuju's been fighting the flu,"

That's right. You must have forgotten in the last couple of hours, you were going to send Yuju a text to ask how she was feeling. Where is your phone anyway? And your clothes? You start looking around the room.

"And I'm just exhausted. I knew it would be tough being support staff but this shit is nuts."

You see your clothes in a pile near the door. You stand up to go get them, but have to hold onto the chair for a second, as your legs are somehow still stiff and wobbly at the same time.

"And like, I don't know. I guess I'm jealous too."

"Well I'll happily fuck your ass too, once I get the key to this thing."

"Hurr hurr, smartass. I'm being serious. Eunha's been my friend forever and now I'm watching her do something cool and professional and I wish I could be doing that too."

Dang, that got weirdly heavy.

QUICK VOTE Options: 1. (Picked:) Encourage her. She may be a dick, but she's kind of a friend? At LEAST a friend of a friend. 2. Discourage her. Because she is a dick. Remember when she ate your leftovers and said your lasagna recipe sucks? 3. Don't comment. Her drama isn't your drama and you're having trouble putting your pants back on.

~~~~~

You struggle for at least thirty seconds to get your underwear and pants on to where they're comfortable over the dick cage. It's an awkward silence. It's obvious that she's waiting for your input. You sigh and pick up your shirt. You might as well try to be the bigger person here.

"There's no need to be jealous, SinB. You're super talented too. You just have to figure out a different way to leverage it."

Again, more awkward silence. You put your shirt on, which is way easier than the pants were. You look over at her. She hasn't moved, her abs still revealed to the ceiling. She's just staring straight up.

"I don't know. See if your manager can sign you up for more variety shows? Talk show people seem to love you. For some reason," you mumble that last part as you turn to find your shoes.

"Hey, uh..." SinB breaks her silence for a second, but pauses before she continues, "Do you ever want to like, hang out?"

You bring your shoes over to the bed, since you're not sure you can reliably put them on while standing yet. "What do you mean? We hang out."

SinB turns over and props herself up on her elbow so she's facing you. "Not really. We hang out with Eunha and Yerin and Umji and whatever, but we don't make plans to hang out together. I don't even have your contact info."

"Yeah you do. I messaged you months ago when Yerin forgot the beer in your fridge. You responded."

"How the fuck do you remember that? I deleted the thread right after I brought it."

Of course she did. "Well... fine. Let me see your phone?" SinB sits up and gets her phone from her purse to hand it to you. It takes you a minute to figure out her OS, but you put in your contact and hand it back. Only when she taps the screen a few times and you feel your phone buzzing in your pocket does it hit you that you just gave your info to the woman who has effectively been your bully for the last few years. And when you pull out your phone to see that she's sent you a single word, "Dumbass," in a text. You roll your eyes and put your phone back in your pocket.

"You're not going to save my contact?"

"Can I put on my shoes first?"

SinB gives a dirty look off to the side, but she's got a bit of a blush on her cheeks. "Aw, baby need help?"

You take a deep breath and lean over to put on your shoes, choosing not to respond to her jab. There's another thirty seconds or so of silence, only cut by the muffled sound of a honking car horn somewhere outside.

"Do you, uh... have plans tonight?"

That sounds like a set up for another joke at your expense, but you're prepared for it. "Nope. I'm just going to head home."

"Want to come over to watch a movie or something?"

So, not a joke? You look back to see SinB has turned her head completely away, and is fiddling with the buttons on her purse.

Options: 1. "No way, bitch. I'm going home." You know this is just her setting up for a burn. You're gonna call her on it. 2. (Picked:) "Yeah sure. That sounds fun." Actually, yeah. It does sound fun. Why not? She seems sincere for once. 3. "Movie? Why? We can fuck here." Take a shot. Seems unlikely to work, but at least she'll fuck off if you're wrong.

~~~~~

You sit in that silence for a minute, mulling over the options. She's not wrong now that you think about it. The two of you have never specifically made any effort to spend time together. Maybe it's time you started.

"Yeah sure. That sounds fun."

SinB stands up, still facing away. "Sure does, right?"

Without seeing her face to know if she's giving you a cue to answer, you don't quite know what to do. You sit awkwardly looking at the back of her head for a moment. Wasn't that rhetorical?

"Yyyup. It does," you eventually say.

You half expect her to ask the same question, but thankfully she doesn't. Instead she sends a quick text on her phone. You can just see one of her cheeks from the side as you stand up, yourself. She's bright red. So at least you know she's embarrassed, whatever that information could be used for. "So, uh... I'll go back now and get ready," she says that in such a way that it still sort of sounds like she's asking a question.

Just in case, you affirm with a simple, "Mmmhm."

"I'll leave the door unlocked for you, so just come right in."

You debate for a moment if you should tell her that Eunha and Yerin gave you a spare key last year to help them satisfy their ravenous sexual appetites more conveniently, but decide against it. SinB's already zipping her way out the door. "Alright, see you in a few minutes!" you call after her. Damn, this girl can be weird...

*** You open the door to the girls' dorm, and you're greeted with the faint scent of freshly made buttered popcorn. You see SinB carrying a couple of beer cans from the kitchen to the living room.

"Going for the full experience eh?" You say, removing your shoes before stepping all the way in.

"Yeah. Yeah, you know what they say," she calls back from the living room.

You follow her, seeing that she has rearranged the furniture a bit so that only one couch is facing their TV. She works fast.

"Uh, what do they say?"

SinB scowls, "You know, go big or go-- fucking dumbass. What do you want to watch?"

"You didn't have something in mind already?"

"No, I have a bunch here. Come take a look."

Curious as to exactly what she means, you make your way over to a drawer under the TV, from which she pulls out a rectangular, woven basket packed full of DVD cases. They're neatly stacked for the most part, but a few action movies have been tossed onto the top more haphazardly.

"I don't get around to watching a ton of movies, so the others drop whatever they think I'll like in here. It's getting... a little full, so we can marathon if you want, or just whatever one looks best to you. I dunno."

You give SinB a smirk and crouch down over the basket. "Aw, you finally want my opinion on something? That's new." SinB groans, "Dude, would you just pick a damn movie?" She walks away, taking off her flannel shirt, tosses it onto a nearby unoccupied chair, and flops heavily onto the couch. You take the smallest fraction of a second to admire her shoulders and the careless way she puts her feet up on the coffee table next to the popcorn. She may be excessively rude to you, but she sure is cool.

The basket has a lot in it. Underneath the pile of action movies, there's some documentaries you suspect Umji put in, some romances that Yuju mentioned once, a couple of comedies... and a pornographic contribution almost definitely from Yerin. Plus a bunch more, of course.

Well, you've got a few hours before midnight. Maybe enough to watch two of these? Unless of course you plan to stay past midnight. SinB seems to be on board for a longer marathon.

The nature of your relationship with SinB moving forward depends on this vote and a couple others, which will be marked with an [IMPORTANT] tag. Don't worry, I'm not going to completely fuck over the story and end it immediately, but your decisions for [IMPORTANT] votes can make extra big differences. Can you unlock the Wholesome Friendship storyline? The Secret Camgirl storyline? The Domme Girlfriend storyline? Who knows?

With that in mind... DOUBLE VOTE TIME. Options for Part 3 - 1: 1. Watch one movie and GTFO. The two of you are alone now. If you only watch one, you can probably leave before anyone else interrupts. Only the top vote for movie will be selected. 2. Stay until midnight to watch a couple of movies. Show her you're the responsible one here. You have a job to get to in the morning. The top two votes for movie will be selected. Most popular first. 3. (Picked:) Stay past midnight and watch however many movies you can. You're finally hanging out with SinB. Marathon FRIENDSHIP! The top two votes will be selected, AND more options will become available later.

Options for Part 3 - 2 [IMPORTANT]: 1. Action Movie! If you had to guess, this would be one of SinB's favorites, since there are so many in the basket. The other girls probably know their stuff. It will probably hold her attention so that you can't talk to her much, but she's almost guaranteed to enjoy it. 2. Comedy? Solid chance she'll like this too. If the movie happens to be funny enough, you two might develop some inside jokes with each other. That might have the added benefit of pissing off Eunha, if you think that's a benefit. 3. Romance! SinB doesn't strike you as the romantic type. Unless? No, it couldn't be. If she's not too interested in the movie, the two of you could end up having some interesting conversations. But if she DOES like it... 4. (Picked:) Horror... Now, hold on. You know for a fact that SinB can't handle scary movies. What's this doing here? Is Sowon trying to prank her? If you pick this, you might end up in each others' arms... assuming YOU can handle the horror, that is. 5. Documentary. Leave it to Umji to try to educate her group members. You'll probably end up talking to SinB through the whole movie without much interruption. You'll find out a lot of new information about her, but she could get bored. 6. (Picked:) Yerin's Porn?! If SinB's horny, you could bring that out more with this. Of course, you wouldn't be doing yourself much of a favor, considering your dick is still in a literal cage.

~~~~~

You pick out a couple of movies to start with. You suspect you'll stay quite a bit longer, but these will do to start. The first one is definitely something Yerin put in the basket, "From Idol To Pornstar #6," and the second one is "Don't Look In The Basement," a horror movie that looks pretty old.

"So anything in this basket is good?" you ask over your shoulder.

SinB rolls her eyes and sighs heavily, "Well now I feel like I'm going to regret it. But yeah. I invited you here and I told you to pick. I'll have to trust the girls to not be fucking me over right now."

You can't contain your sly laugh.

"Shit. I knew it. Whatever, just put the movie in and we'll roll with it."

The DVD player is a whole different level of technology. It takes you a minute to even figure out where to put the disk. But once you do, you can hear the DVD being guided down to somewhere else inside the machine and spinning up very quietly. You drop the movie cases on top and move back to the couch.

"To be clear," you say as you sit down, "I'm seriously not sure these are going to be movies you want to watch. At least not with me."

But SinB has already grabbed the remote control and pushed the button to play the movie. You hold your breath as the title card rolls onto screen, accompanied by the melodious moan of... well, probably an idol-turned-pornstar. Next to you, you hear SinB's breath catch too.

As the opening credits fade on and off, you look over. SinB is blushing again. You don't know her well enough to know if she's embarrassed or angry. "Hey, SinB? I mean, I think it was put in the basket as a joke. We don't have to watch this if y--"

"Nah, we can watch this."

You're a little caught off guard. Are the two of you playing a game of porn chicken now? Is she actually into this? Her blush fades a little bit as she looks back at you.

"What? Can't you take it? Or did you forget about your caged up dick when you picked the movie?"

She has a point. Waking up with this thing on was unpleasant enough. Watching Eunha and Yerin eating out each others' asses though, that gave you pins and needles in a very unwelcome place to have pins and needles. You question your decision for a second, but don't have much time before she speaks up again.

"Seems like it wouldn't be awesome. What if I..." She scoots closer to you. Really close, in fact. She's got her shoulder and leg up against yours. She leans in, her face inches away from yours. She looks down at your lips. And then she drops, her side draping across your lap so her head can rest on the arm of the couch, facing the TV. You can feel her shudder, and you chuckle.

"Wha?" She turns partially over so she can give you an incredulous look, "You're laughing?"

"Yeah. You're not quite so sexy when you're trying that hard," you say back, not sure if you're bluffing.

With a scowl, SinB switches back to watching the movie. "I wasn't trying very hard..." she mumbles. She curls up a bit, her feet behind her, and her torso finding a more comfortable spot on top of your legs. You note that she feels heavier than she looks. She's probably got a lot of toned muscle under that smooth skin, considering her dancing skill.

The movie starts out just as lame and awkwardly as you would expect a porn to start. A pretty woman with virtually no acting skill and a jacked-to-hell man with an equal lack of acting skill discuss her "idol career" and how she's "beautiful enough to be a model" and of course they discuss her obviously implanted tits at length. Whoever on set is holding the microphone can't seem to stay consistent, because at times you can only hear the man, and at other times you can only hear the woman. It's a garbled mess, for the most part. You and SinB both have a good laugh at the movie's expense about it.

"Hey, uh... Tell me about your sex life."

You cough, "W-what?"

SinB turns over so she's looking up at you. "You heard me dweeb. We don't have a terrible boom mic like they do in that office."

You smirk at the low-quality joke. You drop a piece of popcorn on SinB's forehead, earning a deadly glare, but also an ever-so-slightly tipsy smile.

"Well you already know about the stuff I've done here... I mean, not on this couch!" you backtrack.

"Man, nobody cares about that. I think the only person who hasn't had sex or jacked off on this couch is Umji. Yuju does it at least twice a week."

The picture is suddenly very clear in your mind, of Yuju with her hand down her shorts in the very spot you're now sitting. But you shake it out of your head.

"So you have too?"

"Duh. Think I'm a prude?"

You think back on the last couple of hours and how nonchalant SinB was walking in on you naked and tied to a chair. "I guess not. What about Umji? I know she's not a prude either."

SinB lightly smacks your chest with the back of her hand. "You telling me you've fucked Umji too?"

"No, no such luck there," you laugh, getting you another smack, "Oh come on. It's not like she's illegal."

"She's the youngest one here! She can do what she wants, but I gotta protecc her!"

The two of you both laugh. You haven't had that much beer, right? Are you just having fun? With SinB of all people?

"So what exactly do you want me to tell you about?"

SinB points at the TV, "Well those two aren't going to be fucking any time soon with how slow the bitch is to put out." You blink at her crassness. "I dunno, just tell me one of your exciting, sexy tales. You've gotta have a few of those."

You shrug, "I might. But if I'm going to tell you one, you've got to tell me one too."

SinB sits up a little so she can take another swig of her beer and then rests back. "Deal! You first, fucker!"

Options: 1. (Picked:) Tell SinB about the time you met Eunha. Because you bet your ass it included sex. 2. Tell SinB about when Pyo Eunji asked you to dominate her. 3. Tell SinB about the sex party where you THINK you fucked half of Twice. Everybody was wearing masks, so it's still unclear. 4. Tell SinB about your wholesome coffee date with Choerry because not everything has to be about sex, you degenerate.

~~~~~

You laugh, "Alright, alright. How about... I know. Has Eunha ever told you the story of when we met?"

SinB gives you a confused look. "No? I'm looking for a sexy story."

"Oh believe me, it's a sexy story."

With a raise of her eyebrows, SinB adjusts herself to be a little more comfortable draped across your lap. "Fuck it, I'm game."

"Alright. So it was maybe a week before Christmas. I just moved to Seoul and didn't know anybody. I was walking around with my camera looking for some random gig work, not finding anything, you know.

"I was getting tired, but I had to stay up that night because maintenance was coming to my apartment to fix the heating at midnight or something stupidly late like that. I figured I'd have some coffee to keep myself up so I went to the cafe right down the street--"

SinB interrupts, "Yeah, yeah. The Lounge?"

"Weirdly no. It was Wu Zetian's."

"Fuck! The Chinese cafe that shut down? I loved that place!"

"Yeah! I used to get that imported oolong they had with a tiny little bit of creamer... Yeah, anyway, that's where I went to get some coffee, but they were closed early that night. I had my phone out and I was trying to find somewhere else nearby. That's when Eunha was walking past."

SinB tosses some popcorn into her mouth. She smirks as you give her a golf clap round of applause.

"And she asked if I was okay because I guess I looked pretty mad. I vented to her a little bit about the heat in my apartment not working and now I couldn't get any coffee. Blah blah blah. Then she invited me to The Lounge.

"She seemed pretty cool, and I wasn't about to keep hanging out in the freezing--"

"Seemed pretty cool?" SinB cocks her head to the side. "You didn't know who she was?"

"No way. I knew about Kpop but I didn't listen to any."

"Where the fuck are you even from?"

"Not important. So I went to The Lounge with Eunha and she offered to pay for my coffee. Super cool of her, right? And she asked if she could come see my apartment."

SinB grabs one of your hands and looks idly at your fingers one by one. "Damn. I know you and Eunha are total whores, but buying you coffee and straight to your place? Talk about fast."

"Hey, we talked for like three hours! I told her I had to get back to meet the maintenance guy and she asked to come along."

"Whatever you say, whooore."

You sigh, "You said to tell you a sex story, so I'm skipping the conversation. Anyway, if you're done interrupting," you pause to see if she has anything else to say, but she seems distracted enough by your hand, "We went back to my place and got there right when the maintenance guy did. I let him in and he fixed the heat. There was something wrong with the thermostat I guess. So he left after just a few minutes but Eunha said she wanted to stay so she could make sure I warmed up."

"Ha! That's when you fucked, right?"

"Well not immediately. First I brought out a couple of blankets and we sat on the floor wrapped up, but she said she was too cold and got under my blanket--"

"And then you fucked."

You hesitate, trying to think of something else to say before you give in, "Yeah. It was pretty much as soon as that happened."

"Aha! I knew it!" SinB points a finger right in your face and the two of you stay that way in silence for a couple of seconds before you attempt to bit her finger. She pulls back too quickly.

"I mean, yeah! You said you wanted sexy."

"Then give me the sexy juice... I mean the juicey details."

You wiggle your eyebrows at her and she slaps your chest. "You know what I meant! Finish your damn story!"

"Well, where to really start then? Let's see. She crawled under my blanket from the bottom up rather than waiting for me to open it up for her. And on her way through, she pushed up my shirt."

"Did your abs look like they do now?"

"No way. I was pretty out of shape at the time. Pretty insecure about it actually."

"What changed?"

You shrug. "Just decided I wanted to feel better about myself and set my mind to working hard at it."

SinB doesn't comment, so you continue, "My shirt came off, and so did hers. She was wearing a button up, so it was easy even inside the blanket. We made out for a while. She rubbed herself on my leg pretty much the whole time. It had to be a whole hour we did that."

"You just made out in one spot for an hour?!"

"Well... yeah. Honestly, the apartment wasn't warming up very fast, so it was uncomfortable to try anything else."

"Man, you fucking losers."

"Oh come on! Sometimes a good make out session is just as good as sex."

"I guess it could be, but that ain't my style."

"Yeah? Then what's your story?"

"What the fuck, you didn't even have sex? After making out shirtless for an hour?!"

"The story didn't end there!"

"Then finish it up!"

You tap SinB on the forehead, "Oh ho ho, I guess you should maybe shut up and listen then."

She lunges up shockingly quickly to bite your finger the same way you bit at hers earlier, but you can't get out of the way fast enough. She doesn't bite hard, but she does give you a playful growl and lick your fingertip before letting go.

"Wooow SinB, licking my finger? Who's the whore now?"

"Oh my god, just tell the story," she says in an exasperated tone.

"Mmmhm. So we actually tossed the blankets away eventually. Some combination of the heater working and our body heat actually made the apartment super hot. As soon as the blankets came off, we got undressed as fast as we could. Pants, bra, undies, everything. But then I hesitated because I realized I didn't have any condoms."

"Oof, that will put a damper on... actually, wait, I know where this is going."

"You got it. Eunha spit on her hand and rubbed it on my dick without even so much as getting off of me, then lined us up and bam, I was balls deep in her ass. I didn't even realize it for a couple minutes because she kept her lips on mine. You can probably figure the rest out."

"I mean, you can keep going," SinB mutters. She shifts around a bit and you watch as she puts one hand down the front of her pants. For as suddenly aware of the cage on your dick as you are, you feel the urge to keep the story going. Though you aren't quite sure how to describe the sex. You eye the hand down her pants and then look back to her face, giving SinB a gigantic grin. She rolls her eyes and looks away, blushing brighter red that you think you've ever seen her get. "Shut the fuck up and just keep going."

Meanwhile, you take a quick glance up at the television and see that the actress on screen is giving a torturously slow blow job.

"As you wish, princess. It ended up being a pretty wild night. She ground her ass into me from the top. Whenever she would get tired we flipped over so I could keep pounding into her and vice versa. We knew exactly when to do it to keep the momentum going, too. We did that so many times we ended up rolling almost all the way to the front door. We didn't even realize it until we landed on top of her shoes. But that didn't ruin the mood. We both got up without a word and ran to the bedroom.

"Didn't skip a beat once we were there. She dropped onto the bed face down and spread her butt open again right away. I used my tongue first though. I got her as wet as I possibly could and jumped back up to give her the cock again. We went hard there too. My mattress actually slid off the bed at one point and we just kept going. I don't think I've ever been that sexually charged in my entire life, and it was the first time either of us had ever tried anal."

SinB shudders. "Damn, man. I don't know how she always does that. She's told me about her sex life for as long as she's had one, and not one single time since then has she mentioned her vag. I actually didn't realize it was with you, but she has told me that story before."

You give her a fake laugh and wiggle your fingers in her face, "I guess it's just my special touch."

She swats your hand away (with her arm that isn't stuck down her pants) like a mosquito and sticks her tongue out at you. "Don't kid yourself, dickhead. Even if you weren't the closest thing she has to a boyfriend, she'd have figured out how hungry her butt is."

You figure you'll have to concede that point. Wait. What?

"I got a story then! I'll tell you about my first anal too! It's not nearly as exciting as that, but whatever. Uh... as long as I can remember the guy's name..."

Options for Part 5 [IMPORTANT]: 1. (Picked:) Let her tell her story. You're hanging out with SinB now and she seems excited to be swapping stories! Besides, hearing SinB describe her anal virginity sounds very appealing... 2. Interrupt her with a kiss. You can't be sure if this is actually a good time to make a move. She just masturbated to your story, but she also JUST told you not to "kid yourself," so... 3. Ask what she meant by "closest thing [Eunha] has to a boyfriend." It would probably be really rude to change the subject to Eunha right now so maybe you should wait, but you HAVE to know what she means.

~~~~~

"Uuuh, I think his name was Park Hanyoon... Or Hangyeol... Whatever, that's not the point."

"So, hold up," you interject. You think for half a second that you could ask about what SinB meant about Eunha, but then decide against it and continue with, "You don't remember the guy's name? Shouldn't that be easy?"

"This was years ago."

"Yeah, but it's probably someone you've seen a bunch, right?"

"No, it was just the once."

"Not even on TV or something?"

"No. He wasn't... famous or anything. I met him at a fansign."

"SinB! You fucked a fan?! Is that why you were surprised about me not knowing about Eunha?" You feel legitimately incredulous. Sowon has lectured Eunha in front of you many times about the potential consent issues involved with having sex with fans.

"I know! I know I shouldn't have! But it was such a long time ago! We were rookies and practically nobody back then!"

You give her a sly look, but include a crooked smile, "SinB, SinB, SinB. You little fan-fucker."

She smacks your chest again. When you look down at your shirt, you notice a small wet spot on it and realize that SinB pulled her hand out of her pants to slap you. You're not sure whether to be turned on or weirded out by it.

"Look! Like... Yeah. He was totally a fan. We had just debuted, and we were really worried if anyone was going to like us, and he was so fucking nice. We were just getting shallow compliments all around, and he was the first person to be genuine. He really got me, you know?"

"Oh yeah. Thirty seconds and a high five will do that to you."

"Damn, dude! You want to hear about my ass fuck or not?"

You laugh and softly punch her shoulder, "Yes! I do. I just want to give you a hard time."

SinB shifts a little bit so she can reach around her back and grab your caged dick through your pants. "Uh huh, sure. Too bad you can't right now."

You're sure you could drop a super witty comeback on her about her usage of the words "too bad" if you weren't wincing in pain. "Yeah," you say through gritted teeth, "We'll save that for later I guess."

"As I was saying," SinB mutters as she lets go of the cage and settles back into a more comfortable position, "He was really nice. He made me feel like Gfriend had a future. That really hit me. So I told him where to meet me after the fansign."

"Didn't you just judge me and Eunha for sex after three hours?"

"I was young!"

"Wait, you weren't underage at that point, were you?"

"No. It wasn't that soon after our debut."

"So... this is closer to Navillera?"

"The fuck? Why do you know that?"

"I'm doing the math because your ability to convey a timeline is like watching Inception."

"Like yours was any better!"

"The week before Christmas, two thousand--"

SinB pokes your nose to interrupt. She grits her teeth like she's frustrated, but she's also smiling, "Shut your damn mouth already and listen!" You put your hands up as if you're surrendering.

"So that night we met at a convenience store down the street from the venue. I didn't think we were going to fuck, but the more we talked, the more I started gushing. We just walked around this park. After a bit, I saw a spot between some bushes that we could go through, and I grabbed his hand and practically dragged him in with me."

"Ooh, public sex?"

"Yyyup. Worst idea ever, honestly."

You're about to comment again about her fucking a fan being the worst idea, but as soon as your mouth opens, SinB's finger is on your nose again.

"As. I. Was. Saying," she emphasizes each word loudly, "Pulled him into the bushes, around a tree, and onto the ground. I had my pants around my ankles in seconds. Poor dude could barely keep up, but I got him to finger me pretty quick. When I let him stop kissing me, he said he didn't want to offend me. As if he could at that point. When I say I was gushing, I was a whole fucking waterfall. I told him to get his cock out and fuck me any way he wanted to.

"I don't even know if he meant to fuck my ass. I was so lubed up and turned on that I barely even noticed it. Probably unlikely he did either. I was totally dickmatized."

"Dickmatized?"

"Yeah. Hypnotized by dick."

"Not by his kindness?"

"I mean that was the starting point. Once he was on top of me, different story."

You scratch your head. "So you're telling me that you were so turned on, you thought he was..."

"Fucking my pussy? Not exactly. I mentally registered that he was in the wrong hole, but I couldn't give a fuck if I wanted to. Chalk it up to my minimal experience."

SinB pauses, clearly thinking something over, and you notice that her blush has mostly faded. "Eunha gets mad when I call it the wrong hole. Whatever, you know what I mean."

There's another pause, a bit longer this time. You break the silence, "So the story is that you had sex with a fan in the bushes at night and you were so wet from his kindness that you didn't care that he may or may not have missed and put his dick in your ass?"

SinB shrugs, "If you want to oversimplify it, yup. But I forgot to mention that we didn't use protection."

"Well you wouldn't have had quite as much to concern yourself with because it was anal. But you really should still."

"Oh no, that's the thing man. I was expecting him to fuck my pussy. I lost my whole sense of self in that moment and I even told him to cum inside me. If he had been in my vag, I could have lost my career."

You stare down at her. "Wow. That turned into a saga suddenly. I thought this was just a sex story."

"It totally was! I can't even explain how hard I came when he whispered that he was busting inside me."

"His words?"

"No, he was all polite about it. As polite as you can be when you're on the verge of busting a nut!" She delivers that last sentence with the energy of a fraternity bro, so you're shocked she doesn't offer a fist bump or doesn't finish with "Know what I'm sayin'?!" Instead, she takes one of your hands and plays with your fingers again, looking over at the TV. "Look at this joker. Is this is his first porn? What's even the point if we can't see the penetration happening?"

You take a look as well. The male actor's incredibly toned ass and back take up nearly eighty percent of the screen, while all you can see of the woman is her legs wrapped around his waist. The two of them are grunting and moaning quietly (you get the feeling the microphone guy quit his job halfway through the filming). "Well... You know. Some people just prefer something sensual over being overtly sexual."

"That man's perfectly in focus asshole isn't overtly sexual?"

You can't help but laugh, "Yeah, yeah, I guess it is. I wasn't paying attention to his crystal clear rosebud."

Suddenly, you feel one of your fingers is particularly warm. And wet. You look down and see SinB, still looking away from you, but clutching your hand in front of her face. She's got your finger in her mouth, and she's not biting down.

Part 6 Options: QUICK VOTE TIME @everyone This vote will be closed in 4 hours! I know it doesn't make sense, but just go with your gut! Trying something kind of new with this one, but there will be a normal vote after the second half of Part 6 goes up later today. [Secret voting options appeared here on the discord server.]

~~~~~

You cough softly. "Hey, uh, SinB... Whatcha doing there?"

There's a very audible popping noise from her mouth as SinB shoves your whole arm away.

"Fuckin' nothing, you dumb whore! What are you doing?!"

You try to hold in another laugh, but it comes out as a snort.

SinB launches up off your lap and hunches over so all you can see is her back and hair. "Fuck. Fuck! I'm sorry! I knew this was a bad idea."

"Bad idea? I mean, that's arguable."

"I'm sorry, you can go."

"Woah, hold up." You put your hand on her shoulder. "Seriously, what's going on?"

"I didn't invite you over here to fuck! I just wanted to hang out with you like a damn normal person and I fucked it up."

"That's fine, SinB. I'm not judging! If you want to just watch the movie, we can totally do that. If you're getting too hot off this one, we can even swap it out to the horror movie."

"No, no. You can go if you want. That was so fucking stupid of me."

You sigh. Clearly, SinB doesn't do this kind of thing very often. You scoot a bit closer so you're right behind her, and put one of your arms around her to hold your hand in front of her face. "If you think it was stupid, maybe try it again and you can do it better this time?"

There's a tense moment of hesitation, both from SinB thinking whatever she's thinking, and you thinking that this might not be the right way to make her feel better. Because that's what she needs, right? To feel better? This would be so much easier if you could understand this crazy woman.

Slowly, SinB turns her head to look at you out of the corner of her eye and mumbles, "You... sure it's okay?"

"Well I mean, I'm going to want an explanation of what this is all about at some point, but if you're just trying to have a good, uhhh, sensual time until then, I'm happy to oblige."

"That's not the point, man. I've been a jerk to you since day one."

You don't entirely disagree, but still you say, "A jerk? I don't know about that. Rude, sure, but that's something friends can do. No big deal."

"Oh, we were barely friends. I invited you here so we could be though! I... feel bad about treating you like shit, and I don't want you to think I'm just using you for sex."

"Hey, I've been thinking we were friends this entire time. Or good aquaintences or something. And as for being used for sex, it just sort of comes with the territory. In this dorm, anyway."

SinB's mouth gapes, "Everyone in this dorm?"

"No! I just meant Eunha and Yerin. And, I guess, you. If you want to, I mean," you punctuate by putting your hands up, "Plus, I'm still friends with those two. We do more than just fuck constantly you know."

"Yeah, that's true. So, like, would you have sex with me too?"

"If you wanted to, I'm seriously not opposed. You obviously want to have a normal friendship, and you're hot as hell. Those are the two ingredients for a friends with benefits situation."

She turns partially around so she can look at you a little more easily. There's a fire in her eyes, and she emphasizes the first word of her next sentence hard, "Will you fuck me?" There's an air of intensity entirely surrounding her as she stares you in the eye.

You give her your biggest, winning smile and confidently say, "No."

"What?!" SinB visibly deflates and flops against the back of the couch. "But you just said friends with benefits! I can be more friendly! Do we need to be friends longer first?"

You laugh and give her a light shove, and she gives you nothing but a confused look in response. "Nah, I would totally do it now, but my dick is locked up."

"Gah!" SinB punches the couch cushions on either side of her. "Fucking Eunha and her shitty timing!"

You put your hands up again. "You know, I'll admit, she was probably justified. The tranquilizer might have been a little over the top, but I won't say I didn't deserve it at all."

SinB swipes some stray hairs off of her face and relaxes a bit, "Still... Fuck! Whatever. It's okay. I can just do the friend thing. I still feel like I have to prove I'm not a complete asshole anyway."

"Awww, it's fine. You're trying," you say in a cutesy voice, "But don't stop being an asshole altogether! It's what I expect now, and I don't want my friends to have to change."

She gives you a scathing glare, but also a one-sided smirk. "Hurr hurr, mother fucker."

"There's my girl!" You scoot back up to her again, so your face is significantly closer to hers, and you give her a quick kiss on the cheek. She responds with an uncouth grunt.

"Besides," you say in a lower tone, "I don't need my dick to get you off."

Once more, SinB's cheeks glow red, her eyes go wide, and she lets out a very breathy, "O-okay."

Options for Part 6: 1. Use your fingers! You two don't even need to get naked. Though if she's going to gush like she talked about in her story, she may need to change after this. 2. (Picked:) Use your tongue! Get her pants off and give her the full oral experience. 3. Lol, just watch the movie. You said that you don't need your dick to get her off. You didn't say you WOULD.

~~~~~

"Okay?" you ask, sounding dejected. "Okay." You sit back again, watching the awkward porn with an exaggerated sad face.

SinB jumps off the couch to land between you and the TV. "No! I mean yes! Do it!" She frantically pulls up her tank top, but it gets tangled in her hair as she rushes. "F-fuck! Ow!"

You lean up and wrap your arms around her while she's still stuck and pull her down, using your knees as a wedge to push her legs apart so she lands in a sort of straddling-your-lap position, though not comfortably so. She struggles to adjust herself and laughs nervously as her arms are sticking out at odd angles and her top is bunched up around her neck.

"Sure." You put your hand on the back of her head and pull gently. She stops struggling with her top and follows your lead.

The two of you kiss slowly, if a bit awkwardly, to the sound of the porn in the background. Through it all, you carefully (blindly, really) help untangle SinB's hair. Once you manage that, you put your hands on the small of her back to feel her fantastic tone. She takes the tank top the rest of the way off herself. She has to break the kiss to do it, but grabs either side of your neck and immediately dives back in to continue.

When you feel her grinding against you, you figure it's time to switch things up. You reluctantly push her back a bit and see when she opens her eyes, they're a bit unfocused. "How are you doing there, SinB?"

"Mmm, good," she hums, closing her eyes with an unusually soft smile.

Her senses seem to shock back into her when you say, "Not to imply that we have to stop, but I'm pretty sure I can do something else with my mouth to make you feel good."

Her eyes shoot open. "Yes," she says simply and flops onto the couch on her side, unbuttoning her jeans.

"Yes what?"

"Fuck you, dude!" She kicks your thigh a couple of times. "You know exactly yes what! Stop with this whiplash teasing!"

You laugh and recoil away from her sideways stomping. "I know! I know! Ow! Okay! Note to self: No teasing the SinB."

SinB smirks and keeps undressing, revealing legs that could inspire fanfictions all on their own. You know, if there were a demand for something that oddly specific. Just saying.

You say a quick, silent prayer to thank whatever god or goddess gave you the ultimate lottery win by breaking your heater at just the right time, and help SinB pull her jeans the rest of the way off. She's wearing loose boxers underneath, but she practically rips them off as soon as it's possible. You barely see anything before she snaps her legs shut and puts a foot in front of your face.

"H-hey. Before you like, do anything... You're not going to be a dick about this later, are you?"

"How do you mean?" you ask, putting a hand between your face and her foot.

"Just like, I don't know. You said you won't treat me like a slut, and I... almost trust you, but maybe we don't tell Eunha or Yerin about this?"

"I mean, I can do that," you pull her foot down a bit so you can see her eyes as you talk, "but I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to hear it more than anything else. Not mad or anything."

SinB takes the hint and puts her foot down slowly. "Yeah exactly. Like probably too happy. I'm not in the mood to get harassed about... Nevermind. Just don't tell those two, kay?"

You chuckle, "Alright, it's all good. I'll keep quiet about it. Any other stipulations you'd like to add before..." you pause to softly pull her knees apart, putting one of her legs over the back of the couch and keeping your eyes on hers, "I put my tongue in you?"

She grabs onto the couch cushions and her blush grows again. You realize how often that's happened today and wonder if it's physically healthy for that to happen so often in a short amount of time.

"Nope."

"Well then, better prepare yourself."

Without taking your eyes off hers, you lower yourself, using the guide of her legs in your peripheral vision to make sure you're going where you mean to. When you feel her intense body heat right around your chin, you drop the rest of the way, landing your mouth right on target (more or less). You're slightly disappointed in her lack of moaning, but you watch as she screws her eyes shut and let's out a long breath.

As you roll your tongue out, she noticeably breathes heavier. And much like in her story earlier, she's incredibly wet. You'd think you had already gone down on her for half an hour if you didn't just start.

"F-fuck," she half-whispers, "This was a good idea."

You'd respond, but you've dedicated yourself to the task ahead. Rather than try some silly alphabet writing technique, you lazily slide your tongue up and down, and in and out, and over her clit and between her folds. One of SinB's hands grabs you by the head, fingertips digging only slightly painfully into your scalp.

Scratching seems like a good idea suddenly, and you carefully rake your fingernails down the backs of SinB's legs. You feel her shudder in response. You're tempted to do it again, but decide you'll keep it in your pocket as an occasional trick.

Suddenly, you notice SinB shift underneath you. You look up to see that she's taken off her bra, leaving her, finally, entirely naked. She looks down into your eyes, and you raise your eyebrows a couple of times, doing your best not to slow down the work with your tongue. She gives you a dirty look back.

"What?" you ask incredulously, and mostly muffled.

"I didn't say anything!" she scolds. "And... there is one more stimulation... Er, stipulation," she scrunches up her face at her error, "N-no butt stuff."

You lift yourself from her pussy long enough to chuckle and say, "I kind of assumed," and go back down.

SinB bites her lip and throws her head back. "Cool..."

You keep at it for several minutes. Every once in a while you think you hear a reaction out of SinB, but quickly realize it's just the porn again. You've got half a mind to grab the remote and turn it off, but suddenly find yourself unable to move as SinB's thighs clamp around your head.

You look up, which is a slight struggle, and watch as SinB's chest rises and falls rapidly. You swear you can read her lips saying your name, but how loud or quiet is hard to judge, considering the legs on the verge of crushing your skull. Even so, you distinctly hear her voice all the same. Content in the fact that SinB is about to climax, you close your eyes to focus on making that happen.

Then you hear another voice, muffled again, but notably higher pitched. SinB's thighs tense up against your temples. You open your eyes again to see she's staring at you and definitely no longer appears to be enjoying herself.

In a blur of motion, SinB's legs unwrap from around your head with the near-deafening pop of sweaty flesh pulling away from your ears. You barely hear what must be the last half of a sentence, "--ucking knock anymore?!"

"It's the front door to the house, sheesh."

The promise you made to SinB not one cunnilingus ago comes rushing back to mind, because even with the couch blocking your line of sight, there's no mistaking Eunha's voice.

SinB manages to perform some kind of insane gymnastics to grab her tank top from where it landed on the coffee table. She holds it in front of her to protect some amount of her modesty as she stands up, somewhat crouched down. "You ever think maybe it could be fucking polite?! Or some shit though?!"

Eunha's cute laugh rings out through the living room. Normally it'd make you happy to hear it, but with how frantically SinB is acting, it induces immense anxiety. "It's all good, SinB! Calm it on down! Who's that you've got over there?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?! Can you just... go to your room already?" SinB's eyes flick around, looking for her boxers, probably. When she briefly catches your eye, she hisses quietly and glances down at the floor. You take the hint and roll off the couch, catching yourself to minimize the noise. Looking underneath, you can just see Eunha's feet rounding the corner separating the entryway from the living room.

"Oof, you're real worked u-- Aw, worried because you're nakie? Don't worry, it's just me and I didn't bring anyone home. Oh hey! That's the porn Yerin left you!"

You feel a moment of vindication, having guessed correctly who left that movie in the basket. But the moment quickly turns tense again.

"No! Er, yes! Just... Eunha, for the fucking love, just go to your room for thirty damn seconds okay?"

There's a silent pause, undercut by SinB's heavy breathing and the grunting from the TV. Eunha's feet are perfectly still. Until they're stomping in your direction.

"If that's who I think it is--"

"Eunha, stop!"

You hear the squeak of SinB's feet spinning on the hardwood floor.

"-- and you found a fucking key--"

"Hey! No!"

Eunha's only maybe a meter away, and there's nowhere to hide.

"-- that twat is going to get it!"

Again, silence. You slowly turn to look up. It's Eunha, glaring down at you like the world's smallest giant.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she asks. You know it's rhetorical.

Not knowing how to react, you put up one of your hands like a weak wave and try to smile.

"Whose. Idea. Was this?"

Options for Part 7: 1. Say this is SinB's fault. 2. (Picked:) Pin the blame on yourself. 3. Maintain that you're both innocent. 4. Blame Eunha! 5. Try blaming Yerin? That's believable, right?

~~~~~

You look over at SinB. All you can see from the floor is her head and hunched shoulders. She looks absolutely mortified. You watch as she locks eyes with Eunha and opens her mouth to say something.

"Mine. It was my idea," you suddenly blurt out, almost unexpectedly. "SinB invited me to watch a normal movie and I picked a porn and offered to eat her out while we watched."

Eunha's surprisingly intimidating gaze aims back at you. "You fucking dumb..." she covers her face with a hand.

"He's... being generous about that, Eunha," SinB says before Eunha decides to finish her thought, "I got him to tell me about-- I mean, I told him we should fuck, but we couldn't really, so yeah."

"No, no seriously. It was me who offered," you insist.

"Will you two shut up for a second?" Eunha holds her hands out. Both you and SinB hold your breaths. She pauses, appearing to be having some trouble gathering her thoughts. "Do you know how long I've wanted you two to do this? Don't answer that. It's a long time. I've been hinting and hinting and hinting and neither one of you dopes have been picking up on it. Will you please turn off that stupid fucking porno and sit down?"

It takes a second for you to react to Eunha's demand, still unsure you're processing her words right. SinB moves first, grabbing the remote and powering the TV down. You fumble your way back up to an upright sitting position on the couch, as there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to viably sit, though it's a little nervewracking to have your back turned to Eunha right now when you can feel her eyes melting their way through the back of your head. SinB sits down next to you, merely covering her front half with the clothes she was able to grab.

Each of Eunha's steps sounds like a small thunderclap as she stomps around to the front of the couch. She stands over the both of you. You could swear gravity is suddenly trying harder to pull you into your seat. You don't dare look, but you can feel SinB shaking from the vibrations in the couch. "This was supposed to be such a good day. I finally got to do something solo and you could have fucked it up for me." She motions at you, then turns on SinB, "And you knew I was mad at him. And you know me! I would have held up his dick for you to jump on, if you had just asked! Ugh! Just... Tonight of all nights! I need a minute."

As soon as the storm started, it's over. You take a deep breath and hear Eunha's bedroom door fling open and slam shut.

Almost immediately after, you hear the front door open too, and Yerin's voice, "Haaaa, thankss for the rrride. Hey you shure you don't wanna come in and hhave a dr-- Aaaand, she gone."

You don't have to look to know Yerin drunkenly stumbles her way into the living room with a gasp, "Oh no! Shinnie... ShinB! You can't be naked out he wif him!" She does a slow, awkward sommersault over the back of the couch to land in between you and SinB. Neither of you find the energy to push her away as her alcohol-saturated breath washes over you.

"Unna lef the pparty early. She's gonna be here any mint and sheesh sooo mad at him raeet now. But you cn come gesh your freak on in my room!"

Neither of you watch as Yerin fumbles back to her feet and cautiously makes her way back to her room.

"Hey," you say eventually, "I'm sorry SinB. I should have said we should wait."

"Nah, man. I appreciate that, but I shouldn't have asked in the first place... or at least have cleaned my room and taken you in there." You chuckle, "Well, should... we watch the next movie?"

SinB smirks back, "Yeah, I'm up for that. And... maybe we can get Eunha to come watch it with us?"

"That seems like a good idea. We should probably pick one out she'll like though. I doubt she wants to watch the other one I picked out."

"Sounds about right. Well, um, let me," she gestures to her barely covered body.

"Yeah, yup. Go for it," you cough out and turn to face the other direction. You hear her shuffling around as she starts to dress herself.

That is, until Eunha's door opens again. You freeze up and watch her storm back into the living room. She points at you, "Your pants, take them off."

You hesitate, "W-what?"

"You heard me. Get naked. And you," she points at SinB, "sit back down."

You look back to see SinB, staring at Eunha, slowly following the order with her boxers halfway up her legs.

"Now!"

No more hesitation for you! You jump to your feet and drop your pants. Eunha walks around and while you're taking off your shirt, she yanks down your underwear. It's not like you haven't spent a lot of time naked around Eunha, but you feel particularly nervous this time. Eunha reaches into her bra and tosses SinB what you can only assume is the key to the cage on your dick, then motions at you with her head.

"If you two are going to fuck tonight, I'm in charge. Unlock him."

"I-in charge?" SinB stammered.

"Yes. Now get on your knees and unlock him."

SinB picks the key up off the floor, considering she hadn't caught it, and gets on her knees in front of you, but keeps her eyes on Eunha.

"I want this. Obviously you two want this. It's an all around win," Eunha grabs your chin, her eyes blazing up at you, "You have a lot to make up to me. I love that you both want to defend each other, but you both pissed me off. And if you do something stupid that could ruin my career again, you will get punished way more than you're about to be rewarded."

There's suddenly a release of pressure and blood flows back into your dick and balls. You grimace at the pain around it, not really ever having realized just how tight the cage was. In fact, you think your penis is numb.

Eunha crouches down and grabs a fistful of the back of SinB's hair, pulling her head back. "You understand why I'm mad?"

SinB tries to nod, but is held tightly in place.

"And you understand I still love you and I don't want to be mad?" "Y-yeah. H-hey Eunha. We were going to ask if you wanted to watch something else with us?"

You cringe a little at the awkward timing of that.

"I appreciate that," Eunha says, strangely calmly, "But later, and with the chicken feet that you're going to buy me. Now, get this cock hard."

SinB glances back and forth between your eyes, your dick, and Eunha, and settles on looking at you, giving you a look that seems to be asking for permission. You give her the most subtle shrug you can manage so Eunha doesn't notice, and her eyes end up on your dick. So do her hands.

Eunha sits back down on the couch, crossing her legs and watching silently. She doesn't offer any kind of encouragement, so SinB is left awkwardly massaging you with her fingertips, as you slowly regain feeling. It's the first time you've felt pins and needles there as far as you can remember.

"Come on. I know it's been forever. Use your mouth." SinB scowls and mumbles, "It hasn't been... that long."

You bite your lip to try not to laugh, but you don't have to try for long.

SinB's small mouth opens wide and completely engulfs your dick. You feel her tongue gently coaxing it to grow. It works quite well, as you are very quickly reaching your full length in spite of the throbbing soreness where the metal was clamped around you. She coughs and pulls away when you get far enough to touch at her throat.

"Better. Now just tongue."

You marvel as SinB works you up even further. She holds herself in place with one hand and holds your dick against her open lips with the other. Her tongue slides up and down, and her eyes match, looking up at you and down at Eunha. In no time at all, you're as hard as you can get.

Eunha kneels down next to SinB and puts her hands between SinB's legs, both from the front and the back. You wish you could see exactly what she's doing, because SinB's sharp breaths are all you need to know that Eunha's doing something very right. "I see you're already having a good time. Did you know you wanted to be bossed around so bad?"

SinB shakes her head, biting her lips together. Her hand clenches tightly around your cock, but you figure this is not the time to stop her, so you wince and bear with it.

"Oh yes, of course. You want more of it?"

"Uh-huh," SinB manages to gasp out. She never really struck you as the type, but here she was, acting all submissive to the woman who had never revealed so much as a dominant bone in her body until today.

"Then suck his cock... and," you can't hear the rest of what Eunha says, as she draws in close to SinB's ear and whispers the rest, ending with a languid lick of SinB's earlobe.

As soon as Eunha pulls away and goes back to her seat on the couch, SinB dives onto your dick, wildly sucking the first few inches. You go to put a hand on top of her head, but stop when Eunha shouts, "Hey! No touching. Your part comes later. Just tell her when you're cumming." You put your hands behind your back, grabbing your wrists to help beat the temptation.

This goes on, and on, and on. At one point, you can't help but wonder if SinB's jaw is going to get sore, but eventually the pleasure overtakes that thought, your legs shake, and you find yourself gasping, "I'm... c-close." And just as suddenly as she started, SinB stops, backing away until you're a few feet apart.

"I think that's about as close as SinB got on your mouth."

You're about to object, but think better of it.

"SinB, come sit here and lean back." Eunha pats the couch next to her. SinB does as she says, slouching deeply into the cushions. Eunha grabs one of her legs and pulls it open, revealing SinB's completely drenched pussy to you. SinB moves her other leg as well, and she gives you a look you think would be best described as nervous desire. If you had a mirror, you're sure you'd see the same expression on your face too.

"So, you want to fuck her. I know you do, so do it. Look how wet she is, how easy it's going to be. She's going to love it too," Eunha directs the rest toward SinB, "right? You're ready for this dick to give you pleasure?"

SinB nods, "I do wan-- I am, yeah."

Eunha leans over her, putting them face to face. She wags her hand at you to indicate you should come over, and you catch her drift. "You want something? You want yourself spread open around it? You want it rubbing against every last bit of you? Soft and hard all at once? Gentle? Rough? How do you want it?"

You kneel between SinB's spread legs, and you get into position, still unsure Eunha wants you to continue. "H-hard. I mean, gentle, uh--"

"You want it the way I say you want it."

In rapid succession, Eunha looks back to see that your dick is hovering right in front of SinB's pussy, grabs you by the ass, and pulls you hard. Both you and SinB gasp at the sudden, full penetration.

"And so do you," Eunha says, locking eyes with you, "Stay deep, move slow."

Following her instruction is easier said than done. The grip she has on your ass cheek and the onset of weakness in your legs from the rush of pleasure hold your focus. But even so, you manage to pull back a bit and then move forward again, and back, and forward.

It's a slow pace. You can't move far, and Eunha's hand ensures you don't break with the rhythm. Your instincts tell you that you should speed up. You're tingling all over your body, packed with whatever primal force urges you on. But this tiny, soft, bleach-blonde woman holds your gaze with hers, threatening you not to break her rules, and it's working.

"You like this?" Eunha asks in a forceful tone. You manage a nod. "You like her?" she asks. You nod again, a little more vigorously this time. "You want to kiss her?" she asks, raising her eyebrows as if prompting your answer, as if you needed it.

You look past Eunha at SinB's slowly shifting body. She's at least a little pink all over, as if she's got a fever. Her hips to her subtle abs to her breasts to her gaping and slightly smiling mouth and finally to her eyes, half shut and looking back at you. You nod one last time and start leaning down, but Eunha's hand shoots up, holding you back by the chest. "Keep going," she says. Then, turning back to SinB, she starts another line of questions. "You like this?" to which SinB groans out a "Yes." Eunha puts a palm on SinB's cheek. "You like him?" she asks. "Y-- fuck... yes," comes the staggered reply. "And you? You want to kiss him?" she asks. SinB barely gets out an "Mhm."

Eunha drops lower to SinB's face, until from your perspective, it looks like they're close enough to be touching lips to lips. "Lucky you then. You can kiss him. You can fuck him whenever you want. But don't forget: He's mine... And so are you."

There's a muffled cry from SinB that quickly turns into a quiet moan. Eunha's hands hold her still as they make out. SinB's hands shakily make their way up like they're going to wrap around Eunha, but Eunha breaks away suddenly, and she half gets off the couch to press her face against yours. Just like SinB, you make a startled noise that quickly becomes an accepting hum as her tongue invades your mouth. And as soon as it starts, she pulls away, leaving you impossibly unsated.

"Keep it slow. Kiss her. Make her cum," Eunha commands, moving completely out of the way.

Without a second thought, you drop down. SinB's arms and her legs immediately wrap around you and squeeze tight as your mouths meet. Your lips are inseparable. Even breathing becomes a vague afterthought.

SinB's pussy clenches down on you like a vice. Her nails rake across your back as they try to find somewhere to desperately hang on. It seems like most of the work has already been done to accomplish the last of Eunha's instructions, to make her cum. You're thankful for that, as you're only seconds away from it yourself. Eunha whispers one last word into your ears, each syllable drawn out, "In... side..."

Your whole body seizes up and stiffens. SinB's pulses with heat. You both effectively scream into each others' mouths and cum in what must be the closest thing to truly simultaneous orgasms there has ever been. You swear you feel your heart pounding against SinB's chest, and hers against yours.

When you eventually manage to relax, it's because you're completely spent, exhausted. You don't pull out of SinB so much as you fall out, collapsing to the floor where you're greeted by none other than Eunha's bare foot pushing you by the chest onto your back.

There are a few thudding noises as SinB's limbs all fall down as well. She must be feeling the same lifelessness you are. You can hear her gasping for breath.

"I'd say that went pretty well," Eunha says, standing up and over you. You'd be staring up her skirt if your eyes could focus. "I'm going to get into my pajamas. Don't start the next movie without me."

"O-okay," you croak.

Once Eunha's gone, you gather up enough strength again to pull yourself up into a sitting position and watch as SinB struggles to do the same. Your mixed cum pours out of her like water from a faucet.

"I could," she says between gulps of air, "I mean, we could... definitely... fuuuck... do that again... sometime?" You laugh, though it sounds more like a wheeze, "Yup, we could. If we don't die from this."

"That's a... yeah, I get that..."

The two of you gradually catch your breaths. By the time you do, Eunha has returned. She sets down a few more beers and throws a roll of paper towels at you. You figure you know what it's for, and break a few sheets off to start shamefully cleaning up the pool of cum and sweat that will most likely leave a stain on the couch. SinB weakly makes her way around the room, gathering up clothes and piling yours up near you.

As you work, Eunha sits on the coffee table, flipping her way through SinB's movie basket. Apparently she's just going to pick the next one herself.

"By the way," Eunha says, munching on a piece of popcorn, "Seeing as you said you liked my performance today, were you able to tell who collaborated on it with me?"

You blink and stare straight ahead for a moment. Your mind is still a little roughed up from the literally mind-blowing sex that you just experienced, so you feel a bit unprepared for such an unrelated question.

Even so, you have been thinking for a while, particularly during rehearsals you hung out at, that Eunha's solo sounded like it had a mixed style. Who was it you were thinking of again? We're in the last stretch of this story now! It's time for me to start planning for the next one! So while this vote doesn't affect this story, it will control the next one! We'll take care of more details later, but here are your base options. Options for Part 8: (Picked:) You recognize that optimized sound anywhere. It felt a little bit like that SM group, Red Velvet. Yeah, there was some metal influence in there, right? Was it someone from Dreamcatcher Company? Cube. Definitely Cube. But super unique, kind of like it was written by an idol... Idol? Idle? G-Idle?

~~~~~

“Yeah, it kind of sounded like an SM tune,” you say with a little bit of uncertainty.

Eunha smiles. You had all but forgotten what that looked like in the last few hours. It’s a welcome sight.

“Sure did,” she practically chirps, “You guys can’t tell anyone about this, but the melody was written by Wendy.”

A half-dressed SinB gives her a shocked look. “Wendy? When did she get into composing?”

“She has been for a while now. Apparently LSM isn’t on board with letting her talk about it openly yet, and you know how that goes.”

SinB flattens her lips and raises her eyebrows. It seems there’s some sort of knowledge these two plan to keep secret. You think to yourself that you’ll need to do some investigating later on to check it out. After all, you’re decent friends with a few members of Red Velvet. [Next story confirmed]

“SinB, did you already watch ‘Don’t Look in the Basement?’ I could have sworn I put it in here.”

Eunha put the horror movie in the basket? Well that puts you at one for one on the movies you picked out. “I pulled that out actually,” you point out where you set the case on top of the DVD player.

“Ah shit,” SinB whines, “Do we have to watch a scary movie? I’m… still recovering.”

“Yup! This and the teokbokki and we’ll call ourselves even, okay? And besides, we’ll keep you safe from the big bad basement monster.”

SinB just scowls and puts her shirt back on.

Eunha grabs you by the shoulder and pulls you in close to whisper in your ear, “And for you, part of getting back to being even involves you spending the night with me tomorrow and doing everything I tell you to.”

Once you’re dressed as well (thankfully without having to work around a cage this time), the three of you make your way to the couch again. Eunha grabs and arranges you so that you and her are sitting on either side of SinB. She picks up the remote and flips the movie on. It’s an old film, and the dramatic music is undercut by how tame it sounds to your modern tastes.

Even so, SinB seems completely terrified throughout the viewing, pulling her knees up to her chest, covering her eyes, and screaming every so often. You and Eunha hug her each time, considering neither of you even find the movie very frightening at all. In fact, you find it to be a very interesting commentary on the treatment of the mentally ill... until it ends up being pretty dumb overall. Frankly, it’s disappointing. But watching it with the right people certainly makes up for it.

The movie ends and Eunha yawns, “Phew! You know what? I didn’t realize how exhausted I was. I’m actually going to go to bed.”

You go to stand up and follow her almost automatically, but she puts a hand on your shoulder to push you back down. “Why don’t you guys watch another movie? Maybe not a comedy or an action so you don’t wake me up, okay?”

You’re not about to argue with her, and it seems SinB doesn’t have a problem either. Eunha walks away and you all wish each other good night.

“So, uh,” SinB says quietly once you hear the bedroom door close, “Are you still processing what just happened, or is it just me?”

“I think I’m doing alright. It’s not what I expected to happen, like at all, but somehow it felt like I should have expected it anyway. How about you? That wasn’t too bad for you, was it?”

SinB waves her hands in front of her face, “Oh, fuck no. I don’t think I can describe how into that I was.”

You chuckle in an attempt not to show how prideful you feel in this moment.

“I’m a little upset,” she continues, “about why it all went down like that, but I wouldn’t have had the fucking courage to ask for it in the first place. So, you know.”

“The courage?” you ask as you put an arm around her shoulder. She smiles warmly and leans into the half hug. “I guess I can picture you being afraid now that I’ve experienced you watching a horror movie, but you never struck me as the type to be afraid before.”

SinB slaps your arm. “Shut up, man. I was just always afraid you’d say no. I’m afraid of that with everyone.”

“You’re one of the most famous girls in the country, and you’re afraid of rejection?”

“You know what the fuck I mean. It doesn’t matter if I’ve got money or fame now. Being loved by a whole ton of people is different from a single person I give a shit about.”

You laugh, but decide not to press your luck by chiding her for not giving a shit about her fans. “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t think you need to be scared though. Just come with me to The Lounge sometime. I’ll wingman for you.”

SinB shrugs, digging her shoulder into your side for a second. “Thanks, but I don’t think I can quite do that. It’s just not my style. Can I like, just ask to fuck you every once in a while? I promise I won’t be too annoying about it.”

“Any time at all! I’m at your service.”

“But we can also just hang out? If you’re not busy?”

“Totally. You’ve got a few dozen movies left in that basket. I can at least stick around for those. There are some good ones in there.”

“In that case,” SinB kicks off the couch and grabs the basket, dropping several of the DVDs onto the coffee table, “one more before you go home?”

Hey @everyone . You know what I hate? Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all the bullshit around them. They make my life hell! But having said that, I’ve started outlining for the next story. The deadline for THIS vote is going to be 12/4 at 12:00 UTC, and Part 10 will wind down the Movie Night story and will reveal the unlocked storylines. Options for Part 9: 1. “Sure! Let’s just turn the volume down for an action movie.” 2. (Picked:) “Yeah, how about a romantic drama this time?” 3. “Only if we can watch the documentary about astrophysics.” 4. “Nah, I’ve got to get to bed!”

~~~~~

"Yeah, how about a romantic drama this time?"

SinB grins, "Oh man, the bitch is going soft on me?"

You cover your mouth in sarcastic shock. "How dare you! I'll have you know I'm still hard as a rock."

The two of you chuckle as SinB pulls a movie out of the basket. "Have you seen... 'A Short Weekend To Remember?'"

"Can't say I have," you say, cocking an eyebrow at the cheesy cover art, "but I'll take it."

No time is wasted getting the DVD in the machine and getting back on the couch. Without so much as a pause, SinB presses herself against your side and nudges your arm with her head. You oblige her neediness and put your arm back around her, pulling her in close for a warm cuddle as the movie starts with a woman's voiceover.

"I never thought I would meet the man of my dreams between overtime hours, covered in flour, but stranger things have happened," the disembodied voice starts.

You expect a snarky joke from SinB, but when you look down to see if she's got anything to say, you see her eyes are already closed softly, as if she's drifting off to sleep.

"Feeling a little tired there?"

She answers you with a yawn, "Shut up. I'm not sleepy, you are."

You snort and she opens her eyes long enough to give you a mischevious look. "You do make a good pillow though," she says, closing her eyes again.

Cautiously, you lift up a hand to stroke her hair. She hums pleasantly, so you figure you're safe and keep going.

Not even ten minutes into the movie, barely after the protagonist and the romantic interest make plans for their first date, you hear a tiny snore come out of SinB's nose. It's so adorable you can't bring yourself to move much, and just manage to slouch enough that you can rest a bit yourself.

You did just survive your first sexual encounter with SinB, directed by an angry Eunha, after all. You deserve a break...

The next thing you know, you're woken up by the sound of a flushing toilet and Yerin's heavy, unstably drunk footfalls.

It's a bit of a blur, almost like a dream. You watch SinB sitting up, hands on your chest, scrunching her eyes tightly. She fumbles for the TV remote and flips it off as credits fly by. You're pulled up by the arm and you follow SinB to the hallway, where she reaches up to the wall and you find yourself in pitch blackness. Even so, you feel the tug on your arm, encouraging you further.

You hear the sound of a door closing, and of a solid thump. You feel a rush of air past your face and then the softness of a bed, or more likely a pillow. And you feel your arms pulled around SinB as if you're her blanket.

You can't think of anything to say in your groggy state, but you're pretty sure you're in a good place, SinB's back fully pushed up against your back, as you drift back into sleep.

All things considered, it's been an alright night.

THE END

~~~~~

Post-story notes:

So! It's the end of Movie Night. Thanks for hanging with me for this one. The next story is for this tiny little group you probably haven't ever heard of, Red Velvet. Don't forget to check the foreword of this story for the link to the Discord server where you can vote on all this junk!

Storyline unlocks (whenever these characters are involved in future stories, they'll have these specific traits): [SinB - Wholesome friendship, but with benefits] [Eunha - Dom for reader and/or SinB]

Fun facts about unpicked options: Part 2. Main vote option 3 would have resulted in no friendship with SinB, and the story title obviously would not have been "Movie Night", even though sex would have still happened. I didn't even have a story title in mind until this vote ended.

Part 3. Voting for Comedy would make Eunha kick you out of the dorm (for the same reason laughing at her in the previous story would have caused a worse turnout).

Part 3. Voting for Documentary would have caused Umji to come home. No particular reason, but she would have been proud of you for educating yourself. I did NOT have plans for any of the options to make Sowon or Yuju to come home though. During this story, Yuju was at her parents' house recovering from the flu, and Sowon was spending the night with her favorite car mechanic (not to pay for the van repairs, but because they're having a fling! I might write a small short story about that sometime).

Part 5. Asking about the Eunha's boyfriend comment would lock out sex options with SinB permanently. I tried to tempt you in, but nice dodge on that one.

Part 6. The QUICK VOTE here was related to the lore of the Gfriend music videos. The blue butterfly represented Eunha wanting to maintain her friendships, while the white circle (glass bead) represented Eunha's desire for all the control/power. So the butterfly meant she would make the best of the situation, while the glass bead meant she would have gotten jealous and started a fight. It would have turned out okay in the end, but it could have been scary!

Part 6. Using your fingers instead of your tongue would result in Eunha not knowing you and SinB were doing anything, since SinB wouldn't have had to get dressed to hide it.

Part 7. Blaming yourself was obviously the best option as far as getting a "good ending," BUT I added the option to blame Yerin at the last second because I thought it would be funny. When it started getting votes, I got super nervous because I had NO PLAN WHATSOEVER for that option. Thanks for not calling my bluff on that one guys, lol.

Part 8. The story was originally going to only have 9 parts, and Part 9's vote was going to be the last one. I split them apart because I was stressed about work and wanted to post something. So I kind of improvised the options for Part 8, but it still resulted in knowing how to prepare for the next story, so I don't feel too bad about it.

Part 9. Voting for the documentary would have again caused Umji to come home, but this time she would have been disappointed in you for falling asleep during an educational film in Part 10.

#gfriend smut #kpop smut #eunha #sinb #male reader insert

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thessalian · 2 years

Text

Thess vs Unfairness

As predicted, Sunshine’s departure has left us a hot mess at work. With still no replacement for Sid, and the other staffer still off (I presume sick, but no one tells us anything anymore), and all the new trainees dictating reports, we can’t catch up on the backlog. Even keeping it from getting any worse is a Sisyphian task at best.

Today, though ... oh fuck, if I didn’t hurt so bad I would be punching walls right now. Came in today to find that Temp had once again grabbed a chunk of typing from only the short, easy bits, and Goblin only taking one report at a time, pretty much at random. This left me with two five-minute bits of insanity from a trainee with no concept about the format we use, two monstrosities (six and eight minutes respectively) from one of the old hands who still manages to cut off important bits of information and ends up stopping in the middle of the block key (dictated at the end) to ask me to add in a sentence or two in some unspecified bit of the original report ... and a seventeen minute report from guy who never does his reports in order and insists on adding detail that we don’t actually need to reports - hence their length. Even the short ones I had left were the ones with tricky accents, no concept of keeping to the format, and general high annoyance levels.

So as you can imagine, the day was already pretty shit.

Then came about 3pm, an hour before I’m due to go home. Scruffman dropped an email that said he unexpectedly had to leave early and was leaving at three, and Temp left at quarter to three for ... some reason or another. (Oh, also, she’s decided that she wants to move into the tiny office because she’s afraid Scruffman’s peering over her shoulder whenever she stops typing. I mean, A) I assured her he’s not because I used to sit there and he never paid attention to what I was up to, and B) if she’s that paranoid about him looking at what she’s doing, I have a feeling she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s still taking all the easy typing and leaving me with the hard stuff.) Anyway, point is that it was basically me, Goblin, and Milady in the office.

At which point, Goblin abandoned her desk entirely and spent forty minutes in conversation with Milady. Which left me with the ever-expanding typing queue, the phones, and the door (or at least the entryphone we use to let couriers in). On my own. When I’m in absolute agony and we’re backlogged to hell and back. Forty. Fucking. Minutes. Not to mention that when I had to get the phone, I got a very nice but somewhat ... sorry, but clueless-sounding lady with a very strong accent and not only did they move closer to me while that was going on but Goblin at least spoke louder, despite their new position meaning they could see that I was on the fucking phone. And from what I heard of that conversation, it was nothing to do with work at all; just another one of Goblin’s complaint-sessions. So I had to bust my ass to at least try to get the typing queue down a little on top of bending in painful ways to buzz couriers in and talking to a lady who seemed to think that explaining her situation in great detail would change the fact that the reports she was after were not on either of our systems and she would have to talk to Scruffman when he came back tomorrow because I don’t handle requests.

I didn’t say good-bye to anyone when I left. I was in too much pain and too fucking angry.

Worst part about all this was that I was going to bring up some of the ... issues in the office during my performance review today ... but, as I pretty much suspected, we’re having to postpone that because of the mess the office is in. And there is no easy way to have a conversation about this sort of thing with Scruffman without a situation he can’t wriggle out of - he hates confrontation and will absolutely dodge any attempt I try to make at flagging up situations that might involve him actually having to manage things in the office for which he is office manager, so if I go to him and ask for a private word about some things that concern me, he’ll say, “Yeah, we’ll talk about this another time” and then absolutely won’t. And I can’t go to Head Honcho because if I do, Scruffman will throw an absolute fit.

Again, I ask: why is it that every job I have ever had goes entirely to shit after a couple of years? Some go bad sooner, but there’s never more than two years before any permanent job I have turns into hell on earth.

Right now I know I need to book some holiday time soon, because I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to manage without significant time off. Thing is, with us so understaffed right now, I would just spend the week panicking about how bad the backlog will get in my absence. Because it would. It got that way even when we had Sunshine and Sid in the office; I’d come back to a mess of typing. Without them? It’d be horrific, and I can’t spend a week relaxing when I know that it’s just going to end with me having to bust my ass even harder when I come back.

This would be a wonton soup day if it wasn’t for my fucking intolerance to gluten. And it’s more financially reasonable to eat the food I have at home anyway. I had been thinking about something that’s not leftovers tonight but I doubt I have the strength to put together breakfast-for-dinner (eggs, bacon, potato waffles) or the tuna broccoli lemon pasta, never mind the chicken broccoli pasta bake I had in mind. At least I have stuff I can reheat. Not that I’m hungry, mind you, but I know I have to eat something. Just like I know I have to bathe and do something that isn’t flumping on an available soft surface sulking. Or ... well, not sure ‘sulking’ is the word when it’s a combination of justified rage, horrific depression, looming anxiety and the kind of bad pain day that involves back spasms. I think it’s a holdover from being a teenager: every time I think that it’s just not fucking fair, I have that remnant-voice planted by every single person who had authority over me in my teens accusing me of sulking. It’s the only reason I can think of that I still feel guilty for feeling that way and attempt to belittle the feeling, even when it really is unfair. Hell, especially when it really is unfair, because most adults will generally tell you that “you’re just sulking” when they’ve done something unfair to you but gaslight you because they know they’ll get away with it.

(It really isn’t fair, though.)

#Thess has a day job

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joezworld · 3 years

Note

Any headcanons about Ever Ace and the other new A-class Evergreen ships? This totally isn’t just because I love your version of Ever Given and want more of her and her family XD

The following is an excerpt from How to Avoid Huge Ships, Or: I Never Met a Ship I Liked by Capt. John W. Trimmer (National Writers Press, 1982)

Chapter 14: The Emotional State of Ships

For most captains, the emotional state of a seagoing vessel (other than your own, of course) is often seen as irrelevant - after all, who cares if the seven hundred foot tanker about to run over you and your ketch is a nice person or not?

However, like many common beliefs in the marine industry, this is an incorrect one. The mental state of vessels is vital to continued safe navigation.

First, we must mention the obvious: An unhappy ship is a dangerous ship. Think about the last time you drove to the store while upset. Now pretend you weighed several thousand tons and required a mile and a half to stop in an emergency. I imagine your car insurance premiums might be a bit higher, no?

Then we must mention Fleets.

Allow me to explain: While this may be seen as a massively reductive statement, most large vessels (and most living machines for that matter, including commercial aircraft, railway locomotives, and even large dragline cranes) are best viewed as pack animals. When left alone to their own devices (and the growing economic benefits of 'machine autonomy' have meant that more shipping lines are allowing ships to go off by themselves!) vessels will often form a "fleet", as they call them, which substitutes for what we humans would call a joint family.

A fleet may include any number of vessels and relationship combinations, ranging from a number of single vessels who consider themselves siblings, to sets of separate married couples, and even groups of non-monogamous vessels whose conduct would make a Mormon blush. That being said, regardless of type, bonds formed in this manner are extremely strong, and will often overcome any difference between vessels - see the growing trend of former US Pacific Fleet vessels and their former Imperial Japanese Navy spouses!

Now, what does any of this have to do with the continued safety of marine navigation, I hear you ask? Well, let me put it to you in the simplest terms possible:

If you were to wrong me in some way, I might decide to take legal action against you, or I might lick my wounds and walk away. I might even go to the police if the offense were serious enough.

If you were to wrong a ship, and the offense were serious enough, they wouldn't lick their wounds, they wouldn't pursue legal action, and they most certainly would not go to the police. Most ships believe quite strongly in the merits of what could be charitably called 'extrajudicial punishment'. Most ships, if they are in such a relationship, would bring this to the attention of their fleet-mates, at which point you would not have one, but several, maybe even a dozen, extremely large and extremely angry ships going after you.

Of course, any discussion of the often-overlooked subject of Fleets is incomplete without at least a brief mention of the US/Canadian Great Lakes Fleet, which has managed to continuously add to their numbers through a process they call 'Lake-napping'...

-----

April, 2021 - Great Bitter Lake, Suez, Egypt

The Egyptians were insane, Given concluded. Aside from the obvious - where in the name of all that floated was she going to get nine hundred million US Dollars? - they'd actually called their Navy on her, like some kind of Triad enforcer making sure a mark didn't get away without paying.

He was a tiny ship, really - some old design that made its priorities clear, judging from his open-air flying bridge and thick hull, but the massive anti-ship missile pods on his aft deck showed he could punch well above his weight.

She'd tried speaking to him, but they didn't have a language in common - and that was impressive all on its own. From the short, clipped sentences, and badly accented Arabic, he seemed both Eastern European and decidedly unfriendly.

As the sun set on the end of the first week of what might be a very long stay in Egypt, she wondered if the line might abandon her here. The cheap fucks had already been making noise about replacing her with another, bigger ship, but Ace - still in the shipyard, but already proving herself to be just as loud and annoying as any proper 20,000+ TEU ship, bless her - had made enough noise about "not being a rebound date" that their hand had been forced.

Of course, that was all before the Egyptians decided that they wanted nine hundred million dollars, so who knows?

Another ship went by - the backlog still wasn't through, and convoys continued at all hours. This one was one from CMA CGM, and while she couldn't quite catch his name in the dark, she could absolutely catch the scathing French insults being hurled her way as he passed by.

"Je parle français, toi voilier sans hélice." She sniped at him, relishing in the startled yelp that trailed him into the night. The tugboats pulling him along laughed, and he growled at them as he moved further into the lake.

The missile boat looked at her with what might have been admiration, but it didn't stop him from keeping his guns trained on her as he changed his watch position to a spot off of her stern.

She honestly considered running - the mockery she'd get once she left Egypt might be too much.

As the next ship in line approached, she got a ping on one of the company radio frequencies.

Tuning in, her brow furrowed in confusion - now that everyone had satellite internet downlinks, internet chatrooms had become the primary communication method across the fleet. Evergreen Lines ships had all gravitated towards Discord instead of WeChat or Line, but their server had been strangely silent for most of the last week.

Opening the channel, she caught a flash of a call sign - What was Elpida doing out here? Wasn't she on the Australia run?

"Don't say a word, we've got it under control."

"You what? Who's we?"

Elpida swept past , literally - she was breaking the speed limit for this part of the lake, and had probably been doing so in the Canal too - the ropes to her tugs were taut, and judging by the Arabic screaming, they were trying to get her to slow down or at least let go. She was high in the water - her decks empty of containers - what the hell was going on?

Given was too big for the swells to affect her, but the Egyptian Navy ship wasn't, and he yelped in whatever his native language was as he rocked and rolled in Elpida's wake.

Behind her, a distant cry that sounded suspiciously like the word "Now!" rang out, followed by a deafening cacophony of foghorns.

She'd shut down her radar - because what really was the point? - and it took a worrying few seconds for the Furuno system to spin to life and return a clear result.

Or... what might be a clear result.

All hell seemed to be breaking out behind her - the convoy had broken formation and was going in what seemed like every direction possible. At least ten ships were now going berserk behind her.

The Navy ship, by far the smallest vessel out there, (except the tugs, who were fleeing for their lives, it seemed) spun around towards the main shipping lane.

Collision alarms immediately started wailing on the Canal's common channel as a very large blip on the radar screen (Who turned off their AIS transponders in the Canal?) slowly swung towards him.

The Egyptian seemed stunned for a moment - he'd drifted back into Given's range of vision, and his expression ranged between sheer horror and mildly poleaxed - before he calmed himself and stood down the ship bearing down on him.

That calm look lasted for a few minutes, but as the blip got closer and closer his confidence faded. The doors to his missile pods swung open, but his nerve broke before he could fire them, and the water around his stern frothed up into a roiling tempest as he set off at full astern.

It wasn't enough. He'd held his ground for just long enough for the other ship to reach him.

Slowly - this whole event was playing out in breathless slow motion, because nobody was actually that speedy - a bulbous bow, riding high out of the water without a load of containers, ploughed towards him. It was followed by a bowsprit, one that was so huge it looked like it could have been Given's own.

Then came the name: EVER ACE.

Then came the collision.

Ace (?!) didn't so much collide with the Egyptian ship as she drove over him. His low freeboard meant that the impact with her bulbous bow had his far side dipping into the water. Once his deck hit the swells, it acted like a giant scoop, and his keel was to the night sky within a few seconds. He'd been hit at an angle, so once he'd been pushed free, he slowly rolled back up, a much more traumatized and injured vessel than he had been a minute ago. More importantly, the water gushing out of his missile tubes meant that he was no longer a problem.

"Hey!" Ace boomed as her pilothouse drew even with Given. "Best Sea Trials Ever!"

Behind her, another ship - this one laden and looking a lot like Golden - steamed by. "Stop hanging around and get her out of here!"

"That would be my cue." Another voice called from behind her.

"Tex?" He was in Manila!

"Who else would it be?" Texas Triumph, thick Texan accent and all, steamed up. "now let's jus' get you settled up here and we'll blow this joint."

"This is a rescue?!"

"For sure pardner! We've been planning this since those highwaymen said they was keepin' ya here."

"Stop talking and get her out of here!" Golden bellowed from further up the river. It seemed like she was now intimidating some other tugboats from intervening.

"Well, ya heard 'er." Tex said. "Les' go!"

Given had been so distracted by the appearance of so many members of her family that she hadn't even noticed Tex slipping lines through her hawseholes until they went taut and she was yanked from her moorings by Tex steaming out in pursuit of Ace's retreating form.

She just barely managed to get her anchors retracted before Tex really put some power on, and began to pull her across the lake entirely.

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

Later...

The War Zone

Ever Given Escapes Custody Suez Canal Authority claims no responsibility, Egyptian Navy vessel possibly damaged. BY TYLER ROGOWAY April 17, 2021 THE WAR ZONE

📷@mahmou10_ships VIA @SUEZWATCH_EGY

SHARE TYLER ROGOWAY View Tyler Rogoway's Articles @Aviation_Intel Details remain limited at this time, but there was an incident in the Great Bitter Lake. At least one Egyptian Navy vessel has been severely damaged, and MV Ever Given, who had been held in the Great Bitter Lake by the Suez Canal Authority, has now fled the Canal into the Mediterranean Sea.

Again, details are extremely limited, but based on social media reports, marine tracking data, and radio reports, at approximately 11:47 PM Egypt Standard Time (EGY) a disturbance was reported by the Egyptian Navy craft - their identity is still unconfirmed, but images posted to social media seem to indicate that the vessel is a former Soviet Osa-class missile craft. The vessel reported that "A convoy has gone mad" and he was "under attack from multiple vessels".

While a convoy had transited the canal at that time, it is unclear if they were involved in the attack, or if one occurred at all.

We've reached out to Evergreen Lines, The Suez Canal Authority, the Egyptian Navy, and the individual ships believed to be involved, including Ever Given.

We will update this piece as more information comes available.

Contact the author: [email protected]

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#fic #ask response #ever given #the evergreen discord chat is going buck wild with this article #background info #sentient boats #sentient boat headcanon #sentient vehicle headcanon #having sentient boats messes with so many historical events #sentient vehicles

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flossingh · 3 years

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i have a naddpod question- if u or anyone who sees this listens to short rests a lot or all the time, can u give any insight to how much in character stuff they do there? i wanna subscribe anyway but i want 2 know if its worth it to go listen to the backlog of them for the episodes i've already heard

Hi, Anon! Short Rests are, like, an extremely chaotic aftershow; the aim in theory is to discuss the latest episode, but then Emily decides to tell everyone what bird she thinks they most are like, or Jake goes into insane detail about how he would become a washing machine billionaire, or crabster.

Towards the later... third? half? ish? of Bahumia they tend to have longer, more focussed discussions about the episode itself (while also, make no mistake, still doing chaos). I'm assuming this ask was prompted by the line I quoted a few days ago, which is from the Short Rest for Bahumia 91. They don't discuss things in character, but they certainly do discuss things from the perspective of their characters, which is the context for that line: Jake and Emily discussing how Hardwon and Moonshine feel about something that happened in that episode.

In conclusion, is it worth going back to listen to the Short Rest backlog? I certainly enjoyed all of them a lot, no matter the chaos to discussion ratio. But I'm a completionist, and the chaos ratio is pretty high for the earlier Short Rests, so it depends 1) what you're looking for; and 2) how far along you are in the campaign such that pausing to go back and listen to the backlog would disrupt the flow.

#asks #naddpod #maintagging so others can chime in for anon too

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hailbop1701 · 4 years

Text

@dw-writes chose prompt #78! Thanks so much sweetie! 🥰

Fandom: Almost Human

Type: Gen/Friendship

A Bad Day

A Kennex and Dorian Friendship Fic

Word Count: 909

Prompt day! This was pretty fun to write! I love the dynamic between John and Dorian (the banter is amazing) and there really needs to be more friend fics for these two! I'm definitely going to have to write more in the future!

-H❤🖖

John Kennex sat down at his desk angrily and cursed as he jostled his arm. Dorian pressed his lips together trying to keep his amusement to himself, “I take it we’re off the case?” he asked, leaning against John’s desk. The injured detective scowled at his android partner not bothering to answer him.

“We’re damn close to getting the bastard and she takes us off the fucking case,” John growled pulling his backlogged reports front and center. Dorion huffed rolling his eyes, getting off the desk, and depositing himself into the empty chair beside John.

“Well, you did get shot,” Dorian pointed out dryly, pulling a stack of reports toward himself. Kennex snorted not looking up from the device in front of him.

“I’ve had a lot worse and besides that’s not why she took me-us off the case,” John winced at his fumble. Dorian smirked knowingly, the woman killed was an old high school sweetheart of John’s. He had been working non-stop ever since they were assigned the case, ‘Sophie Fletcher a victim of domestic violence,’

John bit the inside of his cheek and cursed vehemently again. “You could always talk to the Captain again when you calm down,” Dorian offered placatingly. John scoffed leaning back in his chair with a small groan of discomfort,

“What’s a nice way to tell my boss I want to smack her over the head with a chair?”

Dorian gave John a look and a raised eyebrow, “You don’t mean that,” he said patiently. John grumbled under his breath before taking a deep breath,

I don’t mean that” he agreed after a few long minutes. Dorian set down one of the reports with a sigh, leaning forward resting an arm on the desk beside him, the android gave his partner a look of sympathy.

“Tell me about her. What was Sophie like?” he asked genuinely curious. John looked over at him with a mean retort on his lips. Deciding against it John snapped his mouth shut, looking down in thought. Kennex smirked to himself a little at the memories that flooded through him,

“Sophie Fletcher…” John breathed, rubbing a hand over his tired face. Laughing humorlessly John lowered his hand and looked at his friend,

“Sophie was-she was a really kind person. Didn’t matter who you were, you needed help. She'd be there. She was smart too, she could run circles around me and hell even a few teachers.”

Dorian chuckled at John’s wistful far-off gaze, “She was stubborn too. If she made up her mind, there was no changing it; I really-I was young and completely-” John sighed, unable to find the words. A sad smile graced his features as he glanced over at Dorian again,

“We grew apart after high school, she went to college across the country and I went off and- well that’s a different story,” he muttered with a sour face. Dorian smirked with a huff of laughter, leaning back in his own chair again Dorian tapped his fingers on the desk.

“She sounds like she was an amazing woman,” he complimented quietly, and John nodded. Taking a deep breath the man glared at the open case report sitting on his desk, flicking it off angrily John gritted his and blinked his eyes forcing the sudden emotions to ‘fuck off’

“I think my biggest regret is that I didn’t keep in touch with her, after drifting apart we didn’t hate each other. We were decent friends; I didn’t even know she was in the city,” he whispered. Dorian kept silent waiting for his friend to pull himself together.

John glanced around the bullpen making sure it was still relatively empty, clearing his throat John sat up. “Come on,” Dorian said suddenly as he got up from his chair. John looked at the DRN like he was insane,

“I’m taking you to get noodles,” Dorian clarified snatching up John’s car keys from the desk. Kennex opened his mouth to protest but his stomach chose that moment to grumble rather loudly. Sighing in defeat John got up without complaint, ‘free food is free food,’ he thought lightly, really glad the Captain gave Dorian an allowance.

“Why are you doing this?”

Dorian glanced over his shoulder at his human with a cheeky smile, “I read that friends help friends with a broken heart by eating bad food together,”

John stopped short mouth hanging open in dismay, “I-what-I don’t have a broken heart!” he all but shouted. Dorian snorted, “And da Nile is a river in Egypt,” he called back.

John groaned as if he were in pain, “That- no Dorian, just no,”

The android cackled smiling at the fact he was indeed making John feel better. “Stop scanning me,” Kennex muttered, walking past him out the door. Dorian’s smile grew into a grin,

“How did you know I was scanning you?”

“You get this constipated look on your face,”

“I do not,”

“You do too,”

“Do not,”

“Do too,”

“Do no-”

“I can’t believe we’re having this argument!” John bemoaned while Dorian celebrated his little victory. John Kennex had been successfully distracted, his grief taking the backburner. Sighing Dorian followed his friend outside; in the background of his own mind, he read how to support a loved one dealing with grief and guilt. And if they possibly run into Sophie Fletcher’s on the run husband somewhere in the Koln Avenue district while John ate, then that’s just a lucky coincidence.

Tags:

Everything:

@thottiewithashotgun

@lauraaan182

@writerdee1701

@stileslover13-blog

@cowenby2

Prompts:

@stardustednerd

#almost human #almost human on fox #john kennex #Dorian #John and Dorian #PromptDay!#John Kennex and Dorian friendship #❤❤❤❤#hailey the queen of typos

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pebblysand · 3 years

Text

[SEPTEMBER ‘21] - THE LIFE/WRITING UPDATE NO ONE ASKED FOR (AND SOME QUICK LINKS)

well, hello hello, welcome, it is september first and hogwarts is back in session, haha! where’s your letter, did you get it? i hope so!

in true gryffindor fashion, i’m a summer person. i like parties, the beach and hot weather, so i’m currently working hard, trying to delay the inevitable return of autumn and the dreaded back-to-school mood by staying in sunny southern france for a few more days. i’ll be back in dublin on saturday where, as per usual, rain has been scheduled to occur upon my return lol.

Anyway, before diving into more life/writing updates, here are some quick links to different blog pages you might not see on mobile :

to read my fics [updated]

to read my original work

fic recs

to read my tumblr rants about stuff

[NOTE: i am currently not accepting prompts. i already have a backlog, folks.]

Castles (chap 9) ETA: optimistic? 19 September. realistic? october.

links extended a/n-s: chapter v ; chapter vi & vii ; chapter viii

[more life/writing updates under the cut]

what i’m reading:

i’m actually quite happy with my book reading this month. i read a friend’s short-ish (27k) story, as well as two full books, and started a third. i wanted my holidays to be a time of catching up with missed reading opportunities, and it definitely was.

first, i read three rooms by jo hamya. i picked this one up because it was recommended by my bookshop, was written by a BAME author, marketed as a ‘millenial’ literary fiction novel which i’m always a sucker for, and the cover looked intriguing. the story is that of an unnamed narrator in her early/mid-twenties, navigating the end of her masters degree and her first job in london. to be honest, as i previously said in another post, i don’t particularly fancy myself as a book critic so i don’t really like to say negative things about the books i read. as an author, i know how hard things can hurt when people are talking about your writing sort-of behind your back and i’m always paranoid that the author might one day see what i’ve written, lol. this being said, what i will say about this book is that while not bad, it wasn’t really a fit for me. the writing is very good, crisp and quick just the way i like it (though if you get irritated by the current trend of not using quotation marks for dialogue, you might get irritated by this), but i just found it hard to relate to the characters. i think you will like this if you like books that are more about their setting and their world rather than plot or character. the author is really good at describing current britain, life in london, the book is brilliant at describing the millennial ‘world’ of social media, politics, etc. but its main character seems to just aimlessly float through her life without any sense of self or purpose, which i personally found very frustrating. the book addresses issues of class, poverty, temp contracts, housing prices, discrimination but it feels very much like a matter-of-fact statement rather than an actual argument to change things. the other characters are mildly more purposeful but very single-purpose and while the novel is interesting but it didn’t really make me feel anything beyond an intense desire to grab the narrator by the shoulders and scream: do something! three stars.

then, i read incendiary by chris cleave. full review here. this book is just unreal and the best fiction i’ve read in close to a year. if i could give ten stars i would.

i’ve now started an american marriage by tayari jones. unless you’ve been living under a rock, this has probably been recommended to you a billion times already, but what can i say, i’m always late lol. i’m only about 100 pages in but seems promising.

in terms of fanfic, i honestly haven’t read much bar this one fantastic spooks au of which i really wish there was more of. i have trolled all of livejournal and dreamwidth to find the rest and came up empty. tragic.

what i’m writing:

funny how the girl on a writing break still managed to put out circ. 9,000 words in a month, lol. granted, pick me choose me love me was written in july, but still.

this being said, i do feel like i took time off and i do feel way better than i did back in july. looking back, i was exhausted and burnt out and felt like i was mostly writing to fulfill people’s expectations, rather than to make me happy. i’m now feeling much more confident with my words. the story that i did write this month was a self-indulgent bit of fun because it was written for a fandom no one cares about, and rather liberating, if i’m honest. i think i needed to write something for me and my audience of three again, and it was great. i genuinely love that story. i do think that if you want to give it a try, it might be one of those that can be read without having watched the show in question because it’s about a side character so a lot of what’s in there is original rather than show-related. if you do want to read it, it’s here: listening to that angel choir.

in terms of upcoming projects, i’m happy to announce that i’m actually excited to get back to castles, which is exactly what i wanted this break to achieve. i’m waiting until i get back to dublin to get back to work but i’m ready to dive back in and honestly can’t wait. as i said above the cut, i would love to put it on the 19th September but i’m not sure that i’ll manage to whip out next chapter this quickly. it’s not unheard of, so we shall see. also, castles is turning a year old on 16 sep, which is absolutely fucking insane. i certainly did not think it would be this massive of a project when i undertook it, lol. the numbers on it both in terms of wordcount and appreciation/hits give me vertigo so i try not to look at them but honestly, i can’t thank you all enough. i know i always say this but i come from very small audiences and fandoms and the amount of love i’ve been getting this past year thanks to all of you has meant the world. thank you.

in terms of one shots, i’ll be mostly focusing on castles this month, so i probably won’t write anything else. this being said, for those of your on tumblr, just be aware that you might see me repost some of the tumblr ficlets that i posted on tumblr these past few months on ao3 soon-ish. i initially decided to keep them on tumblr alone because they were too short but i’ve been having anxiety about tumblr collapsing and these things disappearing into the ether. so, don’t be alarmed, they should be the same, just reposted.

what i’m doing:

honestly, this month has been amazing, especially the past three weeks. i’ve been able to relax, see family & friends, went hiking, had my birthday, hired a boat - it’s been fab. as alluded to before, i’ve also been having fun rewatching spooks, which is definitely a series worth watching, even ten years after it ended. i find it even more fascinating in light of what is going on in afghanistan at the moment, and of course the presence in the show of rupert penry-jones whom i think every straight woman with a pulse fancies, is an added bonus.

anyway, i hope you’re all doing well. see you next month for pumpkin spice lattes (yeah, look, i’m a basic white girl) and the beginning of my seasonal depression.

lots of love,

pebblysand.

#life update #september

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heysoup · 4 years

Text

Fluffy February Day 2 - Movie Night

Reminder to follow @fluffyfebruary to see the prompt list and that I’ll be using the tags #fluffyfebruary and #fluffyfeb for these.

Continuing the fics with day two! I’m super proud of this one; It’s dripping with fluff and teenage angst. Warning for potential secondhand embarrassment - they’re both idiots in love and have no idea how to show it.

Chapter 2: Films and Fears

Pairing: Butch/Male Lone Wanderer

Summary: Dealing with life in the vault can be tough, especially for an outcast like Jamie. When he befriends Butch through his G.O.A.T. assignment, however, the two make their own safe place. Butch decides to surprise him there one day with the promise of treasure, and it leads to something more than they both expect.

Ao3 Link

Jamie tosses and turns in his rat’s nest of a bed. It’s midnight – he’s too hot, the vault’s ventilation system’s groaning is echoing around him like a damn chorus, and his sheets keep scratching uncomfortably against his clammy skin. He brings his wrist close to his face to mindlessly check his Pip-Boy for the millionth time that night, his arm feeling as heavy as lead, and he squints at the fluorescent light of the screen as he taps it awake.

Though Butch showed him a few times before, it still takes him a moment to remember the right sequence of buttons to push to unlock developer’s mode and navigate to the messaging tab the other boy set up for them. It’s only been about a month since Butch found an old Pip-Boy manual in Stanley’s locker and got this trick to work, but already there’s a considerable backlog of messages between the two.

Jamie scrolls through them with the dial on his Pip-Boy, worrying the skin of his lower lip with his teeth as he reads through some of the older messages. It’s become a new habit for him on these particularly rough sleepless nights. When he’s too exhausted to write in his journal, draw, or jump around his room in an attempt to tire himself out; he talks to Butch.

If someone had told him a year ago that Butch DeLoria, his childhood bully and teenage rival, would be one of his only sources of solace these days he would have called them insane. Turns out, giving the vault’s two delinquents deadbeat jobs with no supervision and shoving them in the same closet of a studio space could make them form a pretty strange alliance. The enemy of my enemy and all of that, right?

It also doesn’t help that Amata is forever busy with her new duties as overseer’s assistant – or whatever her job title is actually called. Jamie misses her like he’s lost a part of himself, and even though he knows she’s not locked away with her father by choice he can’t help the nagging part of his brain that is convinced she abandoned him.

Butch is dealing with the same thing, though with less consequence. His fellow Tunnel Snakes are relatively busy with their new jobs – Wally as a security guard and Paul as an engineer – but they still make some time to see each other. Butch is just one of those people who needs constant attention, which is where Jamie supposes he comes in handy. He tries not to think too hard about it.

He’s is snickering to himself while he reads some messages sent a few weeks back during one of their spats, most of which were petty insults and some pretty creative curses, when a new message blips through and pulls his screen to attention.

913473: nosebleed u up?

Perfect timing, Jamie thinks, sitting up in his bed to type. The 6-digit code is what Butch called his Pip-ID – apparently every Pip-Boy comes with one coded in by default. It was weird at first, trying to memorize the numbers and calm his own paranoia at the thought of someone hacking into their conversations, but Butch said that their numbers were for their Pip-Boys alone, so Jamie trusted him. The horrible, agitated crawling under his skin that was keeping him up all night begins to fade as he replies.

604272: didja even have to ask? 913473: just say yes or no damn 604272: k. no 913473: oh fuck off

Jamie can’t help the soft laugh that escapes him, and he grins like a complete idiot down at the screen.

913473: if ur done being an ass i have somethin for us to do 913473: if u aint busy of course 913473: meet at the place? 604272: sure. be there in 10

He switches his Pip-Boy screen off and hops out of bed, stretching languorously before grabbing his jumpsuit from where he left it earlier that day in a heap on the floor. He tugs it on leg by leg and zips it up before checking himself in the mirror.

His hair is a mop of curls on his head and he does his best to smooth it down, knowing Butch will scold him for not using the correct conditioner to tame his flyaways like he showed him. The bags under his eyes are a bit darker than usual, but there’s nothing to be done about that. He shrugs to himself and turns to the door. No point in being too self-conscious about his appearance this late at night – isn’t like this is a date or anything, he tells himself.

He doesn’t bother being quiet as he leaves his room, knowing his dad would still be working at the clinic or at the very least passed out there on one of the cots. He doesn’t come home much these days.

Jamie shoves his boots on, not even bothering with socks, and peers out of the thick window into the hallway. It seems empty, so he hits the button and creeps out through the door.

The neon blue emergency lights that run along the edges of the ceiling and floor greet him when he steps out of his apartment. He shoves his hands in his pockets, a nervous habit, and peers around the corner before continuing his path. The door closes not-so-softly behind him and he walks down the hall past the restrooms that separate his and Butch’s apartments. He stops momentarily outside the door to the DeLoria’s apartment, noticing it’s dark and quiet inside.

Butch must already be down there, Jamie thinks, picking up his pace as much as he could without making too much noise. Despite the constant creaking and rumbling of the vault’s ventilation and reactor systems the halls at night could carry quite an echo, and his boots aren’t the quietest things to sneak around in.

Patrols were lax recently but knowing his luck he’d get caught breaking curfew and would have to clean the bathrooms again. He briefly regrets not wearing socks because he refuses to take his boots off and walk barefoot on the cold steel floor, even if it is quieter.

Further down the hallway and a bit past the occupied wing of apartments, Jamie stops at the top of a short set of stairs that lead down to a small corridor with one door. A large INACCESSIBLE sign glows ominously above it, and in the corner of the hallway facing the stairwell is a single security camera. It rotates at a snail’s pace, its gears clicking audibly with every circuit it makes of the dead-end hallway.

Jamie ducks down near the wall at the top of the stairs, watching the camera as he has so many times before to study its crawling path. When Butch had discovered this place, they figured out a way to tilt the camera up ever so slightly with the handle of a broom from their shop – creating about thirty seconds of a blind spot to get them from the stairs and through the door without getting caught if they hugged the left wall.

Peering down the hallways around him one more time to make sure no patrols were coming; Jamie types a quick message into his Pip-Boy.

604272: here

He waits a few moments until he hears a couple sharp raps on the metal door down the way, telling him that Butch is there whenever he’s ready. Jamie waits a few more moments and listens to the camera click back into its blind spot before he hops down the stairs, staying low and to the left as he stalks toward the door. He hits it lightly with his palm when he gets there, and it slides open. He has just enough time to duck inside, slamming his fist on the button to shut it just as he hears the security camera restart its rotation.

“You’re still gonna act like it's some big heist no matter how many times we come down here, huh?” Jamie turns around in the darkness and is met with Butch’s grin, a bottle of beer already in one of his fists. His Pip-Boy light is on, basking them in a dim green glow.

“Keeps it interesting,” he replies, punching Butch playfully on the arm. On this side of the door is a long flight of stairs and they continue further down into the pitch darkness, hands pressing along the walls for purchase with nothing but about three feet of lighting in front of them.

The emergency lights are shut off down here, along with the security cameras – probably to save power, so Jamie turns his Pip-Boy light on as well. It’s a bit brighter, but not by much. They’ve been down here enough times by now that their bodies remember how many steps there are, but Jamie always has a nagging fear in the back of his mind that one day the staircase will just keep going forever. He shakes that thought from his head, listening to the sound of their boots stomping down the steps and focusing his gaze on Butch’s free hand as it slides against the railing.

For the past month or so this has been their escape. Butch somehow figured out how to break into the door they just passed through, and they discovered a whole wing of abandoned apartments under the ones they were currently living in. So far all they had done was clear out one room that had a ratty old couch, some blankets, a broken Nuka Cola mini-fridge, and a few wooden storage crates in it. Jamie had also rigged up a small emergency generator and they were able to find some lamps to make it a little less depressing.

Most importantly, they had booze smuggled from Butch’s mom’s liquor stash, a few cartons of cigarettes they’d traded with Stevie for some chems Jamie snuck from his dad’s clinic, their collection of comic books, and Jamie’s old BB gun for when they got bored. It’s far from perfect, but it’s space, and when you’re destined to roam the same hallways with the same people for the rest of your miserable existence – that amounts to a lot.

“So, what are we actually doing?” Jamie asks as they turn into the apartment they’d claimed as their base. Butch has the generator running and the room smells thickly of his peach pomade and cigarette smoke – he must have been down here for a few hours already.

“I,” Butch begins, stopping to pull the cork out of his new bottle of beer with his teeth before spitting it on the floor and taking a swig, “am gonna show you some treasure.” He finishes with a flourish, a self-satisfied smirk on his face, and plops down onto the couch next to his discarded Tunnel Snake jacket.

Jamie snorts and pulls up a crate, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch and propping his feet up. He clicks his tongue in mock annoyance when Butch’s boots crowd his own on the small surface and, in a fruitless endeavor, they battle for leg space before giving in to sharing. It’s obvious the other boy is already a bit tipsy.

“Treasure, huh? That’s cool, I guess,” Jamie snickers, snatching the bottle of beer from Butch and downing some before he could protest. It burns in his throat and brings a comforting warmth to his chest. He continues nursing the drink and settles further back into the worn corduroy couch, his posture absolutely terrible. Butch reaches for another bottle.

“Yup.” The bottle pops open and another cork joins the pile growing on the floor. Another drink and an obnoxious burp, then Butch sits forward - feet falling to the floor, his hands on his knees, and an excited light in his eyes. His leg is bouncing incessantly.

“Listen, I was going through some rooms down here and I found an old projector – like the one Brotch has?” He glances at Jamie, blue eyes a soft, dreamy color in the low light, and Jamie can’t help but gulp at the intensity he sees there. When Butch has a plan he’s excited about, he turns into a different person – like all the stress of conforming to the monotony of vault life has washed away and he’s finally allowed to be the mischievous and passionate person hiding underneath it all. Or… something like that. Jamie’s waxing poetic again, something he can’t help but do when around Butch.

“That’s pretty cool,” is all Jamie can bring himself to breathe out as he sips on his beer. He picks at the loose threads on the arm of the couch as he tries not to think about the fact that Butch had his lips on this same bottle just a few seconds ago.

Butch deflates a bit. “Pretty cool?” he mocks, leaning closer. Okay, maybe he’s more drunk than Jamie had first thought, if the redness of his cheeks were any indication.

“Nosebleed, I found full on ho-lo-disks,” Butch emphasizes, blowing a few messy curls away from his forehead. Jamie just shrugs.

“Okay?” he begins, not seeing the big deal. They already have these things in the classroom. “What’re we gonna do, watch some lectures? Don’t tell me DeLoria wants to brush up on his studying,” he taunts.

Butch just sneers at him in response, standing up and only swaying a bit – much to Jamie’s surprise. “You have no imagination, dweeb. Stay here!” And with that, he storms out of the room and into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Jamie can see the green light of his Pip-Boy flash on through the window as he walks further away into the dark.

It’s a few minutes before he comes back, and Jamie can hear the ruckus he’s causing before he sees him. He’s startled out of his comfortable position on the couch and perks up. The door slides open and Butch pushes the projector into their base on its rolling cart. One of the wheels must be rusted because its screeching like a damn rat, scraping against the metal flooring as he drags it to the center of the room. He grabs an old cardboard box from the lower shelf of the cart and slides it on the floor over to Jamie with his foot before going back to set the projector up with their tangled mess of extension cords.

Jamie picks it up and grimaces at the box – it’s a little rank and it feels crusty in some spots. “This thing is probably covered in like a hundred different types of mold,” he complains.

“Didn’t give it to ya so you could judge the box!” Butch snaps, banging the top of the projector impatiently when the power flickers. “Open the damn thing.”

Jamie places the box on the couch beside him and sits up, peeling it open to peer inside. His jaw drops in amazement at the sight – more holodisks than he’s ever seen in his life, all with unique and eye-catching, full-color illustrations on the covers. He stares at Butch in disbelief and catches the other boy staring at him, an unabashed, beaming smile on his face when he sees Jamie’s reaction. When their eyes meet, Butch clears his throat and snaps his attention back to the projector, fiddling with some dials that don’t seem to change anything.

“Cool, right?” He says, his ears turning red as he dismisses his earlier excitement with a sheepish shrug.

“It’s fucking great!” Jamie laughs and begins to rummage through the box. There are real films in here, like he’s only read about in pre-war history classes or his cheesy novels. Aside from a whole slew of superhero films starring characters like The Silver Shroud and even some of Grognak the Barbarian, there are titles that look like they’re about pre-war animals in different parts of the world, some with soldiers in power armor, some ancient recordings of sports, and what looks like a few western and sci-fi films

Butch walks back over and sits beside him, throwing his arm over the back of the couch and leaning in to look at the titles. Jamie’s breath hitches at his closeness and he can feel his cheeks heating up. He tries not to show it, leaning in ever so slightly to let their shoulders brush.

“You can pick first, my treat,” Butch says while gesturing to the patchwork sheet he’d hung up on the opposite wall of the small apartment – Butch must have stitched it together himself out of whatever excess fabric he found. It’s hanging a little crooked and the projector’s STAND BY image is a bit fuzzy, but a bubble of excitement forms in Jamie’s chest regardless. He doesn’t want to read too far into things, but Butch had found this and made it a surprise specifically for them to share. That made him feel a certain kind of way.

He blinks those embarrassing thoughts away and nods, his face warm. Looking over their choices carefully, he finally decides and picks the western – he always did have a fondness for the freedom that seemed to come with being a cowboy – and walks to the projector to pop it in and press play.

He half expects Butch to make fun of his choice, but the other boy is oddly quiet, carefully inspecting his fingernails as Jamie switches off the lamps and kicks off his boots before returning to sit cross-legged on the couch. Butch still hasn’t scooted further away or removed his arm from the back of the couch, so their knees bump and he can feel the warmth of Butch’s arm behind his neck and it sends prickles through his skin.

Only as the movie begins do they realize they don’t have any speakers hooked up – so it’s completely silent in the room other than the whirring of the film in the projector.

“I didn’t even think of that,” Butch sighs and shakes his head in disappointment. Jamie just laughs.

“It’s still cool,” he assures him. “They used to have silent movies all the time apparently – especially back in cowboy days. It’s authentic,” he purses his lips at the end, trying to do his best impression of Mr. Brotch. It seems to work because Butch cracks a grin at him and snorts.

“Sure, it’ll work for now, but I saw some terminals in another apartment down here. We can check for some speakers there later,” Butch says and then his playful grin becomes roguish. “Push comes to shove, we can just swipe one from upstairs. Who’d notice a missing speaker?”

Jamie just scoffs and elbows him, turning his attention back to the film as the title screen fades in and he reads, ‘High Lonesome.’ He didn’t bother to read what the film was about, but it opens with a group of people in a wagon on a vast desert plain with plateaus towering in the distance.

There isn’t too much to see at first, but one thing that sticks with him is the impossible vastness of the sky as the camera zooms out to show a wider view of the prairie they’re riding along. He’s seen pictures of the sky, sure, but something about watching the tiny silhouettes of people move around under it was chilling – it was huge and incredibly empty. He didn’t know if what he was feeling was amazement or terror.

Despite the film being in black and white, the shimmer of the sun on the horses’ flanks as they gallop is bright enough to seem real and Jamie is completely entranced as he watches. And, luckily enough, there seem to be subtitles, so they’ll still be able to understand what’s going on.

Jamie’s trance is momentarily broken when Butch leans down and grabs something from under the couch. He returns with a box of fancy lads which he presses into Jamie’s hands. Jamie mumbles his thanks, his eyes never leaving the picture as he tears into a package and shoves a whole powdery cake into his mouth.

Butch just laughs at him and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket. He lights one just as the young cowboy on screen does – much to Jamie’s delight – and they chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

They pass the snacks, beer, and smokes back and forth between each other as they watch their movies. When the western is over, Butch picks a film called ‘Teenage Caveman,’ saying that it has to be good because the cover has tits and a giant lizard monster on it. It ends up being the worst piece of garbage they’ve ever seen – and that’s saying a lot considering they’ve only seen one other film in their whole lives.

“That dude didn’t even look like a teenager! He had to be like thirty,” Jamie says, tossing the film into a box they decide to label ‘shit.’ According to Butch, they were like pioneers and had to record their findings, so not only were they watching the films, but they were sorting them from best to worst. As Butch had put it in his best overseer impression, they were doing future vault residents a great service and fulfilling their civic duty… by saving others from watching total pieces of trash.

“There wasn’t even a single boob,” Butch mopes, snubbing out the last of his cigarette in the cracked coffee mug functioning as their makeshift ashtray. “Talk about false advertising. The giant lizards were kinda cool, though.” Jamie smacks him upside the head.

“You wouldn’t know what a boob looked like if it smacked you in the face.”

“You take that back!” Butch laughs and tosses their snacks on the floor, lunging for Jamie who’s cackling just as hard. They’re fucking hammered at this point and they roll off the couch into a heap on the floor, knocking a crate over as they grapple at each other. They wrestle like this sometimes – it’s a great outlet for Jamie’s aggressive energy and, when they’re less drunk, Butch actually teaches him how to kick ass. Now, they’re just breathless laughs and fumbling hands as they scramble for purchase on the floor and try their damnedest to pin the other down.

Butch may be stronger on a normal day, but at the moment he’s piss-drunk compared to Jamie who still has a bit of his wits about him. He flips the taller boy over so quickly it’s almost comical and pins him, pressing his knees against his thighs and holding his wrists at his sides to stop him from getting up. He laughs triumphantly.

“What’s wrong, Butchie? You’ve never lost a fight so fast!” He grins down at the boy smugly but stops short when he sees the look on Butch’s face. It’s endearing how red his cheeks are, his hair a mess and his blue eyes wide. Butch just fixes him with those piercing baby blues.

“Don’t get cocky, Nosebleed. I let ya do it,” he says in a soft voice, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. Jamie’s mouth goes dry, his eyes fixed on Butch’s unbelievably pink lips. He hates himself for how much he wants to kiss him then and without thinking he begins to lean forward. He catches himself, though, and his thoughts have him jumping off of Butch and falling back against the couch like he’s been shocked, his chest heaving. He feels dizzy and he can still smell the earthy spice of the other boy’s aftershave enveloping him like a thick haze he can’t shake.

Butch laughs and pulls himself up into a sitting position, shooting Jamie a dazzling grin from his seat on the floor. “What’s wrong, Jamie?” Butch teases, his voice only a bit slurred and a shit-eating grin creeping its way onto his face. Hearing his name come from Butch is rare and it knocks the breath out of him. All he can do is stare.

Butch clambers ungracefully back up to the couch with him, leaning awfully close and whispering, “cat got your tongue?” His breath is warm on Jamie’s face and it smells like a mixture of smoke and alcohol, something he never thought would smell so intoxicating, but of course it does – it’s Butch.

Jamie’s heart is in his fucking throat and he can’t breathe. Butch is pressed against his side and his back is against the arm of the couch. There’s nowhere for him to escape to – not that he necessarily wants to, but he was never very good with facing his feelings. Either Butch is actively trying to flirt with him or he’s fucking around, and Jamie can’t decide which one is worse.

“You’re drunk, you idiot,” Jamie laughs weakly and goes to push Butch away by the chest but stops when he feels his heart pounding under his t-shirt. The other boy’s breath hitches and his body stiffens at Jamie’s touch, his lips parting as if he were trying to think of what to say.

“So are you,” Butch finally settles with, reaching up to wrap his fingers around Jamie’s wrist. His touch almost feels like it burns. They sit like that for a moment, staring at each other, eyes like fire.

The generator chooses that moment to shut off, leaving them in pitch darkness. Out of instinct, Jamie curls his fingers into Butch’s shirt, his ears ringing at the sudden silence in the room and his breathing becoming labored. Darkness feels suffocating to him sometimes, and this is one of those moments. It lays over them like a thick blanket, and the only thing that pulls him out of his internal panic is Butch’s free hand cupping the back of his head, fingers twining through the thick, curly hair at the nape of his neck.

He doesn’t even have time to think about what Butch might be doing before he feels the press of the other boy’s lips warm against his own. Though they’re unbelievably soft, the kiss is rushed and clumsy – desperate almost – and Jamie grunts when their teeth knock together. He wastes no time returning the kiss, though, his eyes fluttering shut as he focuses on the feel of Butch’s lips against his own and the rough burn of his stubble as it brushes against his chin.

It must have just been a power surge, because suddenly the generator kicks back on and the projector screen lights up the room. Their eyes fly open and they wrench apart, still holding onto each other as if for dear life. Whatever safety they felt shrouded in the darkness is ripped away and they’re left feeling vulnerable and exposed. Jamie’s breath comes out in stutters and he dares to glance up at the other boy.

Butch’s eyes are filled with a fiery heat he can’t even describe and something akin to tenderness – which is hard for him to pinpoint since he’s never been looked at like that before. He sucks in a sharp breath. For some reason, even though he’s been dreaming of this moment for months, he just feels terrified and embarrassed – like he fucked up somehow. The panic must be written clearly on his face because Butch pulls away like he’s been slapped and falls back to the other end of the couch.

“Sh-shit, I,” Butch stutters, his hand clutching his chest where Jamie’s was a moment before, “fuck, Jamie, I didn’t mean to.” His voice cracks, sounding almost pleading. Jamie doesn’t know what to say, his mouth flapping uselessly, and it’s too much for him to handle. He doesn’t understand what his problem is. Everything in his heart is telling him to leap forward and continue kissing Butch, but he’s just too fucking scared.

“It’s fine!” He practically snaps, standing up suddenly. He’s shaking and feels clammy and he’s sure he’s as pale as a ghost – is it even possible for something good to give you a panic attack?

He glances around for his boots for a moment, but it’s still too much and he can see Butch starting to reach for him with concern in his eyes. “I have to go,” he blurts out, and he turns tail and runs.

The last thing he hears before he leaves is Butch yelling his name, but he jogs up the steps in the darkness, tripping over his own feet and bruising his knees. He knows he’s acting like a child, but he can’t bring himself to care. He is absolutely not ready to face what’s happening and he needs to be alone in his room now.

When he reaches the door, he doesn’t even stop to think about the security camera on the other side, he just slams his fist on the button and rushes out and thankfully luck is on his side this time because he can hear the camera click into the end of its circuit.

He slows down when he reaches the halls, his bare feet making a lot less noise than his boots, but fuck the floor is cold and he regrets not stopping to find his shoes. Soon he reaches his apartment, and he rushes inside, thankful to see that it’s still empty. He locks himself in his own bedroom, suddenly feeling like everything is too much, and he rips his jumpsuit off, flopping onto his bed in just his tank top and boxers and pulling the covers over his head.

He wants to scream, maybe tear his hair out a little or punch the wall. He cannot believe how badly he fucked that up. He doesn’t even know what this means for their friendship – if he had tried to make a move on Butch and the other boy ran away, he would be devastated! Would Butch even want to talk to him anymore? He worries over these thoughts for a few hours until his brain feels like jelly. The last thing he’s aware of before falling asleep is how his lips taste ever-so-slightly like the sweet mint chap stick Butch always carries around.

---

He wakes up later to the sound of incessant beeping coming from his wrist. He groans, rubbing his hands over his eyes and down his face. He feels like complete shit – hungover, most likely, and his head is swimming.

He looks at his Pip-Boy to check the time and realizes he’s overslept. It’s two in the afternoon and he’s late for his work assignment at the studio but if he’s being honest the thought of having to drag himself out of bed and sit in a room with Butch all day doesn’t seem as great as it used to. He can’t help it when he opens the messaging app, biting his lip as he prepares to read whatever might be there.

913473: it was a prank haha i rly got u good

That one was sent almost immediately after he’d left last night, according to the timestamp. Something about it makes his gut twist, gives him a bit of nausea. He’s not sure if he believes Butch or not. Once again, he’s not sure which is harder to deal with. Dated about an hour later there are a few more.

913473: jamie im sorry pls answer me 913473: don’t ignore me man if ur mad just come beat me up 913473: are u sleeping? damn out of all the times 913473: its k. i kno u need it. gnight

Jamie doesn’t realize he’s chewing his lip to shreds until he tastes blood, and he curses, wiping it away on the hem of his tank top. His eyes are glued to the screen, his heart thundering in his ears. Dated even later are a handful of other messages and he can tell by their contents that Butch must have kept drinking in his absence. The thought of that tugs at his heart a little – maybe he isn’t the only one who’s terrified of his own feelings and kind of a fuckup.

913473: i know ur asleeeep 913473: gdamn typing onthis shit. fcking sucks 913473: m drunk but idc. i kissed u jamie n itfucking rocked 913473: wasnt a prank. im srry. dont hate me 913473: u can hit me all u want. ill evenlet u win the fight. 913473: jsut dont hate me

Jamie groans and grabs his pillow, shoving his face into it a few times and letting out as loud of a yell as he dares. It’s not enough, but it will have to do. Breathless and flushed, he’s about to lay back down when a new message comes through and his heart leaps so high into his throat that he nearly chokes. He peeks at it over the pillow.

913473: yo you’re late dude. like super late! 913473: i figured id let u sleep off the hangover a bit but damn 913473: i aint gonna cover ur ass if the overseer comes knocking. i have enough of a headache. 913473: so get down here!!! 913473: speakin of headache i was drunk as shit last night. dont remember a thing past that crappy monster movie. so ignore whatever embarrassing crap i sent you, k? 913473: and dont tell anyone im a talkative drunk or ill pummel you, nosebleed.

Jamie looks at the messages in disbelief and flops back onto his bed, his thoughts racing. He can’t tell if Butch is lying or not – he knows even if Butch doesn’t remember there was still something different about what happened last night but fuck if he’s going to bring it up now.

He’s relieved, but also disappointed, maybe a little angry – either at himself or at Butch, he can’t tell. He’s shaking, wracked with nerves at the sudden sense that everything might change soon. He can’t handle change – can’t handle much, if he’s honest with himself, but change is the hardest of all. He curls his fingers into his hair, tugging ever so slightly and trying to resist the urge to pull it out in chunks. He’s losing himself in his worries again when another message notification shakes him out of it.

“Fuck!” he shouts, wishing he could rip his Pip-Boy off his arm and throw it away.

913473: NOSEBLEED GET THE FUCK TO WORK NOW 913473: its boring alone

Jamie feels like he’s actually going to tear his hair out, but he can’t help himself from laughing. He gives in and types out a quick response.

604272: for the love of GOD 604272: STFU 604272: im on my way now 604272: and i didn’t read ur stupid messages don’t worry. too many for me to care

He bites his lip again, his heart twisting uncomfortably in his chest as he writes out one more message.

604272: i don’t even remember much of the shitty movie lol, u know im a blackout drunk

There are a few minutes without a reply and Jamie starts to think maybe he’s fucked it up again, then more messages come through.

913473: u stupid fuckin idiot 913473: what would i do without u 913473: to pick on i mean

Jamie lets out a trembling sigh and gets out of bed, shaking himself free of his worries and tugging on his jumpsuit again. His hands are quivering, probably will be all day with the way his nerves are, but he can handle it.

It’s only as he’s going to leave does he realize he doesn’t have his shoes.

913473: i have your boots btw dumbass

Jamie is terrified of change. He’s terrified of his own emotions, especially when he can’t control them. He wishes things were simpler and he wishes he could have been born into a more agreeable body in a more agreeable time, but as he walks, shoeless, out of the apartment and to the studio space he shares with Butch, he feels a bit comforted in the fact that Butch might feel exactly the same way. Even if shit is messy and he fucks it up, Butch keeps coming back - and that’s good enough for him.

#fluffyfebruary #fallout #fallout 3 #butch deloria #butch/m!lw #lone wanderer #fanfiction #mlm #jay writes #fluffyfeb

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thegoldofyourheart · 5 years

Text

The Gold of Your Heart Chapter 8

Word count: 2706

Pairings: Romantic Roceit

Warnings: Violence

First | <== Previous | Next ==> | Masterpost

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Returning to the Imagination felt like breathing flavored air. Deceit thought it novel and settled into a more comfortable position on Roman’s shoulders. The woods they entered didn’t change, and made Deceit wonder if there was a fixed point of entry like the Subconscious or if Roman choose where to appear. He could ask Remus but that would lead to a conversation Deceit would rather avoid.

Roman’s steed nickered in the distance, and Deceit found himself wondering if time passed different there as well. So much to learn before he could even think of putting together a plan. He knew that he had to know everything before starting one, or it could all fall apart with a snap of Roman’s finger. So much power, Deceit felt heady just thinking about it.

“Hey there, Lady,” Roman greeted, reaching a hand out. The horse nickered again and trotted over, butting at Roman’s hand. Well, if Deceit needed any proof that things were different here that would be it. Horses were bastards and that was that. Only a fake one would be so well behaved if someone cooed at them like Roman was doing.

“How’s my beautiful Lady doing anyways? Running strong, I bet, huh. Showing all those stallions that gender doesn’t matter, aren’t you? Gonna outrun them all and win all the lady horses for yourself.” Roman ran his hand along her flank and grinned. “Queer pride, girl, queer pride.”

Deceit snickered. Lady tossed her mane, and Roman grinned even wider at her. He leaned forward against her bulk.

“You both want to go on an adventure?” he whispered. Deceit mourned his inability to blink again; Lady pranced in her spot. The ground around them rumbled without actually moving and Deceit felt unnerved. The distant roar that cut through the air didn’t help. Roman’s eyes sparkled in a way that Deceit knew all too well. Excited and cocky.

Roman swung up onto Lady, a hand on Deceit to keep him steady. Along the horizon, Deceit recognized the wings that had to belong to Hecate cutting across the sky before diving down at something.

“First Adventure,” Roman winked down at him, and Deceit felt his unease grow. “Mark that one down for the history books.” His voice dropped, from casual to something closer to the tone he used when acting. “Come, Lady! It seems the Dragon Witch is up to her old tricks and we must set out to stop her once more!”

Deceit felt lost as Lady broke into a gallop. She ate away at the trail that Roman had walked not that long ago with Deceit, and it felt like moments before they broke through the tree line. They barreled down towards Anton’s town and Deceit felt his jaw drop open. Flames and smoke hung heavy in the air, and there in the middle of it all, Anton flew above the scene cackling.

His robe snapped and shifted behind him in the wind. One of his hands pointed at one of the buildings still standing and it burst into flames. Deceit wondered if Roman had flipped the world on its head. Anton’s cackle drifted through the breeze, malicious and dark.

“I come bearing news of my Mistress!” Anton shouted. “The Great Dragon Witch has decided to bless this land with her presence! Bow to her and be spared! Or rebel and learn of her power!”

“Halt!” Roman shouted back, pulling Lady to a neat stop at the edge of the town. He drew his sword in a smooth motion and pointed it up at Anton. Scattered cries came from the fleeing villagers, relief and hope in their voices.

“The Prince!”

“Prince Roman’s come to save us!”

“The Prince will defeat them!”

“You are trespassing on this glorious land!” Roman declared, “Surrender now to the laws of the land and its justice, or face the wrath of my sword!”

Anton threw his head back, and Deceit began to think that cackling was all he knew how to do. A snicker would spice things up. Or maybe a leer. Either way, some part of him felt offended that this was the sort of villains that Roman compared him too. He had more class than that.

“Fool! You truly think that you can defeat one such as I with a mere stick? My magic comes from my Mistress herself and her power is matched by none!” Anton swooped down closer to them. “I will defeat you and our power will spread across this land like a plague!”

Anton pointed in their direction and Deceit’s heart leapt to his throat. Fuck head-on confrontations, Deceit thought they should retreat and find the proper weaknesses before engaging. Roman on the other hand, clearly felt differently, spurring Lady into motion.

Deceit hissed a warning as Roman ducked under the ball of flames that flew over his head. Deceit could feel the heat of the flames as they passed. He swallowed thickly. Discorporation wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to them but it was unpleasant and led to a backlog of things they needed to do. Deceit preferred to avoid it when possible.

Roman swung his sword. Anton rose back up into the air, his robe fluttering as Roman’s sword brushed past it. Deceit wanted to say that he guessed that would happen, but that required unlodging his stomach from his throat. It wasn’t like anyone could tell what he felt or what he said anyways. He could panic all he wanted without losing face, seeing as he didn’t have one that could express that. Ha!

“Fool!” Anton yelled again. He swept his hand to the side, and the side of the building closest to them rumbled ominously. Deceit wondered why he wasn’t surprised as it collapsed towards them. No, he was more surprised at the way Lady charged at the wall opposite of it. She planted her hooves on it, and pushed off of it. They flew through the air for a split second.

Deceit hated his life.

Lady landed gracefully for all that Deceit could feel the impact rattle through his fangs. Anton flew back and away from them. Roman and Lady followed. Because of course they did. Deceit bit back a whimper.

He kept his eyes glued to Anton. Roman didn’t seem to notice the simple upward flick of a finger that Anton executed. Deceit didn’t think. He threw his whole weight to the side, tugging on Roman’s neck. Roman yelped, his body jerking with the action. His hands pulled on Lady’s reigns and she skittered to the side.

Just barely missing the spike of earth that shot up next to them.

Roman’s eyes widened, and Deceit breathed heavily. God, that was close. Lady found her hooves again and took off after the cackling Anton once more.

“How can you ever hope to beat me if you can’t reach me, Prince Roman?” Anton taunted. He tossed another fireball, one that Lady swerved around easily. “You are helpless against me! Nothing but a weak hero who will fail like all others before you!”

Deceit felt a growl in the back of his throat.

“Steady, Anthony,” Roman murmured, his eyes on Anton. Good, Roman wasn’t a complete idiot when it came to battle. Deceit longed to shift again, to dive at the threat with bared talons and beak opened in a scream. “Lady.” Roman pressed a hand to her neck and she nickered, tossing her mane.

Deceit’s eyes widened as Roman carefully, stood up in his stirrups. Shakily, his eyes on the villain above them as he kept his balance through what had to have been experience. Deceit glanced down at Lady. Her eyes were locked on the porch of the house in front of them, and Deceit swore that his heart stopped.

He took a moment to concede that he had a good run, but they were all going to die now.

Lady planted her hooves on the stairs. She propelled herself upwards and landed on the roof of the porch. She leaped into the air once more. In the same moment, Roman jumped. If he had a voice, Deceit liked to think he would have managed to swallow his scream. It wasn’t likely but denial was his thing.

They flew through the air, and time felt suspended. Roman reached out. His hand wrapped around Anton’s ankle. Deceit caught sight of Anton’s wide eyes before they all came crashing back down to the ground.

Deceit landed hard. He slid away from Roman, scales scraping along the asphalt. He wasted a moment to curse Roman for wanting to mix modern and medieval. Pain radiated along his whole body. He could just… stay here. No need to move. Roman could deal with whatever the hell he had caused. It had sounded like he’d done it before.

Deceit groaned to himself. God, Roman had almost died twice already. Who was he kidding thinking that Roman could deal with something like this? His idea to get the flying wizard down was to throw himself at him. They were going to be lucky if Roman survived a week of this.

He shifted. A knife of pain cut through his side. He hissed as he turned to see what had happened to Roman. He could hear Lady’s hoofbeats in the distance. Roman lay not too far from him, struggling to push himself to his arms. Anton lay in a heap just past him. Deceit hissed, baring his fangs.

A danger to Roman was a danger to Thomas. Deceit dealt with dangers. He knew just what to do with this one.

He pushed his way towards Roman, who coughed and managed to make it to his knees. Nothing looked broken, and Deceit blamed Roman’s insane luck. Bruises and a couple of scrapes after that stunt seemed almost impossible. Though they were where impossible thrived, so perhaps it wasn’t that strange. Down that path of thought lay the idea that Roman knew more about what he was doing than it seemed, and that was a little too much for Deceit to contemplate at the moment.

He wound around Roman’s ankles to double check that his ride home hadn’t crippled himself. Roman smiled down at him, the corners of his mouth tinged with pain. Good. If he was fine Deceit could do his job. Anton groaned and Deceit’s eyes snapped to him.

Years ago, Virgil had once told him that his eyes became truly frightening when he focused. Supposedly, they almost seemed to glow, the light catching off of the gold if he tilted his head just right. Deceit had learned how to drain the emotions from them, leaving just the chilling emptiness that helped him do his job.

Of course, it could have just been Virgil and his drama.

He hissed, quiet and low as he made his way towards Anton. He had been wrong about the Construct. No one loyal would have done this sort of thing to the person they cared about. His lips peeled back to let the light of the sun reflect off of his fangs. The other Sides had gone soft, weak, easily hurt. Deceit would make sure that never happened.

Anton barely pushed himself up to his elbows as Deceit approached. Deceit could see the pain in his expression, the way blood drained out of his face as he caught sight of the snake approaching him. Good. Deceit’s hiss grew louder, and his muscles bunched underneath him. Antagonist. Betrayal had to have been written into his blood.

Deceit lunged. His jaw opened wide and his fangs ready. Venom in his glands begged to be used.

“Anthony!”

Roman’s hands gripped him just behind his head, yanking him back before he could do his job. His hiss turned vicious and angry. He thrashed in Roman’s grip. Roman might believe in Anton, might think that he could be saved or converted or had a good reason for what he did. It was all rot. It was always all rotten to the core and there was nothing to be done.

Better to end it than to risk it.

“Anthony! Tony, calm down!” Roman’s grip on him slipped just slightly and Deceit jerked towards Anton. The Construct’s flinch tasted delicious. “Hey. Hey!” Roman’s grip tightened, not enough to truly injure him but a warning all the same. “Everything’s fine, Tony!”

It wasn’t but Deceit would make sure it was. “Yaaaaay,” Remy’s flat voice cut through the air. “The Great Prince Roman has saved us. However shall we, like, repay him?”

Deceit settled slowly in Roman’s hold. He turned to stare at Remy. Remy didn’t glare at him, but he still managed to send a general feeling of disdain in his direction. If Deceit didn’t hate his guts, he would have contemplated asking him how he managed that.

“Oh, I know,” Remy said, just as flat. He sounded more like he was reading from a script than celebrating Roman’s “victory.” He took a step closer. Deceit hissed at him, a warning not to get closer. Roman discorporating was one thing. Remy ending up hurt meant death. “I shall offer my, like, invaluable wisdom to his quest.”

He tilted his head down to stare at Roman from over his sunglasses.

“Wisdom, like, did Daddy inform the newest child what exactly is going on?”

Deceit’s unease bled into confusion. They knew what was going on? There was an explanation beyond Anton living up to his name? He glanced up at Roman, irritation joining his confusion as the tips of Roman’s ears turned a dull red.

He mumbled something. Anton sighed. Remy leaned closer.

“Sorry, missed that, Daddy-o. Could you repeat it?”

“I said!” Roman took a deep breath, “I thought it would have been funner if Anthony thought it was real?”

Anton groaned again, the sound coming from somewhere truly and deeply tested. Remy pinched the bridge of his nose as Roman shrugged and meet Remy’s eyes with a challenge. Deceit felt confusion fall away and understanding settle into its place. An act. It was all an act.

“And what?” Anton closed his eyes, reaching up to rub at his temples, “Would you have done if he truly did something to hurt someone?”

“Anthony wouldn’t do that!”

Yes, he would.

“Yes, he would,” Remy said. He took another step closer. His posture softening just slightly. “Come on Roman, he looked, like, about ready to tear out Anton’s throat. You can’t throw someone into something that seems dangerous and, like, expect them to bare their throat and stomach.”

God, Deceit hated how right he was.

“Fine,” Roman muttered. He sulked for a moment, before looking down at Deceit. “Sorry, Tony.”

Remy tapped his foot. Roman sighed, visibly gritting his teeth. “Sorry, Anton.” Lady nudged at his shoulder. Deceit figured the only thing keeping him from throwing his hands in the air was the fact he still held Deceit. “Fine. Fine! Sorry Lady, and Remy, and everyone.”

Remy snickered.

“You let your horse, like, boss you around, so sure, whatever, apology accepted or something.”

“I’m a little shaken but it’s fine, Roman,” Anton said, standing up with a grin. He winced. “Though I will need a bit to get over you dragging me back down. I think I’m going to be bruised for weeks.”

Roman sniffed, tilting his head up. His hold on Deceit tightened.

“I already apologized. And! I won, like I said I would! You still haven’t managed to beat me!”

Anton chuckled, nudging Roman with his shoulder as he walked past.

“Naw, not yet, but I will, just you wait. Have fun with the rest of your Quest, Roman. Hecate has some fun things planned for you!” Deceit watched as Anton limped off into the town. The flames around them slowly died down and Deceit didn’t resist as Roman settled him around his shoulders once more.

“Sooooo,” Roman said hesitantly.

“Yeah, no, I’m, like, coming with after both of those stunts,” Remy cut him off. Deceit hated that he agreed. A sane man with a voice would be nice. He stopped and reconsidered. An almost sane man with an actual voice would be nice.

“Fair enough,” Roman said, and ran a hand down Lady’s flank. He grinned at them all. “Onwards?”

#Sanders Sides #Roceit #Roman Sanders #Deceit Sanders #Remy Sanders #Anton Sanders #violence

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kassandra-lorelei · 5 years

Note

Hey! I don't know if you still do these but would you be able to write an n/cc fic where instead of proposing in The Producers, Niles tells CC the play was for her ? Thank you and I love your writing!!

I absolutely still do these, Anon - I have no idea how long you have been waiting now and I’m so sorry it’s taken this long! I have quite a backlog to get through, with full-time work and general adult life (as well as some executive dysfunction), but this one is all ready to go. I really hope you enjoy it, and I will get on the next one on the list as soon as possible (it may happen quicker, considering we’re on lockdown for at least another two weeks, but we shall see how these things go) ❤️

@missbabcocks1 @holomoriarty

“You finally pulled off something bigger than your shorts!”

The zinger, alongside the accompanying gleeful laughter – asexpected as this package would normally have been – utterly blindsided Niles,given that Miss Babcock had only just told him how impressed she was. Impressed.She’d actually used the word “impressed”, to talk about this entire play thathe’d produced! The play that now this entire room full of people werecelebrating, at an afterparty he’d never before imagined could exist.

It had been like music, hearing the words from her lips, rubyred and curved into a smile that looked far softer and friendlier than normal…

He should have known she was setting him up. Why wouldn’tshe be? Since when did they ever do anything that wouldn’t somehow lead to the (atleast) momentary downfall of the other? It was all they ever did.

And his only hope of salvation at that moment was to thinkup a snappy retort that he could fire back at the back of her golden head,where she’d crushingly turned away.

But even though words and phrases and colourful insults of allshades and hues danced through his head, urging him to continue the wargames, everysingle one of them died the moment he attempted to let them fall onto histongue.

It was useless. The entire idea of having her as his enemy hadno meaning to it.

What was the actual point, in letting it go on? In allowingthe cycle that ran a far-too-thin line between hurt and fun to just…run theirlives? Would it go on forever, him never admitting how he felt and neverhearing what she really felt, either, whatever that was? As terrifying as itwas to think that they might be nothing otherwise, this all currently felt likea twisted Purgatory; one where the stranded soul could experience both Heavenand Hell in equal, random measure.

There was only one thing he could do. Only one, if he wantedto take a shot at reaching paradise.

Even if he fell on the way, at least he would have tried.

And, after a moment in which he had gathered his courage andhad dumped a few phrases from his mind that would either scare her (“Marry me”;who wanted to immediately be asked that?) or come across as peculiar (“I pulledthem off for you”; what was that even supposed to mean?!), he finally knew whathe had to say.

“And it was all done for you.”

He wondered, for a moment, if she hadn’t heard him. If hewas about to have another moment like he’d had in the kitchen, where he hadbeen able to swiftly back out the second he’d realised it had been a bad idea.

But she turned, eyes wider than before and lips slightlyparted, as though she were holding herself back from simply letting her jawdrop.

“What did you just say?”

Her tone told him she wasn’t asking because she hadn’theard. She was asking precisely because she had heard. She’d heard, and shecouldn’t believe any of it.

Niles, meanwhile, was rooted to the spot and hastily tellingevery panicked thought in his mind that he wasn’t about to turn and run away.

There was no point in backing out now. No chance to, either.

He pulled another breath into his lungs, making it deep. Hehad a feeling that it could be one of his last, anyway, so he might as wellmake it a good one.

“I…I said that this show was…made for you,” he explained,finding it a gargantuan effort simply to not swallow his own tongue in theprocess. “I produced it for you. As a…as a token…of my affection…”

He trailed off as Miss Babcock took a step in his direction.But it wasn’t a ‘happy’ step, or even a surprised one (though she’d have everyright to be surprised, if she was feeling it underneath the apparent anger); itwas more the sort of march forward one might expect of an army captain whohad just heard a war prisoner speaking out of turn. The sort of step that commanded,while ordering an explanation the person most likely would no longer know howto give.

And it made Niles suddenly very aware of the fact that he’djust told this to her in a room full of other people, both friends andstrangers, all of whom had already been to see a show that evening. As thebutler wasn’t keen on the idea of them seeing another one, he directed his gazeall around them, indicating the fact that they weren’t alone and any sort ofscene made would have witnesses.

“Should we perhaps…go somewhere else to talk? I know thatthis must be-“

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Miss Babcock hadalready gotten close enough to reach out and grab his wrist, dragging him outof the room.

“You’re damn right we’re going somewhere else to talk!”

……………………………………………………………………………………….

The journey she took him on through the building seemed to goon forever, neither one of them speaking a word until Miss Babcock finallysettled on a small room which appeared to be used to store props and a few racksof costumes. Again, it wasn’t exactly the stunning Hollywood setting hiswildest fantasies conjured up in the dead of night, but this was reality.

He’d be a fool to really think they’d go to some privateterrace overlooking the city, where all the feelings would come out as themusic rose to a great crescendo, whereupon they’d immediately fall into eachothers’ arms.

He was, in truth, lucky that she hadn’t simply laughed athim before walking away, back at the party.

On the other hand, the look on her face as she closed thedoor behind them, standing between him and the only available exit, made himthink that there were still far more fortunate people out there than he was.

“Alright, Butler Boy, you’d better start going against yourbetter drinks-pouring instincts and spill!”

On any other day, and in any other place at any other time, Nilesmight have considered turning that demand into a zinger. But as thingscurrently stood, he couldn’t even work up the nerve to think of one, let alonesay it out loud.

All he had was what he had worked up all this courage totell her.

With no idea of where to begin, if he was honest. There wasso much that he wanted – had – to get out, that it all wanted to come rushingout at once! But that wouldn’t work; it would just get all jumbled up andconfuse Miss Babcock at best, or make her angrier than she already was, atworst.

Maybe it was best if she decided what he started with? Thatway he could focus on one thing at once…

“Where would you like me to start?”

The question came out much meeker and softer than he’dwanted it to be, and that want quickly transferred to the idea of kickinghimself. He didn’t exactly sound like James Bond, this way. More like the guywho never made it through basic spy training because he cried whenever the timecame for interrogation practice.

If he could just be calm and rational about it all, it mightnot be so difficult.

Not that the producer made it easy, simply by being there infront of him. This was different from his many awkward-but-at-least-practicedattempts at telling her, done in front of the mirror at the mansion. He didn’thave anybody glaring at him, for a start.

Further emphasising the point, Miss Babcock also folded herarms, “I don’t know, maybe on that word you used – you know the one; affection.”

Niles silently held his breath before even trying torespond.

“What about it?”

“Where the hell did it come from, perhaps?! Just to startoff with,” she shouted in return, sounding equal parts bewildered and enraged. “Andthen maybe why you thought you could just say it like that?!”

“I didn’t think I could just say it like that!” he foundhimself arguing in return, sadness and fear giving way to his chest starting tocave in. “I…I had to get it out before I lost my nerve.”

““Lost your nerve”?” Miss Babcock echoed, scoffing at thesame time. She then folded her arms. “That makes it sound like this wasn’t somesort of practical joke on your part!”

Niles’ jaw dropped of its own accord, words tumbling outbefore he could stop to think rationally, “Why on Earth would you believe thatit was a practical joke…?!”

“Isn’t everything else you do to me a prank, or a practicaljoke of some kind?!” the producer snapped. “Why would this be any different?”

The butler let his mouth close again. His mind was warringover whether he could scarcely believe what he’d heard, or if he was justshocked and upset because he knew that she was right. He supposed it was amixture of both, along with the realisation that that really was what was goingon – if they both thought it, separately, without any input from the other, howcould it not be true?

There had barely been an interaction between them whichhadn’t started with some sort of practical joke, from one side or the other. Andhe had started it all. In his foolish – and perhaps insane – attempts to benoticed by someone who would otherwise never have much of a reason to even lookat him for more than a few seconds, he had started their rivalry.

Miss Babcock had simply retaliated; given back as good asshe’d gotten.

She must’ve mistaken his horrified silence for an admissionof guilt in the present moment because she continued. Only this time, shesounded…almost resigned. As if she believed the whole evening had been leadingup to this very second, and she was upset that she hadn’t seen or understoodthat fact before now.

Niles didn’t know why that would be the case. It was justhow she appeared.

The producer leaned on the nearest prop crate, arms stillfolded and now looking at him with more than a mild degree of expectation, aswell as annoyance.

“So come on and own up; what was the punchline in this latestand greatest trick of yours? Or did I spoil the whole thing, by not letting usbe in a room full of people who could hear it?”

The butler silently swallowed before he answered. This wastruly it; there was no going back from this moment on.

“There is no punchline.”

Miss Babcock scoffed again, rolling her eyes.

“Oh come on, Niles, of course there’s a punchline!” shecried out in disbelief. “That’s like saying that there’s no-”

“There is no punchline, Miss Babcock!” Niles was moreforceful in his insistence, this time. It was as though something in him hadsnapped, at last – as though it had gotten weary or sick of backing down, ornever even speaking up in the first place. “It wasn’t a joke. I produced thatplay for you, as a token of my affection.”

“What the hell do you mean, “affection”?!” she shouted back.

That was more than enough to open the floodgates.

Scratch that, actually; opening the floodgates might implythat they could be closed again and something could still be held back. Thiswas more like someone had taken a giant wrecking ball to the wall of the dam.

“How can I put that word any more simply than you alreadyhave it?! Affection! Caring! Fondness! I am in love with you, you stupidwitch!”

For an instant – a point suspended in time which might’vebeen minutes, or just mere seconds – Miss Babcock looked amazed. Her eyes wentwide with shock, but no horror, and she appeared struck by the notion that hehad opened up beyond all measure. She actually looked quite a bit like she hadin each of Niles’ fantasies, just before the point where she would quietly ask“Really?”, before he’d say yes and they’d embrace in whatever fanciful or over-the-toplocation he’d picked for his mind’s outing that particular evening.

But, as he’d noted when they’d gone in, this was real life,taking place in an unimportant prop closet that didn’t even have so much as awindow to let in light, let alone provide Oscar-worthy cinematography and mise-en-scène.

And the instant ended as quickly as it had begun, when theproducer seemed to shake herself out of it and spring right back into anger.

“Oh, baloney! Since when have you ever displayed one iota ofinterest in me that could’ve come across as being in love?!”

Whatever had snapped in the butler before, could only havesnapped partially. He knew this because he felt the rest of it go and his ownanger – built up over years of frustration, pain and sorrow – flared to life.

“Whenever would you have let me?! Would an ordinary servantwho barely uttered a word and whom you would only see when they brought you teaor took your coat ever have stood a chance?” he took a step forward, letting gocompletely as the feelings took over. He jabbed the air in between them,pointing at her accusingly. “Be completely honest with both me and yourself,just this once, and tell me; would you have even seen me as a person if Ihadn’t gone further?”

There would almost have been another silence, had he notsworn he could hear the resounding slap to Miss Babcock’s face that his wordshad just produced. Even if she was trying to hold it together, he could tellthat the hit had landed – he saw a light dim in her eyes, that he had never,ever seen get even slightly dull before. Even in their worst moments, thosesapphires had never been anything less than bright, whether they were sparklingwith delight or burning with fire.

The guilt started in his throat and burrowed downwards,hollowing him out into the pit of his stomach. It was more than enough to makehim duck his head away in shame.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” he bit the insideof his lip, every awful feeling word churning up his insides. “Just as Ishouldn’t have said or done a lot of things. I felt as though I had no choice;I could either stay an active part of your day-to-day life, albeit one that stuckin your craw, or I could just…blend into the furniture, like all the otherservants your family has ever known.”

He found himself leaning on his own crate and stared a holeinto the floor, the weight of everything coming crashing down on him, from thenotion of his own worthlessness in life to the knowledge that he’d been a foolto even try and attempt this.

“I suppose this play was just yet another desperate butfailed attempt at being more.”

“Desperate and failed”, indeed. The two words summed him upperfectly. He was nothing more than a stupid butler, who’d done too much damagein a place where he just simply wasn’t wanted. And even if he had had a chance,how good would those chances have been against someone else’s? That slimpossibility that she might look in his direction was nothing, compared to whatwould happen if some rich, handsome, charming fellow passed her way.

He couldn’t even begin to hold a candle to what she couldget. Or what she deserved. The chance was nothing, and so was he.

There wasn’t anything else to it, then. He had to leave – he’dapologise for even bringing this entire business up, promise to never let it affecthis work or hers (there would be no more pranks, to start with) and then hewould go. As he had no way of obtaining a new job, he would simply stay out ofher way at the mansion, as best he could. The entire afterparty was over forhim, too, so he had no qualms about leaving it. He wasn’t in much of acelebratory mood.

He was about to start with the first part by getting up fromhis temporary perch, when Miss Babcock’s voice cut through the still, slightlystale air.

“You’re right.”

He knew he was; that was why he felt so terrible. But hecouldn’t help being curious about which bit in particular she wanted to bringup and discuss.

“…About which part?”

He never expected the answer he got.

“All of it. All the stuff to do with me, anyway,” she mumbled,before shifting in chosen seat to apparently get more comfortable. “Ever sinceI was a little girl, my family always taught me how to act around servants.“They’re there to give you what you need, you don’t have to thank them!”, “It’stheir job to look after us, we don’t mix with them for pleasure!”, “Stoptalking to them so much, they’re not your friends!”…but I couldn’t help talkingto you. As much as you’ve always been a pain in my ass, I’ve never been able tohelp stopping whatever the hell I’m doing and talking to you. Paying attentionto you. My mother would probably say it was you “stepping out of line” that haddone it, but you know what?”

Niles had been slowly looking up even as she’d spoken, but itwas obvious that she had his full attention by the time she got to thatquestion. The pit in his stomach seemed to have – at least temporarily – filleditself. He didn’t dare call it hope, even if that was what it was.

He had to wait, and find out what Miss Babcock said nextfirst.

Her words came out like she felt liberated.

“I…I don’t really think I care. All those times that we’vehad – the fun ones, especially, like your friend’s wedding, or the BroadwayGuild Awards…they didn’t feel bad or wrong. My mother would’ve called themthat, but they weren’t. I liked doing those things with you, and I don’t feelembarrassed about them, even though God knows just saying it out loud iskilling me, right now…!”

It was her turn to look away, towards the floor. Even in thelower light of the storage room, Niles thought he could see a tinge of pink inher cheeks.

The not-hope feeling in his stomach faltered betweenstrengthening and shattering. Was she really blushing? She couldn’t be, couldshe? C.C. Babcock, Ice Queen of New York City and the Bitch of Broadway, wouldnever dream of blushing! Especially not over all the times she’d spent withhim!

But…if that wasn’t the case, then what else could she bedoing?

Did he have to test the waters and find out? Some might saythey were shark infested…

But how could he leave it all where it was, either? He’dcome so far, with so much courage plucked up that if it had been feathers froma bird, it would’ve been bald and ready to be stuffed for Thanksgiving by now.

He’d done all of this – nearly bankrupted their boss, gottenone of his closest friends into trouble with her husband and somehow pulled offa spectacular Broadway show – simply to tell her how he felt. Could he reallylive with himself if he let it all go to waste, because of a moment’shesitation at the last second?

Niles honestly didn’t think that he could.

So, he did what he might have imagined unthinkable, at onepoint in their relationship. He got up from where he was sat and walked overto sit down on the crate next to her. She looked at him the entire way over,and she didn’t stop even when he was sat down, barely half a foot of space betweenthem.

“I enjoyed those days, too, very much,” he said. “I’vealways wanted more of them…”

“Yeah. Me too,” she replied quietly, biting theinside of her lip as though deciding whether or not to say anything else. Then,she made up her mind. “To be honest, those times have been some of the bestI’ve ever had. Better than anything I could ever even dream of with…”

Her eyes dropped back to the floor again, clearly even moreembarrassed than only a few seconds ago, when she’d told him that she’d likedspending time with him.

It didn’t take a genius to work out which name would’vefilled the trailed-off silence.

Mr. Sheffield. She was talking about Mr. Sheffield…!

And…and she was saying that all the times they’d spenttogether – the nights out, the dancing, drinking, having fun – all meant moreto her than…than anything she’d ever imagined in her head!

He, the real-life butler Niles, had somehow managed to beatout the idealised version of Maxwell Sheffield. The one person he never thoughthe’d ever be able to compete with, in looks, or charm, or money, and yet he hadcome out on top. And not even some fantasy version, where he could hope to holda candle to their employer – just…regular old him!

It all sounded like a complete and utter dream come true;the kind that was normally heartbreaking in reality because you knew it neverwould, and yet here he was, living it out!

He even thought that he could feel the not-hope changing itsname.

“You…you really do mean that?” he asked, in awe as much ashe was in disbelief.

Miss Babcock looked at him briefly from the corner of her eye,then nodded, “Guess I finally figured I’ve been getting my priorities allscrewed up. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s ever happened.”

The butler frowned, his previous worries now turning to thefact that she was beating herself up over what she’d felt was right before.Hearing what her life had been like, when she was young and was being strongly influencedby her mother, somehow it all made sense that she would look for a rich man. Anyrich man, as long as he could prove his wealth and his connections. Mr. Sheffield had simply been the perfect candidate for a long checklist that theproducer had been given to carry around her whole life, whether she cared aboutwhat was on the list or not.

She’d probably convinced herself that she did care, simplyto make it easier. Not that it had turned out easier, but that was anothermatter entirely.

He let his hand slide along the prop crate, so it was closerto hers, “There’s no reason for you to be harsh with yourself over this.”

Miss Babcock sighed, shaking her head.

“You don’t have to make me feel better about it, Niles. I’mthe one who got it all wrong,” she said, shame permeating her tone. “Worst partis, I wouldn’t have even thought about it, if it weren’t for…all that stuffthat happened, back at Hanukkah…”

Niles winced minutely even at the mere thought of thatnight. The hours had stretched out for him in a way he’d never imaginedpossible, and the terror of it possibly turning into the worst night of hislife had hung over him like a curse. It was a curse that hadn’t been brokenuntil their nearly-lost loved ones had all piled in through the door, cold,hungry and exhausted, but mercifully alive.

Between the two of them, there had been a sort of unspokentruce that night. But even in a time when they probably could have spokenfreely, they had almost deliberately held back. They probably thought they wereprotecting themselves – protecting the game they had going on.

Now wasn’t the time for holding back, though. And the gamewasn’t worth protecting in that sense anymore, anyway.

“What did you think, that night?” he asked quietly.

“I was…scared. Well, more like terrified, actually,” sheadmitted, sounding like the words had been aching to come out of her mouth eversince she’d had the feeling. “I thought I was going to freeze to death in theback of that car. I gave it my best shot to act like everything was just fine –that everything was normal and okay. But the moment Maxwell and the Little One gottalking about what would happen if the car wasn’t found, it made me think.Hard. And don’t you dare say that’s a dangerous occupation for me.”

Niles shook his head, “I wasn’t going to.”

Miss Babcock looked uncomfortable for a moment, shufflingand shifting on the spot.

“Sorry; force of habit, I guess,” she said, beforecontinuing her explanation. “It…it made me think, and it made me realise that Iwasn’t thinking about…anybody in the car.”

Again, that was another blatant reference to their employer,quickly followed by her turning her eyes up and truly meeting his gaze for thefirst time in this conversation.

“But I was thinking about what I could be losing.”

It was obvious what she meant, even without her actuallysaying it. The words needed to tell him were probably too monumental, toosignificant and weighted with meaning in her mind to get out right then andthere. She needed time to process them, and he realised now that he understoodthat. He’d had far too long to mull over his own thoughts and feelings, but herswere only just starting to dawn in her conscious mind.

He wasn’t going to overwhelm her any more than she alreadyhad been by saying more than he needed to. He’d use her language – theirlanguage, perhaps? – and take it slowly.

“That was how I felt, that night. It accidentally slippedout, while we were on the phone to the police, looking for you all,” he toldher. “I covered my tracks, of course, but there was no coming back from it forme.”

He thought he heard the producer make a noise in the back ofher throat, but she gave no other reply. Instead, silence overtook the littleroom again.

Before it could drag on too long, the butler spoke up again,the last of his thoughts coming together in a way that made coherent sense, foronce.

“Maybe this play – for me, in some ways – wasn’t just about stayingnoticed. It took it further than that. Perhaps…perhaps I was worried about whatI could lose, too,” he said. “We’ve been going at this a long time, withoutreally talking or trying anything else. I knew that eventually, it would haveto end. You would find someone, like Chandler or…or Colin. Only they’d be evenbetter, this time, and all my chances, however slight, would’ve been used up. Andwe’ve already lost enough before now…”

His confession made him wonder if he’d tipped the scales toofar in the opposite direction, and he shut himself up as he waited for herreply.

Not for the first time that night, what he heard in returnwasn’t what he’d expected.

“We haven’t lost anything tonight.”

That made him look directly at her, “We haven’t…?”

“I don’t think so,” she turned herself – her entire bodythis time – so that she was facing him more directly, her leg leaning on theedge of the crate. “I, uh…I actually think it might be nice, to try somethingnew. To stop getting hung up on stuff that isn’t right, and going around incircles because of it. If we try to move forward, maybe we’ll reach a point wherewe both end up winning.”

Niles didn’t know if time had slowed so much that it feltlike his heart had stopped, or whether it had just exploded in a sort of silentfirework that burst in the feeling equivalents of bright reds and pinks, turningto vibrant greens and yellows, before sparkling away in glitters of gold.

His not moving (which came from shock and awe, nothing else)clearly sent off the wrong signal to Miss Babcock, because she cleared herthroat, looking awkward and embarrassed.

“If you still want to, obviously.”

That was when his hand finally dared to hold hers, whichsent her gaze straight back to his.

The butler’s voice was barely above a whisper, “I neverstopped wanting to.”

He didn’t know if he had leaned in first, or whether she wasalready there when his lips met hers. He didn’t particularly care, either. Allthat mattered was the feeling of her in his arms, which made their way aroundher lower back, as hers pulled him in for the kiss to deepen. He felt her arms wraparound his neck, and she moaned into his mouth as she let his tongue start toexplore, hers leaving him groaning as she started her own discoveries.

But it was only a start. They had to pull away for air far soonerthan either would have liked, but they stayed with their arms around oneanother, and it wasn’t long before Niles felt ready to go back in for anotherkiss.

Miss Babcock stopped him, however, teasingly placing afinger on his lips.

“We’re gonna have to get back in there sooner or later,Scrub Brush,” she said, her voice low and her eyes dark. “After-afterpartieshave to wait.”

Niles tried not to deflate too much; he knew she was right,after all. They had a whole room full of people who would have noticed thatthey hadn’t come back in by now. And even if most of them weren’t concerned forone reason or another, he could very easily imagine Fran coming back there tolook for them (read: to find out if her plan had worked just as she’d wanted).And the things he had in mind were the last thing he ever wanted her to see.

But he couldn’t help taking a particularly interested note atthe idea of the producer saying their “after-afterparty” simply had to wait. Forhow long? Did she want to test the waters more before they made the leap? He’dwait for as long as she wanted, obviously, but he also wanted to ensure thatthey were completely on the same page.

They’d been reading the same information in such different waysfor too long, now.

He kissed her fingertip, before pulling away to speak.

“For anything in particular?” he asked, taking her hand andkissing the palm.

“To see how the rest of the night goes,” she answered,getting up and pulling him to his feet playfully as she did. “If it turns out asgood as the play was, you might want to stick around.”

Niles’ eyebrow quirked, and he gave her a lopsided grin.

“And if it’s duller than dishwater?”

Miss Babcock started to grin in return, and she looped herarm in his to lead him out before she gave any sort of reply.

“Then we already know there’s an empty storage closet backhere, don’t we?”

#anon asks #the nanny #niles and cc #niles the butler #cc babcock #otp: butler bitch #otp: always been bitter together

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hoodoo12 · 5 years

Text

Chapter 7/15 SFW

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

@turtlepated @anyamercury @beetlewise-and-pennyjuice

Lisette didn’t say anything else. She looked frazzled and was breathing a little heavily, and after staring at what she’d written on the floor, she licked her lips and ran a hand through her hair.

Then she left the room, holding onto her journal so tightly her knuckles were white.

Beetlejuice screamed into the void as she disappeared through the door. All his frustration, all his disbelief, all his rage was channeled into the noise; it was as if what he’d felt in the bedroom was simply a precursor to this, a warmup to the anger he felt right now. In his agitated state, it was a little difficult to wrap his head around all of it, plus he still didn’t understand everything that was happening.

What he did know was that Lisette, this renter, this intruder, this nobody, this bitch knew his name. Said his name! Knew what it would do! And then tricked him!

There was nothing but him in the circle. There was nothing for him to rip apart, or sweep into a whirlwind of chaos. With nothing but himself, Beetlejuice slammed himself against the invisible barrier again and again and again again again--

The chalk Lisette had used was white. It was applied thickly; the symbols and writing looked vaguely familiar to him, like an itch in the back of his brain. He was trapped inside them, and couldn’t touch or scuff them no matter how hard he pushed against whatever barrier they made.

When he finally ran out of energy, when he was finally bruised and battered and bloody, he collapsed into an awkward sit on the floor. He was fuming but forced himself to be outwardly calm. Looking over his prison, he finally saw that the chalk circle was mirrored on the ceiling, a complete circle that she had finished already, allowing no escape that direction. Besides himself, inside the circle was bare, not even any rug, just the hardwood floor. He picked at a gap between the floorboards with a ragged nail.

The abuse he’d just put his body through began repairing itself. Although he bled, he was not fully in the living world, so his injuries faded more quickly.

The soft sound of footsteps alerted him she was coming back. Beetlejuice sat a little straighter.

Still in the soft pants but with a tank top over her bra, she entered the room. She’d brought her journal back, plus the two books he glimpsed the contents of from her bedroom. She put them in a pile on the floor near the doorway.

“You’ve made a hell of a mess in my bedroom.”

Her opening gambit needed some work, Beetlejuice thought. Despite tricking him, he wasn’t positive she could see him. He grinned to himself, thinking he still had some aces up his sleeve, trying to work the angles of either having her say his name or letting him out.

“Does that smile mean you’re proud of yourself?” Lisette asked. “Acting like a run of the mill poltergeist?”

His smile twisted into more of a snarl. She could see him.

When he didn’t reply, she sighed.

“You’re not a poltergeist,” she announced, then plopped down onto the floor too, landing cross-legged near her books. She grabbed the pseudo-Twilight book and opened it, flipping through the pages as she continued talking, sounding distracted. “I can understand why people thought you were a poltergeist. All the moving shit around. Slamming doors. You know, the stereotypical stuff. Aha!”

She found whatever it was she was looking for, jamming a finger into the text.

“But even though all this applies to you, there’s so much that doesn’t.”

Lisette said that line like it was an accusation, and looked directly at him again. Beetlejuice lowered his chin and glared at her from under his brows. They stared at each other for a moment, until Lisette decided he wasn’t going to fill in any blanks for her.

“So what are you? A ghost? A demon? From another dimension? The worst time traveler ever, getting stuck sort of out of synch with this plane?”

Beetlejuice lifted his lip in a non-subtle warning, then exploded forward, shifting from human to a being conjured from nightmares: a combination of insect and kitten, black smoke and tentacles, eyes randomly appearing and disappearing on his form. He roared as he rushed her too, and hit the barrier with a resounding splintering cacophony.

She jumped a little, which made him grin with mouthfuls of broken, rotten teeth. So she wasn’t as calm and collected as she wanted to appear. Beetlejuice watched her worked hard to pull herself back together.

As his amorphous form continued to press against the barrier, she cleared her throat and said,

“Thank you. That information will help me narrow it down.”

Then she got to her feet and left again.

The nightmare form collapsed back into his more familiar shape and skin. Beetlejuice sat down again, turning her last statement over and over in his head. That was a lie! She’d had to consult books just to make sure he wasn’t a fucking poltergeist! She was bluffing. She didn’t know much about him, and he hadn’t helped her.

She’d left the books behind, however, and he eyed them warily.

⁂

If he’d thought his punishment of being trapped in this fucking house while he had barely any energy was an ordeal, it was nothing compared to being stuck in a relative corner of it while having some power. Lisette had said his name twice, and that was so sweet he had almost drooled like a dog in anticipation.

Beetlejuice fairly buzzed with vitality, comparatively. He paced the circle, hoping it made him look like a tiger in a cage just waiting for the proper moment to attack its captor, knowing full well it made him look broken and insane.

He heard Lisette puttering around in the kitchen, opening and shutting cabinets. Making a snack?

“I’d make a snack out of you,” he muttered to himself, before realizing the Freudian slip. His thoughts lingered on old Freud for a moment, wondering if the psychotherapist was enjoying his time working through the endless backlog of people in the Netherworld.

He waited for her to return.

When the light faded outside the windows as the sunset and it became night, he was still waiting.

tbc

#beetlejuice #betelguese #writing #fanfiction #movie beetlejuice #musical beetlejuice

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firesign23 · 5 years

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Trivia Tuesday

So, I decided that the first Trivia Tuesday of the month would be for posting my writing goals for that month. What I set out to do and what I achieve might only be interesting to me, but...

January’s Goals:

Participate in @mfmmflashchallenge‘s AU Flash Challenge in January 25th -- DONE, I did two fics

Complete at least three more prompt fills. I know for sure what two of them will be, which is nice. I’d prefer to do at least five because I’ve been so slow, but no pressure because I also have… -- DONE. Didn’t keep track of numbers, and some of them were Tumblr only so I can’t be arsed to go back and count, but I am slowly clearing out the backlog of posts

At least one chapter of yonder -- DONE

The next Minigolf AU fic, which should be a short multichapter and the reason I’m not aiming for more than one chapter of yonder -- not even started, FML

February’s Goals

Fill at least 10 asks/prompts (not necessarily full fics), including at least two of the Brienne/Addam ficlets because I have two waiting to be done as soon as I sit down

at least one chapter of yonder

complete this not-really-kink fic

clean up that soulmate fic I outlined so it can pass as a story and put it on ao3 for posterity. There’s no way I could write it in full-full, but that’s narratively satisfying enough I should do it for myself

Make headway on my insane backlog of fics to comment on

I’m putting minigolf AU on the list as well, but the way the month is shaping up that’s a stretch goal

#Trivia Tuesday #my fanfic

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therearemorethanfivenights · 4 years

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Chapter 11 is up!

I’m spending my quaran-time wisely by writing about a dead teenager hunting for her killer.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11674818/chapters/56827993

I’m also working on art, some shorts about characters we’ve yet to see and a backlog of chapters for if/when I lose momentum again. Planning ahead is important, kids.

Continue reading under the cut-

It had been a fair few hours since Marie's strange episode, and she was up and about once more. Up, about, and ready to follow her first lead. "Seriously, do you think I would hide something like being the witness to a god damn murder from everyone? I'm literally designed so that I can't do that." Mangle was sat sorting through a small box of mini LEDs. She was there, she was the one who screamed and was dragged off, it was impossible for it not to have been her. "That's my point exactly! Unless it was some insane near-death vision - which it definitely was not - then you were there. Yet somehow, you don't remember a thing. That can't have been an accident!" Marie grabbed her friend's shoulders tight, startling her. The tiny bulbs scattered at her feet, some finding there way through a gap in the floor panels of her den and dropping to the floor below.

"Ifreann... what do you mean? You think someone wiped my brain? This isn't a movie Marie, and even if that was what happened, the only person who could have done that was..." She trailed off as she thought. The whole thing made more sense than she wanted to admit. If anyone had seen a crime, the criminal would want to remove the threat of them talking. So it was entirely possible that she had seen her friend's murder. By that logic, any one of the animatronics could have been a witness to or even assisted with one of the murders. But they couldn't. "Fixing our mechanisms is tricky, but doable. Rewiring a whole bunch of stuff in our brains, so to speak, is nigh on impossible. At the time of you getting shanked-" "Tactful as always." "I was the only person capable of doing anything remotely close to that. There was only one man who could have done it to such a degree of 'not-fucking-everything-else-up-as-well', and he was definitely dead by then." She finished, muttering further as she began the grueling task of tidying the bits on her floor. Marie paused. She was right, of course. Everybody knew the fate of William Afton, he had killed himself shortly after the Bite had occurred. Unless...

"What if he wasn't dead. What if he isn't."

"What?"

"William, the guy who built you. You said that he was the only one capable of fiddling with your head with that level of precision. To wipe all traces of an event without leaving a weird gap in your memory that would make you suspicious. What if he never offed himself, but just made you forget who he was... describe him for me." Marie had a hunch. "What, William? Well, he was... he was... I... I don't remember anything about him." She stopped picking at the floor. "But, he was always elusive, right? Not many people saw him and we only did during the early days. We never saw him after we were installed at the restaurant. At least... I don't think we did."

It suddenly made sense. Or at the very least, more sense than it had before today. If her theory was correct, then it would explain why, despite being walking security cameras, nobody had seen anyone suspicious. They were programmed to find everything about this guy completely normal, no matter how much creepy lurking and luring he may be doing. But while she had a plausible suspect, there was no motive. "I'm going to think on this a while. You, uh, have fun with your blinky lights." She said, handing her the closest one before floating out the door and away.

Dawn had been listening in as best she could. "Marie, not to butt in..." She emerged from the shadows beneath Mangle's den, squeezing awkwardly past various shelves. "I just wanted you to know... if I can help at all... like with all of this..." Marie smiled, trying to seem as unfazed as possible. "I know. I'm fine D, really." She continued towards the door. Dawn frowned. She didn't really understand any of this, and that bothered her. Normally if Marie had a problem she would tell her. She felt useless. "Actually..." She stopped. "Mind if I ask you something? Just wondering-" "Yes?" "Before you started here... There was a time between you and Afton right? When there was just, nobody doing repairs?" She asked. "No, I mean, yes there was nobody here. I think mostly it was just Mangle doing what she could." Dawn replied. "It's weird though, even with a robot brain, it would have taken a long time to figure out everything she has. So, before she knew what she knows... lucky there weren't any major problems, right?" She laughed nervously. "Huh."

Mike and Amy were still sifting through what information they could find on the Bite of '87. "Remember how this was just supposed to be a nice walk around to work off lunch?" Amy teased. She was enjoying their conspiracy hunt to a degree, but they'd reached an impasse a few articles back. There was the motive for murder but nothing could prove that the man was alive, let alone anywhere near the establishment at the time of the first murders. "I know." Mike was uninterested. If he wasn't here he'd be obligated to be at 'home' with his 'family'. No thanks, there had to be some way to prove him either right or wrong, either would be preferable to listening to his extended family argue about political bullcrap. And then the Puppet hovered in.

"Hey, how you feeling? I overheard something had happened. Blow a fuse?" Amy asked sympathetically. Chica came by to explain that something strange had occurred on her way to see exactly what that meant, but they were too absorbed to follow. "Yeah... something like that." Marie peered over at the screen. "So what kinda smut are you looking at?" She asked, half-joking.

"News stuff."

"So no tits? Disappointing." She sighed. Amy raised an eyebrow. "I'm kidding. Mostly. What kinda news?" "We have this theory, about our killer, but it's nothing to worry over." Mike turned the monitor to show her the current article. "I mean, it involves a locally famous suicide being faked and a cyber-child, so probably in the realm of the crazy and slash or impossible." He scrolled absentmindedly onward. Marie immediately tensed up. "Mike... Is this the case of one William Afton? Because boy-howdy do I have some interesting insight into that mess." She made an uneasy grin. Mike nodded, almost amazed. He got up from his chair and let the Puppet sit down, uncaring as to whether it would make a difference. He perched by Amy on the desk, who seemed just as stunned. "We... have the motive to believe he's the one doing this, but there's no way we could prove he's still around. If we could then maybe, but right now we've hit a wall." He explained. Marie nodded slowly.

"Funny, I have the opposite problem. I can prove he was around I think, but not why." She said. "But you might not believe the 'source' exactly."

Mangle hadn't remained in her den for long. The more she tried to think of her creator, the less she seemed to actually remember, and this was bothering her. So she decided to ask around. Crawling through the vents, she tried to think of her earliest thoughts, before she had arrived at the pizzeria. Vague memories floated around. A voice, she could remember a voice, but was it his? It was polite, asking her things, always amazed by her answers. That had to be him.

"Toy Foxy? I wanted to ask you something." He said. "You're voice is different. It used to be the one I gave you, do you remember?" He imitated a voice she barely thought her own. "But now it's something different. Why is that? Do you know what it is?" She remembers feeling pestered, but she always answered. She had to, being considerate and helpful, but she didn't feel like it at times. "It's... Irish, isn't it? I just prefer the way it sounds. It feels like... the other voice is good, but it's yours. I want this one, it sounds like me. Why? Are you offended I didn't like what you gave me? Because I'm not changing it now." She laughed. She was much happier then, if a little annoyed by the barrage of questions.

She crawled out of the vent and down into the main hall. Below, Toy Chica was sat on her phone. Everyone had seemingly scuttled away, presumably coming to terms with today's revelation, but Toychi seemed to be entirely over it. "I've seen weirder things on the internet, in case you were wondering why I haven't curled up in a corner. I can see your reflection, y'know." She said, not looking up. Mangle extended her neck as far as possible to continue the conversation. She always misjudged how high the ceiling in here was. "Hey so, how much do you remember about William?" She asked. Toychi shrugged and continued to look at her various social media feeds.

"Come on, I need to know because of reasons." She swung her face so her hair covered Toychi's vision. "Important reasons." She affirmed. Toy chica sighed and did as she was asked. "I remember he was from England. And like, he was married I think." She said, trying to push Mangle's head away. "But nothing personal? Nothing the just us, his life's work, would remember? Or even what he looked like?" "Of course I remember... huh. That's... totally not ok. I have an amazing memory, how the hell can't I remember that guy?" She immediately began searching her phone. "I remember he gave me this, maybe I took pictures," she switched to the internet, "Google knows everything, maybe they have a picture!" She was becoming increasingly distressed. "Mangle! What the fuck does this guy look like?!" She cried.

At this point, Toy Freddy had emerged from backstage. "What the heck are you yelling about now? Is anyone else secretly a ghost?" He wasn't feeling up to any more ghost shenanigans. However, this didn't seem like something he could ignore, given the frantic pace at which Toy Chica had begun waving him over. "What colour hair did William Afton have?!" She asked, still aggressively applying as many advanced search keywords as possible. "What? How the heck would I know?" He responded. She barely acknowledged this, still scouring her device. Mangle clambered not-so-gracefully down from the ceiling. "Was he fat, or thin? What colour were his eyes? Did he have freckles? We should know, man, but we don't! Why?!" Toychi dropped her phone into her lap with a small thud before burying her face in her arms on the table.

"I mean, yeah, that is a little unusual. Maybe it's a glitch? Or maybe we just don't remember? Ten years is a long time." He sat beside her. It was strange but surely there were more important things happening than trying to remember one man. "A glitch for all of us? And I have over a thousand people's names, faces, birthdays, favourite flavours of ice-cream... We can't forget things, not really, not unless we delete things ourselves." Came a slightly muffled reply.

"Ok, but why does he even matter. He made us then dropped off the face of the earth, big deal." He said. He was actually quite interested in helping find out just how exactly someone had removed all traces of themselves from their minds, as William no doubt had done, and why, but Toychi was in hysterics and he wasn't prepared to encourage her.

All the while, Mike continued to compile his resources. Marie decided it'd be best to let him handle things. She felt a little bad since as it was, everyone else was cleaning up this mess that she was at the center of, yet she was just idly floating around and keeping as far from it all as she could. Aside from the notes she'd been compiling, it was all down to the others. But she was far too tired to deal with anything more. She ducked into the arcade and flopped haphazardly into her box once more. She stared into the darkness, admiring herself. She had done fairly well, all things considering.

"Why me though?" She asked aloud. It was an interesting question. From Mike's debrief, she knew who had killed her. At least, she thought she knew, because she was an outlier. The other victims were all connected. All were friends of Michael's older brother, William's nephew he'd taken in according to what little she remembered about her brother's friend's family. Then there was Alex, who could possibly have been a part of the group that hurt Michael. He wasn't, but William couldn't have known.

So why? She remembered the basement, the safe room. But that made no sense either. She was smarter than that, she watched horror movies all the time. How in the world could a total stranger have lured her into the basement of the Pizzaria?

Then she saw it.

It was a gift box, very like the one she now resided in. Aside from its sudden appearance, it could have been mistaken for a completely ordinary wrapped box. Something a child could have left for her or forgotten before closing the other day. It was Christmas after all. "Alright then." She said. Maybe she'd overlooked it, she wasn't exactly thinking straight. "Happy Hannukkah, me." She picked up the box. It wasn't small at all, yet it barely weighed anything. There was a small tag hanging from the bow. She squinted to read what it said, "You are not alone. If you awaken them, they will help you find him. They will help you hunt him. They will grant revenge... Ok, this is some weird shit." She dropped the box on the floor.

"Revenge is for losers anyway." She laughed through her nose, amused by the idea that she'd want revenge. Really, she just wanted this guy found and dealt with for the sake of others, for Alex. She eyed the box with suspicion. "What does it mean, 'they'. Other kids? The ones from before?" That made sense. It didn't make any sense at all because this was all insane, but then again she was a ghost so she was already pushing her own beliefs. "Maybe..." Against her better judgment, she picked the box up again.

"Maybe I should let them out. Or bring them back with this thing, whatever it's for. I mean, if these are the other kids... what harm could they do, right? If they're vengeful I can stop them, I'm more powerful. I think." She wondered exactly how powerful she was. Enough to put a stop to some stupid toddler tantrums. She grasped the ribbons on the lid of the box. She tried once more to recall what happened the night of her death, secretly hoping that she wouldn't need this supernatural pandora's box to fix this if it even could.

It was the eve of Halloween, the eve of her birthday. "God, and then he just gets up as if nothing had happened." She was hanging around the alley beside the pizzeria, "Hey, mind letting me in on those?" She referred to the box of cigarettes in Vincent's hand. "These things kill you know." He said but still offered her one. He hadn't been ok since the Bite had happened. It was weird the place was open so quickly after such a massive accident, but it was probably something to do with corporate greed or whatever. She was more concerned about her friend.

"Look, you need to take time off. I couldn't give any less of a shit what your boss says, this place should be shut for the rest of the year and you need help." She brought a cigarette to her lips and lit it. A terrible habit for a kid, she knew, but she was running out of legal ways to stave off stress. She sighed a long trail of smoke as he shrugged at her. "Don't shrug, you know I'm right." She said, resting her hand on his shoulder. He brushed it away dejectedly and continued to stare at the floor.

"No offense Marie... but you don't know jack shit about what's going on right now. You don't know anything and you never will. You can't." He glared at her. Something was definitely off. His voice kept faltering, changing almost. Like his whole person was just an act. It scared her. But she thought she understood. "Just focus on keeping yourself safe, ok?" He tried to smile at her. She was a child, of course, there was no way she'd understand how this worked. Vincent sounded almost like her father, in a terrible sort of way, but it was fine. They'd both suffered, he was trying to push her away for both of them. She understood that.

Her face that night was a mess of make-up and grime. She'd looked for hours but he was gone. Her throat burned from trying to make her voice heard over the crowds of kids rushing to and fro. Nothing mattered anymore. Her parents, of course, blamed her. And for once, they were right, everything was her fault. But even now, as her mother wailed into her father's lap, as her father retold what they knew to his fellow police officers, she was going to fix this. She slid her window open and climbed outside. She clutched the only thing that seemed to bring any comfort, a doll of the Puppet, a gift from Vincent for her birthday last year. She hurried to the bus-stop. There was only one bus this late, she'd be walking home, but it didn't matter. She hopped on and dropped a large handful of change through the tiny gap.

Getting in was easy. Vincent taught her a trick with the back door into parts and services. "Alex?" She cried softly into the darkness. She wished she had a torch, this place was much creepier in the dark. She stumbled through the small warehouse. "Alex?" She was trying to be as loud as possible and as quiet as possible, she knew there'd be a guard on duty and the police could get here soon. She felt a little less concerned about the guard, she'd met Scott once and he seemed like a nice enough person, but he'd also likely call her parents.

"Alex?" Her voice echoed through the corridors. Eventually, she found herself in the arcade. She pushed her back against the wall and slid to the floor. This was it. Alex was gone forever. "Marie? Oh my god Marie what are you doing here?" Vincent's voice. He flashed a light through the door and approached her spot. "You! Where were you! He's gone, he's gone, it's your job to stop this stuff!" She kicked at his shins. "I'm sorry..." She began to sob again. Vincent knelt by her and offered his hand. "It's ok, we'll find him. Follow me." He said. She sniffed and cleaned her face as best she could.

They slowly made their way through the halls, checking every inch for any sign of Alex. "What are you even doing here, I thought Scott worked nights?" She asked, checking under each table for any scrap of evidence. Vincent handed her the torch. "Switched shifts. Work keeping me focused, you know?" "Like, focused on anything special, or focused on not..." "I said you know, didn't I? Got to keep going." He looked around. "I'm going to head back to the office, maybe some security footage will help. Think you can check the other rooms yourself?" He tossed her the keys and headed off before she even replied.

It'd been some time. What was he doing? She began heading towards the office. A door. Staff only. Maybe...

Stairs. Cold. Pain.

"No."

Marie stared at the box. William was a sure fit for everything, but he'd need access to the security footage to delete any evidence, and he had no idea who Marie was. She'd stumbled on Alex's body, sure, but how would he have known she was there if he was just popping in to murder a child then leaving again. He'd have to have been in the building, in the office to watch where she went. "No." He'd have to be working in the pizzeria, with an alias as a cover. "No." He would have to have been someone that she trusted, and who trusted her as much. "No. No that's ridiculous."

Michael used to call Vincent 'dad'. How did he know how to help Mangle and Dawn? Scott always seemed like Vince was his superior when he wasn't. He could always somehow buy her all sorts of nice things on pittance pay. Henry's kids own the place, yet they let Vincent get away with things anyone else could be fired on the spot for. He could mimic voices so well, was it such a stretch to say is 'real' voice was a fake too? Things she'd never questioned before suddenly seemed to pile up. He first talked about doing everything themselves, keeping the police and the victim's families as far away as possible. But he would never hurt her, he cared about her, he was her best friend.

Then, without her meaning to, the bottom of the box tumbled to the floor, the top still stuck in Marie's grip. The arcade machines flashed violently as a group of masks resembling the cast's old animal heads appeared, much like her own. They fizzled into small balls of light, then vanished. A message appeared on one of the cabinet screens. 'Give gift', it read. 'Give life', it read. Marie let the lid join the rest of the box on the floor. The screens went black again and left her in the dark.

"Oh no."

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #ThereareMorethanFiveNights #TAMTFN #Chapter 11 #of part 1

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sarahghetti · 6 years

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call me in the morning [part one]

Series Summary: One year after the death of his wife, Barry has just begun to piece his life back together. Then, his superpowered doppelganger shows up, kidnaps him, impersonates him, and mistakenly brings him and Detective West to this so-called “Earth-1.”

As if it couldn’t get any more complicated, in this world -

You’re still alive.

Part One: E2!Barry is reminded of the past and finds it staring back at him.

We used to walk in the night, watch the city lights changing Now I look in your eyes and feel like a stranger

Word Count: 3334

Warnings: Major character death (it’s you. you’re the dead wife)

A/N: an e2!barry/e1!barry x reader and uhhh this ain’t a happy one yall. perspective will alternate between e1!barry, e2!barry, and the reader, so keep on the lookout for the subheadings to know who we’re following!

E2!Barry

All things considered—Barry’s having an awful day.

He’d slept through his alarm, scrambled into work with his sweater inside-out, spilt coffee all over his desk. An intern had misplaced his case files the night before, leaving him to reorganize his entire cabinet for the first (late) hour. Then, just when he thought he had survived the worst of it all—a momentary power outage had interrupted his assay, forcing him to restart the analysis.

Oh, and there was another Zoom attack.

The name still sends chills down his spine. Barry’s mouth dries up at the mention, fingers rapidly twisting his wedding band as he rides out the fear and panic. Captain Singh had dismissed him from working on any case involving that speedster, that monster, after the incident, but that doesn’t stop the other officers at the CCPD from talking about Zoom when they think he isn’t listening. If anything, the pitying looks and sudden silences when he makes his presence known is somehow worse.

No one dares to bring it up. There had been the initial shock once everyone caught wind of the verified casualties that day, the not-so-subtle glances his way when Singh went down the list. Barry remembers everything in that moment—he had been standing near the back of the group, by the doorway leading out to the main atrium. You had picked out his bowtie that morning, a deep navy blue to match his grey blazer, pecked him on the lips before he left for work.

And Singh had read out your name. Softly. Carefully. Let the syllables roll off his tongue and be eased by the air and yet, they still echoed across the room. Barry remembers repeating it over and over ever since you said yes, testing out his last name in relation to you; he had loved how it sounded but now didn’t know how he’d bear to be called Allen when you were gone.

The last thing you said to him was be safe.

“You don’t have to do this,” Iris murmurs.

He’s crouching in the midst of a burnt down department store, carefully collecting samples of the ash and soot. Pointedly ignoring her, Barry seals the plastic bag and adds it to the rest inside his briefcase. Scans the footprints in the ground, makes a mental note that Zoom had accompanied Firestorm after the storefront came down.

There’s a pressure on his shoulder and he jumps, flinching back to see Iris’ hand hovering in the space between them. “Barry, really, I’m sure we can get someone else on this if you want.”

They really can’t. Three of their CSIs are sick with the flu, the others swamped with a backlog of tests. With, admittedly, the highest calibre and most experience in the field—Barry is the only one left.

Reporters clamber behind the barricades, microphones pointed in his direction for a statement. It’s the same thing every time—an attack, a promise made to stop Zoom, not being able to stop Zoom, repeat ad infinitum. Iris is about to continue but another officer waves her over, and Barry doesn’t try to stop her from leaving. Barely glances her way at all before he gathers his things to deliver another hopeful message to the people in order to prevent total and utter desperation.

“We will stop Zoom,” Barry says, his eyes locked with the camera. Immediately, he feels claustrophobic. He had had enough with the media after that list of victims was released to the public, his decline to comment spun into a Greek tragedy in the news. There’s a lump in his throat as he hastily excuses himself to leave, knuckles white around the handle of his bag.

He’s too focused on making it back to the station to react when something, someone grabs his upper arms. The streets around him start to blur. Wind presses his glasses painfully against the bridge of his nose. Barry opens his mouth to say something when his feet hit solid ground again, the inertia rocking his body forward.

The first thing he feels is fear. Wonders if Zoom has finally come for him too, finally decided that he was too meddlesome to have on the CCPD’s side. The thought of you in this same position makes him sick to his stomach.

Barry turns around and deduces swiftly that if he’s in danger, it’s not from anything he already knows about. It’s an office, large and well-kept. Likely for someone important. There’s an awards shelf to his left and monitors line the walls all around him. His gaze falls on the three figures in front of him and he nearly thinks he’s dreaming.

He doesn’t recognize one of the men. The other, well—meeting Harrison Wells had always been on his bucket list; you had looked at that line and claimed that Harrison Wells should be excited to meet him.

Then there’s him.

And it is him. It’s a Barry Allen with his hair styled the other way, glasses missing from his face. His jaw clamps shut with all the frustration and pain he’d felt that day and it takes everything in him to not walk out of the room. “What is going on here?”

Dr. Wells ignores him, turning to his duplicate. “Allen, what are you doing?”

“Hey!” Barry shouts, scowling. Their heads snap to attention. “I am this close to just leaving unless someone cares to tell me what’s happening right now.”

“Wow, this you is a dick,” the unknown man mumbles under his breath, earning himself a glare.

Dr. Wells steps forward. “Listen, Mr. Allen—”

“Dr.,” he snaps, if only to assert some control over the situation.

“Dr. Allen, I assure you that everything is under control. Allow me to welcome you to S.T.A.R. Labs.” Wells opens his arms, gesturing around the room. “Obviously this isn’t the most ideal way of getting you here, but, desperate times.”

His eyes narrow. “What do you need me for?”

“Well, you see,” Dr. Wells steps around his desk and Barry makes the mistake of tracking his movement.

Because the next thing he feels is a sharp pain in his torso, his muscles contracting all at once, and his vision goes black.

When Barry wakes up, his legs are bent at awkward angles and the ache in his neck is killing him. There’s an impressive crack as he stretches it out, but there’s resistance when he moves to sweep the hair out from his eyes.

“Are you kidding me?” The handcuffs restraining his hand to the wall jingle mockingly as he slumps his shoulders. He’s also been changed into different clothes, but thankfully his wedding band remains untouched. “Hello! Hey! Is anyone there? I swear when I get out of here…”

He tugs his hand uselessly. Looking around, he’s been put in some sort of utility closet, but nothing around him looks promising to aid in an escape.

The door swings open and silhouetted in white light is Dr. Wells and the same man from before. Barry clenches his jaw.

“Are you with Zoom?” If Harrison Wells, the man he’s looked up to ever since he was a kid, has been working with Zoom this whole time—he’s going to lose it.

“Am I with Zoom—don’t be insane.” Dr. Wells unceremoniously unlocks his handcuff, discarding the key somewhere on a shelf. He doesn’t spare him a glance before leading him out into a main office space.

“How long was I in there for?”

“Barely a day,” Dr. Wells shrugs.

Barry laughs bitterly. “‘Barely a day.’ Don’t be too sorry about it.”

“You need to leave,” He insists, but Barry steps in his path.

“Not before you tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Barry, it’s a really long story—”

“Ramon, there is no time—”

As if on cue, an alarm goes off, and the screens around them flash red with an alert. Dr. Wells freezes, lips parting.

“He’s here,” he murmurs. Barry doesn’t have to ask who he’s talking about.

Zoom is here, Zoom is here. The blood runs cold in his veins. Iris was right—he’s not ready to face this, face him. His knees are on the verge of giving out when Dr. Wells grabs both men by the collar, dragging them down a corridor. “We need to go.”

Barry doesn’t try to fight him. Drags his feet across the floor before they stop at some random strip of hallway, can’t find the strength to react when part of the panelling slides open to reveal a secret room.

He’s pulled to the far end and nearly collapses against the wall. His breath comes in short bursts, his mind blanking as he gets more and more lightheaded. The other man—Ramon—grabs him by the upper arms, and frowns. Barry’s shaking like a leaf.

A vibrating, gloved hand shoots through the wall of the secret room and he nearly faints on the spot. Ramon presses his hand against his mouth to muffle his incoherent rambling, but Zoom is as terrifying as he’s ever been. Blue lightning crests off his body, his inhuman eyes scanning the area. A low rumbling comes from his chest and Barry swears that he’s looking right at him.

Then, he leaves just as fast as he entered.

Ramon lets him go but he still can’t breathe, clutching helplessly at his chest. That vibrating hand—he’s seen that trick before. Done to civilians, to his colleagues, to his friends, to you. Iris had told him that he shouldn’t watch the security footage from that day, but Barry couldn’t bear the thought of not knowing what happened to you and now—

Did it hurt? Did Zoom know who you were, targeted you specifically because of him? His chest is tightened so much that he feels as though a thousand-pound weight was pressing down on it. His ring is painful around his finger.

Zoom killed you. Drove his hand through your chest like it was nothing.

Wouldn’t have hesitated to kill them, too.

“We need to move.” Dr. Wells already starts his way towards the exit, Ramon beside him. “We need to find a different place to hide and make a plan.”

“No.”

His voice is so weak that he doesn’t know if he’d made a sound at all. They turn around to face him and Ramon’s face softens into concern. “Barry, you okay?”

“No, no—no, I can’t—” Barry gasps for air and Ramon places his hands on his shoulders, steadying him. “I can’t go against Zoom. Please don’t make me go against Zoom.”

Ramon shoots a helpless look at Dr. Wells. He sighs, slings the gun over his shoulder. “You’re one of, if not, the best crime scene investigator in the city, Dr. Allen. We need your help.”

“You don’t understand, I—” Barry’s eyes start to water and he grinds his teeth to stop his voice from trembling.

“Zoom”—he flinches at the name—“has my daughter. I don’t know where. I don’t know if she’s still alive.” Dr. Wells’ gaze is steady and determined, but Barry can see the worry underneath it all. “So let me rephrase that. I need your help.”

We’ll lose. Barry bites back the words, instead nodding mutely. He wipes his eyes with his sleeve. “We can go to my lab in the CCPD; you can explain everything on the way.”

They switch off on the storytelling. Another world. Another Flash.

Joe is dead.

During it all, Barry can see their glances at him through the mirrors but refuses to make eye contact, fumbling with his hands. He can’t handle anything more right now.

“Barry!” Iris calls out as they walk out of the elevator. “I didn’t think you were coming into work today. Are you sure you want to be here?”

“No,” he responds flatly and makes his way up to the lab without looking back. Every step he takes fills him with dread.

Barry slumps into his chair, letting them find their own places to settle down in. He rests his head on his hand and closes his eyes as Cisco—Cisco and Harry, they had properly introduced themselves in the car—tells a shortened version of their story to Iris.

“So that’s why you weren’t wearing your wedding ring yesterday.” Barry swallows thickly and nods.

“They want your help to find Zoom,” he explains. Hopes that Iris can come up with some miraculous solution to this problem so he doesn’t have to. “He has Harry’s daughter and their Barry.”

Iris’ words are quieter now. “I’ve done everything I could to try and track him down. The only person who would know where he would be hiding someone would be a meta that’s worked with him.”

“Like Killer Frost?”

“Even if you could get her to help us, finding her would be just as hard as finding Zoom,” she states. “But, if anyone can do it…”

Iris lets the sentence hang in the air. Barry shakes his head, takes off his glasses to dig palms into his eyes. “You know I can’t.”

“What is your problem with Zoom?” Harry asks, crossing his arms. “It’s not a general dislike nor anger at his actions you feel—what did he do to you?”

Cisco raises a hand to stop him. He takes a slow step forwards. “Barry—our Barry—was torn up about something last night, but he wouldn’t tell us what.”

“Yeah, I can imagine why,” he mutters. Barry stands up, walks over to his desk to where papers are strewn about the surface but he knows what he’s looking for.

Framed beside his monitor, you’re beaming at him from in front of the camera. Neon lights from the carnival colour your hair; if Barry had been a little further, he would have gotten the teddy bear you had just won in the shot as well. He twists his ring.

“Last year, Zoom attacked the city square. It had been a few months since we last saw him, so some people started to believe that he was gone for good,” Barry exhales shakily. “Too much hope, he called it.”

Iris’ hands are folded tightly on her lap. Harry and Cisco shift to see what Barry’s looking at. There’s a quiet gasp.

“My wife was on her way to work. She loved that route because whenever she had spare change in her pocket, she’d make a wish in the fountain. Said that it had come true when I came home safe that day.

“Then Zoom showed up. Told the world to remember that we were at his mercy.” There’s rustling behind him, a hushed conversation that Barry can’t quite pick up aside from a firm: not a word, Ramon. “She was gone before the CCPD even got there.”

“What was her name?” Harry asks.

“Y/N.” Barry smiles sadly when he says your name. “She was the best person I’ve ever known.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Harry comes to stand beside him, averts his eyes from the photo of the person he spoke to not forty-eight hours ago. “My wife was a force of nature. Smarter than me, more cunning, more charismatic.”

He knows the story; the death of Tess Morgan had been covered all over the news when it happened. For the first time since Barry’s met him, Harry has a shadow of happiness on his face.

“No matter how much time goes by, we never really stop thinking about them, do we?”

Barry sighs. His heart still aches, but for now, at least, it’s motivation. “I can locate Killer Frost. Just… give me a minute.”

“Get out of here.”

Iris presses a hand on his shoulder, urging Barry forwards. Jesse and Cisco are beside him as they make their way to the entrance, but he can’t help to look back at Killer Frost—her hands outstretched, freezing Zoom to the floor of the cavern. He remembers her expression when the name Ronnie was said, the clench of her jaw.

Zoom killed him, too.

When they get back to S.T.A.R. Labs, Harry immediately starts scrambling for supplies. The others prepare to travel back through the breach they came through and Iris shoots him a look, a helpless shake of her head. What happens to them now?

“You guys need to get out of Central City, alright? Any place you think you’ll be safe from Zoom?” The other Barry walks up to them.

“We have some friends in Atlantis that can—”

The alarm goes off again. Barry’s blood runs cold and Iris grabs his arm. “We need to go.”

“We can’t,” he realizes, dread washing over him. “Zoom is faster than us, stronger than us. We’ll never make it out of the city, much less the building.”

“What are you saying?”

He tries to speak but nothing comes out. Barry turns towards his doppelganger, who nods empathetically in understanding.

“You have to come with us.”

“Just like that? Barry”—she steps in front of him, holds his gaze—”we can’t leave Zoom to terrorize our world.”

“You stay here and you won’t live to save it,” Harry states. Nods towards them. “Dr. Allen is right.”

He doesn’t want to be. For all the horrors and pain and devastation Barry’s been through, this is his home. Where he grew up, went to school, met and married you. He swallows down his nerves. “Let’s go.”

First Cisco and Jesse, then him. When he emerges to the other side, the first thing he hears is someone calling his name, arms extending to pull him away from the breach.

Iris is looking up at him, worried, but—it’s not her. She’s out of uniform and her hair cascades unusually over her shoulders. A quick glance around sees a woman who looks suspiciously like Killer Frost, and—

“Joe?” He murmurs, dazed. The man claps his shoulder and brings him into a hug.

“You’re going to have to tell me everything that happened, later,” Joe flicks his glasses for emphasis and he recoils.

“I’m—I’m not—”

The energy warps and phases behind him. Iris, his Iris, comes out. The other Barry follows behind with Harry in tow.

“Close it! Close it now!” Confusion sweeps across the room as eyes fall between him and his doppelganger, but Cisco is fast and throws a device at the breach.

What happens next is a blur to him; the Flash from his earth is there, then, isn’t, as Zoom reaches through to pull him back to their world. Someone screams, a hand pushing him behind them. Footsteps come running into the room.

“I saw what happened—is everyone okay?”

Barry stops breathing.

He knows that voice. Heard it say good morning and goodnight nearly everyday for the best years of his life; I love you and I do. He wants to turn around. Wants to see your face and smile again, hear your laugh. There are so many things he didn’t get to tell you that it hurts him to think about it.

But Barry’s dreamed of this for so long that he fears that it’s just his mind playing tricks. That this whole experience of doppelgangers and other worlds has just been one huge dream that he’ll wake up from at any moment now. He also knows that, logically, you aren’t his Y/N. You might not like or love him like you did in the other world. Might barely know him to begin with.

All of that gets pushed aside when he turns around.

“Y/N?”

His voice is barely above a whisper. You’re as beautiful as he remembers and he chides himself for ever thinking that all those photographs could ever do you justice. His eyes well up. Barry wants nothing more than to hold you in his arms again, and the only thing stopping him is the last scrap of rationality he has left, as weak as how he’s felt for the past year.

“You’re alive.”

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