#i think i have to just start packing asap just in case

[oatmealwrites]

A Night to... Forget? Ch.1

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Aizawa x Eidetic memory! Law student! Reader

(For reference I aged up Keigo (Hawks to 25 ish just for the ages of you and Aizawa to make sense)

I will also use the pro hero last names for the first chapter with their pro name next to them in case you don't recognize

Word Count: 5.5k

SYNOPSIS: You never really felt like you had a quirk. Sure you technically did, but tons of people have been born with eidetic memories in the past, even before quirks became mainstream. You gave up the dream of being a pro-hero like your friends and instead found comfort in support through law. After a particularly draining case you assisted on, you find yourself dragged out to a bar with your best friend Keigo (hawks). The whole night was a bad idea, taking Keigo up on his drinking game was worse, especially when Aizawa was there. It’s the man you can’t help yourself pining over, and it’s the one night you can’t remember.

Masterlist

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With the final tap of the judge’s wooden gavel, you rise to your feet and let out a sigh of any remaining energy you had left. The court marshals walked over to the defendant and swiftly cuffed the villain despite his loud and physical efforts to resist; your eyes following the marshals slowly escorting the man out of the room and noting the way his protests deafened once the doors swung closed.

“Nice work out there Y/N.”

You look over past the mid-height railing that separates the spectators from the court floor and lock eyes with detective Tsukauchi. A small smile on his face as he stands perfectly upright and attent.

“Thanks detective -”

“How many times do I have to say you can just call me Tsukauchi?”

You bite your tongue and shake your head lightly, now shuffling files into your soft leather briefcase and packing up.

“Right Tsukauchi. Thanks for your support, I didn’t realize you were going to be coming to the sentencing today.”

The detective adjusts his collar and scans the crowd of heroes, attorneys, policemen, and spectators slowly shuffling for the exits, obviously searching for someone, “It's always nice to see the next generation of people fighting for justice in action.”

You pause and raise an eyebrow; understanding there’s another reason for his attendance. “Toshinori (All Might) is probably in the lobby by now.” You continue sliding the court files into your bag, one by one, only focused on getting out of the courthouse and into bed.

Tsukauchi looks back at you, a slightly shocked expression on his face before he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck and smiles, “Right, thanks. I’ll see you around the station when you pick up files for your next case.”

You give a slight wave off to him and turn to sling the straps of your briefcase over your head and across your chest, ready to finally go home and sleep. Turning your head, your eyes follow the prosecutor you extern for walking back from his short talk with the judge who was now packing up as well.

“Nice job kid!” He gives you a slight pack on the back and pulls his cellphone from his pocket, scrolling through his contacts briefly,  “I’m gonna have the secretary forward the followup paperwork over to you to file. Think you can get it done by Monday? We have a few more cases already pending and this one needs to close ASAP.”

You grip the straps of your briefcase and do your best not let your exhaustion show. This prosecutor is a big deal in your externship and unfortunately that also means most of your free time gets sacrificed. Instead of letting out the sigh that was sitting in your lungs, you swallow thickly and nod once, “Of course. I’ll start on it right away. Do you want me to begin memorizing the next case’s notes as well?”

The prosecutor snaps his fingers while looking up from his phone and slings his own briefcase over his shoulder, “Are you sure your quirk is eidetic and not mindreading?”

He laughs at his own joke before walking out of the court floor, past the spectator stands, and into the lobby, not bothering to even say goodbye.

You stand there for a moment, reviewing the plans you made this weekend that would now need to be rearranged. Meeting classmates in the library for group study (which was really group reading 200+ pages of law textbooks) should be uninterrupted at the usual meeting time of 9am.

Your report to UA might need a slight tweak, but nothing more than a few hours. Before every case you worked on, you always met with the pro-hero who had captured the villain who you would be assisting in prosecuting. Every detail memorized and ready for paperwork and eventually the courtroom floor.

The main issue would be Keigo. With a slight sigh you push your hair out of your face and pull up his contact, ready to flake on him and his movie night for the third week in a row. Stepping out of the court room floor you make your way out to the lobby and shift in between the groups of people to a small open area near the front windows.

You click the ‘dial’ button and raise the phone to your ear, looking out the window and the setting sun bringing a warm glow to the city. You hear a soft ring once, and then twice before you notice a cellphone from across the lobby ringing at the same interval. Before your eyes can even fully adjust to the sunset’s glare, you spot your best friend from across the room holding up his phone with a coy smile and heading to you.

You end the call and shuffle forward while sliding your cellphone into your blazer pocket, “What are you doing here?”

Keigo’s usual hero uniform was replaced with a gray t-shirt and black denim jeans; either on the way home or just coming from it. He casually glides a hand through his hair, pushing it back and letting a few stray strands fall back over his forehead again.

“Came to pick you up obviously.”

You raise an eyebrow and adjust the straps on your shoulder, “Huh? For what?”

Keigo side steps to allow other people to pass by and smoothly guides you out of the way with a slight pressure on your upper arm, “There’s a group going out to a bar to celebrate. A handful of pro heroes from UA and such are going, plus I’m sure some of your law school buddies will be around.”

You tilt your head, “Celebrate what?”

The lobby now getting busier and busier with spectators, police officers, and more leaving, Keigo gently grabs your elbow and pulls you near the vending machines by the exit doors.

“Celebrate the fact it’s Friday…?” He scratches the back of his head and laughs, “Ok well it’s more like everyone has been super busy catching villains and uhh..-”

“Prosecuting”

“Prosecuting,” he snaps his fingers, “so it was like a group decision to take some time off and relax.”

You squint at him, “Uh huh? I have a lot of work to do and so do you as well anyways,” You turn to the exit and Keigo quickly pivots to block your path.

“I knew you were gonna say that,” he pokes your shoulder lightly, “and I knew you were probably gonna flake on movie night again this week.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and purse your lips slightly at being read so easily. It’s not like you were trying to avoid him, you just had way too much on your plate at the moment. Your silence is answer enough for him and he smiles in victory

“Ok then it’s settled. Come have a few drinks and the weekend is all yours to do your boring school stuff.”

You shove his shoulder lightly, knowing you could never convince him otherwise, “Ok fine. And I want it known that I don’t enjoy doing homework or externship duties over hanging out.”

You both push off the wall and maneuver the crowd to the large wooden double doors of the exit and descend the stone stairs to the small courtyard. The sun quickly setting causes nearby business signs to flicker on a warm glow of colors up and down the street.

You continue walking down the courtyard and head towards the nearby parking lot and main road; a metro station sign illuminating a portion of the sidewalk.

“Who’d you even get to agree to this anyways?”

Keigo hums and looks down at you from the corner of his eyes.

“You said there was a group,” you run a hand through your hair, now wondering if your appearance is even nice enough to warrant going out. The slight breeze brings small goosebumps to your legs; the pencil skirt and opaque black tights not providing much warmth.

“Oh.. you know them all so don’t worry,” he stops at the escalator entrance to the metro station, “Seriously just relax ok? You look great and you’ll have a great time.”

His touch is gentle on the small of your back as he lets you step onto the moving stair in front of him. You rock back and forth in your kitten heels, balancing on the ridges of the escalator and looking up at Keigo.

“Am I gonna be the only one dressed like this?”

He pulls a pack of gum from his pocket and offers you a piece, throwing up an eyebrow in the process, “Hm? You’re dressed fine. You know, you worry too much.”

You throw the minty gum into your mouth and step off the escalator to scan your transit card at the metro entrance gate, “Couldn’t you just like, fly me home so I could at least drop my briefcase off?”

Keigo follows you past the scanners and towards the platform, he puts his hand out to hold your bag without even saying a word. You scoff and roll your eyes, but sling the straps off anyways and place the weight in his hand. He flings it over his shoulder and stands at the edge of the platform, watching the tv sign estimate of the next train’s arrival, “That would take too long. Everyone is probably already there.”

You suck the inside of your cheek between your molars and sway on your heels again absentmindedly, only stopping when Keigo’s hand places a weight on your shoulder. Before you can even speak a yellow glow lights up the end of the platform walls and a strong gust blows back your hair and blazer fabric.

His hand only leaves your shoulder once the automatic doors slide open and the glow of the train car’s fluorescent lights pour onto the platform. Keigo steps on the train and maneuvers through a few people to secure a seat for himself and one for you across from him.

*******

The sun has completely set at this point with only the street lights, car headlights, and neon business signs glowing warmly onto the street. The bar in question is nice and secluded, but not in a questionable part of town, just a bit more residential. It’s only a few metro stops away from your friend’s apartment, and you’ve been here with Keigo more times than you can count.

Your heels click softly on the ground as you walk next to him, only stopping at the door to pry your bag open to look for your ID while Keigo holds it open. The bouncer recognizes him right away, giving a soft ‘Hawks’ upon seeing him despite the fact that nearly every time he visits you’re with him as well.

He opens the door for you and the warm air of the bar comfortably surrounds you; the music and chatter a distinct change from the quiet streets outside. It’s crowded, but not uncomfortably. Groups of people surround the billiards table, nearly every bar stool is taken, and the booths by the dance floor seemed mostly filled. It made sense given it’s Friday night.

As you work through a few bodies to approach the bar you give a slight elbow to Keigo, “It’s so dumb, why does he insist on checking my ID every time? It’s not like he hasn’t seen us both here before a million times.”

He laughs and guides you through a few bodies before pulling out two empty bar stools for you both to sit at, “It would be hard for anyone to forget this face.”

You roll your eyes and spin in the chair to face the bartender, your left hand now cradling your head while Keigo sits closely on your right side, “shut up…”

He laughs and shakes your shoulder, “Oh come on. Here, let me get us some shots,” he pauses and examines you for a moment, “wait, have you eaten yet?”

You shrug and look at bottles behind the bartender, trying to determine what shot you wanted, “Umm a few hours ago. Why don’t we just get food after? It always tastes better anyways.”

He snaps his fingers and hums, “Ohh ok ok. Sounds good, just don’t go getting shitfaced beforehand.”

You scoff and wave your hand at him, “Yea, yea… tequila?”

He smiles and leans on the counter, getting the bartender's attention while you survey the bar. Most are local residents and college kids but you spot a few groups of police officers and heroes in the back booths. Shifting in your seat to get a better view, you can make out the faces of Kayama (midnight), Tsukauchi, and Toshinori. With one more tilt of your head you then spot Yamada (present mic)  and Aizawa..

You spin in your barseat abruptly and nearly bump the lime in Keigo’s hands onto the counter. He pulls his hands back and furrows his eyebrows, “Hey watch out I almost-”

His gaze follows yours and you frantically look anywhere else and claw at him to not be so obvious.

“Ohhh I see,” The biggest shit-eaitng grin spreading across his face.

You sink your face into your palms, not bothering to worry if it smudges your makeup, “Shut up.”

Keigo keeps looking at Aizawa for an extra moment before spinning back towards you and kicking you gently under the bar counter.

 “To be fair, I didn’t even think he was gonna show,” he slides a shot glass over to you with his left hand, the limes sitting in his right.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was gonna be here?”

You take the shot glass and stare down at the liquid before Keigo slides a lime in your right hand.

“Ok so bad news, no salt.”

You glare at him, obviously there was worse news than that right now.

“He hates me.”

Keigo rolls his eyes, getting impatient and wanting to drink already, “He does not. He’s like that with everyone,” he lifts his shot glass up right below his lips, gently guiding your hand holding yours to mirror the position. “Now let’s drink already.”

You give him one last glance before downing the liquid with an intense grimace, the fire burning down your throat. You place the shot glass back on the counter and sink your teeth into the lime, letting the sour juice mask the intensity of the alcohol.

Keigo exhales roughly and sticks out his tongue slightly with a contorted face, “oh my g-,” he coughs before he can get words entirely out. The disruption causes a few heads to turn, but people return back to their conversations a moment later.

You peel the lime from your lips and shake your head lightly, “Ok, maybe a different brand next time.”

You wince and pop the lime into the empty shot glass then slide it back towards the bartender and before you can turn to Keigo, his hand is wiping a napkin on your chin.

“Jeez you made a mess-”

You scowl and take the paper from his hands to wipe your face but raise an eyebrow at his sudden shiver. His shoulders roll forward uncomfortably and he arches his spine like cold water got dumped on his back. Before you can ask if he’s alright, he sits back up and shakes his head, “Ugh, sorry. I just had, like a weird feeling or something.”

Laughter pours out from somewhere behind you, the patrons and heroes in the booths now blocked by the other customers in the bar. He shrugs and shakes his head, “Ok, another?”

“Honestly, yea.. I’m gonna need it if he’s here.”

Keigo rolls his eyes and holds up two fingers to the bartender, though he motions towards a different bottle on the rack this time, “Come on Y/N. He’s just got a stick up his ass, though maybe you could remov-”

“Augh, no. I don’t even have his phone number let alone a chance of anything besides being barely colleagues. He’s even left the room the moment I entered, and I was only at UA to help him prosecute one of the villains he caught. He even mumbled about being ‘unable to work with me’.”

“That didn’t happen.”

“I literally couldn’t forget it even if I tried.”

Keigo sniffs the new shot glass and makes a face in between ‘not good, but not bad’ and slides one over to you, “Your quirk is remember what you saw not what he said.”

You hunch over the shot and take a fresh lime from his hand, “It’s the same vibe though.”

Keigo throws the shot back with less of a dramatic reaction than before and digs his canines into the lime, “And yet you still have a thing for him? Kinda weird if you ask me.”

You follow suit in taking the shot and draining the juice from lime onto your tongue before frustratingly shaking your head, “I don’t!”

He raises an eyebrow with a deadpan.

“Ok, I don’t know why. I just do.”

Keigo stands up from the barstool and takes your briefcase, ready to join the rest of the group, “You just need to go on a date and stop hanging out with so many pencil pushers; it’s messing you up.”

With a hop off the stool, you straighten your skirt and follow him into the crowd of people, only weaving through a few groups before you approach the booth with everyone sitting and now looking up at you and Keigo expectedly.

“Hey! You guys made it!” Yamada booms from his position in the booth against the wall.

Keigo smiles and examines the seating arrangement. On the left booth, in the order from the wall to the dancefloor is Kayama, Toshinori, and Tsukauchi. On the right, from the wall out is Yamada and Aizawa.

You look at Keigo in a ‘don't’ you dare’ while he smirks back at you and slides next to Toshinori, leaving you sitting across from him and next to Aizawa. The wooden back of the booth creates an awkward angle and you arch forward to keep an upright position.

Kayama takes a sip from her drink and leans on the table, “We were just talking about the upcoming recess. Us teachers will have a week off with no school, not that it would apply to you guys though.”

There’s a pitcher on the table of a generic looking pale beer; Keigo makes a face asking permission and Tsukauchi gives a nod of approval. He pours you each a pint and you raise an eyebrow.

“Woa, letting loose tonight?”

Keigo smiles at Yamada and clinks his glass to yours, “Just celebrating the company.”

Aizawa shifts slightly beside you and takes a sip from his own drink, avoiding any comment in the conversation. His eyes linger in a scowl on Keigo for a moment before turning his attention to Yamada.

You stare at Keigo and silently curse him with your eyes for the seating arrangement while he leans back into the seat with the rim of his glass resting on his lower lips, enjoying the show in front of him.

“Why don’t we play a game everyone?”

The group turns to your friend waiting for him to elaborate.

“Just a simple drinking game, maybe… King’s Cup?

Tsukauchi rolls his eyes slightly. “That’s a bit childish no?”

Kayama smiles wide, “Oh it’ll be fun! Does anyone have any cards?”

Yamada smirks and slides a pack onto the table without missing a beat and the table erupts into excitement.

You find yourself a bit nervous at the proposal and tug at the collar of your button up shirt in slight heat. His stupid drinking games never end well.

While Yamada begins to shuffle the cards, you shimmy off your blazer, not wanting to spill anything on the overpriced fabric you expect to last you the end of law school.

“I can put it with mine, if you want.”

The voice is deep and curt and enough to make you finally look at the man sitting next to you. Aizawa’s hair tucked back into a half-bun with a few strands framing his face along with his signature 5 o’clock shadow indicating he’s been too tired to shave. He sits casually in a black long sleeve and matching black jeans, extending his hand to take your blazer.

“Oh, sure.. Thanks”

Without speaking, he takes the jacket and nudges Yamada’s arm to place it on the little ledge between the booth and the wall. Aizawa turns back to you once again before sipping on his drink and watching the ministrations ahead of him.

“Alright everyone, basic rules but we can remind each other as we go. Do the task associated with the card and have fun,” Keigo pauses and looks at the group, “Though what should we order to be the ‘king’s cup’.”

Toshinori raises an eyebrow at him meekly and holds his soda with both hands, “King’s cup?”

You sip your beer and lean into the booth, silently wishing a bank would be robbed and the entire table would be called into action.

“Whoever draws the fourth and final king from the deck has to drink it. The beverage can be whatever we want,” Keigo smirks at you, “ though preferably strong.”

You scoff and tilt your head further into the glass. Aizawa shifts in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back into the booth with you; his eyes on Keigo.

Toshinori scratches the back of his head, “Oh I see, I don’t drink though so maybe-”

“You can still drink your soda and play! If you choose the last king, you can decide who drinks it!” Yamada’s voice is as loud as the speaker's blaring music.

The group nods in agreement and you take bigger gulps of your drink, ignoring the way the two previous shots of tequila begin warming your skin further. Within 5 minutes the cards are arranged in a circle around a highball glass of long island iced tea.

“Alright everyone,” Kayama claps her hands, “Let’s start!”

******

It was a bad idea. Such a bad idea.

You’ve maybe been playing for 30 minutes and the entire table is to a point of tipsy that everything someone does is hilarious and no one can finish a sentence without a few slip ups. Toshinori is the only voice of reason, though his deflated self isn’t very convincing when he reminds people to hydrate.

The first round went fine with Yamada losing and downing the king’s cup as if it were water, and the table wasted no effort in upping the ante.  The pitchers of beer long empty; now shot glasses and cocktails littered the table with the King’s Cup being a strange concoction of several flavors of vodka, soda water, and orange juice.

“Allllright..” Yamada places his hand on the circle of cards and pulls one out before holding it close to his chest.

Tsuakauchi, who’s a dull red in the cheeks from the alcohol, has relaxed a bit and leans on the table, “Sooo..?”

“4 ….. FLOOR”

Immediately everyone shimmies in their seat to try and touch the floor without being the last one. You pivot from side to side trying to bend over in the booth without lifting your pencil skirt too high. By the time you find a way to lean over, everyone’s hand is already on the floor.

“Ha! Drink up Y/N.”

You scowl at Kayama while squirming into an upright position, both of your faces humming with warmth and flushing from the alcohol. Aizawa waits to grab a card, watching you sip your drink as punishment; coughing slightly, he peels his attention to the table and draws.

“3.. Me.”

His eyebrow twitches as the table howls with laughter at his bad luck. He rolls his eyes and takes a long sip from the jack and coke in his hands, though he watches you in his peripherals.

The table turns its attention to you. You watch Aizawa swallow his beverage and you gulp subconsciously at the sight, too tipsy to realize just how obvious your gaze is. Keigo nudges your shin from under the table and you break your gaze to focus back on the table; the red on your cheeks now from slight embarrassment.

Taking a card, you flip it over and toss it face up, “6 - chicks.”

Kayama smiles and lifts her drink to clink with yours “Yay! I was getting thirsty here ya know.”

Your body hums from the rush and you can feel any decision making skills you have left begin to evaporate out of you. Keigo smiles and leans forward on the table, mirroring your position of resting both elbows on the table, waiting for the next turn.

He flips a card over to reveal the first king, “Ha! Alright I get to make a new rule,” he taps his chin and smirks deviously at you.

“Whenever someone has to drink, the group gets to decide from which cup,” he pauses and looks at Toshinori, “ah but yours will always be nonalcoholic.”

Toshinori gives a thumbs up and the game continuess in a few more circles until your drink is nearly empty and you’ve had a sip from everyone else’s glass at this point. Yamada’s order was a fruity cocktail, Aizawa’s a strong jack and coke, Keigo and Tsukauchi sip on the highest % beer the bar has, and Kayama sips on a long island.

You reach forward to take a card and hold it to your chest to avoid anyone else seeing it first; deciding if it’s a 4 you would have a head start to the ground.

“Heyy you cheater!”

Keigo points at you from the table and swat his hand away while leaning back to avoid him.

“4!”

Instantly you rush to the ground and laugh when you’re the first one to touch, watching Aizawa’s hand reach the bottom last. You discard the card on the table and notice the way he sips his drink, facing the inner corner of the booth and away from you.

Keigo grumbles, though he didn’t even lose, before reaching out and flipping a card over, “Eight - mate.”

Your eyes widen and do their best to look anywhere but your friend, even taking the initiative to lean over and ask Toshinori about how Midoriya’s training was going.

“Y/N~ let’s drink together yea?”

You deflate in your seat and swirl your nearly empty drink in your hands, watching the way Keigo raises his glass to his lips and points at you to do the same. Aizawa doesn’t say anything, and he’s the only one quiet as the rest of the group ‘ooohhhhs’.

Without missing a beat Toshinori reaches forward and flips over a card, revealing the final King. The group’s excitement falters for a moment, everyone hunching over the table looking at the card and then him and then back at him again.

“You can’t drink it so-”

“You’ll decide who does.”

Yamada finishes Tsukauchi’s sentence and the group looks at Toshinori expectedly; the condensation of the strong cocktail punishment dripping down the glass and onto the table.

Toshinori looks around awkwardly and smiles gently at you, “Well since your drink is nearly empty… maybe you’d like this one?”

It feels like ice down your back and the current buzz of the alcohol already in your system makes you sway side to side in your seat lightly. You blink a few times while the group claps their hands in laughter, all grateful not to be the one to down the beverage.

Your hand grabs the glass and you raise the rim to your lips, taking a small sip before peeling back with a grimace. Everyone but Aizawa continues laughing while you kick Keigo from under the table, “You dick, this is barely anything besides vodka on ice with a splash of orange juice!”

“Drink up!”

Before you can raise the glass again a hand gently grabs your wrist and keeps it still; Aizawa looks focused at you.

“This is a bad idea,,” the table boos slightly but he doesn’t release his grasp, “how many have you had?”

You blink at him, your face flustered from the heat of the bar, the alcohol coursing through your system, and the feeling of him just inches away from your face.

“During the game..?”

“I saw you when you came in initially, you two went up to the bar first.”

When you can’t count the number, Aizawa turns to Keigo and furrows his brows at the man, “How many has she had?”

Keigo sits up before slumping back down on accident and drunkenly blinks at the drink in your hand, “she’s got one drink.”

Aizawa groans and watches you and Keigo become absorbed in conversation.

“No, I've definitely had more than one.”

“Well there’s only one in your hand so..”

“No Keigo,” Aizawa shifts at the sound of his name leaving your lips so casually, “Like before-before.”

“Ohhhh,” he sits upright and remains steady this time, “we each had… two.”

Aizawa releases your hand finally and rubs his temples, doing the math, “So those including the drinks during this game would be… six already,” he points to the glass, “that itself would be another three shots of vodka.”

Keigo huffs and waves Aizawa off, “it’s finee”

Yamada sits forward, “Well don’t you have to drink it with her? You did make yourselves drinking mates.”

The table erupts with laughter and you feel your abs hurting from the acknowledgement; Aizawa remains steady next to you silently, as if he was stone sober despite the tinge of red on his face.

Keigo leans forward and finishes his beer before grabbing the King’s Cup and pouring half of it into his empty glass and handing you the initial cup.

“Well then,” he lifts his glass and leans on the table; you mirror his action, “Cheers.”

********

You wish you could kill the sun.

The blinds of your apartment window open just enough to let sunlight pouring into your room and blinding your eyes despite them being shut. With a long groan you thrash in your bed, pulling a pillow to your face, then the comforter before giving up and rolling onto your stomach.

There’s a pounding in your head and a constant feeling of bile in your throat that stirs nausea in your stomach. It’s when you finally find a comfortable position again that your phone alarm rings loudly and vibrates on the nightstand next to you.

Can’t the world just fuck off.

It’s impossible to ignore and on the third repeat of the alarm pattern you finally sit up and cancel the notification. You would lay back down if the wave of nausea didn’t immediately bring a familiar acid taste to your mouth and you sprint out of bed into the ensuite bathroom.

You cough and hover over the toilet, letting any residual undigested alcohol out, slightly feeling better when you stand up to flush. After rinsing your mouth with water you sigh at the slight relief of pain in your gut but wince at the ongoing hum inside your skull.

Stepping out of the bathroom’s second door and into the living room you weakly stumble across the cold wooden floors, only now noticing your pajamas of a t-shirt on backwards and university branded sweatpants.

A low hum reverberates and you nearly jump out of your skin before leaving over the back of the couch and staring at a very tired and very hungover Keigo.

“Ugh.. morning”

His voice is so hoarse and dry that he winces as he speaks and resolves to turning over and trying to go back to bed.

You blink wearily and pad over to the open kitchen to prepare two glasses of water and a bottle of painkillers. Before you hand Keigo his glass you chuck half of your own and lean against the armrest.

He graciously takes the water and you slip your phone out of your pocket while he drinks.

“Oh fuck I have to be in the campus library soon.”

Keigo hums, letting water drip down his chin without caring and taking large gulps of air when he finally finishes. He takes his head in his hands and rubs his eyes so roughly you’re sure he’s seeing stars, “What.. what even happened last night?”

You raise your glass to your lips and pause, “I can’t remember,”

Keigo nods once before his eyes shoot up and meet yours in worry.

“Oh shit… I can’t remember”

The sentence is spoken like a question as your heart rate spikes and you begin to panic. The only other times your quirk hasn't worked is when you’re extremely shitfaced or when Aizawa happened to look at you while using his erasure.

“Oh fuck. What did we do last night?”

Keigo looks up at you and shrugs, unable to form any words, just as surprised as you are. You set your glass on the coffee table and open your phone, “Maybe I took a video or photos? Something to jog my memor-”

You pause and swipe away a text notification before double taking at the sender.

From: Aizawa Shouta

        How are you feeling?

Keigo leans up with a grimace and looks at your phone screen, not understanding until he looks between the device and your face three times back and forth.

“Hey I thought you said you didn’t have his number…?”

You can’t even lift your eyes from the message, “I…didn’t…”

What the FUCK happened last night

[sapphicautistic]

We were supposed to find out by Friday for sure if we're moving but, shockingly, Something Has Gone Wrong and now it might be next Friday before we know.

You know, one week before we might allegedly move. 🤪

[earthtoharlow]

Flashing Lights

14) In The Moment

Jack Harlow x Singer!OC

Series Masterlist

“Maryse Monet, are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

Maryse continued chewing on the end of her ink pen nervously. It’s been two days since she’s spoken to Jack. All she could think about was how they ended things. The longer they went without talking the worse the situation was going to get especially with them both going on tour on opposite sides of the world.

Her thoughts were broken when CoCo started snapping her fingers in her face. “Huh?”

She watched as her manager just sighed before pulling up a chair and sitting right beside her. “Alright girl, what’s going on? You’ve been staring into space for an hour now looking like a sad puppy left on the porch.”

Maryse just groaned and put her head into her arms on the table in front of them. “Do you think I prioritize work over my personal relationships?” She muttered into her arm.

“Girl, you have gotta speak up.”

She sat up looking CoCo in the eyes and repeated herself. “Do you think I prioritize work over my personal relationships? And be honest with me.”

“Yes.” Coco said quickly without hesitation, making Maryse gasp softly.

“What the hell—“

CoCo held up her hand to stop her, “Look you know I’m always going to be honest with you so listen to me alright.”

Maryse sat back in her seat with her arms around herself as CoCo continued.

“I’m going to start out by saying that you’re a very hard worker, you eat, sleep, and breathe this studio. I always know I can find you here. As a manager I love that about you…” Maryse watched as CoCo tried to gather her thoughts

“But as a friend and someone who cares about you, sometimes I think you forget that you’re allowed to have fun, not everything needs to be work work work.”

Maryse couldn’t help but stop her there. “I know I’m allowed to have fun but my career is very important to me, it could go away any second.”

CoCo let her finish before speaking again. “Your career won’t be in jeopardy if you take a break from the studio, and hang out with your boyfriend or travel to see him for a couple of days.”

She knew Maryse wasn’t going to like what she said next. “Nate has unfortunately done a number on you.” Maryse immediately narrowed her eyes at her manager. “What do you mean by that?”

“You forget that I was around when things got really bad. I remember him telling you that you’d never amount to anything in this industry, and that he would make sure of it. When you guys eventually broke up for good you threw yourself into work because you felt like music was the only thing you had, but Maryse that’s not the case anymore.”

Maryse’s eyes started watering as CoCo put everything in perspective. “You have someone who loves and supports you. This relationship won’t survive if you both don’t prioritize each other and actually open up to one another. You have to find that balance between work and your relationship. I know you said that Jack hasn’t been himself lately. You guys need to have a lengthy discussion that doesn’t involve snapping at one another.”

Maryse knew everything CoCo was saying was right, she always tried to push everything Nate put her through to the side but now it was starting to affect her current relationship. Jack didn’t deserve that all. She needed to talk to him asap.

“Thank you, CoCo.” Reaching out and giving her manager and long time friend a hug. She needed this eye opening conversation more than anything. CoCo squeezed her tight before letting go.

“Anytime, now you don’t have anything scheduled for the next couple days. Go surprise that man!” CoCo told her.

Maryse nodded before rushing out the studio to go home and pack. Once she got in her car she texted Urban letting him know she was getting the first flight to France and not to say anything to Jack.

***

Jack was having a hard day or rather a hard week. It’s been days since his argument with Maryse and they still haven't made up. The weight of the situation pressed heavily on his mind.

The longer they went without talking the harder it was to concentrate on his performances. He kept replaying the argument in his head wondering if he said too much or too little. The distance both physically and emotionally was eating at him, the ache in his chest getting worse with each passing moment.

He was in the city of love with some of his favorite people and he couldn’t even enjoy it because he wasn’t with the love of his life. An overwhelming sense of loneliness started to creep around him. He was yearning for a chance to see Maryse and hold her.

Jack knew he needed to apologize to Maryse, the weight of the negative reviews hung heavy over his head like a dark cloud. Frustration had been bubbling within him and without realizing it he let criticism seep into his interactions.

His thoughts were cut short momentarily when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He sighed in disappointment as it was just Nemo wishing him a good show and to keep his foot on necks and not let the world forget him.

Jack stood as Neelam knocked on his trailer door letting him know he was to be on stage in 15. 15 minutes suddenly felt like 5 minutes, and before he knew it he was on stage. The roar of the fans masked the turmoil within him. Music flowed from him but his only thoughts were of Maryse. Their argument still lingered casting another shadow over his performance as he tried to be as present as possible.

As Jack looked out into the sea of faces, he desperately wished that she was there. The cheers suddenly felt distant, the applause hollow as he continued yearning for the comfort of Maryse's presence.

When the crowd started singing the lyrics of Poison; a song he wrote for Maryse back at him, he found himself silently pleading for a chance to make amends. In that moment the spotlight felt more isolated than ever, even the cheers couldn’t distract him from wanting to seek forgiveness.

Jack almost felt bad for ending his set a few minutes early but he needed to get back to his hotel room. As he stepped off stage the adrenaline was still running through his veins. Lost in his thoughts he was taken aback when he turned the corner and found Maryse standing there, a hopeful look in her eyes. A mix of surprise and relief washed over him as the noise from the crowd faded into the background as they continued to stare at each other.

“I couldn’t spend another day without talking to you.” Maryse admitted, a small smile playing on her lips. Jack walked closer to her, almost not believing she was standing there in front of him. He felt speechless as he opened his mouth to figure out what to say. All he could do was pull her into a tight hug, daring anyone to pull them apart.

“I missed you.” Maryse whispered into his chest, her voice mixed with sincerity and longing. Jack hugged her tighter, the warmth of her presence eased his mind as he was plugged with his thoughts the whole performance. “I missed you more.” He admitted almost desperately. He needed her to know that he missed her more than anything.

Jack couldn’t stop himself as he pulled her into a kiss, he didn’t care that they were still standing backstage with people around. This kiss was a silent promise to set aside the argument for the time being. Breaking away, Maryse gave him another small smile. “Let’s talk after you’ve showered, okay? I just want to be with you right now.” Jack nodded as he held her hand as they headed back to his trailer to grab his things and make their way to his hotel room.

When they got back to the hotel room, Jack immediately hopped in the shower promising not to take long. Maryse got comfortable taking off her shoes and jacket while she waited for him. She was nervous to have this conversation scared it would turn into another disagreement.

As promised Jack was out of the shower soon and sat next to Maryse on the bed. It was silent for a moment before Maryse spoke first. “I want you to know how sorry I am.” She began, sounding genuinely regretful.

Jack sat and listened. “Sometimes, it feels like you prioritize your career over us.” He admitted, his vulnerability laying bare. Maryse took a deep breath and grabbed his hand gently, “I never want you to feel that way. My career matters, but so do you. I’ll work on finding a better balance.”

Wanting to apologize for his behavior he opened up to Maryse as well. “This is all so different to me. I’m not used to dating someone who’s just as busy as I am. In the past, it was easier – plans could change on the fly. But with our schedules, it’s challenging.”

Maryse listened, already sensing he was mentally struggling trying to figure out how they were going to balance work and their relationship. “I get it, we’re going to figure it out, okay. We can find a middle ground.”

Jack nodded, already feeling a lot better after talking it over with her. He already felt lighter, but he knew there was one more thing he needed to apologize for. They were cuddling in bed now, “I owe you an apology.” He began, remorse in his eyes. “Before our argument, I had been distant and that wasn’t fair to you.”

He watched as she nodded. “I understand, but can you help me understand why?”

Jack glanced at her, contemplating whether to open up. Now was the perfect time and yet, the words seemed locked behind a wall of pride. The desire to shield her from his struggles battled with the need for support. He didn’t want to share the weight of the criticism of his album onto her, the pressure to maintain a facade of strength held him back.

He hesitated before talking again, “It’s been a crazy few months with appearances after appearances and I let it affect us. I’m sorry for not communicating that sooner and pulling away.”

Maryse appreciated the apology but couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the story. Choosing to be patient, she decided to ignore the subtle signs for now, hoping that in time he would feel comfortable enough to open up and share the feelings he was holding back.

After the heartfelt apologies they decided to break free from each others arms and explore Paris as it was now dark outside. They walked the streets catching up while indulging in greasy fast food at a corner bistro, sharing fries with one another. The laughter they shared replaced the tension that had been created over the last couple weeks. Their eyes met, exchanging a silent acknowledgment that the storm had passed.

Making their way to the Eiffel Tower, Jack couldn’t help but marvel at the breathtaking sight. Almost captivated by the glow surrounding her, it was like Maryse outshone everything. A smile spread across his face as he gazed at her, realizing just how fortunate he was to have her by his side.

Unable to contain his emotions, he gently cupped Maryse’s face and gave her a lingering kiss beneath the sparking lights. “No matter what happens, I want you to know that I will always love you.” Jack whispered, a promise that they could get through anything. Maryse shared the sentiment by pulling him into another kiss.

Pulling away she tugged on his arm as they walked closer to Eiffel Tower. “Babe, you have to take photos of me in front of it!” Maryse practically begged. All he could do was chuckle back, enjoying her enthusiasm and took out his phone. After he snapped a couple shots, Maryse smiled down impressed.

“Watch out, Urban Wyatt! You should quit being a rapper and become a photographer!” She teases, a playful glint in her eyes.

“Nothing I want more than to get paid to just take pictures of how beautiful you are.” Maryse as always couldn’t help but playfully gag and cringe. Jack grinned, enjoying her reaction. He missed this.

With a mischievous grin, he swept her off her feet and lifted her over his shoulders, playfully spinning her around. Maryse squealed in surprise, laughter bubbling up as she wrapped her arms around his neck. They ignored the bemused looks from strangers as they enjoyed their night, happy to be spending time together again.

JACKHARLOW

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jackharlow: Trying to compete with the Eiffel Tower in the ‘Who Shines Brighter’ contest. Spoiler alert: she wins every time.

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user: oh to have Jack Harlow be in love with me

user: please tell me y’all are looking for a third

urbanwyatt: mom & dad 🥹

user: this post just told me how single I was in 30 different languages

user: adopt me

user: this post murdered me and dragged me all over slaycity with how much it served

lifeofmonet: just developed lactose intolerance from how cheesy this was 🧀

***

AN: rewrote the ending so many times before deciding to make our bbs happy but I wonder how long this will last 🤫 as always let me know your thoughts 💋

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[dellalyra]

Sooo i just had a thought. Gojo and reader have to work, maybe for like a few days, and Auntie koko and nanami are unavailable too. And Akio is left in Megumi's and the other 1st and 2nd yr students care (aka, megumi being a big bro). Big bro megumi makes my heart swell, and your writing is godly.

𝘈/𝘕: 𝘚𝘛𝘖𝘗 𝘜𝘙 𝘒𝘐𝘓𝘓𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘔𝘌 𝘐’𝘮 𝘴𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘤 𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘣𝘳𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘮𝘪 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘈𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘺 𝘒𝘰𝘬𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘯 𝘐 𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌 𝘞𝘏𝘌𝘕 𝘗𝘌𝘖𝘗𝘓𝘌 𝘈𝘙𝘌 𝘚𝘖 𝘕𝘐𝘊𝘌 𝘛𝘖 𝘔𝘌 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘶 𝘴𝘮 🥺🥺

𝘊𝘞: 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧.

𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗕𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴

So Akio is a year old, toddling away on unsteady feet and babbling the few words he knows with such confidence you’d think he was a trained speechwriter.

He’s a good baby, he started sleeping through the night at 5 months old and wakes up with his Papa in the morning for some cuddles and breakfast while Mama gets a little more sleep.

You were mainly pumping for him now, since his little teeth came in he’d become a bit of a biter. He had his parent’s sweet tooth too. His current favourite is Dorayaki.

With you back on call as a sorcerer and back to work teaching when he was 9 months old, your mom looked after him 3 days and he went to daycare the other two for some socialising.

It was an easy Tuesday night, your mom was away on vacation, Yaga and Shoko were in Kyoto for a few days and Nanami was away on a mission for a week at the least. However, daycare was also closed that week as Miss Hinata had come down with a cold. You had taken a few days off teaching, Satoru too.

Neither of you expected the phone to ring on a Tuesday night with Yaga on the other end urgency evident in his voice saying you both were needed in Sapporo, that on opposite ends of the city there were 3 special grade curses wrecking havoc and a curse user was suspected to be pulling the strings behind the scenes and needed to be found and dealt with. Neither of you could go alone, because the curses needed to be dealt with simultaneously to avoid further destruction - but, you had a baby babbling between you playing with his blocks.

But you had to go.

So - that left one person.

Without warning, you and Satoru packed a bag each and a bag for the baby, diapers, wipes, clean clothes, pjs, toys, travel cot and blanket and extra frozen breast milk and bottles and jars of baby food were stuffed into bags and loaded into the car. You’d decided you would drive to drop of Akio and Satoru would warp you both the rest of the way.

As you got in the car, you wrote all baby care instructions you could think of and more that were absolutely not necessary on some pink paper and folded it into the bag and added in ¥60,000 as an apology.

You both unload the car, you taking Akio on your hip who was very excited at this late excursion and recognised where you were and Satoru with all the baby equipment one could possibly need.

You tell Akio to knock on the door and his chubby fist bangs as much as he can and giggles.

“Mom? Dad? Akio?”

“Hi ‘Gumi.”

Standing in the open doorway to his dorm is Megumi, grey sweats and black sweatshirt with slightly damp post shower hair looking completely bewildered at the two of you being here with his little brother at 7pm.

“So! Oh - hey Yuuji! Whatcha watching? Oh! Attack on Titan! Awesome, I love that bit wh-” Satoru begins as he strolls into the room like he owns it and sees your son’s boyfriend’s laying out on his bed, show paused on the laptop.

“Dad.” Megumi rolls his eyes.

Satoru begins to plop the bags down and the crib case beside it and then walks back to you, lifting the baby from your arms.

“Sweetie, I’m so sorry but we have to go to Sapporo ASAP, nobody is around to take care of Akio so could you please watch him? Daycare is shut too and Aunty Koko is at the conference with Principal Yaga.” You plead, diving in headfirst to cuddle your eldest, face smushed into his chest now with how tall he’s gotten.

“Oh my god! Really?! We get to mind Akio?! Sure! Akio come see Yuuji-kun!” Yuuji says bolting from the bed and bouncing on his toes.

“Jesus, Yu, chill out. Yeah, mom, that’s okay. I - we can figure it out. Has he got everything? How long will you guys be gone?” Megumi shrugs.

“Dunno, kid. 2 days, probably. We’ve put all his stuff behind you, you guys are gonna have a blast! Bro time! Ugh, it’s so cute I’m gonna melt, isn’t it Princess?” Satoru whines.

You giggle as you press kisses to the babies head and Satoru follows suit, whispering goodbyes and then handing the little white haired boy to his older brother.

“C’mere, lemme give you a kiss too - ‘Gumi.” Satoru leans in and gets swatted away and you resort to blowing a kiss at each of the boys.

As you say your farewell to the boys, Yuuji shrieks your name.

“Wait! Aren’t you breastfeeding him?! We’re both boys, we don’t have tiddies, we can’t breastfeed him! Nobara is a girl but I don’t think she’s going to want to -” He frantically worries, before Megumi smacks him behind the head with an incredulous look using the hand not holding his brother. Satoru bursts out cackling laughing and you just purse your lips as to not lose it yourself.

“I’m leaving that explanation up to you, ‘Gumi. You’re the one dating him. Frozen milk is in there in the icebox - keep it in the freezer. Call if you need us! Love you boys!”

and with that, the parents are off - warped to a battle and an impromptu 2 nights at a hotel while the search for the Sapporo curse user is conducted.

Megumi wasn’t overly worried. He was a perceptive person, he saw how you and Satoru cared for the baby when he was home, helped you guys out with feeding and diapers - plus, Yuuji loved kids, and he was great with them. The second years might have to be roped in too to help, given that he was only 16.

Akio was now sitting on the bed playing with some toys while the boys both tried to figure out how to assemble the pop up travel crib. After about a half an hour, they gave up. At this point, Inumaki down the hall had heard the commotion and came to see what the deal was, smiling when he saw the baby and then laughing himself silly at the state of the first years.

He rolls his eyes, saying ‘Okaka’ and whips out his phone, snapping a picture of the scene and retreating with a pat on the head for Akio who babbled away at him.

A second later the door was flung open by a smirking Maki and Nobara beside her.

“Fuck me - you two are useless. C’mere, I’ll do it.” She rolls her eyes and begins to put the crib together as if it was second nature. Megumi quickly explains the presence of the baby and Nobara is quick to run and grab the baby for a cuddle.

“Bara!” Akio squeals with his broken vocabulary as she spins him around and begins to sort through his packed clothes to find him the cutest pyjamas.

One the crib is up (it took Maki literally 90 seconds) the girls leave the room with a kiss on the head each for the blue eyed baby.

As Yuuji goes to heat up a bottle, after an explanation of female anatomy, Megumi changes his brother into his pyjamas covered in small hedgehogs (his mom definitely bought these). When he’s cosy, he sets up the crib with the babies bedding and then sits him on his lap as he feeds him the bottle in his arms.

Akio’s eyes start to droop and Yuuji can’t stop cooing over the adorable sight of the baby in his boyfriends arms.

One the bottle is finished and the dreams have started, Megumi places him oh-so-gently into his temporary bed and climbs back into the bed with Yuuji.

“This can be like, practise! For when we have our own kids!” Yuuji says, beaming.

Megumi never thought Yuuji had considered that far ahead, given - well… everything. But it made sense, you and Satoru had promised that Yuuji wouldn’t die, and his parents never broke a promise.

“Oh yeah? You want kids?” He smirks.

“Eh, duh! We’re gonna be DILFs, Fushiguro! Two boys maybe, or a boy and a girl. We’ll call them… Eren and Mikasa!” Yuuji says, thinking face on.

“Is that because we’re in the middle of Attack on Titan?”

There was no disturbance that night, Akio passed out and the older boys in bed, Yuuji acting as big spoon.

They wake up to giggling, and babbling away as they spot Akio chatting to himself animatedly in his crib.

“Eh, Satoru usually gets up and cuddles with him in the morning so - I guess that’s what I should do too.” Megumi says, stretching as he rises from the bed.

So he does, he takes his brother in his arms who is poking at his cheeks with a cheery smile and strolls into the kitchen - everyone is still in bed so he makes a coffee and sets Akio down on the common room floor to play. Once his coffee is brewed, he sits the baby on his lap and feeds him some of the fruit his mom had packed along with some cereal puffs just as Satoru had written in the note.

He likes this. He doesn’t get up this early at the weekend when he’s home so he doesn’t get early morning baby snuggles. No matter how tsundere he acts, his heart goes soft for his baby brother - even if it really is just his dad copy and pasted.

He puts on cocomelon on the TV, he knows that’s his brother’s favourite and sits on the sofa with the baby cuddled into him. They’re alone, so Megumi places a soft kiss to his white locks and sniffs the baby smell he secretly loves.

“AKIO!” A booming voices breaks the reverie as a huge pile of fluff dives onto the sofa beside him and the baby squeals in sheer delight as what Akio views as a giant plushy is patting his head. Panda nuzzles the baby hello and Megumi just rolls his eyes. Panda takes Akio so Megumi can get dressed as Nobara and Maki enter the room, Yuuji following soon after.

With all their teachers away, they’ve no classes today. Yuuji and Maki go to train on the field, Nobara joining and Panda apparently soon after. Megumi straps the baby into his stroller and follows them down - he’s not missing training. They agree to take turns watching the little one during training, so once Akio is dressed Megumi pops on his sun hat and pulls the visor up to shield the baby.

Maki brings the baby on a walk in the stroller and uses it as cardio, Nobara is the one who gets him dressed when it’s her turn and she has him in little green overalls and a white T-shirt - and she can’t stop gushing over him, saying even though he looks exactly like Gojo-Sensei his definitely gets his adorable looks from his mom. Inumaki wanders out still half asleep around 11am and takes the baby out of the stroller and brings him inside for a snack and to play with some sensory toys in his bag. Every 2 hours, Megumi would go to change the babies diaper and around 1pm - got screamed at by a very, very, angry baby. He checked the notes you’d left him.

1pm - turns into the devil incarnate, needs his nap for about 1.5hours. Will scream at you, will cry, will throw a tantrum until he’s laying down and will then be an angel when he wakes up. Beware 1pm Akio - he’s special grade at that time. Is written in your neat cursive.

Well, that explains things. He whips the baby up, and carries him to his room and laying him into his crib and he’s never seen a personality change so drastically since Yuuji and Sukuna. The baby smiles a wide smile at his brother and then promptly, as if by magic, falls asleep.

He stays and reads as the baby sleeps, wondering what to do with the rest of the day. He texts you quickly, replying to your check ins and assuring you they’re all good. Satoru texts him that they’ll be home tomorrow in the late morning, with a selfie he took as he demolished a cursed spirit.

Yuuji texts him then, saying that since they all have the day off they should bring Akio into the city. He quickly agrees, he doesn’t quite know how to occupy a baby - and this seems like a good idea. He remembers the splash pad that you two used to bring him and Tsumiki to and decides to go there.

He packs up some snacks and then Akio wakes up all bright and bubbly again and is packed into his stroller. The first and second years make their way into the city and Nobara drags Maki to shop with her, much to Maki’s dismay. Inumaki goes to get some boba, Panda stayed back at the school - it was his nap time too apparently.

So that left Megumi and Yuuji. They strolled to the splash pad, and Yuuji seemed equally as excited as the baby. Megumi didn’t blame him, it was hot as hell today.

Yuuji whips the baby from his seat and takes off his little socks and shoes and holds his two hands and guides him to the splash pads where the other kids are playing. There’s tiny fountains shooting out water and logs you can tip over with enough water to fill it. The area for kids over 5 is nearby, but this baby area is perfect for the one year old. Akio splashes his little feet and laughs in delight as Yuuji shows him around and splashes his feet in return. The two seem to be having a whole conversation with each other, Megumi doesn’t think either of them understand much of what the other says.

He hears Akio saying ‘Gumi!’ and a pink head and a white head turn in his direction and wave at the boy in the shade, he waves back. How can he not? His heart feels so full at the sight in front of him. He snaps a photo, and sends it to his parents.

The baby then toddles over to him and grasps his hand.

“Gumi! Wada! Pease pay wada.” Megumi is surprised at how good the babies words are getting, he understood (with difficulty) that he wanted him to play in the water too. So he takes off his vans and joins them quietly, swirling the water to show the child who smiles up at him and Yuuji takes this opportunity to send a photo of this pure brotherly love to you. You both cry when you open it.

After an hour, they head to get ice cream and some lunch. They meet up with the others and grab food at a ramen place, as Inumaki delightedly feeds Akio his jar of baby food and a small bottle by Yuuji.

They then look up one final activity and decide on the Mori Building Digital Art Museum. When they enter, Akio’s eyes light up (literally) at all the sights and lights around him. He tries to catch the floating lamps as all the teenagers giggle at the babies awe and confusion. You brought him here one day when he was younger and Satoru was on a mission and Tsumiki was at a birthday sleepover. Inumaki was running wild taking photos, saying he wants to send some to Yuuta so he’ll come back quicker. Maki is acting photographer for Nobara who’s trying to get the best instagram shots she can. Yuuji is as astounded as the baby by all the pretty lights.

As Megumi lifted the baby up to touch some of the lights, pointing up at them - Yuuji got another photo.

Yuuji felt really in love at that moment. Megumi looked so pretty, dark hair reflecting the lights and small smile as he looked at his baby brother.

Around 6pm, everyone was beat. Once they got back to the dorms, Megumi went to give the baby a bath while Yuuji made food. The second years went to their respective room, but the three first years went to the common room around 7.30pm, a warm bottle in Megumi’s hand as he feeds the baby while they all watch The Jungle Book together on the sofa. Once the films over, Akio is asleep on Megumi’s chest, Yuuji has his head on his shoulder and Nobara has her head in Yuuji’s lap. The end credits wake up the teens, who bid each other goodnight, and Yuuji and Megumi share a shy kiss goodnight after Nobara leaves, and Megumi takes Akio, as carefully as he can without waking him, into his room where he lays him in his crib. Akio won’t let go of his fingers, so he falls asleep with his arm hanging off his bed into the crib. If someone had been there that night, they’d have seen a soft smile on both of the Fushiguro-Gojo boy’s faces.

He’s disturbed from his slumber the next morning by soft whispers and sounds. He groggily opens his eyes and sees you and Gojo kneeling beside his bed and the crib, both planting kisses on the baby who is delighted to see his Mama and Papa. Satoru blows raspberries onto the babies belly who begins to writhe in laughter at his very silly daddy and grins even wider when his dad presents him with a Sakura mochi saying it’s breakfast.

You are nuzzling into your baby and husband, hand still clasped in Satoru’s bigger one.

Megumi smiles at the scene, he loves his family. Even if they drive him crazy.

‘Akio! Look, baby! Your big bro is awake! Will we go say hi?’ Satoru smiles, Megumi likes seeing his dad so soft and enamoured - even though he always is like that with you around. In the morning light, it’s even more clear that although he has your nose, Akio is all Satoru. Blindfold tucked away - their eyes match in the golden light.

The tall man and baby come walking over to the bed as you sit on the edge and stroke your eldest’s hair.

‘Thank you, ‘Gumi. You’re the best big brother in the world. We love you, sweetheart.” You say, pressing a kiss to his forehead like you did when he was tiny.

“We love you ‘this much’!” Satoru says, pulling the babies little chubby arms wide to make a big gap to demonstrate that they do really - love their ‘Gumi so much. All of them.

Recommended Listening:

Sparks - Coldplay

[kahvilahuhut]

a surprise visit

also find the drawing here :)

A little Cynosure scene I wanted to write out asap because it's been rotating a lot in my head lately :]

Summary: Klara looked at the weather forecast and decided to leave from her work trip two days earlier than she was supposed to, in case the flights will be cancelled because of another storm. Getting home early, she decides to surprise her spouse while it's at work. And instead she finds it has picked up its bad habit again.

Warnings: smoking, implied mental health problems

Klara carefully opened the door and saw Tobias stand next to the ledge. At first, she was going to say hi straight away, or slowly sneak up and hug it from behind.

But then she stopped and leaned at the doorway. Just looking at it for a moment would be fun.

It was looking at the street, slowly stretching its hands. A typical habit it would do when stressed. Klara watched it rotate its wrists, stretch its fingers, slowly move its shoulders...

It took a deep breath, stood still for a moment, and took out a pack of cigarettes.

Klara raised an eyebrow. It's not something she expected to see.

It lit its cigarette quickly, as if its a typical thing for it to do, and put it in its mouth. Klara shifted a little, getting ready to come closer, when Tobias leaned on the ledge and glanced at the doorway, suddenly noticing Klara.

"Uh, hi. Lydia said you'd be here?" Klara said, slightly waving, and raised the brown bag she was holding, "I brought, um, coffee and chocolate croissants..."

It stared at her, mouth half open, trying to still hold the cigarette, brown eyes wide open, with dark eyebags under them. A somewhat frightened look at its face. No, not frightened, something else? Surprised, mixed with exhausted and... ashamed?

Klara placed the bag on the floor and walked closer, gently wrapping her left hand around its shoulders and took its cigarette out with her right. "Oh, honey..." she murmured, kissing its forehead as it blew out the smoke. "How did this happen?"

"I'm- I-," it began, leaning its head on her shoulder, "Had an, um, bad day three weeks ago... Went outside to get some fresh air, while it was raining. Abner came there to have a smoke and I, um," it let out a sob, "I don't know, I... I just stared at it and he asked if I want some, and I just...couldn't say no, I guess? I-" it paused to wipe its cheek and sniff, "I needed something to feel better so bad, to have something else to think instead of... all this," Tobias gestured with its hand towards the building.

Klara brushed its hair with her fingers, "It's fine, honey, it's fine," she said, glancing at the cigarette in her other hand, "I don't remember you smoking two weeks ago when I returned from the first work trip..."

"It wasn't, um, it wasn't that bad back then, I could-" it covered its face with its left hand, "I could, like, take a break, or only smoked like twice or thrice... But then I, um. God, this is so embarassing..." It muttered and buried its face in Klara's neck, sobbing.

She said softly, "No, it's not, that's just how life is sometimes... Everything can happen to all of us," she smiled at it as it started to rise its head again.

"That's- ugh. It's just that it's been, what, 20 years since I stopped," Tobias managed to say, "And now where am I? Back at this shit again. I just..."

"Hey, hey, it's okay," she said and glanced at the cigarette again, flickrd the ash into ashtray and took a drag. "See? We will get through this."

"Käresta, come on..." it murmured between its sobs, as Klara put put the cigarette back into its mouth for a moment, before putting it out in the ashtray. "I, um, fuck-" it sniffed, "when you left to another work trip and I woke up in this, um, empty, cold bed all alone, I just suddenly, um, I felt so awful... As if all the stress and bad feelings just filled my brain and, well, I-"

"Decided that smoking more would help?"

It nodded slowly. "I know, sounds ridiculous, right?"

"No," Klara murmured and gently wiped its tears from its cheek.

"Mmh," Tobias buried its face in her neck again, wrapping its both arms around her in a hug. "I'm just- I'm so fucking tired. I feel so exhausted, I'm so tired of this fucking project, I-" it mumbled, and Klara could swear she heard its voice crack despite it being muffled, "I want out so bad. But the fucking contract doesn't let me. I am so done with all this, I just... I want to leave. Now. I can't do this anymore..."

Klara squeezed it closer in a hug and whispered, "I could see if Sarah could do something about it, if you want?" Not like Sarah would listen to her, after she just up and left from the work trip earlier today instead of sitting through another meeting where she had nothing to do. It's not like she'd let it affect work related stuff, right?

"You don't have to, I can, um, try and ask by myself, um..."

"No, I'll do it. And you take a sick leave for the rest of the week while I try to figure everything out."

"Klara..."

"Shh, you need a break. We can start with the iced coffee and croissants I bought."

"Mmhmm..." it sighed and gently kissed her neck. "By the way, um," it began, "What are you doing here? I mean, um, you said you'll return in two days on our morning call, and I-"

"I checked a weather forecast and noticed the possibility of a storm getting even higher for this week, and realized that they may cancel the flights, just in case," she explained, gently running her fingers through its hair, "And so I decided to, well, go 'fuck it' and booked a flight that would've been in two hours after our call. I just didn't care at that point. I wanted to get here, surprise you with a snack break..." she felt it smile against her neck, "Not like this, though, but hey, it's something."

"I'm so glad you're here, honey."

"I'm glad to be here, too," Klara smiled, "Now go sign out of work and let's go home. I think we should also stop by the cafe again and get their bagels."

[be-my-ally]

Throw Me

co-authored with @thatbanditqueen (and alpha'd/edited/perfected by @whositmcwhatsit)

So, this took us forever + a day (entirely my fault - poor Norah had to put up with me abandoning the document and then popping back in all ‘c’mon now let’s finish this week!’ and falling asleep on her and making her do all the writing)  - this all started from a wonderful, fantastic, delicious collaborative fantasy (masterminded, if I remember correctly, by @thatbanditqueen) between @whositmcwhatsit, @ellie-24 and @vintageshanny and myself - about how delicious it would be to be taught karate by elvis.

Now, in turning this into fic some things changed but, I'm pretty sure that just means that everyone needs to write karate fic asap; i think @ellie-24 had some excellent suggestions about jewellery and @vintageshanny on deliciously torn pants & @whositmcwhatsit on the joys of mirrors and chairs (please I still need all of these). More elvis karate fic in the world is needed.

warnings: 18+ ...karate, being taught karate, elvis doing karate, all the karate, elvis pulls a gun (in play), p in v sex - it gets cute and sappy by the end.

pairing/summary: 1974 elvis x female oc -- Olivia's been invited to Graceland for the week and Elvis takes the opportunity to teach her some moves.

wc: 9.3k

Summer/Fall 1974 Graceland

“S’alright honey, you’ll jus’ take off your shoes anyway, so c’mon.”

Olivia looked up from where she had paused in the hallway, her long, ash blonde swaying in time to the impatient snaps of Elvis’ fingers. She stopped unbuckling the clasp on her purple platform shoes, glancing up with her light blue eyes to where Elvis stood in his gi. His shoulders were so taut that it made his uniform’s red collar stick straight up, broad and athletic. 

Pulling on his collar, she ran a finger over his warm neck as she tried to summon the allure to distract him away from what would be the fourth, the fourth, karate class this week. She hesitated when she thought she saw Elvis’ eyes flicker with a teasing glint as she ran her hand through her hair, but she still tried, making her voice breathy and girlish. 

“Why don’t we take a break from the lessons and you can just show me some moves alone. Upstairs.”  

Elvis smirked and shook his head. “Nah uh, now, this is important. Billy’s already down at the gate gathering up the other gals, so we gotta hop to it. They have clean robes there, baby.” 

With a loud slap to her butt, Elvis grinned and the discussion was over as she followed him out of the house and towards the carport. 

Olivia leaned back in her seat as they drove to the karate studio, thinking of the last time she had been to Memphis. That week had been a dreamy unreal blur of swimming, BBQ, late night jam sessions and pranks at Graceland. When Joe had called last week and asked if he could fly her up to Memphis, Olivia had squealed and immediately packed her travel bag for another romantic week at Graceland.

Man oh man, had she been wrong. The very first day had dashed her expectations to bits when Elvis had taken an hour away from her to have a screaming match over the phone, with whom was not mentioned, and Olivia didn’t dare ask, although she suspected Linda Thompson. Then came the news about the attacks downtown. Elvis had heard the call over his police scanner about another rape downtown, the fifteenth this month in a series of assaults on young women in Memphis, all believed to be perpetrated by the same blonde guy in a ski mask. He became obsessed with “solving the case” - his police badge permanently hanging around his neck like a real detective, and he spent an extremely long time planning how he could lead an elite group of his mafia in tracking that “sonofabitch down and showing him what happens to rapists in ma home town,” until Sonny had talked him down, or rather, redirected him to teaching girls self defense. Thus, Elvis was now convinced that Olivia, and any other female in a five mile radius, needed to learn how to protect themselves. And he knew just which karate master had been put on this earth to teach them. And so she spent every afternoon at the dojo. 

The dojo wasn’t all bad. Elvis was cute in his uniform, and when he grunted doing moves, oh brother. But she felt uncomfortably awkward when he called her up to practice in front of everyone, all eyes on her. And, perhaps even worse was his insistence on going around the room; making her watch him with all the other girls they rounded up at the gate to come learn self defense.

Olivia felt as though she were in the crush of fans going to a concert as they walked upstairs to the karate studio. Elvis turned at the top of the stairs, swinging his arms, a big, boyish smile cresting his cheeks when he looked down at the eager karate students below him as if he were leading them to the promised land, instead of a large, wood paneled dojo that smelled like sweaty boys.

Feeling shy and very out of her element. Olivia slowly meandered through the dressing room tying the white band at her waist, and then immediately slinked to the back of the classroom to hideout while she watched the lesson.

Elvis introduced himself, an earnest, serious expression on his face as he spoke to the class, arms rising and expanding on either side as he spoke about the dojo, pausing for dramatic effort between sentences. 

“Here, in the confines a this room, I’m not Elvis Presley, I’m not an entertainer, I’m just a simple karate master. Mister Tiger. That’s the name I was given, s’meaningful, cuz the tiger, in Japan, where he is called the kanji, he is a symbol of brav’ry, of strength, and the tiger there protects people from evil. And that’s what I do, and that’s what we’re doing here today, ladies. Me, and these other karate masters here, we are gonna protect you by teaching you how to protect yourself.”

Mister Tiger then led them in a long, rambling guided meditation replete with even more tangential bible verses than yesterday. Today, apparently, was an auspicious day to learn self defense. It was also an auspicious day to do karate in white go go boots. There were others amongst the cadre of masters at the front of the room who wore colored robes: black, blue,or the patriotic print of the American flag. But none of them looked like Elvis, with his eye make up, resplendent flared out pants with bows and shiny, red satin lining. He could easily have been on stage in Vegas, and, yet, he seemed completely at home at the front of the room explaining how to gouge out a man’s eyes, and beckoning Red up for a demo.

The lessons had a formula to them. Elvis would start by beckoning David and Red up to play the role of alternating assailants while he played the role of the lady, pretending to cry out in despair before turning with a growl and vehemently demonstrating a technique to grab, strike and flip over a male attacker. He was utterly captivating as he grew progressively sweatier in his gi, smiling with glee each time he threw Red or David to the floor, or when the blush spread across his cheeks when Master Rhee praised him.

Then came the mechanics, as Elvis concocted more elaborate and involved scenarios in which an assailant would come at you with a gun down an alley, or catch you on the stairs at a car park. This was followed by longer and longer demonstrations as Mister Tiger showed the audience every possible strike to disarm and take down Red, step-by-step. The throat, groin and knee were the money shots, Elvis explained, then showed them how to hit Red in each spot, grunting with a scowl as he jabbed his friend in the nuts. By the time that part of the lesson concluded itself with Red insistently tapping out Elvis was shining with a layer of perspiration, strands of hair stuck to his forehead as he leaned into his thighs. In action, he commanded Olivia’s full attention. But then during his lectures, Elvis would get intensely serious, his explanations became more drawn out, and it became harder and harder to stay focused.

Staring out of the window, Olivia lost herself in a daydream of her and Elvis driving away in the convertible she could see parked just below. Alone. She was, however, suddenly roused from these delightful thoughts by the sound of clapping, the women applauding as Elvis announced his demonstrations were over. She turned to find a line of women snaking around the mats waiting to start practicing some of the moves with Red, Dick and Bill, while Elvis paced between them, correcting the girls' stances and flirting with them in hushed tones as they giggled. 

Olivia stood too, trying to blend into the background as she walked along the back of the room, gliding her hand over the stack of mats. She turned to see Elvis with his hand on another girl’s back and she sighed, reminding herself that it was all part of the lesson, all part of who Elvis was, it didn’t mean anything. She shifted back on top of the mats, catching him staring at her, and her legs froze mid swing, his eyes narrowed and his hand still on the other woman. If he thought she was going to get in line like any other random stranger and humiliate herself trying to flip over Red, he had another thing coming. She wasn’t doing it again.

Nope, no sirreee. Sports were not her thing, she had almost fainted yesterday when he called her up to model a strike to David’s chest. Yes, the attacks downtown were awful, but the truth was that she still wasn’t comfortable attacking anyone, or even pretending to, and nor did she have any intention of going alone into the alleys of downtown Memphis any time soon. George had introduced them, what, two months ago? And in the intervening time, Joe had now called her three times, inviting her to come up to Memphis to spend a week with Elvis while he was home from touring. In all her visits, Olivia had learnt that the only place she was ever really alone in Graceland were the bathrooms. She smiled feebly at Elvis’ pursed lips, and settled back on the stack of mats to wait.

It was another hour before Elvis felt satisfied that every woman in the room had gotten the opportunity to scream at one of the guys and flip him over onto the mat. With Elvis’ tutelage, they also got to strike David or Red in the throat, heart and nutsack. At least once; though Elvis had encouraged them to take advantage of the opportunity and have as many goes at the boys as they desired. One short, slender woman had attacked both guys in the nuts with each of her limbs twice, shouting a loud “hiya!” every time. A girl sitting next to Olivia explained, “Oh that’s just Sapphire, she’s a elementary school teacher. SO, you know.”

Exhausted and grumpy, the guys began shepherding the group out and Olivia jumped off the mats to join them, stopping and furrowing her brow as she watched Elvis whisper with Billy and then thank Master Kang Rhee, looking over at her as they spoke. They were suddenly alone in the studio, and Olivia began to walk backwards into the tower of mats as Elvis advanced towards her.

“So, don you need to learn any a this, huh?” 

Olivia bit her lip, and awkwardly rubbed her hands together as she tried to figure out how to get around him and maneuver them back to Graceland where they could maybe go for a swim and cuddle in bed and things could be sweet and fun and romantic like they had been on her last trip to Memphis.

“It’s not that, I just - I was never good at sports.  It’s embarrassing, Elvis - “

“You know, this ain’t Oxford, Mississippi, lil girl.” He narrowed his eyes at Olivia and pursed his lips, his boots landing with a thud as he slowly sauntered over with his hands on his hips. Or rather, right below, thumbs in the red satin belt of his gi.

Olivia sucked in her breath, mumbling, “I know, but I just -”

“Memphis might be the big city for you now, and you feel safe here ‘cause you’re with me. I get that, baby. But what if you get a modeling gig up in New York City? Hmmm? I ain’t always gonna be ‘round.” He shook his head, tutting at her in admonishment.  

He quirked his eyebrow at her. “C’mon, walk that fine little bottom over here, Lolly. Ain’t gonna have you leave without learning some moves.” It was not a question, but a command.

Olivia pushed herself off the mats, slowly making her way over to Elvis despite a sense of foreboding. She immediately felt him crowd behind her, the warmth of his chest and stomach, warm and sweaty from the lessons, now pressed against her back as he clutched her close. He positioned them both to face the mirror set into the paneling of the wall of the room, 

“Right then honey, just like this, you gotta plant your feet like this. ” She nodded, although she was immediately distracted from watching where he placed his legs by the feeling of his hands gathering up her long hair into a ponytail in his palm and brushing it over one shoulder. She sucked in a shiver.

“Pay attention now, this is important - you see?” He spread his legs - demonstrating behind her and nudging her with his boot to spread her feet further apart. Paying attention was almost impossible when he leaned in to rest his chin against her neck before he pointed at the mirror. The room was silent except for the sound of their breath as Elvis corrected her stance.

“Nah, honey, see.” His hands were at her waist, roughly trying to angle her towards her front knee. 

Olivia couldn’t decide if she should try harder or let him keep correcting her so she could enjoy the delicious feeling of his warm, sweaty hands moving over her body to work her into position. A herd of horses galloping over her chest, pulsing up through her ears from the strange mix of self-consciousness and arousal every time his fingers gently clenched around her. 

Something about performing karate made her self-conscious, it was the total opposite of how she felt modeling, which she had been doing since her mama started her in pageants as a little girl. This, this was unknown. The mirrors and strangers in the room had felt almost overwhelming and she’d yet to really try; feeling like everyone’s eyes had been on her from the moment Elvis held her arm while she climbed out of the car. Alone though, now, with his arms at her side, Olivia began to think she might be able to give it a go, and moved her feet apart. 

He tutted, “No, no, no, Lolly baby!” He shook his head and moved away from her shoulder to stand upright, gripping her waist and inserting his leg between hers. There was an insistent press from his knee to her thigh until she begrudgingly spread them further. “Just a little bit farther apart…” He huffed as he shimmied her legs open, murmuring against her hair, “for balance.” 

Olivia tried to reply, but her words caught in her throat, and she was unable to respond as she stared at his leg between hers in the mirror. She could feel his fingertips dig into her waist even through the heavy white cotton of her jacket.

“Now, honey, you should know this,” He breathed a laugh almost too close to her ear. “You gotta loosen up too, baby, let me position you.” He paused to move away and look her over, assessing her position. “This ain’t a tournament, we’re just playin’ aren’t we?”

“Yeah, we’re just playing.” She repeated back to him a little dumbly. He nodded and stepped back to anchor her body with his. He was still earnestly focused on instructing her, nudging her thighs with his leg again, forcing her to spread her legs wider before running his hands down to her hips, and maneuvering her to twist to the side. His warm breath was on the back of her neck just for a moment. She can feel herself tremble a little, shoulders twitching and she’s surprised he doesn’t seem to have felt it, shuddering when he presses his lips to her hair for the briefest of seconds. She stumbled back a little, losing her balance enough that she was forced to rest against him as she followed his body. Elvis was oblivious to the effect he was having on her and remained intent on getting her form right, sliding one hand down to her leg, spreading his own to allow him to reach further down, and pushing her forward - bending her knee himself while gripping onto her other thigh. Putting her with her front leg bent and low, and her back leg straight, long thick fingers tight on her thigh. 

“This is called zenkutsu dachi,” He pats her bent thigh, “this leg gives you a bit more power to your punches.” Olivia peers down at where his hand remains resting on her leg, and he uses his other to bring her chin to face directly in front of her. He takes a step back to look over her form, “Hmm, good.” 

Elvis moves around, circling her, before coming to a stop in front of her, and pulling at her hands where they’d rested by her sides, to form a fist. She instinctively tucks her thumb in and he rolls his eyes at her, tutting, 

“You haven’t been paying any kind of attention have you?” pulling her thumb back out. “Guess I’ll just have to start from scratch.” He stretches his own arm out front of himself, holding his hand flat vertically and demonstrating how he curls his fingers before twisting the fist horizontally. 

“Elvis -”

“Na uh, baby, Mister Tiger.”

Olivia rolled her eyes at his smirk.

“Oh, right. Mister Tiger. Aren’t you tired? Should we maybe head out?”

His eyes moved over her, his hands were back at his hips. “Sho honey, soon as you throw me. You get through an attack and throw me to the mat, then lickety split, we’re on our way home.”

Olivia giggled. “Elvis, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

His hand was back on her shoulder, rubbing it. “Sure you can, baby, cuz Imma teach ya. Right here. Now, come on. Let’s try that fist.”

She nods and watches him again, repeating the action with her own hand.

“So, you punch from here,” he slides his hands around her middle, “right round by this itty bitty waist of yours.” Then grips her newly formed fists and tugs them into the proper position. 

“Your hands rest here - you gotta return ‘em here whenever you finish with the move… Well, at least, as a beginner - and then from here you can step forward into an oi-zuki - that’s a punch like this.” Elvis’ brow furrowed in concentration, before he demonstrated with a shout. Olivia jumped a little, not expecting it, and he flashed her a grin. “The shout - that’s called a kiai.” He stands back up, strutting in front of her with his arms crossed, a fierce, boyish pride on his face.

“Now you give it a go.” She was a little nervous but still, she complied, performing for him and even remembering to return her fists back to the same position after. 

“No. You gotta do it with the kiai. Do it again.” 

“Slave-driver.” She was kidding, smiling as she said it, but his facial expression dropped.

“It takes time, Lolly, to get it right. You wanna half ass everything? Cuz I sure as hell don’t. This is real karate, only kind I know how. But if you ain’t even gonna try, I’m ain’t gonna bother trying to teach you. ‘S fine.” He looked to the side, pouting. He sighed loudly, “I jus, just worry about you, wanted you to know how to defend yourself…” 

“No - No, sorry - Elvis, sorry. You’re right. I do wanna learn… just-” She got back into position. “Show me how it goes again.” He huffed, but then moved into the position to show her again, perking up as he began to take her through it a second time.

“Now your turn.” Olivia mimicked the move, feeling ridiculous as she copied Elvis’ shout this time.

“See, There’s my good lil’ Lolly Ollie. If you lead with the other arm now, that's a gyaku zuki.” She does as he says and he nods, grinning at her efforts. 

“Good girl.” Her tummy flips, as it still does every time he gives her praise she quickly tries to collect herself when he waves a hand as if to make her do it again, and she does, but she pauses after bringing her fists back to her waist. 

“Not that I’m not enjoying the lesson El - I mean Mister Tiger, but can we get to the throwing part? I…weren’t you gonna show me how to defend myself?” He huffs again. 

“Well, yeah. But I gotta teach you the basics first.” His voice takes on an expository tone as he rests his hands on his hips, “It takes a who-ole lot of practice to get this good.” Olivia smiles back at him, 

“And, you are very good at it too.” Despite her best efforts he won’t be deterred, simply agreeing with her. 

“Exactly, so listen up.”

“Perhaps you should just…let me watch?” Elvis looks her over for a moment, blue eyes narrowing, and she’s taken aback when, after a moment, he nods in agreement. 

“Well, I suppose a li’l demonstration might help… yeah, yeah you know what - actually, since you’ve not been paying attention in class, it’ll be useful.” He gives her a stern look, “I’ll have to do my best without a partner, but it’d probably do you good to watch me for a little while.” 

His eyes barely leave himself in the mirror, only occasionally sneaking a glance to see her reaction after he does what he deems to be a more impressive move. It was mesmerizing to watch him reflected around her, alone, moving his body in quick, fluid strokes, all around her. His grunts echoing through the empty studio. His powerful mix of raw passion and discipline remind her of his stage presence, those moments he seemed to go inward and close his eyes and let the energy of the music take over and move his entire body in an electric fit of kicks and thrusts. His voice brings her back to the here and now, alone, on the mat in the dojo, he doesn’t notice the awe and desire in her eyes at first, but then he pauses as he speaks, quirking his head at her and blushing slightly in recognition at her attentive, wide-eyed stare.

“Now Lolly, don’t look at me like that, won’t be able to finish this lesson. “ He slapped her bottom, and stepped aside. “Alright, that was just some blocks, but you’ll need to know more than that if someone grabs you. So, look - c’mere,” He maneuvers her around, pulling her to slightly in front of him “and just, that’s it, stand right there.” 

“Oh…kay.” She obediently goes where he tugs her.

“Right, now, try and grab me.” 

“I’m not doing that - you’ll hurt me!” He smirks, shaking his head. Her voice turns even more shrill, “You were just telling me you’re an expert!” 

“I won’t hurt you, lil gal, I won’t even let you touch the floor, just gotta show you where to place your arms.” He shrugs, exaggerated sad frown on his face, although his tone was unsympathetic, “If only you’d watched earlier… then you wouldn’t have to.” 

“Elv-is! Seriously - I’m not sure about-“ He looks at her flatly, unamused by her protestations, 

“Lolly,” He elongates the vowel making it seem like he was mimicking her, “jus shut up and grab me.” 

Nervous and still not comfortable trying to hurt someone, she half-heartedly tries to grab Elvis from behind. He shakes his head, smiling a little as he starts to mime out throwing her to the floor. 

“So you needta put your arm ‘round em, just like this.” He twists to grip her torso, while sliding his leg around her, “And then, you place your foot here,” She finds that the move tucks her legs between his thighs and she can already sense how he’s about to drop her just from the pressure of the angle, “and then, you push ‘em off balance, with your other hand.” He puts his palm to her other shoulder, pushing a little. “Then you use that momentum to push them to the floor.” He shoves a little harder, before grasping the lapels of her jacket and pulling her back upright. Situating her between his legs again. “Told you I wouldn’t drop you.” 

Olivia finds herself slightly disoriented with the sudden movement, and the squeeze of his thighs against hers, he’s so close he’s blocking her view of everything but his body. Her entire world is enveloped by Elvis in his karate gi. He blows off a puff of hair, tickling the top of Olivia’s head, and she shivers against him, immediately missing his heat when he steps back. 

“Now you try on me.” He grins, “You can put me on the floor if you like.” 

Olivia tries, she really does, but it’s an awkward angle and she can’t quite seem to wrap her hand far enough around to get a good enough grip to make him fall off-balance. He huffs when she struggles to make him move even an inch, 

“C’mon, Lolly, harder - you can do it.” She tries again and Elvis laughs, “You are trying to throw me aren't you?” 

She huffs, teasing back, “Of course!” 

Elvis shoots her a grin, waggling his eyebrows in a challenge.

“Well - actually do it then.” 

She rolls her eyes, but attempts the move, and it only takes a couple more tries before she manages to hook her leg in just the right way to push him over. He smiles proudly at her from his prone position. “That’s it! Good girl!” He launches himself back up, brushing himself off, “See - I knew you could do it!” Olivia nods smiling back at him, 

“It wasn’t that hard really…”  

He lifts an eyebrow, pulling her towards him, fingers curled into the belt of her jacket. 

“So, that’s how to get them to the floor - but what if you have to fight? Kicking is more effective than punching for defense. So now watch.” He shakes her a little when she doesn’t immediately respond, furrow forming in his brow.  “Lolly.’ His voice is serious, earnest, “This is important.” She nods, 

“Sorry! I’m listening. I am. Show me,” He’s still frowning, “Please?”  He doesn’t respond but moves to the side of her to demonstrate,

“For the first, you bring up this leg.” He waits for her to follow, lifting her knee up to a 90 degree angle. “This is called chambering, so you gotta bring up your knee to ‘chamber’ the kick - for, uh, control.” She nods, “And then, you can, uh, flick it up, like this.” 

She tries to do as he does but he immediately comes around to hold her hips.

“No. Not like that. You’ve gotta push through with it, with power - not all… loose and floppy, like that.” He shakes his hands around her hips, mimicking the words as he says them. “Do it again.” She tries again, “Hmm, better.” She brings her foot back down, but he catches her ankle before she can, causing her to stumble a little. 

“Elvis.” She stands upright again, crossing her arms across her chest. “What’s the point of this?” He pouts, mirroring her pose, rubbing his hand down his arm. 

“Honey, your assailant ain’t gonna just stand there and let you flip him. You gotta learn how to really kick that motha out when comes atchya. But If you wanna be attacked by drugged out commies, raped and murdered - boom, bang - BAM, fine, go ahead!” 

He starts to stalk away from her, although she grabs his arm before he can get too far, and though he looks down at her hand with distaste he doesn’t immediately shrug her off. 

“No - no, Elvis, I do. I want to learn, please - pleaase?” He huffs, but nonetheless turns back around and walks back over to the middle of the mat gesturing for her to come back beside him. Olivia tries again but she’s immediately met with a huff.

“No - you’re still not listenin’ to me, and you’re still not paying attention to your goddamn hands. Now you’re using them too much - they’re meant to help you balance, not drive the whole kick.” He’s taken on a particularly patronizing didactic tone, and it does little to make her less irritated. She tries again and he rolls his eyes, 

“... Now, look - let’s try something else.” He looks around for a moment, before his hands come up to fiddle with his black and red belt tied around his waist. He looks up at her, calculatingly, somehow she knows what he’s about to suggest, and she holds up her arms as if to ward him off,

“Oh no, no. Elvis, that won’t help - don’t you even think about it!” He smirks back at her, eyebrow lifting to almost touch his sweaty hair sticking to his forehead.

“Yes Elvis.” He repeats back at her as he unties the belt, curling it around his hand as he does.  She lets out a squeak as he looks over at her, his jacket already starting to fall open of its own accord. She shakes her head while he nods, his face becomes tender.

“Aw, now Lolls, trust me, sweetheart, this will help you focus. Master Rhee tied mine to help me learn how to focus on my legs. I won’t hurt you, promise.” 

This time, when he reaches out to grab her arms she doesn’t protest letting him grasp her hands. He unrolls his red satin belt and slowly loops it over her wrists, tying it with a satisfied nod. 

“Now. Try again.” 

She does as he says, but wobbles not being able to steady herself with her hands. 

“Still not quite. Look, just sit there an’ watch me.”

It’s hard to focus with his jacket now flying open as he demonstrates a seemingly long-winded Kata. Her attention drifted to his tan stomach, the trail of dark hair peeking out from between the white cotton on the gentle swell of his tummy, his skin almost glowing with the light layer of drying sweat that covered him. He suddenly pauses, eyes dark as he looks directly at her “Are you payin’ attention?” She nods frantically, 

“Of course! Of course I am!” 

“Gonna ask you to prove it in a sec. Now watch.” 

He does it again, and she squirms against the smooth glass of the mirror, unable to stop her thighs clenching. Finally, he finishes, striding over to her, undoing her hands to wrap the belt back around his waist. Her stomach flips at his closeness, the touch of his fingers grazing over hers as he helps her up

He smacks her butt again, with a chuckle.

“Alright, Lolly, show me whatcha got.” 

Then Elvis sits down on a chair, getting himself comfortable with his thighs spread and his legs out. 

She closes her eyes in an attempt to center herself back to the task at hand again. Only to jump, hard, when the next thing she knows Elvis’ arms are wrapped around her and there’s the cold metal of the tiny pistol he’d been showing off earlier in the class being pressed against her body. 

“What the hell, Elvis!” 

“How’d you get out of this now?” She struggles against him, trying to wrench herself out of his hold, “C’mon,” He’s growling into her ear, low and rumbly “C’mon, Oh-liv-ia, now, how would’ya get yourself free?” 

“Elvis - this isn’t funny, get offa me!”

“Elvis!” He repeats back, affecting a shrill, mocking tone. “Get offa me!” He teases, and it riles her up, as he intended, but now her movements are focused. 

 “Now. See this is why we havta practice, cuz women go emoti’nal when a bad guy grabs ‘em, just natural, that’s why we gotta run it again ‘til you know you can get it.”

Somehow in the haze of her frustration she manages to shove him back, and gets her knee into the right position to be able to sweep his leg out, using the force of his grip around her to topple him off balance - although she goes straight down with him, falling on top of him with a startled yelp, and a grunt from him on impact. 

“See. I told you you could do it Lolly girl!” He chuckles, breath tickling her ear, 

He rolls her over, notching his knees on either side of her waist, his hands almost instinctively pinning hers above her head. She can feel the heat of his belly pushing into her, and she rocks ever-so-slightly against him. He blows away the strands of hair that have fallen out on her face, his hands still holding her secure against him. 

“If I really tried you wouldn’t be able to get away.” She squirms a little, not really trying that hard to get out of his grip.

“I don’t wanna get away.”

The smirk on his face turned to a sweet, boyish smile. “Hmmm, that right?”

Olivia moved her forefingers inward to tickle his palms.

“Uh huh, got you right where I want you, mister tiger.”

Elvis leaned forward, loosening the tight grip he had on her wrists to palm over her hands, pressing them into the mat. His breath was warm on her neck as he spoke.

“Grrrrrrr”

They both start to laugh at his silly growls, but then, all of a sudden, the laughing stopped, replaced by an intense, lingering stare. Elvis trailing his thumb down her jaw, and she could feel a twitch between his legs, where he pressed into her. A hunger grew in his eyes as he thrust forward slightly.

“Time to go.”

He jumped back like a rubber band snapping into place, and held out his hand to pull her up. Startled, and not a little disorientated Olivia smoothed down her top.

“Ok, I’ll just go change -”

“Nah, leave it on.” 

He kept a tight hold of her wrist, not letting her stray as he bends with a slight grunt, tugging his white boots back on with a stomp of each foot. Elvis pulled her closer, his arms enclosing her, and turning her around as they looked into the mirror. Olivia could feel him prodding into the small of her back, as he tightened his grip around her. Just the warmth of his skin grazing the curve of her breasts made her nipples tingle and harden. He seemed to feel the longing rising up from her core as he leaned closer, resting his chin into her neck as he looked at their reflection, his fingers grazing over her bosom as he drew his hand across her body.

“I like the way it looks on you, baby.” 

Olivia pushed off of him, and turned, walking backwards towards the door. 

“Yeah, I bet you got a good view looking up at me from the floor when I threw you, Mister Tiger!” she giggled, waggling her eyebrows playfully as Elvis shook his head and followed her.

“Ha, only reason you threw me is cuz I wanted you to throw me, honey. Trust that. Looks like you forgot the most important lesson in karate.” 

There was a playful bravado in his eyes as he quickened his stride, the sound of his white boots squished over the vinyl mats. Olivia let out a nervous laughter and turned to look over her shoulder as she stumbled back, turning just in time to see him grab her and throw her over his shoulder. 

“Respect your sensei.”

The stairway echoed with the sound of Elvis’ hand slapping her butt and Olivia’s shrieks and giggles as he carried her towards the car. He seemed unphased by Red’s impatient glare as he and David leaned against the Stutz, smoking. Elvis’ eyes were focused on Olivia, and he looked over at her in silence as they drove back to Graceland, a goofy, boyish grin on his face as she leaned into his shoulder. He shook his head as she slyly swiped her hand over his thigh, feathering just above his groin. 

Once they were back at the house, Olivia hurried out of the car as he grunted his thanks to the boys. She was almost down the hallway behind the kitchen when he caught up with her, pinching her at her waist to walk behind her.

“Hmmmm, this kinda behavior fly with your teachers back in Oxford?”

A warmth spreads through her chest at the way his arms embraced her, and Olivia turned, wrapping her hands around his neck, almost overwhelmed by the tenderness she feels towards Elvis, whispering into his neck.

“Ugh, all my professors are old fuddy duddies, where’s the fun in teasing them.”  

She looks up, meeting Elvis eyes and swallowing at the intense desire bubbling up her throat. Recognition spread through his body, and his bottom lip dropped open as he scooped her up and carried her up the narrow back staircase behind the den. 

“Good baby, that’s good. Can’t bear the idea of you even talkin’ to another man.”

Elvis settles his hands at her bottom, fingertips gripping hard into the tops of her thighs as he hoisted her a little higher on him, dropping her down upstairs as he leads her through the walk-in closet and bathroom. The backway to his room.

All of a sudden, Elvis seems to become shy, rubbing his hands as he looks down at her feet. Olivia knows this mating ritual well, Elvis’s shift from confident bossman in front of the guys to fumbling, unsure boy. Olivia runs her fingers up his gi, trailing over the shiny, red satin of his uniform’s trim, to pull on his belt, though not too much, anxious to let him take the lead. 

“S’not fair, your uniform is so much nicer than mine.” She pouts.

Elvis’ voice becomes a low, breathy whisper. “Aw, now, Lolly, if you really think you wanna learn more now, I can get you a gi just like mine, baby.” 

He nuzzles her neck as he speaks, and Olivia leans into his nose.

“I do wanna learn more, E, I think.” She runs her hands up his side with longing. “I think I’m starting to like karate.”

Elvis arched his eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Well, I do have a pretty hot teacher.” She giggled. “He showed me some pretty slick moves today.” She bites her lip, drawing him backwards to the bed.

“Hmm, that right?”

Olivia cocks her eyebrow up, and before Elvis realizes it, she turns inward, hitches her foot behind his heel, and tries to grip him and toss him on the bed. He wobbles, but deflects and they tumble backwards together. 

“See, honey, I told you I let you throw me before -” She pouts, she wasn’t entirely unsuccessful - he’s still ended up exactly where she wanted him to be. “Aw - no, don’t look at me like that Lolly, baby - you just, you just need some more practice that’s all.” He pats at her cheek, encouraging her to look at him, “just a few more lessons, then I’m sure you’ll be able to get me good.” Olivia nods, lips softening out of their pout at his earnest expression, thumb rubbing the corner of her mouth.

Her eyes try to track his fingers, and it’s as if he suddenly becomes aware of the charged atmosphere again. His lips quirk as he trails his hand down her side, causing her to tremble against him. She turns, rolling even closer, and he twists himself to lean over her a little, thumb idly stroking her soft, pebbling, skin. It made her chest tighten with longing, and she lifted her hips to thrust into him. His hand trails down to her hip, his fingers continuing to caress the soft skin under her thick cotton of her uniform.. 

His fingers went to the drawstring of her pants, stumbling in his haste and desire to get the cord undone. She chuckles a little as he accidentally tightens the knot, swearing under his breath, before he manages to finally pull the cords free, the elasticated waistband now loose enough for him to comfortably slip his hand under. He draws it out, and Lolly is left to gasp and struggle to hold somewhat still as his fingers toy with her, gently sweeping across her belly button brushing lower into her soft curls and back - taking it as slowly as he can.  The thought pops into her head that it feels strange to be touched without feeling the skin-warmed metal or the delicate claws of a setting of one of his rings pressing against her skin - just his bare hands for once. It feels more charged in some way, raw. He grins at her when she issues a soft whine, and he stills her hand from pulling on his trousers. 

“Mmmhmmm, now, good things come to good lil girls who wait.”

“Oh god, El-vis. Please, touch me.” He chuckles, breathy and low. 

“Patience Lolly darling, waited all afternoon for you like this - just let me enjoy you, hm?” Her legs parted further almost entirely by themselves, and Olivia bit her lip at Elvis’ cocky, boyish smirk at her response. 

“Gonna be a good girl?”

“Mmmmhmmm.” 

She lay back, ceding him all control as her hands fell back over her head. His fingers pull on the white belt, releasing her top, revealing her pale, silky milk white breasts. She trembles at the sound of him sucking in air, grazing his knuckles over her belly to the bottom curve of her breast. Elvis pursed his lips and gently tugged at her left nipple, the subtle mix of pleasure and pain made her gasp, and she felt him twitch at his groin.

“Mmm, there she is, there’s my good baby.”

He leaned down to softly mouth over her other nipple, and the cool, wet feeling provoked another moan. All of her blood rushed to her core and her neck arched back. She hardly noticed how Elvis surreptitiously began to pull her pants off, the elasticated waistband of the gi slipping down easily, leaving her in little cotton panties. 

He doesn’t stop giving her nipple attention with his mouth, his hand still gently playing with the other, and Olivia can feel her pulse quickening, that slightly nauseating feeling that comes with being so rapidly turned on transforming into fluttering butterflies in her stomach as he shifts his lips to suck a love-bite on the velvety flesh of her breast. She meets his eyes, Elvis' gaze deepening as he pulls himself away to plant a soft, lazy kiss on her lips. It felt like she had needed him to kiss her all afternoon, and she couldn’t help herself. Once his mouth met hers, she greedily held him to her, pulling on his silk collar, just for a moment.

She giggled up into his mouth, feeling the distinct outline of an erection through his gi. She flipped her head back, looking at their reflection in the curved mirrors that lined the walls across from the bed.

Elvis’ was hunched over her, like a tiger over his prey. A tiger who was suddenly very tame, nipping at her neck. Tugging at his belt, she lets out a choked moan in surprise that he is totally nude underneath.

“Oh god, Elvisss - I.” 

Elvis has to look away at her gasp, and the hungry way she palms over his cock. Olivia finds her desire swell every time she is with him like this and gets to witness up close how shy he is in bed. She can feel him stiffen as he grins, and he cannot seem to stop the teasing way his eyebrow arches up in recognition of how his naked body, his jacket falling off of his shoulders, alone is enough to make her moan in pleasure. 

“Something you tryin’ to tell me, honey?” The laughter in his eyes tells her that he knows exactly what he’s doing to her - lowering his tone, quieting his voice until it's practically a deep, masculine, whisper. His hand trails down to run a single finger across the waistband of her panties, Olivia’s hips jolt as he toys with her - slipping further until he’s pressing the damp spot on her fabric. Her moan is stifled by his mouth, his tongue slipping into hers, and she is once again enveloped by him. The smell of the sweaty dojo that lingers along with his crisp aftershave, the warmth of his nose along her jaw, the sight of his chest hair above her. It takes every bit of focus that she has to move her hand over him again, touching him so that he can feel her desire.

But Elvis won’t be rushed, he takes his time, brushing over her clit through her underwear before finally tugging at the waist. She can tell from the way he waggles his eyebrows that he is enjoying this. Olivia should slap him for being so cheeky, but her arousal makes her lift her hips almost too eagerly as a giddy exhale escapes her throat. 

The cool, arctic air of Elvis’ bedroom is titillating on her bare skin, and she bucks up into his cupped hand, grinding into him and he lets out a sharp breath, almost a whistle at the way she slides against him, 

“Lordy, lordy lordy, like a caged alley cat, suddenly let out of its cage. Whatcha do with my good lil sorority gal, hmmm?”

“Uh-huh,” She wriggles, “Couldn’t - can’t help it, you, ah,” He slips his finger between the lips of her vulva, “something bout you, bout karate, makes me - ” she grinds into him again, another breathy giggle comes out when she meets his eye. “craazzzy.” 

“Huh, and here I thought you were bored, guess you were just playin’ it cool, huh?” He nudges her clit with his knuckle, “you like watchin’ me, lil girl?” 

She whines as he pulls himself away, tugging his jacket fully off, he hushes her, grinning, and leaning down to suck on her collarbone, just a teeny bit too high for her to cover. Olivia knows it will leave a hickey, and she’ll get a lecture from her house mother on lady-like behavior befitting a Chi Omega. But she doesn’t care, the way his lips are pressing into her and suckling, as his finger glides over her, around her, inside her, beckoning her to him like he beckoned his competitors to challenge him earlier. The full length of his soft, tapered fingers now slide back and forth along her clit and she rocks with them over the black satin sheets, chasing the electricity at their tips. She looks up into his eyes.

“Mhmmm. Watching you. But I liked it best - ” He plays it straight like he doesn’t know why she’s stopped talking, tilting his head at the way she cries out and gasps when his  fingers rub around her and she can’t stop the groan they summon. 

“Yesssss honey, you ok? What is that you like?”

Olivia shakes her head, her hips follow the measured, slow, movements of his hand inside her. Looking into his playful eyes, she can feel him fully hard against her stomach, and she can’t bear it much longer. In her past few times at Graceland she’d gotten used to the fact that he was nothing like the college boys she’d fooled around with in the past. Elvis was not a wham, bam, thank you ma’am lover. For him, the foreplay almost seemed as important, if not more so, and he seemed to enjoy pushing her. Right to the edge.

“I liked it when you worked one-on-one with me. I liked feeling you teach me.” She whispered, heart beating fast as she felt Elvis’ fingers still, while his left came up to cup her cheeks.

“Awww, baby, you like it when I teach you things? Honey -”  Elvis' voice dipped low into a sweet murmur as he leaned forward into her ear, and Olivia nodded, his hand guiding his penis to her entrance. “I’m jus getting started. Got all kinda moves I wanna show you.” 

He chuckled, bending into her neck as he laughed at his own corny lines. However, his momentary chuckle was swiftly replaced by a low growl as he thrust up inside her, and Olivia became incapable of replying. Snaking her arms over his shoulders, she tilted her hips to meet him, her heart pounding as he moved back deliberately, his mouth a terse, concentrated line, before they delved down to kiss her neck.

“You ok, honey?”

Olivia nodded her head, winding her hair through his fingers, the hot breath from his nostrils moistened her skin as he delved up into her once more, and she pushed back to let him know that she could take it, that she wanted it, that she liked it. 

“Uh uh, more than ok.” She whispered into his ear. “Been thinking about this all afternoon.”

Elvis hand swiped down to trail along the side of her rib cage, tenderly, enjoying the delicate feel of her soft skin, and then gripping her tighter as he plunged back into her, deeper, and more determined, encouraged by the succession of moans Olivia uttered in time with his hips. As if he were pounding them out of her in time with his own heavy panting gasps. 

She could no longer think, every move brought Olivia into the present and everything left her head until suddenly all she knows is the flare of Elvis’ nostrils over her, the silk of the sheets below her, and the reflection from the television sets in the ceiling above her that she calls out, babbling a succession of “oh - gods” out as Elvis’ increases his pressure, and the way he smiles at her praise and grins, leaves her breathless. His hips stutter a little, and his mouth hanging open, and she is consumed by the need to drink him in, and leans up to close the gap between them, capturing his mouth with hers and pulling him close with her arms entwined around his neck. Their movements become more erratic, desperate, unable to be close enough, completely absorbed in the moment, so much so that as they roll over once, then again, Olivia accidently hits her nose into Elvis' elbow.

He slows down, “You ok, baby?’

And she shakes her head, an urgency to her voice, “Mhmmm, don’t stop, don’t stop, please don’t stop.” Her hands cup his face, and he chuckles, rocking back into her, then moaning out as she grinds against him. 

He nibbles at her cheek, mouthing at her sweat-slicked skin as his hands glide up her sides - his palm and fingers spread out wide and flat on her back, holding Olivia to him. She throws her head back, inviting him to her neck and chest and he complies, leaving little wet marks as he presses open-mouthed kisses down her collarbone to the top of her breast. She can feel the sweat from his forehead as he works his way down, one of his hands sliding over to tweak a nipple. It sends an immediate zing to her core, and she pushes her hips harder into him as her orgasm washes out through her body.

“El, Elvis, oh mercy me, oh good lord - “

He smiles, a cocky, self-satisfied grin, which is short lived, replaced by the contortions of his own climax, and his kisses to her neck become a chain of fervent, wet, sloppy lips, as he murmurs into her skin.

 “Oh Lo-Lolly, my lil Lolly, bout to loose ma damn mind.” His voice wavered, and his hips start to stutter, and he chants her name as he pulsates into her, his forehead slumping into her breasts as they hold each other. 

Olivia looks up at the blurry reflection of his body over her in the blank television above. She blinked and let the cozy, warm afterglow of lovemaking over take her, leaning into his chest as he pants. The way his chest lifts her up and down, the way his heart is beating like a drum through his rib cage into her ear, the calm way he laughs as he grabs the nearest thing he can, the satin-lined karate uniform top, to wipe himself and throw it across the room, is all so endearing and comforting that it makes her tighten her embrace. She wishes she could just stay like this forever. She smiles into his hand, as his fingers trail down her cheek.

“You really are a beautiful girl, Lolly. Don’t know what I’d do if anythin’ ever happened to you.” 

The intense, sentimental look on Elvis’ face wasn’t lost on Olivia, in part, because it was so romantic, and so very different from the closed lipped boys back at Ole Miss. She could see some of her friends being intimidated by grand gestures, but Olivia longed for this, his open, candid way of just sharing whatever emotions he was feeling had been part of the charm that induced her to drop whatever she was doing, even ditch her classes, and visit whenever Elvis called and invited her to Graceland for a week.

When he looked at her like this, so earnestly sharing his sweet confession, it made Olivia want to pull him into her and kiss him fiercely, desperately showing him how much it meant to hear him care for her this way. 

“You could, you could just keep me by your side always.”

Elvis let his lips brush over hers. “Wish I could, sweetheart, keep this fine ass safe and sound.” 

There it is, a reminder that she is leaving tomorrow, and his plane will be flying her back to Oxford, back to school, back to her boring, mundane life and away from these arms. The reminder that he has other girls to spend time with and other promises to keep. She pushes the thought away, and puts a smile on her face, she doesn’t want to lose this moment or let her disappointment get to her. As if reading her mind, Elvis distracts her soon enough by grabbing her waist, and working his hand down to gently cup her bottom, massaging his fingers around the bottom of her cheeks and grinning at her gasp. 

“Yeah, that’s the one. Finest lil tail in all a Memphis.”

“Stop.”

The tone of her voice encouraged Elvis to squeeze her butt harder, before returning to rub her shoulder.

“S’ok baby, I’ll sleep better knowing you have some basic defense moves now to pro-tect ya self. T’weren’t half bad.”

Olivia runs her fingers through his chest hair, then sits up to look down at him.

“Half bad? Elvis Presley,” she effected a grand, dame accent.  “I do de - clare, I think you forgot that I threw you, Twice.”

He shakes his head.

“Hhhh, so you think that makes you a baaadd mumbo jumbo, huh?”

She nods, giggling as he pulls her back to him. 

“Uhh-huh, what was it you called the guy, the one attacking all these women?” She puts on his accent and tone, deepening her voice to imitate him, “That guy ain’t just bad, he’s double-bad.” She speaks like herself again, “Guess that’s me now. Double-bad. Can take down a karate master.” She strokes his arm, poking him with one manicured finger to emphasize the syllables. He shakes his head, 

“Just you wait. I just let you so you’d get the technique down. Soon as I can walk again, we’re gonna have another lesson here. Better believe.”

Olivia fixes him with a teasing glare.

“Huh, well get ready, baby, cuz you're the one who’s gonna get a lesson.”

“That right?”

“Mhmmm. And a mouth full a humble pie.”

Her shrieks and his laughter echo through the room as they roll back and forth in a contest of wills, trying to pin each other down until they accidentally roll off the bed, and erupt into another fit of laughter with Olivia, once more, on top of Elvis. 

“See, that’s the third time. Admit it, I threw you, fair and square.”

He gazes up at her, his thumbs rove her belly from her waist, where they hold her.

“Ok, honey, you threw me. Threw me good.”

taglist: @lookingforrainbows @literally-just-elvis-fics @missmaywemeetagain @peskybedtime @shakerattlescroll  @arrolyn1114 @from-memphis-with-love @powerofelvis @dkayfixates

[bastillia]

OKAYY LET’S TALK ABOUT ARCANE!!

who are your favorites?

what are your thoughts on this new seasoj?

what do you think will happen?

have you cried yet?

YEAH LETS FUCKING TALK ABOUT IT (this may be long-winded, you have been warned)

Favorites are so hard to pick, GAHH especially this season!!! Though I have to say I have been LOVING Jinx in S2. She is still chaos incarnate, but there’s a mindfulness, a sense of control to her now that has floored me more than once. I love this arc in which SHE is defining, rather than being defined by, “Jinx.” I see a surprisingly adept leader in her (especially following the end of Ep6, YOWCH amirite) that I wasn’t anticipating but am loving. Perhaps she CAN be the leader Zaun needs!! I am starting to think perhaps she has it like that!!!

Vi is always a favorite. GOD I love characters who are just absolutely stuck. Frozen in the narrative. Vi is one of my favorite cases—I mean, theoretically, she should have the most autonomy out of ANY character in the show when it comes to defining her path. Yet she is completely fucking stuck in the past. Physically of course, she’s out of prison, but the bars are still around her. And she’s punching them 😭. But!!! she has also surprised me this season on that front!!! I love seeing those personal growth gears start to shudder and flake off rust. I love seeing that, even though she has more reason than anyone to expect the worst in people (including herself, owie owie owie), she is starting to choose trust. I LOVE GROWTH. I LOVE FAMILY. I LOVE MY BEAUTIFUL LESBIANS. SURELY THESE THINGS WONT BE RIPPED PAINFULLY AWAY FROM ME. SURELY. (STARES AGAIN AT S2E6)

Sevika is a fave because she’s hot as fuck I just love to see her on the screen. She’s the damn concrete wall next to the pack of kids playing with BB guns and silly string and sometimes bombs. I always love a clash of lawful and chaotic. What I love even more is a tenuous alliance between the two. I mean????? That fight between her and Smeech??? With the arm Jinx made??????? NON. STOP. DELIGHT. (also can someone please get this woman a permanent arm solution. she needs to be able to fingerblast me asap. with attachments. while choking me. thanks)

There are so many more. Ambessa is a force of fucking nature this season, she TERRIFIES me, and I know she’s not about to let THAT SHIT slide (ykwim). MARK ME DOWN AS SCARED AND HORNY. Also what the hell is this femme dom red room kink magic following her and WHAT JUST HAPPENED WITH MEL AND THE GOLDEN LIGHT WHAT IS TGE FAMILY SECREGHTJEHRHFHDBF

I’m fine.

Also I fucking love Ekko and I need to see more of him. And speaking of, where the hell IS his ass and professor puffball??!

HEIMERDINGER. YOUR PET TWUNK IS ON THE LOOSE AND KILLING HIS LOVER WITH HAMMERS.

God I have absolutely NO IDEA what’s going to happen but I know it’s going to hurt!!!!!!! :’)))))

[xxbl00ds0akeds3raxx]

fifi, darling, please get checked out ASAP. i'm sorry you're dealing with this. please don't think this is the thing that ruins you.

if you are in fact pregnant, there are ways to discard the pregnancy. please be as safe as possible doing so. i know that's easier said then done in this god forsaken town, but you have people in your corner.

you'll get through this. you'll have the support of abel and robin. they love you. they want you safe and happy. you will be safe and happy, eventually. you are not your mother, your story is and will be continue to be different than hers.

your fans and followers love you and wish only the best for you.

p.s. ...please don't interact with kylar anymore after this is said and done. i know you have a big heart, but kylar just isn't worth letting in. not when he hurts you like this.

i'm not going 2 make an appt w/ dr. harper.

abel got me a few home tests in case there's any mixed results & i. haven't taken them. theyre on teh counter. im goign to,,, but i've just been soooo busy packing yk!!!! ^.^ it hink that's more umm. time sensitive aha

i don't. think we'll b staying in town anymore,,, not after this lolzzz. abel and i've blocked kylar, so it's like. idk. only a matter of time until he starts to worry or like find out what we're doing x_x i said i was going out & i'd b back but im. not. (sooner or later he'll try to check my acc and see its unavailable & he has alt accs n shit so nothing i post is safe (★‿★))

tysm for ur support it means the world <3 i've been an unstable mess all day and reading "you will be safe and happy" and "you are not your mother" kind of made me start sobbing lolz fuuuuckkkk.

if im pregnant i literally wont evr b able to look at kylar ever again im so fucking serious u dont evn have 2 worry abt that

[fqbang]

To You | fabang au

“You , I always need you”

One fine morning Quinn realized she’s not waking up to a man beside her, her husband is not on the bed. Neither anywhere in their room. She scrolled through her phone to check her messages and emails, if there were any, and of course there were! A LOT actually. Mostly about her clients asking for updates on their case, advices, and some colleagues requesting to help with any of her trial cases. She ignored those. She went straight to her imessage to message her husband Mike.

“Hello Doctor Chang are you there? I think you might’ve forgot that you got a wife here back at your home. So I’m texting as a gentle reminder. Text me back ASAP. worried about you” —SENT.

Not even a minute after it was sent, her phone buzz a notification from him.

“Good Morning Atty. Fabray! I actually did not forget about my wife at all and I, in fact, did sneak in last night to steal some sleep but then I was paged and needed to come back at the hospital even before you wake up. Sorry for not texting sooner. Good luck on your hearing appointment today.”

Oh Quinn sweared she didn’t care about the hearing of one of her biggest clients until Mike brought it up and she was forced to get up of bed and started preparing for it.

An hour or so has passed, Quinn is done with all her morning rituals when an email arrived in her inbox informing her that today’s hearing was cancelled because the client just fired her for some unknown reason.

“Oh great after all of our preparations for this case, I was fired just like that” she said to herself frustrated and angered.

A text from Mike arrived once again.

“Hello Atty! Has the hearing started yet? Best of luck, not that you need it but still ! Text me back whenever you can. I love you”

A smile replaced her furrowed eyebrows when she read the text from her husband. ��I miss him’ she thought to herself.

“Only the rough wind lingers around me so I always need you.”

“How many hours before you could actually come back home to me, Dr?”

“5 more hours :)”

“Too long!!!”

“Sorry, i’ll make it up to you, Atty. How’s the hearing going?”

“Meh it’s boring.”

“Hmm would still wanna know how’s it going but I gtg. I bet it’s going so well though!! Anyways, Break time’s over, i’ll ttyl :)”

“And what if isn’t?” she sent it not waiting for any response because she knows Mike is back to his job where phone is never allowed.

“Then next time it will. I still love you don’t worry too much about your cases you know it gets better”

“Hey, even if you don’t say anything, You’re the only one that understands me.”

With a slightly heavy heart she packed her stuff and drive to Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital where her husband is currently working. Her heads thoughtless all she ever wanted was a hug— a warm, very long comforting hug from her husband. The sun hasn’t shine for too long yet as the day was just starting but for Quinn it felt like it’s the end of the very draining day at work and she needs someone who she could vent out to. Someone who would just listen and understand her. She’s clearly sad because she felt all her efforts go to waste after she was suddenly fired.

“Today I’ll go to your arms too”

“hello is Dr. Mike Chang in here?” I asked the nurse at the lobby.

“Oh he is. Will you be having a follow up check up with him? May I have your name so I could search for your records, Ma’am?” the nurse politely responded.

“No, actually I am not. I am—“

“Hey nurse Lizelle I need the charts for the patient in room-“

“Oh great timing Dr. Chang someone’s looking out for you” pointing at Quinn “ and of course I’ll grab the charts of Riley from Room 2”

Quinn slowly turned his gaze on him and he’s just expecting a normal patient who might need his help. Surprise was very evident on his face when their eyes met.

“Quinn what are you doing here?” His voice sounded a bit excited but more worried.

“Are you hurt?” He questioned once more.

“No, but I need something from you.” sadness on her eyes.

“A hug if I may?” She extended both her arms asking for a hug.

And so the doctor immediately pulled her for a hug.

“Sorry nurse liezel for this little pda. A little favor can you page me when some urgent matters occurred? I’ll be back later.” He ordered to the nurse who’s smiling when she saw the two hugging.

I’m grateful to you, who greets me whenever I open the door.

“What happened my love?” Mike asked Quinn who’s now happily eating her lunch.

“Life sucks!” She yelled with her mouth full of salad. “But at least this salad is delicious!” She added.

“Okay…” Mike just let her be.

“I was fired…” her voice turned serious.

“It’s my first time to be fired. And by a very important client too” she felt a lump forming on her throat “It’s not a very good feeling. I’m sorry I had to bother you like this but-"

“You didn’t bother anyone here. Actually you came in perfect time.”

“What do you mean?”

“ I miss your voice.”

“Okay I guess this is from your lack of sleep but you’re not making any sense right now.”

“There’s this patient I talked to earlier. She’s turning 7 undergoing a chemotherapy and she wants to meet a fairy who would sing her ‘seven by taylor swift. Do you think you could do her some favor?”

You've given me a piece of happiness

How did Quinn get so happy in an instant? Easy, Mike knows her.

She dressed up as a fairy and surprised Riley, the kid who’s battling cancer and sang to her “Seven”

“Thank you Dr. Chang! I don’t know how did you find a fairy but it’s magical in here now!” The kid exclaimed in excitement

“You’re welcome Riley” Mike replied and gave her a hug.

The doctor and the ‘fairy’ left the room when Riley fell into slumber.

“Thank you Dr. Chang. I don’t know how you did it, but you definitely cheered me up today.”

“Out of all the things I’ve achieved today, making you happy was the most fulfilling.”

“I love you, Mike”

“You too, Atty!”

Hi what do you think of this? My favorite headcanon today is Dr. Mike x Atty. Quinn so here it goes lol

Idk if it’s confusing for anyone but the random “” in between scenes are lyrics of the song “To You” that best describes each scenarios so i added :)

[autumnalhappiness]

Back to school tips

I think some of us are going back to school in September (sad, yes, I know) and are currently not mentally ready.

Here are some tips for you to ease back into school life!

Before last few days of break

Finish up your homework

It is probably a universally acknowledged fact that homework is the biggest cause of our headaches before school. But for those who have yet to complete it,

Prioritise

If there is not enough time to complete all your homework, prioritise the homework that is required first. If you already have your new timetables, do the homework needed for the first few lessons.

Make a timetable

To sort out the homework you need to do, draw up a timetable for you to stick to. It can be made digitally or physically, as long as it is easy to follow. I will make a post on this topic when my poor ipad is fixed :(

Ask for help

Should you encounter any problems while doing your homework, ask your parents, friends, and teachers. Avoid leaving a page blank.

2. Ease yourself back into school life

Get your body used to going to school again. You don't want those body aches when getting up.

Change your sleep schedule

If you're currently sleeping from 2 am to 11 am, you definitely have to make a change to your sleep schedule. Start shifting your sleep time and waking time one hour back each day, until you reach the time that provides you enough sleep and can get you to school in time. And also saves you from the lethargy you'll feel in the morning. Trust me, it is terrible.

Look through some past papers you did

Search your bag for some worksheets your teacher assigned to you previously to get into the studying mode.

Exercise!

Going to school will require a lot of physical work. Make sure to get your body used to the exercise. It doesn't need to be hard, just climbing the stairs in your house will do.

Last few days of school

1. School supplies shopping!

Personally this is my favourite part. You get to buy cute stationery and notebooks! All on sale! But please don't just buy everything you want. Look at the school supplies list first, before buying your wants.

2. School clothes shopping!

Yes, we all want to look super stylish when we get back to school. If your school allows free wear, go to the store and mix and match the clothes! Remember to have enough for a week, and of course, go for the deals!

Last day before school

1. Arrange with your friends or parents how you'll be going to school

Will you be walking, taking the car, or going with your friend? You have to decide ASAP. Don't want to realise you'll have to walk when you thought you'd get a ride.

2. Pack your bags

No, packing your homework and files cannot wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow will stir up its own chaos. Pack all your bags before going to bed.

3. Double check booklist

Double check if you bought everything, the books, stationery, etc.

4. Lay out your uniform or clothes

Before going to bed, iron your uniform and clothes. Then, hang the ironed clothes for you to easily grab the next day. This is to avoid stressing out the next morning over what to wear.

5. Set your alarm

Please don't be late on your first day of school! Remember to set your alarm to allow buffer time, in case of last minute setbacks.

First day of school

You did it!! Have fun learning in school! Good luck!

I hope these tips were of some help!

[shandian-go]

Update 2023-05-04

April Arrivals

April Arrivals is now complete! If you think you should have received a second payment e-mail but haven't gotten one yet, please e-mail me ASAP. To check if you have any items in April Arrivals, please set the filter to 'At Canada Address' on the Status Page: https://www.shandiango.ca/status

Please note that for SKU 2017, I only received a few early arrivals this round and the majority will be part of June Arrivals. No need to e-mail me if this is the only item you're waiting on this round as your e-mail will be sent out in June!

Shipping and pick-up

Please try to send your payments before May 10th as I'll be away starting May 12th. I'll be asking my family for help during my absence so some packages may still go out during this time, but I won't be able to respond to e-mails as quickly in case things like address changes or recalcs are needed.

For pick-ups, I'll be available in the evenings from Sunday May 7 to Thursday May 11. If you can't make it during this period, pick-up appointments will resume on May 23 (after Victoria Day).

Order issues and new listings

I'll be catching up on order issues over the next few days so if you don't hear from me by Sunday evening, please send a follow-up e-mail. Some of you may also receive tracking numbers for item issues tomorrow so keep an eye out.

New listings will be posted this Sunday or Monday - the prep is done and I just need to make time to review everything. The order deadline will be near the end of May so you'll have plenty of time to browse and decide!

Membership and personal orders

The current membership period will be extended until the end of May as I may not have time to coordinate the Early Access sale before I go away. The next membership period will start on June 1, 2023.

For members with Personal Order requests, I'll be finalizing your confirmation e-mails by this Sunday!

Thank you!

I know I've said it a lot already but I'm truly thankful for everyone's patience and understanding when it comes to waiting for orders or for me to resolve issues. I'm human so mistakes do happen when I'm packing and I feel very lucky that joiners are willing to go out of their way when I need their help fixing the problem. Know that I appreciate your efforts and thank you once again!

[mxtwister]

Cult of the Lamb has been on my list of games to play for a good while now and since I'm finally just a few bosses away from finishing Hi-Fi Rush I figured I should get some input from a fan before starting a file. got any comments or things I should know before playing?

Oh yeah!

So I put off answering this for a little while because I was on vacation but also my first instinct was to warn you off of buying the switch version due to some performance issues. Once I hit about 20 followers (which is required at some points to progress the game!!) it started to lag terribly; dropped resources would fly all across the screen, follower dialogue was getting swapped, somehow, it would lag and sometimes crash entirely, etc., etc.

But!

The game's since updated, and after a few trial runs it seems that these issues have markedly improved. Doing some preliminary research I almost think that this might be something of a pattern where the devs release an update and it's absolute havoc on the switch for a little while until they're able to fix it. I can't say for sure though. In any case the switch version is working fine now.

(Although I've seen some shader packs people have been using on pc that are really really pretty so yknow. pros and cons. really it's whichever you prefer)

Anyways, cotl is pretty straightforward. Besides decorations the most important "customization" is the doctrines, which are rules and rituals you can unlock and apply to your cult. You're given a choice between two and have to pick only one (the other can be unlocked postgame, which personally I think is kind of a bad move because it takes the point out of the game having multiple save files, the biggest draw for which is picking different doctrines but that's off-topic). Usually you can go either/or depending on your play style-basically how brutal you want to be-but I'd recommend:

Don't pick the Resurrection Ritual! It doesn't take a lot of resources and has almost no downsides. It takes the punch out of your followers dying when you can just zap em back to life anytime. It lowers the stakes, and a big part of the game's fun (especially the early part) is in the struggle to keep your followers happy, obedient, and healthy. It's better to unlock post-game.

Pick Return to the Earth, which unlocks the ability to turn your dead followers into fertilizer. It will get tedious to deal with the bodies. You'll run out of space to bury them and it costs loyalty to cut them up in front of your followers, meaning you'll have to wait until night (it's more annoying than anything).

Pick Tax Collector. Money isn't incredibly important in the game, but one issue I've constantly run into is food insecurity. Harvesting food doesn't always yield seeds, so your supplies aren't going to replenish themselves. You'll have to buy seeds fairly often. It's better to have someone running around collecting extra cash for you.

(^Note for this one, you can unlock a doctrine that removes the penalty for making your followers eat grass, which seems like it'll solve all your food problems, but grass isn't very filling and you do need it as building material too, so that isn't really sustainable in the long run. Also, feeding your followers better food increases loyalty)

These are just some thoughts that I notice are different from the guide I saw online. Moving on from that, some completely miscellaneous tips:

A big part of the game outside of cult-caretaking is going on crusades...which means leaving followers to their own devices. Unfortunately, your followers are useless and cannot do anything to take care of themselves unless you've unlocked enough buildings to make your cult semi-automated (kitchen, outhouse, etc.) Make sure before you leave your loyalty is full or close to it, the place is completely tidy, and no one's hungry.

They're going to dissent anyways. Build prisons asap.

I didn't realize this for the longest time, somehow, but you can gain extra blue hearts each time you perform a sermon. Stacking them up makes crusades a lost easier before you've unlocked all of your permanent red hearts + stronger weapons.

There's a rat follower form hidden behind Ratu's house and a starfish one hidden in Midas' Cave :]

Photosensitivity warning: Sometimes when unlocking things (usually new stages, I think) there'll be this irritating black-and-white colour-shift/flash. Luckily the game has a ton of accessibility settings that you can fiddle with if anything bothers you.

Recently there was a pretty major update (Sins of the Flesh) and it seems like the devs have the intention of continuing to add more free content to the game Stardew Valley-style which I'm really looking forward to! I definitely recommend it if you're thinking of buying.

God's a catboy. It doesn't get better than that.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Links Roundup

The interwebs had so many interesting things to read this week! Here’s a links roundup of a few. 

Hurricanes Becoming So Strong That New Category Needed, Study Says

Where else would we start but at The Guardian, with an article about how much bigger and more intense the biggest, most intense hurricanes (and other cyclones) are becoming. You might call it doom and gloom, but the climate–adjacent scientist in me finds some weird satisfaction in seeing that, yes, retaining extra energy within the climate system because we’ve overinsulated it by adding extra greenhouse gas to the atmosphere is having spectacular effects. Honestly, we need to get our act together about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero ASAP (40 years ago would have been better). 

Should More British Homes Be Built Using Straw?

The BBC website had an interesting article about adding straw–packed panels to the exteriors of buildings (generally as they’re being newly constructed, given the size constraints) to improve their insulation. The straw is packed so tight that it’s fire resistant but not so tight that it doesn’t trap air inside the stuffing, thus serving effectively as insulation, vastly reducing how much you need to heat or cool a building. At the moment, here in Germany, they use thick slabs of Styrofoam, which release horrendously toxic fumes if the building catches on fire. Straw sounds like an interesting, non–toxic, sustainable alternative, especially if you consider how much waste straw is generated every time crops like wheat, rye, and even oilseed rape (Canola) are harvested. The main catch is that production of the panels would need to be scaled up quickly enough to matter in our fight against further climate change by reducing the amount of energy needed to keep buildings at a comfortable temperature. 

A US Engineer Had a Shocking Plan to Improve the Climate – Burn All Coal on Earth

This article, also on the BBC website, is about the opposite of trying to save energy, and it’s a quick history of our attitude toward anthropogenic global warming. Turns out, the sort of people who don’t want to admit it’s real today were the sort of people who used to think it would be great to burn all the fossil fuels to take the edge of the chillier aspects of climate. Bonkers. These were probably also the people who liked to think that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would totally boost plant growth, and therefore crop yields, on a major scale. Also bonkers. 

Can Slowing Down Save the Planet?

The New Yorker published an interesting review of the book Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, in which the Marxist philosopher Kohei Saito lays out the case for “degrowth communism”. He argues that green capitalism won’t be enough to save the planet—and us. It just looks good from a certain vantage point right now because it pushes the environmental and social costs of resource extraction and good production into the Global South. This allows consumers in the Global North to remain blissfully ignorant of the damage they’re (we’re) doing with their (our) unsustainable lifestyles and obsession with continuous economic growth. 

How Craftivism Is Powering 'Gentle Protest' for Climate

Back to the BBC for a fun article about “craftivism”. I’d never thought about this before, but it’s actually a thing that has touched almost all of our lives, even if we’re all thumbs with a terrible sense of aesthetics. Who hasn’t walked past a street pole or statue encased in guerilla knitwear? Even I knitted a pussyhat to wear to an anti–Trump demo on inauguration day (although I didn’t knit a pink one because I would rather die than wear pink, except utterly ironically). And—although perhaps I’m revealing my age here—who hasn’t seen at least a few squares of an AIDS quilt? On the whole, I think it’s good that people put their crafting skills to good political use. Otherwise—and this may be an unpopular opinion—our need to continually craft is just an extension of our unsustainable overproduction and overconsumption of goods. Everyone I know who knits (including myself) has already made more sweaters, hats, scarves, socks, and baby blankets than they can wear out in a lifetime and yet we keep on knitting. 

A Big Idea for Small Farms: How to Link Agriculture, Nutrition and Public Health

NPR had a great article that fits with our current podcast episode on regenerative farming with Solarpunk Farms. A literally existential crisis that we’re currently failing to tackle is that of how we grow food. The whole agricultural system is messed up from top to bottom. Food’s too cheap (and many people aren’t paid enough to be able to pay the real price of food, which is a whole other enormous issue). Because of this, farmers are pissed off and dependent upon subsidies from the governments they’d increasingly like to overthrow. Meanwhile, they’re frantically farming so intensively to try to bring in enough income that they’re destroying what’s left of our natural world. Their farming practices are degrading soils and polluting our air and waterways with fertilizers and petrochemical pesticides, destroying adjacent ecosystems and driving numerous species of plants and animals (including insects and other key invertebrates) to extinction. Related to this, we’re eating too much of the wrong stuff (meat, highly processed foods) and not enough of the rights stuff (fruits, nuts, seeds, and vegetables). Enter the solution: nutrition incentive programs that make it possible for people with lower incomes to obtain fruits and vegetables from smaller, regenerative farms. It’s a win for public health, a win for fruit and vegetable farming, which isn’t subsidized the way corn, soy, and wheat farming is, and it’s a win for the small percentage of food producers fighting not to be swallowed up by the Big Food companies who’ve all but monopolized the production of the food we eat. 

Tractor Chaos, Neo-Nazis and a Flatlining Economy: Why Has Germany Lost the Plot?  

Having started at The Guardian, we’ll bring things full circle and end there with a look at the situation here in Germany. Lots of us are increasingly concerned about the rise of the far right and... perhaps still flying under a lot of people’s radar... that angry farmers are going to end up ushering in the Fourth Reich. The op–ed says it all, while trying to maintain a sense of humor about it. As with so much else in the news these days, it makes you want to scream that we have more important things to be doing right now—that matter for the survival of billions of people—than withdraw into the hermit crab shell of authoritarianism. Their easy answers and general denial of the problems that need solving will only make life even more miserable for most people and allow all our existential problems, like widening wealth inequality, environmental devastation, and increasingly catastrophic climate change, to escalate even further before we begin dealing with them. 

Sci_Burst

To end on a happier note, here’s a shout out about Sci_Burst, a fun podcast from Australia about “science, popular culture, and entertainment”. They even have an episode on solarpunk. If you’re all caught up with us (including with all the extras on our YouTube channel), our feelings won’t be hurt if you give them a listen. 😊

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary159

2/20-21/2024

tuesday - wednesday

struggling with a song, in a funny way.

i am trying to get the vocals to sit right, it's a very difficult thing, sometimes they feel too quiet, sometimes they feel too loud, it seems like there's 0 inbetween i can get and i think partially the issue that i dislike the vocal take at the start. or idk. i can't tell, honestly, maybe it's too saturated too? in which case i need to roll that off, i guess next is that. trying that nowwww. i'm so annoying , to myself, getting stuck on songs like this, i wanted to do more today.

but i didn't do nothing, i guess, instead i've been focused on some hard songs and i did some recording, i don't like the recording much but it's at least got me practicing this song. i just don't know what to do with my voice, i guess i should try earlier in the day tomorrow, as early as possible, warm up and stuff asap, and try to do harsh stuff if i need to. i do think i need to. if that goes well, i can do something w/ other songs that need vocals in parts. it's just hard getting the yelpy stuff right, or getting to that place vocally, idk, i need to warm it up but i worry about annoying people. i think it'd be less annoying if i just did it in fewer takes, get out of my head, and just go. but that's got its own issues too.

anyway, it rained today, which was really fun, it's very pretty out, it felt nice on my skin, the cold air, and i found that missing tiny cardigan thing which made me sooo happy. so i have that going for me. we went out to eat tonight at this very bad ramen place, which sucks, idk how they fuck it up so bad but they did. they had good kimbap at least, or maybe that's just relative to everything else. it sucks to eat like, not even mid, it was bad. my gf got chicken ramen and it just had a whole chicken leg dropped in it, and the chicken was like, it tasted of ginger and soap. very weird flavor. mine was like, water seasoned with hints of dishwater. the ramen i make out of the like, packs, you know, instant stuff. idk how i lost that word. instant ramen. i am like stupid. i am stupid today, i'm like an idiot, i'm like actually really really stupid every day. it makes me fee lawful to be an idiot. anyways. that stuff tastes better, like i am fucking w/ it i'm not just saying the msg loaded packets are good on their own (but they are), this place was obviously trying and fucking it up i think, or maybe it's just an off day for them? idk. it didn't really feel like it. they also didn't let us make the ramen spicy. idk how they don't have chili oil.

after that my gf was so disappointed we went to get boba, which made her happy. it was a nice day with her, basically, the bad food maybe made it more fun in a way, cuz we will remember it. it's like, who really remembers "that time everything was normal and fine," anyways.

the song is definitely coming along, i think, maybe i'm delusional though. it was def an issue of too much saturation on the master, but maybe not the sends, it's easy to pull that up too much instead of just clean gain. cuz my brain is fucked up and likes drive over that, but it's important to keep that balanced, if i need more fuckedup-ness on the instrumental, it's easy to do that w/ the send, i should remember this now.

doing some fun stuff to the song now, i'm glad to be getting to this zone w/ the thing.

earlier tonight i got annoyed at people who were talking about how exciting it is when ai outputs nonsense, and how that's 'experimental poetry' and how it's all they wanna write, and now it just doesn't matter, a few hours on, or idk, it irks me, it's always going to irk me, because it's this formalist thing, over anything that's trying to illustrate something, get at anything, it's like looking at the huge amount of detritus piled up online and saying that it's actually avant garde to participate in that, rather than the most normal thing imaginable. like oh yeah you're so avant garde for spitting out faux poeticisms at random, as if through a grinder. i've seen poetry like that read out loud, fractured nonsense that aims at poetry itself, takes up that dead skin and parades it around, and i've seen poetry of measurements and stuff that 'should not be in poetry,' when people take dirty stuff or whatever, or technical nonsense, coding language, whatever, ascii art, anything, i've seen so much. it's well tread ground, all this formalism and efforts to sit in the avant garde won't meant a fucking thing when you're just trying to get there because all you're used to is consuming the most out there art cuz you've been too online. it's not that people should strive to be normal to be readable, i think my writing makes it evident i don't care about that, in fact, i hate that. i hate the idea of sitting near any norm, i hate the norm, i hate what it does to people, and i love mostly out there art, it's mostly what i think i make and care about, i know people, real people, who produce work that is truly, actually, avant garde, recently i was shown a first poem by a distant friend in chicago, and was amazed by it, he achieved things i struggled to do, for so long, he found answers to problems i've come up against! and to see that, my god, there is no envy, there is only gratefulness, i could cry, i feel tears at my eyes, he articulated so much with much thought, he got there, he got to the root of the simultaneous and there is no comfortable distance, there is no remove, and it also not fallen to some vitalist fantasy, it is something else, really. it is something else. my friend in saudi arabia, he too is something else. there are people, living, breathing, speaking from their points, or maybe not speaking, coming up against the issue of speaking, i am coming up against the issue of speaking, and not trying to, but wailing, using the detritus to point elsewhere, at right here, to give it location, and a way out. i do not sit masturbating in it, i do not sit and refuse ecstasy / disarray/derangement of the senses in order to receive the diseased spittle of pure logic's runtime errors, stupid apollonian pulsions to transpose the structureless into a structure, the vomit of ai is only words weighted too heavily for brief periods before unseen and underpaid hands (most likely) do something to mess with the weights again. submitting to this feels awful, to see what's valued most highly in terms of use and probability and just letting that run, what comes as a surprise for people is just that it might say something strange, because it deems it possible.

obviously i really don't hate anyone just fucking with it, as an idea, you can get it to output a mass of text and take that text and arrange it, but this gets into the territory of editing, which is really where so many of my issues lie. people like ai vomit because it seems to mean something (they might say this is not the case, do not trust them), they like ownership of that meaning and think they can transmit it, or overwhelm you via some kind of maximalism into something being meaningful. all this creates is an exhausting wall of text, basically pornographic in its nature, i guess i wonder if so many people find ai fascinating cuz of its potential to 'expose', because it tells you its weights, this makes the work, worse than pointless, some kind of moralistic exercise in illustrating social sickness, pointing at a tumor, saying, look how awful this is, look what you did, look what you did by googling and breathing and using the computer.

whatever, though, it really is pointless. some portion of people making art want to say that doing something basically regular and ideal for the rich, is actually very cool and interesting. like, yeah, tether yourself to this technology, it's so useful for creating new work, it's faster and when you figure out how to get what you want, you never have to stop, it's writing that can be replicated in style and mood, you can have variation without variance. it is possible. selling the avant garde (it's typically already bought (but when it isn't, it's incredibly important)).

this just bothers me so much i guess because it's invalidating people i know, and of course myself, it's like, it wounds me to feel like i don't exist, obviously, and i would prefer it not, and it wounds me to feel like people just could see my friend's work and not care at all, or think something very stupid, like, oh it's so ai or whatever, idk what these people really think. i don't think all this because the ai 'has no soul' or whatever but it's just so indicative of an apathy w/r/t the production of new work or anyone's new work. i've complained abt the novelty issue/ futurist circlejerk but it's really annoying to see people trying to shortcut a way into being like, new, or fresh, or experimental. new technology is always exciting and fun to experiment w/ but when it's new it's at its most volatile and most experiments turn out to be pointless ones, when you're just ultimately stress testing something that exists to order and catalog every human life and maybe kill people someday somewhere, or right now.

it's also the feeling that literature, as a form right now, is so narrow, the appeal is narrow, it's fine, no one has to care, it doesn't need to matter, but it makes one worry about new work, and where attention will go. the people who like the kinds of things i like, aren't really going to care, but obviously it's going to be easy to automate the formulaic and mostly bad kinds of writing out there, it feels like this is going to be technology which keeps people from ever having to encounter anything actually strange.

idk, all this gives me funny ideas, like, what if i make fakes of ai generations out of pieces of writing, because the other thing is it's basically easy to write 'like that' but maybe better, and then just take pictures of my screen or whatever of junk things, when i get the thing right. faking ai seems funny at least for a bit. i don't think anyone would really see or care, though. and what would faking it rlly do, it'd just be a kind of stupid trolling, idk, i like the idea still, i guess just maybe as like, a dare, sorta, like, if i could write it convincingly, which i guess i can't because i enjoy not writing literal nonsense, but writing messes, which are different (messes have sources), so i guess people could clock it, i figure.

but this made me write some messy stuff, which is fun at least.

the song is still feeling weird, but it's getting late, i might just want to cut it here, see where i stand tomorrow. it might just go over better mixing a vocal take i actually like. maybe the lyrics are the issue, a word like 'everybody' is hard to say right.

well it definitely sounds better after this last export at least.

one last export, and then i will sleep, and then i will record when i wake up.

this ai thing is just dumb, because all i really wish for is the ability to show people how much of an eyeroll it all is, all that posing, and whatever, by rolling my eyes, involuntarily, it would arrive thru me, a vessel for tiny social irritations expressed without knowing i express it. but i cannot, and it would be mean to use the eyeroll emoji. i can handle being a little mean in life, but online, it's just far worse, people take it way more personally, which is understandable, it's harder for people to separate themselves from their utterances, which makes people not want to reflect or whatever on what they say, and their utterances being them, they speak w/ such authority and whatever, it's agitating. i hope, mostly, that this was not agitating, for anyone reading. i don't really exist in this mode most of the time but it's like, idk, problematic i guess is the only word. i don't care about like, small stuff w/ ai or people just having fun w/ it, it just becomes intolerable when it becomes a whole artistic ethos/tool/supplants something and is supposedly superior to. idk.

anyway it's a dumb thing to really think about too much so now i am going to sleep, the song just needs new vocal takes in places and i should try to go wherever i decide i need to go tomorrow, so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[unorthodoxsavvy]

The Philver Scream

Thank God It's Friday

Chapter 3

Word Count: 75k

Rated: R

Genre: Horror

Of course, there was nothing like dead children to ruin the mood.

Phil’s face had turned an ashy white and Dan’s face had turned into a confused look of concern.

“You think you killed them?” Dan clarified. “How?”

“I had a dream last night-” 

In the worst possible timing, their waitress brought out their pizzas.

“-thank you-anyway, I had a dream last night that you and I were camp counselors-”

“Me?” Dan asked. A part of him wanted to make a “you dreamed of me?” joke, but he could tell by Phil’s expression and even paler face- honestly he didn’t know Phil could even get any paler- that this was serious.

“Yeah, you and me, and we were camp counselors, at THAT camp.”

“And?” Dan prompted.

“And?” Phil repeated, confused. “We died! Horribly! Dramatically!”

Dan shook his head.

“So you’re telling me that you had a dream that you and I-”

“And other teens-”

Dan sighed, frustrated at being interrupted.

“Alright, so that you and me and other people were camp counselors at that camp, and we all died.”

“Murdered.”

Dan nodded, trying not to roll his eyes.

“Well how do you even know it’s the same camp?” Dan asked.

“I saw the sign in the news footage!”

“What if you’re just misremembering and this jogged your memory of your dream and you just think it’s the same camp now?”

“It wasn’t a dream, it was a nightmare!” 

Dan sighed but decided not to point out that it had been Phil who had started calling it a dream first. He could be so childish sometimes. It got to be grating.

“Okay, well, whatever it is, I’m sure it had nothing to do with you.”

“We HAVE to go down there and investigate!”

Dan had finally started to reach for a slice of the pizza he order but stopped suddenly.

“Woah, woah, woah. We don’t have to do anything. This has nothing to do with us.”

Phil couldn’t help but notice his heart skip a beat at the use of Dan’s “us” despite everything.

“Dan, I’m TELLING you, I have something to do with this.”

Dan finally succumbed to rolling his eyes.

“Dan! Please. I’m asking you. As a favor. As a friend. Please. I want to be on this case.”

“How do you know the FBI is even going to look into this?”

In a moment of instant karma, his phone lit up and he glanced down at it quickly.

Are you seeing the news coming out of Texas??? Going to be called down there ASAP!!!

It was Jake.

Dan let out a heavy sigh. He stared down at his pizza. He stared at Phil. He stared down at his pizza again.

“Fine.”

Phil’s face split into a smile.

“But I’m finishing this fucking pizza first.”

*-*-*-*-*

“You know, just because you dreamed this before it happened doesn’t mean you killed them,” Dan offered.

They had driven back to Phil’s apartment where Phil had packed a bag and left his car. They then hopped into Dan’s car and started the drive back down to Quantico.

“Well what, then?” Phil asked. He was distressed, Dan could tell.

“Maybe you just saw it before it happened,” Dan suggested.

“Like what, seeing the future?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I can’t do that,” Phil shook his head.

Dan’s grip on the steering wheel tightened ever so slightly.

“Well I don’t know what you can do,” he argued. Because you never talk to me.

“I do talk to you!” Phil whined.

Dan slammed on the brakes a bit too hard as the car in front of him started slowing down. He used the break as an opportunity to sip his coffee.

“You said you wouldn’t do that,” he commented stoically.

“I can’t control it!”

“Alright, Phil, just calm down-”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!”

The radio started to become staticy as it flipped through the stations.

“This only happens when you’re around, anyway!”

Dan started grinding his teeth.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Yours! If you weren’t so-” Phil gestured him up and down in the driver’s seat- “you!”

Dan rolled his eyes, but he knew what Phil meant.

“I’m sorry I’m such a problem. I’ll just drop you off if that’s what you want, then.”

Phil bit his tongue. Once again he needed Dan, and he knew that.

“This doesn’t happen with anyone else,” he muttered instead, under his breath. Dan heard him, though.

“You don’t have anyone else,” Dan muttered back. He reached for the volume dial and cranked it up. Phil pulled out his trusty earbuds and plugged them into his phone and cranked the volume up himself.

*-*-*-*-*

There was no fanfare, no welcome, when they arrived on Quantico’s campus. Dan parked his car in one of the numerous parking lots and Phil followed him into the building. Dan led the way through a series of hallways and up and down floors until he was able to locate Jake in his office.

“Dan!”

Phil peered around the doorway behind Dan.

“And you must be Phil!”

Does he know? Phil asked, reaching out.

No. Dan smiled at Jake, never once turning back to look at Phil.

“You’re back much sooner than I expected!”

“Didn’t you get my text back?” Dan asked.

“Well, sure, but I still didn’t really expect you to have such an interest in the case!”

Dan reached a finger under the collar of his leather jacket and scratched absent-mindedly. “Yeah, well, you know Phil just saw the case on the news and really thought he could lend a hand to the case! He asked as a personal favor if I could bring him down here to talk to you guys about it.”

Jake focused his attention on Phil.

“Well, you drove all the way down here, I’m sure there’s something you can help us out with while you’re here. I can’t promise much else though. I’m a bit low on the totem pole, but I’ll do my best to put in a good word for you both. If I’m being honest, I’m rather interested in this case as well. The killers hardly left a clue behind! Camp Crystal Lake is a privately owned summer camp, so it doesn’t fall under our jurisdiction, and you know how they can be down there- it’ll take a lot for them to ask for outside help.”

“Seven mutilated children isn’t enough?” Dan asked, using the same description as they had on the news. Jake shrugged.

“I’ll try my best, Dan. Let’s head down to the briefing room now and see who I can scrounge up that’s taken an interest in this case as well.”

Phil backed up so Dan could move out of the door way and Jake could exit his office. On his way out he shut off the lights and closed the door behind him. Phil heard the door lock with a click.

The three of them started down the hallway, Dan and Phil trailing behind Jake.

“So, Phil, Dan told me it’s thanks to your case that he got the FBI’s attention. Said something about you guys uncovering a mass conspiracy for some whack cancer treatment testing on people. Wild! ‘Course, it makes you wonder, if that can go under our noses for so long, what else can.”

“Probably a lot,” Phil replied.

Dan elbowed him in the ribs.

“You’re right!” Jake agreed. “That’s why it’s so great that more people like you guys are looking to join and help out around here. We do the best we can, but more eyes on something, more minds with different ideas- that’s how we’re going to make a difference.”

Only Phil didn’t want more eyes on this case. He wanted to figure it out, just him and Dan. He knew this was too big for either of them to go it alone, though. Even back when they’d been tracking down Martyn’s murderer they’d had the full force of the FBI behind them- and they’d needed it. This case was already far too big and public to go back now.

“I’m sending out a message to see if anyone’s available and willing to meet in around half an hour, or drop in at some point a bit later than that,” Jake informed them as they turned into a conference room. “Like I said, I’m not sure how much we’re really going to get out of this, but I’d hate to have you leave empty-handed. And I’m really proud of the initiative you showed by driving all the way down here. Not sure the other’s will see it that way,” he added quietly, almost as an afterthought to himself.

Jake took a seat and gestured to the seats on his right. Dan took the seat closed to Jake and Phil took the seat next to Dan.

“Phil, have you ever been to Quantico before?”

Phil shook his head.

“Well, I’m not sure half an hour will really give you time to take a tour around here, but you’re both free to go get something to eat or drink if you’d like. Maybe after Dan can show you around,” Jake suggested encouragingly.

Dan turned to Phil, acting as a mediator.

“Are you good? Do you need to use the bathroom or anything?”

As annoyed as Phil was at feeling babied by Dan, as soon as he’d asked, Phil realized he did, in fact, need to use the bathroom.

“Yeah, actually,” Phil mumbled awkwardly.

Dan turned back to Jake.

“Alright, we’ll be back in a few. And thanks again, for all of this.” Dan gestured vaguely.

“Anytime, Danny-boy,” Jake smiled widely. Dan smiled warmly back and Phil felt his stomach (and his fists) tighten.

Dan pushed back from the table and stood up followed by Phil. They exited the conference room.

“‘Danny-boy’?” Phil asked, trying his best to keep the sneer out of his voice.

“Whatever, he’s helping us out, alright? If you want in on this case, you’ll need to get along with him,” Dan huffed.

“‘Want in on this case’? I have insight on this case,” Phil argued.

“Insight, huh? And what exactly do you have? Because the cops down there haven’t found anything.”

“We were there, Dan-”

“You were there.”

Phil tried his best to push aside the memory of how he was feeling that night in his dream, before all the murder had started to happen. They had been… attracted to each other. But that was just part of the dream. That part wasn’t real, just like Phil wasn’t really there.

Phil had been feeling off since the whole thing. He felt… moodier. Little things that didn’t normally bother him were getting to him, and a part of him felt like he was overreacting to these things, but there was a darker part of himself he was desperately trying to push down as it desperately tried to claw it’s way out. It felt like he was justified in being annoyed at all of this. This, whatever “this” was, just wasn’t him. But was he really so wrong for being upset at how Dan was treating the whole thing?

In the end, Phil managed to bite his tongue until they made it down the hall to the bathroom.

“He was right, this place really is nice,” Phil tried instead, hoping that by forcing out his positive thoughts they could overcome his negative emotions.

“It is. I’ve had a lot of fun working here. More fun than I’ve had in years.”

It was hard not to take that personally.

The bathroom, thankfully, had stalls, and Phil was able to lock himself in one and just give himself a moment to breathe.

Phil sat on the toilet and hung his head in his hands. Things were moving so fast. This was just supposed to be a lunch date between friends, right? They were friends, after all. 

Nothing more, nothing less, said a little voice in his head.

He didn’t care. He didn’t care. 

He did care.

Phil curled his fingers in his hair and pulled. The pain of his hair tugging matched the emotional turmoil he was feeling. It felt good. It felt like something. Like maybe if he went far enough, was dramatic enough, someone would notice how hurt he was feeling inside and stop to ask him what the matter was. Who, though? Who could he even talk to about this? Certainly not Dan, and certainly not Jake.

“You good in there?” Dan asked, almost as if on cue.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Phil responded in a cheery voice. It sounded so fake to him, and yet so real. Of course, he’d always had to wear a mask of sorts, hiding all the things he felt inside from others. But it was almost worse when it was his own feelings.

Phil stood up and turned around and finally unzipped his pants to take a piss. When he was done he walked out of the stall. Dan was waiting for him as he washed his hands, leaning with his back up against the wall by the sink.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how chilling it must have been to see us getting murdered.”

Phil nodded and walked past him out the bathroom door without a word.

They walked back into the conference room and sat back down in their chairs. Phil pulled out his phone and his earbuds and plugged them into one another before putting the round parts in his ears. He opened up his music app and looked for the heaviest music he had before hitting play.

Dan opened his own phone and started scrolling through his social media feed. Phil noticed a lot of hot guys out of the corner of his eye. He tried not to compare himself to them and turned the volume up on his music. A glance over from Dan alerted him that he could hear Phil’s music, but Phil really didn’t care. Anything to drown his own thoughts out.

After what seemed like an eternity and yet not enough songs, Jake returned followed by some men in crisp suits of varying ages. 

Unlike a normal conference table, this one was round, meaning that when the men sat down, no one was sitting at the head of the table. Otherwise, Phil assumed, Jake would have been the one sitting there. He’d been the one to organize this meeting, after all.

“Welcome in,” Jake greeted, sounding almost like a cashier welcoming people into their store begrudgingly. “The time is now eighteen hundred hours on August the 13th. We are meeting here to discuss the case out of Texas regarding the mass murder of seven local teens.”

Jake looked around the room at each of them, waiting to see if anyone had anything to add.

Jake shuffled the file he’d brought in with him and flipped through the pages within the envelope.

“As of right now we have not been invited into the case, and since the camp is privately owned we don’t have any legal grounds to insert ourselves into the case. Our boys in black down there at the Texas Bureau of Information are of course on scene and working with local law enforcement, but they haven’t asked to bring the big guns in yet by any means.”

Jake looked around again.

“With us here I have a recent graduate of our training program, Detective Howell, as well as a specialist we have who has worked with Detective Howell in the past, Phil Lester.”

“A specialist in what?” One of the men piped up. Phil shifted nervously in his seat.

“He’s an on-call psychic.”

Phil could hear audible snickers around the room and felt a bump on his leg as Dan knocked his knee against Phil’s in silent support. The feeling from Dan’s knee lingered against Phil’s leg, and he clutched on to it.

“They have an interest in the case and would like to be sent down on our behalf to send a report back from us.”

“What’s the interest?” the same man asked. Dan pipped up this time.

“What’s not to be interested in? Seven murders and no evidence left behind?”

A few of the men nodded, acknowledging the fact.

“If the case really is so bamboozling then what’s the point of sending a greenie and a kook? Why waste the resources? There are plenty of other cases other people aren’t vying for to send them on.”

“Like I said, they expressed a personal interest.”

“I believe I can be of some assistance,” Phil pipped up, “and if they have no leads, then working another angle without taking away any real resources from their investigation wouldn’t hurt, would it? We’d stay out of their way unless they needed a hand with something but conduct our own investigative angle on the side.”

Phil caught a supportive look from Jake.

The older men looked around at each other.

“And once again this is time and money. Why should we be spending those on this case?”

“For time, I don’t have any classes I’m teaching coming up, meaning there’s no reason I can’t be out in the field. Detective Howell doesn’t have any cases to assist on yet, because, as you pointed out, he’s a newbie. Mr. Lester is a consultant, but is willing to work pro-bono on this. In fact, we all are. What we’re asking for is the resources from the FBI to work it under their name. If you really need me to, I’d be more than happy to work back the funds it would take to put us up in a hotel, gas, food, etc.”

One of the older men leaned back in his chair in thought while another one leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him on the desk.

“Well, I for one, think it could be a good thing,” said a man who hadn’t spoken up to this point. He had a snow white beard and looked scholarly despite his suit and tie. “There’s never anything wrong with having our own boots on the ground in a case like this.”

The man to his right nodded in agreement.

The man leaning forward on the desk, one of the ones that’d been asking Jake to justify this trip shook his head. “I just don’t think it’s worth the expense.”

The beared man waved a hand and shook his head. 

“You guys and your finances. If we don’t let people here have opportunities like this, there won’t be a Federal Bureau of Investigation in the future. They’re young! Let them travel and work on this, even just for a few days. If you really get worried about the expenses, call them back home.”

The finances guy looked to the guy on his left.

“Fine. You’ll leave at oh seven hundred hours tomorrow. We’ll start getting ready for your trip now. Jake, you’re with me. The other two can stay in the dorms for the night.”

The men got up and started shuffling their way out. Jake turned to look at Dan. 

“Your old dorm room should be empty if you’d like to sleep up there,” he suggested. Dan nodded. Jake shifted his gaze to Phil

“It was really nice to finally meet you, Phil. I’ve heard so much about you, I’m really looking forward to seeing what you can offer on this case.”

Phil smiled thinly and followed Dan out of the building towards the dorms.

“If he doesn’t know about what I can do, then what exactly does he think I do?” Phil asked as they walked.

“Pretty much he just thinks you go around and look at things and get vibes from them and translate those into something,” Dan explained.

“But that is what I do.”

“Yeah, well, I left out the part where you can deflect bullets and change the radio by blinking at it and, oh yeah, talk to people in their heads.”

Phil shrugged.

They stood outside the dorm rooms.

“This was the one I was staying in.” Dan held up a key and used it to unlock the door to his old dorm room, flicking on the lightswitch to his right.

Phil could feel the sense of home radiating off Dan: the nostalgia, the comfort, the familiarity. He missed it here. It was like he’d never wanted to come back home to Massachusetts. To Phil.

Phil pushed the feelings away as best as he could.

“Where am I sleeping?” he asked rather bluntly.

Dan went back out into the hall and unlocked the room next door with the same key.

“Bathrooms are down the hall on the right. Think you’ll be okay for the night?”

Phil went to answer when all of a sudden his stomach growled loudly.

Dan couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Pizza again for dinner okay?” he asked with a grin.

Phil rolled his eyes and a small smile escaped from his lips.

“Do you know a place?”

Dan smiled wider.

“I do.”

“Alright, let’s go then.”

*-*-*-*-*

Another booth in another pizza parlor on another road trip with Dan, only this time, he was an agent.

“Do you have a badge and everything?” Phil asked around a mouthful of cheese, sauce, and crust.

“Not yet. There’s still a lot I need to do before I become an official agent.”

“Did you come here with Jake a lot?” Phil asked.

“Yeah, I did,” Dan answered. He didn’t know why Phil was being so weird about Jake. Jake was a nice guy, and if anything, he was putting a lot on the line to help Phil with this little whim of his. He hoped Phil would lighten up soon. Even hunting down Martyn’s killers Phil had been the one to see the bright side of things. Now, everything just felt like doom and gloom. It felt like Phil had his own personal cloud hanging over his head, the weight of this prophetic dream he felt like he couldn’t share with anyone else, because they could never fully understand or felt the things he’d felt.

“Was it scary?” Dan asked.

Phil’s eyes flickered down to his lap.

“It was terrifying,” he finally answered in a hushed voice.

He placed the slice of pizza he’d been eating down and pushed the plate off to the side a bit.

“I’m sorry you went through that,” Dan said. He’d been trying to work on his “people skills” since joining the bureau. That was another thing Jake had been helping him with.

“I feel… different,” Phil admitted.

Dan cocked his head to the side just a bit.

“I can tell,” he replied.

“I’m sorry,” Phil apologized.

Dan shook his head. “I hope you feel better. But, in the meantime, do you think you should maybe… talk to someone?”

“Like you?” Phil asked, slightly confused.

“No, I mean, like, a therapist or something. You don’t have to go into detail about your powers and everything, but plenty of people have awful dreams that really leave an impact on them. Maybe a therapist would have some suggestions, and ways to help make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Phil hadn’t even thought about what would happen if he’d to have another dream like that one.

“I hate it when you call them that,” he mentioned.

“What?” Dan asked.

“My ‘powers’.”

“Well, what do you want me to call them? Your gifts? You abilities?”

Phil shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Dan nodded, sensing another opportunity to work on his communication and interpersonal relationships. “Well, that’s okay. I’ll try to avoid calling them that from now on, and maybe in the meantime, we can, or you can, think of an alternative thing to call them by.”

Phil shrugged again and pulled the plate with his half-eaten pizza slice back to take another stab at it.

“I don’t like feeling like this,” he mentioned casually. 

Dan nodded. “I’m sure. I can’t tell what you’re feeling or what you’re going through but I can see how much it’s taking a toll on you.”

“I’m worried I’m going to take it out on you and Jake,” Phil admitted, his heart pounding in his chest. 

“We understand. We’re on your side, Phil. We have your back.”

*-*-*-*-*

Phil’s alarm went off at 6:30 the next morning. He didn’t know if breakfast would be here or on the way to the air strip, but either way, he really needed to pee, and should probably brush his teeth.

Phil rooted around in his duffle bag for his toiletries pouch and made his way to the bathroom down the hall.

He was tired from the night before. He’d been worried about falling asleep and having another nightmare, so he’d stayed awake as long as he could before finally succumbing to sleep. Before that, though, he’d stared at the walls, stared out the window, stared at his phone screen… he’d wanted some fresh air and to go outside, but he knew with his horrible sense of direction he’d get lost trying to find the dorm rooms again, so he’d settled for a comfy arm chair like the one he sat in back at his apartment by an open window. It’d been a full moon on a mostly cloudless night, and it’d lit up his room in beautiful hues. He stared at the wall separating the room he was staying in and the one Dan’d had during his time training here, willing Dan to come over and talk to him, but he hadn’t.

Now, they were packing up their things and heading off towards the company car.

The three of them threw their duffle bags in the back. Jake climbed in behind the wheel, and though Phil totally expected it, it made his heart drop when Dan took the passenger seat beside Jake, leaving Phil to sit in the back by himself.

Phil pulled out his earbuds and turned on some music.

“Is he alright?” he heard Jake ask as they started to pull away from Quantico.

“Yeah, he just does that,” Dan explained.

Phil turned his music up a little louder.

*-*-*-*-*

The ride to the air strip was a short one. Phil couldn’t help but be grateful that they were flying. The idea of a two-day car trip in the back seat with Jake and Dan in the front sounded all sorts of awkward that Phil wasn’t looking forward to.

They’d be flying to an airstrip about an hour out from the camp itself and a little less than an hour from where local law enforcement had set up their base in one of the bigger police headquarters. There’d be a car to meet them at the airstrip and drive them first to meet up with Texas Bureau of Investigation officials working in the headquarters where they’d get established before being driven over to the scene.

Breakfast, as it turns out, was served on the FBI jet. There was an assortment of bagels, muffins, fruit, and more. Phil felt very out of place in his every-day clothes on what, to him, felt like a very fancy jet. It was like something straight out of one of those crime investigation shows they aired on TV. 

Of course, the first time Phil had been in a helicopter was when they’d helicoptered him and Dan over to the medical base, if it could be called that, last year. Phil was experiencing a lot of new things lately. His life had really taken a different direction than he ever expected. He was glad, though. He wanted to be able to use his intuitions to help people, and he hoped this way he would be able to do it on a larger scale than on his own. And if he didn’t cause the death of these kids, then maybe he could even help solve their murders.

Phil had debated whether or not to bring some of his tools with him, but he didn’t want to look even more ridiculous than he figured he would already feel. Besides, if he was right, the souls of murdered kids probably wouldn’t be that hard to reach out to and contact. Wasn’t it the stereotype that all unsolved murder victims to want to reach out and help solve their case so they could rest in peace? Phil felt that was true, at least in the case of his brother Martyn. Martyn had moved on to whatever the “other side” was, and Phil wasn’t able to contact him again. He missed his brother, but he liked to believe Martyn was in a better place than he would be if he was still stuck here with Phil. Phil was willing to trade not being able to talk to his brother again if it meant he was someplace better, wherever that may be.

Phil was nibbling on a muffin, trying very hard not to let any crumbs spill onto the carpet. There were already faint stains here and there, but he didn’t want to add to it.

Dan came and sat down next to him and Jake sat at a bench seat with a table across from them.

“Do you want to go over the case before we arrive?” Jake asked.

Dan looked to Phil but Phil shook his head.

“That’s fine. The flight should be just under three hours. We have WiFi here if you want the password. Should be long enough to watch a movie or something if you want.”

“Thanks,” Phil mumbled and went back to carefully eating his muffin.

If anything, Phil was hoping to catch some more sleep. Since the nightmare he’d had two nights ago, leading into the lunch with Dan where they left for the long drive to Quantico shortly after directly to a meeting with a bunch of men in suits Phil had never met, only to try and stay up as late as he could, afraid to go to sleep the night before, he was exhausted.

As if sensing this, Dan got up and moved to sit near Jake.

“You can lay down and take a nap if you want, Phil. I’ll take a look over the case with Jake while you do.”

The thought of being left out stung a bit, but it was better than looking over the casefile and seeing all those dead bodies- the dead bodies of people who had been his friends- or so it felt like, at least- again. Phil finished his muffin and threw the wrapper in the small waste bin under the table Jake and Dan were sitting at and then moved to curl up on the couch he’d been sitting on before.

Jake reached up behind him and pulled the shade down over the jet window to dim the room as much as he could to try and help Phil sleep. Phil appreciated it, but didn’t say anything. He put his earbuds in, turned on some music, and was asleep within minutes.

*-*-*-*-*

Phil woke up to a hand shaking him gently. When his eyes fluttered open they landed on Dan’s softly chiseled face.

“We’re almost there,” was all he said before moving back to sit down next to Jake.

The feeling of Dan’s hand on his upper arm lingered like it always did. Phil sat up, rubbing it absentmindedly. He noticed Dan glance over briefly and sheepishly stopped.

Phil pulled out his phone and checked what song was playing. It was a band he wasn’t familiar with, but the song was good, so he liked it before clicking his phone shut and slipping it back into his pocket. He let the song finish before pressing the pause button on his earbuds and gently pulling them out of his ears.

“There’ll be a car to meet us there when we land,” Jake reiterated, “and then we’ll drive over to the office. From there some local officers will take us out to the crime scene. It’s a bit of a ways away from civilization, so it’ll be a bit of a ride as well. Now, I’ve tried my best to get the point across that we’re just interested in checking out the crime because it’s, well, interesting: aka that we’re not trying to step on any toes. I’m not sure how well that’s come across, though, so it’s going to be a bit of a delicate situation until we get settled in and know for sure. I’ll handle the talking.”

Jake looked at Dan and then Phil squarely with a nod.

“I’m going to use the bathroom before we land,” Dan announced, and got up to step away.

When Dan was locked away in the bathroom Phil turned his gaze from the bathroom door to Jake.

“Did you tell the local officers anything about me?” he asked.

Jake made a so-so motion with his hand.

“I told them that we have someone with an out-of-the-box way of looking at things who wanted to take a look around. Of course, they asked me directly if it was a psychic. I had no choice but to be honest and say yes. Unless, of course, there’s another term you prefer to use?”

“No, psychic, medium, both work. I just default to psychic.”

Jake nodded.

“I’m sorry. You must really be putting your reputation out on the line to support bringing in someone like me.”

Jake waved a hand in dismissal and shook his head. 

“Any favor to Dan.”

Before Phil could ask about anything else Dan unlocked the jet bathroom door and exited.

As he was walking back to his seat the pilot made an announcement about their landing and a request that the three of them remain seated during the landing process. Dan took his seat and they started their downward descent.

Phil looked out the window as they started to land, watching the fields and houses and streets and trees come into clearer and clearer focus until they were flying over and empty expanse with just a few buildings here and there. 

“Did you ever think we’d be back so soon?” Phil turned to Dan and asked.

Dan started to gather up his things and shook his head.

“Never in a million years.”

*-*-*-*-*

Phil shouldered his overnight bag and carefully made his way down the steep and large steps that folded up into the jet’s door. 

He had taken off the sweatshirt he’d worn that day and shoved it in his bag before they landed, tucking his trusty earbuds safely into the back pocket of his jeans.

Phil threw his bag into the SUV’s large trunk area before climbing in behind the driver. Dan climbed in next to him while Jake rode shotgun. 

“What a case!” Phil heard the driver say to Jake. He’d been part of the way of putting his earbuds in but decided to hold out. He was curious how much the driver knew about the case. Backtracking, Phil wound his earbuds around his fingertips and slipped them back into his pocket while listening to the conversation happening up front.

“You bet,” Jake had replied.

“Think you’re going to find anything the locals don’t?” The driver asked.

Jake shrugged. “We’ll see,” he replied casually. 

“What’s your angle?” The driver asked. Phil felt his heart in his chest.

Jake shook his head. “I’m keeping that one under wraps.”

The driver nodded with a knowing chuckle and the conversation switched topic. Phil hadn’t even realized he’d been leaning forward in his seat until he exhaled and leaned back.

“Jake’s a good guy,” Dan said to him, low enough that they couldn’t hear up front. “He’s got your back.”

Phil looked back at Dan.

“What about you?”

Dan blinked at the question. “O-of course I have your back Phil,” he responded, stumbling on his words. Phil could feel the pained emotions radiating off Dan and he realized he’d fucked up. “We wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

Dan turned to look out the window, ignoring Phil for the rest of the ride.

*-*-*-*-*

They drove through heavily forested areas, something that didn’t remind Phil of the last time they’d been here at all. He’d never imagined Texas as a state with so much forests, but here they were.

San Antonio was a large city, most notable for the San Antonio river walk and The Alamo. 

Phil watched in awe out the windows as they navigated the busy city streets. 

Finally they pulled into the police station.

The line of squad cars all read “San Antonio Police” with “Protecting The Alamo City” underneath in smaller letters on them.

They piled out of the car and grabbed their bags. 

“I hope y'all will have some time to do some sight-seeing while you’re here!” Their driver called out as a farewell. They waved him off together and all turned to face the police headquarters.

“Just remember to let me do the talking,” Jake reminded them as they headed inside.

The inside of the police headquarters was large and modern. It was certainly a far cry from the police station that Dan had worked out of. A bigger city meant more money, though, of course. 

Phil followed Jake and Dan to the front desk where the receptionist was typing away on her keyboard while cradling a phone in the crook of her neck.

She glanced up at them briefly as they approached before turning her eyes back to her screen.

“Yup, I have that here. And will that be all for you today? Alright, you have a good one now. You too. Thanks. Buh-bye.”

She reached up from her keyboard to place the phone back in it’s cradle.

“How can I help you today?” she smiled, turning her attention to the three of them.

“We’re from the FBI, we’re here to consult on your case,” Jake mentioned.

“Of course,” she smiled. “And do you have ID?”

Phil had a card in his wallet the FBI had issued him as an FBI consultant, and Dan had a card saying he was a Quantico Trainee. Jake, of course, had his FBI badge and Identification in it’s own little wallet, like the ones they had on TV.

The receptionist took each of them and scanned them into her computer system before handing them back.

“Perfect, thank you! They’ll be expecting you up on the second floor. Just head this way behind me down the hall and there’ll be an elevator on your right. From there you’ll keep going down the hall to your right to conference room two-oh-five. Just give a knock and they should let you in.”

“Great, thank you, have a great day,” Jake smiled, and led them towards the elevator in the hallway.

He turned to Dan and Phil as they waited for the elevator to arrive. 

“You’re doing great so far,” he smiled at them. Considering Phil hadn’t actually done anything, he wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not.

The elevator arrived and Phil, being the last one in line, ended up being the one facing the doors once they were inside and the one pressing the button to close the doors and head up.

Finally, something useful, he thought to himself.

He could sense a nervousness behind Jake’s confident facade, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down for a second. Phil wondered if it was all that FBI training or if Jake was just naturally like that. It was impressive either way. A part of Phil had always been ashamed of how openly emotional and heart-on-his-sleeve he could be. Martyn had always told him it was admirable, though, and he’d tried his best to believe him. That was before Phil’s emotions had led him to become a literal ticking time bomb, though. Briefly, he wondered if he could get so upset that he could obliterate himself. Emotional self-destruct. Phil’s focus turned back towards the matters at hand when the elevator slowed, and with a ding, opened the doors.

“Smile and act confident,” Jake encouraged under his breath as they exited the elevator. “You have every right to be here.”

Phil appreciated the message. He made sure his shoulders were back and to walk tall and confidently. His outfit could have probably used some improvement, but it didn’t matter. He knew Jake was right. He deserved to be here. More than anyone else, in fact.

With his newly held confidence Phil allowed himself to be the one to knock on the door, taking a step back so they could swing it open.

A police officer got up from the conference table he’d been sitting at with some coworkers and pulled open the frosted door.

“Why hello! You must be the blokes from the FBI! I’m Officer Maxwell! Come on in!”

A large man with a deep voice held the door open for the three to enter. He had red hair both on top of his head and on his face. His uniform looked like it was stretched to the limits, as if the seams were about to burst at any moment and buttons would come flying off and ricochet off the walls. He waddled back to the conference table and resumed his seat. 

“This here’s Officer Jackson and Officer White.”

Officer Jackson was an older looking man with heavily tanned skin in a sheriff’s-style hat and Officer White was a beautiful woman with deep brown skin and two perfectly manicured braids running from her hairline to the small of her back.

“We have a team of detectives on scene, we’re just holding down the fort for them,” she smiled, her voice exuding a rich South African accent. 

Jake held up his briefcase. “Do you mind if we take a look at what you have so far and compare notes?” 

Officer White smiled and gestured towards the empty seats at the table. 

Jake moved to place his overnight bag by the wall of the conference room out of the way, so Phil and Dan followed suit. 

They took a row of three seats at the side of the conference table, Jake placing his briefcase with the files he’d taken with him on the empty rolling chair to his right.

“My name’s Special Agent Hall, and this is Detective Howell and Mr. Lester,” Jake introduce. Phil hadn’t realized up until this point he hadn’t heard Jake’s last name. 

“Nice to meet you.”

“Your angle was that you were bringing in a psychic on the case?” Officer Maxwell asked, focusing his gaze on Phil. Jake nodded, bringing his attention back to him.

“Yes, Phil here is an on-call psychic for the FBI. He’s worked one case with Dan so far, but when he heard the case on the news and saw there wasn’t a lot of evidence to go on, he figured he could be of some help. We’re not looking to step on any toes, though. Whatever you want to share with us will be left up to your discretion. We just want to take a look and see if we can offer a new angle.”

Officer Maxwell was nodding, and when Jake finished with his pitch, he turned his attention back to Phil.

“So, how does this whole thing work, then? Do you see dead people?” Phil could tell the guy was trying to be sincere, but the words still came off as abrasive to him. 

“I prefer to call them ghosts,” Phil mentioned, ignoring the quoted movie line, intentional or not, “and yes, I communicate with them.” Jake had said to be confident, so Phil was trying to stand up for himself.

Officer Maxwell nodded. “Well, if you meet any of those poor kids out there, you tell them that we’re doing the best to catch the bastard who did this to them.”

Phil smiled, feeling accepted. Even if there were feelings of doubt around the room, there was no hostility.

“Yes, sir, I intend to do just that,” Phil reassured him.

“Well then, I think we’ll get along just fine.”

*-*-*-*-*

Phil listened and even chimed in from time to time while the six of them got to know each other as they compared notes and poured over the case file. The local police had information that of course the FBI hadn’t been able to get on short-notice, like a map of the camp and stills from the crime scene. 

“Our boys in white will be out there on scene too. They’ve hardly left since this whole thing went down. Real dedicated, that team there is. Some of the best, in my opinion.”

Phil nodded. The crime scene techs at the secret lab had been kind to him, and that experience had given him a hands-on perspective of their jobs and a new respect for them that he knew he’d only gotten by being there in the trenches, so to speak, with them.

“We’ll be glad to have their trained eyes help us on the scene,” Jake assured.

Officer Maxwell turned to Phil.

“Do you think you can tell us anything off these photos?”

Phil didn’t need the photos to tell them almost everything they needed to know, but he took them anyway. He stared down at the lifeless bodies of Becky, Suzie, Jessy, and Tyler, his friends in another world, as they lay there, bloody, cold, stiff, and dead. And of course, two more boys that Phil hadn’t met in his dreams. He focused on what he did know, shuffling the photos in order.

“This girl, Becky. She was the first to die. Two of the boys by the fireside heard her scream, and went running. One of them checked her pulse. That’s why the smear of blood is there on her wrist. He got blood on her when he touched her, which alerted him to the fact she was injured, but when he checked for a pulse, he found she was already gone.”

Phil flipped to the next photo.

“The boys then met up with Tyler and Suzie in the main hall. From there one of them went with Tyler to go look for Louise and Jessy. They found Louise dead in the cabins, and then went to search for Jessy.”

Phil flipped to the next photo.

“They found Jessy dead in the tool shed. When they ran back to the main hall they found Suzie and Marco dead.”

Phil flipped through the photos of Suzie and the boy who had been Dan in his dream, a boy named Marco. Phil gazed down at the boy’s face. There was a resemblance. The boy’s skin was a bit darker than Dan’s, but the brown hair and doe-like brown eyes were a fit.

“From there they encountered the killer. They split up. Tyler tried to escape by driving away, but he was killed at Louise’s car. The last boy,” Phil flipped to a photo of the boy he’d been in his dream, Dominic, “took a canoe out to the middle of the lake, thinking he could see someone coming from any side. And yet he didn’t make it.”

Phil put the photos down on the table. The room was silent for a moment. Phil felt a knee nudge against his. Phil used the connection to draw from Dan’s stoicism. 

“That’s a lot to pick up from just some photos,” Officer White remarked.

Phil shrugged.

“How did Dominic die, then?” Officer Maxwell asked.

Phil picked up the picture of the boy he’d been in his dream and stared at it.

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Phil said. “I intend to ask him if we meet.”

Jake gently removed the crime scene photo from Phil’s hand and shuffled it in with the rest of them. “What are we waiting for, then?” he asked. 

*-*-*-*-*

Officer Maxwell drove a squad car with Dan and Phil in the back while Jake sat in the passenger seat. Officer Jackson drove behind them in a squad car with Officer White riding shotgun.

“What happened to holding down the fort?” Jake asked as they drove.

“Well, if I’m being honest, I’d like to take a look at the crime scene myself with the new insight your bright young man here has provided, and I’m sure it’s the same for the others,” Officer Maxwell confessed.

Phil glanced away.

“I’d be interested to know what he can pick up from the crime scene itself if he can get all that from some photos.”

“Indeed.” Jake glanced Phil’s way, and Phil felt he was going to have some explaining to do later. For now, however, it was between a twenty minute and half an hour drive over to the camp-turned-crime-scene.

Phil turned his head to look over at Dan in the other side of the back seat, and he returned the gesture.

“What if I can’t help find who did this?” Phil asked.

Dan shook his head.

“You’re giving them more information. Anything you can provide is helpful, Phil. No one’s expecting you to solve the case. That’s their job. We’re just here to help.”

“That’s right,” Officer Maxwell chimed in from the front of the car.

They drove down a dirt road, clouds of dust flying up in the air around the car as the tires churned out the dry dirt. A sign on the right hand of the road read “Camp Crystal Lake”. Phil fought the urge to reach out and draw strength from Dan. He needed to learn how to hold his own.

They drove until they came to the parking lot that Tyler had been killed in. Louise’s car was still there, and when they exited the squad car and walked by, Phil could see smears of blood along the driver’s side doors. 

He quickly turned his field of vision away.

They walked up the far set of stairs to the main hall, avoiding where Dan’s body- Marco’s body- had lain. There were still small plastic tents with numbers lined up on the stairs around a dried pool of blood. The stairwell itself  had been tied off with crime scene caution tape.

Inside the main hall was almost just at Phil had remembered, however there were things here and there from the detectives scattered about. A map on a side table. Packages of what looked like blue crime scene booties by the door. A travel mug of coffee on the mantle. 

In the kitchen area members of the crime scene crew sat once again at the kitchen table. The mugs of hot chocolate left behind by the campers before their untimely demise had been dumped out and moved to the counter area behind them. In their place were two matching mugs filled with coffee.

“You must be the blokes from the FBI,” one of the men said. He reached out a hand across the table and Jake, Phil, and Dan took turns shaking it.

“The name’s Harry.”

The other crime scene investigator did the same.

“Name’s Carson.”

The three of them shook Carson’s hand as well.

An officer appeared in the doorway they’d just come through.

“Howdy, Detective Waters,” Officer Maxwell greeted.

Detective Waters nodded back and shook their hands as well.

“Well, if you boys are ready,” Detective Waters glanced over at Harry and Carson, “then we’ll be on our way to showing these fine young men around.”

Harry took one last swing of the coffee in his mug before placing it back on the table and getting up.

Carson got up and stretched a bit.

The nine of them filed out of the main hall and down the left stairs.

“We’ll start with the first body we found and then work out way from there,” Detective Waters stated.

They followed him up the path until they reached a dark stain surrounded by more crime scene markers.

“This is where we found our fist victim, Becky. She seems to have been running when a machete was thrown at her, striking her in the back and causing her to fall to the ground. It seems like perhaps someone heard her being attacked and came running over to check to see if she was still alive.”

They turned around and went back to the cabin.

“Here is where Marco was killed, on the steps. From what we surmise he was running down the steps out the main hall.”

They walked around the staircase and went back to the kitchen area.

“This is where Suzie was found with a head wound.”

The pantry was cleaned rather well. There was a dark spot on the floor where the blood had soaked in but the bits of her brain had been cleaned off the cans and walls. Phil was thankful he hadn’t seen her body. He didn’t know if he could have handled it in the moment. The picture alone was enough.

They filed back out of the cramped kitchen area and out of the main hall down towards the tool shed.

“This is where Jessy was found. We assume she was attempting to load this shot gun before she was killed.”

Phil remembered finding Jessy laying on the ground. They hadn’t lingered when they’d found her. They’d just left her there.

Phil turned away from the spot of dried blood in the dirt of the tool shed floor surrounded by markers.

They took the path to the cabins, going the opposite way that Dan and Phil, or more accurately Marco and Dominic had taken that night.

Under the bunk bed in the third cabin was another spot of dried blood. From the outside, the cabin looked the same as all the others except for the crime scene tape going across the entry way.

“Here is where Louise died.”

Phil stared at the spot forlornly before following them back out past the tool shed again and down to the beach. If this was the order they were found in, Phil figured there must have been more than one detective on scene finding the bodies. It wasn’t a cohesive route for one person to take to find all the bodies, what with them back tracking past the tool shed to head to the beach.

Phil trudged through the sand, sure it was getting in his sneakers, and gazed upon the canoe that he- Dominic- had died in. It had been pulled to shore and the boy’s body retrieved from it. Even having lived- in a sense- through it, Phil still couldn’t understand how the killer had managed to take them by surprise. He hoped Dominic had more answers than he did.

“We found Dom out in the lake, attacked in a canoe. We’re not quite sure how it happened. The running theory is that someone took a canoe out and caught him by surprise before paddling their way back to shore. Another canoe wasn’t found out anywhere though,” Detective Waters admitted. “They were still all in the shed.” He shook his head and turned to the group.

“Thank you,” Jake replied.

“We’ll give you time to walk around the crime scene on your own. If you need us, we’ll be in the main hall.”

The San Antonio homicide detectives and the crime scene investigators headed back up the trail.

Jake looked at Phil.

“You knew a lot more about this crime scene than you let on,” he said, glancing to Dan as well.

“I was here,” Phil simply stated, “in a dream.”

“You dreamed about the crime?” Jake asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Phil replied. “I was Dom. Dan was Marco. I saw it play out from Dom’s perspective.”

Jake glanced at the canoe then out to the lake.

“Then how did he die?”

Phil shook his head. 

“I don’t know. I remember rowing out to the middle of the lake. It was like I said: my plan was to watch around me and make sure no one was coming. If they were I would simply paddle to the opposite side of the lake. It was a flawless plan. And then I just. I just. Something grabbed the boat. From the lake. Something reached up and grabbed the boat. I slammed down with my paddle but it didn’t do anything. A hand with a machete reached up and cut the paddle in half, so I stabbed the hand holding onto the boat with the splintered paddle and it didn’t do anything. Then the hand with the machete came back down and it… it…” Phil started to tear up. “I looked down at myself and I saw blood. And I looked up into the night sky and I knew I was dying. I closed my eyes looking at the stars and everything went black.” Phil sniffled. “But then I woke up. And Dom, he didn’t wake up.” Phil wiped at his eyes with his sweatshirt sleeve, but as soon as his thoughts caught up to him he started crying even harder. Much to his surprise, Dan moved over and held Phil as he cried. Phil clung on to Dan and pulled from him.

“I hate when you do that,” Dan joked softly.

“You can feel it?” Phil asked.

“Yeah, I can.”

Phil gazed back at Jake.

“I need to talk to Dom. I need to find out if he knows what happened. I need to compare notes or whatever.”

Jake moved to place a hand on Phil.

“I’m sorry, Phil. I didn’t mean…” he trailed off. “I didn’t realize that’s what happened. I understand why you’re so invested now.”

“You believe me?” Phil asked in slight disbelief.

Jake looked over at Dan above Phil’s head. 

“Dan believes you, and that’s enough for me.”

Phil reached up and squeezed Jake’s hand on his shoulder. Jake really wasn’t a bad guy at all. Phil just knew he was jealous over him.

“Thank you. Both of you.”

Dan and Jake stepped away.

“We’ll be over up at the shore,” Dan gestured back towards the trail where the sand met the grass. 

Phil nodded, tears still slowly coming down his face.

Dan and Jake took their leave and Phil walked over to one of the empty canoes on the side of the beach. He climbed inside and sat down on the front bench, facing the back of the boat.

“Dominic?” he asked, reaching out with his mind. “Are you here?”

There was no reply. A part of him regretted not bringing anything with him, but he just felt so awkward about the whole thing. 

“Dominic?”

Phil felt a flicker of something on the back of his neck.

Suddenly a boy appeared in front of him. His hair flopped over his eyes and he wore a black hoodie with black sweatpants. His converse sneakers were laced up in perfect bows.

“Hello.”

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

For once, Phil didn’t know how to answer.

“Well. I’m a psychic, with the FBI. I talk to ghosts. I’m here to help solve your murder.”

“Why?” Dominic asked.

“Because I watched you die, in a dream,” Phil answered honestly.

Dominic glanced away. “Must have been a shitty dream,” he joked dryly.

Phil glanced out towards the water too. “It was.”

Dominic looked back.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

“I remember you sitting with Marco by the fire. You were talking. You heard a scream and went running and that’s when you found Becky. You ran up to the cabin to meet up with Suzie and Tyler, and then you and Tyler went to find Louise and Jessy. You found Louise in the cabins and Jessy in the tool shed. When you went back to the main hall you found Marco dead on the steps. You ran back inside the main hall and when you searched you found Suzie dead in the pantry. When you went to leave you saw a masked man at the door, so the both of you ran out the back door. From there he was in the woods, cutting you off from one another. While Tyler ran towards the parking lot you went back through the main hall and out the front door. From there you ran down to the lake and grabbed a canoe and paddled out to the middle of the lake. And from there you…”

“Died. It’s okay, you can say it.”

Phil shrugged, still not wanting to say it.

“I died.”

Phil shook his head. “But how? How did you die?”

“I was stabbed,” Dominic replied. “With a machete.”

“I know, but, how? How? You didn’t see a boat coming. In fact, he wasn’t even in a boat. It was like he just-”

“Melted out of the water? Yeah, I know. I’ve been asking myself the same thing.”

They fell silent.

“Dominic, how many killers were there?” Phil asked.

“Would you believe me if I told you I thought it was just the one?” he asked.

Phil nodded. “The police are looking for a group of people,” he told Dominic. Dominic shook his head.

“I dunno, I really think it was just one guy. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can tell you anything you don’t already seem to know. I think the same guy who killed Tyler at his car was the same guy who killed me. I don’t know how he got all the way from the parking lot to the middle of the lake, but I saw him through the window of the front door of the main hall and then I saw him again in the woods. I don’t know how he moved so fast. It was like he was able to teleport. Like some Deadpool shit.”

“Deadpool can teleport?” Phil asked.

Dominic chuckled. “Yeah, you didn’t know that?”

Phil looked at the boy in front of him who’d had his life cut so short.

“How are you?” Phil asked.

Dominic blinked in surprise. “Well, I’m dead. And I’m stuck at this camp. Talk about eternal hell.”

“Do you feel stuck here? Like you can’t move on because of what happened to you?”

Dominic shrugged. “I don’t know. Is that what most people say?” he asked.

“I don’t really know how it all works,” Phil confessed.

“But you’ve talked to other ghosts before?” Dominic asked.

“Yes,” Phil replied. “Lots of them. I’m a psychic by trade. I invite people to my house to talk to their loved ones. They can’t see you like I can, so we use ouija boards and things like that.”

Dominic shook his head. “That sure is something. Have you ever not been able to contact anyone?”

“Not usually,” Phil said. “They come from the other side.”

“The other side of what though?” Dominic asked.

“I don’t know,” Phil repeated.

“Am I there?” he asked.

Phil shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“So am I stuck because my murder is unsolved or something?” Dominic asked.

“Do you feel stuck?” Phil asked again. 

“I don’t know,” Dominic replied again.

“Well, what happened after you, you know?” Phil asked.

“Died?” Dominic asked. He thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t really remember anything after that. But it feels like time has passed.”

“You don’t feel like you belong somewhere else?” Phil asked.

“I don’t really feel like I belong anywhere, and I’m not just saying that because I’m an edgy teen,” Dominic joked. “Shouldn’t you know this? You’re the one that talks to other ghosts.”

“I never really asked,” Phil admitted. “I never asked for this, to be able to talk to ghosts, or anything. But I’ve seen them my whole life. I spent most of my life trying to ignore them, until I realized I had to embrace them. From then on I really only talked to them when I was with a client and reaching out to talk to them for that loved one.”

“Have you talked to anyone else who was murdered?” Dominic asked.

“Yes,” Phil replied. “My brother.”

Dominic nodded. 

“Did you solve his murder?” Dominic asked.

“Yes.”

“And did he… move on?”

“I think so. I haven’t been able to talk to him since.”

“You tried?”

“Yes.”

Dominic looked away.

“Well, if you solve my murder, then fine. If not it’s cool.”

“I’m going to solve it,” Phil insisted.

Dominic shrugged. “It’s okay if you don’t though.”

Phil shook his head but he didn’t say anything.

“Is there anything else you need from me?”

Phil looked away.

“What is it?” Dominic asked.

Phil felt himself turn a bit red.

“I have a question. It’s not about the case though. Is that okay?”

Dominic shrugged.

“I don’t really see why it wouldn’t be. It’s not like I have anywhere else to be.”

Phil tried to gather himself.

“You and Marco… you guys were friends?”

Dominic shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess. I had his Snap. I don’t see why I wouldn’t have snapped him after this when it was all over. I guess I’ll just settle for being ghosts in proximity with him, though. Why?”

Phil hesitated.

“Hey, man. I can keep a secret. Let’s be honest, this is probably the last conversation I’m ever going to have. If you need to get something off your chest, this is the best place to do it. Dead men tell no tales and all that.”

Phil thought for a moment.

“Dominic, I didn’t just watch you die in my dream. I was you.”

Dominic tilted his head in surprise.

“How did that work?” he asked.

“I remember being you, and sitting on the log with Marco- only Marco wasn’t Marco. He was one of the guys over there on the shore.”

Phil didn’t turn to face Dan and Jake, but Domininc did. They, of course, however, couldn’t see that.

“The dude with the leather jacket?” Dominic asked.

“Yes.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s the cop who helped me solve my brother’s murder.”

Dominic nodded. 

“Alright, so you’re me, and he’s Marco. So, what, then?”

Phil sighed and tried his best to figure out how to explain everything.

“In my dream I was you. I was taking your role. But it was like I had been the one attending camp all summer, and like you didn’t exist. It was me instead. I had all these memories of me and all the other counselors, including Dan.”

“Is Dan that guy over there?” Dominic asked.

“Yes,” Phil confirmed. “Anyway, in my dream, in my memories, Dan and I… we weren’t friends like we are here.”

“Oh. That sucks dude. I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Dominic nodded, confused, until Phil saw the sudden realization hit his face. 

“OH. Oh, yeah, no dude, it’s not, I’m not- yeah, no, I have, like, a girl at home and I think Marco does too. Or we did. That was not. No. Sorry. Actually I’m not really sure why I’m apologizing for that.”

“It’s okay,” Phil said, cracking a small smile.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“So, like, basically you had this dream where you guys were camp counselors together who had a thing and one night it all just went horribly wrong?”

“Yeah, and then we went out to lunch the next day and I saw your murder on the news.”

“Damn dude. That’s rough. So like, what’s the sitch now?”

“Besides the fact that I’m venting about my problems to a murdered teenager? Well, uh, yeah, basically what you said. We were work colleagues… friends, I guess. He’s gay, I’m gay. There was nothing there. But, um, yeah, I had a dream where we were a thing, albeit a nightmare, and that morning I woke up both really disturbed from having been murdered-”

“Same.”

“-and feeling really confused on how I actually feel about him, but before I could think about it or figure it out I found out that my dream literally came true in the worst way possible and that took precedence over whatever feelings I had or am having.”

“Murder is such an inconvenience. Truly very sorry. But like, what have you been feeling since then? I mean I got murdered like two days ago.”

“Jealous.”

Dominic looked back over at the shore.

“Because of that guy?” he pointed.

“Yeah.”

“Whose he?”

“That’s Dan’s FBI professor.”

“Damn, so he’s like, hot for teacher?”

“I don’t know, but I swear to God he thinks the sun shines out of Jake’s ass.”

“Ah. Jake. What a douchey name.”

Phil couldn’t help but chuckle.

“In order to get on this case I had Dan reach out to Jake. He’s the one who set it all up so I could be here working on the case.”

“Well, in that case, I’m sure he’s not too bad. I, for one, am grateful you’re here, whoever you are. Nice to talk to someone one last time after death, even if it is going over the most traumatic experience of my life which culminated in my death and then giving a 30-year-old relationship advice in the canoe we both literally got murdered in. Well, I literally got murdered in. You figuratively got murdered in.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure this isn’t how you envisioned the afterlife.”

“Can’t say as I really envisioned it at all, especially because I wasn’t planning on dying at sixteen, so I can’t really say that it comes as a shock or anything.”

Phil shrugged.

“Well, all I can say is that if you decide that you really do have feelings for him, you should tell him.”

“I don’t think he’d take it well.”

Dominic sighed.

“I think you’re missing the point. I died at sixteen. I had so much life left to live and it was cut short. I’m never going to see my family again. I’m never going to see my girlfriend again. I’m never going to see my dog again.

There’s so much more to life than what we’re facing in the moment. Learn from me. You never know what’s going to happen. Look at your brother. Look at me.

You can’t live with things unsaid because you’re never going to know when things are going to end. And apparently, even when you do, there’s nothing you can do about it.

I’m not saying your feelings are real, especially because they came from some sort of murder premonition dream, but if they are, and you really feel this way, you need to say or do something sooner rather than later, before it’s too late. Not even in a death sense, but in a way where maybe he does hook up with that guy or anyone else.”

Dominic looked sad and angry.

“If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for me at least. After all, how can you say no to a murdered child?” Dominic managed a wry smile.

Phil felt tears forming at the corner of his eyes.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, Dominic. Your murder comes first, either way.”

Dominic shook his head. “No, dude. I’m dead. Don’t let my murder get in the way of you living your life.”

Phil nodded.

“I’m assuming I’m going to be viewing your body,” Phil said, switching morbid subjects. “Is there anything you… need. Want?”

Dominic shrugged. “To be honest I didn’t really think about it.”

“I doubt they’ll let me see your family, but is there any message I can pass along to them through the detectives?”

Dominic shook his head.

“I doubt they’ll believe anyone who says that I told them to say ‘I love you’ or anything like that, but…” he hesitated for a second. “Can you… can you just give my dog a treat for me? Please?”

The tears in Phil’s eyes fell to his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “And if I can’t I’ll have one of the detectives do it, okay?”

Dominic nodded, tears in his own eyes.

“I’ll come back and see you,” Phil promised.

Dominic smiled. “I’d appreciate that. Let me know how things go with wonder boy.”

Phil smiled and chuckled.

“What’s your name?”

“Phil. Phil Lester.”

“It’s been an honor, Phil Lester. Thank you, and good luck solving my- our- murder.”

Phil choked up and started crying into his hands while Dominic faded away.

[shockingdread]

big reflection on our job and how much we've gained from it. which is to say we lost so much our health has been destroyed and we have no money to show for it

part of the reason this is being typed is because we havent smoked in a while but for real we have sacrificed everything for this job and gained nothing from it except guaranteeing our parent's roof over our head. except they still constantly threaten us and disrespect us. we're at this fork in the road where we have to decide if we're actually doing what we want with our life and if this job is helping us do that. what we want in life is to transition, a shitty car, an apartment with a friend or two, and a job in game development. we threw our transition into the trash to avoid getting hatecrimed by our coworkers, and health wise we're at our lowest. we're starving ourselves, we're not cleaning our room of food trash and we're getting repetitive infections from unwashed sheets and clothes. we have zero savings after eight months here making 19.50 because we're too paranoid to stay in a grocery store for more than ten minutes without supervision. our only irl friend moved so we cant ask her for help anymore, our family knows that we struggle with paranoid schizophrenia and they think it is funny and do not help. doordash and the local restaurants have scraped like 15k off of us since we got this job. we picked up smoking to try and reclaim some sort of control over our body, as a weird "fuck you" to our parents and anyone who tells us how to live our life, and its ended with us getting thru a pack every other day. thats like, 40 dollars a week of nj taxed marlboro menthols. we have so little energy at all times, even with our on/off schedule (two days on, two days off, three days on, two days off, two days on, three days off. repeat every two weeks) we cant do anything on our days off because our whole body aches. we cant think through the pain, so we cant even work on our game or do shit other than play tf2 and shoot shit on calls with friends. we're so miserable, we're filling the gaps with cigs and ice cream and excessive amounts of chinese takeout because we're a huge stress eater (but still losing a surprising amount of weight). now that my coworker tore the ligaments in her knee, she's got priority in orion instead of us. so every night has been in blow mold, where we spend so much more energy than we actually have. we're in debt to our own body, and the new girl is fucking everything up and blaming it on everyone around her, and the company's in a hiring freeze right now so if she leaves no one's taking her spot, and its still summer so just going to work burns and the car's AC is fucked so there's no relief from 12 hr nights in the steamy 80 degree factory. when we started working at our other factory job, we said to everyone, "this has to be temporary, i am not gonna last here, i am going to burn out and start making awful decisions and undo what good this is" and not only did that come to pass but it happened significantly sooner than i expected. this job has truly taken everything from us and left us in the negative and im starting to think keeping it thus far has just been like.. sunk cost fallacy. whatever the case is, it's time to start looking for something new asap. im probably putting my two weeks in soon. our sister is trying to help us get groceries now, we're trying to pick up the pieces this weekend. we'll feel it out but get excited for our unemployment