#i was gonna finish the other sleeve before frogging but i needed to take a break from crochet...

[sensenotsense]

im trying to finish up old projects like the snow day pic, pmd comic, etc. this of course includes my crochet projects. when the granny hexagon cardigan crazy first happened i started one and made a lot of progress over thanksgiving break then dropped it. i didnt like the colors, couldnt decide if i wanted it bigger or not, and probs some other shit. i ended up using another yarn to make the hexagon cardigan and debated what to do with this first one. i decided to make the pullover version instead and decided i wanted smaller sleeves. and let me tell you frogging back all those rows are killer esp since i used a dk weight yarn. it had to be done so id actually have a chance wearing it....

[izzy-b-hands]

1V

Doing a little mini Vampire AU thing with Izzy and Ed and everyone else. Not sure how many after this one, but we'll see. No titles, just numbering these. Thus far shipwise: stizzy, a hint of potential blackhands, with more to be revealed if I actually get all of this written. No guarantee, but I'm gonna try my damnedest.

TW blood, mentions of violence, sex.

---

"Well, I asked for the other type, didn't I?" Ed tosses the bag of blood to his feet. A dark red stain crosses the floor with it.

"This was all I could get," Izzy sighs, and picks the bag of O negative off the floor. "I asked for others, but people aren't donating as often-"

"And that's my problem how? There are other hospitals in town, Iz. We've been over this," Ed scoffs, then sighs. "Sorry. Just hungry."

"I know," Izzy says softly, and rolls up the sleeve of his black button up shirt.

"You don't have to do that," Ed says at the sight. "I'm being bitchy because I'm hungry, but you don't have to-"

He gives Ed a fierce look. Ed never asks for it but Ed never has. Never will. That doesn't mean Izzy doesn't know what's expected of him.

He hisses at the slip of Ed's fangs into the thin skin of his wrist. His most preferred spot, which Ed remembered. Easier to hide later, both from others and himself. Two tiny marks, but an enormous reminder that once again he's a walking blood bag, a loyal familiar, but not tasty or loyal enough to drain and finally turn.

He often wonders which of the two factors is the bigger reason why Ed won't turn him. He knows he'll probably never find out.

"I should stop," Ed lifts his head from Izzy's wrist. "Your legs are shaking. Come sit here, at least."

He falls beside Ed on the ornate black velvet couch. "What else needs doing that I've missed?"

Ed frowns, in between the licking of his lips. "We can talk about that later. Let's get you cleaned up first."

Ed yanks the first aid kit from under the couch, but Izzy takes it from him right away.

Ed hasn't done this part for him in years. He doesn't expect him to start again now.

"In a bad mood?" Ed asks testily.

Izzy bites the inside of his mouth. Yes, he sort of is. The whole day has been shit, and the last thing he wanted was Ed angry over this food delivery.

Instead, he shakes his head as he cleans up his wrist. "Sorry, boss. Bit tired, think it's starting to show."

"I think it is too," Ed says. "Don't worry about the rest of the day's tasks. It's almost night anyway, go to bed and sleep the attitude off."

Izzy finishes the last bit of disinfectant, and mentally notes they need more.

"Izzy."

"I know, I will," Izzy says. "Thank you, Ed. Sorry again about the blood. It won't happen again tomorrow."

He means it. He already threatened the lab tech this night, and it wouldn't be the first one he's killed and hidden. Won't be the last either.

Before Ed can say anything else, he dips out the bedroom door, careful not to step on the smear of blood.

--

"Ask him to turn you then," Jack sighs dramatically. "I asked, and he turned me!"

"I'm aware, Jack," Izzy says, working to keep his tone even. He's never liked Jack all that much, but Ed does. And if Ed likes someone, then he'll deal with them being around for the most part.

"I wasn't even a familiar or anything, I was just the guy he was fucking!" Jack laughs hard, the sound on the video call going fuzzy. "And you've been with him for years now!"

"Technically since I was sixteen," Izzy confirms sadly. It's pathetic. Though at first, he didn't understand who the attractive man in the shitty looking house down the road was. But he seemed sad and looked drawn and gaunt often.

So Izzy, after a few days of thinking and watching and guessing, left a bag of captured rats and frogs on his porch. Rang the bell, then ran like hell.

From his hiding place in a nearby hedge, he had watched Ed immediately sink to his knees and drain a few of the creatures. Had it not been night and the street empty except for them, it would have been a disaster for Ed.

He kept that up for a few years after, whenever he snuck out at night to find Ed looking too hungry. Later, he would find out it was because there was a shortage of blood donations at the time, and Ed had lost his contact at the main hospital who usually kept him in blood.

When he was nineteen, the city started to fall apart even more. The second hospital closed, and the first regularly struggled to keep up with the need for blood. Their understaffing meant Ed couldn't keep a steady contact person either.

That was the year he asked if Ed needed or wanted a familiar, and offered himself up to give Ed enough strength to move elsewhere with him.

Ed took barely a sip from him, and instead showed him how it went when the victim was a living human.

Ed wept after, as they packed his things into his car. He didn't like killing. Not like that. Animals or other creatures he could stomach, they knew their nature as potential prey for another.

Humans did not. And even when they did, they did not understand it.

"Get your shit together, man," Jack shakes his head. "Maybe y'all need to move again, if the blood supply is that bad."

"It isn't terrible," Izzy insists. "His favourite types are harder to get, is all it is."

"Ask him," Jack says adamantly. "Worst he can do is say no."

--

"And what will we do for food then?" Ed scoffs. "Iz, I love you man, but sometimes you don't think!"

He badly wants to be dismissed, to go upstairs and call Jack and tell him to fuck off if he ever thinks to offer advice again in regards to Ed. He should have known better than to listen to Jack.

"I would find a new familiar for us first," Izzy says. "Give me a chance to look for one."

"You're missing the point," Ed mutters. "Izzy, what would I do without you?"

"I wouldn't have to leave you just because you'd have turned me," Izzy protests and he knows he's going too far. "I could stay, and help the new familiar. Wake right as the sun starts to go down, and make sure they have things ready for you."

Ed shakes his head and rolls his eyes, and Izzy can't help but see red.

"What is it then? At least give me a fucking reason why. Am I not good enough for it? You turned Jack, that fucking idi-"

He'd been gesturing with his hands while he talked, and Ed's caught one.

He holds Izzy's hand between both of his, a finger tracing up and down each of Izzy's fingers.

Izzy can hear his heart beating fast. He knows Ed can hear it too.

Ed flashes a grin, then bites down hard onto his hand. A fang goes right into the web by his thumb, and he yelps.

"Thought you wanted to be turned," Ed smirks. "Maybe not yet, eh, Iz?"

He watches Ed wander back upstairs, mouth covered in blood. Then he kicks the stove hard enough to make his foot ache.

--

He can't sleep, so he goes out. So what if Ed doesn't want a new familiar. Fuck him; Izzy will find him a new one, then find another vampire to turn him.

After that, he isn't sure.

The Revenge is a new bar, technically also a music venue. It's so small though that both bar patrons and concert attendees have no choice but to be one in the same.

"Hello!"

Izzy looks up to a chirping, cheerful face. "Hi, s-"

"Roach, let's get him a drinks menu!" the man calls down the bar. A blonde curl falls onto his forehead, and Izzy feels his heart speed up.

It slows a bit, as the exchange goes on. The man, Stede, is very pretty, kind. But he's overwhelming to Izzy right now, and he isn't sure he can handle it.

"Anything strong, very strong, just pour it in the biggest glass possible," Izzy cuts him off mid-drink explanation.

Stede's face falls. "Ah. A night like that?"

Izzy nods.

Roach is the one to slide down a glass of whiskey, then another, and another.

"Roach!" Stede laughs. "Let him finish one fir-oh, well, there went one. We are having a rough night, aren't we!"

Izzy slides the glass back Roach's way and nods. "Work issues. Nothing important."

"I don't know that," Stede says. "I opened this place up due to what some might think are unimportant issues!"

"He got divorced," Roach explains with a clap to Stede's back.

Izzy nods. "Rough nights all around then. Share with me?"

There are two glasses left. He can see the wheels in Stede's head turning. He knows he's asked him to do something unprofessional, maybe illegal in their city, he doesn't know.

Nor does he give a fuck. He wants to drink with this pretty man. He wants to ask him home, and to his bed. Woe be to Ed if he hears anything. Maybe he ought to go out at night too, now and again.

--

"Izzy, Izzzzzzy," Stede draws out his name and ends it in a kiss. "You taste like whiskey. I like it, but what do you taste like when you're not drunk?"

"You'll have to come home with me to find out," Izzy can hear himself slurring his words. "Unless you'd rather not. Most people don't want to. It's okay; I get it."

Stede kisses him again, hard, pressing him up against the brick wall behind the bar. "I want to find out."

They fumble back inside, to a grinning Roach and snickering house band. After about the third or fourth drink, they'd stopped hiding what they were working towards, and Roach had told Stede to just go sit by Izzy and drink.

From there, it had devolved to more sipping than chugging drinks, and finally the step outside for a breath of fresh air.

Stede was certainly that.

Which made it all the worse that he would be perfect for Ed.

--

They fall into Izzy's bed half-clothed, fumbling to get the rest off. Stede is unbelievably, adorably, eager.

Izzy can't recall the last time anyone was so eager to be close to him.

The doorknob rattles, and Izzy lets out a frustrated sigh. "In a moment!"

Stede's lips are on his neck and he doesn't want to move an inch, but Ed will not leave the fucking door alone.

He gives Stede a kiss before untangling himself from him and going to the bedroom door. "Ed?"

"You could let me know you were bringing someone home," Ed says tensely. "It'll be sunrise soon."

"I think Stede will wait while I help you get to bed," Izzy smiles. "Stede?"

Stede waves from the bed. "Hello!"

"Hi," Ed replies shortly. "That would be nice, since that's your job."

"This is your boss?!" Stede stumbles from the bed to stand behind Izzy. One hand wraps around his chest, the other slings lower to his waist, fingers playing with the zipper of his leather trousers. "You've been a real asshole to Izzy, you know that?"

Ed stares daggers at Stede. "Have I been? Enlighten me."

"He's live-in help, which most people don't have nowadays," Stede continues. "My family did. Well, they still do. I gave her the money and house and what not in the divorce. Anyway-"

He pauses to press a kiss to Izzy's neck, and Izzy has to fight back a grin.

"He's doing his best. That's all we can ask of each other, of anyone! But you're fussing over the dinner you wanted not being available and blah, blah, blah-"

"I don't think you understand the arrangement Izzy and I have," Ed interrupts him. "I could explain it to you, if you want to step into my room."

"Absolutely not," Izzy spits. He's not letting Ed eat his fucking one night stand. Especially when said one night stand could turn out to be more. "I'll help you to bed, Ed. Stede, you stay here and rest, yeah? If you need water, the kitchen is just downstairs."

"It's my kitchen and my water," Ed says.

"Oh fuck off," Izzy scoffs. "Enough, Ed. Come on, I said I'd get you ready for bed, and I meant it, because when fucking haven't I!"

He's aware he's shouting now, but there isn't enough reason to care.

Ed, however, seems to care a lot. "No. I'll take care of that myself, for now. But tomorrow night, we're having a talk."

"Fine," Izzy fumes. "Can I go get fucked now?"

"Do whatever you fucking want, mate," Ed grumbles and turns away.

"Sorry your sunlight allergy has made you such an asshole!" Stede shouts down after Ed. "We should get you out of here. You could come work for me."

"We can talk about that," Izzy says, dropping his head back onto Stede's shoulder for a moment. "Later, though. If you're still up, for-"

"Very much so," Stede smiles and kisses his cheek and Izzy's heart aches in his chest.

The door is shut and locked again and they fall back into bed, a softer and gentler tangle this time.

Gentle seems to be Stede's most common state of being, frankly. He refuses to rush any part of the experience, from a blowjob that nearly ends things early for Izzy to actually fucking.

"Have you and him ever..." Stede asks softly, mid-fuck, with Izzy in his lap.

Izzy shakes his head. "I'd like it. Wouldn't be very professional of me-"

"He's pretty enough I think anyone would break that veneer," Stede giggles. "I certainly don't blame you."

Izzy shifts his hips more and leans his head into Stede's shoulder.

"Sorry, that's probably not the thing to bring up now," Stede murmurs. "Izzy-"

"It's okay," Izzy cuts him off, lifting his head to kiss him. He runs his hands through the softest curls he's touched aside from Ed's, and moans into Stede's mouth.

There's no more talking, after that. Not about anything other than each other, at least.

--

In the morning, Stede stays and snuggles a bit. They have breakfast and exchange phone numbers, as well as offers to meet up again in a night or two.

"I know you probably feel you have to stay home tonight to get in his good graces," Stede says before he leaves. "I think you should be able to do as you want, but I'm just coming into all this now-"

"Could stay and do that again with me," Izzy interrupts. He can't help it. He doesn't really want him to go. He wants to be cuddled and kissed and fucked while Stede praises him up and down.

"If I didn't have a bar to get ready for tonight, I would," Stede smiles. "Maybe you can convince Ed to come with you! Then you'd get out, and he'd still have you on hand to pour wine down his throat for him, since I presume Mr. High and Mighty doesn't touch his own glass."

Izzy chuckles. "It's something like that. If nothing else, I'll call or text you, yeah?"

"That sounds perfect."

Izzy watches Stede walk away from the house, waving back when he does.

When he's far enough away, Izzy closes and locks the front door, then slips down it to sit on the hardwood floor.

He shouldn't be crying over someone he just met. He isn't a teenager anymore.

The tears come anyway.

[crescentsteel]

Keeping a Secret - Part 6

pairing: Tsukishima x f!manager of Sendai Frogs genre: sexual tension/crack/fluff/slow burn wc: 7.1k

Part 5 || Part 7 || masterlist

[a/n]

I’m sorry for the slow update (As you know, I finished my other mini series last week and I was just a ball of exhaustion, until now tbh)

I think we’re halfway along the story now. I think. Lmao. 

AO3 link is on the masterlist’s page.

Let me know if you want to be part of the taglist uwu

No one budges - not Tsukishima, not the team, not even you. You scram the insides of your brain, trying your absolute hardest to come up with a panic-stricken solution on how to remedy the carelessness brought by your surge of pride from winning.

You can feel your heart pounding on your chest. Or maybe it's Tsukishima’s against yours. You can’t tell at this point and you don’t bother trying to. You push your cognitive skills to its maximum as you strive to think for a fix for your current predicament.

Luckily, you’re not a university scholar for nothing.

You release Tsukishima and open your arms wide to the next person you lay your eyes on.

“Kyou-kun! Good job,” you manifest the joy on your face as you come up to Kyoutani for the similar hug you just gave Tsukishima.

Like Tsukishima, Kyoutani also stills when you embrace his perspiring body. Kyoutani is not a touchy person, but unlike Tsukishima, you know he’s fond of you. So he doesn’t push you away. Rather, he awkwardly pats you at the back.

“T-thanks,” he says with his low, raspy voice. You beam at him and move on to the next player until you’ve hugged all six on the court.

When you come back to the benches, there’s an organized line of the rest of the Sendai Frogs.

You blink quizzically for a few seconds, wondering why, until you realize that they’re waiting for their turn as well.

“Aww, you guys!” you gush dotingly at how adorable they are. Yet, you can’t indulge them.

“Maybe next time? You need to line up already,” you remind them. They all groan downcastedly, but Coach Mira castigates them immediately.

“What the hell are you all sighing for? You won. Stop dawdling around and fall in line over there, not here!”

The guys snap out of it and do as they’re told. Before Coach Mira joins them, she shoots up an eyebrow at you, probably looking for an explanation for your behavior.

“Sorry, Coach.” You chuckle as you apologize for getting the team a bit sidetracked, but provide no reason why you did so. “Won’t do it again,” you supplement the apology.

She lets it go casually and lines up with the team as well.

Once the match is officially done, you head over to the restroom. You enter one of the cubicles quickly and lock its door, you knock your head on it.

‘What is wrong with you, you dumb bitch!’ you lambaste yourself while staring at tiles with petrified eyes as you replay the scene again.

When you made the deal with Tsukishima, you were confident that there wouldn’t be problems with hiding what you two have. He is one of your athletes first and foremost; that hasn’t slipped out of your mind. Yet for one moment there, you blurred the line that you and Tsukishima had established.

You got cozy with him when you’re not in private--when you’re not supposed to. It was just a hug, but still, it was something when you’ve made the whole Sendai gymnasium your audience.

You’re the one who even assured Tsukishima that no one will know about your set-up. Tough luck, you’re also the first one to mess up.

You bang your head on the cubicle door again. The sound of your frustrated groan echoes through the whole bathroom. After a while, you take a deep breath and unlock the cubicle. You go back out to the halls.

When you turn left to head for the bus, you’re startled at the presence of the blonde that was just in your mind. Tsukishima is there, leaning against the wall next to the door you emerged from.

“Fuck! You scared me,” you exclaim.

“Tell me about it,” he replies with a straight face. Despite the nonchalance, you know there’s meaning behind his short retort.

You scan the area, looking for any other member of the team who might be present. When you see none, you drag Tsukishima outside to a secluded area at the side of the gym. Once there, you check around again just to be sure no one will pass by.

Tsukishima just watches you acting in distress, waiting for whatever it is you’re going to say. Obviously it’s important enough to you that you tugged him all the way here. Once you’re done confirming that the coast is clear, panic sets in your face.

You clutch his jacket and start lamenting. “I’m so stupid, Tsukki! Oh God. They’re gonna find us out. We’re screwed!”

He thought that you were just going to explain and apologize for your slip-up earlier. He was stupefied when you did it. He’d probably be giving you an earful right now had you not resolved your mishap before it became an object of inquiry to the others. Admittedly, he was still planning to scold you a bit. However, seeing you this freaked out about it makes him change his mind..

“I’m so sorry!” you go on as you drive yourself deeper to hysteria.

He can’t understand why you’re having this kind of reaction. You solved the problem. You hugged five huge, sweaty men to make up for it. That was a convincing distraction for testosterone-filled players who just won a match.

“Can you calm down? I do-”

“Maybe we should stop it already,” you suggest strongly, cutting him off as perturbation clearly clouds your judgement.

This throws him off. The idea didn’t cross his mind at all. He was just going to reprehend you to be mindful, not call off the agreement you two made.

He doesn’t mind it anymore - kissing you. Sometimes, they’re more enjoyable than he initially anticipated them to be. Most importantly, they’re harmless. They’re just meaningless kisses born out of what little attraction you two have for each other. No one is getting out of line. You don’t go beyond kissing. You both act like the deal doesn’t exist unless it’s just the two of you in your room.

That’s why he is willing to let your mistake go, apart from the fact that you were successful in covering it up.

But instead of contesting your suggestion, he says, “If you say so.”

Even though he’s accepted that kisses from you are allowable, if you want to back out from it, why the hell should he stop you?

“Right??” you persistently convince him even though he basically said yes already.

“Right,” he presses on as well to satisfy your apparent need for him to agree with you.

His answer effectively calms you down as you let go of his jacket and sigh a breath of relief. You swiftly regain composure and face him with your trademark sassiness. “Awesome,” you say with a reassured smile.

“You go ahead first so Coach won’t ask me to chew your ass for taking too long to get on the bus.”

“And you?”

“I’m the manager. I’m always the last to get on the freaking bus.”

He turns around and walks back to the bus. That’s strange. He thought you love taking advantage of every opportunity there is for you to pick on him. He might be wrong.

He can be sure about one thing though: you really are the manager who looks out for everyone, including him.

Maybe that’s why it bothers you so much. Above all else, you are their manager. So when you acted upon something other than such in the court, you lost your cool.

Oh well.

It’s not as if scrapping the deal off is a loss of any kind. He’s gained some sort of fun from it. That’s that. Nothing more. Nothing less.

--

Tsukishima knocks for the second time. He wouldn’t have bothered knocking since it’s your scheduled time to meet today, but he also doesn’t want to barge in without your permission. So he knocks again.

Sure enough, it opens this time. Yet, no one’s there to meet him.

“Tsukishima...”

His eyes drop further down to where your voice came from. You’re on your knees, your head faced down on the floor, and your arm reaching on the doorknob where your hand is latched onto.

What is it this time? What kind of antic will you throw his way? He waits for you to do something unearthly again, readying himself for anything you might surprise him with.

But nothing. You just stay where you are while he stands still.

You groan weakly and ask, “Did you not get my text?”

He slouches down and gets on your level, still not discarding the thought that you have a trick up your sleeve, and you’re waiting to spring it on him.

“What text?” He didn’t check his phone on the way here so he doesn’t know.

You lift your chin to face him while he anticipates your big reveal -- your comedic idea of the day -- but it doesn’t come. What greets him are your squinted eyes, almost beet red cheeks, and pale lips.

“Not today,” you struggle to say which comes out raspy and frail.

He instantly reaches for your forehead to confirm his speculation. His eyes widen with worry when his palm touches your skin. Even without a thermometer, he can confidently conclude that you’re sick. Not just sick, you’re burning with fever.

He looks behind you and sees your laptop open with a mug filled with brown streaks of fried liquid he can only assume to be coffee.

“Jesus Christ,” he hisses. You really won’t fucking stop at nothing even if you’re literally sick already.

He peels your hand off from the doorknob. He scoops your legs and waist with ease and stands up.

“H-Hey,” you protest. You’re gravely debilitated so you do not move at all aside from a hand feebly clutching his shirt for support. He kicks the door close and walks over to your bed.

“Do you have a fucking death wish, y/n?”

Even with his harsh tone, he’s extra careful to duck down from your top bunk because he’s too big for the damn thing. If he’s not mindful, he’ll surely bump his bed on the metal frame.

He delicately lies you down on your bed as he manages to sit beside you without hurting himself.

Your eyes are closed and your whole face screams of discomfort. Your mouth opens as you scuffle the words to come out.

“Go home. You’ll get...sick too. Game soon,” you whisper hoarsely.

As usual, you’re still thinking about the team. Is it always everything else before yourself? Don’t you really know how to take a fucking break? It’s an eyesore. Watching you slowly but surely deteriorate yourself is more taxing than handling your childish nonsense.

He’d love to give you an earful of his thoughts about your pressing behavior, but it’s not what you need to hear at the moment. “Who should I call to be here?” he asks instead.

You force your eyelids to open and look at him. “No one. I can take care of…,” you trail off as your eyes begin to flutter close again.

He can’t decide if it’s funny or foolish that you think you can take care of yourself when you can’t even finish your sentence. “Right,” he says, unable to help himself from sounding sarcastic despite your situation. It’s just so stupid how this easily could be avoided if you didn’t push yourself too hard.

He’s in no way responsible for you. He should just walk out like you said. You did this to yourself. There’s no reason for him to stay there.

Yet, he puts down his bag and takes off his jacket.

“Do you have a medicine kit?”

His question is no longer heard. You’re already passed out. He stands up and starts looking around your room for anything that resembles a first aid kit. If you do have one, you didn’t place it where someone can easily see it.

He sighs as he’s left with no choice but to go out and buy the stuff you need. He can’t possibly go through your things. It feels like an invasion of your privacy.

When he comes back from the pharmacy, he’s expecting that you’d ease up even a bit since you finally stopped working. But when he sits beside you again, he can see the same worrisome distraught wrinkling your pretty face.

Alt hough he doesn’t want to disturb you, he has to. He needs to feed you, get you to take medicine, wipe you with cool compress, chang e your clothes, then tuck you back in bed. After that, he still needs to stay to make sure your stubborn ass won’t get back to working once you feel a tiny bit better.

He feels all his facial muscles droop down at the amount of chores he needs to do for you. He really shouldn’t bother. He can just turn a blind eye and go home, leave you alone since you brought this upon yourself.

But there he is, tending to your needs for no substantive reason other than him being a decent person. Well, he’s already taken the first step, so screw it.

He can still work on his own uni requirements while he watches over you anyways.

Although you resisted a bit at first, your own lack of strength makes you give in to his attempt to cater to your sickly needs. The feeding and the medicine was an easy task. You were practically a lifeless doll and just went with whatever he tells you to do.

Now that he’s in your bathroom with a small basin of cool water and a small towel hanging on his shoulder, he contemplates on how to proceed with the next step: a sponge bath. He should just hand you the towel along with a new set of clothes, leave the room, then come back after a few minutes.

Because he is not doing it.

He won’t be undressing you and wiping your naked body. Just no. You should gather whatever energy you have left because you’ll be doing that all on your own.

He dips the towel in the basin and squeezes the excess water out of it. He puts the moist towel in a container and goes back to your bed.

“Hey, sit up for a bit.”

You groan softly, but does as you’re told. He puts the small plastic case with the towel on your bed and helps you get up. “I’ll get you a new set of clothes, then wipe yourself down,” he instructs you.

You let out one short hum of approval, so he goes to your drawers. He pulls the first shirt and bottoms he sees. As long as you have your blanket, it should be fine if you’re not wearing thick clothing.

When he turns around, he finds you holding the wet towel to your shoulder, completely still as you rest against the wall by your bed. You fell asleep with the towel soaking up your shirt.

“Crap,” he curses as he rushes back to you.

He places your fresh clothes to the side and hurriedly removes the towel off of you. He’s about to shake you back to consciousness but aborts his plan as soon as he touches your other shoulder.

You look like you really want to do it yourself as well. Even now, he can see minute movements from your fingers as if you’re still trying to follow his directions earlier.

Goddamn it. It’s really up to him now, isn’t it?

He glances at you one last time, thinking of another way out. If you hadn’t gotten your shirt wet, he would have ditched the sponge bath idea already. Now he’s left with no choice but to proceed with it.

Whatever. It’s just a human body for Christ’s sake. He shouldn’t be as alarmed as he currently is. He’s seen a female human body before. Yours should be no different.

He takes a deep breath and gently tugs up the shirt you’re wearing.

‘They’re just mammary glands,’ he repeats in his head but makes sure his eyes never land anywhere near the blob lump of fat on your chest.

He gets to work, brushing the cool towel starting on the sides of your face, then down to your neck. You must only be half-asleep because you lift your chin up a bit to allow him access to the column of your neck. He keeps his eyes on it as his hand travels down a bit further.

He spreads the coolness of the towel on your chest, but as soon as he feels a particular softness, drags his hands back up. With his hand still on your chest, he feels the pace of your breathing quicken a bit. When shoots his eyes up to your face, you’re already looking at him with dazed eyes and slightly agape mouth.

Beautiful. Too fucking beautiful for his liking.

It’s ridiculous. People are supposed to look like shit when they’re sick, not inviting.

A certain delicate temptation kicks in, urging him to back away a bit to reward himself with a quick sweep of your semi naked figure.

‘No,’ he grounds himself.

He’s not that barbaric. He’s not doing this so he has an excuse to ogle at you.

So why is he doing this?

With the turbulent thoughts reigning in his mind, he unknowingly squeezes the moist towel he’s holding against your skin.

The cool water drenching from his palm distracts him from his pondering. Reflex makes him look at his hand and involuntarily follows the slow trickle of water down the supple mount of flesh he’s been meaning to avoid looking at this whole time.

He realizes he’s been staring, but he’s too enthralled to stop. He lets his eyes wander further down, still watching how the droplet glides to your stomach. It gets absorbed by the fabric as it reaches down the waistband of your shorts.

The absence of the water he’s been trailing with his eyes snaps him out of his trance.

What the fuck is he doing?

He quickly moves on to your arms, patting your skin aggressively and haphazardly so he can finally get this cumbersome chore over with.

When you recover from this, he’s going to barrage you with a litany of fulmination on your self-destructive habits.

He’s supposed to wipe your thighs and legs too, but the idea is already tossed away as his train of thought is antagonizingly twisted today.

As fast as he can, he puts on the shirt he got for you. He was being gentle previously, but his priority at present is to cover up your exposed body away from his sight.

When he successfully clothes you, he gently lays you down again. He pulls the blanket to your shoulders and looks at your overall state.

You look a bit better now so he goes to your study table. He tidies up your stuff and puts them aside for him to set down his own.

Finally, he can get his shit done while he waits for your fever to go down.

He’s halfway through his elective course when he hears you whimper. He ignores it the first two times, but he hears it again louder the third time, he concludes something is wrong.

When he gets to your bed, you’re shivering frantically even with your blanket covering your whole body. He quickly searches for another one and piles it over the one you already have.

It only lessens your trembling but it’s still there. Your pretty face is still ruffled with unease. He touches your arm and finds out that you’re shaking way worse than you look.

In just seconds, he slips inside the blankets and draws you in to provide you the body heat you might need. You desperately cling onto him, pressing your body to share what he silently offered. Your fingers that are clutching the back of his shirt are quivering. You sink your face on his chest with agitation, badly in need for an additional source of warmth.

His displeasure towards your self-negligence dwindles when he feels your trembling body against his. Yes, this might be your fault, but he’s certain you hate this more than he does. Not only are you in pain, but you probably see this as a waste of your valuable time. You brought this upon yourself, but you don’t deserve it.

He encases his arm on your waist and tugs you even closer. He lowers his body a bit and gently nestles your face on his neck so you can feel the direct warmth of his skin on your cheeks.

Within a few minutes, you begin to relax within his embrace. The tremors become less and less until your fingers on his shirt loosen up.

You faintly pull back to look at him. “Sorry, Tsukki,” you mumble groggily with forlorn eyes.

“Shut up,” he utters without any trace of hostility as he cups the back of your head and buries your face on his neck again.

Your grip on him slackens but you don’t let go. You ease into him with your breathing getting even and your heart beating softly against his chest. When your chills completely fade away, he’s left with nothing but the softness of your body within the confines of his touch.

He becomes more aware of your bodies tangled against each other now that you’re completely still. The plumpness of your breasts are pinned on him. Your ample lips are grazing his neck. His pinky and ring fingers are hovering just below your spine, almost touching the curve of your behind.

To make things worse, you begin letting out small moans of succor which he can hear only because you’re too close.

He should be immune to this. He’s already had his fair share of kisses with you and sometimes, it involves a lot of touching. However, it is never as intimate as this. The furthest you two have gone was when he slipped a hand underneath your shirt before your friend barged in.

Before today, he had never seen your bare body. He had never held you to the point that almost your every curve melds with his. He has never thought about what it’d be like to do more than just making out. Only now when you’re not even doing so.

He considers himself a level-headed person driven by logic and rationality, but for crying out loud, your thigh is nudging on his crotch as if challenging his self-control.

As much as he wants to keep himself in check, his own body betrays him when his dick starts to nudge back at your right thigh.

‘Breathe in, breathe out,’ he reminds himself repeatedly to calm himself down.

“Hmmm,” you snuggle even more on his neck, your moist lips tracing his skin before you press it on him as you relax even further.

Fuck.

The shameful tent in his pants is becoming painful on his jeans as his imagination runs wild. How will you sound if it's the other way around, if it's his lips that’s traveling on your neck? How will you react if it’s his palms kneading the supple flesh pressed against his chest right now? Would you blush a deeper shade of red than the one you’re wearing if he slams his…

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He can’t decide who is more sick: you or him, who’s lusting over you despite your situation. His plan to chastise you for your own inattentiveness for your own health is back in action. He’ll make sure it's ingrained into that irresponsible, beautiful head of yours.

To distract himself from his inane fantasies, he forces himself to recall the scientific names of all the reptile species he’s aware of.  And when he’s exhausted his mental list, he moves on to whatever animal species he can think of until he dozes off with you.

--

You haven’t opened your eyes yet, but as you regain consciousness, you can tell that you had an amazing nap. For the first time, you reap the benefits of a power nap. It feels like you slept for a complete eight hours or even more. You no longer feel sick. You celebrate the after effects of the nap, stretching your legs before you get up.

You look out your window and see that the light is still a dark shade of blue so you still have the whole evening to finish what you need to do.

When you turn your glance to your table, Tsukishima’s seated on the floor with his laptop in front of him.

Why is Tsukishima here? You texted him and called off your meeting today.

Something’s off.

You don’t really remember going to bed. You just remember doing one of your subjects when you heard someone knock.

“Tsukishima,” you call his attention urgently.

He turns to you, but you can’t see his eyes from the light reflecting on his glasses from his screen. “What time is it?”

He looks back to his laptop. “It’s 5 am.”

What?!

You didn’t take a nap. You fucking slept. A more horrid realization comes to you when you remember what happened before you did. You passed out and Tsukishima fixed you up.

Shit! He’s been telling you all the time to stop overworking yourself and he had to be there and clean up the mess you did to yourself.

You panic when he sits beside you. You sit properly, hands on your lap, pressed lips, eyes on the floor as you prepare yourself for a long, tedious arduous lecture from the blonde.

“Hey.”

You slowly turn towards him, anticipating the slew of curses about to unroll from him.

“Y-yes?”

You keep your eyes leveled on his chest, embarrassed of yourself for burdening him with your unwell ass.

Instead of speaking, he inserts a thermometer in your mouth, causing you to shoot your gaze up to him. Neither of you say anything and just hold each other’s stare until the thermometer beeps.

He takes it out of your mouth and checks your temperature.

“You’re okay now,” he announces, then starts getting ready to leave. “Don’t bother coming to training later or else I’ll tell Coach that I caught you extremely sick,” he threatens nonchalantly.

Your mind is running laps on how to process everything all at once, but you decide to deal with the most pressing one.

“Uhhhh..”

He glances at you, silently waiting for what you’re going to say, but you only gape at him as well.

What were you going to say again? Shit, you actually can’t remember what it is.

He disregards your quietness and proceeds to your door. “You should just stay in. One day of missing classes won’t cost you your scholarship,” he says before he closes the door behind him.

“Wait.”

He’s gone. It’s only then you remember you wanted to say thanks.

--

When you come back to the gym two days after, everyone expresses their worry about you. You assure them that you’re completely fine now. Even with the love and concern you are showered with, your eyes scan for someone who isn’t among the players in front of you.

There he is, dribbling the ball and is about to do a jump serve. Just before he tosses the ball in the air, he looks at your direction.

“Y/n?” Kogane’s voice pulls you back to them.

“What was that?” you ask because you didn’t hear whatever they were saying.

“He was asking if you’re really okay now,” Eiji says.

You nod enthusiastically. “So stop wasting your training time on me and practice instead,” you say with cheerful authority that they’re very pleased to hear again.

Once the crowd disperses, you spring your way to the middle blocker who didn’t welcome you back.

“Hello!” you greet him sprightly.

“What?” he asks with a bored tone.

You step closer to him for the next thing you’re going to say is for his ears only. “I really appreciate what you did the other day.”

Tsukishima sees the earnest, grateful expression on your face, but what grips his attention is how refreshed you look. You look brighter than you usually do.

He was almost sure that you were going to ignore what he said about going absent on both in classes and in here, but you seem to have taken his advice with how well-rested you are.

But most of all, he didn’t expect you’d bring it up during your working hours. Neither of you talks about what happens in private when you’re the ‘Sendai Frogs’ manager,’ not his classmate, or occasional kiss-buddy .

“I don’t,” he responds vacuously to your thankful sentiment. It was a very tough night for him. When he woke up, his erection was still raging through his pants. As undignified as it was, he got himself off in your comfort room just to ease the unbearable sexual tension that was still there in the morning.

As usual, you don’t take offense from his sour remark. You chuckle whole-heartedly and pat him hard on his shoulders. “Of course you don’t,” you say mirthfully before you walk over to Coach Mira.

It was a very tough night you made him endure, but he’s relieved to see you back on your feet.

--

The team is going to the fourth match of the regular rounds. Three more after this and you get the chance to have a game from the bottom two teams from Division 1.

As you and the team march towards the court, you hear someone call Tsukishima.

“Tsukki!”

You look at whoever it is and stop when you see Kotarou Bokuto, the wing spiker of MSBY Jackals, crazy energy on court, super clean line shot.

He’s waving energetically at Tsukishima while the latter just nods at him. You grab Tsukki by his shirt and stop him from advancing any further.

“You guys go ahead. We’ll be there in a sec,” you tell Kogane who’s the person in front of you. He nods at you then walks off with the rest of the team.

“Why did we stop?” Tsukishima asks with a frown.

“How do you know Bokuto?” you ask.

“I used to train with him during high school,” he says like it’s nothing because to him it really is not a big deal. Bokuto and Kuroo practically coerced him to join their free practices when he already wanted to call it a day. Training with them was a drag - a drag that pushed him to become a better blocker.

Among the four of them who regularly practiced in the third gym, it was him and Bokuto who went professional. Even if the wing spiker is in a higher division, he still sees Bokuto as the same person who told him it only takes one hit to be hooked on the sport. Bokuto just got better at it.

Other than that, he still seems like the silly guy Tsukishima knows him to be.

“Can you introduce me?” you say as you try to hide the zeal in your eyes, but horribly failing to do so.

“Shouldn’t I go warm up?” he counters instead of responding to your question.

“I promise to be very nice to you in the three succeeding training days. Introduce me, please, ” you beseech graciously at him, insistent on meeting the athlete.

“Make it five days,” he tests to see your conviction.

But you easily agree, “Deal!”

Seeing that you won’t let this go easily, he thinks it would be better to just give you what you want.

You both walk over to where Bokuto is. Beside him is another part of the third gym, Kuroo, who’s now the official promoter of the Volleyball Association.

“Hey hey hey, Tsukki!”

“Hey,” the lack of enthusiasm in his response totally contrasts Bokuto’s. “This is-“

“Hi!! I’m Y/n, Tsukishima’s manager,” you cut him off which makes him jolt. Why even bother asking him to introduce when you’re more than capable of doing it yourself?

You grab Bokuto’s hand and shake it vigorously. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” you dramatically state, your eyes twinkling with idolatry.

Bokuto, as expected, is exceedingly glad from the adoration. He uses his two hands to shake yours and reciprocate the same energy you gave him.

“I’m such a huge fan. Personally, you’re my favorite player from Division 1. I don’t care what others say. That chest bump. Flawless save!” you drag on, endlessly showering the spiker with compliments which Bokuto is totally eating up.

He’s egging you up even more by constantly nodding, laughing, and agreeing in everything you’re saying.

Meanwhile, Kuroo and Tsukishima are just standing there watching the whole exchange.

“I’m sorry if this is a stretch, but can I hug you?” you ask almost like a tame puppy.

He’s been disregarding the entire conversation, but really? A hug? Have you no shame? Not that he cares but should you be ogling at another athlete when you’re wearing the uniform of Sendai Frogs?

Great. Go worship a big brawny dude from Division 1 minutes before your own team’s game. How thoughtless.

He imagined it would be a civil hug but then you open your arms to Bokuto and envelop him in the warmest hug he’s ever seen you give. His eyes drop to Bokuto’s limbs which are ensnared around your waist as the spiker hauls you closer to his body.

How imprudent. It was a mistake bringing you to Bokuto. You should have known it’s unwise to mix up your personal agenda with your work. You should have known that it was better if you just ignored Bokuto and made him warm up, than make him introduce you to your favorite player.

What is wrong with you?

Kuroo’s attention slips from you to Tsukishima’s change of demeanor. Tsukishima is usually unbothered, but as soon as you embraced Bokuto, Tsukishima’s mood became sour. It is an amusing sight to watch.

He never thought Tsukishima would associate himself with an individual as lively as you. But who could blame him?

He, himself, has just been watching since you fanned the ego of his old buddy. You have not graced him even a glance since you approached them. Your eyes were all set on Bokuto. You’re probably not aware that another presence is also there.

So he’ll make you be aware.

“Ehem,” he clears his throat to grab your attention, which works as you shift your gaze from Bokuto to him. “Hello,” he flashes you the best smile he has, but has no effect whatsoever at you.

The difference in treatment is drastic. While you revere Bokuto with adoration, you regard him like a nuisance. It’s not that palpable, but it’s there. You look at him like he’s an obligation to deal with.

Your smile is rehearsed and so is the cheerful “Hi” that you give him.

“Kuroo Tetsurou,” he introduces as he offers his hand. You take without hesitation, firmly gripping his extended hand for a brisk, professional handshake.

“Y/n, manager of the Sendai Frogs,” you respond in an amicable, yet refined manner. He gets his business card from his pocket and hands it to you.

“So, Miss Manager, how are the Frogs doing?” he asks to strike up a conversation.

You scrutinize his business card for a quick while then pockets it. “I believe as their manager, I, myself, represent the team more than my words can. So what do you say, Mr. Promoter?” The professionalism chips off and reveals a real slice of you - sly and mischievous, as you compose your stature and put a hand on your hip, accentuating your curves.

He crosses his arms as he eyes you from head to toe without any reservation, then back up again.

“I say the Sendai Frogs are looking hot this season,” he says with his own grin that’s just as devious as yours.

“There’s your answer then,” you give him a wink that almost makes his heart flutter.

‘Geez, lady. Take it easy on unsuspecting men,’ he thinks to himself but easily recovers as his grin spreads out.

“Oy, we should be getting back,” Tsukishima says, breaking Kuroo’s trance towards you. You snap out of it as well, agreeing with Tsukishima as you give the blonde a nod.

“It’s so nice to really meet you, Bokuto,” you tell Bokuto before turning around. Even though you’re treating Kuroo as if he doesn’t exist, he can’t help but be intrigued even more by you.

“Bye, y/n,” he says a bit loudly for you to hear since you’re already a few steps away from them.

You’re about to look back but Tsukishima puts a hand on your shoulders and starts talking to you. Kuroo would have disregarded it, but he doesn’t miss the quick glare Tsukishima throws at Kuroo and Bokuto. What’s even more eye-catching is how Tsukishima’s hand travels down a bit on your back.

You don’t take notice of it though. It might because you’re preoccupied or because you genuinely don’t mind. But for Tsukishima to do so, it’s a different story altogether.

“Hey Bokuto, did you see that?” he turns to his friend.

“Uh huh. She’s so pretty!” Bokuto squawks out, obviously not catching what Kuroo did. Kuroo just lets it go since it wouldn’t really do much even if he tries to explain. He looks back at you and agrees with Bokuto instead.

“Yeah, very pretty.”

--

Even though you’re the one who broke off the deal, you still feel the urge to kiss Tsukishima at times. He does too. You notice the way he glances at you briefly then returns to his work as soon you catch him.

It’s not awkward. There’s none of the tension-filled air, probably because you’re both aware that the impulse is there. You just silently agreed to dismiss it.

It’s all good though. It’s for the best. You don’t want another slip-up like the one from the Jaguars’ match. What’s weird is that even though you’re no longer making out, it feels like nothing has changed.

You still sit beside him. He still lets you lean on him. He still lets out nasty side comments but he’s not as rancorous as they used to be.

“You’re spacing out again,” he points out.

“That’s cause I’m done, Tsukishima,” you counter immediately while still gazing at your window across you. “Anyways, I’m gonna nap,” you announce.

He stops typing and looks at you. That’s weird. He’s always the one strenuously suggesting that you take a break when you’re feeling tired. What gives?

“Are you sick?” A bubble of unwarranted concern rises within him from your sudden inclination to take a nap.

“Oh, no. But I’m going to a party later so I need to recharge a bit.” You head to your bed and start straightening out the crumpled bedsheets.

Party? Are you out of your fucking mind? You could rest instead, make the most out of the night by catching up on sleep. But you’d rather attend a pointless party? Here he thought you were being thoughtful of your own health.

Not to mention, there might be perverts getting their hands all over you again. Obviously you can protect yourself, but wouldn’t you prefer not having one ogling and harassing you?

“Mind enlightening me how a vomit-smelling gathering is of any benefit to you?”

“Mind enlightening why it’s any of your business?” you retort instantly.

“It’s not,” he responds just as swiftly. “I’m just curious because I honestly don’t get it,” he says calmly. If you want to go to the damned party, then by all means. He really doesn’t care what you do with your free time.

“If you’re so worried, Tsukishima, you’re very welcome to come,” you tell him, mockery dripping from your invitation.

“I’d rather not,” he says dryly.

You shrug as you slip under your blanket. “Lock the door when you leave.”

“Unbelievable,” he mutters.

--

‘Truly unbelievable,’ he tells himself again as the smell of cigarette and alcohol tickles his nostrils while he sits at the bar, mulling over whatever the hell possessed him to come there.

It definitely isn’t because of you.

He’s not looking for you either nor is he worried about you.

It’s worse than he remembers. There are more people than last time and the music is banging on his eardrums.

“Are you getting anything?” the bartender asks him.

Although he absolutely detests alcohol, he feels like punishing himself tonight for lack of better judgment in coming there.

“Your worst drink.”

--

Even though you slept that afternoon, you still don’t plan on staying out too long for the party. You just wanted to catch up with some uni friends and instead of meeting them all one by one, it would be efficient if you attend this party and meet them all at once.

Although you would prefer if you just slept or watched a documentary, you think it’s necessary for you to be here. You almost don’t have any time to spend with friends. This might be your last chance to do so since it’s almost graduation.

As usual, you avoid drinking since you hate dealing with hangovers. You learned that the hard way when you had to keep up with who’s scoring points in an official match while an invisible hammer pounds your head.

So, despite the endless free shots given to you, you persistently decline. You also did not pay much attention to the dance floor to save your energy.

After a while of talking to everyone you know, you look around to check if you missed anyone. That’s when you catch a glimpse of a familiar blonde slouching by the bar.

‘ No. It’s not possible ,’ you say to yourself but you’re already smiling hard as you saunter to where he is. It’s very unlikely that it’s him but on the rare chance that he is, you’re not going to let it slip by.  

He’s facing down his glass which is joined by two empty shot glasses. You lean back with both your elbows on the counter.

“You new here?” you playfully ask. If it’s not who you think it is, you’ll just dance awkwardly to throw him off.

“I actually am,” he says as he encircles the rim of his glass with his index finger. Then he raises his face to turn to you.

When he reveals his face, you confirm that it is indeed Tsukishima, but at the same time, he looks nothing like his usual self.

The tips of his ears up to his neck are burning red while his eyes are dazed like you’ve never seen them before. But that’s not the weirdest thing.

He’s smiling. He’s fucking smiling like a happy idiot.

“Tsukishima?” you ask him for confirmation in any case that it’s just someone who looks extremely like him.

“Hmmm?” he asks with a little bit of a slur that throws you off.

As if you’re not astounded enough by the scene unfolding before you, he grabs you by the waist and lugs you until you’re situated between his thighs.

“Who did you think it was, manager?”

Part 5 || Part 7 || masterlist

taglist (those crossed out can’t be tagged)

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[paperpocalypse]

crackers and jam.

50 Cliché Tropes and Prompts: 41. Overhearing they have feelings for you.

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Word Count: 1,703 words

Warnings: Swearing

Some time back, not long after he got stranded in the post-apocalyptic world and perhaps a year and a half before running into you, Five’s only companion was Delores.

It had been a meeting of chance (as everything is) in the middle of a destroyed department store. She had been looking at him. And maybe that’s why he was so drawn in – that stare; it was a lifeless stare, yeah, but it was not by any means a dead stare like the ones he had met too many times before. No life had been lost to create that stare. She was smiling, too.

Five had lifted her carefully out of the chunks of concrete, greeting her because there was no one else. For the first few weeks, he just placed her at the corner of her store and visited every once in a while, then took to occasionally toting her around the City when he needed to talk. He liked to pretend that she answered back – sometimes. After a few months, he named her Delores.

Then he met you.

Unlike Delores, you were human. Breathing. Alive, somehow. And you had thoughts and feelings that weren’t always connected to his and – and it was weird. It was home.

You didn’t question his friendship with Delores. Five had seen the half-burned stuffed frog in your wagon, so you wouldn’t have had anything to hold over him anyway. He knew that you knew that he still went to the department store in the middle of the night. And, shit, deep down Five also knew that Delores was, in the end, just a hunk of plastic with eyes. But after a year and a half of having nobody else, she had become something of a comfort. And a confidant. Burdening you with his issues was not an option, so when things became a little shittier than usual, he would slip out from underneath his blanket, make sure you weren’t having a nightmare, and head downtown to voice his thoughts aloud.

Over time, though, he learned that you were willing to listen. You listened, and you were always kind about it even if you didn’t always understand. His nightly visits decreased. And it was okay for a while.

But then Five began to struggle with a new issue – one that was a little different than the usual mess of stress and anxiety – and one night, he finds himself looking down at Delores again because talking to you about it is definitely off the table.

Unfortunately, Delores’s kindness is different from yours.

Well, here we are. Again.

“I’m just here to think,” he snaps, combing a grubby hand through his tangled mess of hair. The lantern beside him glows weakly as he plops down onto a slab of concrete. “Mind your business.”

Your business is everyone’s business here, Five. And to put my own two cents in, I think that you’re scared of your own feelings.

Blood travels to Five’s cheeks, unwarranted, as he narrows his eyes at Delores. “For the last time, that’s not what this is about. It’s – Jesus Christ, I’m gonna get over it. This isn’t a life-or-death issue.”

Then why have you been ranting about it like it is?

“I’m not.”

Ha! Rich.

He grits his teeth. She stares back at him, unperturbed. Bastard.

You know, maybe you’ll feel better if you say it out loud. Air it out. Test to see if it’s real.

“I’m not doing that.”

Do it.

No.

Say it.

No.

For god’s sake, Number Five, take a goddamn look at yourself –

“Fine!” Five hisses, though it feels more like an explosion. He throws his hands up. “I like [Y/n], alright? We’re the last people on this goddamn planet and I like them, and I shouldn’t care this much but I do. Happy?”

Delores pauses. Five looks away.

Very.

Ugh.

Did it feel real?

He clicks his tongue, crossing his arms, and doesn’t answer. The smile on Delores’s face seems a little smug, and it makes him want to hurl. He shouldn’t have said it out loud. Relieve some of the pressure and everything starts to boil over …

Breathing in deeply, Five forces his shoulders to relax. He bids a soft goodbye to Delores, then heads back to camp.

—

A week later, Five’s visit comes back to bite him in the worst way possible.

You’ve been having a hard time starting the fire for tonight, so he finishes splitting the evening rations to help you out with the bow drill. As he does so, you watch in silence, both of you waiting patiently for the smoke and dust.

“Do you think we have enough wood?” you eventually ask.  

“It’s enough,” he murmurs, only half paying attention. After a while, a few chalky wisps of smoke begin to rise from the charring wood. He leans in to blow the ember carefully once it forms, then puts it into the tinder and coaxes out a flame. “Get the kindling?”

You oblige, and within a few minutes, a healthy fire starts to dance atop the wood, scorching his face and fingers with heat. Five stares intently at the oranges and yellows for a moment, lips pressed together, intrigued in a tired sort of way. Warmth. Then he backs off and grabs a portion of crumbled up crackers, handing it to you.

You spread the cloth over your knees. “Now all we need is some jam.”

“What kind?”

A soft hum escapes your throat. You contemplate unhurriedly, dabbing up some stray crumbs with a finger. “Blackberry,” you reply after a few moments. “Or strawberry. The kind that’s sort of chunky.”

It’s been a long time since he’s tasted either of those things. The simple thought of whole crackers spread with fresh jam, sweet and dark and sticky, is a luxury in and of itself. Five tries not to think about it too much, munching on his third fragment of stale cracker. It makes his mouth dry. “Hm,” he says, picking up the canteen for a few drops of water.

The fire pops. A few sparks fly out into the air and die just as quickly. You finish your supper and wipe your mouth, stretching your legs out in front of you as you sigh.

Five tilts his head at you. “What?”

“What?” you parrot back, though he sees the way your fingers fidget.

“You have something to say.”

Your facial expression shifts just the smallest bit. “How can you tell?”

(Simple – because he knows you. He knows your ticks; knows how you tick. He knows your smiles and all the subtle ways that your voice rises and falls. He’s memorized you because he fears forgetting, and it’s a problem.)

“Kind of hard not to,” Five replies.

“Oh.” You chew the inside of your cheek, still seeming unsure. “Well, um … I just wanted to talk to you about something. And please don’t be mad.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Um. A couple nights ago, I had a bad dream.”

“I know.”

“Not the one you woke me up from. A different one,” you mutter. “The night after we found the pillows.”

“Oh,” Five says.

“Yeah.” You look down at your hands. They’re dusty and rough, littered with small scars from climbing and falling and holding. “I … um, that night, I woke up and you weren’t there. And I sort of panicked, and went looking –”

The blood drains from Five’s face.

“I went looking for you, and I found you. Talking to her.” You glance at him for a split second. “About me.”

Oh, fuck.

Five stares at you as you fiddle with the scrap of cloth on your lap. You know. You weren’t supposed to know. You weren’t supposed to ever know, and now you do.

“Five?” Your voice is curious and small.

His voice is raspy. “How much did you hear?”

“Almost everything.” You grab the cuff of his coat sleeve as he attempts to stand up. “I’m sorry for eavesdropping. I really didn’t mean to, but –”

“It’s not your fault. Look, I don’t want to talk about it,” he replies tersely. “We need more firewood, anyway.”

“We have enough,” you say, though you relinquish your hold when he tugs a little harder away from you. You sound hurt. “Five, it’s okay to feel like that.”

“It’s not. It makes things more complicated.”

“How?” Standing up, your brow furrows. “I like you too, Five. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

His chest tightens. “That just makes it worse.”

“I like you,” you repeat. Your hand moves down to take his gently. “A lot. And it’s okay.”

(Did it feel real?)

Five meets your gaze solidly despite not quite wishing to, a familiar sense of guilt washing over him when you squeeze his hand.

Sometimes, he wishes he hadn’t met you. Then he would’ve gotten what he deserved for his recklessness – nothing – with nothing to concern himself with other than equations and survival and time. That, he’s fairly sure, would have been easier to manage. He hadn’t been taught to care for someone else. Not like this, at least.

But you. You. Five swallows the lump in his throat.

“I might have to leave you behind,” he murmurs, more hoarsely than he’d like to admit. The words burn like ice on the roof of his mouth. “One day.”

You don’t reply for a few seconds.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, you step a little closer. “But not tonight," you say. "Right?”

For shit’s sake, you’re so optimistic. Five chuckles dryly, hand still engulfed in yours, blinking away the vague stinging in his eyes. “Of course not.”

“Then I forgive you. If you feel like you need it.” With a mild exhale, you smile at him. Your eyes are glossy. “So can we sit back down? I like doing that.”

He quietly agrees.

So you bring him back down to sit before the fire, closer to him than before. No more words are left to be said. A heavy silence settles in their place, neither good nor bad, and almost comfortable. For the first time in a long time, Five tries not to think.

You lean against his shoulder. He welcomes it.

[theravencawsatmidnight]

Pink Chains

Pt 8. Ending

Kyotani owns a grunge /punk apparel shop after leaving the Sendai Frogs after a incident with the Black Jackals. He designs his own clothes and hires Oikawa & Iwaizumi as his employees. Everything goes smoothly for awhile, till you walk in; pink dress, big smile , and bubbly personality. His whole life stops in that moment. 

Nsfw. Virgin reader. Vanilla

Tags. @galagcica @haikyuu-but-low-iq @kozushiki @mocha-babes @kayisweird @lunebabie @zopzoop @derpeedoo

You were sitting on Kyos lap facing him holding his cheeks kissing him all over his face. Kyo had his hands on your rear trying his best not to tug at your panties and just kiss you . He was still thinking about what happened earlier , and you could tell. His kissing was getting sloppy .

You pulled away to sit on his fingers and lap giving him a shy pouty look. “Kyo…”

“Im sorry sweetie.. its just.”

You kissed him on the lips. “Just nothing. Wanna feel good… wanna feel good with Kyo..”

He sighed kissing you back giving you the ‘ok’. You could feel his fingers along your slit travelign up and down lightly in slow strokes. He chuckled at the little whimpers you made no matter how hard you tried to hide them from him.

“Can i have my hand back sweetie?”

“No..”

He smiled, kissing you again and again while his fingers worked on getting you wet for him. You leaned into him sighing lightly at the feeling, holding his sleeve, kissing it and rubbing against his fingers whining every time they slipped over your clit. Kyo kissed at your neck pulling you closer to him.

“Sweetie.. Lift up for a second”

You held him tight moving up so he could help you out of your panties and sit you on his lap again. You just had his old jersey on now but he quickly got rid of that too, tossing it with the other garments.

“K-kyo.”

“My pretty girl” he pulled you to him, slipping another hand under you again to slip a finger in you just to be stopped short. “Sweetie? Are you a virgin?”

“Yes i uhm..i still want to , just be gentle please..”

Kyotani did not know how to process this for a minute, every girl who threw themselves at him was always some slut. He's never been asked to take it slow before. “Okay sweetie, if at any point you wanna stop, tell me.” he kissed you and slipped another finger in you. The rings hit your flesh creating goosebumps.

You squeezed him tight getting used to the new feeling, eventually he got you to slowly grind against his fingers and helped you reach your first orgasm helping you through it. You pawed at his lap watching his erection get bigger each time.

“ i think.. Im ready”

“Your sure?” he asked , removing his fingers from you to see your juices dripping off of them. He bit his lip and before he could say anything you were taking his erection out and rubbing it.

“Swee!!..-”

You leaned into him giving him big eyes. “Im sure Kyo..”

He kissed you as he gripped your rear lifting you up. “Okay sweetie. Tell me if you want to stop okay?”

“I will Kyo..”

Kyotnai had nails dug into his sleeves while he lowered you down on him. He was hurting you , he stopped a couple times to ask if you were okay and you always nodded between shaking breaths assuring him you were fine and to keep going. It took him a few minutes to sit you back down on his lap. You cried when he broke through. Biting his shoulder drawing blood. He held your body close coaching you through it just like he did for the tattoo. It helped.. It really really helped.

It started out with you on his lap and ended with you on his bed and Kyo on top of you finishing on your stomach. He squeezed you panting hard trying not to put his weight on you too much. You giggled kissing his head and he laughed too. He never wanted to leave you, not ever.

Kyo helped you clean up and asked if he could get you anything to help make you more comfortable. You jokingly asked for a stuffed animal expecting him to not have one but he did in fact have one. A old wolf plush and a Sendai Frogs plush he pulled outta his closet. Kyotani helped you get dressed in his boxers and one of his shirts before putting you to bed. He kissed your head watching you drift off.

“Night sweetie”

“Night kyo..”

Kyotani left to get dressed and to throw your clothes in the wash. He sat on the dryer just listening to the washer for a minute. So much has happened over a few days for him. Multiple times he thought he was going to lose you , he still had no idea how you stayed with him. He was grateful to have you, grateful Yahaba made up with him, grateful his business was working and was hopeful for the future. He returned to you soon after the clothes finished to place them next to the bed, he got in behind you wrapping his arms around you trying to fall asleep. He was not looking forward to the morning,

*

You woke up first because of your alarm and the sound of excited dogs. Your body was sore but you did not mind too much. Kyo squeezed you in his sleep and you giggled kissing his arm all over.

“Kyooo…gotta get up..”

“Skip sweetie..” he nuzzled his face into your neck sighing heavy

“I gotta.. Draw my entry for the Gallery though, and what will i do if i skip?”

“Hang out at my job with me of course. “ he teased nipping your neck.

You sighed turning over and kissed his chest.

“What gallery?”

“My school is participating in this gallery at the local art building in town. My teacher asked if i would join in, im hoping.. I get picked up.”

“Picked up?” he asked you, moving your hair from your face.

“I want to graduate with a job already lined up, im hoping someone will like my designs enough to want to partner with me to sell them on clothes.” you nuzzled into his chest. “But im nervous too cuz.. Business people just see money”

“Where is this gallery again Sweetie?”

“Up the street from Mattsuns shop” you rubbed your eyes and Kyo got a grin on his face.

“Can i come?”

“Of course!” you hugged him tight and he kissed your head.

“Dress code?”

“I think so but.. I dont think its mandatory”

Ho ho ho…

Your phone buzzed again and you whined loud. “Kyoooo let em up…”

He just laid down on top of you . “five more minutes”

*

You played with the dogs for a bit petting each one and giving them kisses on the nose, you even shared your breakfast with them when Iwaizumi was not looking. Kyo had washed your clothes but you wanted to wear his, the pants were too long so you made them into shorts and picked out a random band tee you tied under your chest and found your shoes in the living room. God you were so cute in hi clothes what the fuck.

He couldn't stay long though. Kyotani was greeted with several texts and calls from Yahaba ordering him to get to his place immediately. He gave you a kiss and promised he would be at the show for you and left. Iwaizumi brought you to school and he left for work to see Oikawa had opened with no problems.

Kyotani made it too Yahabas house to be greeted by him in the door, arms folded and foot tapping. Kyotani rolled his eyes, noticing the extra car parked out front. Bokuto was already here. He walked into the house past Yahaba to see Bokuoto sitting at the table trying not to look at Kyotani. He sat down across from him and Yahaba met in the middle between them.

“So explain… what happened.” he said, rubbing the irritation in his face.

“Well., i was out getting somethings and i saw Mad Dog, and i just i dont know. Got upset, all i could think about what the Tourney and the accident.” Bokuto rubbed his eyes and ran hid hands through his hair. “I hit him first Yahaba”

“And you?” Yahaba looked over to Kyo.

“I hit him back” he took in a deep breath sitting back in the chair to rub his sleeve.

Yahaba rubbed between his eyes. “At least no one saw it…”

“y/n was with me”

“.....what?”

“Its true…” Bokuto added

“SO YOU JUST FOUGHT IN FRONT OF HER!”

“I almost punched her Yahab jesus christ, i still feel awful about it”

“She stayed with you?”

“Yes, she did, i dont know how but can we please fix this . i need to go to work and catch y/n’s art show”

“Is she okay Kyotani”

“She is now.” he looked away rubbIng his head. “I fucking hate myself.”

“Kyotani…” Bokuto said. “Im sorry, i let my emotions get the better of me and i should have more control than that. Akaashi gave me one hell of a lecture when i got home. I don't want to fight again.”

“I dont either”

Yahaba was still hung up on you putting yourself between these two and coming out without a scratch. Fuck you really were special.

“So can we agree to move on.” he finally asked them.

“Yes”

“Mhm”

“Good. shake hands and get out of my house.”

The two got up shaking hands and they both felt a wave of relief wash over them. Finally.

*

Back at the college everyone was eyeing your outfit but you did not give one fuck. Yuki and Kii paid you no mind and you spent most of the day in the art room with a towel of crumbled up sketches in a trash bag neck to you. Why was this so hard? You signed in to your arm looking at the empty canvas, lightly tracing over your red panda tattoo.

“Mmm……”You traced some more getting an idea. It was different, new, and stood out. Two opposites.

At The Dog House Kyotani had finally gotten there to see Oikawa running the front and Iwaizumi putting clothes out. He told them everything was fine now and about the gallery show you were in. both men were excited to go and Kyo even texted Mattsun about it.

“Are you gonna wear a suit for once ?” Kawa asked Kyo

“Uhm no, no im not.”

“Why not!!!”

“Because i want to stand out when i tell y/n i want her to partner with me at the shop”

Iwaizumi and Oikawa both got very big smiles and Kyo rolled his eyes, he couldn't help but smile too . he was so ready for tonight, to see your face and your reaction. He was going to tell you he loved you too.

*

It was time for the Gallery and you were already inside setting up your space. You had to change clothes and put on a black dress with boots. Kyotanis clothes neatly tucked away in your bag. You were so happy with the finished sketch you loved it so much, you hoped Kyo did too , you also hoped someone would want to buy it ..

People were starting to come in and you quickly set everything up when your teacher came over.

“y/n, its going to be lovely, this is such a fancy high established place i have no doubt someone will want to pick you up”

“Thank you.. Heh.. i hope soo….”

Things were going good. People loved your piece and you got compliments on it, not many people understood its meaning or how you came to the conclusion to draw these two things together but you loved it. No one made offers though, unfortunately. You just wanted to see Kyo .. where was he?

“You look ridiculous Kawa” Mattsun said.

“The invite said SUITS!” he yelled at them as he parked his car.

“It also said not mandatory” Iwaizumi said getting out with his friends

Kyo got out stretching giving all these fancy people a smirk as they passed, hands on their chest gasping at the sight of him and his friends.

Everyone had regular clothes on, Oikawa was in a suit.

Kyotani was in ripped jeans, black boots and his shops shirt.

Oikawa was in a fancy black suit.

Mattsun was in skater clothes showing off his many tattoos

Iwaizumi was in jeans and a punk rock shirt.

“Ready ?” he asked his friends as he cracked his knuckles.

Everyone said yes and Kyotani could not wait to get inside this fancy place.

You were sitting by your art staring at all the people, everyone had stopped coming over to ask about it. No one was interested. You wanted to leave but you were required to stay till the night was done. You sighed checking your phone when you heard a very loud gasp.

“Oh my god…”

“You must have the wrong place…”

“This place is not for you lot”

“Ouch, im just here to see my girlfriend”

You got the biggest smile jumping out of your seat. “Kyoooo!!!”

People looked back and you waved. Kyotani pushed his way through and Oikawa apologized awkwardly to everyone as him and his friends past through. Kyo picked you up hugging you tight kissing your chest and setting you back down.

“Hows my happy girl”

“Super good now!” you squeezed him and said hello to everyone.

Mattsun checked on his tattoo on you and Iwai and Kawa said hello.

“Sweetie anybody pick you up yet?”

“No.. i .. i dont think people like it”

“Where is it ?”

You took his hand taking him and his friends back over to your space. His heart thumped when he saw it. Holy fuck. It was a very large drawing of a wolf and a happy red panda. The wolf was standing and looking straight on and the red panda was between its front legs with its front paws up looking very happy.

You leaned on Kyo hugging his sleeve waiting for him to say something. Mattsun knew instantly you were inspired by his style, he even saw his name next to yours for credits/ inspiration. Oikawa was speechless for once in his life and Iwaizumi was watching his friend with a big smile. Good for you Mad Dog.

“Sweetie…. “

“Do you like it ? its … it us heh.”

“I fuckin love it”

“Really?!”

“Sweetie” he picked you up again and kissed your lips not caring who was staring. “ i love you y/n. I want you to partner with me in my shop. I want to spend my life with you.”

“KYO!!!” you wiggled in his grip till he put you down. You whined grabbing his face to kiss him all over. “ i love you too!! Yes yes!!!”

“And ill buy this art y/n” Mattsun told you.

You looked over and he smiled taking out his checkbook. “Thank you for putting my name on it, im touched.”

Everything was working out for you, nothing could be better.

The years went on, you agreed to move in with Kyo after you finished up school and used Mattsuns money to start up your designs with Kyo in his shop. He put your name on the brand making it yours as well. You made cute hoodies with ears and dresses along with cute animal bags. Kyotani still made his punk clothes and he still had his friends working with him. Mattsun had your art up in his shop and Bokuto visited regularly to ask how you were and so did Yahaba. Everything was perfect. Well. almost perfect.

Kyo was at his register going over inventory. It was after hours and no one was there but him and you. You skipped over sitting on the register giggling.

“Im almost done sweetie”

“It will only take a second!!!!”

He sighed looking up to see you holding a sketch book with three tiny garments on them, two looked to be boys clothes and the last one a girl.

“So you wanna sell kids clothes?” he asked, taking the book and standing up looking it over.

“Well … i was hoping we could use them for our kids”

“Sweetie we dont ha-........................................” he dropped the sketchbook looking at you,

You giggled, rubbing your stomach. “We do now!!!!”

*

Stick around for the sequel!!! 

Thank you for enjoying this story with me ❤️ i love this fic the very most it has a special place in my heart. Thank you for reading .

[moving-wright-along]

bury me in your mind

this started as a sort of high school AU but it just turned into a whole nother beast. its a little over 4k words. i apologize in advance. Ticci Toby x a gender neutral reader warnings: mentions of violence and a fuckload of cursing. kinda angsy? but only towards the end

Toby hates high school and he hates every stupid fucker in the whole damn building.

The only exception to his burning hatred is you.

His English class is the only class that keeps Toby sane throughout the day, because it’s the class he gets to sit next to you. People naturally steer away from him once they notice the occasional twitches and jerks of his body, like their tiny brains have an alarm that goes off whenever they see anything that might not be ‘normal’. Toby decided a long time ago that it was probably for the best, and started to avoid everyone else as much as they avoided him. Yet on the first day, you sat beside him without being forced, and with plenty of other seats available.

At first he thinks you’re weird, but you don’t try to talk to him and you don’t flinch or lean away from him when he twitches, so you’re cool in his book.

Toby starts admiring you after about a week into the semester. He’s sitting in his seat, minding his own fucking business because he’s apparently one of the only people in this whole town that can, when some dumbass jock comes up and starts throwing out insults disguised as ‘friendly’ questions about his conditions. Toby immediately has to shove down the urge to sucker punch the idiot in the nose, but he promised his mom to try not to get into fights this year. And hell, he’s a mama's boy at heart still so he’s trying to indulge her. But goddamn is it hard.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” It takes a moment for Toby to register that you were the one that just spoke up.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than insult people over things they can’t control and be fucking annoying? Get a hobby.”

And- Wow, Toby really hopes he’s not as slack jawed as the other guy is, cause he looks like an idiot with his mouth open like that. The guy tries stuttering something out but it's drowned out by several people laughing and a few of the guy's so-called friends jeering him because 'damn dude, the quiet kid just owned your ass’. The teacher steps in and everyone quiets down, their attention thankfully taken off your corner of the room. 

Toby has the decency to stutter out a quiet 'thanks’ that you just shrug off. You instantly became way more than just 'cool’ in Toby’s book.

He wants to say so much more than thanks, like how you’re the first person to stand up for him besides his sister in a long time, and how pretty he thinks you are, but he keeps his stupid mouth shut and his head down. The two of you don’t talk again until a few days later. 

There’s a substitute teacher that day, but they’re clearly not very good at their job considering the class is way louder than usual. Toby grits his teeth and just tries to focus on his worksheet, resisting the urge to clap his hands over his ears. Every noise- every high pitched laugh, every pencil thrown across the room, every scrapping of chair legs on the floor- seems to send him further towards a total breakdown, every one of his senses completely overloaded. He jumps when he feels a soft poke on his arm. You hold out your other earbud to him. 

“Wanna listen?” You ask. He stares blankly for a moment, and he guesses that he waits too long to reply because after a moment you roll your eyes and hold out your hand a little further. 

“Come on man, I don’t bite unless I have to.” You smile a little, and it takes him a second to realize you’re joking. He’s quick to react after that. 

His heart pounds hard as he takes the earbud from you and jams it into his ear, trying not to think about your fingers brushing together for a split second. He spends the rest of class silently noting the titles and lyrics of songs on your playlist as they pass. He ends up listening to those same songs when he gets home, his mind replaying the encounter over and over. 

The two of you could almost be considered friends after that. You share your earbuds with him frequently, you lower your voice and whisper comments or jokes to him occasionally and he always has to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from snickering too loud. At first you only talk about assignments and whatever book your class is reading but soon you’re talking about all kinds of things.

Toby notices a lot of little things about you around this time. You sit a little closer to him than before since your earbuds don’t reach that far, and you spend more time zoning out and doodling in class than you do paying attention. You say you hate english but he’s starting to think you just say that to have something to complain about, because you’re not nearly as bad at it as you claim to be. 

Unbeknownst to Toby, you notice things about him too. He shies away when you get a little to close and his breath hitches when you poke at him or whisper to get his attention. Everyone seems weary or even scared of him but you quickly find out that he’s… kind of a dork. He likes to read and loves sci-fi and adventure stories and he blushes when you discover that he likes the occasional romance as well. He talks a lot when you get him going about a topic he enjoys and then gets bashful when he realizes just how long he was talking. He lives close to the woods and he loves being outside and has a strange amount of knowledge about the local flora and fauna. He apologizes too much and keeps his mouth shut tight when other people are around and his voice is naturally kind of soft even though he has a tendency to be louder than he thinks he is. 

You like him. He’s sweet. 

Toby still struggles with people in other classes and in the halls every-fucking-where else, but at the very least he has English with you. 

The year passes quickly. Toby gets you a Christmas gift after the holiday break is over- a pair of new earbuds because you had texted him complaining about your current ones giving out and you feel bad because you didn’t think to get him anything. You buy some random candy since you don’t know what he likes and give it to him the next day and even though you feel like an asshole for not giving him a real gift he smiles at you like it’s the best thing he’s ever received and you silently vow to get him something better for his birthday.. 

You buy him a box of Valentine's chocolates but chicken out before giving them to him so you just lie and say that you got them from your mom and you share the kind of gross candies in the back of class and try not to let the shame show on your face. He gives you a pink frog plushie with a messed up eye and claims he got it because he thought it would make you laugh and it does. You really wish you’d just given him the stupid box. 

You’re getting ready for bed a few days later when you get a text from him. You raise an eyebrow as you cross the room to your phone and look it over. 

‘Need to get out of the house for a while. I was gonna wander around in the woods like a dumb teenager, wanna come?’

You roll your eyes. You imagine that if you looked out the window right now you’d spot Toby outside your house already. Your friend knew you had a hard time saying no to him and abused his power to no end. 

'its a school night dummy.’

'and almost midnight’

‘Yeah… Anyway, how’s that science project that’s due tomorrow coming along for you?’

Shit. You totally forgot about that. 

'asshole’

‘Haha. You could always skip and finish it tomorrow.’

'ugh’ ‘you let me forget on purpose’

‘You have no proof of that.’ ‘I’ll buy you an energy drink and snacks?’

'open with that next time. omw’

At least you were right about him already waiting for you. Toby grins at you a little and you punch him in the arm lightly once you’ve successfully climbed out of your window. True to his word, Toby buys you a Monster and teases you about your flavor choices. 

“The original monster is fucking gross-” You say, scrunching your nose up at the very thought of it. 

“It’s- It’s not that bad! You’re j-just a baby.” Toby argues back as he wanders down the aisles, grabbing whatever snacks and candies catch his or your attention. 

“You’re not even supposed to drink Monster, loser.”

Toby shrugs, ducking his head and hiding his smile behind his hood. You wish he’d smile a bit more openly. 

Toby pays the gas station attendant for your haul and the two of you start walking in the same direction as his house, wandering past it and into the nearby woods. You’re a little freaked out walking around the dark woods at night, but Toby seems totally at home. Although, he practically grew up in these woods, so you suppose it’s only fair. 

“Why the fuck is it so cold? It’s spring.” You complain. You thought it’d be warmer and you’re practically freezing in your long sleeve shirt. 

“It’s barely March.” Toby retorts. 

“Whatever.”

“Wanna wear my jacket?” Toby offers, although he pales when you look up at him and he turns his gaze away. The dark hides his expression, but it’s pretty easy to tell that he’s embarrassed. 

“Sure.” You answer, trying to sound casual. Before you know it you’re wrapped up in his jacket. It’s already a bit too big on him cause he’s way skinnier than he should be so it hangs off your frame and covers your hands. It’s nice, though you try not to think too hard about how much you enjoy wearing it, or how it smells like that awful body spray he uses that you can’t seem to complain about.  

“You sure you’re not cold, though?” You ask.

“Eh. C-CIPA stuff makes feeling temperature we-weird anyway.” He shrugs. You forget sometimes that he doesn’t feel pain. The following silence is awkward and you’re still trying not to focus too much on the fact that giving someone your jacket is an inherently romantic gesture, so you decide to bully him a bit to take your mind off it.

“Where’d you even get this thing anyway? Who in the right mind sells a brown jacket with striped sleeves and a blue hood?” You ask and he snorts. You’ve made it clear before through teasing just how silly you find his jacket’s design to be. Toby rolls his eyes.

“W-Wasn’t always a blue hood. I fell out of a tree once and ripped the original h-hood on the w-way down. Lyra just took the hood off-off one of her old jackets and s-sewed it on.”

You roll your eyes and chuckle. He’s the only person you know that would have a story like that. 

The two of you wander around together and talk, and as you walk you wonder what his reaction would be if you just reached out and held his hand. Too bad you’re too much of a coward to try. 

As if on cue, Toby pauses in his tracks and reaches out to grab your sleeve. He tugs you gently in a different direction. 

“Come on. T-This way.” 

“Where’re we going?” You ask. 

Toby glances over his shoulder at you, and you notice a hint of a smile across his face. 

“There’s this o-old tower th-thing close by. I like hanging out there sometimes.” 

Toby leads you into a clearing, and you find yourself in front of a tall red tower. 

“What is this thing?” 

“D-Dunno. I guess it use-used to be a climbing wall or something.” 

You stare at some of the graffiti on the outer walls as Toby walks around to the other side. 

“Come on!” He calls. You follow him around to the back of the tower and find that one side is open, allowing access to the inside. Caution tape and trash litters the ground inside and Toby is halfway up a ladder to the top. 

“We’re climbing up…? This looks rickety as hell, man.” 

“It’s fine,” Toby assures, pausing at the top to turn and look down at you. “I’ve climbed this thing pl-plenty of times.” 

“I dunno…” 

“Come on. D-don’t be a baby, it’s fine.” He teases and makes himself comfortable on the top of the wall. 

“That’s exactly what the guy says to the girl before something really bad happens in a horror movie.” You argue, though you can’t fight back a smile as you climb up anyway. 

“We’re not in a ho-horror movie though.” Toby says, taking your hand and helping you sit beside him. You sit close to him and your sides press together. You feel a surge of pride when you remember that he used to shy away from you a lot when you first met, but now you can casually touch like this with no issue.

You open and share snacks together, and you let Toby take a sip of your drink to see if he likes the flavor or not. You watch him raise it to his mouth and your brain screams something at you about an indirect kiss and you quickly shove that thought aside and stomp on it.

Sure, Toby is cute and he’s a good friend, but you don’t like him like that. Definitely not. Would you kiss the crap out of his stupid adorable face if you knew it wouldn’t scare him off? Of course. But that doesn’t mean you have some kind of lame crush on him.

“Ca-Can I… tell you something?” He starts, seeming a bit bashful all of the sudden. Your heart kicks into overdrive. Oh fuck, okay, maybe you we’re lying about not having a little bit of a crush.

“Of course.” You say, trying not to let your voice waver. He hesitates.

“U-Uh. N-Nevermind, actually! Heh.”

You raise a brow.

“Oh come on, what was it?” You ask.

“Ju-just!” Toby looks a bit panicked as he fumbles. “Um. Just thinking about th-that book I’m reading. I think I already told you about it though. D-Did I tell you about the main character and his friend’s fight?”

Even if you didn’t know Toby that well, you’d still know he was lying. He’s a pretty bad liar. Your heart sinks a bit but you don’t push the subject.

“Oh, yeah you did.” You say, a little disappointed. Toby rambles for a few minutes about his book and conversation continues easily enough.

“Oh!” Toby jumps, and suddenly turns to you with a big smile. “M-My sister is coming over this weekend!”

“Lyra, right?”

“Y-Yeah. She’s coming to visit f-from college.” He says, and he looks really happy. “Y-you should come over and meet her. She’d l-love you.”

That sentiment makes you feel warm inside. Toby speaks very highly of his sister, so you really hope she likes you.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” You say and Toby beams at you.

“You seem excited.” You smile and nudge him with your elbow.

“Y-yeah. She goes to school kind of far away, so it’s been a while sin-since I’ve seen her.” Toby looks away, his tone becoming a bit more serious. “F-for a long time I felt like Lyra w-was the only per-person who really cared about me… W-well. Until I met you.”

Your heart melts a little and you can’t resist letting your head thunk onto his shoulder. Toby stiffens, but makes no move to stop you.

“She sounds great, I can’t wait to meet her.”

Toby hums, and you sit together for a while longer until you realize it’s almost 3 am. You carefully climb back down the ladder, Toby following and you watch as he jumps down the last foot of ladder and lands on his feet with a soft thunk. You’re about to walk off before he catches your attention again. 

“Oh! I-I almost forgot,” He says, then starts examining the walls, as if looking for something. “H-Here it is.” 

You approach to see what he’s talking about, and you find a low section of wall with Toby’s name messily carved into it. 

“Wanna carve something too?” He asks. You hum an affirmative and Toby withdraws a small pocket knife from his jean pocket and hands it to you. 

“I’m not gonna question why you have a knife.” You say, chuckling tiredly as you knelt and began carefully carving. 

“F-For protection, obviously.” Toby says, his tone teasing. “One of u-us has to keep us safe. Since we’re in a horror movie now.” 

You roll your eyes and finish up your carving, moving aside so Toby could see it. You carved your own name underneath his, adding a plus sign between them. You watch him flush slightly, trying not to blush yourself. 

“Now everyone will know we were here together.” You say, justifying yourself as you passed his knife back. 

He walks you home and you reluctantly give his jacket back once you’re in your driveway. You’re about to climb back through your window when Toby speaks up.

“U-um…” He starts. You look back to see him rocking on his feet. He steps forward, and hesitates for a second before pulling you into a quick hug.

“T-thanks for hanging out with me. A-And-and for being my friend. Bye!”

Toby lets go and runs off before you can say anything back. You find yourself grinning from ear to ear as you slip into bed, quickly unlocking your phone and opening his contact.

'you’re welcome, loser <3’

You skip school the next day like Toby suggested, convincing your mom of a killer headache when she comes in to see why you’re not up. You imagine the eyebags from your lack of sleep help your case pretty well since she doesn’t make a fuss about it. You finish up some neglected work and waste the day away. It’s Friday, and you know Lyra is supposed to come into town today. You figure Toby will message you later about plans to meet up.

So you find it strange when you don’t hear from Toby at all that weekend. You feel a little down about it, but maybe Lyra just didn’t feel like hanging out, and he was probably busy with family stuff, so you don’t question it.

When he doesn’t show up to class on Monday, you figure he’s just spending more time with his family. Then, when two more days go by without seeing him or getting a text back, you worry that he got into a fight and got suspended or something. You’re properly freaking out by the time the week is up.

You’d only been to Toby’s house once before and that was only when all of his family was out of the house for the night. Other than that he was always kind of weird about you coming over. If you hung out outside of school it either had to be at your place or somewhere else. And now here you were, marching over to get an answer. 

You notice a car in the driveway and hesitate. You didn’t want to risk interacting with his dad. Toby never told you any specifics, but he seriously hated that guy. You look up at Toby’s window and notice a shadow move across the curtains. He’s in there. 

You don’t want to recreate a shitty teen movie and throw rocks at his window, and if texting him worked then you would’ve gotten an answer days ago. Using the railing of the porch, you haul yourself as quietly onto the roof outside his window as possible. Fuck, you really hope it’s him in there and not one of his parents or something. Gently, you knock on the glass. There’s no response for a minute, and you’re about to knock again when the curtains yank back and scare the shit out of you. You’re met with Toby’s shocked face on the other side, as if you both were equally startled by one another. 

“Uhh… Hi?” You say weakly. Toby struggles to yank the window up and drags you inside. You stumble into his bedroom and his hands grip your biceps hard. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He hisses. 

“I was worried about you!” You snap, keeping your voice as low as his. “You’ve been out all week and you never- replied…” 

Your anger completely melts away when you finally get a good look at the state he’s in. His arms and hands are bandaged up and his face is marred with little scratches and a nasty bruise beneath his eye. He raises an eyebrow like he has no idea why you’re looking at him like that. His breath hitches when you absentmindedly reach out and place a hand on his cheek, just below the bruise and rub a bit with your thumb. 

“What happened to you?” You ask, softly. Toby suddenly jumps back, like your touch burnt him. His arms wrap tight around his chest and he avoids your gaze and you try not to be hurt by that. 

“C-Car accident.” 

“You were in a fucking car accident?!” You whisper-scream. 

“I’m fine.” He insists. He doesn’t look fine to you at all. “S-Sorry I did-didn’t tell you. Ph-Phone’s been turned off for a few days…” 

He glances at his nightstand and you follow his gaze to his phone, connected to the charger but the front is completely shattered. He probably just didn’t want to look at it. 

Toby stays silent for a moment before speaking up again. 

“Are you mad at me?”

“What? No- God no, Tobes, I was just worried. It’s okay, really. I’m sorry I freaked out and climbed onto your roof and knocked on your window.” 

Toby finally grins a little at your remark, but it drops off his face quickly. 

“…You should go. I don’t want my parents to know you’re here.” Toby herds you towards the window, and you go without any struggle. All you wanted was to see that he was okay, and you supposed you got your answer. 

“Alright, alright, but you better text me later, okay?” 

Toby smiles a little again, but it looks forced. 

“Y-Yeah. I’ll try.” 

You head back home, and you don’t get any texts. You spend the next few days in silent frustration while you’re still ignored by your friend. Maybe something else happened that he’s not telling you about? Sure, a car accident is traumatizing, but he seemed more or less okay? There has to be some other reason he’s avoiding you. 

All it takes is a quick scroll through your local news site to find the obituary. Lyra Rogers. Your hands freeze on your laptop’s mouse in silent horror. Holy shit, his sister died in that crash. You’re suddenly overcome with sadness. Toby talked about Lyra a lot- about his cool older sister in college a few towns away who always looked out for him. You never got to meet her. Fuck, no wonder he’s been so distant. 

Every ounce of frustration leaves your body and you slump over. You just accept that you’re probably not going to see your friend anytime soon. You consider giving him your condolences, but you don’t want to risk bringing it up and hurting him more. Besides, Toby’s never been one to want people’s sympathy or pity. You suppose he’ll reach out when he’s ready.

The next few days are sporadic. You get an apology text from Toby and he updates you about his condition, though he’s vague and only mentions that he’s going to see a doctor. You don’t get much else. English class is boring without him. Toby goes completely silent again. 

You figure he just needs time to himself to heal, but you’re constantly worried about him in the back of your mind. One morning you’re passing through the living room while getting ready for school and you pause in front of the TV, your mother having left it on the news. Your heart stops mid beat in your chest. 

Brutally murdered… fire… missing…

You feel bile rise in your throat and you slap a hand over your mouth to stop yourself from being sick, backing away from the TV. Tears flow down your cheeks. There’s no way this is real, right? Toby wouldn’t do that. Your Toby wouldn’t do that. 

You quickly retreat to your room, ignoring your mother's shout from downstairs. You whip out your phone, foregoing your text messages and going straight to calling him. You need to hear from him, you need him to tell you that it was all a lie and that he was innocent. 

Your first call goes unanswered, but the second goes through after two rings. You gasp a little and listen hard for a moment. You think you can hear breathing, the distant crunching of leaves. 

“Toby?” You ask. The call ends immediately. The rest of your calls are unanswered. You resort to texts after a few minutes, hoping that he was at least reading them. 

You skip school the next few days- you don’t want to hear what anyone else has to say on the situation, no one knew Toby like you knew him, and you can’t guarantee that you won’t lunge at someone for bad mouthing him. Although, you never thought Toby would kill someone either, so maybe you didn’t know him that well after all. 

Your life feels like it's falling apart. You’re like a carnival ride violently swinging back and forth between the five stages of grief, jumping around like it’s fucking hopscotch. 

You push yourself out of bed that weekend in a strange rush of determination. You were just making yourself more miserable by sitting around and wallowing in bed all day, you’re driving yourself crazy like that. Pushing past the want to just lay down again, you get dressed and decide to go on a walk. Maybe fresh air will make you feel better. 

Without even trying, you somehow end up close to Toby’s house. For a second, you consider going up to the door and knocking, maybe talk to his mom a bit. You’ve never met her before, but Toby seemed fond of her. Maybe she’d let you, you don’t know, take one of his jackets to remember him by? Or was that way too weird? 

You realize with a sinking feeling that Connie Rogers lost her daughter, son, and husband within the short span of a few weeks. She most certainly has more important things to deal with than some kid showing up on her door and asking to rifle through her son’s stuff. Maybe you could talk to her sometime, but not now. You push past and walk into the woods behind their house, wandering around until you somehow end up at the tower you visited with him only a few days ago. 

You collapse into a heap and slump against the wall. The floodgates swing open and all your emotions come rushing out, and you let them. 

You scream and cry without having to worry about anyone hearing you. You sob uncontrollably for a few minutes, then you curse Toby’s name and yell at him for tricking you into being his friend- then your brain makes you imagine what his face would look like if you had said that to his face and then you’re just sad again. You shrink in on yourself, crying and saying that you didn’t mean it. You don’t know why you bother saying anything to him out loud anyway, it’s not like he can hear you. 

You wish he was dead, that they’d found a body after he escaped. At least then you’d know where he was. Then you could go to his grave and punch his headstone, or you could just sit there and talk as if everything was normal. But there’s no body, so there’s no grave. Knowing that he was likely alive out there somewhere is somehow more painful. 

“You stupid jerk.” You say between disgusting, hiccupping sobs. You wipe at your face with your sleeve, trying to calm yourself.

If only you knew he was hiding up in a tree, a measly few feet away at the edge of the clearing, clutching at his chest as if it would keep his heart from clawing its way out.

[rat-father]

Part 6! FLUFF

No angst, just wholesome.

This one is a bit longer then the others. I wrote 2k words instead of the usual 1.3k

I was just really in a fluffy mood so it's kind of like a treat

Again, I didn't proofread so if you see mistakes then shhh

Tagging; @skunkandgrenade

-- tw;; it as pronoun, pet whump/captivity --

For Cub it was like master never disappeared in the first place, it just went back to its normal self no questions asked. For the others it wasn’t as easy.

Xanzi got some bad wounds that needed bandaging which made it hard to do mundane tasks at time, while Lexi tried her best to treat them. Lo went back to his own place while still being a bit upset with him.

The pet did stay a lot closer to master then before, and always tried to give a helping  hand. It was also allowed to sleep in his room for a couple days. If anything it was like its bond with him grew closer. And because of that he wanted to take it somewhere new, to the city! He bought a new harness for it knowing it would be busy as always, even on a quiet day.

“Are you excited?” Master asked, already knowing the answer.

It nodded it’s head with joy. It was allowed to go to the city for the first time! Master made sure it was well hydrated and wearing warm enough clothes before they left. It was gonna be just the two of them, they had the entire day for themselves. I also got to wear a new harness and leash which it thought looked  really pretty.

It even enjoyed the ride to the city. It stared out of the windows the entire way.

Xanzi felt bad for the pet to an extend, it had never even seen a city before, or any public place. But then again he didn’t care much, it was a great opportunity to bond with his pet and make it trust him even more, if that was even possible.

The parking lot what surprisingly empty, usually it was filled to the brim but today Xanzi managed to find a spot quite fast. He could see his pet already getting more excited in the corner of his eye.

“Alright, we’re here. I brought water so if ya get thirsty just tell me okay?”

“Yes master!”

“Good. If ya behave well we can go here more often.”

It started practically jumping in its seat, eager to go out and explore. Master stepped out first and took opened the door for it after. He clipped the leash on its harness and they started heading towards the city.

There were still quite a few people around which made it a bit anxious, so it stayed close to master and made sure to check if he was still there every now and then. After a bit of walking it saw a cute little shop selling tons of plushies and stuffed animals. It really wanted to go see it and dragged master along to it.

The walls were pastel yellow on the inside with relaxing music playing through speakers. It immediately went over to the sections with stuffed animals and looked at all of them with amazement. Some of them had pretty pinks, greens and purple mixed in with their fur and were glittery!

A pink narwhal caught its attention, it was big and fluffy and master said it was allowed to have it. It held the narwhal in its arms as it continued looking around the store.

Aside from plushies and stuffed animals, the store also sold clothing. The pet knew it didn’t need new clothing, but a frog hat really intrigued it and it just couldn’t help itself. Everything there was so pretty and it could stay there for hours, but it also wanted to explore more of the city. Master paid for everything and they continued down the city, narwhal in hand and frog hat on.

There were street performers playing outside and Cub wanted to listen for a bit. Of course it never had heard music before so it was very amazed at the songs they were playing. When they were done Xanzi gave them 20 euros before the pet dragged them further.

It stopped in front of a pet shop, it seemed a bit unsure, but hesitantly went inside. At first it walked slowly, until it saw it the toy section which it basically darted to, almost making Xanzi fall out of shock. With its free hand it held up a small mushroom chew toy in front of his face.

“Ya want that one bud?”

“Yes please, master.”

He faked thinking about it for a second. “Alright, I guess you can have it.”

It smiled as they walked up to the cash register to pay. The cashier lady was nice and complimented the pet on how cute it looked as master paid.

It couldn’t wait to see more of the city, everything looked beautiful and the weather was perfect for a walk. Sometimes it would just stop and admire some of the trees or buildings, which master thought was just adorable. He couldn’t help but wonder whether all pets were like this, or if it was just his pet that was this curious.

Cub lightly tugged on master’s sleeve trying to get his attention.

“Hm? What is it pet?”

“It is hungry, can it have food please, master?”

“We can stop at a cafe and get some food there if you want.”

It frowned, looking confused. “What is a cafe, master?”

It didn’t know what a cafe was, of course.

“It’s a place where you can get food and drinks. You’ll see.”

Xanzi knew the city by heart, he lived there for most of his life before buying his mansion. There were tons of cafes nearby. They went to the one that was the most quiet, he didn’t want his pet to get overwhelmed.

In the cafe the pet got a lot of weird stares, pets were a common thing, just not often seen outside. Or in good condition.

Master ordered it a slice of cake and cola, with coffee for himself.

It didn’t take it long to finish its cake, it was starving and it tasted really good. But it waited a bit before drinking the cola, it didn’t understand why there were bubbles going up. Master told it to just try it, that it wasn’t something to worry about. The taste was, odd, but it liked it.

Master suggested they’d go to the nearby art shop too. He thought it might like drawing or painting. It didn’t know what drawing or painting was, but if master said it was fun then it must be fun.

The art shop was significantly bigger then the other stores, it was also packed with all kinds of stuff. The pet wasn’t sure where to look first, this was all new to it. It look at its master, hoping for some directions. Luckily he got the sign and directed it towards a shelf with different types of sketchbooks. They all had things written on them but it couldn’t read. Master picked one out for it and handed it to them. It had a nice yellow cover with a cat on it.

”Do you like this one?”

“Yes master. It’s very pretty.”

Master also showed it some colored pencils, he said it could use them to draw anything it wanted in the book. It still didn’t quite understand but it sounded like fun.

The store also had an upstairs area with big white blocks, master called them canvases. Apparently people painted stuff on them with brushes and different types of paint. It all sounded confusing and complicated.

When they were done there he took it to a book store. He wanted to teach it how to read and needed some books for it.

It didn’t like the book store very much, it felt like there were endless amounts of books everywhere it looked. It was too overwhelming. It held onto master’s arm with one hand and hugged its narwhal plushie with the other.

Master didn’t take long to find what he needed so they weren’t in there for too long.

“Master? Its feet are starting to hurt.”

”Let’s head back home then, I’m also getting kinda tired.”

Master held its hand as they made their way back to the car. It had a big smile on its face, master rarely held its hand, it loved it when he did.

The walk back made its feet hurt even more, but they stopped to get ice cream which made it easier to deal with. Ice cream had always been its favorite.

The drive home was very relaxing to Cub, it had spend all its energy in the city and now it could just sit and watch the sky while cuddling with the narwhal.

Master didn’t talk to it while driving which it was fine with. The soft music playing from the radio made it even better.

It didn’t notice it had fallen asleep until it felt the car stop moving.

“Ya took a nice nap?”

Oh no. It slept without permission. Was master mad?

“Sorry master. It didn’t mean to.”

”It’s fine dear,” he gave it a polite chuckle. “You can sleep whenever you want. I don’t mind, understood?”

“Yes master, thank you.”

He took it out of the car and walked it back to the mansion. It hurried off to its room to put its new plushie and toy away. It was excited to try this ‘drawing’ thing out with master.

It came back downstairs with the sketchbook and colored pencils in hand. Lexi cleared some room on the table for it so it could dump the pencils out of the box. It opened the sketchbook and, felt a bit lost. Where was it supposed to start?

”Just make some lines, whatever you want. There’s no right or wrong.” Master reassured it.

It picked up a purple pencil and went for it. The paper felt smooth each stroke it made, it was a nice feeling. It wasn’t entirely sure what is was drawing at first, but it was drawing it! Next it took a blue pencil and continued scribbling on the paper. It then set the pencils down and held the sketchbook up to master sitting in front of it.

”Master, look! I drew narwhal!” It had a proud smile on its face.

“Wow, that looks amazing! You’re a really great artist.”

He was lying, of course, but it didn’t matter if it look good anyway, the pet was having fun, and that’s what was important.

It giggled and continued scribbling with other colors on the next page. He was right to assume drawing was something it would like. It never got the chance to be a child, so he would give it to them.

Lexi joined them after an hour of the pet drawing various things on the white pages.

“You guys are having fun drawing I see.”

The pet silently nodded, not taking its eyes off the drawing it was working on. It was drawing the mansion, but with all types of colors.

It finished it and showed it to both master and the maid who said they loved it.

Eventually it was time for dinner and Cub had to stop drawing, it didn’t want to stop, but it didn’t want to be a bad pet either.

Master said it could continue drawing after it was done with dinner. It was looking forward to it.

Bonus;

It wasn’t long before Cub became obsessed with art, drawing specifically. It really enjoyed scribbling in its sketchbook and then showing it to its master with a proud smile. And like any good master would do, he put its best drawings on the fridge. 

[c-swirlz]

Trolley Problem | Sanders Sides Oneshot

Summary: After the LilyPadton incident in POF, Patton is plagued by a recurring nightmare of the dreaded trolley problem. It ends the same way every time: with him not knowing what the right thing to do is and ultimately taking on his despised alternative form. The other Sides eventually find out about his nightmares and decide to intervene.

Pairing(s): None

Content/trigger warning(s): Nightmare, death mentions, death (in a nightmare), moral dilemma, crying

[AO3 link]

|| Minor November 9th 2020 edit: changed Host to Whole. ||

Patton stood in front of a lever with a set of train tracks on either side of him, connected by a single track a little way ahead of him. He knew what was coming, but that didn’t make the situation any less terrifying. He fiddled with the sleeves of his hoodie, tears welling up in his eyes as he heard the train begin approaching. He looked up and glanced at the two previously empty tracks, which now had people bound by ropes standing on them. To his left was his famILY; Logan, Roman, Virgil and Janus -- Remus was absent as Patton was still too unsettled by him to approach him and invite him into their famILY.

However, to his right... was Thomas. Their Whole. The person he and the other Sides were sworn to help and protect. The obvious choice was to save him, but Patton loved his famILY too much to just let them die, and somehow, he knew object impermanence wasn’t going to save any of them, not even Logan.

Now that he thought about it, Thomas was part of the famILY too. So, what was the right choice? 

Save the Sides, or save Thomas?

Save his famILY, or save their Whole?

The death of the Whole would be the demise of all the Sides, so the answer was clear, but Patton was panicking too much to recall that particular detail.

In for four... hold for seven... out for eight...

As Patton went through the breathing exercise to prevent himself from spiralling into a full-blown panic attack, the train roared closer, showing no signs of slowing down or stopping. If Patton didn’t pull the lever, the train would collide with his famILY, leaving only Thomas alive.

A strange sensation ran through Patton’s body, said sensation feeling oddly tingly. The moral Side glanced down at the hand still clutching his hoodie sleeve, only to flinch and pull it away when it momentarily flickered and glitched out of existence.

What’s the right answer?

Tears streamed down Patton’s face as he fell to his knees, his entire body glitching crazily. The sound of the train was getting louder; it was bound to be close by now.

Too close.

What’s the right answer?

Patton didn’t know.

“I...” Patton sniffed, a small hiccup escaping him. “I -- I don’t know! W-Why can’t I save all of them!? Please -- Please, let me save all of them -- I-I don’t know what the right thing to do is!”

Patton promptly began sobbing, squeezing his eyes shut as tight as he possibly could and pressing his hands over his ears. Hard.

His efforts failed to block out the sound of the train’s whistle, followed by the agonised screams of his famILY as the train screeched down their track, running them down in the process.

Patton’s glitching became uncontrollable, and he quickly found himself transforming into LilyPadton he didn’t want to turn into LilyPadton help me help me please-

Patton lurched upright in his bed, a scream of no echoing throughout his room. He took heaving breaths as he frantically glanced around Nostalgia Nirvana before glancing down at his hands and breathing a small sigh of relief when he saw that they were normal, human hands. There was no scaly, green skin (no offence to Janus), no webbing; no frog-like features.

No LilyPadton.

Patton attempted to guide himself through the four-seven-eight breathing exercise, but it wasn’t doing much to help even out his uneven breaths. He decided to switch tactics, naming five things he could see, four things he could feel, three things he could hear, two things he could smell, and one thing he could taste. Upon finishing that, he took a deep, deliberate breath, said breath hitching as he heard a quiet knock on his door.

“Pat?” a muffled voice called.

Virgil.

Patton hadn’t seen Virgil in quite a while, as the anxious Side had locked his room down -- meaning none of the Sides could rise up or appear within the threshold -- and stopped answering summons after the Remus incident, having only emerged to watch Frozen at movie night before retreating back into his haven. In fact, none of the Sides had seen Virgil since then.

So, if he was so determined to avoid the others, why was he at Patton’s door?

Not having the heart to send Virgil on his way, Patton waved a hand, unlocking the door.

“It’s open!”

Patton cringed as obvious fake cheerfulness oozed from those two words. However, he managed to look somewhat inconspicuous as the door slowly swung open and Virgil crept in, flinching in surprise when Patton turned on the lights with a snap of his fingers, though he made sure to make them dim as opposed to bright as to not alert the others, who were sleeping soundly in their rooms situated at various points down the hall. He also waved his hand again to quietly close the door behind the anxious Side as he pulled his blanket off himself with his free hand.

“You good, Pop Star? I, uh... thought I heard you scream.”

Patton’s heart skipped a beat, though not in the good way as his eyes darted every which way around the room, taking great care not to make contact with Virgil’s. He eventually settled for staring over Virgil’s head as he put on the most genuine smile he could muster, which, admittedly, could easily be identified as fake if you were paying attention.

He spent a moment carefully considering his reply, but upon drawing multiple blanks he just decided to wing it. All he had to do was say everything was fine in the least suspicious way he could.

“Y-Yeah, I’m good! Y-Yep, everything’s great -- just peachy, nothing to worry about, Virge!”

Nailed it.

Virgil frowned and raised an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving. Oddly enough, however, he didn’t comment. Instead, he allowed his expression to relax into a lopsided smirk, a quiet, amused huff escaping him.

Just as Patton thought Virgil wasn’t going to say anything, he was proven wrong.

“Yep, sure, whatever you say. Just remember there’s a Side who’s a literal lie detector and keeps track of all lies.”

Patton’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped, but, luckily, Virgil didn’t seem to notice, not that it would matter anyway as he was already suspicious of the paternal Side and wouldn’t require any more confirmation that something was amiss.

There was an awkward silence between the two for a moment, broken by Virgil as he scratched the back of his neck.

“Well, I’ll... leave you to it, I guess. Um... sleep well, or whatever.”

And then he left, sinking down as opposed to going through the door. Patton released a breath he had no idea he’d been holding before settling back under his blanket and falling back into an uneasy slumber.

~---~

Three days after the late-night -- or early-morning depending on your perspective -- talk with Virgil, Patton found himself back in front of the lever with the tracks on either side of him, his famILY tied up on one and Thomas tied up on the other. He had assumed his nightmares were finally over when he didn’t have any the previous night, but he had clearly been sorely mistaken.

Patton could already feel himself glitching as his figurative moral compass spun wildly, he himself still having no idea what the right thing to do was. As he decided to give in and simply let himself transform so he could wake up, he was stopped by the sound of... ropes snapping?

Wait-

Glancing over at the track his famILY was on, Patton’s eyes became as wide as saucers as Logan, Roman, Virgil and Janus all broke free of their bounds and stumbled off the tracks, quickly approaching the moral Side.

“What-”

Roman placed his hands firmly on Patton’s shoulders, smiling warmly despite the sadness in his eyes. The genuine care in his expression made Patton tear up.

“Everything’s okay, Padre. We’re right by your side; you just need to wake up.”

Patton caught a glimpse of Virgil, who seemed to be purposefully avoiding his eyes. Connecting the dots and realising what Virgil must’ve done, the hoodie-clad Side shot him a grateful smile before willing himself to wake up, long before the train had the chance to be heard approaching.

As Patton’s eyes flew open, he let out a gasp, only to be shushed softly as he was pulled up into a sitting position and into someone’s arms. Patton instinctively returned the gesture, tears building up in his eyes as he buried his face into Janus’ shoulder.

“Virgil informed us of your less than desirable experience with a nightmare three nights prior to tonight, and when we suspected you had been experiencing this for an extended period of time, we hypothesised that the optimal thing to do would be to attempt to intervene,” Logan explained.

“I totally haven’t been aware of your nightmares the entire time because I most certainly cannot sense lies, definitely not including those you told Virgil the other night.”

Patton giggled halfheartedly, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill. Janus’ grip on him tightened and he began gently rubbing his back. 

Virgil stepped forward.

“You know repression’s bad, Pat. It’s okay to cry; we aren’t gonna judge you.”

Yes, he already knew that, but having vocal permission seemed to be what prompted the waterworks to flow. Patton began sobbing, his tears soaking Janus’ nightwear, though the deceitful Side didn’t seem to care as he mumbled soothing words into the father figment’s ear. He glanced behind him at other three Sides and gave them a look. Moments later, Patton found himself within the embrace of the other three members of his famILY in the room. Logan’s hug was quite awkward, as if he didn’t exactly know how to execute it, but Patton appreciated the effort.

“If you have any more nightmares, you can rest assured that I will arrive promptly to slay whatever horrid things spawn within them and save you!” Roman proclaimed loudly as he pulled off his iconic pose with his left arm, earning groans from Virgil and Janus and an exasperated sigh from Logan.

Patton laughed, his mouth curling up into a grin despite the tears still cascading down his cheeks. “I know you will, Roman. Thank you -- all of you.”

~---~

The following night, Patton was confronted by the nightmare once again, but Roman kept his promise and was by his side before anyone had even appeared on the tracks. When Patton awoke, he was promptly comforted by Roman. That routine was maintained for the next week or so -- with the comforting involving another Side from time to time, but after that, the nightmares finally stopped.

Patton was glad he didn’t have to worry about being confronted by moral dilemmas in his sleep anymore. Sure, there was the possibility of him transforming into LilyPadton again for real, but he pushed that thought aside. All he wanted to think about at that moment was his famILY, how much he loved them, and how grateful he was for their help with the entire ordeal.

[pastelsandpining]

Santa Baby (Christmas List)

The second prompt in 12 Days of Christmas by @zelink-prompts​

Prompt List

**Note: For the stories actually involving Christmas, I and a few other authors changed the holiday to Hylia’s Day (credit to @fatefulfaerie​ for this) so that it’s more relevant to Hyrule

Cover Art: @neezlebums​ be sure to show some love to the original here!

Words: 2264

Summary: For their first Hylia’s Day together after everything that happened, Link just wanted to gift Zelda something special.

**If I don’t have explicit warnings, read with caution. It simply means there’s nothing I could think of that could be potentially triggering, but I could’ve just missed something. In that case, please let me know and I’ll be more than happy to put a warning!**

BotW, post-calamity with angry child Eggbert because I said so

Zelink-mas 2020  l  Masterlist

Relearning everything about his past and about Hyrule was no easy feat. A world that was so familiar yet so foreign still left him unsettled at times, because he was a young adult trying to understand the things that nearly everyone else grew up with. It was fascinating to learn about traditions and holidays and how they came to be, and he did genuinely want to know everything he once knew and more.

It was how he’d ended up awake until the break of dawn, listening to Zelda tell stories of Hyrule’s past. She was in her element when she got to research or explore or teach. Watching her was something he felt incredibly lucky to do, much less sit so close to her on the bed while they poured over books. He wanted to be as prepared as possible.

He’d heard of Hylia’s Day before, but it would be his first time experiencing it (that he could remember). Zelda explained it as a celebration of love and giving, of friendship and of victory. She told him of the festivals they used to hold, and the balls they’d been forced to attend, and of the parties they used to have. She told him of the traditions of gift giving and of family gathering.

And when they finally settled down to sleep, Link asked her what she wanted for Hylia’s Day. She replied just as she always did—that she already had all she could ever want.

It didn’t stop him from trying, though. He brought it up at the most nonchalant of times, during breakfast or trips across the kingdom. He would listen intently every time she spoke, more so than usual, and tried to pick up on any instance of an “I want”. Only once did she give a direct answer, saying she wanted a Silent Princess. 

Link was not satisfied with that. It wasn’t special enough, so he took it upon himself to fill Zelda’s nonexistent Hylia’s Day List.

He didn’t expect to feel as nervous as he did when the day actually came around.

“How does this look?” came the voice of Zelda from behind him. Link paused the stirring of his soup to turn around and answer her question. She’d been adjusting the decorations all morning, no matter how many times he’d promised her they looked fine.

“It looks perfect,” he replied. “Just like everything else.”

“Well, good, because I want this to be perfect,” she said, making her way to his side. “It’s the first Hylia’s Day we’ve had since—the first I’ve had outside of a castle. Getting to decorate and set everything up however you want is incredibly stressful. I want our friends to be comfortable and happy.”

“You worry too much,” stated Link in return, bumping her with his shoulder.

“I happen to worry a perfectly healthy amount, for your information.”

He chuckled and turned back to his task at hand: finishing up their dishes for the celebration. The traditions called for a family gathering, and their family was large in both number and size. A little extra wouldn’t hurt, even if their friends were all bringing their own dishes.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” he continued. Zelda’s cheeks flushed, even after a hundred years, and it made him want to smile. He loved when she wore things that were too big for her, including the white sweater that she had to keep pulling the sleeves up on because they were too long. The golden linings made it look fancier than it really was, but she called it comfortable on more than one occasion and it was soft to the touch, so it was one of his favorites too. 

“Thank you,” she replied, hugging his arm. “I dressed myself and everything.”

“Wow, impressive,” he stated, pulling his arm free so that he could take the bread out of the oven. He didn’t miss the roll of her eyes before she turned back to the tree tucked into the corner. 

“I can’t help thinking something’s missing,” she said. Link placed the pan on a rack before turning to face her again, reaching for one of her hands.

“It’s perfect,” he repeated, spinning her to face him. “The only thing missing is a star at the top, but I don’t think you’d fit.”

She gave his hand a gentle swat and huffed.

“You’re ridiculous.” But she was smiling anyway, and that was enough of a gift for him. He considered pulling her closer, spinning her around and trying to get her to laugh, but there was a knock on the door before he could. Link let go of her hand so she could answer it, and he was unsurprised to see Purah bouncing on her feet at the door, with Symin behind her carrying a far too large bag, probably full of presents. 

“Check it!” she exclaimed--her form of a greeting, apparently. “Happy Hylia’s Day, you rascals! I’ve been looking forward to this all year!”

“Purah,” Zelda greeted. “It’s lovely to see you again!”

“You can put the bag down here,” Link told Symin, gesturing to the area under the stairs after shutting the door, keeping the cold outside. Now that Purah had stolen Zelda away for some excited conversation about Sheikah technology, Link had an opening. “Did Robbie manage to.. do the thing?”

“Fix it up? Yeah, I heard he and Purah talking last night. He was able to restore it, but I don’t know if it’ll have all the same functions as before,” Symin answered, his voice lowered to keep anyone from hearing. Some tension in Link’s shoulders relaxed. That was one thing checked off the list—the one thing he was really nervous about.

“I’m gonna owe Robbie an entire decayed guardian for this.”

“He’ll take payments in increments.”

Link snorted and shook his head. As eccentric as Robbie was, he was positive the Sheikah would try and refuse payment. But Link didn’t exactly need his permission to haul a decayed guardian up to Akkala’s Tech Lab, so it would turn out either way. He just hoped, with a glance towards Zelda, that it was the right gift.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Symin asked. 

“You could take coats by the door,” Link joked as another knock echoed through their house. 

He was pleased to see Sidon, Impa, and Paya were the next to arrive. But he didn’t get much of a greeting out before Sidon, crouching to get through the door, lifted him from the floor in a crushing hug.

“Happy Hylia’s Day, Link! Lovely to see you!” 

All Link could really do was pat Sidon’s shoulder in return until his feet were returned to the ground. 

The arrivals began increasing faster than he expected, with Teba and his family arriving next—with Kass in tow, of course.

“I’m worried we won’t have enough space,” Zelda stated suddenly, scaring the living daylights out of him. “We could move it outside, but we’d need a fire. I’m sure the Rito are fine with the cold, but we could give everyone else some blankets and coats. Do Zora get cold?”

“I don’t think so,” Link replied, furrowing his eyebrows. “The water in East Reservoir Lake wasn’t exactly warm, and Ruta hurling ice blocks at us didn’t make it any better.” He was still bitter that he didn’t think to use Cryonsis until he’d already been knocked off of Sidon twice. 

“But the Zora are used to water, so perhaps they’re used to the cold as well.”

“Why don’t we just ask?” Link pointed out, bumping her with his shoulder. “We have a Zora.”

“You say that like Sidon is a pet,” Zelda scolded, crossing her arms. 

“He’s basically a huge Hylian Retriever, yes.”

“Besides, would it be rude?”

Link grinned and ruffled her hair as he said, “Nothing is rude in the name of science.”

“Except eating a frog, apparently,” Zelda bit back, swatting at his hand.

“Oh, let it go,” he laughed. “I ate tons of frogs.”

“And?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow with a smug smile.

“You were right.”

“What are you two love birds talking about?” Sidon asked, and Link jumped for the second time that day. How could someone so large sneak up on him so easy, even if there was a good bit of noise in the house?

“Sidon!” Zelda said quickly, her cheeks flushed with pink. “We were just discussing moving everything outside.”

“Brilliant idea! Do you need help moving anything?” 

Link thought of assuring Sidon he was a guest and didn’t need to lift a finger, but apparently those gears in Zelda’s head were turning.

“No, but we have a few extra strings of fairy lights,” she replied, tapping her chin. “We could put lights on the tree outside!”

“You,” Sidon said as he picked her up. “are a little genius, Princess! Everyone, outside!”

Link hardly got a word in before they were out the door. All he could do was laugh at them with a warm smile. This was more than he ever could’ve wanted.

“It’s good to see you happy.”

Kass was smiling at him, just in that way where he looked like he knew all he was thinking. 

“Holiday cheer,” Link replied with a shrug, but Kass hummed.

“Ah, yes. Holiday cheer and nothing to do with dear Zelda.”

“Well,” Link sputtered, glancing towards the door everyone else had gone out of. “She helps. How’s, uh, how’s your song coming?”

“Rather well, actually. I think she’ll be pleased with it. Come, we’re missing all the fun.”

And Kass was right. Riju and Teba’s son were chasing each other around the pond, occasionally being joined by other village children, and Yunobo was being used as a rock pile to climb over in the process—not that he looked to mind it much. Buliara was observing carefully from her perch on the ramp, discussing something with Teba and Saki, and he was pleased to see they were all smiling. 

Impa was busy scolding Purah for something, and Robbie was coming to her defense, and whatever Symin had interrupted with made them all laugh. 

And then, to his (pleasant) horror, he found Zelda and Paya up in the tree, wrapping strings of lights around the bare branches. Sidon was underneath, wrapping another string around the trunk. They were having far too much fun with it.

Zelda spotted him from her perch and waved, and he had no choice but to join them in the decorating.

A little later into the evening, they sat around a campfire that turned out to be a joint effort and swapped various stories while they ate—stories about the Champions, who were there in spirit, about troubles they’ve solved, and other funny recalls of their lives. Link tried to listen, but his attention shifted every time he saw Zelda next to him with a smile on her face.

A gathering so wonderful wasn’t complete without swapping gifts. They’d given and received so many things, but Link chose to wait until everyone was finished to approach Zelda with his gift. Upon seeing the big box, she lifted an eyebrow.

“Alright. I know a Silent Princess isn’t this big, so what could you have possibly gotten me?” she asked, sitting in front of the crate. Link only shrugged and gestured for her to open it up. 

Her careful fingers pulled the ribbon apart and she took the lid with both hands. He watched her closely, nervous for what her reaction would be. 

Zelda was quiet for a moment, her eyes locked on the contents of the box. When she lifted her head to look at him at last, there were tears glistening in the firelight. 

“Where did you find him?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“He was in that same crate on a shelf in your study. I brought it to Robbie and he was able to restore it,” he explained as he pressed the Sheikah Slate into her hands. Zelda tapped the screen with trembling fingers, and he bit back the urge to take her hand. 

A soft beep filled the air and a blue light burst from the crate. A metal claw gripped the edge of the box, then a blue eye appeared and flipped its lid in greeting. 

Zelda pressed a hand over her mouth and reached the other out towards the little guardian they’d found and studied all those years ago. It beeped again, pleased with her recognition, then scuttled out from the crate.

“It’s in near perfect condition. How did it get..?” But she decided she didn’t care and instead wrapped her arms tightly around Link, whispering out a million thank you’s. All he could do was press a kiss to her head and hold her close.

There were so many things he’d wanted to give her. There were so many things he wanted to say. But he knew of her love for the ancient technology, and he knew of her love for him. 

Even if her list hadn’t truly existed, he wanted to give her something special. He wanted to give her everything and more, but for now, he was okay just giving her comfort that he remembered. 

He remembered her, and he remembered their adventures, and he remembered her interests.

He remembered.

And by the kiss she’d given him, to the delight and cheering of the others, he thought it turned out to be the perfect gift after all.

Well, until the little guardian butted in with its opinion in not so polite beeps, but some things simply couldn’t be helped. 

[canvas-the-florist]

Fist Fight the After Life (Sander Sides)

Ship(s): Brotherly Anxceit, Creativitwins, pining Logince

Warnings: frog mention, lots of talk of death, food mention, insomnia mention

Summary: Ghosts can become corporeal to prevent one event from occurring. Virgil and Janus become corporeal by accident by trying to stop Remus and Roman from going down a really steep hill in a shopping cart. Chaotic and heartfelt shenanigans ensue.

Word Count: 1.9K

-

“This is a really stupid idea,” Roman hummed, looking at the bicycle helmet his brother handed him and then looking at the shopping cart. Then, he shrugged and put it on. “Still, sounds kinda dope. Wouldn’t want you to claim all the glory for this stupidity.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“No, it’s not.” Janus booed. Remus didn’t flinch or move, because Janus wasn’t quite there. He was in the astral plane watching with mild disinterest. “I’m the spirit.”

“Shut up, snake.” Virgil shoved his brother half heartedly. “No one wants or can hear your dumb puns.”

The two continued bickering as Roman and Remus started setting up their fun stunt. They had found a steep hill at the bend of an abandoned road. Remus had tried to talk his friend, Logan into joining the two, but Logan actually had a brain cell and decided to pass. But he had agreed to watch at a bench in case they needed an ambulance. Roman forced Remus to wear his helmet before they climbed into the cart. Virgil face palmed across the planes.

“They’re really going to do this huh,” Virgil bit his lip. His hands have hidden in the sleeves of his hoodie and he grabbed the insides of it. Janus looked over to see that Virgil was even more anxious than usual. “If either of them die I’m going to kill them when they get here.”

“I’m sure they’re going to be fine, Virgil.” Janus reassured, not knowing himself if he was lying. He turned back to watch Logan walking up to the cart, ready to push it down the hill that seemed to grow taller the more he looked. Virgil’s worries were rubbing off on him. Janus considered for a moment before seeing that Logan was just about to push and-

“DON’T!” Janus and Virgil shouted, this time causing three people to flinch and the shopping cart fell on it’s side just as Logan moved forward. The three humans looked up, shocked and frozen as two… ghosts were staring down at them.

Janus and Virgil looked at each other and then at their environment, realizing what they have done. Virgil’s face fell into his hands while Janus cursed quietly. He saw Remus and Roman get up as if they’re about to run and (metaphorically) stepped in. “Hello, friends. My brother and I are just here to say that…” Roman and Remus looked back as Logan was still frozen. “We’re your guardian angels! Not yours though, Logan. We had the chance to save you two from doom if it was ever to get too dire. So you’re welcome!”

Virgil looked up, aghast at his brother. He mouthed, what?! Janus ignored him. “Any questions?”

Remus raised his hand and talked as he did so. “Are you gay?”

“Yes.” Virgil and Janus replied at the same time, without hesitation. Virgil continued, “But that’s not exactly relevant. Umm, sorry for interrupting your ‘sick stunt’, we’re going to go now. RIGHT, JAN?”

“Of course.”

-

They couldn’t leave. After about a minute, Logan offered his house to have a more private conversation. While walking back the three humans asked a list of endless questions, about guardian angels. Virgil let Janus take the lead as he was trying to calm down. Janus kept answering about what ghosts do but he was sure that Roman wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in the end. Well, until the actual end, he supposed quietly. Logan unlocked the door and the others walked or floated into the front room.

“So you guys were just watching us like a 3D movie?” Roman asked. “Why not watch someone cooler? Unless we’re more interesting than… Lin Manuel Miranda?”

Virgil shrugged, finally able to form a sentence without his voice cracking. “I’m pretty sure many people are watching Lin Manuel Miranda right now, on this plane or not. It’s more interesting to watch someone insignificant.” Virgil realized what he said and quickly continued before Roman had the chance to be offended. “Well, insignificant at first glance. You- y’all are more fun than any privileged asshole with too much money would be.”

“You get to decide who to spectate?” Logan asked, while getting a notepad and pen from a cupboard. “How do you decide? What do you do when a person you’re watching dies? How many times can you step in to help someone?”

“Well,” Janus started. “You can decide who to watch, and you kinda just float around the world and if you want to watch someone, you do. When that person dies and you’re around you’re supposed to help them adjust to the afterlife. And… You can only step in once. But it has to be before their action or you’re going to have to fix it yourself. Which is too much work.”

Logan continued writing this down. Remus blurted out “So what happens after you save their donkey asses? Do you explode into frogs?”

“Nope.” Virgil looked down, uncomfortably. He didn’t know how to respond to this question. It was a sort of touchy and ambiguous part of being a spirit. “I’m not exactly sure what happens. The person who introduced me to this afterlife,” He gave a side look at Janus who looked slightly guilty. “Never told me what that’s like.”

The three humans then looked at Janus with attention. Remus whispered to Roman “I’m still betting on the frog thing.” Roman snickered as Janus started. He was ringing his hands and toying with his gloves while he talked. “In the afterlife you can either choose to just stop all your consciousness or become a sort of spectator… thing. A lot of people choose to watch over the world to cope with their death. When people intervene with an event that’s occurring their existence becomes kind of limited. You can only save a person once and we,”

He looked at Virgil who was looking very nervous at what was happening. “We just so happened to use it. I’m not certain on what happens after this but I do know that people don’t return to the astral plane when 24 hours of being corporeal ends.”

“Well that fucking sucks.” Roman stated after a long pause. “You save someone from something bad and you get in an even worse position? Life in the afterlife doesn’t seem so… ideal.”

“I mean, it IS death.” Virgil shrugged.

“Whelp, thanks for stopping us for doing a sick unstable trick. Now you’re stuck with us for the rest of your existence!” Remus said giddily, like he was a mix of grateful and mad at them. Roman hit him on the head lightly. “What? That is what happened, right? They’re not going to explode into blood and guts, they’re just gonna poof!”

“Well, I wouldn’t cross that quite of the list yet. Neither of them seem to have any knowledge about what’s going to occur.” Logan pointed out and Remus gave a crooked smile. Logan then turned to the ghosts. “What are you going to do now? You have about… 21 hours and 46 minutes left until your undetermined future.”

Virgil and Janus looked at each other and shrugged.

“Do you guys want to prank anyone?” Virgil asked, causing Remus and Roman to grin.

-

After making a bad youtube video with it’s top comment being “The editing is so unrealistic”, doing the most impressive magic tricks to the five random strangers who wanted to participate, and generally scaring people, there was about 15 hours and it was now 12 AM. The group had kind of ran out of things to do so they were playing truth or dare on the carpet. Janus and Virgil were hovering in a position that kinda looked like they were sitting.

“Virgil!” Roman declared dramatically. “Truth or dare?”

Virgil raised his eyebrow. “Uhh,, dare? I wanna see what you can come up with.”

“Dammit I only had a truth prepared, give me a second.” He closed his eyes, as if he had to think really hard just to come up with a dare. Then Roman’s eyes popped open and a smile spread across his face. “Lemme swish my hand through you! I wanna know what it looks like.”

“Rude, that was going to be my dare for Janus!” Remus punched Roman, causing him to fall onto Logan. Logan had a brief blush while Roman obliviously sat back up. “So, do you take the dare Virge? Or are you chicken poop?!”

“I believe you just misused an idiom.” Logan pointed out before smiling a little bit. “Was I just the one to point that out? That was me understanding a metaphor? I did it!”

“Good job, Logan,” Janus remarked. “Accept the dare Virgil, I would LOVE to get ‘swished’ by the not at all greasy twin.”

Virgil shrugged. “Sure, I mean it’s not like I can feel it I guess.” He didn’t even finish his sentence when Roman leaned forward to run his hand through Virgil’s arm. Virgil flinched backwards at the sudden movement but then relaxed again while crossing his arms. “Got it out of your system, Princey?”

His arm was dispelling like smoke moving when air conditioning turns on. Roman did it about two more times before leaning back against the couch, not noticing how close he was to Logan. Logan noticed though. “Yeah, I’m done. Your turn now!”

The games continued like this for a while. There were about 11 hours left when the corporeal humans passed out. Except for Remus, who just seemed to get bored, take a Red Bull from the fridge and go upstairs to do whatever the hell he did in his spare time. There were about 8 hours left when Janus and Virgil floated outside to the front yard. Virgil flew up to the roof and lied down in the air to look at the polluted air in the sky. Janus joined him a little bit after.

“They seemed fun.” Janus started, pulled one of his knees to his chest.

“Do you think it was worth it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Us saving them. They might not have even been in danger. And we intervened.” Virgil looked at his older brother and he could see the fear in his eyes. “What if we broke some sort of ghost rule? I don’t know how any of this works and that’s not the vibe honestly.”

Janus took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair, and put it back on. He was looking forward, in the direction of the hill. “I don’t know. But we did that and now we’re getting consequences. Whether or not this is bad, I don’t know. But I do know that we’re going to be okay. I lied-”

“Of course…” Janus looked at Virgil, unenthused. Virgil held up his hands. “Sorry, what were you lying about?”

The older brother rolled his eyes. “We’re not going to stop existing yet. Because I don’t feel like it. How would you like to survive out of spite? We might not see any of these fools but we could haunt shit, which I know is not your whole vibe.”

Virgil laughed quietly before making eye contact, his eyes holding excitement and fear within them. “All I do is out of spite, idiot.”

Taglist: @did-he-just-hiss-at-me @logan-sanders-enthusiast @onceler-simp @bullet-tothefeels @sugaryenovis @bapbee @mysticalninjanut @fuckimasanderssidesblognow @meowthefluffy @eeredecimalsanderssided @mariita-2006 @mystic-theater-geek @bewaretheidesofmarchyall @callme-vee 

[teatimeweirdo]

It was a cold night.

The gang was quite worried about Buccellati. He hasn't come out of his room all day. Abbacchio, who was cooking dinner for the boys, was pacing around the room for who knows how long and he felt fairly uneasy. For once, Narancia and Fugo weren't fighting, instead they were worried sick as well. Mista, who usally would complain about the missing food around, this time of the day, was unusually quiet. Their new member, Giorno, was silent all day since the person he would usally talk to was unavailable.

Even Trish was unusally tense, she knew something was up. Their Capo never really opened up to anyone, so no one actually knew what was going on.

Abbacchio called them to get dinner, today pasta was served, it didn't taste as good as the food Buccellati would usally serve them, but it was edible. While the kids were grabbing dinner, Abbacchio prepared a plate for Buccellati.

"Doesn't matter if you don't finish everything. I'll be upstairs."

"Can you please find out what's up with Buccellati?" Trish asked.

"Yeah, we're worried about him!" Narancia exclaimed.

Abbacchio just hummed in response and went upstairs, but Giorno saw the worry in his eyes.

Buccellati has been acting weird since he had gotten a phone call this morning. They all were concerned, since Buccellati has gotten a lot of calls but never acted like this after he got them.

Going up the stairs in this usally warm house was quite eerie tonight. When Abbacchio arrived at Buccellati's door he started hearing soft whimpers. It made Abbacchio's stomach turn. Imagining the normally calm and collected capo crying in his room like that made his heart hurt.

He started knocking on the door. "...Can I come in? I have dinner for you." Abbacchio asked.

Whiping his tears away and trying to collecting himself, Buccellati awnserd the door.

"Oh, it's you."

Buccellati disliked the thought of his gang seeing him like this, crying his heart out and being a total mess, his body shaking to its core and his room unorganized, but he knew he could trust Abbacchio, he knew Abbacchio wouldn't tell anyone about this, Buccellati always acted like a parental figure to everyone and he didn't want to break this perception of him, he didn't want them to think he was weak.

Abbacchio entered the room and placed the plate on Buccellati's desk.

"Don't worry, no one else is here, it's just me. I'm the only one listening." Abbacchio said softly.

Buccellati closed the door and went to his desk. "...thank you..." Buccellati said quietly, he almost sounded like he was about to cry again.

"Do you wanna talk about it? Of course only if you want to talk." As soon as those words slipped past Abbacchio's lips, Buccellati felt like crying again, no one except his father had ever asked him if he wanted to talk about his problems.

He wanted to say something, but all the words got stuck in Buccellati's throat, instead he just nodded. He went to his bed and Abbacchio followed him as they sat down. In the end, he managed to choke out a "My mom called."

Why would his mom calling be so ba- oh.

That's when Buccellati started to break down again. Abbacchio just sat there not knowing what to do, he was never good at comforting people, but he tried his best. Rubbing the other's back gently, he grabbed one of the tissues he took up in the room with him.

"...I don't know much about that whole situation, but...I'm here for you, Bruno. It's probably not much, but I'm here."

"My mom called, and I just....." He trailed off,  not knowing what to say.

"Take your time."

Abbacchio knew that Buccellati was a very family oriented man, he always saw how sad he was whenever two of his gang members were fighting, so Abbacchio could only imagine how upsetting it was for Buccellati to fight with his own mother.

"My mom called, she- she called me for the first time in 7 years, " Buccellati choked out, "she called and told me that she has a new fiance and needs money for the wedding," Abbacchio could tell that Buccellati became hysterical. "I know it's childish, but I never got over the fact that my parents divorced, and when my dad died, it just hurt even more," He let out a whimper after that, before finally finishing the sentence, "It's been so hard, and I- I don't know w-what to do-"

"Bruno-"

"I just-"

"Bruno, you have to calm your breathing,"

Abbacchio kissed Buccellati's temple in an attempt to calm him down.

".... Leone, could you please get something for me?" Buccellati whiped his tears away with is sleeves. "It's in the lowest drawer of my desk."

Abbacchio got up and went to get the thing Buccellati asked him to get without questions. What he found was something he never expected. Three duck stuffies, laying neatly next to eachother in the lowest drawer of his desk.

"My dad got me them when I was still a baby,"  Buccellati started, "he actually hoped that one day I will grow up to appreciate the water and the creatures around it as much as he did." The thought of a small Buccellati playing with little stuffies made Abbacchio's heart swell.

His lips curled into a little smile, "They're cute." Buccellati hummed in response.

"My mom actually threatened to burn them once, when she was mad at my dad. I have never been that panicked before." Buccellati chuckled.

"What a bitch." Abbacchio replied.

"Thank you for cheering me up, Leone."

Abbacchio went back to the bed with the duck stuffies and layed down besides Buccellati.

"You're really adorable Bruno, do you know that?"

Buccellati just blushes and lays down besides Abbacchio.

"How can I not know it when you tell me every day."

Now it was Abbacchio's turn to blush. He draped an arm over Buccellati and smiled to himself. What did he do to deserve such a good man?

It didn't take long for Buccellati to fall asleep, after all he has been crying all day. Abbacchio made sure that Buccellati really was asleep before getting up. He went to Buccellati's desk to pick up the long forgotten food, which has now turned cold, and went downstairs to put it away.

As soon as Abbacchio arrived downstairs he was bombarded with questions by Narancia and Trish. He just demissed them for now and went back upstairs.

Once he arrived at Buccellati's room, he was greeted with the most adorable sight he has ever seen. It was Buccellati sleeping and cuddling with his duck stuffies with a child-like innocence Abbacchio has never seen before. His heart melted at the view.

It took Abbacchio a while to tear his eyes away from this beautiful sight, when he was finally able to, he went to Buccellati's bathroom and drew him a bubble bath with the cinnamon soap, which was his favorite scent on Buccellati.

When he was done with preparing the bath, he went to wake Buccellati up. Abbacchio leaned in for a kiss on Buccellati's lips, who's eyes started to flutter open.

"Morning, sleeping beauty. I drew you a bath," Abbacchio says softly.

"You're so cheesy, do you know that?" Buccellati joked.

There it was, that smile, that Abbacchio adored, his heart skipped a beat whenever he saw that smile.

"You should smile more often like this, you know?" Abbacchio smiled. This made Buccellati smile even wider.

"Hop on!" Abbacchio laughed.

"You sure?" Buccellati asked, Abbacchio only nodded, which was the signal for the raven-haired man to hop on the goth's back.

Abbacchio carried Buccellati into the bathroom and locked the door. The ex-cop sat his lover down on a stool since he was still quite sleepy.

"Do you need help with that?" Abbacchio asked suggestively while raising an eyebrow.

"What? Help with what?" Buccellati asked still fairly sleepy. This made Abbacchio smile, he went up to his beloved boyfriend and gave him a sweet kiss on the forehead and left a lipstick stain.

"Don't worry, I'll help you." Abbacchio said while coming closer to Buccellati. This was when the sweet man realized what his lover was saying.

"Yo-You don't have to." Buccellati blushed.

"Too late." The white-haired man said with a teasing smile. He went up to the raven-haired man and tucked on his shirt.

After Buccellati was finally undressed, he went into the bathtub.

"Hey, that's my favorite scent!" the capo exclaimed happily.

"It's not my favorite on me, but I like how it smells on you. It always...smells warm." Abbacchio said while removing his make-up.

"Are you gonna join, amore?" Buccellati asked.

"Sure, " the ex-cop said, already being naked, only having to put up his hair.

Abbacchio got into the bathtub, the warm water feeling nice on his skin. The raven-haired man on the other side of the tub just smiled sweetly.

"Come here." the goth said sleepily, the warm relaxing water made him tired and he just wanted to cuddle Buccellati.

The dark-haired man went over just to cuddle the ex-cop, it was warm and comforting. Abbacchio just wanted to fall asleep in Buccellati's embrace.

After the bath they went to bed, Buccellati laying on Abbacchio's chest, the goth thinking it's funny how usally the roles are reversed, but tonight it was different, the beloved capo just needed some reassurance.

The two of them stayed in this position until they heard a knock on the door.

"Come in." The mother-like man said, which resulted in a grumble from Abbacchio

It was Narancia, who held a small frog stuffie and a teddy bear in his hands.

"I'm sorry to bother you but I couldn't sleep. I was worried about you, Buccellati." The boy said sadly, "Can I sleep in your bed tonight?"

Abbacchio seemed displeased but didn't say anything, he knew that his darling needed sometime with his found family.

"Sure, just please be quiet, we all need some sleep tonight, it's been a rough day." Buccellati said as he held his arms open for Narancia.

The three of them layed in bed and a cuddled, they looked like an actual family.

Buccellati was happy, happy that he found himself a new happy family.

[im-whatchamccallit]

Risking it Pt. 2//Mark Tuan (Got7)

Part 1|Masterlist|Rules

Requested: Yes

Pairing: Mark Tuan x Reader

Genre: Smut, barely fluff at the end

Warnings: uhhhh.... Idek. Hair pulling, gagging, spanking, overstimulation in a way. Seriously, nothing too crazy.

Words: 4.4k

(A/N: After being worked like a dog for 9 days straight, my job finally allowed me not three, not two, but one (1) day off to finally finish this request. I want to mention that I had to stop each day to sleep or get to work so this may seem a bit choppy and weird and I apologize for that, also editing makes me cry so there’s very little of that lol. But I’m gonna try to do better now that I have the day off)

The day went by so fast, maybe because you spent most of it panicking over the fact mark would be over at any moment to punish you for showing up to Professor Ahn’s class to retake your test, but it gave you time to think. After begging your roommate not to leave to do an all-night crash course for her own upcoming exams and taking an hour long stress nap, you realized you weren’t at fault. Mark knew you were going to go, he knew you weren’t satisfied with your grade and couldn’t handle it, and yet you’re in trouble for it? You weren’t going to stand for that crap.

So after taking another nap, showering and fixing yourself up, and building up a bit of confidence, you were ready to put him in his place.

Unsurprisingly, Mark stuck to his words, coming over that evening and entering your apartment as if he lived there forever, calling out to you as he slipped off his shoes. The muffled sounds of your footsteps grew closer as you entered your living room, staring him down with a faux-toughness that you both knew he could see right through. He couldn’t hide his smirk though, finding your behavior cuter than his long sleeved red and black striped shirt and the frog themed socks you wore.

“You look angry.” He commented, stepping closer as you stood your ground, telling yourself not to give in to him.

“I am. You know my personality like it’s your own so you knew I’d go there. And I think it’s unfair for you to make me miss the opportunity for a better grade when we both know I deserve it.”

Mark listened to you carefully, still moving closer as you narrowed your eyes at him, unsure of what he was planning to do. But all he did was sigh, tilting his head to stare you down before calmly suggesting that you both head to your room. But you refused, knowing that once that door was closed, he’d get his way. But what you forgot was, bedroom or not, Mark never faltered when he had a plan.

You yelped as he grabbed onto your waist, pulling you closer so that your bodies were touching, his eyes never leaving yours but his gaze wasn’t amused like before, it was intimidating, causing your persona to die easily as your usual timid and submissive self returned.

“That isn’t the problem. I told you not to risk getting a lower grade by retaking the entire test. I also told you to take some days off to relax and not focus on work, and what did you do?” You stayed silent, wanting to avert your eyes but you knew that’d make things worse. All you could bring yourself to do was give a meek ‘I went’.

“And I even made a promise with you, correct?”

“Y-yes…”

“And, not long after that, you made a promise to me, right?” Your face was hot at the memory; Mark on top of you, pounding into you as he made you repeat ‘I promise to stay home for you’ until the pleasure consumed you.

“I did…” You admitted, swallowing hard and finally allowing yourself to look away, Mark no longer hiding his amusement. You were just too cute.

You groaned once you felt his hands touch your face, pinching your cheeks gently and bring your eyes to his. You hated how your plan backfired but you would be lying if you said you weren’t excited for what he had in mind, your thighs unconsciously closing together as the air around you thickened. Your eyes suddenly reflect his, clouded with lust and sparkling with a playful glint, your teeth sinking into your bottom lip to hide your smirk.

“But you wouldn’t go too hard on me, right? I am still pretty sore from yesterday.”

The positions were suddenly switched, Mark red faced at your suddenly bold behavior, your arms wrapping around his torso to pull him closer until your lips were just a centimeter apart and his semi-hard member pressed to your thigh. It was taking everything in him to not ditch his plan, to just fuck you there and now and call it a night, but he knew better than to give you what you wanted. It’d only make you power hungry and he knew you both fighting for dominance all night would get you nowhere.

“Fine, I’ll go easy on you. You have five seconds to get on the couch, on your back, legs open and underwear off.” He instructed, your smirk widening as your knee moved between his legs, trailing up to gently play with the faint bulge.

“But I’m not wearing underwear.”

“Five… Four…”

You wasted no time unwrapping yourself from his body, following his instructions and finding your spot on the sofa, head resting on the arm of it while your legs spread apart to reveal you already wet core, your eyes glancing to him impatiently as you waited for him to do something, anything.

“Touch yourself.”

You knew exactly how he wanted you to do it, the times you had phone sex being a great map of what he liked and didn’t like, and you knew he liked to touch every sensitive point of your body. Without second guessing, you lifted the shirt to reveal your braless chest, one hand cupping your right breast as the other trailed down your stomach to your heat, your bottom lip being sucked into your mouth at how cool your fingers were. Mark was enjoying every second of watching you work your fingers onto yourself, catching a bit of your juices on your fingertips only to lubricate your clit, rubbing in slow circular motions that made you moan out softly. If he could, he’d stay there and just watch, but the straining against his pants was driving him crazy and, even though he said he’d go easy on you, he wanted to see just how much you could endure before he really began his pleasure-filled torture.

You didn’t stop thrusting your fingers into yourself as Mark moved closer to you, your head turning to see his lower half just by your face. If you weren’t already turned on by the fact he was watching you so intensely, you were definitely turned on now by the way he easily undid his pants, pushing them and his boxers down to his thighs and releasing his cock right by your mouth, watching you hungrily take him in. Double penetration was something you always wanted to try, and although this wasn’t exactly how you pictured it, it was still enjoyable. You were content with the pace you were setting for yourself, moaning constantly against his shaft as he gently brushed your hair back more, still restraining himself from going any further just yet.

“Open your mouth wider for me. And I want you to only focus on your clit.” Mark said in his usual low and demanding tone, a small reminder that he was in charge the situation.

You followed his instructions, your cheeks no longer hollow as you opened your mouth as wide as possible and your fingers slipping out of you to rub harshly against your clit, a shiver shaking your entire body as you did so. Mark knew you didn’t need much to cum, just touching your clit for a few minutes and you’d done for, and he wanted to use that to his advantage.

You moaned out as Mark held onto your head tightly and began thrusting hard and fast into your mouth, his cock ramming at the back of your throat as your fingers continued to assault the bundle of nerves resting above your contracting entrance, his eyes hooded as you stared up to see him looking at your face, your chest heaving as you toyed with your nipples, legs crossing as you tried to press your thighs together for more pressure, the melodic moans seeping from you making him twitch within your mouth. If he weren’t so in control, he’d cum without a second thought, but you both knew he was toying with you, you were just unsure of how far his little game would go.

“Are you close?” He asked, despite your mouth being filled with your saliva and his precum that was now coating the base and length of his cock. You managed to nod before an almost wicked grin crossed his face.

“Good. I want you to hold it, but don’t stop touching yourself.”

Your eyes widened as you hesitated on continuing, your toes curling as you felt the pleasure already building up inside of you but you had never done this before, you weren’t even sure how to keep yourself from cumming. But you didn’t like the way he was smirking at you, positive that you couldn’t do it and just waiting for the familiar squeaks you let out whenever you reached your high. You wanted to prove him wrong. But the more your fingers rubbed the swollen button, the faster he fucked your throat, and the heavier your breathing got, your body screaming for your release as the same sensation you felt just the day before returned, your eyes watering at the thought of ruining your couch by squirting again. Right now, you need a miracle to stop this, to keep him from getting what he wanted.

You and Mark froze at the sound of the front door opening, your roommate, Hyeri, entering while shaming herself for forgetting her textbook on early childhood development, her face dropping into a stoic, but somehow still disappointed , look as she took in the scene before her. The silence was deafening and the air thick, especially when she noticed you and Mark had no intentions of parting from the awkward position. Without another word, she turned and left, knowing she should’ve just stayed out after you told her Mark would be over. But you let out a relieved breath through your nose, glad that you were slowly coming down from your high, much to Mark’s dismay.

“Did I tell you to stop touching yourself?” He asked sternly, finally stepping back and watching his member slip from your mouth, a thin line of saliva trailing from the head to your tongue, your eyes glaring up at him.

“I-I couldn’t keep going while she was here, that’d be so embarrassing!” You said, your neck hurting as your head followed him once more.

Mark made his way to your side and kneeled, not making eye contact as he grabbed your parted legs and turned you towards him, his head now between them. The orgasm that disappeared just a few seconds ago was now back and just as strong from the way his breath fanned against your exposed opening, a weak gasp sneaking past your lips as he sucked harshly against your inner thigh, nipping at your flesh before moving on to the next spot, a collection of purple and red bruises forming.

“I wanted to see if you could get yourself off first,” He spoke, his voice muffled as he continued sucking and easing his way closer to where you really needed him.

“But I guess it really has to be like yesterday.”

You couldn’t even question him before you cried out, his fingers plunging into your soaked core, body squirming as he fingered you at a fast and harsh pace, the feeling of his knuckles colliding with your skin making you clench around his fingers. Your eyes were teary, bottom lip ready to burst from the way your teeth sank into it as he finally placed his tongue on your clit, lapping at your pussy to draw your release closer, unaware that you were already on the edge until your hands clawed at his hair, the way you pant his name and grind yourself onto his digits to cause your fluids to make embarrassingly loud squelching sounds as you ride through your high.

Mark pulled away slowly but kept his fingers moving at the same rhythm, your eyes squeezing shut at how painful it was becoming. It was pleasurable, sure, but you felt like you were overheating, like you were about to piss yourself honestly. You couldn’t help but shut your legs together in an attempt to stop his hand, your voice too weak to warn him it was too much, but you didn’t want him to stop. Through the overstimulation, you felt the vague warmth bubbling inside of you, most of your senses being drowned in a metaphorical white noise as all your energy seeped into your core, allowing you to feel every harsh thrust he gave and even the pulsating of your walls as he finally found your g-spot.

Your eyes rolled back before you let them flutter shut, only to yelp at the sudden slap Mark gave to you thigh, your eyes shooting open to glare at him but your fucked out expression made it impossible.

“You’re enjoying this so much, aren’t you?” He asked, your lips curling upwards teasingly as you went to close your eyes once more, you both knowing you couldn’t answer and that it would only piss him off.

As if everything happened in one swift motion, you were staring into Mark’s eyes as his hand gripped your face, squeezing gently to force your mouth open as he snatched his fingers away from your needy heat before placing them into your mouth, a shocked gasp exiting you as he shoved them as far as they could go, pumping it in and out to leave the taste of yourself on your tongue, your body squirming and legs squeezing together as you retched a few times, Mark finally pulling away to allow you to catch your breath. Despite the fact you were suppressing the urge to vomit all over your lap and Mark’s still out and still very hard cock, you were even more turned on than you were before.

“You good?” He asked, your bottom lip covered in a bit of your saliva as you swallowed hard, nodding at him as he reached out for you once more.

Everything was moving so fast at this point but all you wanted to do was cum again, letting Mark have his way with you just like he did hours prior. You helped him remove his shirt from your body, his eyes taking in your nude form once more before grabbing your waist and rubbing gentle circles on your skin, your heart racing in anticipation even with the soothing gesture. And like a switch, his dominant side was back. He spun you around and placed a hand on you shoulder to help you lean forward, your hands gripping the back of your couch to stabilize as his other one adjusted your hips properly, your head threatening to turn to him as you felt the tip of his cock graze your entrance.

“Can you remind me of what you promised me last night?” Mark asked softly, teasingly letting his hands roam from your hips up to your breast, cupping them gently as he continued to tease your slit with his member, a shaky moan leaving your lips.

“I-I promised to stay home and not think about my test.”

“And did you keep that promise?” His voice was eerily closer to your ear as he pressed harder against you, soft kisses trailing over your shoulder and back as he waited on your response.

“No…” You cried out as his hand struck your left ass cheek in almost lightning speed, the other gripping your hair to keep you from resting your head against the tweed furniture. So much for going easy on you.

“And tell me why you didn’t keep that promise.”

He gave another harsh slap before you could respond, a pained whimper leaving you although it contrasted the way your hips pushed into his dick, hoping to ease him inside of you without having to use your hands. But your actions didn’t go unnoticed, earning you another spanking and a harsh tug on your hair until your back was arched intensely, neck craning as your head met his shoulder, his dark eyes glaring into yours.

“I said tell me.”

“I-It’s because I’m stupid and selfish and don’t listen!” You called out, hoping to appease him and give you some leeway to relax through his rough actions. But it didn’t.

As you cried out in a painfully relieved scream, Mark bit the inside of his cheek to keep from moaning, ramming his entire length into you in a swift motion, the warm skin of his hips meeting your ass as held you there, your hands clawing at your sofa as a tear finally escaped your eye, chest heaving as you’re filled with a clusterfuck of emotions. Were you hurting or happy he was finally in you? All you knew was the way he released your hair and let you fall forward alleviated you of the first sensation, the latter remaining.

“No, you didn’t keep it because you wanted me to fuck you like this.”

He wasn’t wrong. Even if you feared that he’d be rougher than usual, breaking past the limitations you both set in order to give his all, you weren’t against teasing him and getting him worked up just to be in this position, even if it meant pissing him off which was always a scary feat. You knew this wasn’t enough to make him extremely mad but, knowing a major pet peeve of his was being purposely ignored, you thought this would be a good preview of what you’d been missing.

So lost in your daydreams, you missed the words he said, nodding unconsciously after he asked if you understood, both of you still as silence overtook the room, Mark clicking his tongue in disapproval before grabbing your hair again, bringing you back to the same position as before, your tender scalp aching at the way he tugged on it, making sure your head was far back enough so you could see his face, your body shivering at the cold expression he gave.

“You really love pissing me off, don’t you? What did I tell you to do?”

“I-I… I d-don’t know…” You were honestly scared, not sure of what he planned to do, especially with his face showing no signs of if he’d be gentle with you. But the harsh thrust he gave you made your knees buckle, loud cries pouring from you as he kept going. Each thrust was sharp and hard, hitting a spot in you that hurt so bad yet felt so good, it almost felt as if he was barely pulling out of you before pushing back in completely, his eyes still boring into yours and face not faltering despite loving the way you wrapped around him, your eyes watering as he gave you no time to adjust to his momentum.

“Listen to me,” He started, his hips freezing in place the way they were before, pressing deep into your flesh until you felt every single inch of him.

“I told you to you were going to apologize for ignoring me until I let you cum, but that’s obviously asking for too much. So you’re going to make sure everyone on this floor knows you’re sorry and what you’re sorry for.” You gulped.

“W-what should I say?”

“You’re a smart girl, and you know what I like to hear, so I’m sure you’ll find the right words.” He leaned down to press a quick kiss to your lips before releasing your hair again, letting your body fall back into place.

The sweet gesture didn’t leave a lasting impression as he began to thrust into you once more, your body struggling to stay standing as you tried to ignore the brutal satisfaction you felt, your throat struggling to open up as you held back your moans, trying to form coherent words.

“I-I’m sorry f-for not listening to my boyfriend.” You finally spoke, Mark smirking at the sound of your weak voice, even allowing himself to groan for the first time that night, letting you hear just how good you made him feel even if your mind was clouded with the overwhelming sensation of your orgasm.

“Good girl, but I need you to be louder.” Your eyes screwed shut as you rested your head against the couch. All the adrenaline from before wore off, the realization you were about to reach your second orgasm of the day hitting you fast and hard, your mind going back to the fact that if you didn’t speak, you couldn’t cum, and you don’t think you could handle going to bed horny or being fucked into oblivion tonight.

“I’m sorry for not listening to my boyfriend!” You cried out, eyes burning as more tears seeped out. You were so close and it was excruciating.

Even with your core being so wet, allowing Mark to ram himself deeper and faster into you, the way your walls contracted around him made it feel as if he went in dry, a soreness forming within you that caused his arm to wrap around your waist to keep you standing. Mark could feel you getting closer and it was driving him crazy. Last night was great, you managing to handle five orgasm before calling it a night, but he loved the way you pulsated around him now after only two, as if your insides were massaging his member and urging him to release everything into you, and he was ready to, but he need you to get there first.

You sobbed as you felt his fingers toying with your clit, a loud hiccup bubbling from your throat as you whimpered his name, not sure if you can comply with his demands, ready to let the bubble inside your abdomen burst so you can collapse in blissful exhaustion.

“You’re doing so good, baby. Cum for me.” He spoke softly. No harsh demands, no slyness to his words, no conditions or exceptions. Just ragged breaths and loose moans as he buried his face in your shoulder, somehow thrusting faster into you to chase his own high, feeling your walls tighten around him but not relaxing as you mewled, throat hoarse from the cries you let out.

You felt every hair on your body stand as Mark helped you ride out your high, loud breaths leaving you as you relaxed onto the sofa. Mark held onto your waist tightly, pressing you further into his as his teeth sank into your skin, hiding the almost growl-like moan he let out, his hips stilling as he released into you, his cock jerking with each spurt of cum he emitted, both your bodies relaxing as he carefully removed himself from your core, staring down at the mess you both made. His dick was covered in the frothy, almost translucent, cum you both released, his own seeping down your thighs at a snail’s pace.

You didn’t bother opening your eyes as you felt yourself being lowered onto the couch, the sound of Mark fixing his pants echoing in your ears as your senses were slowly going back to normal. You could hear his faint words of praise though, his hands stroking through your hair and his lips pressing to your own, a soft chuckle leaving his mouth as you tried to reciprocate. He honestly felt bad for tiring you out so quickly, especially when he knew he was still holding back. But he didn’t dwell on it too much, listening to your breathing even out before heading down your halls to grab a washcloth and towel to clean you up.

-

The next day was the laziest you’ve ever been and you loved it. You wearing a faded hoodie and leggings, Mark in his boxers and another t-shirt of his you stole, curled up on the spacious sofa and watching a comedy movie neither of you heard of but liked the cover for.

Your laughter blended together loudly, drowning out the sound of the front door opening and closing. Hyeri almost went unnoticed until she kicked her shoes off, hanging up her jacket and bag without giving either of you so much as a glance. Your smile faded as you remembered what she walked into yesterday, not really sure where to start with that conversation. She was beginning to walk down the hallway when you called out to her, slowly standing as to not agitate the soreness between your legs, practically waddling towards her as she stopped, still not facing either of you.

“I’m sorry about what you saw yesterday. I didn’t mean for it to-“

“Look, I just need one week to erase it from my mind, and we’ll be good.” She said bluntly, continuing to her bedroom before disappearing completely, a pitiful moan leaving your lips before heading back to Mark who had paused the movie for you.

“I think she’s mad at me.” You admitted, curling back into his side before he enveloped you in his arms.

“Don’t worry, she never stays mad at you for long. Plus, she got a free show, so is it really that bad?”

“Mark.” You warned, his lips still in a smirk as you gave him a glare.

He pressed play and you both sat in silence as the film continued on, Mark laughing as usual while you were deep in thought, too upset over the fact Hyeri couldn’t even look at you and, even worse, she saw the inside of you. How was she ever going to recover from that? It was something small and predictable for college roommates to stumble onto but it still wasn’t fun to see.

Mark noticed your zoned out expression, sighing before leaning down to your ear, preparing to give you a reality check that you had repressed for the past year and a half.

“Just think of this as you getting equal for the time she hooked up with that guy in your bed after a party and he ended up puking everywhere.”

As he pulled away, he watched your once sad face turn into a disgusted frown, no longer feeling guilty for the acts she saw as you replayed that night in your head, throwing out so many books and clothes because some random drunk guy couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time. You sure as hell weren’t happy, but you were no longer stressing over the situation, which is exactly what Mark planned to make this entire day was about.

Just you, your boyfriend, your sore vagina, and no stress.

[gloves94]

Sunburn [Prince Zuko] 32

Warnings:  Cursing Rating: PG-13   Pairings: Zuko/OC   Summary:   “You have everything you’ve always wanted.” “No.” He said softly. “Not everything…”  His golden eyes looked at her with a melting intensity she had never witnessed before. “I guess not.” She responded with glassy eyes as tears welled up threatening to break the dam of her eyes.

Sunburn Chapter M A S T E R L I S T

My fanfiction M A S T E R L I S T

Sometime later Zuko and Sokka fortunately managed to find Suki and Hakoda. Having found the three prisoners, they needed to save they hatched a plan to escape the Boiling Rock.

"We have a new plan," Sokka whispered as he punched the rolled-up mattress, Zuko grunting as if in pain whenever he struck, "But it's gonna need a big distraction. Be in the yard in one hour." The door suddenly began to open and Sokka lunged forward, grabbing Zuko's head in a chokehold and forcing him to drop the mattress.

"Alright," The male guard grunted, pushing Sokka off the former prince, "That's enough."

Sokka watched as the two guards lead Zuko out of the cell before leaving himself.

"What are you doing?" Zuko demanded as the guards dragged him down the hall and up several flights of stairs, "Where are you taking me?"

The guards didn't answer as they lead him to another room that was furnished with only a torture chair in the center of it. He grunted as he was shoved into the room, stumbling and landing on the chair. He turned to glare at the guards angrily, "I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Come on, Zuko." Zuko jumped and looked up in surprise at where Mai was leaning against the wall in a dark corner, her head bowed. He suddenly felt nauseous. She lifted her head and stepped into the light, dark amber eyes narrowed, "We all know that's a lie."

Zuko swallowed thickly, "Mai..."

“Sit down Zuko.” Mai ordered as she rounded around him. Slowly and unsure he did as instructed and took a seat in the only chair in the room. His elbows rested on his knees and his head was bowed. “How did you know I was here?” He sighed.

"Because I know you so well." Mai replied flatly from where she was leaning against the wall to his right, her arms crossed over her chest.

"But..." Zuko looked over at her in confusion, "How?"

"The Warden's my uncle, you idiot." She replied, looking off to the side as Zuko groaned and rubbed his forehead, "The truth is, I guess I didn't know you at all." She reached into her sleeve and unrolled the letter Zuko had left her, "All I get is a letter." She flung her arm out to the side and snapped at him.  

Zuko looked away uncomfortably.

Mai cut him off with a scoff then she walked around behind him, holding the letter up and beginning to read from it, "'Dear Mai, I'm sorry that you have to find out this way, but I'm leaving. Thank you for being a friend.'"

“I heard what you did,” Mai continued. “Stood up to your father, renounced to the throne. Why are you throwing your life away Zuko? For what? For her?!”Mai exclaimed with as much emotion as Zuko had ever heard her speak with in his life.

“Mai...” He ran his hands through his face in frustration as he sat up his back straightening a little. “This…” He trailed off. “Everything.” He shook his head weakly. “It’s-It’s not.”

“It’s not what?”She snapped in frustration.

“This is greater than her. Greater than us.” He explained in best of his ability. “This is about destiny Mai.”

“Zuko,” Mai began. “She’s ruined your life. You can still come back home. Apologize to your father. Take the throne. You and her together? It just… it doesn’t make sense. She’s taken everything away from you.”

Ironic. How ironic Mai’s words were. If only Mai knew that he had been the one to take everything away from her. From her family. Her brother’s raging words still stung when he thought of them.

“Because of you- I have lost my name, my future, my family, my sister! Everything!”

He shifted in his seat uncomfortably as he soaked in the guilt of the prisoner’s words. It really was no wonder the girl from the colonies wanted nothing to do with him.

“I know you don’t feel the same way, but you and I… We.We make sense. I would never ask you to renounce to the throne, turn against your family. Abandon-“

“Mai.” He said sternly interrupting her. “I did all of those things because Iwanted to. Because Ihad to do them. Because it’s mydestiny.”

The dark-haired girl looked as if she had been split by a bolt of lightning. She looked at him with disbelief. Her eyes clouded with hurt.

“This isn’t about you or her. This is about the Fire Nation. I have to do this to save my country."

"Ha." She scoffed at him again and crossed her arms over her chest, "Save it? You're betraying your country."

"That's not how I see it."

“Did you even really care about me?"

"I docare about you, Mai." Zuko protested, "You’re my oldest friend.”

It was then that the door opened both Zuko and Mai turned expecting to see a guard but instead saw a prisoner standing beneath the doorframe.

“Let’s go we’re rioting,” Mecha said casually to Zuko as he pointed out the door with his thumb. He stretched his hand painfully and popped the joints in his fingers. He then turned to look at the gothic girl that was also in the room.

“Woah,” He let out sounding as if he had been struck by a blinding light. It seemed that for a moment he forgot why he was there. “Who are you?”

Mai’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the rugged prisoner before her with antipathy. Zuko took this opportunity and rushed for the door moving past Mecha who stood dumbstruck still. Mai ran behind Zuko but the Mecha slid the door behind him and stood between the girl and the door blocking her way.

Zuko looked back at the two confused through the viewing slat.

“So…” Mecha asked running a hand through his wavy locks. “What’s your name?” Flashing the girl one of his heart-dropping grins. The type that would make all the girls swoon back in Yu Dao.

“Mecha,” Zuko banged on the door. “We have to go!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll catch up,” He said dismissively keeping his eyes on the girl.

He didn’t have time to wonder if Mecha would be OK if left alone with her in a foul mood. He knew that she was more than capable of protecting herself. The prince rolled his eyes and shook his head lightly before turning away.

‘Go figure…’

Xxx

"Where's Tsai?" Katara asked as she poured some porridge into Theo's bowl.

It was lunch time and the waterbender was currently making sure everyone was well fed for the day. What were they having again? Some rice porridge flavored by some lemongrass herbs Aang had found nearby earlier in the day.

"I think she's upstairs meditating." answered Toph absent-mindedly as she finished her porridge.

"Still?"Katara said through gritted teeth. The girl had been upstairs all day long and had not even gotten around to doing the one task she had to do.

She practically stomped out of the courtyard and to the second floor where the girl was still sitting down meditating. For a moment she thought her eyes might've been playing tricks on her, but it almost looked as if the girl from the colonies was glowing.

Katara cleared her throat from a distance. Tsai opened her eyes and glared at her incredulously.

"Come for a rematch?" She said bitterly almost mockingly opening both of her eyes to see the smug look on Katara's face.

"Let's be real it wasn't much of a fight to begin with," Katara taunted cooly making the red-head's blood boil.

Ouch. Need some ice for that burn Tsai?

Fuming she rose to her feet abandoning her mediation as the last of her patience was shredded. Tsai knew that this was about more than just the laundry. Toph who had followed Katara up with Momo at her side took a seat at the edge of the courtyard.

"Alright," She sat ready to witness the entertainment. "My money is still on Katara," she said to Momo laughing wishing she had some popcorn.

"I have had it up to here with you!" Tsai snapped. "What do you want me to do? Beg for your forgiveness? I can't change the past. I can't change what my people have done, but we can change the future and I choose that change. I'm sorry the Fire Nation took your mother away, but we all lost something in this war. You weren't the only one. So, stop being a selfish, hypocritical-" She struggled to finish the last words. She didn't want to be crass. It seemed like a frog was stuck in her throat and was trying to jump out. "Selfish, hypocritical what?" Katara pressed with a scowl on her features. Hands on her waist as she looked down at the Fire Nationer.

"Bitch!" The other roared with an angry expression on her face. No longer holding her tongue back.

Tsai's eyes widened when a water whip struck in her direction. She ducked missing it by an inch and saw Katara's furious movements as she attacked. Her scowl deepened as she lunged forward ready to strike.

Katara smirked viciously as she for the second time in the day spilled the water turning the courtyard's ground into slippery ice.

Toph watched attentively waiting for the girl from the colonies to eat ice and fall on her butt. Instead this time she stopped mid run almost slipping and regained her balance instead bending her knees and sliding across the ice swiftly with grace.

Katara was taken aback and pulled her remaining water into a whip which struck her opponent. Tsai winced as she was struck with the water but continued moving forward pouncing when she reached Katara.

Toph's mouth went ajar she saw the two girls wrestling in the floor. Both pulling at each other's hair and scratching each other. The only thing worse than a bending fight was an actual cat fight.

Katara's loops had become undone and she clawed at the red-head's arm. The other pulled at her braid and bit her arm. Both of them shouting insults at each other as they struggled for dominance.

Hearing the commotion Aang and the rest of the children came upstairs to witness the horrific scene. The ice had melted already and both girls rolled around in the puddles as they continued fighting.

"ENOUGH!" Aang bellowed as a wild gust of wind came between them and tore the girls apart throwing them to opposing sides of the courtyard. Katara held on to her arm where the girl had bit her.

"I can't believe you bit me!" She shouted back. "What are you some kind of animal?"

Tsai ran a hand through her messy hair, her head hurt from the pulling that Katara had done, she noticed the scratches that were in her arm and groaned. They stung.

"Don't.Touch my hair!" The other shouted. Both of them glaring daggers at each other from the distance.

"Aren't you sick of fighting?" Aang began in an angry tone. "Don't you see what you are doing to each other? You should be working together. This isn't right. Tsai you should do your job and Katara there is a proper way of saying and asking for things and neither of you are right!" xxx

Zuko faltered slightly when he saw the chaos in the courtyard, looking around rapidly until he saw Sokka, Hakoda and Suki pressed up against one of the guard towers. He ran towards them, dodging other prisoners and guards that tried to attack him as he rushed towards his friends. He had almost reached the other four when a guard lunged at him in an attempt to subdue him, but Zuko grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder.

"Zuko, good." Sokka said in relief when the former prince ran over to him, “Wait-Where’s Mecha?” Sokka asked looking behind Zuko’s shoulders.

“He got… distracted?” Zuko said. “He said he’d catch up.”

Sokka face palmed and glared at Zuko. “You had onejob!” He shook his head.

"Fine. Now all we need to do is grab the Warden." He pointed at the top of another tower where the Warden was, "And get to the gondolas."

Zuko nodded and asked, "And how do we do that?"

"Uh..." Sokka frowned then shrugged sheepishly, having not thought that far ahead. "I'm not sure."

"Argh!" Zuko growled, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, "I thought you thought this through!"

"I thought you told me it's okay notto think everything though!" Sokka shouted back hysterically.

"Maybe not everything, but this is kind of important!" Zuko argued then groaned and grabbed his head, shaking it in aggravation while Sokka pursed his lips and touched a finger to his chin in thought.

"Fellas?" Hakoda called out, his attention riveted to what was happening in front of him, "I think Suki’s taking care of it."

"What?" Sokka questioned, peering around his father and staring in wide-eyed amazement as Suki ran towards the middle of the chaos, jumping up onto the head of a guard who was scuffling with a prisoner.

The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors quickly ran across the sea of fighting guards and prisoners, using their heads as steppingstones until she reached the tower and then leapt up, scaling the wall rapidly. She pushed herself off the wall and back flipped through the air, catching the bottom rail of the platform with feet. Swinging herself up from below, Suki somersaulted upward and grabbed the platform's upper railing just as a guard charged towards her. She front-flipped off the rail, narrowly avoiding the flames the guard firebending at her, and landed to his left.

Moments later and some soldiers facedown moaning in pain. Suki popped up in front of the Warden, who attempted to attack her, but she grabbed his arm in a deadlock, raising her other fist up and holding it dangerously close to his face.

"You wouldn't dare." The Warden hissed at her.

Suki smirked and spun the man around, bringing his hands together and using his red sash to bind them behind his back then she yanked his headband down and twisted it around, so the knot was in his mouth gagging him.

"Sorry Warden," She said cooly as she tightened the tie and let go, "You're my prisoner now." She slammed him against the wall and looked over at the others as they ran over to her, all of them out of breath. She smiled cheerfully, "We've got the Warden, now let's get out of here."

Hakoda, doubled over slightly and holding his stomach as he tried to catch his breath, commented in admiration, "That's some girl."

"Tell me about it." Sokka rasped, staring dreamily at his girlfriend.

“Hey guys,” Mecha added sheepishly as he caught up to the group. Sokka looked at him with a perplexed expression. Despite the chaos around there was a slight smile on his face. A very rare one. It was probably the first time he had ever seen the oldest teen smile. He noticed there were also several slight cuts on his upper arm. For the first time since Sokka had meet him he looked the most human he had ever seen.

“Where in the world where you? We almost left without you!” Sokka exclaimed. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I got… distracted.” He cleared his throat and shook all daydreaming thoughts out of his head.

It’s not like that mattered anymore the five of them were finally together now ready to escape. Zuko looked over his shoulder expecting to see Mai. If Mecha had gotten out that meant Mai had too.

The group ran up the stairs to the gondola's platform, Suki and Sokka at the front while Mecha carried the Warden over his large shoulder between them and Zuko and Hakoda took up the rear.

"We're almost there." Suki called over to Sokka when the gondola was in sight.

Escaping the Boiling Rock was hard but not impossible. The group stumbled upon some major issues like Azula and Ty Lee chasing after them and almost the gondola almost collapsing into the volcanic boiling water, but the persevered and successfully made it through. It also helped that Mai came through to stop Azula from killing them all.

"I never expected this from you." Azula stated, glaring at Mai from beneath her brows

Standing off the side, Ty Lee clasped her hands in front of her and looked between her two friends with a frightened expression. Her eyes bounced back from one to the other as she struggled to see where her allegiances truly lay. Azula jerked her chin up and scowled, "The thing I don't understand is why? Why would you do it? You know the consequences."

"I guess you just don't know people as well as you think you do. You miscalculated." Mai replied flatly, not letting it show on her face just how scared she was. Her next words though, were brutally honest. "I love Zuko more than I fear you."

Azula's face twisted into an ugly snarl of rage and she shouted, "No! You miscalculated! You should have feared memore!" Shifting into her stance, Azula prepared to generate lightning Mai prepared to attack.

Lightning crackled at Azula's fingertips as she prepared to strike, but with a sudden change of heart Ty Lee leapt forward and jabbed her fists into Azula's back several times blocking her chi while Mai stared with a stunned expression.

"Ah!" Azula gasped as she fell to the floor, unable to move. Her eyes flickered over to Ty Lee as she ran over to Mai.

"Come on," Ty Lee exclaimed, pulling on Mai's arm, "Let's get out of here!"

She tried to drag Mai away, but guards surrounded them, preventing them from escaping. Whimpering slightly, Ty Lee huddled closer to Mai, glancing around fearfully.

"You're both fools." Azula spat from the ground, glaring at them furiously as two guards picked her by her arms and held her upright.

"What shall we do with them, princess?" A guard asked as several grabbed both Mai and Ty Lee.

"Put them somewhere I'll never have to see their faces again." Azula answered with snarl, staring into both Mai and Ty Lee's unreadable faces, "And let them rot."

Xxx

Crickets chirped loudly in the middle of the night. The skies were cloudy, yet the full moon shined brightly above the Western Air Temple.

Things had been rather quiet in the group since Tsai and Katara's fight earlier that day.

Tsai sat on the second floor of the courtyard facing the statues of the ancient airbender that inhabited this temple as she did a pretty lousy job at washing and drying everyone's clothes. She almost felt as if they were gazing down at her in judgement.

'What?'She felt lie sneering at one in particular. 'Why should I have to do everyone's laundry? Do you even know where kids get into all day?'

She frowned a little. "Stupid Katara…" She grumbled under her breath. She looked down at the small bandages that covered her body where Katara had hurt her.

"Hey," A voice said cooly.

Her hands stopped functioning. She dropped whatever garment she had been holding into the water and very stiffly turned around. She would know that voice anywhere.

Her eyes met her brother's forest green ones. Mecha stood before her. This time he wasn't going anywhere. He had changed. He was larger than how she remembered him. His wavy dark hair reached past his jaw and covered most of his forehead. However, his most striking feature was now the scar that covered his entire body. The red scars spread like vines covering his neck, arms, chest and even his face.

"Mecha!" She gasped and quickly moved tackling him into a tight embrace. They were finally reunited. Nobody would tear the little family that they had left apart now. He hugged her back just as tightly and couldn't help but let out a small chuckle at the force in which she tackled him.

A pair of eyes watched from the distant stairs. The prince leaned against one of the temple's walls as he observed the scene unfold before him. His arms crossed over his chest. The smallest smile playing on his features.

"What are you doing?"

A chill went up his spine and he jumped lightly embarrassed of having been caught witnessing such an intimate encounter.

Toph looked at Zuko with knowing eyes a shit-eating smirk playing on her features.

"Nothing!" He let out an angry scoff before skulking away.

"I can't believe you're here!" She said touching his messy hair. "You're so big!" She said looking at his muscles. "And your-your-" She looked at the scar that seemed to cover every inch of his body. She frowned a little. It didn't take a genius to know where or how he had gotten that scar.

"Azula…" She whispered.

"Hey! Chili Pepper! Flame-O!" They both turned to see Toph calling from the stairs. "We're all having tea! Come on!"  She called to both of them from a far.

Mecha raised his hand in a wave dismissing Toph and turned his attention back to his sister.

"I don't really feel like joining the others," She admitted. "I just want to talk to you."

The two siblings stayed up talking for what seemed to be hours. They talked about everything that had happened in the year in which they had been separated. Mecha told Tsai about how the Fire Nation officials came to Yu Dao and how he lied about a conspiracy so that his father and specially their mother would be spared from any consequences. He spoke about how their mother's heart broke and her father became livid at the news of their daughter being hailed a traitor to the Fire Nation. Mecha ran away after that and took shelter in the other Fire Nation colonies and later in the Earth Kingdom as he looked for his sister. On his journey he saw the same horrors or war that Tsai had seen and became scarred by them. He found his way as well and renounced to his title as a Fire Nationer.

After hearing that his sister was captured, he traveled to the Fire Nation which is where he encountered Aang and his friends just a couple of days before the invasion on the day of the Black Sun. The day in which they had briefly met, and he had stayed to hold Azula back who held no mercy and hit him with a bolt of lightning.

Tsai also told him everything. She did not spare a single detail about her journey with the Fire Nation's Prince and his Uncle. She told him about her spiritual awakening.

"Do you know anything about it? Me being a spirit and all?"

He looked at her as if she had just grown a second head. He had absolutely no clue what she was talking about.

Her plans for the future.

"So, what are you going to do now? Become some kind of government diplomat for the Earth Kingdom? You know now that we're Fire Nation exiles."

"No.." She answered softly as the two sat by the pile of now clean wet clothes that had been hung to dry. "I've been thinking. The things that I've been seeing lately... I've got greater things in mind." She answered in a focused tone as her mind racked all of the plans she had been internalizing for the future.

She only spared one…  very insignificantdetail from her tale.

"Like what?" He chuckled. Mecha was happy to finally be able to laugh. He felt like it was a privileged he had lost long ago. It felt refreshing to freely be able to do it again. "Becoming Fire Lady?" He joked just like he once had back home in Yu Dao.

Mecha laughed slightly at the ridiculousness of his joke. It took him a moment to realize that his sister wasn't laughing. He turned to face her with an arched eyebrow and his face contorted into one of raw shock when he saw that the color of her face and hair had blended into one. He had never seen his sister like this.

"Tsai!" He gasped. "Don't tell me-"

His shocked expression morphed into one of fury. Her red face told him everything he needed to know. Her brother jumped to his feet and she followed pulling on his arm holding him back. She repeated his name repeatedly and rounded his body pressing her palms on his shoulders holding him in place.

"You and-and- him actually!" His eyes went shot wide in fury.

To think that once he had been actually excited about the idea of his sister becoming the most powerful lady in the land and hitting it off with the scarred prince.

"Yes," She sighed. "We actually dated." She admitted feeling a little embarrassed she was actually confessing this to her brother.

"Dated?" He retorted in shock. It went over the girl's head that he was emphasizing the past tense of the verb. Not repeating the shock of the statement.

"Tsai, I was about to kill the bastard. I almost strangled him!" Mecha spat angrily. "He ruined our lives! Took everything away from us. Our names, split our family-"

"No," She shook her head lightly. "No…" She lowered her head her tone almost pleading. "We have to stop." She breathed.

"We can't blame every single horrible thing that has happened to us on Zuko. He's done bad, but he's also done good. He's changed and so have we. Look at how much we've grown from all of this." She explained softly attempting to keep the upbeat attitude she was known for.

"Zuko?"The other retorted his name as if it were a pest ignoring his sister's tone. "Since when do you call himby hisname?"

She was about to respond but he cut her off.

"Yeah! Maybe we've grown, but what about mom? What about dad? The colony? What about everything else? It's his fault that you were treated like a slave and after everythingyou forgive him?No- You defend him?" He looked at her with a bewildered look. The anger still lingering painfully in his eyes.

He looked at his sister's pained expression and then it dawned upon him.

"Look-" She bit the inside of her cheek as she began racking her brain for an explanation. It was almost as if he was on trial.

"Zuko he-he was there for me a lot. When I got your letter about what happened in Yu Dao he was there. We went through hunger together, we survived together. Got lost and found at sea alongside his uncle. We built our lives together as immigrants, and yes maybe it was his fault that I became a servant for the Royal family, but it was also mychoice to stay. I could've run from that life in the Crystal Catacombs, but I didn't. And when we were there, he tried to take care of me. Believe me he did and he's forever sorry for all the mistakes he's ever done."

Mecha's full brows furrowed at the horrible realization. Teeth clenching as he looked down on her. If looks could kill. It looked as if he was about to go on rampage. "You love him…" He almost growled out.

"How can you-" He still couldn't wrap his head around the idea.

Mecha had so much regret. So, so much regret of sending his sister on that ship. She had already made up her mind not to go and he- he had encouraged it. He blamed himself for everything that had happened since. If she hadn't set off on that journey this entire chain reaction of unfortunate events would've been prevented.

"You best not hurt him…" She said to him upset.

"Is that a threat sister?" Mecha couldn't help but laugh a little. "Do you hear yourself talk?" He laughed harder.

She bit her lower lip and tucked a stray hair over her ear. Her eyes met her brother's and he ceased his laughing when he realized she was dead serious. Mecha made a strangling motion as if he was choking an invisible body in front of him in comical frustration. Then he let out a sigh and lazily wrapped an arm around his sister. They had been separated for too long. This wasn't worth fighting over.

"I'm sorry," She apologized against his shoulder. She meant it. He rubbed her back gently and apologized as well.

"What-What about you?" She crossed her arms over her chest. Still standing with his arm hung around her shoulders.  Mecha was really popular with the ladies back at home. Tsai wouldn't have been surprised if he had left a trail of lovers all along the Earth Kingdom and colonies.

"Oh," He let out a dreamy sigh. "I met the most beautiful girl today."

"Really?" A smile grew across her face in intrigue. "She's beautiful, classy, her hair is as black as night. Seems like a real no bs kind of gal." He elaborated with a goofy grin on his lips.

"Alright, I'm liking this girl." The other added.

"Yeah, she's even named after my favorite month."

She looked at him expectantly.

"Her name's Mai."

It took a minute for all the dots to connect in Tsai's head. It was then that a loud scream resounded and echoed the Western Air Temple.

"WHAT?!"

xxx

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[witchcraft-in-wonderland]

Poor Little Anxious Crybaby (Pt.13)

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

Virgil seemed to be spending more and more time with Remus and Roman, not that anyone involved minded this change. But it wasnt the only thing that seemed to be changing.

This was the third week in a row in which Virgil seemed to be kept up for most of the night by dreams he couldnt understand. Sometimes he could make out the shapes of rabbits cats or mice, but rarely could he understand them.

"Maybe you just wanna be a mountain lion, I mean mountain lions could literally get away with ripping someone limb from limb, I'd wanna be a mountain lion," Remus said, running his fingers through Virgil's hair as Virgil lay across the couch.

"What I don't understand is why it would be waking you up, I mean, it's not like being a mountain lion is generally upsetting, right?" Roman said, pulling the hem of his sweater over his knees.

"Yeah. . . ." Virgil said, burying his face in Remus' stomach.

"Careful there bud, I gotta use that to digest stuff," Remus said, letting out a cackle as Virgil blew a raspberry against the skin.

"Well we dont need to focus on dreams now, anyone up for a game?" Roman said, shaking a controller.

"Ooohhh! I'll order pizza!" Remus said, bolting up off the couch. Virgil let out a whine at the loss of contact as his head landed on the couch pillows.

"Aaaawwweee, sorry Vivi, I'll come back in a little, but can you give me your order, Ro? You're usual?" Remus said, looking at both boys in turn.

"Cheese,,," Virgil mumbled.

"I'm not hungry," Roman said, bringing his legs closer to his chest. Remus seemed slightly upset by the response, but simply nodded and went to call the pizza place. Virgil moved closer to Roman, who draped an arm around him.

"Roro?. . ." Virgil said quietly.

"Hm?" Roman leaned his head on Virgil's.

"When we get back to school are you still gonna have to be friends with 'You-know-who' are you?" Virgil said, he hadnt thought about the kids at school for most of the summer, but it was nearly September, so the memory was slowly creeping back in.

Roman sat there for a few seconds, rubbing circle's into Virgil's back.

"I dont know Vivi. . . He's not exactly easy to get away from y'know?" Roman said sadly, Virgil buried his head in Roman's shoulder.

Virgil had known Inigo since they were kids, and they had never been friendly. But since becoming friends with Roman, Virgil had learned of even more reasons to despise the boy.

"I hope he and Brennan get together," Virgil muttered, casting a distinct glance at the sewing kit on the coffee table. Roman let out a soft chuckle, burying his head in Virgil's hair.

"That can be arranged," Remus said, sitting down next to the pair and draping himself across Virgil's back.

"Guuuyyyssss- you're crushing meeeeee," Virgil said, pouting.

"Not my fault you're so tiny," Remus said, resting his head in the crook of Virgil's neck.

"I'm only 4'8!" Virgil whined.

"Tinyyyyyy~" the twins chimed in unison.

Virgil had to admit that the feeling was nice, he was warm and happy, and for once in his life, he felt safe.

He and the twins spent a good portion of the day beating the crap out of fictional characters in a video game and stuffing their faces with pizza, Remus had taught Virgil how to make a volcano out of melted metal and an ant hill, much to Roman's distress.

"I'll see you guys tomorrow ok?" Virgil said as he stepped out the door to go home.

"Did you have fun kiddo?" Patton said as Virgil walked into the kitchen.

"Mhm," Virgil smiled as he rested his head on the kitchen counter.

"Dont forget to take your medication before dinner Virgil, I'm hoping the doctor will be right about it helping you sleep easier," Emile said, setting the bottle down next to Virgil.

"I wish they made this stuff in liquid form more often- how do you take all your stuff so easily?" Virgil said, raising an eyebrow at Emile.

"Its hard for me to, but usually if I take the water first and slip the medicine in after it's easier because it's already floating," Emile said, shrugging.

Virgil thought on this for a moment before nodding slightly. Virgil liked Emile a lot more than he'd first expected, of course sometimes he was a little different, but usually he and Virgil could just sit on the couch and talk about cartoons, and Virgil could even tell him about his nightmares without getting scared.

Of course there were some things he still didnt know about Emile, but if Patton or Emile didnt want to tell him things, he wasnt about to ask for information he shouldnt need.

Settling down for bed that night still felt bad, but Virgil didnt mention it, he didnt want to bother anyone.

Virgil awoke in a patch of soft grass, which upon closer inspection, seemed to be more of a dull teal color than the green it ought to have been.

"There you are! We've been looking everywhere for you!" Said a voice, Virgil looked up to see what looked to be a girl with white rabbit ears, wearing a waist coat and khaki shorts, a boy with a hat, a tux, and hair that varied from shades of brown and blonde on one side, and various other colors on the other, between the two was a girl with brown bunny ears, her outfit seemed to be an attempt at formality which only ended in the tattered remains of what could have once been a met gala dress.

"Who are you?-" Virgil said, sitting up and shaking his head slightly in confusion.

"Aaawww, you dont recognize us?" Said the brown bunny.

"Well of course he doesnt! When's the last time you saw him at the tea party! I mean look at his clothes! Hardly appropriate for such a special event." Said the man with the hat. Virgil looked down at his clothes, he was still in his pajamas.

"Come on- we have to get you dressed first, I cant imagine what would happen if we brought you to the king dressed like that!" Said the white rabbit, dragging Virgil off the ground and marching toward a small house on a hill.

It seemed like hours before the mission the three people seemed so set on completing was finished, and by the end of it Virgil found himself in a dusty purple dress with white sleeves, a black bow and buttons on the chest, white lace on the skirt hem, white stockings, and black boots. If he was being honest with himself, he'd never been happier to look at his reflection.

"Well come on then! The king is waiting for you!" Said the boy with the hate.

"Now hold on a second- I dont even know your names, how am I supposed to trust that you'll take me to the right place?" Virgil said.

The three figures in front of him exchanged glances.

"Hes right you know, I'd never trust someone without a name,"

"I made friends with a nameless person once, they stole my cat,"

"But if we give him our names outright then it's no fun!"

Virgil looked between the three of them in confusion, waiting for the conversation to end.

"Ok, we wont tell you our names, but you can guess them," said the boy with the hat.

The white rabbit stepped up first, she mimicked placing a crown on her head, and then mimicked a sword being pulled from something and swinging it around.

"Well- it cant be Arthur, you dont strike me as an Arthur- so is it. . . Gwenivere?" Virgil said, the girl shook her head but made a motion of begging him on.

"Gwendolyn?" Virgil said.

"You got it!" Gwendolyn said excitedly, clasping her hands together and bouncing from foot to foot. She stepped back and allowed the second rabbit to take her place.

This one held out two fingers first, dropped one, and began to imitate what seemed to be waves.

"Waverly?" Virgil said, the girl nodded and held up two fingers again, proceeding to drop them and hold up a full hand, pointing to calendar that had floated down from the ceiling.

"Waverly-Mae?" Virgil said, the girl nodded and spun on her heel to walk back next to Gwendolyn.

"And that leaves me for last I suppose," said the boy with the hat, making a sort of disappointed face to the girls as he walked up to Virgil. He mimicked both a face that Virgil would describe as angry, and one he would describe as having a few screws out of place.

"Mad?" Virgil said, the boy nodded and kept going, placing one finger on either side of his head and digging his foot into the ground.

"Maddox?" Virgil said, tilting his head. Maddox smiled and nodded.

"Well now that you know our names, you'll have to meet our king!" Gwendolyn said, grabbing Virgil by the arm and rushing off.

It took ages for them to reach what Virgil believed to be the palace. It was large and black with red and green accents along the sides, this left a sinking feeling in Virgil's chest.

"I present to you, his most gracious majesty, King Rhea!" Gwendolyn said, backing into a line with several guards dressed in red and white. Maddox and Waverly-Mae fell in line with the knights in black and green.

Virgil looked forward, in front of him and sitting on a throne was a man who shared much to many similarities with the twins to be comforting.

Though one eye was green and one eye was red, and rather than red or dark brown hair, his was black and white, but he still had the same smirk, the same demeanor Remus and Roman had when out on the town.

"So glad you could finally make it, your excellency," said Rhea, now turning his head to look at Virgil.

"I-" Rhea held his hand up, Virgil's mouth closed almost immediately.

"I know what you're going to say, and you are absolutely correct, you are not royalty, you are something much more important,"

Virgil woke up in a cold sweat, and it wasnt until he looked at himself in the mirror that he realized, he was still wearing the very same dress as before.

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

Tag list:

@frawkeye

@meowthefluffy

@thefivecalls

@luna--28

@deathcanbegreat

@willowaudreykeyes

@sleepless-emo

@teamplutoforlife

@melodiread

@cemmy

@pricklyfish777

@frog-candy-bee

[waejinyoung]

Can’t Swim - EP . 5

word count: 4.4k+

a/n: a quicker comeback unlike last time. i know the ending might annoy some people but i wanted to try out a cliffhanger having got the chance.

warning: swearing, thats it lol

EP . 1 , EP . 2 , EP . 3 , EP . 4 , EP . 5 , EP . 6 , EP .7 , EP . 8 , EP . 9

Well, Friday was unexpected. Friday answered many things. Jinyoung’s job. Jinyoung’s friends. Your feelings. Jinyoung’s feelings towards your feelings. So much happened in one day even you couldn’t believe your life had gotten so much action.

Now it was the weekend and luckily you had things to do to take yesterday’s doings off your mind. The eco-hotel.

Saturday Midday

You had Beck come over for the weekend to work on the eco-hotel together. The sheets for the new hotel plans were distributed across the living room floor and the sun was at its peak. You went over to your air con and switched it on. Beck wasn’t a stranger, so you were dressed in a pair of shorts and an oversized short sleeved top. Your hair was up in a messy bun with a pencil behind your ear. You had all your equipment around the room. To be completely honest, the room was an organised mess. Note the word organised.

“Y/N can we take a break? It’s boiling in this room.” Beck looked absolutely drained from the morning session working to finish the eco-hotel.

“I was about to ask the same thing. Want an ice cream or a cold drink?” You signalled that you were gonna head to the kitchen.

“A cold cup of water should do. I’ll be out on the balcony.” You headed over to your kitchen and grabbed a glass of cold water for both of you.

You made sure to manoeuvre through the sheets of paper without dropping a single drop on the them. You gave the drink to Beck. He downed the whole glass in seconds.

“Beck, if you were this thirsty you’re no stranger you could have gotten some water.” You chuckled at his obvious thirst. You sipped some of your water.

“I didn’t even realise how thirsty I was either. Let me go grab another glass.” Beck went back to grab more water.

“Be careful of all the sheets on the floor. No frog movements please, just be extremely careful.” You shouted back into your home hoping he got the message.

You thought to yourselves how you’ll be able to have all the drawings done for Monday morning. You and Beck decided that it was both of your faults for having one of the pieces of land stolen from the next door firm. Hence why you called off all your employees that were working on this project. So, it was just you and Beck until Monday morning

“It’s going to be a rough weekend isn’t it?” Beck came back onto the balcony and saw your nervous face.

“I’m so scared we won’t finish it on time. I even considered calling the client and completely blowing off the project.”

“Good thing you didn’t. I believe we can do it. Even if it does mean less hours of sleep. This is nothing new Y/N. This has been our lives since the first year of architecture school.”

“Speak for yourself. I didn’t cut any hours of sleep for our under grad.”

“That’s true and somehow you still completed your work with flying colours.” You brushed your shoulders and flicked your hair trying to act out the phrase ‘what can I say? I’m that good’ in actions.

“Don’t get too happy. We need those skills back in action until the end of this project.”

“I think what hurts is that this project is actually finished but the client wants hand drawings as well as digital orthographics. Who even wants hand drawings anymore?” You sighed at the unnecessary request by the client.

“Ya! Don’t say that, especially not near the client.”

“I know, I know. He’s a big deal. Everyone knows him and his creations. Who thought he’d want a hotel built in a small town like Jinhae?”

“I guess he heard about the increasing number of tourists coming to Jinhae, especially during the cherry blossom season. If you ask me, it’s a smart move.” You nodded in agreement.

“Come on, let’s get back to work. Enough chit chat.” You headed back into the living room. Beck straight behind you.

“I finished the floor plans. So, we have elevations and sections to draw. We’ve done the axonometric drawings digitally anyways. Mr Chan is gonna have to excuse us for one missing drawing. I may try and do it if we have enough time.” Beck looked at you with a shocked expression.

“You have all the plans done already? Why in hell are we stressing then?” Beck had a smile on his face. Why in hell is he smiling?

“Why are you smiling? We still have so much to do, come on.” You faffed your hands around trying to get Beck to now focus on his work.

“Okay, okay! I’m working.” You guys returned to working at a reasonably fast pace hoping to have most of the drawings done by the end of today.

6:00 PM

You both ended the day by 6:00 pm. You guys had most of the drawings done by then anyways. Beck had never actually had a sit down session alongside you and was shocked at how quick you were. You were done with your drawings, but he had a couple left which you guys both agreed on finishing for Sunday. You still insisted for him to stay the whole weekend which was the original plan.

You guys made eye contact having declared that was enough for the day.

“Takeout.” You both mouthed to each other at the same time.

“Great minds think alike.” Beck exclaimed as you grabbed your phone to call in your usual order. Pizza. A food that’s simple, easy and you just can’t go wrong with.

“Can you order a x-large for today? I’m feeling extra hungry.”

“Alrighty, give me a second?” You rang up the usual place and processed your order. The person on the other end of the call took your order and read back that it should be there in 20 minutes.

“We have 20 minutes to kill. What do we do?”

“I think you should make a call to the leisure centre too.”

“Why?” Were you missing something?

“The meeting is at 11:00 am. Your swimming lesson?”

“Ah shit. I was looking forward for that lesson too. Maybe I can move the lesson so it’s after the meeting. Are we available then?”

“Bad news. The client said to leave the rest of the day free after the meeting. He didn’t say exactly why but I say we listen to him.”

You were looking forward to seeing Jinyoung. More than that whenever you couldn’t make it for your lessons, Max would be the one to cover for your group. Although, everyone knew that wasn’t a good option considering the awkward situation. But you had no choice, it was now up to Jooheon to solve the issue.

You dialled Jooheon’s number.

“Hey Y/N!” He seemed really cheery. You were sure the news you were gonna give him now would kill the mood.

“Hi Jooheon, got some bad news.”

“What is it?”

“You know about the eco-hotel… The presentation for the project is at 11:00 am on Monday meaning I won’t be able to come for the 10:00 am beginners class.”

“That’s fine. I’ll let Max know he has a cover for Monday.”

You waited in silence hoping Jooheon got the idea why it was bad news.

“Oh shit…” Took him long enough.

“Yh… hence why I said bad news.”

“We don’t have anyone else free during that period too. You know about that.”

“I was going to see if we could rearrange the time but turns out the client wants the whole day off with us. No clue why.”

“I’ll talk with Max, you don’t worry. If you can contact Jinyoung prior to the lesson too that would be great.”

“I’ll try my best to squeeze in some time. We are busy as you could imagine.”

“You guys get back to work. I’ll solve the problem. You don’t need to worry. If that’s all I need to get back to my own work too. Talk to you later Y/N!”

“Thank you so much Jooheon!”

You hung up.

“Sorted?”

You nodded at Beck.

The afternoon continued calmly, and you guys discussed the eco-hotel presentation that’ll take place. The pizza arrived and you guys tucked into your food. Your anxiety was growing as the minutes went by. How was Monday going to turn out?

…

Sunday Evening

You guys were actually ready. You both were shocked after rehearsing the presentation for the 10th time how well produced all the work was.

“I wouldn’t have even thought that I’d be getting a night’s sleep before this meeting.”

“I think sleep was the big motivator. You know how I can last on a hand full amount of sleep.”

“That’s true. You’re useless when it comes to working during the night.”

“Wooow, rude much.”

“I’m kidding. You performed really well. You reminded me why I partnered with you to start up a company.” You smiled at this compliment.

“You gonna stay over tonight as well or crash at home?”

“Could I stay over so we can just go to the meeting together tomorrow?”

“Yeah sure, this is like your second home after all. I feel like you’d also want to take advantage of my signature breakfast.”

“Was I that obvious?” Beck laughed at his failed attempt.

“I can read you like a book. You don’t need to hide your intentions.”

“Damn it.”

“I’ll prepare the long awaited breakfast tomorrow morning. Be up for 9:00 am. Set an alarm if you have to. I’ll tuck into breakfast with or without you.” You headed over to your bedroom and waved Jooheon goodnight.

“Goodnight! Sleep tight, don’t let the cantilevers bite.”

You went back to react to his really dead architecture joke.

“Get in the bin.” With Beck laughing at this really bad joke, you went back into your room and headed off to bed.

…

Monday morning

“Beck get your ass up its 9!” Typical, he hadn’t moved a single inch for the past minute that his alarm has been going off for.

“Y/N 5 more minutes.”

“5 more minutes and you’ll get no breakfast.”

“Breakfast…BREAKFAST!” Beck jumped out of the bed and flung himself grabbing some clothing on the way straight to do bathroom.

“This guy” You laughed at his reaction.

You left him to get ready and went back to the balcony and poured both of you some rich black tea. You settled in your usual seat and started filling your plate with all the different delicacies you laid on the table earlier on.

“You’ve done it again! I love these Mediterranean breakfasts you make. I need to come here more often.”

“Be my guest. It’s sometimes lonely enjoying a feast alone.”

“I could imagine. Although, that should have changed no?” What was he on about?

“Once you’re gone I’ll be back to having lonely breakfasts.”

“No, I mean you and your new boyfriend. When were you planning on telling me? You’ve been silent all weekend about it- “

“Boyfriend?? In who’s world did you hear that I have a boyfriend?” You used all your strength to not spit out the tea you had just sipped.

“The singer-actor guy? What was his name again? You were making headlines with him all weekend have you not checked your phone at all?”

You leaped back inside and grabbed your phone. No messages. No calls. What? Was this some kind of joke?

“Beck I haven’t got a single notification. Are you taking the piss?”

He grabbed your phone from you and enabled your WIFI. He knew you would switch it off whenever you had important things to do like this weekend. As soon as your phone connected to your router, all sorts of things flooded your phone screen. You took it back off him and read all the headlines.

Love strikes under the full moon

Waves were not the only things crashing that night

GOT7’s Jinyoung and his secret lover

Who could she be?

Secret Girlfriend and Aspiring Actor kicking it off on the Beach

“You’ve got to be kidding me?! Right before an important meeting as well. The company’s image. My image. My parents. How in the hell did this all happen?”

“Y/N sit down. It’s kinda late. You’ll just have to explain everything to whoever asks. Don’t worry about the company’s image, we all know how hardworking and talented you are.”

“Give me a sec. I need to make a call.” Jinyoung must have seen all the news too. You gave him a ring but no answer. He might be thinking that he’ll speak at one point during the leisure centre and you hadn’t found the time to let him know you won’t be in.

“Y/N calm down. Focus on the meeting please. You can sort out whatever this is afterwards.” You sat back down and tried to calm yourself down. Beck was right. You guys had an important meeting to focus on.

“Sorry.”

“Y/N shut up. I don’t want to hear it. Eat up, we have a long day ahead of ourselves.”

You tried to eat something, but it just wouldn’t work. Every mouthful felt like labour. You guys cleared up the table and went to prep for the meeting. You brushed your teeth and took a quick shower. You knew you were ready for this meeting, now it was just time to act on what you knew. You took out a pair of cream shorts alongside a white oversized tank top and a brown belt. You grabbed your nude heals and the gold accessories off your drawers to put on as you left. You had your hair wavey from your twisted bun that you always slept with in and a little mascara, the usual. Beck had loaded your car with all the sheets to pin up for the meeting alongside all the small scale models you had at your house.

You locked your house and ran to your car. Beck was ready in the passenger’s seat running over the minor things on his iPad.

“Have you rung the company to check the room is prepared, refreshments all that jazz.”

“Erm… yeah but there’s apparently loads of paparazzi that security is trying to hold off.” Your head shot towards Beck. As if that was needed.

“Guess we are entering through the back entrance. Call the client at let him know to do the same.”

“On it.” Thank god for Beck.

…

20 minutes later

You were driving past the usual entrance of the company and saw the tons of people that the security was blocking off. In a million years you wouldn’t have thought you’d have paparazzi at your company door.

“Can today get any worse?” You questioned out loud.

“Don’t say that. Just get in through the back, it’ll be over soon.”

Your receptionist let you through the back entrance and you guys moved to the meeting room that was prepped for the meeting.

“The room looks great. Just like how we agreed on.” You smiled at your receptionist.

“The presentation team did a great job. I’ll treat them for a meal.” Beck offered. You agreed with his statement.

“Mr Chan should be here in 30 minutes. Let’s pin up the sheets and bring all the models to this room.” You both left your belongings in the room and went down to the fabrication labs down stairs. To head to fabrication, you guys had to walk past the front entrance. You peaked to see if the people had gone but no. It had gotten worse. There were more people we even bigger cameras. How on earth?

JINYOUNG’S POV

You were right on time for your lesson. You and the kids were waiting at the pool side for Y/N. You kind of felt giddy after what happened on Friday. What stage would you call you and Y/N now? You checked the clock and saw that she was 5 minutes late. This didn’t seem like Y/N, she’s always early. Or has been for the past 2 lessons anyways.

“Woojin, is Miss ever late?” Woojin shook his head no.

Jaehyun heard from his dock and decided to let you know about the news.

“Jinyoung hyung, Y/N has a really important meeting today. She called in to say she won’t be making it for this lesson meaning Max will be taking over for today.”

Max… is taking over? This isn’t going to go well.

“Thanks, Jaehyun.” Jaehyun saluted which is his way of saying ‘no problem’.

You were thinking why Y/N wouldn’t have told you until you realised… the missed call this morning. She tried to get in contact with you, but you weren’t available. Damn it.

“Jaehyun, do you know where Y/N’s company building is at?”

“Yh, it’s the one and only big fancy glass building in the town centre.” She works there? She’s very humble for a CEO.

“Right, I’ll be absent for today. You can let Max know when he does the register. Also, what time is the meeting?”

“It starts at 11:00 am, why did you ask?”

“I’m going to attend.”

Jaehyun started cackling, “Do you think you can just walk into a client meeting? You must be mad. Jinyoung hyung it’s a serious meeting, you can’t just barge in.”

“Fine, I’m going to wait for there then.”

“No can do.” Max was behind you ask he listened to the conversation. You turned around to face Max.

“I can leave if I want.”

“Kids, do we want Jinyoung to leave this lesson? We all want him to stay don’t we?” You couldn’t believe he was going to use the kids as bait for you to stay.

“Yes, Jinyoung oppa please stay!”

“Jinyoung hyung, don’t go!”

The kids started whining, hoping you would stay for the lesson. He used his weapons well; you couldn’t break the kids’ hearts especially when you knew how much Y/N cares for the kids. You were gonna stay for her sake.

You knelt down to the kids and gave them a smile, “Fine, I’ll stay.”

You gave a glance to Max and hopefully you both sided with getting through this lesson without any disruptions. And so, the lesson commenced.

“We will be doing a test today.”

“A test?”, Hyungwon gulped, “But Miss didn’t mention a test last week?”

“Well Hyungwon, this is a surprise test. I’ll be marking everyone on how well they perform on the things Miss taught in the past 2 weeks.” This guy is doing this on purpose.

“How will you be marking us?” You spoke up.

“3 columns. Speed. Technique. A race. The place you come in the race will determine how many points you get for the ‘race’ column.”

“I’m gonna beat you all.” Woojin was already hyped to get the highest score. You would have probably been as excited as Woojin if the teacher was different.

“Right, we will be starting with Technique. I’ll be going off the register order so line up in that order and I’ll be testing your technique swimming front stroke.” You lined up along with the kids. You were obviously last.

Max got to you. You had a feeling he was gonna try and do everything to give you a bad mark. You remembered all the things Y/N had taught you and starting swimming to the area Max marked. You hated that this man was good at something you weren’t. Knowing he was ahead in something gave him more say and material on you.

“I feel sad for Y/N,” You waited for him to continue to see what he meant, “For having such a crap student.” He jotted down a fat 0 next to your name under the technique column. Jaehyun heard from his dock the comment Max had made and made eye contact with you. He was pleading for you to not react to Max’s words since that was exactly what he wanted to do. You clenched your fists and took a deep breath. You weren’t gonna lose this easily.

“I feel sad for Y/N too. Different reason though.” You gave Max a dirty look so he got the idea that you were referring to him in some way.

“Max hyung, are we moving onto speed now?” Woojin separated both of your focusses onto him.

“Yes Woojin-ah, get ready I’ll be timing you guys. You all have to swim in whichever style you want from one end to another.”

“Get to the side.” Max turned his face back to you and spoke in a demanding tone. He was really grinding your gears. This was going to be a long hour.

Y/N’S POV

“Good morning Mr Chan. I hope your flight yesterday was well.” You shook Mr Chan’s hand as he took his seat in the meeting room.

“Good Morning Miss Y/L/N and Mr Longing. I arrived without any problems. I got some rest too. All in all, I’m ready for today’s meeting.”

“Agreed, Mr Chan. I’ll begin with the site analysis and our response with our design.” You and Beck agreed for Beck to start the meeting and then you to end it.

“So, as you may have heard one of the plots of land were taken out of our hands. There was some complications with the landowners, but we decided that one plot of land was enough to fulfil the criteria of an eco-hotel.” With that Beck continued with explaining the new updates on the hotel design after the land issue.

“Mr Chan, the maquettes and models are laid out in the order of development. This is how the overall design developed into the final result. The 3D printed large model at the end is the final version of the hotel in a simple representation of the surrounding area around it.” You moved towards the model and showed Mr Chan where the sun would be travelling throughout the day. You brought along all the hand drawings from the past couple days too to show what each individual room would look like from all angles.

“These look amazing. I’m really thankful for the models and the drawings, they give a really good idea of what the final outcome will look like.” You and Beck looked at each other and gave a smile. All the hard work you both had put on for the past couple days had come through.

“Although, I wanted to ask one thing.” You diverted your attention to Mr Chan.

“Yes, Mr Chan go ahead.” You were nervous from his sudden question. You were sure you and Beck hadn’t missed out on any information.

“It hasn’t got to do with the project.”

“What exactly are you referring to Mr Chan?”

“You, Miss Y/L/N.” You looked up at Beck. What could Mr Chan want to know about you?

“Go ahead, Mr Chan. I’m listening.” If you were honest, you weren’t feeling well. You started breathing heavier than usual scared of what Mr Chan was going to ask.

“The paparazzi’s at the front door. Why are they here?” Fuck. This should have been something you should have thought about earlier on. You looked at Beck for help. You had no answer to give.

“That wasn’t Miss Y/L/N, Mr Chan. There has been a misunderstanding. The news reports are still speculating who the person is and Miss Y/L/N has just been mistaken for the girl that the actor was with. As you may have seen the photographs were taken at night, so it is hard to tell who it is, as expected.” Beck covered up for you.

“I see… and Miss Y/L/N what do you plan on doing about the news.”

“I’m aiming to get in contact with the actor’s agency to speak up and deny allegations about my involvement since that is the truth. I’ll also be holding a conference soon to news outlets about the situation. I don’t want anything like this to throw dirt under our company’s name.”

“I thought it was you Miss,” Is he being serious?, “I was going to congratulate you on your new relationship. That was the reason for the flowers. You’re also human. I thought you were taking a step forward in your person life. I know about how popular you are among fellow architects, for your work and for you too.” Me? Popular among architects? Step forward in my person life? Can life stop throwing new surprises nowadays, you were happy with your boring life.

“Mr Chan.” Beck addressed your client.

“We thought you would be disappointed about the truth. If that is the case I’d like to firstly apologise for what I just said. I didn’t mean to lie Mr Chan, but we didn’t want anything to cause you to- “

“It’s fine Mr Longing. Congratulations Miss Y/L/N. It’s really nice to see the new generation finding love. I’m sure you have found the right person for you.”

“Mr Chan, I appreciate your comments although it’s a little more complicated than that. We are not exactly dating or haven’t exactly clarified it between ourselves.” You struggled to keep eye contact with your client at this rate. Beck eyed you knowing you could have just suggested that you had a fling days before an important meeting.

“I’m sure you guys will even end up getting married one day. I sensed it when I saw your photos side by side.” You just smiled at Mr Chan’s observations.

“I hope whatever is best for the both of us is what happens.” Mr Chan agreed and focussed back on the project.

“Was there anything else you’d like to ask Mr Chan?” Beck wanted to make sure Mr Chan was completely clear of the new changes in order to process the build.

“Can I decide on which trees and floors to have planted in the hotel? I know the botanic designers tend to do so.”

“Of course, Mr Chan. As long as the greenery you choose passes the climate test meaning they’ll stay alive in Jinhae’s weather conditions, you can choose which ones we decorate the hotel with.”

“Great, that marks the end of the meeting. You guys have done an outstanding job. Better than what I expected. What’s the estimated date of completion?”

“If everything goes well, the hotel should be completely finished and ready for service for the month of March 2022.”

Mr Chan clapped in happiness. You were happy to have made your extremely important client over the moon.

“I’d like to take you guys out for dinner. I hope you guys made sure the rest of your days are free-“

You were getting a call from Jooheon. You never get calls from Jooheon during meetings, he knows not to disturb unless it’s an emergency.

“Mr Chan, could I please take this call?”

“Sure, go ahead. Me and Mr Longing will decide on where to eat.” You smiled and left the meeting room and picked up the call.

“Jooheon, what is it?”

“Y/N.. I-“

“Jooheon please tell me. Did something happen?”

“Jinyoung…He’s in the- “

“The what Jooheon can you just say it already?”

“The hospital.”

“HOSPITAL?!?”

---

Oooooo… the suspense. I haven’t tried these sorts of endings before, so I wanted to give it a shot. I want to leave it up to you guys for now to imagine what may have happened. Until the next episode, see you! Next episode will be extraordinary, you can count on me.

writer-nim x

[seelaa26]

1. Next Stop, Vegas Please

“Gonna sell my car and go to Vegas, ‘cause somebody told me that’s where dreams would be”

My eyes were confused when I opened them due to the sun setting on my window plane. I lost track of time after so many hours flying but I knew we were arriving to Vegas. From the air, the city was unmistakable; you could distinguish  The Strip, it’s almost a 7 km stretch, known by its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. Honestly, that was the reason why I chose this city to do my internship, besides the fact that the Crime Lab was the best forensic scientific laboratory in the whole country, Sin City had everything; everything and anything you want to do, you can do in Las Vegas.

The airplane landed a while after and when I set foot on the ground, I couldn’t help but smile even though I was terrified. Leaving my country to go to live to another one all by myself. ¿Was it one hell of a step? Yes, but a necessary one. I wanted to push myself because I needed proof of my inner power; if I could do this, there was nothing I couldn’t do. I worked and studied hard for four years, graduated with honors and got the scholarship. The scholarship covers part of my staying in the city during the nine months; pays half my rent and the car rental. The rest of my payroll was for me. Obviously, I wasn’t going to earn the same money as my coworkers, I had a scholarship contract but it was enough to live comfortably.

My college made the car rental for me, a red Opel Astra with manual transmission and Diesel fuel. I only knew how to drive with manual transmission, so I figured that’s why they rented that car. I adjusted the seating position, started the car and typed the address of the apartment. Dream Apartments was a complex with a clubhouse and a gym, besides the apartment of course. It took me 20 minutes but I got there with success. I parked the car in front of the complex, went to reception and after the registration, they gave me the key to my new home. I followed a tile path and saw a wooden door with a door sign; 898 SF, my apartment. I opened the door, climbed the stairs carrying my suitcase and as soon as I was upstairs, I was impressed by the elegance. The apartment walls were white, wooden floor and everything else was black; doors, frames, curtains, paintings.. I loved it. After the excitement, I realized that I didn’t sleep in the plane but I needed to start getting used to the night shift so I had to stay awake at least until 8 am, since the shift was from 11 pm to 7 am. So, ¿where shall I start? Let’s walk around the neighborhood.

***

When I asked at reception where Gil Grissom’s office was I couldn’t believe it. I did not know what I expected, but his office wasn’t it. There was a metal desk in the middle of the room, which was normal but the rest of the office was full of shelves with glass jars that contained all kind of things you can imagine; a small pig fetus, spiders, frogs, snakes.. all of them dead, obviously but still, creepy.

If that wasn’t enough, he also had specimens of butterflies and bugs framed on the wall. When I was a child, I had a collection with various specimens of scorpions, spiders and beetles conserved in glass, but that was just for fun.

-¡Hi! –a voice spoke behind me, which made me jump from the scare, but he smiled afterwards- Sorry. Welcome to Forensics. Gil Grissom, I’m your supervisor on “Graveyard”.

-Laura Serrano –I introduced myself while shaking hands- ¿”Graveyard”?

-That’s how we call the night shift.

-¿Why? –I asked curiously.

-Because of the same reason you chose this shift –I wondered how did he know that, but he answered before I could even ask- ¿Do you remember what you wrote on the application?

-Actually, I do –I nodded- I wrote that I wanted to work the night shift because of the number of crimes that occur at this time. People are drawn by the allure of the darkness, and so am I.

-That quote is the reason why I accepted your internship –he confessed- You know Laura, this job requires someone who is not afraid to explore the darkest corners. CSI’s see everything and deal with the most twisted things you can imagine. It takes a strong mind to handle it, and I believe you have one.

-I agree and that’s why I can’t wait to be on the field.

-We’ll begin our shift when the team arrives, so while we are waiting.. ¿would you mind taking off your jacket and rolling up your sleeve? I need a pint of your blood. It’s mandatory for all new hires.

A few minutes later, we left the office and headed to the locker room, where the CSI’s store their personal belongings, so I could leave my bag. As we were approaching, two male voices could be heard louder. From the way Grissom smiled, he recognized them. Two good looking guys were talking while putting on their shoes leaning on the bench. One of them was an African American with brown hair and green eyes and quite tall. The other was American with dark hair and brown eyes and a little bit shorter, although I have to admit that I fell for his smile. When he smiled, laugh lines appeared around his cheeks and eyes making him look cuter.

-C’mon, give me a winner for tomorrow.

-Green Bay, minus seven and a half over Niners –answered the African American- Always go with the better quarterback.

-Warrick, Nick –Grissom called, making them look at him and me- I want to introduce you to Laura, she’s the girl who comes to do the internship.

-Nick Stokes –the cute one introduced himself.

-Warrick Brown –he shook my hand after Nick did- You’re from Spain, right?

-Yes, Barcelona –I nodded.

-Man, how I wish to be there.. –Nick mumbled- Great gastronomy, cool weather and views to the Mediterranean.

-¿You’ve been there? –I asked.

-Not yet, but I’m looking for a place for my next vacation –he answered- Now that I’m CSI Level 3 I can afford to travel further than Texas.

A brunette woman entered the locker room in a hurry and greeted everyone without noticing me. I guessed she was another member of the night shift. She was tall and skinny.

-Hey Sara, do you remember that the new girl started working today? –Grissom asked, but she didn’t even look.

-Yeah, ¿why? –she answered and looked for a moment, then she realized- Oh sorry, I’m Sara Sidle, nice to meet you.

-Don’t worry –I smiled- Nice to meet everyone.

-Not everyone.. –Grissom looked around- ¿Does anyone know where’s Catherine?

-She had to pick Lindsey up from her ex’s house, but she’s on her way –Warrick answered- It’s Lindsey’s birthday today.

-Wait for her outside, you’re working together and take Laura with you. 401A at Fremont Street –Grissom commanded as he gave me my CSI credential- Nick, Sara, you’re with me.

-¿What’s a 401A? –I asked Warrick while we were leaving the locker room.

-Hit and run.

I put the credential around my neck and followed him to the exit of the building. When we arrived outside, I saw a skinny, blonde woman approaching us with a weary look on his face.

-Hey guys.. –she said- You must be Laura, the new girl.

-That’s right –I smiled to make her feel comfortable- You must be Catherine.

-Nice to meet you, Laura. Sorry for being late –she looked at Warrick- ¿Are we working together?

-Yeah, hit and run on Fremont –he showed the keys that belonged to one of the cars the CSI’s use to do their job- I’m driving.

***

When we arrived at the crime scene it was already cordoned off. Warrick parked a couple of meters away from the police tape and then we got out of the car. The first thing I saw was the victim; a little girl. I didn’t expect that since it was night and kids don’t go alone on the street. Besides, it was a little girl. ¿Who is capable of leaving her there without calling the police? Cowards.

-¿You okay? –I heard a male voice asking that, and then I realized I stopped walking the moment I saw the girl.

-Yeah, yeah.. It’s just that.. –I tried to find the words to say ignoring that they were both looking at me.

-It’s hard –Catherine finished- I wish I could say it gets easier, but I’m not a liar. The only thing you can do is find whoever did this and get justice.

-Then I’m lucky.. Because that’s exactly our job -I looked at them and sighed- ¿Hoy many hit and runs have you had this year?

-Too many –Warrick replied as he bent down to look at the ground- One thing I can’t stand is a punk coward.

-My daughter wants one of these scooters –Catherine indicated with the flashlight- She says that she’s the only kid in the world who doesn’t have one.

My gaze went back to the little girl’s body but it was something I couldn’t control. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else but her. She had a scared look on her face. My heart shrunk from the sadness of her accident. She was so young and full of life and it only took a couple of seconds to take that away.

-¿Do you want me to tell Grissom to put you in another case? -No –I answered- ¿Why?

-¿You feeling alright Warrick? –Catherine asked in a worried tone- ¿It’s that thing with Holly Gribbs, isn’t it?

-I’m just looking out for my partners, you know.. –Warrick replied with a frown- It made me think who I am to you.

-Hey relax –she smiled at him and then looked at me- I’m sure Laura can handle this one.

-I can –I nodded- I’m okay, but thank you for the offer.  

-So, Laura the first thing we do is take a close look at the crime scene and then we take pictures of everything that could be evidence–Catherine explained- In this case, for example, the scooter, the victim’s shoe, the tire marks.. Then we try to recreate what happened with the evidence we’ve got so far. Warrick, ¿you wanna call it?

-Vehicle’s coming down from Rochester, victim was on her scooter heading east, car breaks here, impact here and the vic was thrown.. ¿What? ¿20 meters? –he explained while indicating everything with his fingers.

-And all we’ve got is some paint that’s going to match up to about 20 million other vehicles.. –Catherine sighed- Bastard.

***

I saw them collect the evidence from the crime scene and the next step was get it back to the lab while the coroner performed the victim’s autopsy. Luckily, she was the only dead body that night so it wouldn’t take long. Warrick took the evidence to the rightful departments.

-¿Have you had the chance to walk around the Lab?

-Actually, no.

-I’ll show you around while we wait for the autopsy then –Catherine said and started walking- First we have the DNA Lab, territory owned by Greg Sanders, lab tech specialized in DNA and also in listening commonly rock artists while running lab machines. You’ll meet him, you’ll like him.

-Rock is my favorite genre so I already like him.

-Next to DNA we have Ballistics and in front Audio/Video –we continued walking- We have Trace and Fingerprints over here and down the hall to the right we have the Evidence Garage next to the Evidence Vault and to the left the Locker room, Grissom’s office, the Break Room and the Layout Room.

-¿Layout Room?

-We use that room to review evidence and look for new evidence, compare notes, display the photos from the current case and use the table to draw out rough sketches on maps –she answered with a good explanation- ¿Any more questions? -I have one but it’s not about the Lab.. –she looked at me waiting for me to ask- ¿Who’s Holly Gribbs?

-She was a rookie who started working with us two weeks ago. Holly and Warrick were working together on a case but he left and when Holly was alone collecting evidence from the crime scene, the suspect came back and shot her –Catherine explained it regretfully- She died on the operating table.

-Warrick feels guilty., -I concluded- That’s why he asked me if I wanted to work another case, to make sure I’m okay.

After I finished my sentence, Catherine’s phone rang. It was time for us to head to the morgue, which was downstairs. Before entering the morgue itself, we stopped on the hall to put on the sterile lab coat.

-¿Have you ever seen a dead body?

-Yeah, I took human anatomy classes –I nodded- I wanted to be ready.

-Good –she smiled proudly- Usually, the night shift coroner is Dr. Albert Robbins, but today is his day off so you are going to meet Dr. Jenna Williams.

We entered the morgue and approached the central table while making introductions.  

-This is your hit and run victim –the coroner uncovered the girl and looked at me- Bad thing about this job is you stop asking yourself why. The cause of death was the hit by the car, but I’ve found a bruise on her leg.

-Oh my god.. plate numbers, from the license plate when impacted her skin.

-Looks like a 4.. –I looked at the bruise trying to decipher the license plate- ¿And a J?

-Yeah –Catherine agreed- We have to call DMV.

-¿DMV? –I asked.

-Department of Motor Vehicles, we’ll get them to cross check this partial plate in a 5 mile radius.

***

Actually, waiting for an answer from DMV didn’t take as long as I expected. Within the hour we already appeared at the door of the car owner’s house. This was my first time face to face with a suspect and as my first night was full of unexpected things, an older man opened the door.

-¿Hello? –Catherine said with a smile- ¿Mr. Charles Moore? We are with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. We’d like to talk to you about your car.

-We believe it may have been involved in a traffic collision earlier this evening.

-I told the police when they called me.. my car was stolen.

-That’s why we have a search warrant, sir –Catherine gave him the paper- So that we can look in your garage.

When he opened the garage door with that face I already knew we were going to find his car in there and in what condition. From the sad attitude he had, he knew what happened. The front of the car was busted and the license plate hung from its place. We looked at each other, and then we looked at him. We were waiting for an explanation.

-It.. it was an accident.. I saw the girl and I tried to break but I accelerated by mistake. I got confused.. I shouldn’t have left. I was wrong. ¿Is she okay?

-She died at the scene –Catherine said without being affected by the man’s repentance.

-You are going to be charged with manslaughter, Mr. Moore –Warrick added- Felony and run. You have a lawyer?

He didn’t answer, but he looked like he was sad and sorry to hear what happened. Obviously, killing the girl wasn’t his intention, but he had to face it. After finding the car, we had to make sure it was the correct car and we needed evidence so we called Traffic to have the car confiscated and brought in. While we waited, we went to the break room to eat and drink something.

-¿Is it me or did he give it up so easy? –Catherine asked us as she was taking out a cake from the fridge.

-Old guy was scared –Warrick answered with a soda on his hand- ¿What do you think, Laura?

-I also think that he was scared, I mean he almost cried when he heard the girl died but I feel like there’s something more.

-¡You have to see the birthday present I got for your daughter! –Grissom entered the break room while carrying a bag- I had one of this Chem Labs when I was six, I almost blew up the whole house.  

-¿What’s the rule.. how long do I have to be here before kicking in for gifts? –I asked with confidence.

-When your spirit moves you –Catherine answered with a smile- But don’t worry because Lindsey doesn’t want a party.

-¿What kind of kid doesn’t want a party? –Sara asked.

-My kid.

-Hey Catherine.. ¿at what time is your little girl coming by? –Nick entered the room with a gift- I got her a Chemset.

Grissom and Nick exchanged surprised looks. They had bought the same gift.

-Keep it –Sara intervened- You might learn something.

-Stop flirting with me –Nick ignored her- Cath, really, ¿when’s the party?

-¿What do I have to do? –Catherine got up from the chair a little bit upset- ¡There is no party! ¡My daughter doesn’t want a party! ¿Is everybody clear on that?

No one was going to answer after that. Crystal clear.

***

-¿How tall do you think Mr. Moore is? –Warrick asked us leaning on the car.

-Six feet, I’d say –Catherine answered after we exchanged a look.

-Old people must love hugging the steering wheel ‘cause this sit is pushed all the way forward –Warrick opened the door and got into the car. He didn’t quite fit- I’m six feet and this mirror isn’t helping me at all.

-¿Can you start the car? –I asked.

-¿Why?

-If you haven’t noticed I’m 5 feet and when I drive I have to push the sit all the way forward.

-You think that it wasn’t Mr. Moore who was driving but someone shorter.

As soon as he started the car, the radio turned on and a rap song started playing. Warrick whistled impressed by the song and started moving his head to the beat of the song. In my case, I knew the song and started rapping it.

-So they can hear everything that you say when you ain’t home. I guess Michael Jackson was right, “You are not alone”. Rock your hardhat black..

-¿You listen to Mos Def? -Warrick asked impressed.

-I thought you said Rock is your favorite genre –Catherine intervened.

-¡And it is! But I listen to everything and when it comes to rap Mos Def, 2Pac, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G, Eminem, Blackstreet.. are some of my favorites.

-¡I like your style! –Warrick smiled at me.

-Mr. Moore was not the last person to drive this car –Catherine was the only one who wasn’t absorbed by the song- ¿Turn the music off?

Now it was time to find the evidence that would sustain our theory. Since it was my first day, I limited myself to observe how they did the search and collection of evidence. The steering wheel cover was leather but it had small breathable circles and there was something stuck in one of them. Catherine took it with the tweezers and showed it to us.

-¿Can you tell what that is?

-¿Is it me or that is a piece of tooth? –I questioned.

***

After collecting the evidence and come to a conclusion, came the part of the confrontation with the suspect. I wanted to see how my colleagues faced the situation in the interrogation room. I had no experience, so I couldn’t enter just like that. Instead, I watched it all from the observation mirror.

-¿Does anybody else drive your car, Mr. Moore? –Warrick started.

-I was driving yesterday.

-Sir, that doesn’t answer our question.

Suddenly, the door opened and a boy about 19 years old entered the room. It was the suspect’s grandson. The boy seemed lost, but the grandfather more.

-¿What is he doing here? –Mr. Moore asked.

-Your grandson is an approved driver on your insurance –Catherine explained- He had him pulled out of school

-So James, ¿you like Mos Def?

He sat down without saying a word.

-¿Did you hit that girl with your grandfather’s car?

-Pops, let me explain to them –the boy said addressing his grandfather- They should hear what happened.

-No, they are going to from me –he nervously clasped his hands together and began to explain- When I hit that girl, James switched seats and took over the wheel, drive me home. He was worried about me, not the girl. I’m not saying good judgment was used, but that’s what happened.

-James, ¿do you want to add anything to that? –Warrick asked, but since the boy didn’t say anything, he continued- Sir, ¿can we look at your teeth?

Mr. Moore took out his dentures and put them on the table.

-James, we found a tooth chip embedded in the steering wheel of your grandfather’s car –Catherine explained again- It doesn’t appear to be of your grandfather’s teeth. ¿Do you have a chipped tooth?

-Pops, I’m sorry but I got to –he was going to tell the truth.

-He is a good boy.. it was an accident. I make him call, let me know where he is. He drove straight home and wanted me to go to the police station with him.

-I didn’t know that little girl was dead. I swear.

-I wouldn’t let him turn himself in, that was my decision –he appealed to our emotions for his grandson- Boy’s going places, college.. he’s got a real future.

-I’m very sorry, Mr. Moore –Catherine mumbled with a sad tone- James, I’m afraid you are gonna have to be taken into custody.

-Miss, please.. –he begged- I’m willing to serve his time.

-I know you are Mr. Moore but we can’t let you do that.

Two police officers entered the room and handcuffed the boy. Taking him by the arms, they left the room and went to reception, where he was going to say goodbye to his grandfather. When Warrick and Catherine left the interrogation room, I joined them. There was a feeling of sadness between us.

-Hey, ¿why don’t you go home? We can handle this –Warrick said to Catherine- Your daughter gets out of school in a half hour on her birthday.

-I owe you –she smiled at him, and then look at me- See you tonight, guys.

Warrick and I exchanged glances and approached them.

-Don’t worry pops, I’ll be okay.

-My grandson going to jail is never okay. You survive in there, ¿you hear me?

-You too –James nodded- Don’t be going downhill.

They hugged each other for the last time with tears in their eyes and honestly, they were not the only ones who had them.

-James, the first days are going to be the toughest –Warrick took his hand and wrote something on it- Here’s my cell number. If you are in any problems, call me. I’ll be right there. Keep your head up.

James was taken away and his grandfather left too. We both stood there, watching them go. Watching how they were forced to separate.

-That has been very good of you –I said touched by his act of kindness.

-They remind me of me and my grandmother –Warrick confessed- ¿How do you feel after the first case? This has been a pretty tough emotional one. You have seen two very hard emotions; tragedy and sacrifice.

-Thanks to them I have realized something –I nodded- You’ve got so much power in this job, which you use to get the bad guys but once in a while, I’d like to use it to help the good guys.

-¿And what.. forget about little Renda Harris?

-No.. –I looked at him- What I’m saying is that putting James away isn’t gonna bring her back and Mr. Moore was willing to do the time. I mean, the victim’s family gets closure..

-I know.. but we got to follow the evidence, even if we don’t like where it takes us –Warrick turned to face me- Laura, it’s the job. If you start making deals with the devil, you don’t get to walk away. ¿You understand what I’m saying?

-Yeah..

-Now it’s time to go home –he said watching reception’s clock- You did very well on your first day. Get some rest, ¿okay?

I went back to the locker room to collect my things and when I left the building, I got in the car and just sat there. I had waited so long for my first case and to feel that high when I’d solve it, but I didn’t feel that way. Not at all. Instead, I felt guilty and this had only just begun.