#i still hate it which is why i threw it into the graveyard to begin with | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

faulty-writes · 4 years ago

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Warning: Quirkless Characters, Mentions Of Character From Manga, Attempted Blowjob, Attempted Sexual Acts, 18+.

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing: Student!Hizashi Yamada x Student!Shouta Aizawa

[ Alright, this is another prompt from @bnhabookclub. I decided to do some EraserMic since it’s one of my favorite ships. My blog is mostly reader inserts, but I love my gay ships as well. So for those that love EraserMic like yours truly. I hope you enjoy. ]

[ Shouta Aizawa, is a student from U.A. High. A high stake education establishment that prepares young students for their future careers. Unfortunately, Shouta is at a loss of what career he might want, which lands him in hot water. However, when he gets a part-time job as a florist at the local flower shop, things start to change. Hizashi Yamada, also a student from U.A. High and Shouta’s closest friend, happens to be doing a work-study at the local radio station. But when he finds out about Shouta’s new job, he begins to visit the flower shop. Much to Shouta’s annoyance, but is it really flowers he enjoys or being around Shouta? ]

[ Banner Made By Yours Truly. ]

“This is stupid,” Shouta said as he looked down at the green apron he was forced to wear in the flower shop. He was standing in the back, surrounded by various flowers and the sound of running water. He was 17 years old and this is what he was reduced to, all because his teachers were constantly pushing him to finally get a job. To advance in some career, that was the basis of what U.A. stood for. Almost like a college prep course, but exclusively dedicated to the study of the workforce.

You could even get a certain certificate or even license if you dedicated enough time to your work-study. Shouta however, never gave it much thought. In fact, it seemed like he was at a loss of what to do. Unlike his friend Hizashi who seemed to excel in the matter of careers, though the overly enthusiastic boy decided to do his work-study at the local radio station. Shouta had heard him on the radio a few times and it seemed like he was a natural, so good for him.

Meanwhile, Shouta was stuck here. “Aizawa!” he cringed at the sound of his name and turned to look at the owner of the flower shop. She was some elderly woman who probably didn’t have much else left in her life to do, but she had given him the job. But that’s as much respect as Shouta would give her, especially with the way she was glaring at him. “What are you doing!?” she demanded before her hand shot out and she smacked the back of Shouta’s head, he immediately glared at her.

“Pff, such messy hair as well,” she said as she picked up a lock of it, Shouta didn’t give much thought into his hair. Nor did he care what he looked like, still his hair was growing past his ears, and maybe to the older generation it looked sloppy. But once again, he didn’t care and stepped away from the woman. “My hair isn't a priority here. Is there something you came to bother me with?” he questioned in a flat tone, his eyes narrowed at her and he almost took pride in how offended she looked.

“You kids...no respect to your elders.” Shouta blinked, was he supposed to respect her? For what? Living this long? In order to receive respect you needed to earn it. That was his opinion, maybe it was wrong. But he would never change his mind about it. “Water the flowers, sweep, do something, and stop daydreaming! I can fire you at any moment,” she said before she walked away, leaving Shouta by himself once more.

The boy sighed before walking over to the large cabinet in the corner of the room, though it served no real purpose to him. It was merely used to store seeds and information about the plants the flower shop had. He shook his head before reaching over, a small radio sat on top of the cabinet and Shouta didn’t hesitate to turn it on. Something had to drown out the silence, even though Shouta tended to enjoy silence. Still, he might as well feel like he had some form of company, as soon as he turned it on.

He heard the sound of his friend’s voice, “Heeeeeeeey! All you peeps out there! Dig this! My name’s Hizashi!!! And I welcome you to your local radio station!” Shouta chuckled softly, which would surprise most. But, contrary to popular belief he could be happy. Normally it didn’t last long, but still. He turned and walked over to the hose, might as well try to make the best of this work-study. The next day at school, Shouta slumped over his desk.

“Heeeeeey Shouta!” Hizashi called as he walked into the classroom causing Shouta to cringe in his seat. “Keep it down,” he said as he lifted his head to look at the overly enthusiastic blond who plopped down in the seat next to him. “Aw, come on Shouta! Lighten up!” he replied causing his gloomy friend to roll his eyes. “Ya know, I heard that ya got yaself a work-study!” he exclaimed before leaning over to playfully smack his fist against Shouta’s chest. “Now you’re one of us! Congrats!” he said in a cheery tone and it made Shouta groan in response, sometimes Hizashi was annoying.

But a wonderful friend nonetheless, Shouta just wished that he’d tone it down sometimes. Though he always felt some sort of warmth in his stomach whenever Hizashi was around, maybe it was happiness. He wasn’t sure. “Shut up.” Shouta hissed, “It’s at a flower shop, nothing special.” he said before successfully pushing Hizashi off of him. The blond only smirked and snapped his fingers, “Hey now! It’s something! Ya should be proud of yaself!” Shouta shrugged, he wasn’t proud of himself.

He honestly didn’t know how he felt, it wasn’t an accomplishment in his eyes and his new boss wasn't exactly the nicest. “Hey, if you’re ever bored being surrounded by all those flowers. Maybe ya should turn up the radio! I’m going to be doing a graveyard shift over the weekend, they’re finally giving me a chance to show the world what I got!” Hizashi said, nearly jumping up from his seat and Shouta turned to look at him. Graveyard shift huh? “Congrats,” he replied flatly before looking ahead of him, the teacher just walked in.

Shouta groaned and placed his elbow on the desk before leaning the side of his face into the palm of his hand. He could never imagine being a teacher, what a drag. The next day at the flower shop, Shouta had decided to sweep the shop after he had finished organizing and watering the plants. It was a slow day and his boss had already gone home, so she gave Shouta temporary trust in closing the shop.

He thought he could have peace for the remainder of the day, however that changed when he heard the bell ring indicating that someone had walked into the shop. A sigh left his lips and he carelessly threw the broom to the floor before walking to the front desk, “Hello, welcome to-” he paused when he realized who it was. “Heeeeey Shouta!” Hizashi greeted before reaching up to adjust his sunglasses, they were more like a signature accessory to his person.

“Whoa, what’s with the getup? I’ve never seen ya in an apron,” he noted as he pointed a finger toward Shouta, though in a way he looked cute. Then again, despite Shouta’s rather gloomy outlook on life. He always seemed to come off as adorable, at least to Hizashi. “Is there something you want?” Shouta said as he crossed his arms, his normal scowl appearing but it didn’t phase Hizashi who shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I just wanted to come to see ya! Don’t tell me you’re here alone?” Shouta blinked and cocked his head to the side, why was Hizashi concerned about that?

“The old hag said I could close shop, I didn’t expect anyone else to come in.” he said as he watched Hizashi approach a vase of flowers, “Oh yeah? Ya really call your boss an old hag?” he questioned before sniffing the flowers, “Hm.” he leaned back and rotated the vase, noticing how much detail was taken in the arrangement of the flowers and the small bow that was tied around it. “Did ya do this?” he questioned before glancing at Shouta who kept quiet, “I can tell it was you because ya always put the most effort into little things. Look at the bow, there are no wrinkles in the ribbon and it’s tied just tightly enough. The flowers are specifically arranged, there’s an even amount of each type of flower and exactly five of these little white things are in the center which makes the rest of the flowers pop. Good job, Shouta!” he said as he gave his friend the thumbs up.

Shouta groaned and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You observe me that much?” he questioned, it was kind of scary if that was the case. Hizashi however, looked as though he were pouting and approached the desk that Shouta was standing behind. He placed his hands on top of it and leaned over, “Well, I like to observe the things I find fascinating.” he said with a playful wink and watched Shouta’s expression drop. His eyes were wide and his cheeks were turning the faintest red color, honestly, it made Hizashi feel accomplished when he could get Shouta to react like that.

He chuckled and a smile came to his face, “S-Shut up. If you’re not going to buy any flowers. Get out! Don’t you have a work-study you need to be at?” he questioned and Hizashi laughed before leaning back, “I’m going to be doing that graveyard shift I told ya about! You’re going to listen right?” Shouta frowned and his shoulders slumped, truthfully he didn’t feel like staying up and listening to the radio. But, what Hizashi didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

So Shouta tilted his head back and reached up to run his hand through his hair. “Sure...fine. Just stop bothering me,” he said, attempting to shoo the other away. Yet, Hizashi just smiled and jumped over the counter. Catching Shouta off guard, he let out a cry when his friend’s arms wrapped around him and forced him into a hug. “Hizashi…” he growled, his face twisting with anger. “Just a couple more seconds…” the blond replied which made Shouta groan, gees.

He always hated getting hugs and Hizashi’s were often unwanted and too tight, yet he made no move to escape. He sighed in relief when the hug ended and dusted himself off. “Happy…” he said before glaring at Hizashi who seemed to be smiling again. “I’m always happy when I’m with ya Shouta!” he laughed before turning to leave, though he hoped Shouta would actually go through and listen to his graveyard shift broadcast, after all, he had something special planned.

He waved Shouta goodbye before leaving, though as usual, the black-haired boy seemed unphased and resumed working. When he closed down the shop and returned home, he debated about actually listening to the radio. But instead, he drifted to sleep with nothing but the sound of silence. With no school the next day, Shouta proceeded to the flower shop. He was beginning to feel relaxed surrounded by plants and the heavenly scent they provided.

It was nice and he couldn’t say that about many things. Once more it seemed the owner of the shop had given him trust and was eager to see how Shouta would run the place by himself. He didn’t find it very difficult, though talking to people on the phone was rather annoying. He didn’t understand the need for floral arrangements, but the orders kept coming which meant he had his hands full with deadlines.

A few customers came in, though most of them Shouta assumed where either lonely women or men who thought a bunch of roses could help mend whatever relationship they messed up. However, much like before. Hizashi walked through the door. It was mid-afternoon and Shouta was slumped over the front desk. A small vase sat in front of him and Shouta was busy trying to make it into a flower arrangement. The sight made Hizashi smile, Shouta always looked cute when he was concentrating on something.

He noticed it when the other was invested in his schoolwork as well, it sometimes distracted him. But seeing as school wasn’t in session, he walked up to the front counter, much like he had done the previous night. “Hi Shouta!” he greeted, watching as the other looked at him with those tired yet soft eyes. “Here to annoy me again?” he questioned, but he was answered with the sound of Hizashi’s laugh. “Maybe I just want to give ya some company! But...uh, also…” he paused and scratched the side of his head.

“If you’re not too busy, think ya could wrap me up a bouquet of flowers? Nothing specific, maybe use the flowers ya think are nice,” he suggested, acting a bit nervous as he pressed his fingertips together and glanced away. His cheeks were dusted a soft red color, which Shouta took notice of. He narrowed his eyes, “Why do you want a bouquet of flowers?” he questioned, trying to ignore the strange feeling that was causing his stomach to twist.

Hizashi laughed again, “Come on! Ya know the answer already! I mean ya listened to my broadcast right?” Shouta’s eyes widened before he glanced to the side, oh right. He implied he would listen to that, well he didn’t and there was no going back now. “But!” Hizashi held a finger in front of Shouta’s face. “If ya must know, they’re for someone special.” Shouta frowned, yes most would be happy knowing their closest friend found someone that made them happy.

So why was Shouta feeling this way? It was strange, almost like a burning feeling. Was he jealous? Perhaps, he wondered for a moment if Hizashi was talking about a girl in class or maybe even Shirakumo. He was part of their trio and much like Hizashi, he had an enthusiastic and happy outlook on life. Unlike Shouta, who was more like the raincloud of the group. “Mm...I see.” he replied before crossing his arms, “When do you need the bouquet?” he asked, though his glance continued to avert Hizashi who tapped his chin.

“Well, how fast could ya make it? I was planning to give it to them tomorrow,” he replied and that jealousy burnt brighter. “Oh...tomorrow,” Shouta said, tapping his finger against his arm. Almost as if he were getting impatient about something. “Yeah, sorry man. Is that too early or-” Shouta shook his head and dropped his arms before finally looking at Hizashi. “No, I’ll get that ready for you right now. I’m sure you don’t have anything better to do,” he said, his voice dripping with that jealousy and he made no effort to hide it.

Maybe he would be better at hiding his emotions when he got older, but as for now, he was still considered a teenager. “Uh…” Hizashi scratched his head once again, a little confused by Shouta’s tone. “Are ya alright man?” he asked and Shouta shrugged in response before walking to the backroom. It only took about ten minutes to arrange a simple bouquet, he used roses and tulips for a little splash of color before walking back to the front desk.

“Here.” he said as he handed the flowers over to Hizashi who took them, though it was clear he was still confused about Shouta’s behavior. “Uh...thanks,” he said before looking over the flowers, they smelled wonderful and he couldn’t help but think they were special considering Shouta picked them out himself. That thought alone made him smile and he cradled the bouquet close to his chest. “Thanks, Shouta, you’re the best,” he said though his compliment was only greeted with Shouta’s eye roll. Still, it was something.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow then?” he questioned, sheepishly giving the other a smile. Though it didn’t seem like Shouta was very happy at the moment, he did shrug his shoulders in response to Hizashi’s question. “I’ll be here I guess,” he replied, once more causing the blond to chuckle. “Great! I hope ya don’t work yaself too hard.” Shouta kept quiet as he watched Hizashi leave and let out a sigh of frustration. Damn. Who did Hizashi like and why? Wasn’t Hizashi supposed to be his friend?

Shouta wasn’t sure what he’d do without the annoying blond by his side and it was such thoughts that kept him distracted for the rest of the day. What would he do without Hizashi and why did he feel so jealous? Was it because he considered Hizashi his? He was his friend, he was his only friend up until Shirakumo came along, and yet still, he never considered the possibility of losing Hizashi. Could he even prevent himself from losing the blond? He wasn’t sure but damned if he wouldn’t try.

Shouta decided that even if he had to work at the flower shop the next day, he would try to look to impress. He decided to wear the goggles Shirakumo had allowed him to borrow and pulled his hair back into a short ponytail. He chose to wear a black outfit, complete with gloves. Hizashi always seemed to like it when he wore black, though he always teased it was because the color black matched Shouta’s soul.

He wasn’t completely wrong and yet he still enjoyed Shouta’s company and made no move to try and belittle him because of his outlook on life. In fact, he seemed to give Shouta affection in return and he never wanted that affection to belong to someone else. Which is why he hoped to impress Hizashi, despite the fact that he had to focus on his work. He managed to finish a few more flower arrangements, however, he continued to look at the front door.

Just waiting for Hizashi to walk in, of course it was always a disappointment when he heard the bell and rushed out only to see an unfamiliar face. He groaned, what the hell was wrong with him? He wasn’t sure why he was so paranoid about Hizashi all of a sudden, he continued to think about this mysterious person Hizashi had gotten flowers for and he found himself hoping he wasn’t too late. Though he was hesitant, he wasn’t one to jump into action and it typically took a lot for him to finally do something.

Though it seemed his life only worked at extreme ends. Regardless, he began to worry when nightfall came and Hizashi had yet to appear. For a minute, he wondered if he had done something wrong. Hizashi knew how he was though, was it still possible that he insulted the other because of his words or actions? Part of him wanted to try and contact the blond, but it would be useless. If he didn’t show up like he said he would, then that must mean something was wrong.

Maybe this was Hizashi’s way of indicating he needed space and honestly, it bothered Shouta. He couldn’t even get a proper amount of sleep, as he found himself tossing and turning. The following school day, Hizashi was absent which didn’t sit right with Shouta. Yet, there were rumors floating around about what had taken place during Hizashi’s broadcast, the one that Shouta had missed. Apparently Hizashi had spoken about a special someone and even dedicated a song to them, he claimed that his special someone was listening because he had made a special request in person for them to tone in.

Shouta couldn’t help but find that strange, Hizashi had asked if he’d listen to his broadcast as well and it seemed like everyone in the class had. Was that why Hizashi hadn’t shown up to the flower shop, was that why he wasn’t in class? Was this ‘special someone’ taking up his time just as Shouta had feared? He tightened his fists as he sat at his desk, his whole body began to tremble which gained the look of some of his classmates.

“Uh...Aizawa, are you okay?” Shirakumo asked he hadn’t seen Shouta tremble like this since the time he walked into class dripping wet from the rain. Shouta growled softly and turned to look at his friend, “I’m fine…” he hissed though Shirakumo didn’t completely buy it. Yeah, Shouta was normally in a bad mood. But not this bad. “You upset that Yamada isn’t here?” he questioned and Shouta’s eyes lit up. “Do you know why he isn’t here today?” he asked as he leaned over the side of his desk and Shirakumo shrugged.

“Wish I could help you man, all I know is that Yamada said he needed to do some thinking. Something about how to face someone again.” Shouta’s eyes widened, face someone again? What the hell did that mean? He couldn’t help but feel some hope in his heart, that perhaps Hizashi meant him. But at the same time, he didn’t want to get his hopes up. Regardless, he couldn’t help but feel like he needed to get to the bottom of this. Yet, at the same time.

This seemed like a delicate situation and Shouta almost felt as though he needed to wait until Hizashi came to him. The only problem was how long Shouta could wait before he took matters into his own hands. Shirakumo had offered to come along with him to the flower shop, but Shouta declined the offer. It wasn’t because he didn’t appreciate it, but more so because he would rather sort out his own emotions than drag someone along.

Still, as much as he tried to distract himself. The thought of Hizashi continued to plague his mind and it caused him to drop a container of nursery plants. It was somewhat of a hassle to clean the dirt up and transfer the growing plants into a new container. It cut into the time he was supposed to be watering the plants and threw off his whole schedule. He hurried to make up for the lost time and by the end of the day, he was sweating. His hair looked unruly and he was covered in dirt.

No surprise there as he had forgotten to put his apron on when he began his shift. “Looks like you’ve improved.” the owner of the shop said as she approached Shouta, taking note of his appearance. “There might be hope for your future career, yet.” Shouta wanted to roll his eyes, this is not the future career he wanted. But he supposed he had no choice but to take it for now. “Here…” she said as she handed him the keys. “Just like before, close up shop when you’re done.” Shouta frowned, but slipped the keys into his pocket.

“Yeah.” he replied before watching her walk through the door. Business as always seemed to slow down as evening approached and Shouta spent the last remaining hour slumped over the front desk. Replaying the previous day when Hizashi came in, he had replayed the moment over and over again in his head. Trying to analyze every little thing and make sense out of it, was he the reason that Hizashi decided to distance himself? He frowned, hoping that wasn’t the case but what other explanation was there?

Maybe this is what he deserved for his childish behavior and jealousy. He still hadn’t come to fully believe that he could get jealous over Hizashi, but the thought of anyone changing his relationship with the other. Taking his time and attention away, it made him upset. He knew he had no right to feel this way, especially considering the fact that he couldn’t even keep his word and do as Hizashi asked. He sighed, reaching up to ruffle his hair before laying his head onto the desk and listened to the sound of silence.

The dirt on his skin was dried out and the sweat caused his hair to clump together. More than likely he could use a shower, but that was the very last thing on his mind. A shadow began to cast itself over the shop and Shouta knew the cause was more than likely because the sun was finally setting. But he didn’t feel like moving, he just wanted to continue to hide his face. Well, actually he wanted to scream. His head was aching, more than likely from all the overthinking he had done.

He failed to notice that someone had walked through the door, though the bell had sounded. Shouta seemed to have blocked it out, it wasn’t until he felt a hand press to the top of his head that he jolted up. His heart was racing as he looked wide-eyed at the very one he had spent the whole day thinking about. He narrowed his eyes, “Hizashi?” he questioned, almost in disbelief. Though Hizashi looked a tad different, Shouta hardly recognized him in those clothes.

They were dark and appeared to be made out of leather, apart from the shirt Hizashi had underneath his jacket that was adorned with studs. He was wearing orange headphones that dangled around his neck and matched his glasses. His hair was slicked back and it appeared almost as if he were dressed for a date. That thought alone made Shouta frown, but he was also curious.

“Why are you dressed like that and why weren’t you in school today? Why didn’t you show up here yesterday and then you come in today dressed like that?” he rambled off the series of questions and his hands curled into tight fists. He wanted to demand if Hizashi had just ended a date with this ‘special someone’, the one he had spoken about and dedicated a song to, or at least that’s what he heard in class. Hizashi blinked, “Uh…” which question did he have to answer first?

He had one arm pressed behind his back and the other was busy scratching his head, a common action he performed when he was more or less clueless about something. “Well uh...I thought it would impress ya,” he replied before trying to remember the other questions Shouta had asked. “I...wasn’t feeling well or uh...well I had to do a lot of thinking, sorry. I couldn’t face ya because well, I was thinking about what happened and my special someone...I knew there was a chance ya wouldn’t like it.” he replied and Shouta growled.

“Who the hell is this special someone? Are they the reason why you weren’t in class?” he demanded before stomping around the desk and approaching Hizashi who took a step back as he noticed the fiery expression Shouta was wearing. “Hey now, what do ya mean by that? Ya didn’t listen to my-” he let out a cry when Shouta grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him close, it was a little scary to see the other act this way.

“What do I mean…” Shouta repeated, almost wanting to laugh before he turned and began to drag Hizashi toward the back of the flower shop. “Shouta! W-Wait a second, what are ya doing!?” he demanded as he stumbled over his feet, but Shouta ignored him. “What does it look like, I know I’m being selfish. I’m just some florist that can’t match up to a guy with a future career in radio but…” he trailed off and turned to face Hizashi, his eyes drifted to that arm that was still hidden behind the blond.

He clenched his jaw and reached over, “Shouta wait-” Hizashi tried to plead again, but it was of little use as Shouta forced his hand from his back. A gasp then sounded from the black-haired boy as he took note that Hizashi was hiding the bouquet of flowers he had arranged for him the other day. He growled and threw them to the floor, “Shouta! What the crap!? What’s the matter with ya!?” the blond demanded, looking distressed as the flowers now laid wilted on the ground.

Along with the note he had written and tucked inside the center. However, it went unnoticed by Shouta who proceeded to press himself against Hizashi. He laid his hands on the man’s chest, curling his fingers into his shirt. “I know, I can’t possibly compete with your special someone,” he began, and Hizashi lowered his eyebrows.

“Shouta...wait...don't ya know that it’s-” once more he was interrupted, “I don’t need to know who it is, all I know is that someone is trying to take you away and as much as I hate to admit it. I can’t let that be.” he explained before leaning close to Hizashi, releasing his hold on the other's shirt in order to cup his delicate face.

He was careful of those glasses, he knew they meant something to the blond. “Y-Ya...what?” Hizashi stuttered out, though the fact that Shouta was so close added to his nervous behavior. “Shh...just let me do this, then...you can go back to your special someone. I’m sure those flowers were for them, I don’t know why you brought them back here. But it doesn’t matter.” he said before quickly capturing Hizashi’s lips. “Mm!” his eyes widened and he reached up, grasping Shouta’s shoulders.

He noticed the dirt that stained the other's clothes, but he knew it was too late to save his own outfit seeing as Shouta was pressed up against him. Though it was nothing compared to those soft lips, Hizashi found himself fighting the urge to kiss back while Shouta intended to overpower him. A moan sounded from Hizashi as he felt Shouta’s tongue brush against his bottom lip, wiggling and thrashing around as it tried to slip into his mouth.

His knees grew weak as he finally gave in, allowing Shouta what he desired. A shiver ran through his body as Shouta’s tongue brushed against his. Such a distinct flavor filled his mouth and his glasses grew foggy before Shouta pulled away. His cheeks were dusted pink and there was a determined glance in his eye. “Shouta…” Hizashi whispered before watching the boy drop to his knees.

“No one will treat you like this, you are mine Hizashi. Maybe not in romance, but you still mine. I won’t let anyone take you, call me selfish.” he reached up and unzipped the fly to Hizashi’s leather pants which outlined the perfect curve of his thighs. “Wait...don’t.” Hizashi’s heart was racing in his chest as he reached out to thread his fingers into Shouta’s hair, attempting to pull the other away. But a growl sounded from Shouta, a clear indication he wasn’t giving up.

“Shouta...I said no.” he warned as he continued to try and keep him at bay, however, Shouta seemed utterly determined and continued to lean forward. Despite Hizashi’s attempts, his arm began to tremble and his grip loosened the moment he felt Shouta’s warm mouth clasp over his bulge which was currently separated by the fabric of his underwear. “S-Shouta...I-I’m d-dirty...s-stop.” he tried to plead once more, though another moan threatened to escape him.

“I s-should at l-least shower-ah!” he cried out when Shouta’s tongue began to lap over his underwear, teasing his hardening member. Hizashi leaned over, though both legs were trembling. He threaded another hand through Shouta’s hair and tried pulling him off once more, but Shouta was in defiance. He reached up and yanked down the fabric separating him from his goal, that is Hizashi half-hard cock.

However, Shouta kept the same monotone expression before his fingers brushed against the warm and throbbing member, was Hizashi getting hard because of him? In a way it made him feel proud, despite the fact the other continued to pull his hair which began to ache and Shouta’s neck was bent back. He placed his hands on Hizashi’s thighs and pushed forward, his tongue sticking out ready to get a taste of that cock.

Though Hizashi spoke, “S-Shouta! Why...are ya doing this because you’re j-jealous of my special someone?!” his words came out in a panic as he tried to keep his thoughts clear, though they were clouded over with pleasure. “So what if I am...I highly doubt anyone is good enough for you,” he said before his tongue licked up the base, he could taste the salt and some sweat that Hizashi no doubt built up while wearing those leather pants.

Hizashi whimpered and slumped against the wall, soft pants escaping him. “W-Wait...ya mean...ya didn’t listen to my b-broadcast?” he questioned before tilting his head back, his fingers loosening their grip on Shouta’s hair as he continued to get assaulted by that rather talented tongue. Shouta wrapped his lips around the tip, teasingly slithering his tongue around before flicking over the small opening. His eyes shifted to Hizashi who looked rather satisfied, he found himself enjoying the look of the blond’s lust-filled face.

Still, he pulled back. “I didn’t need to hear it, everyone talked about it. Shirakumo said you were absent because you wanted time to figure out how to face your special someone.” his glance turned to the side and his jealousy was showing. Which confused Hizashi, he took a deep breath and tilted his head. Finally getting a break though his cock twitched, eager for more of Shouta’s advances but that didn’t matter right now.

There was another problem he needed to solve, something he needed to make clear to Shouta. “Yeah...I needed time to figure out how to face ya, Shouta.” his eyes widened and he shot his head back, “W-What?” he questioned and felt Hizashi release his grip on his hair. Though Hizashi brought one hand up to press against his forehead, letting out a sigh. An action that was uncharacteristic to the blond.

“Ya really didn’t listen to my broadcast did ya? Even after I asked ya to.” Shouta looked to the floor, almost feeling guilty. “I...fell asleep.” he replied quietly, “Whaaaaaaaaaat?!” Hizashi exclaimed, shaking his head in clear disappointment before he crossed his arms. “I can’t believe ya didn’t listen! Shouta, I don’t ask for a loooooot!” he cried out and Shouta’s eyebrow twitched, he was clearly annoyed with the way Hizashi was whining. “Well…” Hizashi shrugged.

“I guess it doesn’t matter now, even though my boss was impressed with my daring declaration of love. Shouta...I was talking about you, I said I had a special someone that I liked very much. He’s my best friend and even though he’s a little gloomy sometimes, he has a good heart. He’s patient and understanding and when he puts his mind to do, he can accomplish anything. Which is whhhhhhhhhhy I said ya should become a teacher, but instead ya decided to work in this dirt-filled flower shop.” he said, scolding Shouta who narrowed his eyes at him.

“I don’t like kids that much, there wouldn’t be a point to-” Hizashi huffed and grabbed Shouta by his shoulders, forcing the man back to his feet. “On another note!” he began, shifting the subject back to the main point. “Those flowers,” he pointed to the bouquet that was still laying on the floor, “were for you!” he poked Shouta’s chest. “I was planning on coming back the next day to get them and give them back to ya as a gift, but instead ya ruined my plans and gave them to me early. What gives!?” he demanded as he fisted both hands into the front of Shouta’s shirt and shook him.

Though Shouta looked surprised, he reached up to clasp his hands over Hizashi’s. “That makes no sense. If you wanted to get flowers for me, you should have gone to another flower shop. There’s no sense in asking me to make a bouquet and then present that same one to me, though I don’t like surprises.” Hizashi’s grip loosened, okay maybe there were some flaws in his plan, but isn’t it the thought that counts?! There was no pleasing Shouta.

“Hey, I tried. Give me some credit, at least I do what ya ask,” he said, clearly still upset that Shouta hadn’t listened to him on the radio. “How long are you going to go off about that? It’s already old.” Hizashi growled and shook him once more, “As long as I want, ya dig!?” he exclaimed, his voice echoing throughout the room.

“I don’t understand ya sometimes Shouta, the whole point of my broadcast and the flowers and my visit. The fact I was absent in school and didn’t come the other day. I was stuck, I was stuck on how to face ya and tell ya that I...well daaaaaaamn. Shouta I like ya! More than a friend, you are my special someone and weather what ya just did to my…” he paused and looked down at his still hard member that stuck straight up and brushed the jagged edges of his open zipper.

“Little Hizashi,” he said, “is out of jealousy or whatever. Shouta, ya are the only one who has my heart. I said I know ya’d probably reject my feelings, which is okay. But please tell me we can still be friends. You, me, and Shirakumo!” he exclaimed, and once more Shouta looked surprised, though if anything he was ashamed of his actions. He let his jealousy get the best of him and he used it along with his anger to assault Hizashi. He was lucky the blond didn’t react in a bad way, still.

He couldn’t make it up to Hizashi, could he? Part of him was happy, Hizashi liked him. He was this special someone and yet, he didn’t feel as though he deserved it. But looking at the other, Shouta took note of how handsome he looked. Even behind those orange shades, his blond hair seemed to bounce as he moved and the leather clothing only seemed to make him stand out more. However, that worried look Hizashi had didn’t go unnoticed and Shouta reached to place his hands on those padded shoulders, the studs against his fingers felt unfamiliar.

But, regardless, he leaned up. He heard Hizashi hitch his breath before their lips pressed together in a simple kiss. Hizashi released his grip on Shouta’s shirt and felt like jumping for joy, though that would break the kiss he was quickly melting into. So instead, he threw his fists in the air before resting them on Shouta’s hips. Dipping his head forward, Shouta’s grip tightened on his shoulders as he pushed back. Deepening the kiss, though unlike before it wasn’t forced.

No, it was out of the pure feelings he had or rather the feelings he didn’t know he had until jealousy pulled them to the surface. He moaned softly and pressed his body against Hizashi’s, reaching up to run his fingers through the blond’s hair. “Mm, wandering hands huh?” Hizashi said as he pulled away, however, he turned his head and pressed soft kisses down the side of Shouta’s neck. Hearing the sounds of what he could only describe as pleasure, he smiled before taking a small nibble which caused Shouta to shiver in response.

He doubted that Shouta had done anything like this before, but that was alright. Hizashi himself had so little experience, still. He was more than happy to have Shouta in his arms, though they still had school to worry about. What was another year compared to the life he’d hopefully get to spend with the one who captured his heart. “Mm, Shouta…” he said, causing the boy to stir. “W-What?” he replied, his heart was racing in his chest and his face felt hot.

More than likely he was flushed, which was an unfamiliar feeling to him. Hizashi smirked and stepped closer, pressing his hard-on against Shouta’s thigh. “Ya still have something to answer for, now I like ya and we don’t have to take this step if ya aren’t comfortable but well...ya did start it,” he said and despite how he was feeling, Shouta pressed his hands against Hizashi’s chest and looked up at the man with a frown. “You want me to finish...giving you a blowjob?” he responded dully and Hizashi glanced down, his lips forming into a pout.

“Well...I did say only if ya want to,” he replied, though the throbbing ache was beginning to get painful and while he could take care of it by himself. Why bother when Shouta was here? In a way, it could make up for the fact he hadn’t done what Hizashi asked. “I promise I won’t talk about it on the radio,” he said with a smile before reaching up to cup Shouta’s cheek. “I will never talk about our relationship unless ya want me to unless ya aren’t ashamed of it.” Shouta blinked and his frown deepened.

“Why would I be ashamed, if the world is still prejudiced about such matters. Who cares, I...I like you too Hizashi and...just sit down on the desk.” he said, pointing toward the front of the shop. Hizashi chuckled and leaned close to peck Shouta’s lips. “Are ya sure the flowers won’t mind? They might be getting quite a show,” he said as he began to walk away, Shouta trailed behind him. “Shut up,�� he replied, once more being his normal grumpy self. But that’s who Hizashi fell for and no force in this world would change that.

They had been friends for a long time and though he was afraid of what would happen to that friendship when he confessed his feelings. In a way, they were just continuing their relationship. Just on another level, though Hizashi would proudly take the title of Shouta’s boyfriend. Maybe it would be a little awkward at first, telling everyone his boyfriend was a florist at the local flower shop.

But for now, it seemed to suit Shouta. Though Hizashi had confidence that his boyfriend would grow up to be someone that inspired others, though he knew Shouta didn’t like to be in the spotlight. He could still shine, especially with Hizashi by his side.

#erasermic #aizawa x yamada #shouta x hizashi #bnhabookclub

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longitudinalwaveme · 4 years ago

Text

Where Are The Ghostbusters When You Need Them?

Hi! Thanks for checking out my story!

Despite the title, the story actually does not feature the Ghostbusters, but it does feature the Flash Rogues. That's almost as good, right?

The story can't really fit anywhere canonically since Evan and Sam are alive simultaneously, among other things, but hopefully it'll be an enjoyable story anyhow.

Mirror Master I: You ever seen one of those creepy houses? You know, the ones with broken windows and crumbling spires and ivy growing all over them? The ones that used to belong to super rich people and are now allegedly owned by some mysterious “third cousin once removed” that no one’s ever actually seen? The ones that stupid teenagers dare each other to spend the night in? Well, Central City has one of those creepy houses. Or, more accurately, Central City’s Pine Woods suburb has one of those creepy houses. It’s commonly known as the old Jackson place. It's a three-story mansion, with broken windows, crumbling stone, a creepy staircase, massive spires....the works. It was even used as a set for a horror movie back in the 80s. Even though it technically isn’t in the city proper, it’s close enough that everyone knows about the house-and the stories surrounding it. Allegedly, the old Jackson place was built by Adolphus Jackson in 1792, after he immigrated from somewhere in Ireland with his family. They were Central City’s first settlers (the Rathaways were second). He and his wife, Betty, had sixteen kids (although only ten survived to adulthood). All the dead kids were buried in the backyard of the house, so things are already getting creepy. (Some people say that you can hear crying when you go by the house, and other people have claimed to see ghostly children.) His oldest son, Jared, inherited the house when old man Jackson died in 1846. (He was buried behind the house, and yep, people have claimed to see him, too.) Jared worked alongside Martin Garrick (yes, he IS related to Jay Garrick) and my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Shawn Scudder, in Central City’s Underground Railroad. (Am I shaming my heritage? Yeah, probably. Moving on.) People have claimed to see the ghosts of slaves and such around the old Jackson place, and they’ve also claimed to see the ghosts of Harold and Rufus Jackson, an uncle and nephew who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. In 1877, Jared died, and his second son, Arnold, inherited the house. (His oldest son was Harold, who died at the Battle of Chancellorsville.) Arnold got married to his second cousin, which is several levels of weird, and he added onto the house, making it a lot bigger and more impressive looking. He died in 1885, after adding to the family’s sizable fortune, and his son, Bernard, inherited the house and made it even fancier. Bernard is also where the really messed up stories about the Jackson place begin, as his oldest son, Robert, fell in love with a girl his father hated (partially because he had planned for his son to marry Lydia Rathaway, Piper’s great-great-great aunt). Their arguments over it got really nasty, and so eventually Robert ran away with his chick and got married to her, only for his father to threaten to cut him off. Sonny boy decided that he wanted the money more than his wife, and he abandoned her and was remarried to Piper’s great-great-great aunt. There was only one snag: his old wife had gotten pregnant and drowned herself in the pond (now dried up) on the back of the property to get revenge a few days after her baby was born. (People claim to see her ghost quite frequently.) Her parents, the Desmonds (and the Rathaways, who were mad that Bernard had had his son marry their daughter when he already had a wife) sued the pants off the Jacksons and the family was reduced to semi-poverty. Robert hung himself a few weeks after the lawsuit was settled (he allegedly haunts the house, too) and Bernard started drinking. A lot. He died in 1910 (probably from alcohol poisoning) and the estate was inherited by his only surviving offspring, a 19-year-old daughter named Alicia, who became a librarian and never married. (Alicia didn’t live in the house after the age of 21, probably because of all the bad memories, but people still see her ghost there.) She died in 1971, and the house, which had sat unused for over three decades, had already gained a reputation as being massively haunted, a reputation that only increased when some stupid 17-year-old broke into the house on a dare, fell down the old stairs in the dark, and broke his neck in 1995. (Since then, people have claimed to see HIS ghost as well.) So you get the point: the old Jackson place is massively haunted, massively creepy, and massively empty, so, of course, Captain Cold decided that we needed to break into the place on Halloween. Now, to be fair, we do something to get our adrenaline up every year on Halloween, but there’s a difference between going to a commercial haunted house, where nothing is real, and going to an old house that might actually be haunted, especially when said old house is falling apart and everyone is wearing ridiculous costumes (as we do every year). Earlier in the month, we had decided to dress up as classic movie monsters. Or at least I thought we had. As it turned out, some people had badly missed the memo….

Mirror Master II: Okay, so maybe the scarecrow costume I had wasnae all that scary, but it wasnae my fault! How was I supposed to ken that all the scary scarecrow costumes would be sold out by October 24? I wasnae PLANNING to be the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz! But I’m off topic. All of us had agreed to meet on the front lawn before we broke into the haunted house, so at 7:00 PM on Halloween night, I got into me costume and went to the lawn. Golden Glider (dressed as a vampire), Scudder (dressed as a zombie), the Trickster (dressed as a bedsheet ghost), Captain Boomerang (dressed as Frankenstein’s monster), and the Pied Piper (dressed as the Phantom of the Opera) were already there, and, of course, as soon as he saw me costume, Scudder started laughing. “They were sold out of the scary costumes, ye eejit,” I said. “Then why didn’t you alter it or something? You don’t look scary at all!” Scudder asked. “Hey, at least I look scarier than the Trickster. And besides, not all of us be seamstresses, Scudder,” I replied. (He’d made his own costume and thought that nobody knew. Eejit.) Scudder flushed and suddenly became very interested in the bushes. At this point, Captain Cold showed up in cat ears. That was his whole costume. Otherwise, he jus’ looked like a hockey fan (which he be). His sister-a bonnie lassie, she-wasnae pleased with that. “Lenny, you were supposed to dress up as something scary!” “I did. I’m a werecat.” I’m nae sure why he thought that would be convincing. “Oh, come on! You didn’t even try!”“I never try. Why are you acting like this is something new?” The Glider threw up her hands. “Because you promised me you would try this year!” “I have a tail. Does that make it better?” The Glider rolled her eyes.“I give up.” She tossed her golden hair over her shoulder-I tell ye, she is a bonnie lass-and went to talk with the Piper. The Weather Wizard showed up a few seconds later, and I saw soomthing I never wanted to see: him in a dress. “What are ye supposed tae be, me gran?” The Wizard scowled.“I’m a witch!” I looked at him oddly. “Ye could have been a werewolf, and ye decided tae be a witch?”“It’s thematic! You know: wizards are magic; witches are magic….” I laughed. “Look, if ye want to dress up like a lassie, ye kin. Just donae expect me tae understand why.” The Wizard stormed off, and the Top arrived on the lawn, dressed as a gigantic top. Scudder laughed so hard that he had tae sit down, and I laughed pretty heartily myself. “What is so amusing?” the Top asked. Naebody bothered to explain that it was because he wasnae cooperating with the theme, because we all knew he wouldnae listen. “They’re just being stupid, sweetie pie. You look amazing,” the Glider said. (I’m nae sure if she meant it or if she was just trying to calm him doon.) Luckily for the Top, Heat Wave decided to show up at this point, and his costume made Captain Boomerang laugh so hard he wet himself and made me laugh so hard that I had to join Scudder on the ground, so everyone forgot about him. “Why are you wearing a tutu?” Captain Cold asked (as soon as he was capable of speech again.)“Well, I was gonna be Frankenstein, but Digger stole my idea, and I didn’t have any other ideas, so I decided that me in a tutu was scarier than any monster,” Heat Wave replied. I looked him over again and immediately wished I had nae doon it. He was right; the sight of a 6’6”, 250 pound man in a frilly pink tutu is more terrifying than any monster. His logic seemed to work on everyone else, too, because Captain Cold quickly changed the subject. “Okay, are we ready?” Scudder raised an eyebrow. “To break into the creepy ghost house? No, but I know I’m doing it anyway,” he replied. (At the time, I thought that he was being a wet blanket, but as it turned out, he was right to be a tad worried.) “As long as we’re bringing flashlights, I suppose so,” the Piper said. (He had been against going to the haunted house, tae, but he had been opposed to it because of some kid who had died there back in the 90s because the house didnae have lights, not because of Scudder’s ghosties, which he didnae believe in. Because of that, he had changed his tune after Cold promised him that he could bring a flashlight if he wanted tae.)“Then let’s go,” Captain Cold ordered. With that, Scudder and I transported everyone to the house via Mirror Realm. Having only lived in Central City for a year, I had never seen it before, and I was a tad freaked out by what I saw. The house itself wasnae too bad, but the creepy dead grass and trees, and the graveyard in the back of the house, were spooky, especially under the huge moon.“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here?’ Really?” Golden Glider said scornfully, pointing at a sign in the yard. Her brother shrugged. “Probably some kid’s idea of a prank.” Piper, meanwhile, was looking nervously at a different sign. “Cold, this sign is from the government. It says the building is condemned. Are you sure we’ll be safe to go in there?” he asked. “Since when do we care what the government thinks?” Captain Cold replied. “When a building might collapse on our heads!” Piper exclaimed. “And when it’s haunted!” Scudder added, sounding happy to have an excuse tae go home. Captain Cold sighed and rolled his eyes. “Piper, if the house seems like it’s gonna collapse on us, we’ll just have Scudder and the Scotsman transport us out. We’ll be fine,” he said. Piper seemed to relax.“Good point,” he said. Sam didn’t look as calm. “But what about the ghosts?” he asked. “Sam, ghosts don’t exist. They’re a product of overactive imagination and too many horror stories,” the Piper replied, only for Captain Boomerang to join the conversation.“They are too real! My second cousin’s ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s dad’s third cousin’s aunt saw one!” he exclaimed, sounding offended. Piper didnae look convinced. “That’s hardly conclusive proof of-” he began, only tae be cut off by Captain Cold. “Enough about ghosts! Let’s go inside already!” he exclaimed. With that, Trickster picked the lock on the door. He pushed it open, producing a loud CREAK, and then we went inside.

Weather Wizard: I’m going to tell you a secret: the witch costume was an accident. I swear, I thought I ordered the Dark Wizard costume, but when I opened up the package a week before Halloween, I found a witch costume instead, and because I didn’t have another two weeks to wait (or any more money) I was stuck with it and just decided to pretend it had been my plan the whole time to save face. (At least it matched the theme, unlike cats, tops, and ballerinas.) But I digress. So, after the Trickster picked the lock, we went inside and Piper and Cold turned on their flashlights. The hallway contained cobwebs and a moth-eaten carpet, but nothing else.

“We'll cover more ground if we divide and conquer, so let’s split up into groups and search this place for valuables. Lisa, you’re with me. Scudder, you’re with McCulloch. Mardon, you’re with Rory. Rathaway, you’re with Jesse. Dillon, you’re with Harkness,” Cold barked.

“WE’RE SPLITTING UP? That’s like the #1 way to die in a haunted house!” Scudder whined. (As it turned out, he was right to be worried, but at the time, I thought he was overreacting.) Hartley sighed.

“Sam, ghosts do not exist,” he said. (He was wrong.) Then he turned to Cold and asked,

“How will the Mirror Masters be able to transport us to safety if we’re not in the same part of the house?” Cold rolled his eyes.

“Piper, unless there’s an earthquake, the Mirror Masters will be able to get to all of us before the house falls. They basically have access to a teleportation system. We’ll be fine,’” Cold replied. Piper didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t keep arguing.

“Why am I with Harkness? He’s an uncultured boor,” Dillon demanded.

“Well, I ain’t too fond of you, either, you wowser!” Harkness yelled.

“Why can’t I be with Roscoe, Lenny?” Lisa asked. Cold sighed wearily.

“Fine. Dillon, you’re with Lisa. Harkness, you’re with me. Sam, stop whining. Now let’s go!” Cold exclaimed. McCulloch saluted, dragged Scudder into a mirror, and vanished, and the rest of us fanned out to search the house. After walking through some more cobwebby hallways, Mick and I reached what I assumed was the living room. The room was filled with decaying furniture and mysterious old knicknacks, everything was covered in cobwebs, and part of the roof had fallen in. Seeing this, I had to wonder if the Piper had been right about the dangers of the building.

“How long do you think it’s been since someone touched any of this?” Mick asked me.

“If I had to guess, I’d say at least forty years,” I replied. I glanced out the window and noticed that a cloud had covered part of the moon and that the rest of it had turned red, and I shuddered. “Mick, there’s a blood moon.” I said quietly.

“So? They talked about that on the news,” Mick replied as he started pawing through the knicknacks laying on the floor.

“Never mind,” I said quickly as I joined him. I didn’t want him to think I was scared or anything. Several minutes later, we were still sorting through things and had found nothing but a broken teacup, a broken porcelain doll, and a dusty beaded shawl.

“I hope the whole house ain’t like this. If it is, Captain Cold’ll be mad,” Mick said. I shrugged.

“That’s his problem, not mine.” I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance, and, a few seconds later, the sobs of a child. Mick looked up from the floor in shock.

“Did you hear that?” he asked me.

“The thunder, or the kid crying?”

“The kid crying!” I nodded.

“Yeah, I heard it too. Why?”

“Because we need to go help that kid!” he replied. I rolled my eyes.

“Mick, we’re here to get rich, not help some kid.” Mick ignored me and pulled me in the direction of the crying sound, despite my attempts to break free from his grasp. We had gotten halfway across the living room when we saw a little girl. Her hair was in...uh, ringlets, I think they’re called?-and her dress came down to the floor. She was crying (of course) and Mick went over to her.

“Hey, there, little one. Are you lost?” he asked gently. I thought about leaving Mick with the girl and continuing to search for loot, but there was something about the little girl that made it impossible for me to pull away, and NOT in a “she’s so small and helpless” way. Mick reached out to put his hand on the girl’s shoulder-and his hand went straight through her! My knees went weak under me, and then the world went black. When I came to, I found myself on a dusty couch. I looked around the room and saw Mick waving good-bye to the vanishing ghost.

“Oh, hey, Mark. Glad to see you up-although there wasn’t really a reason for you to faint like that. Georgia was just worried that we were gonna hurt her doll. When I told her we weren’t, she cheered right up and went away,” he said cheerfully.

“The ghost has a name? And is friendly?” I asked. Mick nodded.

“I don’t even think she knew she was dead. Poor little thing,” he said, and I sighed in relief.

“In that case, let’s get back to work. If she’s the only ghost here, we’ve got nothing to worry about,” I said. (Famous last words.) With that, the two of us continued our search of the living room.

Trickster: The Piper and I- James Jesse, con artist extraordinaire-decided to investigate the attic. I’m a horror movie junkie, so if I’m breaking into a haunted house, what better place to get that adrenaline rush than the attic? Piper and I climbed three sets of narrow, creaky, cracked, cobwebby stairs to the attic (although Piper got winded halfway up the second flight and I had to drag him up the last one). Then I opened the door to see lots of cobwebs, a shattered mirror, a broken window, an old, rusted bedframe, some old-fashioned cabinets, a sword, an old rocking horse (sadly, it was too small for me), and a bunch of other old stuff. The roof was low, and it was really dark. My heart pounded, but in a good way.

“This is so much better than the fake haunted houses! We should go here every year!” I exclaimed. Piper swept his flashlight from left to right, and then started examining the boring knick knacks that were lying around. I pulled out a yo-yo and some bubble gum and waited eagerly for the walls to start dripping blood. After about two minutes, Piper pulled a stack of old papers out of one of the cabinet drawers.

“James, these are from the Civil War!” he exclaimed excitedly. I yawned.

“So?” I asked. Piper looked shocked.

“James, these are valuable historical documents! If they’re really as old as they look, they could provide priceless information about the role of Central City in the Civil War!”

“Can they summon a ghost?” Piper sighed.

“No. They cannot.” I blew a particularly large bubble.

“Then I’m not interested. Let’s find something that CAN summon a ghost!” Piper rolled his eyes.

“James, you’re not going to find something that can summon a ghost, because ghosts-” Suddenly, the windows rattled and we heard a loud moan.

“Don’t exist?” Piper squeaked. Five seconds later, a transparent man with a noose around his neck appeared and floated towards us. Piper screamed and bolted down the stairs, and I whooped with joy and followed him, narrowly missing the ghost’s clammy hands.

“Catch me if you can, you stupid ghost!” I yelled. I followed the Piper to the second floor and into a spooky old bathroom, complete with dusty mirror, a big tub with clawed feet, a broken toilet, and a sink. Mold was growing in the sink and on the walls, and I grinned. This day just kept getting better and better! Piper slammed the door and locked it behind us.His chest was heaving and he looked exhausted. (Rich kids don’t have much reason to be athletic.)

“You were saying?” I asked ‘sweetly’. Piper gave me a death glare.

“NOT the time!” Piper said. I laughed.

“Do you really think a locked door will keep out a ghost? It can’t even keep us out!” I asked him. Piper’s face went white, and he ran over to the dirty mirror.

“Sam! McCulloch! Get us home now!” he yelled. There was no response.

“Piper, you know the Mirror Realm doesn’t work that way. You can only talk to them through it if they want you to, and if they haven’t had the good luck to run into a ghost, they won’t be able to guess that you might want them to pick us up.” I said as I played with my yo-yo. Piper whimpered and buried his head in his hands, then started muttering incomprehensibly as I whistled merrily.

“How can you be so happy?” Piper demanded after a few minutes.I grinned.

“Kid, we’re being chased by a real, honest-to-goodness ghost! It doesn’t get more awesome than that!” Just then, the ghost drifted through the door, and I pulled out my camera and started snapping pictures as Piper screamed.

“We’regoingtodiewe’regoingtodiewe’regoingto die !” He darted to the door, fumbled with the lock, and opened it just as the ghost brushed his clammy fingers against his back. He screamed louder and ran down the hall. I snapped a few more photos, stuck my tongue out at the ghost,and followed Piper. The ghost roared angrily and flew after me. I caught up with Piper after about a minute and lead him into a dumbwaiter, then slammed the door behind us.

“James, how is this closet preferable to hiding in the bathroom? The ghost can still walk through walls!” Piper demanded.

“Piper, YOU’RE the one who had all the servants. Shouldn’t you know what a dumbwaiter is?”

“I know what a dumbwaiter is,I have just never seen one before. I was not allowed to spend time with the servants.You can hardly blame me for mistaking it for a closet. Besides, my point still stands: why would hiding in here keep us safe from the ghost?” I laughed.

“Piper, that ghost is Robert Jackson, who hung himself because he wasn’t rich anymore and gave up the love of his life for money! Entering the dumbwaiter that the servants used would be beneath him. As long as we’re in here, we’re safe. For a guy who’s college educated, you sure are stupid,” I explained. Piper frowned.

“You were taking selfies with the ghost, and I’M stupid?” he yelled. I smiled “innocently”.

“I never said I wasn’t stupid...but I’m not a graduate from Harvard, either. But I knew how to save us from the ghost, and you didn’t,” I replied. Hartley sighed wearily.

“Whatever you say, James...but how did you know what a dumbwaiter is? You thought that the American Civil War started in 1961 until last month, so you cannot have known about them from history, and you were not wealthy, so you cannot have had servants who used one,” he asked.

“My Nonna Gianna was a maid for a wealthy family in Italy when she was a girl, and she used a dumbwaiter when she worked for them,” I explained.

“Wait...you’re Italian?” Hartley asked.

“Sí. Well, Italian-American, anyhow.My paternal grandparents immigrated from Italy in 1935 after Mussolini took over and invaded Ethiopia. When they got to America, they joined the Big Circus because my Nonno Antonio had been an acrobat in Italy. They had a whole lot of kids, and my dad was the youngest. He was born in 1955, and he married my mother, who was a second-generation Italian immigrant herself, in 1980. I was born eight years later,” I explained.

“But your name is James Jesse! That doesn’t sound remotely Italian!” Hartley protested.

“Hel-lo! My nonni were Italian immigrants performing for the American public at the height of World War II! They took stage names: Jesse for the last name, and Rosie and Jared for their first names. By the end of the war, they’d gotten so famous under the Jesse name that they couldn’t really change it back to their real one, so they just kept the stage name. My dad’s real name was Alessandro, but he called himself Jacob. My mother’s name really was Helen, though, because her parents had given her an American name. My real name’s actually Giovanni Giuseppe. How’s that for a mouthful?” I exclaimed.

“Sai parlare italiano?” Piper asked.

“Nonni, nonna, nonno, pizza, spaghetti, Venice, Rome, sí, il Dulche, Mamma Mia, madre, padre, nipote, figlia, figlio,Ti amo, caro, Coinvolgimi, bella noche, Dov'è la birra? That’s all the Italian I know. Well, that and a lot of swear words,” I replied.

“En d’autres termes, tu sais autant d’italien comme vous le français?” Piper asked. I looked at him oddly.

“English?”

“So, in other words, you know as much Italian as you do French?” he replied.

“Yeah, pretty much. Not everyone can afford tutors for twenty languages,” I said.

“I only speak six languages-Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese, and I can only write in the first four. I’m passable in Arabic and Russian, too, but I’d hardly say I can speak twenty languages.” I grinned evilly.

“Let’s go find some more ghosts!” I exclaimed.

“No! I’m staying right here, where it’s safe,” Piper yelled.

“Spoilsport,” I said. I started using my yo-yo again.

Captain Cold: So, as I guess you already know, I ended up partnered with Captain Koala, because he and Roscoe insisted on being stubborn morons. I wanted to look for the safe, but Digger insisted that we go to the kitchen because he was hungry, and, since Digger seems to have an immunity to food poisoning, I figured it would probably be safe to let him eat 85-year-old food, and feeding him would get him to shut his big mouth besides. Digger, who practically has an internal homing device for food, found the kitchen in about a minute flat. The kitchen was dusty, covered in cobwebs, and filled with a lot of rusted-out junk, and it was so dark that, without my flashlight, I don't think I would've been able to see two feet in front of me. It was a little creepy, I’m not gonna lie. But I don’t scare easy, so I started pawing around for valuables while Digger found the world’s oldest box of crackers and started digging in. I found a bunch of silver spoons and shoved them into my bag…and then something weird happened. A really attractive lady appeared out of basically nowhere and walked right through me like she couldn’t even see me. It felt like when I accidentally shot myself with my cold gun, and I frowned. Ghosts weren’t supposed to exist. However, I had business to do, so I ignored the ghost lady and went back to my work. Digger, on the other hand, didn’t take the ghost so well. He let out a string of Australian swear words, yelled something about a “ghost sheila” (knowing him, it was probably the exact opposite of polite), grabbed his crackers, and started to run. I grabbed him by his scarf before he could exit the room.

“Let me go, you bloody loon! You’ve got kangaroos loose in your top paddock if you want to stay here with a ghost, Cold!” Digger yelled.

“Stop freaking out, Digger. She doesn’t have any weapons, she’s not dripping blood, and she’s not bad to look at besides. Just ignore her. We have work to do.” Digger looked closer at the ghost and grinned.

“Bloody oath! She is a beautiful Sheila, ain’t she?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty. I just said that. Now get to work.” I said. Digger ignored me and walked over to the ghost.

“G’day, Sheila. I’m Captain George Harkness of the Australian Secret Service. Who are you?” he asked. (He tells every girl he takes a fancy to that he worked/works for the Australian Secret Service. It’d be a great pick up line if it wasn’t a total lie.) I rolled my eyes as I helped myself to some fine china plates. Was Digger seriously hitting on a ghost?

“Is Australia a northern state, Master Harkness?” the ghost asked. She sounded terrified, and had an accent I couldn’t quite place. Digger laughed.

“Oz? In the North? Sheila, it’s called the Land Down Under for a reason,” he replied. The ghost looked terrified and started to cry. I tried valiantly to ignore the sound and shoved the remainder of the china into my bag.

“What’re you crying for, Sheila?” Digger asked, sounding annoyed.

“B-b-because if you a Southern soldier, you gonna take me and my baby back to slavery!” I noticed that she was, indeed, carrying a baby and grimaced. I did NOT have time for dealing with this crud. Digger walked back over to me.

“I didn’t notice she had an anklebiter. She’s a lovely sheila, but not enough for me to want to be a daddy. And why’s she wailing about slavery?” he asked.

“How should I know? I dropped out of high school at 14, and I don’t have many dealings with ghosts,” I replied in annoyance as the ghost’s wailings got louder. She moved rapidly toward Digger and fell on her knees.

“Please, don’t take my baby, Master Harkness. Let him be free, please, please!” she begged. Digger shot me a pleading look, and I sighed wearily. How did Digger get himself-and me- into these situations?

“Look, lady, we don’t want you or your baby. Now go on, shoo. You and the kid are free, and “Master Harkness” and I have business to do,” I said. The ghost stared.

“Ain’t you Confederate soldiers?” she asked, obviously confused.. Digger and I looked at each other in equal confusion.

“What’s a Confederate?” Digger asked the ghost.

“They’s the soldiers who be fighting to make their own country,” she replied.

“What’s she talking about?” Digger asked me. I shrugged.

“The Civil War…..I think,” I said, drawing desperately from my memories of 8th grade history.

“You mean the war you Yanks had between each other? What’s that gotta do with this sheila?” I racked my brains for any connection between the two and wished that I hadn’t chosen 8th grade history as the class to sleep through.

“Um...she was talking about slavery…I think the South had slaves...probably….and that was maybe why the war started? Possibly? And-and since you said you were from the South, and she’s probably about as well-educated as we are, she didn’t realize that you meant you were from another continent entirely, and so she thought that you were gonna want to make her a slave again,” I said, feeling pretty proud of myself for figuring all that out.

“Didja hear that, Sheila? I’m not a Confederate, whatever that means! Australia’s an island. It ain’t part of America. Now, it’s London to the brick that I’m dangerous, so you probably wanna steer clear of me, but I’m not gonna be taking you to slavery, neither. And, hey, if you got any single friends without anklebiters,, tell ‘em t’ look up Captain Harkness, will ya?” Digger told her cheerfully.

“I..I’m free?” she asked quietly.

“As a bird. Now get outta here. You’re safe in this city,” I told her flatly.

“Thank you, sir! Thank you!” she said. She kissed her baby, and they passed through the kitchen wall and vanished into thin air. As soon as she was gone, I glared at Digger.

“Okay, now that you’re done hitting on a ghost, can we get back to work, please?” I asked.

“If you want to, that’s fair dinkum. I’m gonna go back to my chips,” Digger said. He tried to walk back to the table, but I grabbed him by the scarf before he could and forced him to clear out the rest of the valuables while I took a smoke break. He swore colorfully in Australian the entire time, but I ignored him. He was just packing the last of the chinaware away when another ghost, this one holding a gun, showed up. One look at him told me that we were in trouble, and so I ran out of the room, Digger hot on my heels.

Golden Glider: So, while Mick and Marky-Mark were in the living room, James and Hartley were running around like lunatics, and Lenny and Digger were running away from history as much as they were running away from ghosts, Roscoe and I had decided to investigate the backyard. It contained a rotting porch and a small cemetery, one which was surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It was quite dark, because there were no porch lights, but that just made it all the more romantic. As soon as we left the house, I snuggled up close against Roscoe and we both sat down on the one intact porch step. “Isn’t the darkness so romantic?” I asked him. He looked puzzled, and it was adorable. “I believe that the darkness is the absence of light, my darling,” he said. I tittered. “You’re so funny, Roscoe,” I cooed. He smiled. “I am glad I have pleased you, sweetums,” he said. A cloud moved and revealed the moon, big and red and lovely. I pointed at it in excitement. “Roscoe, look at the moon! Isn’t it beautiful? Doesn’t it remind you of us?” I asked. Roscoe looked concerned. “My darling, the moon is a celestial body that revolves around the Earth. I do not see how it can remind you of us. Did no one teach you about the nature of the moon? It is not a human being,” he said. I sighed; having forgotten how literal Roscoe can be. “Roscoe, dear, I was speaking figuratively. I said it was like us because it’s beautiful, just like we are,” I explained. Roscoe’s eyes lit up in understanding. “I see. Forgive my confusion, my darling,” he said. I kissed him on the cheek. “Of course, honey,” I replied. He kissed me on my cheek, and then I kissed him full on the lips. We were still embracing five minutes later, when a young girl in a white dress appeared. She was completely transparent, and stared at us in silence for a few seconds. “Are you lovers?” she asked quietly. “We are indeed, and my Lisa is a goddess among women,” Roscoe replied. Her face fell, and then twisted into fury. “How dare you flaunt your happiness in front of the grave of a poor rejected woman? Is it not enough that I was rejected by my Robert? Is it not enough that I killed myself of despair? Must I be mocked by your love as well? For your impudence, I will make you suffer as I have suffered!” she screamed. She moved over to Roscoe, kissed him on the lips (please don’t ask me HOW) and then disappeared. Roscoe shoved me off his lap violently and stood up. “Get off of me, you wretch!” he spat. The words felt like a blow. “R-R-Roscoe, what….what’s wrong?” Roscoe had never talked to me like that before, and in that moment I saw Lewis-my “father”-in his face. “You are what is wrong! I am a gentleman, and you-you are common trash. Why I was mad enough to kiss you I’ll never understand!” Roscoe said coldly. “What are you saying?” I asked. “I am saying that I have had enough of dating a welfare queen,” Roscoe replied. Normally, I would have struck back, but I was so bewildered by his behavior that I just stared at him. After a few seconds, he scowled. “What are you staying for, you pathetic wretch? Leave me!” he ordered, and I found my tongue. “No, Roscoe. I am staying right here with you. You may not think you love me anymore, but you will not drive me away. I won’t give you the pleasure of ordering me around like a dog,” I said. “Why not? You are a dog,” Roscoe spat. I moved to slap him, but before I could, we were interrupted by another ghost, this one wielding a old-timey gun, who charged at us. I kicked at the ghost on impulse, but, of course, it went straight through him. While I was distracted, Roscoe abandoned me, but after I regained my balance, I rushed after him and we went into the dining room. “Stop chasing me, you hussy!” he yelled. “I’m not chasing you, I’m running away from the ghost,” I said. As if on cue, the ghost lifted a table and threw it at Roscoe’s head. I pushed him out of the way and narrowly avoided being hit myself. “Why did you save me? It will not make me love a woman like you,” he demanded harshly. This time, I did slap him. “You’re welcome,” I spat. Roscoe frowned. “You dare lay a hand on a gentleman?” he demanded. Before he could continue, however, the ghost levitated all six chairs in the room, and so I grabbed him and pulled him into the hallway. A series of loud crashes followed almost immediately. “I notice that you don’t complain when I touch you in order to save your life,” I said pointedly. Roscoe sniffed haughtily and didn’t reply. Under normal circumstances, I would have led us to the door and left the house, but with Roscoe acting so strangely, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to leave only for Roscoe to keep treating me like dirt, so I decided to stay and take charge of the situation. “All right, so where do we go from here?” I asked. Roscoe scowled. “‘We’ are not going anywhere. Have I not made my disdain for you utterly clear? I am going to one of the bedrooms to go to sleep, and you-I care not where you go, so long as you stay away from me,” he said. I shook my head firmly. “No, we’re staying together. Even if you really do hate me, from a logical standpoint you’re obviously safer with me around,” I replied. Roscoe pondered this for a few seconds, then nodded. “Very well. We will stick together. However, let me make one thing clear: I do not love you. Our current predicament does not change that,” he said, and I felt my heart break. I slapped him again and said, “Fine! See if I care!” With that, I pulled Roscoe up the stairs to the second floor and into one of the bedrooms, which contained an canopy bed, a broken window, an old armorie, and a painting of a handsome young man. The plaque beneath it read "Robert Jackson, beloved son". It was a picture of the man who had spurned his lover. How appropriate. Roscoe laid down on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately (he is definitely not a night owl) and I started crying. How had this perfectly romantic night gone so badly awry?

Mirror Master II: After a quick trip through the Mirror Realm, Scudder and I arrived in the basement. It was awfy dark doon there, I’m nae gonna lie, but the way Scudder was reacting, you’d have thought it was a torture chamber. He was jumping at every little sound and keeping so close tae me that I was practically tripping over him. After aboot a minute of that, I got fed up with him and decided tae tell him tae grow a spine.

“Stop acting like a wean, will ye? It’s hard eno to move doon here without having tae avoid you,” I told him. He moved about an inch further away.

“If we run into a ghost, I’m feeding you to it,” he muttered. I laughed and started looking for trinkets, while he stayed right next tae the stairs. After a few minutes, I uncovered an emerald ring.

“This is worth something, int it no?” I asked happily. Scudder shrugged.

“Great, you’ve found your prize. Now let’s get out of here!” he said.

“Not yet! I need a bigger haul than this!” I replied. Scudder frowned.

“Look here, you second-rate Mirror Master. I am not about to have my brain turned into soup by a ghost just so that you can sell two rings instead of one. We’re going upstairs now,” he said.

“Who are ye calling a second-rate Mirror Master? I use the Mirror Realm better than ye ever could, ye minger!” I yelled.

“You don’t even know how it works. You just swiped my equipment, you Glaswegian thug!” Scudder replied. Then I punched him, and he punched me, and we got into a fist fight. He was trying tae get oot of my stranglehold when soomthing weird happened: a ghostie showed up. You ken those drawings of fat rich people? It looked like that. I was so surprised that I let Scudder go, and he screamed like a lassie and dove intae the Mirror Realm. Me? I just froze. I didnae have a clue how to fight a ghostie, so I did soomthing pure stupid: I waved at it! The ghostie levitated a lamp and threw it at me head, only narrowly missing me. I dove intae the mirror after Scudder. He was panicking.

“I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die; please don’t let me die please please please don’t let me die!”

“Calmy doony, Scudder. The ghostie canae come intae the Mirror Realm,” I said. Ten seconds later, the ghostie came intae the Mirror Realm.

“You just had to say it!” Scudder wailed.

“Dinae just stand there, run!” I yelled. Both of us took off running, and only stopped when the ghostie vanished. I grinned.

“We did it! We escaped the ghostie!” I yelled. Scudder smiled slightly, but then he looked around and his smile vanished.

“Oh, no. This is bad, this is bad, this is really bad,” he said.

“What do ye mean? We escaped from the ghostie!” I replied.

“Look around you! Do you recognize any of this?” I looked around, and realized that we were in big trouble: I didnae recognize anything around me, and I ken most of the Mirror Realm like the back of my hand.

“We’re lost,” I said.

“No duh, really? I had no idea,” Scudder replied sarcastically. I tried tae punch him for that, but he dodged me swing.

“I don’t see why you’re punching at me. I was against coming to the creepy ghost house from the start, and if we had stayed home and watched A Nightmare on Elm Street like I suggested, we wouldn’t be in this mess! But did you-or anyone-listen to me? Oh, no! “Ghosts don’t exist, Sam.” “Stop being such a wimp, Scudder.” “We’ll be fine.” “Stop being such an idiot, Scudder.” Well, WHO’S THE IDIOT NOW?” he yelled hysterically, and I wished that Captain Cold hadnae put me with him, because he looked downright loony.

“Ah am, all right? Now help me find a way oot of here!” Sam laughed weakly.

“Find a way out of the Mirror Realm? You might as well tell me to beat Superman in a fist fight. It’s impossible. There’s a reason that I never go out of sight of the mirror portals: the Mirror Realm is so vast that if you get lost, you’ll probably never find your way back to them-and they’re our only way out of the Mirror Realm. I can’t get us out without the portals, and, thanks to you, Len, and that ghost, I have no idea where they are. Heck, I don’t even know where WE are!” he exclaimed.

“The Land of Abstract Art, mebbe?” I suggested. We were surrounded by swirls of colors and strange shapes, ye ken? Scudder didnae seem to find that as funny as I’d thought it was.

“Really? We’re lost in a never-ending mirror maze, and you’re cracking jokes?” I shrugged.

“Aye. Beats whining aboot it, ye jerrie.” To tell the truth, I was just as freaked out as Scudder was, but I wasnae about to let him know it.

“You’re a lunatic,” he spat.

“Ah am’nae!” I yelled back. I punched him, he punched me, and we ended up in another fistfight that only ended when both of us collapsed from exhaustion. Apparently, all the running had taken a lot oot of us. Scudder basically ended up falling asleep on my lap, and I was too tired to move him. After aboot a minute of embarrassment, I fell asleep tae.

Heat Wave: Hi, there. I’m Mick Rory, but you can call me Heat Wave. Everyone does. So, uh, while everyone else was running away from angry ghosts, Weather Wizard and I were still searching for valuables, and not finding any. After about an hour of searching, I got bored, pulled out my flamethrower, and lit the sofa on fire. It was beautiful and pretty and warm, and I decided to touch it. Bad idea, because I was still wearing the tutu, and..well...tutus are really flammable. The fire didn’t exactly hurt me (the prison doc tells me my skin’s so badly burned by this point that it doesn’t feel pain anymore), but it did freak out Weather Wizard, who doused me (and the sofa) with what felt like a gallon of water.

“Hey! You put out my beautiful sofa fire!” I complained. The Wiz scowled.

“In case you didn’t notice, YOU were on fire, too!” he said angrily.

“And now I’m sopping wet AND don’t have my precious fire. I don’t see how that’s an improvement,” I replied. In response, the Wiz beaned me over the head with his wand. (He doesn’t have a good swing, so it didn’t really hurt.)

“Being wet doesn’t kill you, you big oaf! You know what does? BEING ON FIRE!” His face was red and his eyes were crackling with electricity, so I knew he was pretty upset. Because he can create tornadoes, I decided to apologize.

“You’re right, Mark, and I’m sorry. Thanks for saving me,” I said. His eyes stopped crackling.

“Just don’t do it again,” he said. I nodded and sat down on what was left of the sofa, and Wiz went over to the window and gazed out of it.

“A storm’s brewing,” he said. I don’t think he was trying to sound spooky, but with his tone of voice and his witch costume, he did. A few seconds later, lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Wiz opened the window and leaned out. The wind whipped his (impossibly spiky) hair, and he stared at something in silence. After a few seconds, it got creepy, and so I went over to him and dragged him away from the window. I closed it as soon as he wasn’t in the way.

“Come on, Mark, let’s go to another room. Captain Cold’ll be mad if we don’t find something valuable,” I said. When he didn’t move, I picked him up, threw him over my shoulder, and took him up the stairs and into a bedroom which looked like it might have belonged to a little kid at some point, since there were a bunch of old toys in it. One of the windows was broken, and everything, including the toys, a rocking chair, and a crib, was covered in dust and cobwebs. It was very spooky, although it was in better shape overall than the living room had been. I started looking for something valuable, and the Wiz made a beeline for the window.

“Hey, knock that off! Just ‘cause you’re the Weather Wizard doesn’t mean that you get to look at the weather and not help me!” I said. Wiz turned around and locked eyes with me.

“The storm...it’s an ill wind that blows no good,” he muttered. It was almost like he was in a trance or something. And then it happened: a ghost appeared. Now, it wasn’t super gory-really, it just looked like a transparent teenager-but let me tell you: it was scarier than anything I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. At almost the same time, it started to rain heavily. The Wiz passed out again, and the ghost advanced on me. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor (what? I saw Shakespeare on TV one time), threw the Wiz over my shoulder, and ran downstairs and out of the house with him. (Question: Why is it that he was WAY heavier when he was unconscious than when he was conscious?) I wanted to make Captain Cold happy, but I wasn’t gonna fight a ghost just for some loot. As soon as we got out the door, the ghost stopped following us, so I dumped the Wiz on the ground and began what proved to be a LONG wait for the Mirror Masters to come pick us up. Wiz woke up about five minutes after we got out of the house and cleared up the rain (thank goodness), then took a look at me and smiled.

“You should see yourself. Your tutu’s unrecognizable and I can see your underwear,” he said. I felt my cheeks heat up. Man, that was embarrassing.

“Yeah, well, you fainted twice, so I think we’re even,” I replied. The Wiz flushed, and looked at the ground. A few seconds later, he yawned, then produced a wind that dried up the ground.

“I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up when Scudder shows up,” he said. With that, he curled up on the ground and dozed off. After a couple seconds, I sat down next to him, and, after a few minutes of trying and failing to come up with an excuse for not finding any loot, I dozed off too. (One of the benefits of being….less than legally employed is that you learn to fall asleep anywhere.) I woke up about twenty minutes later when the Wiz poked me in the side with his wand.

“Huh?” I asked drowsily.

“Where are the Mirror Masters at? Surely they’ve gotta be finished by now,” he whined. I shrugged.

“Maybe they’re still looking for stuff. Or maybe they hit the jackpot and are still gathering up all the stuff they found,” I suggested.

“Well, they better hurry up. I’m bored and tired and I want to get back to my nice soft bed,” the Wiz replied.

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” I said. Then I fell back to sleep and was dead to the world for another forty minutes.

Pied Piper: After being trapped in the dumbwaiter for about ten minutes, I turned off my hearing aids. Not being able to hear is never a pleasant experience, but it was highly preferable to listening to a bored Trickster sing “This Is the Song That Never Ends” again and again and again. This solution worked reasonably well until I realized that I very much needed to use the powder room and needed advice as to how to do so without attracting the nightmare creature that wanted to devour my internal organs. Therefore, I had to turn my hearing aids back on, because none of the other Rogues have ever bothered to learn sign language and I had no desire to play charades. As soon as my hearing turned back on, I was greeted with what must have been the fortieth rendition of “This is the Song That Never Ends”.

“James. James. JAMES! I, um, need to use the powder room. Do you have any idea as to how I can do that without meeting the ghost?”

“Depends. What’s a powder room?” He batted his eyes and smiled in the most irritating manner imaginable.

“You know full well what a powder room is!” I exclaimed. James’ smile grew wider as he shook his head.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need, Piper,” he said. I sighed and gave in.

“It’s a restroom,” I said, blushing terribly. James laughed and did a particularly impressive trick with his yo-yo.

“Oh, so you need to pee! Why didn’t you say so?” he asked.

“Because my parents did not allow me to discuss bodily functions in public. Ever,” I replied.

“Did your parents allow you to breathe without their say-so?” I frowned. My parents had indeed controlled my days down to the second before they disowned me, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I said,

“Never mind that. Just tell me how to use the powder room without getting killed!”

“Oh, that’s easy. I’ll close my eyes, and you can do your business in here,” James replied. As I did not have access to a mirror, I cannot be sure about this, but I believe that I blushed even harder.

“No!”

“Why not? You can even blindfold me if you want. Believe me, I do NOT want to watch that,” James replied. I scowled.

“Because that is disgusting, James.”

“I don’t see why. It’s what we did in the circus,” he said, sounding genuinely confused.

“This is not the circus!”

“Well, it isn’t exactly Rathaway manor, either. I’m not saying that it isn’t gross, but this place is in bad condition already. You can’t make it much worse,” James replied.

“I think I would rather face the ghost,” I said. James laughed.

“I can’t believe that you’re more scared of breaking your parents’ rules of being “proper” and pretending that you don’t have bodily functions than you are of a literal ghost,” he said.

“This has nothing to do with my parents!”

“Somebody’s in de-ni-al!” James singsonged.

“I’m not in denial. Just because I do not want to be Digger does not mean that this has anything to do with my parents,” I insisted.

“Yep, definitely in denial,” James said. I ignored him and pulled out the mirror that I had brought with me in order to contact the Mirror Masters.

“Sam! McCulloch! If you can hear me, I need you to get me-and James-out of this house!” Nothing happened, and I sighed wearily. There went that idea. About three minutes later, I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer. I opened the doors nervously and, not seeing anything, bolted down the hall to the powder room, used it, and was on my way back when the ghost reappeared. I screamed like a little girl (which is quite humiliating in hindsight) and just froze up in terror. If I had been alone, I don’t want to know what would have happened next, but, luckily for me, James showed up at exactly this point and yelled,

“Hey, Casper! Over here, you preposterous poltergeist!” The ghost howled and started chasing him, and he whooped with glee and ran down the hall in the direction of the staircase. Thirty seconds later, I heard a loud cry of pain from James. I bolted to the top of the stairs and saw that one of the steps had given way under James, and that he had clearly broken his ankle. Worse, the ghost was floating over top of him, and, for the first time, he looked scared. I stared at the scene for a few seconds, unsure of what to do, and then pulled out my flute and started playing it in the desperate hope that its hypnotic powers would work on a ghost. I tried to ignore the fact that my knees were shaking under me as I played, and, after a few seconds, the ghost stopped howling and floated away from James. I carefully went down the stairs to my partner, still playing, then knelt down beside him and put the flute away.

“Do NOT do that again! You scared the daylights out of me!” I snapped. James smiled.

“Aww, you do care,” he said. All his fear seemed to be forgotten and I shook my head in amazement. He had almost been killed (possessed?) by a ghost, and he was already making jokes.

“I did owe you. After all, if you had not attracted the ghost’s attention, I might have been killed. How’s your ankle?” I asked.

“It hurts like the dickens,” he replied.

“Can you walk?” James stood up shakily, winced, and quickly sat back down, then smiled and said,

“I can walk on my hands!” He proceeded to demonstrate. In spite of myself, I laughed a little.

“Can you keep that up long enough to get to the front door?” I asked him after I stopped laughing.

“Probably. Why?”

“Because we are leaving. I don’t know how long my hypnosis will last, but it will wear off eventually, and I do not want to be here when it does,” I explained.

“Aww, but I wanted to see some more ghosts!”

“Can you run on your hands?” I asked. James grinned slightly.

“Maybe?” he asked. I shook my head.

“Let’s go. We can watch The Shining when we get home if you want,” I said. (It’s James’ favorite horror movie, and very useful as a bribe.) James’ grin widened.

“You know me well, Piper. Let’s go home,” he said. With that, we left the house-only to find Mick and Mark asleep on the lawn; Mick in little more than his underwear.

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” James said.

“What, Mick and Mark sleeping on the lawn or Mick in his underwear?” I asked.

“Both, but mainly Mick in his underwear. That’s an image I’ll never get out of my mind,” he replied.

“Me, neither,” I agreed. After a few seconds, James sat down on the ground and pulled out a pack of bubble gum.

“I swallowed my gum when that step broke under me. Want some gum?” he asked.

“I suppose,” I replied. James handed me a stick of gum and then took out one for himself as well. I sat down next to him, unwrapped the stick of gum, and started chewing it. James blew a huge bubble.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Blow bubbles? Haven’t you ever had bubble gum before?” he asked. I shook my head.

“My parents said that gum was for plebeians,” I replied.

“Well, if they really did cut you off, you are one now, so that shouldn’t be a concern anymore,” he said. I smiled.

“You have a point. So, carnie, how about teaching this ex-patrician how to properly blow bubbles with bubble gum?” I asked.

“You’re on!” James exclaimed.

Captain Boomerang: I hate all the bloody ghosts in that bloody ghost house! (I also hate Cold for making me go into the ghost house, but that’s beside the point.) After Cold and I ran out of the kitchen, the ghost chased us through several rooms and to the basement stairs. We exchanged a brief look and ran down the stairs into the basement.

“If that bloody ghost follows us, I’m gonna be as mad as a cut snake,” I said. I was tired of all the running, tired of risking my life, and even more tired of not getting to eat my chips.

“I think he’s stopped chasing us,” Cold said as he looked around. Then he gasped.

“What is it?” I demanded. Cripes, I need a coolie , I thought.

“The Mirror Masters...at least one of them left their Mirror Gun here. It’s their only way back into our dimension. They’d never leave it here.”

“Well, if they’ve carked it, there’s nothin’ we can do. Let’s take our loot and leave this spooky place before another ghost shows up!” I said. I thought that I’d made a good point, but Cold disagreed and punched me in the face.

“We don’t have any proof that they’re dead, so we’re goin’ in after them. They’re too valuable to lose, and besides, the Rogues don’t abandon their own,” he said. Cold activated the portal to the Mirror Realm and dragged me inside by the scarf. As soon as I got inside, I had a sickie and vomited all over the floor.

“Scudder? McCulloch? It’s Cold. Where are you?” Cold yelled. No answer. I stopped vomiting and looked around, then noticed something shiny. I went over to it and discovered that it was an emerald ring.

“Cold, have a Captain Cook at this! We’re rich!” I exclaimed. Cold looked at it...and went pale.

“Oh, no….one of the Mirror Masters must have been spooked by something and dropped it-and if they ran that way and were so panicked that they didn’t notice that they dropped a valuable thing like that, then they’re lost in the Mirror Realm,” he said.

“Okay. They’ve carked it. Oh, well. Let’s go home,” I replied. Cold shook his head.

“No. We’re gonna find them,” he said.

“Cold, you just said that they were lost in the Mirror Realm. If THEY got lost, we’ll get lost, too,” I protested. Cold didn’t listen.

“We ain’t gonna get lost, because we’re going to make a trail to follow,” he said. He drew one the spoons out of the bag and placed it on the ground next to his feet. Then he moved about ten feet forward and did the same thing, and did it again about seven feet after that. He’s got kangaroos loose in his top paddock for sure, I thought.

“What are you doin’, Cold?” I demanded.

“I’m making a trail,” he said.

“Outta spoons ?” I asked.

“Didn’t you ever hear the story of Hansel and Gretel?”

“I don’t read fairy tales. They’re for wusses,” I said. Cold scowled.

“Look, I have a little sister, okay? Anyway, Hansel and Gretel didn’t want to get lost in the woods, so they used bread crumbs to mark where they’d been. That way, when they turned around, they’d know which way would take them back to their starting point. This is the same idea, only our markers can’t be eaten by anything,” he said. With that, he started dragging me by my scarf towards the direction he thought the Mirror Masters had taken.

“You know, I can walk on my own,” I said.

“ Maybe so, but if I let you go, you’ll probably be walking towards the exit, so I’m keeping ahold of you to be on the safe side,” Cold replied. I stuck my tongue out at him, but he ignored it. After about twenty minutes of walking, we entered the weirdest place I’d ever seen. There were all these bloody weird shapes and colors, and I couldn't tell which way was up. It freaked me out, but for some reason, it didn’t seem to bother Cold at all.

“Cold, this is really freaky. Can we go back now? We’ll never find the Mirror Masters in this crazy place,” I said.

“Shut up, Digger. We are going to find them, and we are not going to stop walking until we either do or run out of silverware,” Cold replied.

“Ace!” I muttered sarcastically.

“What was that?”

“Nothin’,” I lied.

“That’s what I thought.” He dragged me along for about ten more minutes before I opened my big mouth again. (I think that must be some kind of record.)

“Can we stop now ?” My legs were killing me (not to mention my neck)!

“No. Stop acting like a six-year-old,” Cold replied. I really need a coolie, i thought.

“I wouldn’t be actin’ like an anklebiter if you weren’t actin’ like a dictator,” I snapped. Cold punched me in the side and continued to drag me along like a bloody kelpie. After about four more minutes, i decided that I’d had enough of being dragged around and stabbed Cold in the arm with one of my razor-sharp boomerangs. He swore in pain and let me go, and I grabbed the mirror gun and ran towards the exit. Sadly for me, Cold managed to bean me over the head with a plate and knocked me out. When I came to, I awoke to see a pair of unconscious Mirror Masters. Normally, I would’ve been crosser than a frog in a sock that Cold had knocked me out, but at the moment I was too glad that Cold wouldn’t be dragging me through the Mirror Realm anymore to really care.

“You little Ripper! You found them!” I exclaimed happily.

“No thanks to you,” Cold muttered. He shook McCulloch awake.

“Cold? How did ye get in here?” he asked.

“Either you or Sam dropped your Mirror Gun outside of the mirror in the basement, and I used it to get in here,” Cold explained.

“But how did ye find us?”

“Stubbornness, mainly,” Cold replied. I laughed.

“That’d be right!” I exclaimed. Cold looked at McCulloch oddly.

“Why is Sam sleeping in your lap?” Cold asked.

“ WHAT? ” McCulloch yelled. He quickly moved Sam off his lap and stood up. This woke Sam up, for obvious reasons. Once he realized what had happened, he noticed Cold, gave him a huge hug, and then punched him in the face.

“I’m...getting some mixed messages here,” Cold said.

“I’m happy you found us, because I thought we were going to die here, but I’m about equally angry at you, because you wouldn’t have had to rescue us if you hadn’t decided to take us to the creepy ghost house in the first place,” Sam explained. I laughed. It’s always good to see Cold get taken down a peg, the arrogant knocker.

“I do nae see why you being here is a good thing. We do nae ken how to get back to the Mirror Portals from here, we’ll all die here,” McCulloch said.

“Actually, we won’t. I marked the path we took from the portals with our loot, so we’ll able to get back fine,” Cold replied. McCulloch grinned, and my stomach growled.

“Can we go home now? I’m hungry,” I asked.

“Ye and me both, Digger,” McCulloch said. Cold nodded.

“Let’s get back to our reality,” he said. With that, we started the long walkabout back to the Mirror Portals.

Top: My nap lasted precisely twenty-five minutes and fifteen seconds. Then I awoke to see Lisa crying quietly. Normally, I would have felt horrible upon seeing such a sight, but at the time, I simply felt disgusted.

"Stop sniveling, you piece of gutter trash. I will not be moved by your feminine wiles,” I spat. (I have since apologized profusely for this comment, and for all others made under the influence of the ghost, but my darling Lisa is still distrustful of me, and her brother would have beat me to within an inch of my life for them had she not stopped him.)

“All right. I WILL stop crying. I should have known better than to show weakness in front of a man who’s just like my father,” she replied angrily. If I had been myself, I would have been horrified by this accusation, but as I was, I merely sniffed dismissively.

“I am nothing like your father. He was an alcoholic boor who lived off of welfare for most of his life, and I am a gentleman,” I said haughtily.

“And yet you’re calling me names just like he did,” Lisa replied. (In hindsight, her self-confidence was quite admirable, but at the time, I found it irritating.)

“Shut your mouth!” I snapped, unable to refute her argument.

“And let you walk all over me? I don’t think so,” Lisa said. Furious, I raised my hand to slap her, but thankfully, the Civil War-era ghost interrupted us before I could. Lisa grabbed me and pulled me out of the room before the ghost began to levitate anything, thereby saving my life for the third time that night.

“I told you not to touch me!” I said icily. In response, Lisa kissed me on the cheek and I pulled away sharply in utter disgust. (I believe that she was trying to make me uncomfortable in an attempt to snap me back to my senses.)

“I just saved your life again , and you want to complain about me touching you? AGAIN?” she yelled.

“I was aware that we were in danger. There was no need for you to touch me,” I replied coldly. The ghost drifted out of the bedroom we had been in, and the two of us ran to the stairs-only to find that one of the steps had collapsed. Lisa sighed and slid down the banister to the bottom of the stairs, and I reluctantly followed her when the ghost appeared behind me and it became apparent that there was no other means of escape. (We were able to keep our balance because my darling Lisa was a figure skater and I am very resistant to vertigo.) We ran back through the dining room and back into the backyard, and were greeted by a most unusual sight. The ghost who had kissed me was holding hands with another ghost, this one with a noose around his neck.

“Oh, darling, you’re back!” she cooed. The other ghost kissed her.

“Yes, and I’ll never leave you again. I’m so sorry that I abandoned you all those years ago. My father was wrong: you were more important than our money ever could have been,” he said.

‘I forgive you, Robert,” she replied. Lisa started to cry again.

“Oh, shut up, you sniveling hussy! You are too far beneath me to deserve my sympathy,” I said harshly. Lisa frowned and dried her tears rather angrily, then elbowed me in the side.

“Where have you been, Robert?” the female ghost asked.

“I don’t know. All I remember before seeing you tonight was a lot of anger at something,” the other ghost replied. The female ghost embraced him.

“Oh, well, you’re here now. That’s all that matters,” she said. They kissed again, and then the female ghost noticed us and frowned.

“Are you the lovers?” she asked.

“Formerly. I thank you profusely for showing me my folly,” I said. Lisa nodded sadly.

“Why do you want to know? You can’t possibly make me any more miserable,” she said. The ghost smiled.

“Because I am going to show you both mercy. Since my happiness has been restored, I will restore your happiness,” she said. She kissed me once again, and all my love for Lisa came flowing back-as did a crushing sense of guilt.

“My darling, I am so sorry for what I said. I don’t know what came over me, but I swear to you that I do not care how rich you are. You are a goddess, and I adore you. Please, please forgive me,” I pleaded. I felt like an utter cad. Lisa frowned.

“R-Roscoe?” she asked nervously.

“Yes, sweetums,” I said. I tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

“Don’t , Roscoe. After what you said to me tonight, I just don’t trust you. How can I be sure that you aren’t saying you don’t care that I’m “gutter trash” only because of your hormones? What if two or three years down the line, you don’t find me attractive anymore? Will you still love me, or will I suddenly become a “welfare queen” again? I still love you, but I can’t trust you anymore,” she asked

“You...you are breaking up with me?” I was heartbroken and rather tempted to attack the ghost (if that was even possible), but I could not really blame her.

“I’m not sure. Let’s call it a vacation,” she replied quietly. There was an awkward pause, and then I said,

“In that case, since our date is off, perhaps we should go to the front lawn and wait for the Mirror Masters to take us back to our hideout.” Lisa nodded, and we left the backyard, walked quickly through the house, and made it to the front lawn of the house without issue. Upon arriving, we saw Mark curled up on the lawn, fast asleep, Mick napping in little more than his underwear ( a sight that will haunt me until my dying day), and James and Piper blowing bubble gum. James waved at us.

“Hi there, lovebirds! How was your date?’ If there is one thing that James is the master of, it is saying things at the most inopportune times.

“Badly,” Lisa replied. With that, she left my side and sat down next to Mick. James looked at me quizzically.

“It is a very long story that is frankly none of your business,” I told him. I walked a few feet away from him, sat down, and buried my head in my hands, ashamed of what I had done to the one person in my life I ever cared for. Apparently, I dozed off at some point, because the next thing I remember was the two Mirror Masters arriving alongside Digger and Leonard.

“Look alive, everyone! We’re moving out!” he barked. Five minutes later, we were all back in our hideout (thanks to the Mirror Masters). Lisa immediately ran over to her brother and started sobbing. My stomach twisted with guilt and I looked away.

“Shhh..shh...shhh..Sis, what happened?” In response, Lisa told him the whole story through hiccups and sobs. When she was finished, Leonard marched over to me.

“ Is this true, Dillon?” he demanded.

“Sadly, yes,” I replied awkwardly. In response, Cold punched me so hard he knocked me to the ground.

“Then you’re gonna wish you’d never been born. NO ONE hurts my baby sister,” he snarled. He moved to hit me again, but before he could, Lisa ran over to him and grabbed his arm.

“Lenny, don’ t! He was under the influence of a ghost! It wasn’t all his fault,” she said. Cold scowled, but he walked away anyway as Lisa helped me back to my feet.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Better than I should be after treating you so terribly,” I replied.

“It’s good to to have you back, Roscoe,” she said.

“Does this mean that we’re back on?” I asked eagerly.

“No, Roscoe, I’m afraid not. It’ll probably be awhile before I feel comfortable around you again,” she said. She left me and went upstairs, and I was left to mentally berate myself for my idiocy.

Mirror Master I: And...that was basically it. We managed to get home alive from the creepy ghost house, everyone changed out of their costumes, and most of us, exhausted, went to bed (except James and Piper, who decided to watch The Shining for some reason.) The next morning, Trickster went to the hospital to get his broken ankle treated, and the rest of us decided to never, ever go to any house that was supposed to be haunted again. A week later, the Flash caught Len trying to fence his loot, so he’s in prison again. Lisa still hasn’t forgiven Roscoe, and James’s ankle is still very broken, but otherwise, things are pretty much back to normal for us Rogues. So, with that in mind-we would like to wish you all a Happy Halloween!- What James said.

FIN

#flash rogues #ghosts #dc comics #lisa snart/roscoe dillon #len snart #sam scudder #evan mcculloch #james jesse #hartley rathaway #george digger harknesss #mick rory #mark mardon #fanfic #@gorogues

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pulaasul · 4 years ago

Text

The Dark Lord Rises

After the prophecy was thwarted, Harry found himself captured and sent to the graveyard where he and Cedric ended up during the Triwizard Tournament.

[FFN] [Ao3]

----------

As much as Harry despised it, Dumbledore still had him return to the Dursleys at 4 Privet Drive, for some unknown reason. The only reason Sirius Black didn't get custody of him was for the trial he should've had back when he was first arrested.

Apparently, Madame Bones insisted on the trial.

All three of the Dursleys were at the table as Harry preparing their dinner. Not much has changed. He was still treated poorly by his relatives.

"Boy, place a plate of your own on the table," Vernon ordered. "Somehow my client knows I have nephew staying and he could arrive at any time."

Harry rolled his eyes at the supposed act of kindness that his uncle and aunt were projecting to the public, still, he couldn't argue with them. He supposes he still owes them a debt of gratitude, which he doubts he could repay.

Not even suffering the Cruciatus curse before them could ever change them to be at least sympathetic towards him.

Harry placed the plates on the table as Petunia was doing last-minute touches to groom her son's hair.

Not before long, all four inhabitants of the house started eating their dinner silently. Dudley was complaining on why Harry was eating with them.

Vernon and Petunia agreed with their son's sentiments, but could not do anything about it as Vernon's client somehow knew of Harry staying with them. It wouldn't be good if a scandal would erupt just because Harry wasn't eating at the table with them.

Soon after, the four of them heard a knock on the door.

"Harry, would you be a dear and open the door for us?" Vernon stated in a sweet tone.

Harry rolled his eyes at his uncle's poor attempt at being sweet with him. He nonetheless obliged and opened the door.

"Minister Fudge?"

Harry was surprised to see the Minister of Magic at his uncle's home. Most people in the Wizarding world refuse to interact with muggles if the remote areas where the magical families are living were any indication. He has not cast any magic since his arrival at the Dursleys to be visited.

"Mr. Cornelius!" Vernon greeted. "Please join us."

"No need." Fudge droned out.

The new arrival retrieved his wand from inside his coat and pointed it at Harry. A piece of rope was conjured and latched onto Harry's left wrist and tied it on the stairs' railing.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Vernon growled.

The minister ignored Vernon's outburst and shot out pieces of ropes from his wand and bound the Dursleys to the chairs they were sitting in and Harry's other hand to the railings.

"Minister! What is the meaning of this?!" Harry tried to question.

"The Dark Lord will rise once more!" Minister Fudge declared, ignoring Harry's inquiry.

"Crucio!"

Harry started screaming as soon as the spell took effect on him. He was screaming as he felt excruciating pain rock his restrained body.

Harry struggled and struggled against his restraints in an attempt to escape the pain and escape altogether.

It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced; his very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar... he wanted it to end... to black out... to die.

"What are you doing?! Stop it!" Petunia yelled, unable to take Harry's screams any longer.

"Right, you were living with your muggle relatives." Fudge walked towards Dudley.

Harry heaved as he got a break from the torture he was experiencing. His heart sank once he saw the minister walk towards his cousin.

"Stop!" Harry yelled. "They have nothing to do with this!"

"Shut it!" Fudge growled and threw a plate on Harry's head, breaking it.

The Minister walked towards Dudley, a sinister smile on his face as his wand was pointed at the young Dursley. He can see the panicked looks the muggle parents had as he continued to approach the young boy and he was relishing the effect he had on the muggles.

"Minister Fudge! Please!" Harry begged. "Kill me if you want, just leave them out of this!"

Vernon and Petunia stared at Harry. They didn't think that the boy they so heavily abused would readily give up his life for them.

"On the contrary Potter, muggles were the problems, to begin with." Fudge smiled.

"Crucio!"

Dudley's screams of pain echoed in the house.

The young Dursley was sheltered to the point that he was a bully to a lot of kids, including Harry. He was used to inflicting pain. He didn't know how to process receiving pain in return.

"Please! Stop!" Petunia begged. "Spare my son!"

Fudge ignored the mother's pleas.

"Fudge!" Harry yelled.

"You'll get your turn Potter!" Fudge sneered.

The Minister stopped casting the Cruciatus curse on Dudley, who fell unconscious and walked towards the boy's mother.

"Let us go, you buffoon!" Vernon growled as he continued to struggle. "The police will hear about this!"

"Do muggles know how to shut up?!" Fudge growled in response and pointed his wand at the Dursley Patriarch.

"Crucio!"

Vernon was in excruciating pain, he was feeling the pain Harry and Dudley experienced a little while ago. He screamed, screamed, screamed, and screamed loudly that his voice took on a higher pitch. It was excruciating, it wasn't like anything he ever experienced.

"Stop it!'" Harry screamed. "You want me, you can have me!"

Fudge continued to ignore Potter as Vernon was still under the effects of the Cruciatus curse.

Petunia was now sobbing, helpless at what was happening to her family. It wouldn't have been an issue if she had the same abilities as her sister, but she doesn't and she's helpless to help her husband, son, and nephew.

Did Harry ever experience this kind of torture at school?

Did Lily?

"The Dark Lord is impatient." Fudge sighed as he put down his wand.

Vernon went unconscious as soon as the pain ceased.

"I'm impressed Potter, you managed to endure the Cruciatus curse, despite being under its full effects for the first time." Fudge praised. "The Dark Lord awaits."

Fudge approached Harry's bound form and held the boy's head and disapparated out of the house.

Petunia was full-on sobbing with what she has experienced, her husband and son unconscious, her nephew kidnapped.

The Dursley Matriarch struggled to free herself from the ropes that bound her to her chair, but she eventually did, rope burns on her skin notwithstanding.

She immediately went up to Harry's room and she found that all of his things were still there, even the owl that she and her husband were grumbling about.

She got a piece of paper and pen and immediately wrote some words on the paper before rolling it and tying it on the owl's talons.

"Dumbledore, quick." Petunia let the owl fly out the window before she collapsed, sobbing.

--------

"You called for me Albus?" Professor Mcgonagall asked as she entered the Headmaster's room.

Moments later, Snape arrived, equally curious of the summons he received.

"Harry's Owl is here," Dumbledore pointed at the Snow owl. "Bearing a letter, from Harry's aunt."

"Petunia," Snape murmured.

"What did it say? I thought she hated our kind?" Professor Mcgonagall questioned.

"Just two words, help us."

"Albus, what could this mean?"

"I don't know Minerva, you and I are going to find out." The Headmaster shook his head. "Snape, keep things in order in our steads."

"Of course."

Dumbledore and Mcgonagall arrived at the Dursley's via Floo.

--------

This perplexed Mcgonagall to no end, why was a muggle household connected to the Floo Network. It did not make sense at all.

"How can this be?!" Mcgonagall asked as soon as she appeared at the Dursley's.

"Molly mentioned once that her husband used the Floo to pick Harry up to see the Quidditch World Cup." Dumbledore looked around the house.

With a quick scan of the house, both Hogwarts professors found the unconscious and bound bodies of Vernon and Dudley Dursley. They immediately waved their wands at the unconscious men and lied them down on the couch.

Not a moment later, Petunia, eyes as red as it can be, stumbled down the stairs.

"Petunia, what happened?"

"S-someone c-came in." Petunia sobbed. "We thought it was one of Vernon's clients and then everything went south."

Petunia narrated how the events in her house, from Harry's capture to Vernon's torture to Fudge and Harry disappearing.

Mcgonagall, as much as she resented the Dursley matriarch for the treatment of her student, levitated a glass of water from the dining table and handed it to the sobbing mother.

"Who was it, Petunia? Where's Harry?"

"H-harry identified the man as Fudge," Petunia answered. "He keeps using the word Crucio then everyone's yelling."

Mcgonagall's eyes widened as she dropped the glass she was holding.

"A-an unforgivable? Albus, you said the boy would be safe here?!"

"The wards are still active Minerva," Dumbledore informed. "Fudge isn't a Death Eater hence he was able to pass through the wards."

"The Imperius Curse?!"

"Where are they, Petunia?"

"T-they disappeared right after stopping whatever he was doing to my husband."

"Can you remember anything else, anything at all?" Dumbledore asked calmly, dreading what was happening.

"When he was here, he also said something about some Dark Lord will rise."

As soon as she answered the Headmaster's question, Petunia fainted. It was a wonder how she remained conscious despite everything that has happened.

Dumbledore and Mcgonagall looked at each other and sprang into action. They called for the assistance of St. Mungo's.

----------

"Headmaster." Snape greeted Dumbledore. "We have lots of problems." He handed the Headmaster a Daily Prophet magazine.

--------

Barty Crouch Jr. and Peter Pettigrew Escapes Custody

By: R. Almeidus

Earlier this day, Madam Amelia Bones has announced the escape of the people responsible for tampering with the Triwizard Tournament and the subsequent kidnapping of Hogwarts's Champions, Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory.

It is still unknown when and how the suspects managed to escape, their cells in the Ministry weren't tampered with. (more on page 6)

---------

"Fudge has attacked the Dursleys and kidnapped Harry Potter," Dumbledore informed the Potions Master. "Apparently used the Cruciatus curse on them."

"Potter was there, surely he could have defended himself and his muggle relatives." Professor Snape scoffed.

"They were in the middle of dinner, Harry probably left his wand in his room, as he ate dinner with his relatives," Dumbledore speculated. "You know how hateful of our kind Lily's sister can be."

"Albus, do you have any idea where Fudge could have taken Potter?" Mcgonagall asked her superior, worried for her student.

"I'm afraid not Minerva." Dumbledore sighed. "It's one bad news after another."

"Surely Fudge's attack on the Dursleys is connected with Crouch's and Pettigrew's escape from the Ministry." Snape offered.

"Severus is right." Mcgonagall nodded. "We can check the graveyard where we rescued Potter and Diggory."

---------

Mcgonagall and Dumbledore apparated at the graveyard where the Hogwarts's Triwizard champions were taken to as soon as they touched the Triwizard cup.

What greeted the Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress was a duel between Voldemort and Potter. Red and Green beams of light met in midair as golden beams of light arched from the convergence point all around them, creating a dome of golden light encircling both wizards.

The pair of Hogwarts's Professors saw white figures resembling people rushing towards Voldemort and his band of Death Eaters, obscuring their vision of Harry.

"Harry over here!"

Harry found the source of the voice so immediately rushed towards his Professors who immediately disapparated away from the Graveyard leaving behind the newly resurrected Voldemort, his death eaters, and the corpse of Cornelius Fudge.

The former two attempted to chase after Harry Potter but never did quite catch up.

"Nooooooo!" Voldemort wailed.

---------

Dumbledore, Mcgonagall, and Potter apparated right outside the Burrow.

"Bloody Hell Harry!"

Ron and Hermoine immediately relieved the Headmaster of Harry and helped the Potter inside the burrow and laid him on the couch.

Molly was already by the couch ready to administer some calming droughts on the boy.

"Harry, tell me exactly what happened."

'He's back Professor!" Harry wailed. "Voldemort's back!"

Everyone in the house, sans Mcgonagall and Dumbledore gasped at the revelation. They knew how close Voldemort came to returning back during the last task of the Triwizard Tournament, thwarted by Trelawney's prophecy and the teachers' will to save the students.

"Th-they killed Minister Fudge right after bringing me to them." Harry sobbed.

"It's alright Harry, it's alright." Dumbledore comforted. "You got away from there."

Harry continued sobbing until he fell unconscious on the sofa.

The Weasley's looked at each other, unable to form any words at what just happened.

"Molly, contact Sirius and Lupin, they need to know what happened to their godson, Minerva, have some Mediwitches from St. Mungos here in the burrow, Harry needs looking after, after experiencing the effects of the Cruciatus curse more than once," Dumbledore ordered.

"It's alright Harry, you're safe."

#harry potter #albus dumbledore #petunia dursley #minerva mcgonagall #story #the dark lord rises

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humanmoodring-retired · 4 years ago

Text

Walking With a Ghost || Luce & Nadia???

TIMING: Current

LOCATION: Candleton Cemetery & Nadia’s Apartment ;)

PARTIES: @divineluce @humanmoodring

SUMMARY: Nadia invites Luce on a date with promises that it’ll be a little dirty... It’s not grave robbing if you don’t want the bodies, right?

As Luce climbed up the stairs of Nadia’s apartment, she couldn’t help but reflect on how different it felt from the last time she was here. Not just physically-- physically, it was like night and day. She’d barely been able to make it up the first landing without having to take a break from the pain in her ribs. But unlike last time… she just had this feeling that something was different. Something was off. It wasn’t like Nadia to flirt with her, to make those jokes. Not unless she was like, super fucking stressed or something. But, the satan salt deliveries had stopped a while ago and it hadn’t seemed like there was anything else fucking her up. So, what was going on? Whatever it was, the other woman’s invitation to “get a little dirty” had her knocking on Nadia’s door all the same. “Hey there.” She said with an easy grin as she leaned against the doorway.

Just as Luce knocked on the door, Nadia was getting her duffel bag ready to take on a couple hundred thousand dollars in cash. She also had a shovel with a handle that allowed it to fit into the bag. Her revolver went in as well, though she didn’t think they’d run into anything worth shooting. She also transferred a glass vial of phoenix tears into something sturdier and slipped it in a pocket. Nadia flexed her left hand. She didn’t want to be ill prepared again. She picked Candleton for its ability to be pretty fucking quiet after hours, so she didn’t expect any trouble. Finally, she’d drawn a map from memory. She knew the approximate area where she’d stored her cash, as well as what the date on the tombstone should probably be. Late October. Probably. She’d gotten to White Crest in November and found a place to stash a good chunk of her money right away. She’d been looking for places to hole up the rest of it when the three exorcist stooges had fucked up her life and set her back months. But that’d be fixed tonight. She opened the door for Luce, a bright smile on her face. “Hey, yourself. Ready for some fun?”

“Ah, you know me, I’m always down for fun.” Luce replied. If this was how Nadia wanted to go about their hook up, who was she to stop her? But, as she stood there, her eyes fell to the large duffle bag in Nadia’s hand. A duffle bag? What was she doing with that..? It was big and bulky, but it didn’t totally seem like it was full-- in fact, it kind of looked empty. What the fuck? “What’s that for? You on the lamb or something?” She asked with bemused expression. But, even as she spoke, her confusion only grew. What was going on here? And why… why did she get the sinking feeling that Nadia was calling in that favor she owed her for the phoenix tears?

“Excellent,” Nadia said. She shouldered her bag and headed out the door, locking the door behind them. “Or something,” she told Luce breezily. On the way downstairs, she considered whether she wanted to take her bike or Nadia’s piece of shit Bronco. The truck had more room, but she hated it. She hated most things that were decidedly Nadia, for all of her attempts to blend into the girl’s life. “So, I moved here after… some shit, back in November, and I had to hide some stuff in Candleton cemetery. I figured we could go get it.” She looked back at Luce, mischief in her eyes. “It’s not a fun date, I know, but it will be a little dirty, like I promised, and there’s always the risk of getting caught, and that’s fun.” They made it outside, and Nadia walked over to where she parked her bike, strapping the duffel bag in and turning to Luce once more. “I wanted to put what we’re doing out there. ‘S not illegal, per se, but…” She trailed off. This was Luce’s chance to back out, if she wanted to.

Following Nadia down the stairs, Luce couldn’t help the expression of concern that grew more and more pronounced with every step she took. Or something? Listening as the other woman spoke, she did her best to try and make sense of it all. She hid something in the cemetery? In the fucking cemetery? Seriously? And dirty-- Fuck. She was-- Christ. They were going to rob a grave. That’s what Nadia wanted her for? To help her dig up a body? Why the fuck did she want a body? Or, if it wasn’t a body, what the fuck did she stash in a fucking cemetery? And why? Approximately a hundred questions were going through her brain as she followed Nadia until they stopped at a bike she’d never seen before. A motorcycle. What the fuck? Luce stared at the woman in stunned silence, trying to get a gauge on just who was standing in front of her. This… whatever was going on, this wasn’t... Swallowing, Luce offered what she hoped was a crooked grin. “Sure. I’m game.” Whatever was happening here, she needed to figure out just what the fuck Nadia was up to. And why. Why was she acting like this? And since when did she know how to ride a motorcycle?

This was, as the kids might say, a mistake, Nadia was quickly beginning to realize. Luce’s confusion and concern over this situation was a bit too much, and Nadia should’ve known that she would have been better off going to the cemetery alone. But, she needed a lookout, and she thought that Luce could hang. She’d been wrong, obviously. Concern seemed to be winning out over Luce’s natural desire to deny that she gave a shit about Nadia. See, negative emotions like that were what got in the way of people having fun. Damn. And then she seemed to be weirded out by the motorcycle. Nadia gave Luce a bit of a sheepish smile, ran a hand through her hair. Classic Nadia Diaz move. “Impulse buy,” she said, looking at the motorcycle. “Kind of fun, though.” She bit her lip, appearing to be unsure. “Listen if this is… Fuck, I know it’s, like, weird. But I was-- There was so much going on, when I first got here, and I didn’t really know what to do, so I just.” She took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I had to get rid of some money. I couldn’t think of anything else. Nobody checks a fucking cemetery, right?” One more time of running her hand through her hair. It’s a nervous habit, after all. Nadia did it when she was nervous. “But it’s… seems sketchy, right?”

Luce listened intently, though her eyes were trained on the other woman’s face. Well. Not exactly her face. She was more focused on her eyes, trying to get a glimpse past the flurry of activity. The way she ran her hand through her hair, the biting of her lip, the pinching of her nose-- they were all things she’d seen Nadia do before. But… back to back, one right after the other? That never really happened. Not often at least, not when they’d been around each other before. There was something in her eyes that just seemed… different. Maybe it was just stress. Or maybe it was something else. Either way, Luce’s concern only grew. Whatever was going on, it was seriously fucking weird. Which meant, even though the cemetery was the last place she wanted to go, she was gonna be there. “Yeah.” Luce said finally, casting the woman an easy grin. “A bit sketchy for sure. But, I owe you one. And besides, I can’t really let you go out there all on your own. Who knows what kind of shit’s out there. It’s not safe.”

Nadia met Luce’s eyes, and, just for a moment, she felt seen. Not in a good way, either. This was a real mess, wasn’t it? Fuck, some people just needed to get their priorities straight. Luce’s concern was highly unwanted and unnecessary, but there wasn’t anything Nadia could do about it now. Except push the other woman away without blowing her cover any more than she already had. She let her body sag with relief. “Great. That’s, like, seriously great. I mean, that you’re coming.” They didn’t talk the ride to the cemetery, Nadia weaving through back streets and alleys. She was a bit lost in her head, thinking about what to do, after all this. If Luce caught on to anything being wrong with her, well, Nadia didn’t know what to do. For all of the other woman’s conflicting emotions, Luce seemed to care about Nadia, something that made her chest ache in a way that decidedly wasn’t her own. But she’d break the heart inside her chest in it meant she didn’t get caught. She parked outside the cemetery gate. Nadia threw her duffel bag over the fence and scanned it for the broken spot she’d crawled through when she first stashed the money. She looked back to Luce. “After you,” she said with a small smile, holding the broken rail away so that the other woman could get through.

Without further discussion, Luce slid onto the back of Nadia’s motorcycle-- a fucking motorcycle?-- and held on as they drove to the cemetery. Because that was a super normal thing to do. She could just imagine small talk in the backroom at Ink Inc.: ‘Hey, Luce, what’d you get up to?’ ‘Oh nothing, just went and dug up some sketchy shit from a graveyard to pay off a debt to one of the girl’s I’ve been fucking. Oh, and said girl’s been acting concerning as all get out. How about you?’ Trailing behind Nadia, Luce kept her head on a swivel as the made their way through the cover of darkness towards the fence. “How polite. Love it when a gal knows her manners.” She said with what she hoped was an easy going grin. She slipped inside the cemetery and looked around. Empty, as far as she could tell. “So… where did you stash this stuff? And what are we looking for anyways?”

“I’m hella polite,” Nadia said. She was, too. She never left a mess in the places she robbed. That would have just been inconsiderate. Despite the fact that Luce definitely didn’t want to be there, Nadia appreciated that she seemed to be taking this seriously. Probably for her own benefit, but still. “In a lot in the back right corner. It was about five minutes of walking from here. Grave’s from, like, October. It was fresh enough that no one noticed that I dug a bit. Think the last name started with a G. Or maybe an E.” She really hadn’t been paying attention, too many long nights of living in fear of getting caught followed by a certain amount of disbelief that she didn’t have to worry about those things here had made her reckless when she was hiding her stuff. She’d ended that night back at her apartment, hands bloody and clothes covered in dirt, and she’d drunk an entire bottle of Jack Daniels and passed out on the couch. “We’re looking for a metal box. Just some cash and shit inside.” By shit she meant a ton of jewelry as well as well as a Colt revolver said to have belonged to Billy the Kid. She wanted that gun back, man. It looked fucking cool.

“You dug around--” She shut her mouth before starting again, “Back corner… fresh grave, some kind of G or E last name.” Luce repeated, still in disbelief over what she was doing. Launching a full on assault on Yours Mime and Ours? No problem. Kidnapping the shithead who murdered her sister? Dude had it coming. The murder part… necessary evil. But grave robbing? Was this grave robbing? They weren’t like… going for a body. But they were definitely going to be digging around in the dirt. Of a grave. Fuck. What the fuck Nadia? “Cash? Are you in some kind of trouble or something?” She asked, as she made her way over to the area that the woman had directed her towards and began to look over the headstones. “You’ve heard of a bank account, right?” She tried to joke, but it did nothing to ease the growing confusion and concern. What the fuck was going on?

“I didn’t, you know, put anything in a coffin or whatever,” Nadia said, trying to sound defensive, but, really, she just kind of found this a little funny. In a disappointing kind of way. It made sense. Nadia would never actually sleep with a cool person. Or have strange, nagging feelings that forced her to do things like give up prized phoenix tears. She shouldered her bag and walked on, looking back at Luce. “No trouble. Just… probably best not to leave shit in places like this, you know? This town probably has actual grave robbers, and I really don’t want to deal with that.” Man, if somebody took her fucking Billy the Kid revolver, she’d make what she did to Todd the motherfucking vampire look like child’s play. The cash, too, or whatever. She had plenty of money, knew a thousand ways to get more money. But the gun of a famous Western gunslinger? That shit was priceless. She knew. When she stole it, there wasn’t a price tag. She started checking tombstones, looking for people who died in October. She kept looking at Luce, the other woman’s concern making her skin itch. She wished she could make it stop.

“I didn’t think you did. I was just wondering if you’d, you know… taken shit out of one. That’s all.” Luce said as she held her phone up to one of the headstones, reading the name. Roanoke. RIP in pieces to you, dude. But not their guy. “You know, with the number of ghouls and monster bullshit running around in the woods, there might as well be actual grave robbers around town too. Christ.” Luce shook her head, still trying to wrap her mind around the situation. None of this was sitting right with her. Yeah, she and Nadia had first met because the other woman wanted to set fire to a building, but YM&O was some seriously fucked up shit. And it wasn’t as though Nadia had ever mentioned any other weird, criminal bullshit stuff she was doing. Then again, who would actually admit to that? Letting out a sigh, Luce glanced over at Nadia and was startled to see her staring at her. Like she was waiting for something. Raising an eyebrow, Luce gestured to some of the other headstones around them. “I said I was gonna help, but now it looks like I’m the one doing all the work here.” She said.

“Taking shit off corpses isn’t my style,” Nadia said. Not the ones in the ground, at least. If they could walk and talk with a functioning body and pockets, they were free game. No telling how many undead fuckers she pickpocketed at that stupid carnival. “They are definitely grave robbers around here. A town of this size with as many people that just drop like flies? Grave robbing would be a lucrative business.” Just not one she was into. Grave robbing was rarely exciting, and Nadia hated touching dead bodies. She rolled her eyes at Luce’s comment. “Sorry. You’re just so pretty. How could I look away?” she teased. Then, she started on her own search for headstones. There was a Jeffery Edgars, but he died back in 2004, so he wasn’t her grave. She scanned around, careful not to walk over anyone (it was rude, okay?), silently begging something to stand out. There was nothing until… “Alison Gregory,” Nadia murmured. She died in the tell end of September, so Nadia had been a little off, but that was the grave. She chose it because the last name reminded her of another life. “If you can keep look out, this won’t take long,” she told Luce.

“Good to know. What is, then? You know, more your style?” Luce asked as she looked over another headstone. The numbers were so worn she didn’t even need to read them to know it wasn’t the one Nadia was looking for. Casting a glance over her shoulder, Luce scanned the area around them. No one was here, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Security guards were probably out doing rounds or something, right? At the other woman’s words, Luce let out a bemused laugh, an attempt to distract from the way she stiffened. Seriously. What the fuck was going on here? This wasn’t… something was off. Something was really fucking off. “Touche, I’m damn fine to look at. Even in the dark.” She replied before following Nadia up to the latest tombstone. Her stomach turned slightly at the idea of digging up the grave, and a wave of relief washed over her when the other woman asked her to act as look out. “No problem. Do your thing.” She said with a thumbs up.

What was Nadia’s style? She paused, thinking about it. Whatever paid. Instead, she grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She set down her bag and knelt in front of it, getting out what she would need. She rested her pistol on the ground beside her and put the shovel together. Then, she began to dig. She only needed to get a few feet down. The ground was still soft, even after almost a year. She dug for awhile before her shovel hit something, a metallic sound ringing through the air. Nadia used her hands to uncover the box. She grinned as she saw the lock was still on it. Grunting, she withdrew the box and put in her bag before she began filling the grave back up. “Fucking jackpot.” She said. This was great. She still had a lot of money, and she could always get more, but she wanted to have eyes on her stuff in case she ever had to make a quick escape from White Crest. After she finished filling the hole, she wiped a bit of sweat off her brow, smearing dirt on it in the process. Grinning from ear to ear, she turned back to Luce. “I didn’t lie when I said it was gonna be dirty.”

I really would. Luce thought to herself as she scanned the area around them. The graveyard was dark-- there were lights along the main road that went through the cemetery that flickered and blinked in the night sky. Other than that, nothing. Just the two of them and a whole bunch of dead people. Super cool. Real fucking chill. Glancing down at the other woman, Luce froze when she saw a flash of metal next to the hole that Nadia had dug. A gun. She hated guns. She hated how powerful they were, hated how easy it was for the wrong people to get a hold of them. And she hated seeing one here, in Nadia’s hands. Luce raised her eyes once more, trying to hide her discomfort until the other woman spoke up. “True facts. I mean, this wasn’t the dirty I was expecting but, you’re no liar.”

Picking up the now hefty bag and tucking her gun into the front pouch of it, Nadia walked over to Luce. This night could end one of two ways, she decided, still feeling the other woman’s discomfort. They could both have fun, or just Nadia could have fun. She had no attachment to Luce Vural, despite what her body and brain almost constantly tried to tell her. Nadia had an attachment to her because she was a fool and always fell for people that would never want her back. Not in a meaningful way. Nadia didn’t care. Cutting Luce out would only benefit her, in the end. Just another loose Nadia Diaz thread to cut. But, still. “You know, I promised you fun, and I don’t think I delivered,” she said quietly. “Think that means I owe you a drink? And maybe something a little more?” She kept her voice light but hopeful.

As Nadia grabbed the bag, the shovel disappearing neatly back into the duffel, Luce craned her neck to look around the cemetery. She could have sworn she’d seen a beam of light, like a flashlight, flickering across the way. They needed to get out of here. At the other woman’s words, she blinked in surprise. While the suggestion was more of how she’d thought her night would go, all thoughts of it had gone out the window the second Nadia had told her what her plans were. “What, you don’t treat all the girls to a wild night of grave digging? I’m shocked.” Luce teased. As fucked up as all this was, as weird as it all was-- the offer was tempting. And after the horrible evening she’d had with Remmy? Even more so. “Yeah. A drink would be good. And I can’t say I mind the idea of a little more.”

Surprise was far better than concern to Nadia, and she was willing to take what she could get to salvage the night. After all this, she had no desire to keep Luce around; the other woman was clearly affected by some attachment that she either wasn’t aware of or was too stubborn to acknowledge. Nadia didn’t need her snooping around, figuring out something was up. She’d do whatever she had to in order to push her away. But this? “Grave digging’s for special occasions only,” she said, leading them back to the bike. “But good. Great, even. I’ve got a bed and a bottle of tequila that I’ve got no problem sharing.” She’d cut Luce off after, later. Maybe she’d even ghost her. That was such a funny phrase, all things considered. Whatever. She was going to enjoy the night. Whatever happened, after happened after.

Hours later, though it’s hard to tell without any light outside, and it is warm, and it is comfortable. It almost felt too good to be true, like one of those dreams no one would want to wake up from. Summer nights, soft sheets, and another body close by made her want to burrow back down, fall asleep. But it was all too good to be true. Nadia’s eyes snapped open. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest. She didn’t know where she was, who she was with. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. Her chest felt too tight. She stumbled out of bed, tripped over a piece of clothing, and managed to pull on a shirt as she left the room. Her room, in her apartment. She was at home. She didn’t feel like she was at home. She went to the bathroom. She needed water or fresh air or a mirror or something. Something to make this real. The lights snapped on, and she stared at her reflection. Same face, same eyes, no grin. But Nadia still felt dread, practically tangible, knotting in her chest. Maybe because of the fact that the hollowness she’d felt since the first time she woke up was gone, filled with something writhing and bitter and wholly not her. Her shaking fingers reached up to touch her face.

The bed moved, the pressure next to her rousing Luce from her sleep. Blinking, she frowned into the pillow under her before realizing what had just happened. Fuck. She’d fallen asleep. Luce wasn’t the type to fall asleep after a hook-up. She was usually on her way out if the prospect of another round wasn’t on the table, with an excuse about an early appointment ready in the wings. As the bathroom door swung open, the light flickering on, Luce stretched. She should go. She should take the opportunity to nod and wave and… shrug off everything. Because, while the sex had been good, it hadn’t felt quite how it used to? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there had been an edge to the encounter that hadn’t been there before. Swallowing, Luce slipped into her shorts, pulling her shirt back over her head before padding quietly over to the bathroom. “Hey, Nadia--” Seeing the way the woman’s fingers trembled as they touched her face, Luce froze. “Are you okay?” She asked automatically, worry and concern leaking into her tone.

Shock at the sound of Luce’s voice was all it took for Nadia to regain control of the body. her hands were still shaking, her pulse rapid and her chest tight with a sense of anxiety that didn’t belong to her. Both hands went down to grasp at the sink. “Fine.” Her voice is rough, cracked in the middle. “Just a nightmare.” A nightmare would have been welcome. This had been the absence of anything, a realization that she’d been shuttered away in the back of Nadia Diaz’s mind, all because her body had gotten too comfortable during sleep. She tried to calm herself down, taking a few deep breaths. She was alive. She was real. She was alive. She looked over to Luce and noticed that the other woman was dressed. That was a relief. She needed to be alone, to find some semblance of control. “Heading out?” she asked, maneuvering passed the other woman back into the bedroom when the bathroom and her head began to feel distinctly too crowded.

In the bathroom lights, Luce could have sworn she’d seen a whole spectrum of emotions flicker across Nadia’s face-- dread, fear, confusion. But, when she’d spoken up, her hands had slipped down to cling to the bowl of the sink. And whatever Luce had thought she’d seen, it was gone. Tilting her head, she stared at the woman for a moment, concern still very much apparent. But, if Nadia said she was fine… She wasn’t going to pry. She wasn’t going to bother worrying about it because this didn’t mean anything. Swallowing, she shifted out of the doorway to let the woman slip by her. “Yeah. Got stuff to do in the morning.” Luce said with a shrug. “This was fun-- this bit. Count me out for the next time you decide to go digging around the cemetery.” She joked.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” Nadia said. She needed Luce to get out, needed to be alone and quiet or maybe really, really loud. If Luce didn’t leave soon, she’d leave herself. She didn’t care anymore. She was shaken. Sure, sometimes Nadia came back, broke free for a few seconds. It was never for long, though. This hadn’t been long, or maybe it had, and she just didn’t know it. Nadia still felt a bit trapped, even though she was the one who had control. This just meant no more Luce. Luce was officially on the same tier as the fucking banshee, though Nadia hadn’t decided if she’d kill this one or not. She could probably just push her away. That method had worked before. “I aim to please,” she teased lightly, though she didn’t look at the other woman. “Though, some people are just dying to hang around in cemeteries, you know.”

“You definitely do.” Luce replied with a crooked grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “In this town? Definitely. I’m good though.” She said as she made her way to the door. Hand poised on the doorknob, she paused for a moment, mulling over her words. She wanted to say something, felt like she should say something. Felt like she should try to… reassure Nadia. But, that was what had gotten her in that mess with Remmy, wasn’t it? Sending mixed signals? With a wave of her hand, Luce slipped out of the apartment. As the door shut behind her, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Fuck. Taking the stairs two at a time, her mind raced all the same. Nothing about this night had been normal. From the motorcycle to the grave robbing to how… different Nadia had been that whole time? Something was off. Something was real fucking off. Maybe it wasn’t any of her business, but shit. She was going to figure out what was going on.

#chatzy: luce vural #wickedswriting #not!nadia #//and a lil somethin somethin at the end #;))))#:----)#walking with a ghost

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oncexinxmyxdreams · 4 years ago

Text

A Christmas Memory

This was a different Christmas Eve from all the past ones. Most of them had been without his father and it got worse after his mother passed away. Last year had been a new direction; learning to appreciate what he did have even if those bitter feelings tried to sneak upon him. Indeed, Peter wouldn’t forget Christmas of 1984 with it being the first one as a Ghostbuster. This one had gone unexpected. If someone had told Peter that’d his guilty conscience would convince him to fly over to Kokomo, Indiana and spend it with the illegitimate child he’d never known of until three months ago, he’d thought that person was insane. He’d even give a snarky comment to boot.

That was running through Peter’s mind as he leaned back on the couch in the cozy living room. After Ruth had encouraged him to not be formal and kick his shoes off, he’d finally hunkered down. He partially dug his socked feet between the cushions and stared out the window. Snowflakes dusted the pane, but he could see the warm glow of lights outside. He was trying to think over things, maybe face the emotions he’d shoved far back when meeting Ruth and Laurie. One of them about Claire and knowing she was sadly gone. Every time he remembered it, he felt a horrible and sickening chill in his heart.

“You alright dear?” asked Ruth. She was putting another log into the fireplace.

“I’m okay,” Peter answered with a small head turn and polite smile.

“Ruth!” came the barking demand of Arnold from upstairs. “Ruth! Where’s my damn bottle opener?”

“You left it on the TV tray!” Ruth called up.

“Then bring it up woman! Do I have to do everything around this old shack?!”

With a sigh, Ruth picked up the bottle opener which had been left on an old TV tray in front of a rugged chair. It seemed like she wanted to converse with Peter, but her husband’s demands had to distract her. Arnold apparently had a tradition to have a couple of beers while watching the TV and would stumble off to his room with the newspaper. Not long after he settled down, he’d be demanding for another beer or like this time for the bottle opener. Peter wasn’t against having a beer himself, but he was disgusted by how Arnold behaved. There was no way he’d ever speak to a woman like that and he knew his limit before he got tipsy. Arnold didn’t seem to have any nice words to his wife. He didn’t even have a nice word to say about his grandchild! It wasn’t long before Peter could hear Arnold and Ruth debating over something. Thankfully, the radio was a bit louder and played classic carols.

“Sorry that man has to be your dad Claire,” Peter thought. “No wonder you had a hard time finding kind words about him.” Peter couldn’t forget when he and Claire were just friends and they opened about their lives. Revealing how she quit dance because of how hard he pushed her with little regard of her wellbeing had been shocking to hear. It was quite another to witness how Arnold was in person. Peter was right three years before telling Claire that they both got the short end of the stick when it came to families.

Now that he thought about, what happened for that Christmas? Peter remembered that he didn’t really spend Christmas with Claire that one year. She’d gone back to Kokomo for a week. She’d asked Peter to come with her, but he kept turning it down. It wasn’t only because of this negativity to the holiday, but it was his last year at Columbia University. It’d been exhausting from strenuous finals and tedious term papers. Peter spent half of Christmas catching up on sleep.

Not that he and Claire didn’t do something for the holidays. The day before she left, they went on a sweet date and exchanged gifts. She’d gotten him a new bomber jacket. Peter found her a pretty nightgown. He would’ve gotten her something more extravagant if it hadn’t been for Claire reminding him, she didn’t want anything. It’d taken Peter weeks to get an answer, but Claire finally admitted a new pair of pajamas was fine. She told him that with a little eyeroll and playful grin. Then again, that was Claire. She didn’t ask for things and was easily happy with what she already owned.

They didn’t see each other again until Peter came to meet her at the airport as planned on December 27th…at 1:00 a.m. because of Claire’s overly delayed flight. Despite the icy weather and painfully early morning, neither of them felt fatigued. They overwhelmed each other with a strong hug-where Peter practically lifted her off the ground- and deep kissing. It went on with Claire “insisting” it was too late for him to go back to his dorm and Peter “insisting” she wasn’t going back to her apartment alone. What happened then? If Peter told anyone he would’ve left out the details, but he would’ve hinted that whatever happened was more than twice. “Another round” as Claire suggested for the term. It'd been weeks since their last round together so there was pent up energy for each other. Combining that along with the late prescription update on Claire’s birth control pill for her polycystic ovary syndrome, maybe it wasn’t a surprise Laurie existed.

“Figures,” sighed Peter. He was back to his core struggle: he was now a dad and he didn’t want to be.

It wasn’t that he hated Laurie. Of course not! That was the issue: Peter didn’t know how to feel about her. He was told that when a parent first sees their child, they instantly love them. He didn’t feel that at all! She was a stranger to him. Peter hated imagining what Ray, Winston, Janine or Egon would say if he was honest about it. He’d have to keep that secret to himself. He’d have to keep digging through the graveyard of emotions.

He’d never really desired to get married or have a family of his own. He’d loved Claire and had serious relationships before, but even then, he couldn’t imagine anything further down the road. Besides, even though babies and kids were cute, they were a chore. Kids whined and threw tantrums. Babies cried, needed diapers changed and were always spitting up. He wouldn’t say he was the best with kids in general either. He still felt a pinch of guilt with what happened to Kenny Fenderman back in late spring. Yet whether he liked it or not, he was a dad.

“Ruth said I don’t have to be involved unless I want to,” he reminded himself. “Even Claire wrote in her journals she wouldn’t force me.” It was true. Even Arnold didn’t want Peter around, but that was due to his crass comments about Claire having slept with Peter. “So why am I here?” Peter asked himself again.

There was an answer to all this; there had to be. Somewhere buried deep down was the reason he reluctantly came out to Indiana. Even with being a psychologist, Peter sometimes had to deeply analyze himself.

Right on cue, he felt one of the cushions move and was distracted. It was Laurie. She dropped a thick book on the couch and then crawled up. She was still dressed pretty in her little red velvet dress; black mary jane’s and white tights. Seemed like it was staple to her wardrobe along with her still having a pacifier. She crawled upon the couch and wobbled over to Peter. Reflexively he held a hand up to balance her as she nearly stumbled, but she caught hold of his drawn-up knees. Her deep cornflower blue eyes sparkled, and he could see the creases of her smile behind her pacifier.

“You trying to get away from the noise?” he said half-heartedly to her. When she looked puzzled, Peter gestured up to the ceiling where he could still hear faint arguing. She only copied him and grinned. Then she pointed at the window where the snow was falling at a quicker pace.

“Sho,” she said with her muffled voice. “Sho.”

“You’ve got a mouthful there Ankle Biter,” Peter snickered. “Take that out of your mouth.” He gently pried the pacifier from her lips. Cleary not bothered; Laurie spoke again. “Sho. Pwetty.” She looked past him and pointed to the side table behind him. “Mama pwetty,” she added.

Peter glanced over his shoulder to the picture frame sitting on the edge. It was hard for him to see that beautiful face. Laurie tried crawling around him to reach for the frame, but nearly squished herself between Peter and the cushions. Hesitating, he twisted around to get it.

“You want this?” he said kindly as he handed it to her. Laurie still stood up and held the frame. She looked almost sad. It was a picture of Claire from last Christmas. She was sitting in front of the tree with Laurie in her lap. From what anyone could guess, the little girl knew Claire wasn’t coming back, but she didn’t understand why.

“Mama,” Laurie repeated. Her tiny hand patted the picture. “Mama go.”

“Yeah, she’s gone,” Peter empathized. “My mama’s gone too.”

Laurie looked at him in such an odd way that Peter second guessed if she understood him. What she did next left him stunned. She crawled onto Peter’s lap and buried her face into his neck. Her little arms wrapped around him the best she could. Her hair was strong of her shampoo which smelled like cherry soda. After a pause, Peter gingerly wrapped one arm around her little figure. Laurie twisted around so she could look out the window but nuzzled her head under Peter’s chin.

“Sto-ee?” she asked.

“Story? Okay. What’s the book you brought?” Peter sensed if he flat out refused, Laurie may throw a fit. “You’ve got a real sense of humor,” he sighed when he realized what she brought. Of course, Laurie had brought up her copy of Peter Rabbit. (Laurie's book was a treasury of Beatrix Potter's stories.) He probably could’ve just recited the story since his mother used to read it to him when he was Laurie’s age. He read the familiar beginning:

“Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were-Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.”

The story continued exactly from what Peter could recall. Mrs. Rabbit told her children to not enter Mr. McGregor’s garden, but Peter Rabbit disobeyed, and he ate some vegetables in the garden: Mr. McGregor tried to catch him, and Peter Rabbit got lost in the garden: Peter Rabbit finally got out and was put to bed while his siblings had bread, milk and blackberries for supper.

“What a shock its still the same after twenty years,” Peter said cynically.

“Mice,” said Laurie. “Sto-ee of mice. Pwease!”

Peter bit his lip. Those pleading blue eyes gazed up to him and Laurie pouted. Cute kid, but she was clever enough to pull on heartstrings. Even her conflicted father couldn’t say no to her face.

“What story of the mice?” Peter quickly flipped a couple of pages to find the story. He couldn’t remember any Beatrix Potter works that were only about mice. Much to his surprise, he found a page with a mouse wearing glasses and sitting on a spool of thread while reading a newspaper. The story? The Tailor of Gloucester.

“That one,” Laurie announced.

Despite feeling a little tired, Peter continued reading. He found that he kind of liked reading to Laurie. Not to mention, he liked the new tale. It was centered around Christmas and a poor tailor was trying to finish a coat for a mayor’s wedding day. What fascinated Peter most was when the tailor’s cat went outside at night: there was something about the atmosphere that was so magical it almost seemed believable. At least, believable after being a ghostbuster for almost two years. According to Beatrix Potter, between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, all the beasts could talk though very few could understand them. Birds, rats, dogs, mice and even the cat spoke.

While Peter was reading, Laurie’s eyelids drooped, and her eyelashes fluttered when she tried to stay awake. She was warm, comfy and best of all, safe while snuggled against Peter. The moment the last sentence was read, Laurie was asleep. Her breathing was gentle, and her tiny fingers unclenched. She looked so peaceful and sweet that Peter didn’t want to move. Instead, he glanced back out the window and tried analyzing his thoughts again.

“I used to sit with Mom like this,” Peter recalled to himself. “I know Mom couldn’t afford a lot, but I know she tried.” The very few Christmas memories he had included his mother, Lydia Venkman, sitting on the sofa with him while the TV blared the cheerful specials or when they watched the stars. She’d bake gingersnaps with maple icing and got a small tree for them. Best of all, she’d play in the snow with Peter, even start a snowball fight. At that young age, Peter didn’t know any other mother that played in the snow with her kids like his mom. All memories reminded him how much he missed her.

“Of all the times I could use your advice Mom, it’d be right now,” he sadly thought.

Despite how tough his childhood had been, his mom had been the warmest and brightest light in his dark world. When she passed from pneumonia, the light was extinguished. It wasn’t until the friendship of Egon and Ray that helped brighten things again. Claire, being one of his most steady girlfriends, brought more. Then Winston and Janine helped shape the rest. There wasn’t any need to add a daughter into the mix. No, that wasn’t fair. Laurie was in a similar position having lost her mom and now, she’d have to grow up with her dad far away…

Peter eyed the little girl again. He swallowed.

“No. I can’t let that happen.”

He wouldn’t see her every day, but she didn’t need to have a darkened world like he did. She could have those warm lights from Ruth, the neighbors, the ghosbusters and from him. Peter didn’t know and there was still plenty to evaluate, but at least he could commit to that.

The next thing Peter knew was that he’d awake that next morning, Christmas day, still on the couch. Laurie would still be cuddled against him. He didn’t know yet it’d be one of Laurie’s favorite memories when she got older, let alone the first memory she remembered was when she first met her dad.

#the real ghostbusters #peter venkman #laurie venkman #fanfic #fanfiction #Peter's got a long way to go but he's starting somewhere with being a dad #RGB: A Christmas Memory #rgb fic

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theopinionoftheredheads · 4 years ago

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JS Compilation post

Another day, another compilation post dedicated to one of the irrelevant women in Chris’s life. Seriously anons, if you want this to become a thing, maybe we should discuss women that actually matter to him like his mom or Octavia Spencer. We would love discussing those!

These are old asks, so some questions might have already been answered (like the book chapters). All the asks can be found below.

So now that Jenny has gotten her own post on this blog, I feel like you anons have given her more attention than Chris ever has. Let’s focus back on him and the beautiful Dodger content he blessed us with today. At least we know he treats him like a good boy.

Red & Ginger

Notice Chris never says anything bad about his ex’s. If the chapter was about him it must of been a punch in the gut. Bet he’s never read the book.

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Fans disliked JS not because of her book but because she cheated on her husband just to be with Chris. She tweeted horrible things, she deleted those but some blogs still have screenshots just google it. She was trolling Chris fans all the time while they was "dating". In my personal opinion she's a horrible woman. She pretends to be a feminist but she's far far far away from real feminist.

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In my opinion, JS seems like she is very high maintenance and her mind runs a million miles a minute that would be too overwhelming for me to deal with. And I’m only basing this off of the interviews I seen with her.

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She always refers to Dean (her ex husband) as her husband in the book. She always makes sure to make that distinction between husband and boyfriend. It's obvious that she's talking about Chris. She also mentions Dodger without naming him. Just read between the lines. If you were there for the Chris/Jenny saga since the beginning, it's not very difficult to decipher.

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He eats gross, I mean the man admitted he can not cook really well? Or is there another meaning behind that? 🧐

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"I am tired of sinking down to a lower place to be with men. I am tired of throwing a tarp over some of my personality so that the shape of my identity suits some gross man a little better,for whatever shitty things he needs to do in order to keep his boring identity erect & supreme. I am tired of buying my own flowers. I am tired of having to hold my breath through Val’s Day the way you do when you drive past a graveyard" Sounds like karma to me Maybe stop blaming & take it as her own fault too

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JS comments “What’s the same about us is not just that we’re from Massachusetts, which was such a delight, but Chris is truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, to the point where sometimes I would look at him & it would kind of break my heart. He’s really vulnerable, & he’s really straightforward. He’s like primary colors. He has beautiful, big, strong emotions, and he’s really sure of them. It’s just wonderful to be around. His heart is probably golden-colored, if you could paint it.”

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Sorry to bother you again but do you or anyone else know what chapter/s to look for so I don’t read the whole thing?

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The podcast jenny slate talked about slapping chris on was anna ferris’ podcast. It still up, just search for it in podcasts. He was on it too, he was laughing about it. Idk about timing but they were claiming to just friends at the time but i think they may have started hooking up by then.

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Tbh I can't imagine Chris' lifestyle is that unhealthy. I mean, c'mon he looks so damn fine. I think he and especially his body and his skin would show some signs.

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You know when it comes to Hollywood celebrities relationship money bring them attention then they talk about relationship good or bad or even the ugly they don’t care they just want attention and shit And I always hated that cause relationship is supposed to be private that’s why Chris said he wants to be private with his love life

*****************

Unfortunately, celebrity gossip sells even when it comes from the horse's mouth. You take JS talking about CE that’s going to get more eyes simply because CE has such a high profile. It not right, and like you said, it should stay between them. She wanted to sell her book, so who knows how much is true maybe none of it, perhaps all of it, or somewhere in between.

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Thank you for correcting me I got confused but I knew it was before lobby hero started they broke up

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“ The apartment hunting was fake news same as Chris searching for a ring to propose to Jenny. They broke up in early January.” I don’t think the apartment hunting was fake. The way it was framed may have been but she probably did tag along with him while he looked for somewhere to stay while he did Lobby Hero.

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“ Yes. It seemed very odd since CE and JS were both in Atlanta at the time & Chris didn’t have time off then.” Chris was able to fly out to her comedy shows when he was filming so they could have flown to look at apartments in his free time. It’s not that far fetched. I don’t think they were moving in together but this was around the time Lobby Hero was announced so he was probably looking for somewhere to stay since rehearsals for that began right after he wrapped Endgame.

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Anon JS, in her book, said CE eating habits are gross, and he smokes.

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I though JS said she did like his beard in the comedy show?!? That info is not mentioned in her book

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Ewww i nearly threw up that ask about his eating habits why would she ever say something like that 😷

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I think she was like... He dumped me for good, he's not in love, don't want me back at all, so let's be mean in this book

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Aww, man, if that anon story was real, I really, really feel bad for the guy. All the comedy shows I watched, I've never really seen spouses/SOs being the brunt of the joke. Everyone knows who her bf is, everyone knows who the joke is about. Not too nice.

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Did JS bad-mouthed CE?? I have come across certain fans who claim she has but I never got the whole story!

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I wonder if he read that book and even not reading how he must have felt knowing how she described / exposed him that way.

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Was that other anon agreeing with me because I never said someone should change for anybody else, I said the same thing she CHOSE to change for him but it’s all on her (if it was agreeing then ignore this and yes the burn book was very juvenile to do)

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aliceslantern · 4 years ago

Text

Grow, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 11

Suddenly human and abandoned in the Keyblade Graveyard, Demyx struggles to survive and come to terms with what his life is. Only by chance is he saved from exposure, and brought to Radiant Garden to recover. Unsure of who he is and where to even begin, Demyx finds a kindred spirit in Ienzo, and before long finds perhaps he isn't the only one lost in this new life. But how can they move forward with so much holding them back?

Roughly canonverse, Zemyx, hurt/comfort. Started for Zemyx day (9/6). Updates Wednesdays until it's done.

Chapter summary: In the wake of memories, Ienzo has a breakdown. The time in the desert catches up to Demyx.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Demyx woke with a gasp. He was soaked in sweat, and he looked at his hands. My name , he thought dazedly. That’s my name! He turned to Ienzo, ready to wake him up and tell him everything.

Except Ienzo was already awake. He was on his side, curled tightly, and he was crying.

“Hey,” Demyx said softly. “Bad dream?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

“You’re not fine, if you’re crying.”

“It’s an involuntary reaction.”

“What happened?”

“One in a hundred basement dreams,” he said. “Just… all these moments I could’ve stopped--feeling my… heart get ripped out of my chest…” He shuddered. “This pain is just what I deserve. Karma.”

“You don’t deserve that.”

“After all I’ve done?” Ienzo asked in a high voice. “This is the least of what I deserve.”

“No. No, Zo. That’s just not true.”

“Why not.”

“You couldn’t help being lead onto that path--”

“What about after?” his tone was shrill. “When I was old enough, when I should’ve known right from wrong?”

Demyx didn’t know what to say.

“We killed people, Demyx.” He got up and started rather violently getting dressed. “Come on. You need to see something, if you want to be with me.”

Demyx could only follow. He was feeling hot and dizzy again. Ienzo led him down to the computer lab, to a door at the far side. He punched in numbers, breathing heavily. “We don’t have to--”

“ Yes we do. ” The syllables rang loudly in the metal space.

Demyx reached forward to touch his shoulders, fighting his own nausea. “No. We don’t.”

Ienzo slapped his hands away, grabbed one, and brought him downstairs into the basement.

The basement… was just a basement.

Demyx felt that bad things had happened here. The energy was just too charged. Ienzo stood, staring, dazed, at the cells, all of the doors closed and quiet. It was strangely clean. Empty.

“I killed people,” Ienzo said, in a much lower voice. “I wanted to do experiments and when I asked they said okay. I manipulated people. Pushed them to their breaking points, psychologically. When they were broken Xehanort plucked out their hearts, and I didn’t feel the least bit sorry. I thought we were making discoveries which would change the world.”

Demyx swallowed. He thought of a childlike Ienzo standing over a body fading to darkness.

“I killed people,” he repeated. “And afterwards when I could not feel I killed even more, let whole worlds fall because of our plans. Why am I--why am I still here?”

“You’ve been given a second chance,” Demyx said. “You were a… you were a kid, Zo.” He chanced touching his shoulder. “You were manipulated onto this path. You said it yourself--Xehanort gaslit you into thinking this lab was your idea. You were too young. Too smart.”

“Too smart,” he echoed.

“And you chose good now, right? You chose to help the world? That means a lot. That means so much.” His vision was swarming. He cupped Ienzo’s face.

“Seeing this--how could you still--”

“I love you.”

If anything, this was the wrong thing to say. “Why?” It was nearly a bleat. “Why? Why ?”

“I do, Ienzo. I do. We talked about this. What were you supposed to do? These people were your parents, and they asked you for something, and you were good at it. They took your dad away. You had nothing left. What were you supposed to do? Run away, at eight, ten, twelve years old? Give up everything? How were you supposed to know what was going to happen?”

The wildness in his eye was fading.

“And you’re doing everything in your power to put it right, right? To fix it? To help people? And you are. You work so hard every day. You’re using that research to help people. It’s going to change the world.” He felt like he was talking out of his ass. “Look, it so sucks that you had to go through this. But I’m too selfish to let you keep hating and blaming yourself when this is not your fault .” His voice echoed loudly. “Not when I can see the real you. And he is so kind and patient and smart and funny. You… you deserve to be here. You deserved to be loved. I mean it.” He was sweating all over, and the pain in his back had returned, thumping in time with his racing heart. “I mean it.”

Ienzo sank to his knees. Demyx knelt with him and pulled him close. He was crying again, but it seemed like the kind of crying that had to happen, so Demyx just shushed and rocked him. After what felt like hours, hours where Demyx struggled not to vomit, struggled to stay completely conscious, he calmed. “Oh Demyx,” he said. “Oh.”

“I know. It’s okay. We can pretend this didn’t happen.”

“I don’t want to.” He stood and offered him his hands. “I love you too. I don’t… I don’t deserve you.”

“More like I don’t deserve you.” He smiled, weakly. He was feeling weird now, and wanted to go back to bed. “Let’s go home, okay?”

The long, long walk back upstairs seemed to take an eternity. “Your hand is really warm,” Ienzo said.

“The stress made me hot.” Why was he lying? He needed help.

“I insist you see Even first thing in the morning.”

“...I will.” He was feeling even stranger now, hazy, weird. Upstairs was in sight now. Maybe he could sit for a few minutes when they got there…

They passed the threshold. Something unraveled in him, went sharp, went weird, went sideways--

---

The next thing Demyx was aware of, he was on the cold hard metal floor, on his side, and his head was in Ienzo’s lap. There was the smell of vomit, a slickness of sweat, and there was an awkward wetness between his legs. “...What…” He mumbled. His head was pounding, and the pain in his back had reached a fever pitch.

“Don’t move. Try to relax.”

“What happened?”

“You had a seizure.”

“I don’t… remember…”

“Of course you don’t.”

“Where are my glasses?”

“I took them off for safekeeping. Even and Dilan are coming. Just try to stay still until then.”

He looked down as much as he was able. A spare lab coat had been spread over his lap. He realized what the wetness was; he’d pissed himself. A humiliated flush heated his face. “I’m sorry I peed,” he mumbled. “And threw up.”

“It was completely involuntary, Demyx, it’s okay. Most people do when they seize.” His voice was soothing, but he detected an undertone of stress. Ienzo stroked his sweaty hair.

Footsteps. “What are you two doing down here?” Even snapped. “How long did he seize for?”

“I’m not sure exactly--I was trying to keep him from aspirating the vomit.”

“Boy, minutes count. Guess.”

“Five minutes or so?”

Even swore. He knelt down by Demyx. “Hello there,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” His eyes watered.

“It’s alright, child.”

Child? That’s how Demyx knew he was in deep shit. He felt Even’s cold hands taking his pulse, his temperature.

“Febrile,” he muttered. “What else do you feel?”

“Sick,” he said. “Just really… sick. And…” He swallowed. “My back really hurts? Like a lot?”

Even probed him gently. “Here? Right here?”

He hissed. “Right there.”

“Ah,” Even said. Demyx couldn’t see his expression clearly.

“Even, what is--” Ienzo began. Then, “oh.”

“Quite,” Even said. “Oh, Dilan, there you are. Thanks for taking your sweet time.”

“I’m tired,” Demyx murmured.

“Close your eyes and rest,” Ienzo said. “It’s okay.”

---

He didn’t get all the way asleep, but awareness slid in and out. He was vaguely aware of Ienzo changing him into a robe, of Even taking blood samples. The pain was still awful and nausea brought him around. “Oh,” he said.

Ienzo’s head snapped up. He was sitting next to the bed in the infirmary. “What do you need?”

“I’m gonna be sick.”

He held a bin in front of him. Demyx heaved, but nothing other than water really came up. “I’ll have Even give you an antiemetic.” He handed him a cup of water to rinse out his mouth.

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked wearily. He had a suspicion but he needed it in words.

“We’re trying to figure out for sure. You need to relax. It’s going to be okay.”

He tried to lay back. For a while he just felt weak and hazy and sweaty until he looked up and saw Even. The man rubbed a prep pad over his bicep, and Demyx felt a pick of a needle, then a numbness in his arm. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” he said. Demyx didn’t recall sleeping. “I’m putting a port line in. You remember from before, yes? This is just something to make that process more comfortable.”

“Why?” he asked.

“You need the fluids,” Even said. Despite the numbing, when he put the line in Demyx felt every little pinch and prick. “Okay. Okay. Steady. Good boy. I’m done.”

Thin, strange-tasting tears ran down his face. He felt something stinging injected into the line--an antiemetic like Ienzo said? A painkiller? Just saline?--but whatever it was made him so exhausted he dozed.

In this haze Demyx heard voices.

“...You’re sure?”

“I showed you the numbers, Ienzo. The fever, the vomiting, the seizing especially. I wish he were lucid enough so I could ask how long the symptoms have existed…”

“At least since yesterday.”

“...It’s advanced enough that I’m sure it’s been longer. I… had suspected he might not bounce back so quickly. But he’s young, and fit more or less, so I didn’t see a reason to scare him unnecessarily. Which begs the question why you two were alone for so long yesterday, but there are more immediate problems.”

“So what do we do?”

“The dialysis will buy some time and make him feel better. But it’s not a good long term solution--not to mention it will greatly decrease his quality of life.”

“So there’s truly no way they will bounce back?”

“The loss of function was complete, Ienzo, complete. If the medications he’s been taking haven’t been helping, nothing will.” A long pause. “I may have a solution, but it will take a little time. ”

“I think I catch your drift.”

Demyx slept. When he woke he felt considerably less shitty, but with this clarity came a bunch of truths he wasn’t ready to face.

He’d remembered his name and a little bit more of his past.

He’d seen Ienzo in a godawful amount of pain.

There was something seriously medically wrong with him.

The line in his arm pinched. He sat up a little. He could see blood creeping down one line and back in another, with plain fluid in a third. The blood was connected to a small machine, which was ticking along quietly. His glasses had been set on a bedside table. Demyx knew without looking he was back in the infirmary.

Ienzo was dozing in the chair next to the bed, a scratchy-looking blanket tucked around his shoulders.

Demyx felt mostly… numb.

Ienzo jolted awake with a start. “Demyx.”

“Hey.”

“How do you feel?”

“Lots better. Tired, though.” His muscles were sore, he realized; not the terrible awful ache he’d been living with (which had quieted, it seemed, for the time being). “I’m in pretty deep shit, aren’t it?”

Ienzo sighed heavily. He sat up. “Yes,” he said tiredly.

“My kidneys are fucked, aren’t they?”

“The technical diagnosis is “renal failure” but, yes.” He reached over to touch Demyx’s face. “Even thinks he has a solution. You just have to hold on long enough for him to implement it.”

He sighed. In his mind’s eye he saw the desert. “Man, people might as well be made of paper,” he said. “Little dehydration and it all falls apart.”

Ienzo’s smile was cramped and sad.

He swallowed. “Before… everything got super dramatic,” he said, “I remembered something.”

“You did?”

“I… I really think I did.” He told him about the dream/memory. “She’s my sister, Ienzo.” His eyes watered. “Elrena is my sister. All of that… that insulting. It’s just a mutated form of sibling rivalry.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Confused,” Demyx admitted. “The spot she has in my heart is just… weird.”

“Of course it is.”

“Where is she? Is she home? Do we have parents? More siblings? Is she okay?”

“She likely recompleted. I’m sure she’s physically fine.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“You don’t have to,” Ienzo said. He touched one of the tubes. “Right now, you can’t .”

"And there's my name." He took a deep breath. “Edym.”

A long, long pause. Ienzo smiled. “Do you want me to call you that?”

“I’m… I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe you could try to, and I can see how I feel?”

“Of course.” He leaned over and kissed him once. “It’s nice to meet you, Edym.”

#grow #ienzo #demyx #zemyx

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chloca-cola · 5 years ago

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Defenseless Chapter 3

This chapter is heavy, I hope I dont miss any trigger warnings. If I do, please feel free to let me know and I will add them in

TW: Abuse, blood, murder, acts of violence, neglectful parents, mentions of alcohol abuse

Word count: 2,160

Mara couldn't stand her older brother Trevor, he was so mean to her and her little sister Julia, always torturing them in some way. Usually physically, she had a burn mark on her right ankle from Trevor and one of their father's cigars. What had her father done about it?

"Oh, you'll be fine, he's just being a boy." That's all he had done, and her alcoholic mother just ignored it all. Her brother is how she even learned she could repatriate, and once he realized he could kill her multiple times, he did it just to feel joy.

One day, when Mara was 11, she had finally had enough and she would learn that very same day she could teleport, Trevor was 15 and much stronger than her or Julia, who was just 9. Mara came home to find Trevor had strangled Julia to death, she gasped, Mara being the only sufferer of DOOMs between the siblings, she knew Julia was gone for good. Her noises alerted him to her presence. Terror shot through her veins like icy water when he looked over his shoulder at her, a crazy glint in his eyes.

She was about to scream and run, but he pounced on to her quickly, intending to kill her too.

She bucked him off of her, wanting to just scramble away, hoping this was all just a bad dream, when he pulled a knife from his pocket, grabbing her ankle and pulling her back to him. He straddled her, his corn silk blond hair falling into his face.

"I've always wanted to carve your face like a Jack-o-lantern, you gonna let me, Mara?" Her heart felt like it was gonna beat out of her chest, as tears swam into her vision. Where were her parents right now? She began to scream as loudly as she could, wanting to alert someone to her imminent danger. Her legs were kicking, trying to get leverage to knock him off of her again, as the light glinted off the blade as he brought it down to her face

Digging the point in at her hair line, he began digging the blade in, dragging it slowly down her face, barely missing her eye. She just kept screaming and wishing she was somewhere else.

And as if by magic, poof, she was in her parent's room.

She heard Trevor cursing down the hall in Julia's room, she wiped the blood from her face and into her snowy platinum hair, giving her a hellish look as she crawled on all fours to her father's bedside nightstand.

Digging through the drawer, she found the object of her desire, her father's gun. She fumbled with it, trying to remember in her panicked state how to use it, her hands trembling as she heard Trevor begin searching through the rooms for her.

"Where are you, you little bitch?!" He growled animalistic in his anger, Mara finally turned the safety off as Trevor burst through the door. Her throat was aching from screaming for so long, she tried to scream again, but nothing came out. She trained the gun on his head and pulled the trigger. His head snapped back, his body swaying for a second before he collapsed on the floor in a heap.

"Mara?! Trevor?! Julia?!" It was her mother, she came into the room and screamed from the bloody mess that was all over the walls, door frame and out in the hallway. "What did you do to your sweet brother?!" Mara tried to speak, but only a squeaking sound was made, she looked down at her blood covered hands, which were still shaking and she dropped the gun on the floor.

Her parents blamed her for both Trevor's and Julia's death, threw her under the bus, saying that they didn't understand why she would want to hurt either of them, especially their sweet Trevor. Mara's larynx had been permanently damaged from all her screaming, leaving her with a graveyard whisper of a voice. She was deemed a menace to society and locked away in a psychiatric ward, where she stayed for the next 10 years.

She never spoke to the psychiatrist, not until she got word that her parents had passed. Finally feeling safe, Mara showed the doctor every scar that Trevor left on her, told him everything that happened, that she is a repatriate and he killed her numerous times, finding it funny that she could come back, and finally that she found Trevor over her sister's body. What she had done was self defense.

She wasn't sure if the doctor would believe her, but something in her confession held the conviction of the innocent and after ten years the psychiatrist stated she was not a threat to herself or others and was exonerated of her charges.

Mara couldn't fit in with society, everything was so strange to her after so many years of being alone. She decided it would be best for her just to disappear, so she gathered what she could carry, and left the city forever.

Higgs was laying on Mara's old couch, staring up at the ceiling, not being able to sleep. He kept replaying in his head the look Mara had given him that night he tried to kill her, she had been trying to break free from her restraints, her whispery voice cursing him, and saying she wasn't going to teleport away until she got to kick his ass. It wasn't until Higgs took his mask off and revealed himself to her did she fall silent and still. Her seafoam green eyes held so much betrayal in them. That look caused him physical pain, he was begging her with his eyes to jump away. He knew she could, and he wanted her to.

"Oh, Mara, sweet little loner." He purred to her, leaning down close to her face. "Bet ya wish ya didn't save me now, hm?" His voice was teasing, smooth as honey, but inside he hated to see her looking at him that way. Her eyes narrowed dangerously and she spit in his face, causing him to chuckle, he wiped her saliva off his cheek, before running his tongue along her scar. She turned her head and bit down on his tongue and he yelped, jerking away, and that's when she had teleported away from him.

He had been relieved she finally left, sighing and spitting blood that pooled in his mouth on the ground.

Higgs was brought from his thoughts when he heard Mara's soft whimpers coming from her room. He debated if he should check on her, after all the cold shoulder he completely deserved. However, once the sounds became more distressed, he quickly went to her room to find her body thrashing in her bed as if she was fighting someone off. He knew she was dreaming about Trevor again, he had been with her a few times before when she had the nightmare. Luckily with DOOMs gone, it did seem less intense.

He moved quickly to her bedside, grabbing her shoulder, causing her to bolt upright, her hands balled into fists, punching wildly at the air. Higgs hopped back quickly, barely missing catching a right hook to his jaw.

"Easy, honey, it's just me, ya were having a nightmare." Mara's eyes focused on Higgs' face, her breathing erratic, panic evident on her face. She touched her scar, looking at her fingers to make sure she wasn't bleeding and she let her body relax, and she scooted back to lean on her headboard, rubbing her face with her hands.

"Sorry if I woke you." She offered softly, and Higgs waved a hand dismissively.

"S'alright, I wasn't asleep yet." He assured her plopping beside her on the bed and she gave him a look of audacity, which he chuckled at. "Oh please darlin', like we've never shared a bed before." He teased, blush heated her cheeks and she's glad the only light in the room was from what little moonlight was outside, so hopefully he couldn't see it. She could barely make out his features in the soft silvery glow, so she was positive it was the same for him.

"That was a long time ago." She teased back, even though that primal part of her brain was telling her to abort mission, she felt him slowly winning her back over and really, she both hated and loved it. She had missed him, even after he tried to kill her, it made her feel weak.

That primal instinct went into overdrive when she felt him shifting in the bed, was he moving closer to her? No, his back was to her and she relaxed again, sighing in a mildly annoyed fashion, pushing on his back with a foot, and he chuckled, and she could see him lift his head and look over his shoulder at her.

"Hey, I did not say you could lay here." But even her voice held no conviction to her own ears.

"Sweetheart, we both know you're not kickin' me outta the bed. I'm gonna be right here, just in case ya have another one of those nightmares about ya brother." The comment took her off guard, as he laid his head back down on the pillow, it's almost as if he really is back to his old self, and a soft smile pulled at the corners of her lips, and she slid down under her covers, pulling them up to her chin and rolled over to where her back was facing his, letting out a long sigh.

"Did ya miss me? Did ya cry when ya thought I was dead?" The questions were not mocking, but honest curiosity on his part, his voice was rather quiet, as if he wanted someone to have missed him if he was really dead. Mara stared at the wall, truth was, she had cried.

She had gotten a visit from Sam, he knew she had been close to Higgs before everything went down, she lamented it to him on a few occasions.

"I just wanted you to know...Higgs is dead." Sam had said in his normal gruff voice, but Mara could tell it hurt him to tell her, she had hung her head for a few beats, absorbing his words. Higgs was...dead? The words hit her like a truck and her head snapped back up to look at Sam, pain evident in her pale eyes, and he chewed on his bottom lip, unsure how she was going to act.

"Did you kill him, Sam?" Her eyes were hard as stone as she observed his micro expressions before he finally shook his head.

"Fragile did it." He confessed, Mara averted her eyes to the floor again, nodding after a few beats.

"Ok." She said in her trademark no nonsense fashion, and Sam blinked in surprise, and after he said nothing, Mara looked back up at him.

"Ok?" Sam didn't understand what she had seen in Higgs, granted she knew him before Amelie got to him, so he was definitely expecting a lot more of a reaction.

"Thank you for telling me, Sam." He blinked a few more times before finally nodding goodbye to her and she slowly shut the door. That's when her armor had cracked, she sank down to the floor, sobbing softly into her hands. She wasn't sure how long she had cried for him, but she had.

"I did. Yes." Her voice was as soft as a ghosts sigh when she confessed, sadness thick in her voice. At first, Higgs said nothing, he just felt a pressure in his chest that he couldn't explain. "Higgs?" Mara lifted her own head to look over her shoulder at him and he rolled over onto his back. She followed his action, rolling onto her back, staring up at the ceiling.

"Just admit ya love me." He said in his teasing way, his words oozing with natural charm, and he finally got what he was after; Mara laughed. It wasn't long, but he got rewarded with her breathy giggle before she placed both of her hands on his shoulder and shoved him out of the bed and onto the floor.

A loud 'oof' escaped him as he crashed onto the hard surface. Dazed, he looked back up towards the bed to see her looking down at him, and although he could barely see it, he knew she was smirking at him, a soft sniffling sound came from her, she quickly wiped the tears away.

"You wish." They both shared a laugh, before she moved back to her side of the bed and Higgs crawled back into it.

"Don't hesitate to sleep a little closer to me, I won't bite." Mara scoffed, covering back up again, her back to him once more.

"I will." She stated, matter-of-factly, although humor was still laced in the words. Higgs laughed as he settled under the covers and finally fell asleep.

~~~

@savage-rhi @disneymarina (if anyone else wants tagged just ask!)

#death stranding higgs #death stranding #higgs #higgs thirst tag #its got higgs in it #higgs x oc #ds higgs #higgs monaghan #sam porter bridges

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clumsybookworm18 · 5 years ago

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and my burden to bear is a love (i can’t carry anymore) | pt.3

Jossam + Ghost AU

Summary: Sam thinks she’s crazy and Josh is... Josh.

[Read on AO3], Moodboard, part 1 / 2 / 4

She shouldn’t have been surprised. Not when it came to Josh. And yet she couldn’t believe it. When people die, they tend to stay dead. These sorts of things didn’t happen. People did not see their dead friends.

But there he was.

Draped over her bed was Joshua Washington, a person who was officially declared dead (if the headless body was any indication), his black clothes a stark contrast with her ivory duvet.

She didn’t know- couldn’t even begin to fathom what to say or do other than gawk at him. The pounding in her heart too distracting, along with some other emotion she didn’t want to make out.

Josh angled his head, a half smile playing on his lips. “Dreadful etiquette, I apologize.”

He looked anything but sorry.

“You’re here,” Sam heard herself say, far way, the words somehow coming out resigned and shocked- not processing she had spoken at all. She wasn’t entirely sure she was breathing either.

“Hello to you too, Sammy.”

She blinked. Then blinked once more. Nope, he was still there.

What. The. Hell.

Josh raised an eyebrow. “Most people would consider staring rude, ya kn-”

Without thinking, she hurled at him the first thing at her reach. Which turned out to be her diary.

Josh let out a curse, ducking in vain as it flew through him. Both of them watched as it landed with a muffled thump on the plush carpet.

He turned to look at her, muttering, “Pacifist my ass.” Though his face was serious, something like amusement glinted in his eyes. “Is this going to be a thing now? You throwing something at me every time I scare you?”

No no no no no. This wasn’t happening. She must’ve fallen asleep and was dreaming right now. She was having some kind of fever dream. Yup. That was totally it. There absolutely wasn’t a dead person sitting on the foot of her bed. Nope.

Looking to avoid the presence in front of her, Sam threw the covers off her and got up, walking over to where her diary had landed. As she bent to pick it up, out of the corner of her eye she saw Josh smoothly sit up, bracing his hands on his thighs, watching her. Always watching her. Like he used to do.

A shiver went through her. It was just the cold. Nothing else.

That's what happens when you leave the comfort of your blanket burrito to step into a freezing room.

Sam closed her eyes and took a single deep breath, trying not to let the eeriness of it rattle her (keyword being trying), before turning to face him. “You’re not real.”

Josh snorted. “Oh, I’m real alright,” he said, and- yep, that was definitely amusement glittering in those eyes. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for one of you fuckers to finally see me?”

“No,” she refuted, shaking her head. “This is just my subconscious showing me what I want to see. Or don’t, more specifically.”

He gave her a lazy grin that once would’ve made her heart flutter. “I’m flattered Sammy. Really. But no imaginary doppelganger of mine can have my wit and charm-”

“And can’t be as aggravating as you,” she said dryly. “You know what? I’m actually inclined to believe this is all true. You haven’t been here five minutes and you’re already getting on my nerves.”

Josh put a hand to his chest. “Aw Sammy, you wound me. After all those late night talks we had together.”

She glared at him.

Josh stalked towards her, stopping less than a foot away, and she could’ve sworn a whisper of warmth grazed her skin. “What? Did you actually think you were crazy talking to a voice inside your head?” He gave her a knowing smirk. “Oh honey, you’re not delusional, trust me.”

Flashes of them in the mines raced through her mind, clamping down on her heart. Josh muttering to himself. Mike hitting him. Sam asking for the cable car key. Josh giving it to her. Their last conversation (she’d lost count of how many times she’s replayed it in her mind). The last time she saw him, alive and bleeding.

She didn’t even say goodbye.

Fiercely shoving the memories away, Sam refrained from curling her fingers around the chain that rested around her neck, curling them into fists instead. She didn’t miss how his eyes flickered down to her hands as if he knew, but didn’t comment on it.

Wise move.

“How?” She demanded. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

He shrugged. “Never said I wasn’t.”

Her blood chilled at his words- ignoring the doubt churning beneath her skin, trying to untangle the certainty of what she’d known all along but kept pushing into the back of her mind, like every irrational thought. She took a few steps back, putting some much needed space between them. For her sake.

“You mean to tell me... that the voice I’ve been hearing all this time was a vestige of you and not my imagination,” she said, not entirely a question.

Josh smirked. “What do you think?”

“So all those terrible wisecracks and irritating quips… that was you?”

“I’m pretty sure you mispronounced the word genius.”

A short, incredulous laugh escaped her. “This is insane. I’m fucking insane.”

“No, you’re not,” Josh said flatly.

“I have to be, otherwise I’m talking to a ghost.” Which, as far as she was concerned, were only supposed to haunt graveyards and old houses, not a tired twenty year old.

He lifted a hand as if he were going to touch her but stopped when Sam yielded a step. Josh’s mouth tightened, hurt flickering in his eyes. “Sam, listen to me. I’m real. This is happening.”

“You can’t be here,” she insisted. “You can’t.”

“Yet here I am. Standing right in front of you. Talking to you,” he said, crossing his arms. “You know it. You can feel it. You have for a while. Admit it.”

“You can be a brain tumor, for all I know,” she snapped, making way to get away from him.

Josh’s moved swiftly, snarling softly and blocking her path. “You weren’t this upset when I was a faceless voice ‘inside your head’ but now I’m a problem?”

Sam ignored him, stepping around him and walking away.

Josh didn’t let her get far, immediately materializing in front of her. “Is it that hard for you to even look at me?”

This time she didn’t even bother trying to pass by him, but strode right through him instead which seemed to piss him off the whole more. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

Sam jolted at the feel of something cold sliding over her neck. She whirled to him, a hand rising to the back of her neck. “Stop that!”

“Then stop being so stubborn,” he said simply, any leftover amusement fading from his face.

She debated on throwing the diary to his face again, but knowing her luck, the ruckus it would cause wouldn’t be worth it and she’d probably end up waking her mother. And Sam really wasn’t in the mood to explain why she was up at two in the morning arguing like a lunatic with a ghost- hallucination- fuck. Jury’s still out. “What do you want from me?”

Josh crossed his arms. “What I want is for you to stop freaking out and talk to me.”

“How can you expect me to be calm about this,” she hissed, motioning a hand in his direction.

“Considering the situation we were in the last time we saw each other, Samantha, you could at least look happy to see me.”

Sam stiffened. The last thing she needed was a reminder of what happened down at the mines. “I don’t want you here.”

“Tough shit.” he snapped, coming closer, making it harder to ignore the warmth seeping off from him. “You think I enjoy watching you wallow around everyday, mourning my sisters? The past?” The Me? went unspoken between them but the look in her eyes told him she heard it altogether. “Fading away, day after day, watching as your grief and despair eat you alive. Literally.”

Sam didn’t answer him but if he wasn’t already dead, she would’ve killed him with the glare she sent his way.

“Whether you hate me or love me, you’re stuck with me,” Josh went on, not balking from that hazel gaze. His eyes were clearer now, more focused. “But I’m also stuck with you. So you see, kind of a lose-lose situation.”

She watched him for a heartbeat longer before asking, “So what? I’m supposed to be ecstatic you’re here to make my life a living hell? Haunt me for the rest of my miserable days?”

His face darkened. “Is that what you think?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me given all your yapping.”

“You didn’t seem to mind during our nightly tête-à-têtes.”

“Prick.”

Josh let out a wry, low laugh, looking her over. “As for whatever reason you’re seeing me…” he trailed off, bringing a hand up to his jaw. “Well, it makes sense, of course, since you have been the only one that’s been talking back to me- that could hear me in the first place.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “We had a…”

Connection.

Sam scoffed.

“Right,” she said, drawing the word out.

She was definitely sleep deprived.

Josh watched her walk over to her bed, furiously stuffing some pillows under her arms. He raised an eyebrow. “...What are you doing?”

“Going over to my mom’s room,” she said, not looking at him, “I need to think, and you’re obviously not gonna leave anytime soon...”

He leans against the wall, frowning. “What makes you think I won’t follow you?”

“You won’t,” Sam says, and almost laughs at the sureness of her tone. If tonight has taught her anything, is that she doesn’t know jack-shit. She could already feel a headache forming.

What a mess.

Once she’s in front of her mom’s door, she lets out a shuddering breath, looking back to make sure there was no other presence but her own. Her heartbeat slows when her eyes find nothing.

Careful not to wake her mom, Sam climbs into the fluffy bed, the sheets warm and welcoming. As she drifts off, she hears his voice like a whisper in the wind,

“Night Sammy.”

#until dawn #josh washington #sam giddings #ud josh #ud sam #jossam #until dawn fanfiction #jossam fanfiction #ghost au #ghosts #my writing

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just-one-more-wip · 5 years ago

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See you in hell

A 16 year old boy has just lost his grandpa who's thoroughly despised by the everyone in his family and pretty much shunned. Everyone except for him.

Grandpa was a piece of shit. At least that's what mama always spouted.

"Your grandfather.. was a forever work in progress." Came my dad, eyebrows always clenched together as he'd spoke.

"That man had no empathy, no respect for his family and not one ounce of good well rounded personality!" Grandma would rattle on anytime anyone brought up the subject of the man. "Why'd you marry him then?" Someone would question. Though they shouldn't. You should never ask grandma why she does anything.

"Nice dick." She'd state with zero reluctance. "Easy lay." Her words echoing to anyone who would hear them. And unfortunately people had to hear.

They talked about grandpa like that while he was still alive but at least mama and dad had the courtesy to let it be home business. Grandma sure didn't care who heard her. Especially after grandpa moved out and bought his own place far far away from as he called it, "her batshit craziness."

Everyone that wasn't apart of the family wanted far away from grandma. Afraid she'd taint their children's ears or spew profanities if they didn't agree with her old timely beliefs. But everyone in the family wanted away from grandpa. Which is why he didn't get a funeral. Why he was dead for weeks before anyone even found out. And why I'm the one one standing in front of his lopsided tombstone with a black tie, dark green winter jacket, black tee shirt and black jeans on. Just talkin to his dead body.

Cause unlike everyone else, grandpa was the only one in the family worth talkin to. He was honest as they came. Always sittin on his old orange rusted couch, littered with stains because he got it from a junkyard. Cigar tucked between his lips with a brandy on the rocks in one hand and the tv remote in the other. His laugh would boom around the small living room. And if you made him snort hard enough you could make smoke puffs drift out of his mouth and nose till disappeared into thin air. Cause grandpa had a real laugh and when I was with him, I had a real laugh too.

"I don't have flowers granpa. But you already knew that." He'd know cause no man in our town carried flowers around unless they didn't know where they were. "How's hell? cause there's no way you're in heaven." If the family hated grandpa and there really was a heaven or hell then grandpa was straight downward for the million and one times he yelled at Jesus while drunk off his ass. I smile at the thought. Grandpa definitely wouldn't wanna be dressed in white with goodie goodies anyway.

"What's the afterlife like granpa? You said you blacked out so hard once you saw it. Is it still full of pussy?" My legs hurt so I sink down closer to the earth. I can almost smell the strong deep stench of cigar. "I'm not sad about you dying granpa, I mean you wouldn't want me to bitch about this. I promise I won't.... Doesn't stop me from wishin I knew.. That I could've said one more thing."

He doesn't answer. Nothing and no one does. There are no birds around here. No roads for honking cars. It's a straight up walk across a forever abandoned park to a maze of tombstones. It'd be almost peaceful if the entire town wasn't filled with more or less the same kinda silence.

My neck cranes upwards towards the trees and I bask in the slight grey that peaks through the thick branches stretching back and forth. Like the trees are holding hands or something. And after a bit of just watching, maybe waiting for a sound or a voice or some shit, my eyes begin to flutter shut.

----

"Granpa, I wanna try!"

"Huh? Wha?"

Tiny hands pointed to the glass of brown liquid on the table, only enough of the drink left for one gulp.

"You wanna try scotch?"

The young boy jittered, enthusiasm coloring his face. "Oh please granpa, let me try!"

"Quit all that whinin." The older man waved the kid off with a deep sigh low from his belly. "How ol you say you were again?"

"I'm almost 6 granpa."

The older man huffed, puffs of grayish white smoke exiting his mouth with the tiny coughs that fell from his lips. "Really and you tried alcohol before?"

The boy's eyes drifted away for a second, landing back on his grandpa with a slight twitch of his nose and raise of one eyebrow. "Ye I have. Mama let's me sometimes."

"That so?" The older man shook his head with a laugh that forced smoke to crest from his lips. He grabbed the drink from the old wooden table placing it in the young boy's hands. "You gonna wanna swirl that around before you sip it. Go on swirl." He coaxed

He watched all the awe on the young boy's face. Took in every bit of the exuberant personality before him. The little guy was definitely spinning the glass too fast though. "Eh! You waste one drop and I'ma end you."

The pint-sized male's eyes grew a little wider, he stopped swirling the drink in his hand, face coming closer to the mouth of the glass to peer inside. Without another word he threw caution to the wind gulping the entire drink down in one swallow just like grandpa always did.

He immediately gagged and coughed, dropping the glass on the table with a loud clatter. The old man next to him bloomed with delight stretching over his feature as he tilted his head back with loud unrelenting laughter. The small boy continued to gag holding his throat in despair as he rolled around on the floor which only made the older male's laughter more horrendous.

"Granpa!.." The boy cried with what little strength he could muster. The liquid burned and it messed with his throat worse then cough medicine. "It.... Hurts!" He writhed

"You'll never lie again just to drink adults stuff though now will ya?" The old man cackled bringing his cigar up to his lips. "And you better not go pukin on the carpet."

----

My eyes flutter open, still locked on the shades of grey just beyond the tree branches.

Grandpa wasn't like anybody else in town. There will never be another guy like grandpa.

"Hey, you can't sit here." A man's voice grabbed my attention from the corner of vision. It's weird to actually hear someone so far out where there's no one.

"Why the fuck not?" I questioned with little empathy for the drained look on the man's face. He leaned on his shovel with weary eyes.

"Because.. It's a graveyard." Normally I wouldn't get up and walk away but I have nothing more to say. Not to grandpa and not to this guy with the shovel.

My feet immediately hurt the second I'm back up again but I keep moving. Between all the coffins both new and old. Around the stump in the old abandoned park and past the broken swing set.

I feel a vibration from my phone as I'm leaving the park. It's probably mama bitching about how she didn't want me to go out today. I almost don't pull out my phone. Almost don't look at the screen in front of me.

But I do for just a split second. One split second just before I hear an ear splitting horn in my peripheral. One split second before I see nothing at all anymore.

#writing #writing quotes #writing inspiration #writeblr #writing tips #writing motivation #inspiration #Callum writes #see you in hell #teens #freelance writing #personal work #first draft #current wip

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southerneldritch · 5 years ago

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It begins (Chapter 1)

The sun was not burning hot so much as painfully reminding him how important it was. High in the southern sky the heat pushed the humidity around enough to make the small shaded porch feel more like a sauna that a place for reprieve. However, now a good 3 feet down and still digging into the grave or one Mr. Lewis Rothburg, it left him wondering if the shade would prove more comfortable than it had once provided.

Stopping a moment to wipe his brow he looked around the long abandoned cemetery. Each stone edifice, once a proud reminder of capable men and women who in their lives had done great things...and horrible things, now standing derelict deep in the woods surrounded by an ever encroaching nature. A slight smirk crossed his lips, "The seem lucky." he thought to himself aloud. "They have no issue with what horrors are coming...they really needn't worry." He laughed as his shovel struck something hard and the sound of hollow wood thunked through the air. "Shit." He muttered.

There were two distinct things that immediately ran through his mind. Either the cemetery back in the day was notably unconcerned with health and safety, thusly the coffins were buried much shallower than they should be or, more worryingly, the man who sold the information about the location of Mr. Rothburg also warned that the graveyard had been used by criminals for hiding all sorts of things. Typically speaking the actions of the criminal world seldom would have bothered him but the fear that Mr. Rothburg was no longer where he was supposed to be greatly shifted the situation from simple to complicated.

With little to no options left for him he began to dig and free whatever thing he had just struck with his shovel. The sun glaring at the actions below as with some considered effort the lid of a coffin was uncovered. The sound of cicadas filling the air he took a deep breath and jammed a crowbar around the edge of the lid. With a groan and firmly planted feet the casket lurched open. "Well fuck." He let the words lose themselves in the summer heat as he looked down in disbelief.

The tires of the old truck did not grip well on what could best be called a trail, perhaps a path, either way he didn't care. With a foot down hard the engine putted and pushed all it had as the vehicle flew through the thick of the woods back towards a motel on the outskirts of town. Skidding onto the actual road the cargo stowed in the back of the truck slid and banged hard against the side causing the skid of the tires to feel far more dramatic than how sharp a turn he actually made. Despite the weight the very coffin sized and shaped container, it didn't break.

With a grinding of gears and feet hard down on the brake the vehicle came to a stop in most of one parking space outside the Quiet Glenn motel. He slammed the door not so much from panic as much as the sweat that had covered him had caused it to slip quickly from his grasp. The setting sun still fighting the cold of the darkness that was now trying to cool the area. He threw the motel door open and as abruptly as it had made such a calamitous entry the cheap door was resting back in its sill with him sliding the lock into place. His heart was racing but he wasn't tired, turning around and smudging cemetery dirt across his shirt he looked up at a surprised woman sitting at the small table near the back of the room. Normally her thick raven curls of hair would have been accenting each side of her face but instead were now tightly pinned up, slightly damp with a glob of something smeared across a part of the her hair. She chuckled while setting down a slice of pizza back into the box on the table. "So it went well?" The question was sincere but purposely teasing in tone.

"Well!?" He exclaimed walking towards the table. "No I think we can categorically label it as poorly." His voice laid out a frustration that was punctuated with his glare at the tv which was currently displaying some sort of reality show, before flopping over onto the bed. "How well do you know Virgil?" His words muffled by the pillow he spoke into.

“Most of my life.” She cocked her head to the side and grasped the pizza box before standing and asking, “Did he give us bad info?”

“No, if anything the info was very correct.”

“So what’s wrong?”

“Several things, most of all, how well do you trust Virgil?” He pulled his face from the bed and sat up on the end of the stiff excuse for bedding provided by the motel. “Also, what the hell is in your hair?”

“I didn't have anything else to do so I’m bleaching some bit of my hair. It looked fun. Anyways, I know him pretty well, he’s known me and my family for a long time.” Her eyes grew concerned as she looked down at him sitting on the edge of the bed. “What happened?”

Drawing in a long breath he looked up at her and the box of pizza and reached out to take a slice. “We’ll at the very least I suppose we can feel satisfied that Mr. Rothburg was where Virgil said he would be.” Pausing to take a bite of the room temperature slice while again finding reason to glare at the TV. “Sadly he also mentioned that such a place tends to attract the more unsavory of folk.”

A smile crossed her lips as she plopped down heavily beside him. “Aren’t we the unsavory types? Somewhat doom and gloom, all manors of suspicious actions, illegal activity and occult hoobie dooby?”

“Not that sort of unsavory, more of the ‘we kill to accomplish our goals’ sorts of unsavory.” He said with a grimace while now looking at the slice of room temperature pizza in his hand. “We have never sought to injure, Mel.” he added with an impressively serious tone.

Placing the box on the bed just behind them both Mel asked, “So are you going to explain what has you in a such a mood or do I have to keep playing 20 questions?”

“I wish it we simple but it feels like it's worse.” he muttered

“Let's start simple.” She hated it when he acted like this, always a man with a plan and if things shift up, big ol grump for a hot minute. “Was Rothburg there?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's him.”

“Good. So first problem?”

“The coffin was roughly three feet down.”

“Only three feet?”

“Yup, first issue.” He stated after taking a bite of the pizza. “Do we have beer?” he added.

“Sure do, but so what if he was buried in a shallow grave. It wasn't like the townsfolk were gonna respect him"

“True. However, there is more to this mood than just interesting burial habits.” He stood and walked over to the small whirring mini fridge and plucked a beer out. “I don't think this is the first time Mr. Rothburg has been dug up.”

“What, why would anyone other than us want to dig him up!?” She was beginning to understand his mood. “What possible reason would they dig him up and then put him back!?”

“Like I said.” he began walking towards the door gesturing for her to follow. “How well do you trust Virgil?”

She got up and followed, both stepped outside into the hot twilight. The sun still determined to broil the area before being slowly beaten back by the encroaching night sky. They walked over to the back of the truck and swung open the tailgate door. He hopped into the back and grabbed an edge of the coffin lid and looked up at her, “Come here I don't want anyone to see.”

She stepped in beside the door and looked down at the coffin lid his fingers were gripping. “Well enough build up, lets see it!”

With a sudden jerk and a loud crackling of metal hinges set in wood the lid lifted open. Light from the now buzzing parking lot fluorescents poorly lit what was laying in the coffin. First and foremost was the body of Mr. Lewis Rothburg, clearly it was his twisted form as the shin bones had been separated from his legs and placed under his chin. Though a considerable amount of decay had occurred it was also still plain to see that the jaw of Mr. Rothburg had been wired shut with crude metal studs and copper wire, ensuring even in death that he would no longer speak damnable words.

No, the condition of Mr. Rothburg was not the reason for shock or even a turned stomach full of pizza delivery, the reason that both of them looking into the coffin had slack jaws and bewilderment across their faces was because nestled around Rothburg’s remains were countless stacks of cash, gold, intricate medallions with arcane symbols and some weapons of peculiar design.

“What the hell is all of that!?” she exclaimed before realizing there were too few tenants in this particular southern motel outskirts of town to justify shouting without drawing attention. In a more collected tone while he began to shut the coffin. “Why is Rothburg swimming in cash?”

“I'm sorry, but did anything about my entry and line of questions sound like I have more ideas than you do now.” Hopping out the truck he closed and locked the doors, he suddenly felt very watched and disliked the notion. “Let’s get back inside and figure out our next move.” A cool breeze of night air brushed passed them both, typically a wonderful feeling now oddly ominous. They both went back inside the motel room before turning to locked the door behind them he added, “And wash your goddamn hair.”

#paranornal #supernatural #writing #mine #J #southern eldritch #eldritch #faceless postmaster #horror #terror #cosmic horror

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adelmortescryche · 7 years ago

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yoimafiaweek - day 5

AN: I. Apologize in advance, @yoimafiaweek. In my defense, the tags practically begged me to go this route. You did say go the angst route. That said, here’s my fill for day 5, ‘Healing’.

Premise: tw for character death. Victor’s a hitman for the Russian Mob, Yuuri’s a businessman. But, I promise, this sticks firmly to the prompt ‘Healing’, though it does combine with ‘Smoke’ to some extent. It’ll hurt, but this fill is aimed at being a cathartic narrative. Have some Mari POV!

She’s not sure if she should be surprised or not, seeing the familiar sight of a tall, pale haired man standing right at the spot she’s headed to.

Mari paused in place, breathing in deeply. Wondered if it wasn’t too late to just turn around and head back home. But, no, she’d already avoided coming with her parents, earlier on. Hadn’t been able to stomach it, so she’d walked out of the house and ignored the sad look her father shot her as she stepped past him. She’d proceeded to spend nearly the entire day outside, drifting through their down. Down to the beach. Most people who’d seen her out had been kind enough to give her soft nods of acknowledgement before heading their own way, not bothering her more than necessary. The evening mist had already set in, a mix of the ever present humidity and the chilling air, enough so that Mari had found herself walking the paths of her childhood home in a misty haze, the road just growing dimmer in the growing twilight.

No companion by her side except her pack of cigarettes, which she’d nearly gotten through within the day.

…he’d have been so angry with her.

It’s like a signal set off through the space between them, really. She doesn’t even need to get any closer, or do anything. Victor is somehow able to tell anyway, his gaze switching from the stone to her in a smooth arc, catching, stilling. And while it’s about as difficult to meet his gaze now as it had been, three years ago, and in each year after that… she forces herself to step forward anyway. Because, really, she owed it to all of them.

“Mari,” he murmured, when she pulled up beside him, tongue still stumbling sharper than really necessary on the ‘r’.

“Fag?” she threw back brusquely, shaking her still open pack at him.

It makes him blink, and give an involuntary snort of laughter, reaching out without complaint. His fingers still over the cardboard and packing when he notices there’s only two left, but he gingerly tugged one out anyway, not saying anything.

Good. Mari isn’t quite sure she’s ready to hear anything about her smoking habits from Victor, of all people. It would hit too close to home.

Too close and but not enough- what the fuck was she supposed to do with the gaping hole in her ches-

“So. How’ve you been?”

The words are rough, especially so since they’d tumbled free of her mouth before she could say anything else more incriminating.

Victor gave her a long look over the click and flash of his lighter, and didn’t bother saying anything, instead taking a long drag of his cigarette. The smoke that escapes his lips and nostrils bleeds into the murk of the mist laying low over the graveyard, softly limning the stone monuments surrounding them. Mari feels her heart stutter inside her chest, and looks away, blindly shaking out the last stick left in her pack.

“Here,” he said, reaching out, and she obligingly ducked in to get a light.

It’s… hard. To meet his gaze, even now. Largely because there’s a beast breathing slow and deep somewhere in the vicinity of her gut. Just waiting to be unleashed, so she could get her due.

Her brother’s blood is on the hands of this man, and she can’t even hate him for it. Not when he hates himself so much more than she ever could.

So, unable to match gazes with him, she turns her attention back to their family shrine, eyes instead tripping over Yuuri’s name, already beginning to look worn in. It makes her blink, a persistent itch tugging at the corners of her eyes, but she ignores it, making herself take a quick glance around the family grave.

Freshly washed, and an offering set into place. Flowers, aside from the ones her parents left in the morning. But that would be Victor, again. He might be a gaijin, but he sure as hell wouldn’t let his ignorance of her, their, culture let him disrespect her brother’s final resting place.

Victor sighed, the sound hoarse through the smoke filling his lungs, and Mari wants to choke.

“You shouldn’t have come. You know you shouldn’t have come.” She bit out under breath, fingers clenching around the cigarette she still held. Nearly burning herself. It didn’t really make a difference to her, though. She’d burnt herself on them enough times in the last few years.

Victor doesn’t answer, and she’s tempted to throw her cigarette right in his face. Instead, she gets it back to her lips to take a deep, calming drag that settles her, just a bit.

It’s probably for the best she hadn’t stopped by the Nishigori household to see if Yuuko-chan was interested in keeping her company. While the younger girl wouldn’t have taken any of Victor’s strong-and-silent shit, she’d probably have made enough noise to attract unwanted attention to them.

“You do know that your being here like clockwork every year on this day makes it easy to find you, Nikiforov,” the words hissed out of her in a gruff rush. Not as emotional as what had been clawing to be let out before, but maybe just as honest for that.

They made Victor shift in place, and he reached out for her empty pack so he could tap out the ash inside. She didn’t say anything more when she handed it over, and her patience was probably what actually got him to speak in the end.

“Maybe. But I can handle myself. And this is more important,” he said, soft, his accent lining up oddly with his Japanese. So much more fluent than the previous year.

The fact that he’s still trying to learn makes the empty space in her chest throb.

They remain in companionable silence, after that. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did before, it doesn’t strain her nerves. The beast sleeping within her is content waiting for another day, breathing deep. When they finish their cigarettes, both putting them out on their heels before dropping their filters into her empty pack, for the first time, she feels ready to look up and stare him in the eye until he relents, quietly following after her when she leaves.

She has no words to speak. She’s spoken her pain to the small shrine they have at home, spoken it in the dark of night when her parents are fast asleep, in the halflight of dawn when the air seems to stand still. She’s stood before Yuuri’s picture, then, settled down on her knees, craving a fag and telling herself no because there isn’t quite anything like her baby brother’s two dimensional smiling face to make a twinge of guilt run through her.

Victor doesn’t glance back either. He’s probably said all he has to say.

Her mother’s seen him, on the edges of the graveyard when they go together in the mornings. Just close enough so they know he’s there, but far enough that he could easily draw away if they attempted to say anything. Mari has no idea why he chooses to stay when she comes, but she suspects it’s because it’s too late in the day and he’s too raw and yearning to back away even when he wants to.

She understands the feeling. She feels it every time she sees him, after all. Standing like an earthbound spirit in front of her brother’s grave. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that he was tied to the grave, for all that his name wasn’t writ on the stone like family would be. That she sees him on Yuuri’s death day each year at the same place, and he just… never leaves.

The thought makes her sick to the stomach. It couldn’t be what Yuuri wanted. This couldn’t be what Yuuri wanted. So-

“You should stay. At the onsen.” She said, the words tumbling out of her again, when they’re back on the streets. Victor ignores her, of course.

He looks alien in the dark of a Hasetsu night, with them surrounded by the small winding streets and old shops and residences of her and Yuuri’s childhood. The mist had finally lifted, making it easier to watch their steps, but she keeps glancing at him instead. Fitted fully in a black suit and waistcoat, down to a heavy black trench coat over the top. The black of his tie is stark against the white of his shirt. He’s so perfectly put together he looks like he belongs on a magazine cover, or in some American spy movie.

It feels like a lie, because she remembers him looking the same when he’d appeared at the onsen well after they’d been to the crematorium and come back, and everyone had gone home. Mari’s mom had taken one look at his pale face and the emptiness of his eyes in his head and had tugged him inside without even an ounce of hesitation, no matter that it was a social faux pas for him to be under their roof at all. He’d been perfectly put together even as he gracefully took off his expensive black shoes, had followed her mother in to the family shrine, and had collapsed there like a puppet whose strings had been cut, not moving for the rest of the night. Or the nights after. Not until he just disappeared, one day, without leaving any word of where he was going, or what he planned to do next.

The emptiness in his eyes back then had made her think she didn’t want to know, what he planned to do. She almost didn’t think she’d ever see him again, not until she died herself and met both him and her brother on the other side.

Another glance to the man walking beside her makes her think that he looks… better, now. More at peace. Still tired, and a little lost, but some of the emptiness had left his eyes to make way for something else, finally. Even if she couldn’t pin point what exactly it was.

He’s closer to her in age than her brother had been, she knows. He could have been another brother to her, in another life.

He comes to an abrupt stop when he recognizes the direction Mari’s been leading them in, but she just gets a hand out and around his elbow to keep pulling him forward, ignoring the tight sound that erupted from his chest.

“I can’t,” he said, the closer they got to the onsen. “Mari, please, I can’t.”

“You can, and you will.” She returned, blunt, and kept pulling him onwards.

By the time they’re in sight of the entrance to Yu-topia Katsuki, to her home, he doesn’t look nearly as well put together as he did before. She ignores it, though, and ignores the way his eyes have gotten pinched at the corners. And the way he seems to be gasping for breath a whole lot more than he really should – she knows he’s got a whole host of reasons to be more fit than her.

It’s like something cracks open the moment they step through inside, pausing at the genkan to switch their shoes out for slippers. He staggers forward, and almost collapses on top of her. It’s a good thing she’d been expecting something like this, though, because she’d probably have collapsed like a sack of rice with a slit in its side if she hadn’t. His height and weight were more than enough to overwhelm her when she was off her guard.

Even if she was certain she could get a punch in his gut to make him stagger back, if she had to. She just didn’t want to.

“Y’know, you and my brother are more alike than either of you ever thought you were,” she said, getting his right arm over her shoulders, and ignoring the pained noise that escaped him at her words. “You’re both so melodramatic. You’d think you’d have learnt better, by now. You’re certainly old enough.”

He looks like he’s going to keel right over if she tries to move him without any additional support, so she gets her free arm around his waist, easily holding him steady. It looked like years of managing the onsen’s more drunken day guests was finally paying off, because Victor had about as much control over his long, unwieldly limbs as they did.

There’s a gasp from the front of the entryway, and when Mari looks up, it’s to find her mother standing there, hands clasped over her mouth and looking like she wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry.

“Tadaima,” Mari said blandly, and didn’t say anything when her mom rushed to get some slippers out for them both, seeing as Victor was all but indisposed and she was fresh out of hands to do anything herself.

“He offered to have me adopted into your family, you know.”

Mari blinks at him dully, head resting against her fist and a cup of sake grasped in the other. Her father’s dozing beside her, definitely done for the night, while her mother had stepped away into the kitchen to pick up something salty for them to end the night with.

Victor’s staring into his ochoko like it contains the mysteries of the universe, not the last dregs of the sake she’d topped it with a moment ago. The image he offers up makes her snort, casually ignoring the wounded look it makes him shoot her way.

The words themselves, though…

It makes her wonder, really. What the hell had happened between Yuuri and this guy, in those few months her brother disappeared off the map in St. Petersburg? He’d headed there for a business conference, a trip that wasn’t even expected to exceed 48 hours, and the next thing she knew, he’d been calling them from a burner phone and saying that he would be out of touch for a while. She’s heard of whirlwind romances, but she hadn’t thought Yuuri would disappear on one and bring back a blushing bride at any point.

Not that Victor was a blushing bride. Even imagining it makes her want to cackle a little helplessly, because it was a terrible mental image, one that actually sends a bite of pain through a chest when she thinks of just how much fun it could have been to tease her brother about it.

Her baby brother. Off romancing Russian hitmen on business trips, calling to say that he was probably running away to America. Coming back home on ice, with a specter of a man following the shadow of what remained of him.

A specter of a man who somehow looked a lot more human now, and relatable, with all his layers thrown off, left in just a thin white shirt and his trousers, the buttons at the top gaping open because he gave in to the need to breathe after downing some five cups of sake or so. At this point, he’s barely a specter, only a man. A tired and sad man who smiled up at her mother when she came back, patting him gently on the top of his head.

“You should stay, Vicchan,” she said, in halting English. For all that she was fluent with the language, and managed well enough with any foreign tourists they might have, she’d usually just deferred to Mari and Yuuri, or even her husband, more interested in making good food and keeping everyone’s bellies full.

Her words take a moment to register, but when they do, Mari is already ready to catch the cup when it slips from Victor’s grasp.

“You should stay,” her mother said. “Yuuri would want you to stay. Even if he isn’t here anymore, we could adopt you. And you could stay.”

Oh wow. He actually looked like he was going to cry, there. Mari shot her mother a look, but her mom didn’t bother to acknowledge it.

Okay then. Apparently they were going the hard route. Gotcha.

(No one seemed to believe her when she told people that her mother and Yuuri were the cruel ones. She and her dad were just big softies at heart – but her mom could cut people to the bone with words as easily as she could do the same with her kitchen knives.)

(Yuuri had been the same. Just the same. His taste in lovers had to account for something, after all.)

“I- I couldn’t. Katsuki-san, I- Hiroko-san-”

“Mama, Vicchan.” her mother says, with about as much inexorable strength in her words as the tide of the open sea.

Mari almost thinks she’s going to see him shatter into a thousand pieces all over again. But, instead, he finds strength in some untapped reserve, and blindly reaches for her hand so he could grab at the cup she’d just caught. She lets him, because really, her mom was being hard enough that she’d have needed a drink in his place, too.

He looks almost pathetically grateful when she leans over to pour him another cup of sake.

Her mom just kept on smiling, comfortably, settling herself down beside Victor, who looks like he’s not sure if he should stay in the same place or attempt to crawl away feebly.

You’d think he’d be made of firmer stuff than this.

You’re being mean, the Yuuri voice in her head murmured, sounding amused, and she sighed, pouring herself another cup as well.

When she checks in on him the next morning, sleeping in the room that used to be Yuuri’s but is now just a guest room, he’s still there. Dozing in faint streams of light coming through the window, looking like it’s the first time he’s rested in years.

“We need to leave. It’s not safe here, you know it’s not.”

“Yuuri- dorogoy (дорогой)-”

“Vitya, we need to leave.”

“But- what if- Yuuri I can’t lose you.”

The look on Yuuri’s face when he turns to look back is as steady as a mountain weathering a storm. It makes Victor’s heart ache, a biting sweetness that fills him to the brim, almost spilling over. He loves this man. It’s a present thought, a fear - he loves this man.

“We can go to Hasetsu,” Yuuri says. “We’ll be safe there. I know we will.”

Okay. Okay, Yuuri. Okay.

#yoimafiaweek #day five #prompt: healing #prompt: smoke #pairing: viktuuri #victuuri #tw: character death #catharsis #katsuki yuuri #katsuki mari #victor nikiforov #katsuki hiroko #my writing

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