#i would have to go back to my local library to get the volumes again

[booksndpoetry]

The Gratitude Series

A Lee Minho Fanfic

Prequel to "A Modern Love Story"

WC : 2.8k words

Pairing : Lee Minho X Fem reader

Genre : Fluff

Triggers/Warnings : Repetitions of two particular words and mentions of brownies; read at your own risk of temptation

A/N : This was inspired by my own conversations with my friends when they told me to stop thanking them. I hope each of you who reads this, gets someone who'll thank you from the bottom of their heart.

m.list

“Some days I adore you a little more than a human being can adore” – Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Vera

To Lee Minho, you were an enigma of sorts. You were like a ball of yarn, threaded with your secrets. And he was the cat, ever curious. Each thread that unravelled, satiated his curiosity, until he wanted more. Until he knew it was never going to be enough. It was more of a depraved hunger than anything, but you didn’t have to know that. 

i. 

Minho had always considered his part-time job as a barista at the local café just as a way to spend his time wisely and earn some money. He did not expect the best people to be the customers, nor did he think the café was particularly interesting. It just…..was.

But that was his opinion before you came into the café. 

The first time he’d seen you, you had ordered a milkshake and sat down at one of the tables, book in hand, the nearly empty café a reflection of your quiet, poised state.

When he’d come to serve your milkshake, you’d stopped reading your book, the original volume of Howl’s Moving Castle he’d observed, as he approached you.

You read his name off his name tag, gifted him, a complete stranger back then, a dazzling smile and said “Thank you.” with the calmest voice he’d ever heard. 

He had been surprised. Not because you’d thanked him, more so because you stopped what you were doing just to acknowledge him and thank him, face to face. 

He hadn’t known what to do. Receiving thanks or compliments had always been awkward for him.

 And so he gave away his embarrassment with the tips of his ears glowing red, muttering something incoherent in reply, and your smile had become a little bit wider. 

Just a little bit, but he���d noticed it. 

That is how he remembers his first encounter with you, with him completely flustered by you and your bright smile. 

ii. 

After you had left the café that day, he had come in extra early to work every day, in hopes of catching you if you were an early riser. But to no avail. 

After two days, he thought himself stupid. He barely knew you. And you would’ve probably forgotten his name, he reasoned with himself. 

Still, his nights were filled with thoughts of you. He thought long and hard about you. 

Did you thank everyone that way? Or was it just him you thanked that way?

He had hoped, foolish as it was, that it was the latter. 

Had you found him attractive and hence given him your attention?

The question wasn’t entirely baseless. Lots of people frequented the café just to flirt with him. But he knew that it wasn’t the case, he would have remembered you if you’d come there before.

Would you come back again? Would he see you again? 

And so, he’d tossed and turned. He couldn’t get his mind off you.  

The two days turned into four weeks and the study group he was in at University, had set up a meeting at the music club. 

When he’d asked Chan, the person who had organized everything, why they hadn’t set up the meeting in the University’s large library, the latter had unashamedly said that the library wouldn’t allow food in and hence the spot was selected. 

Even on the walk to the meeting, Minho rolls his eyes. 

The library would have been much quieter. With no rules to maintain silence, he had no idea how to protect his ears from his group of extremely loud friends.  

He arrives minutes before the meeting. The tiny room was packed and he was already assessing the number of decibels emitted from the inside. 

Taking a breath, he pushes the door open and walks inside. The entire study group had assembled for the first time, and there were a lot more people than he’d expected. 

As soon as he sits down, Chan who had been chatting with someone next to him, turns and greets Minho. Minho nods in acknowledgement, looking away and that’s when he sees you for the second time. 

You sit in a corner of the room, nose deep in a book, just like the first time he’d met you.

Today, you’re decked up in a long winter coat, and a lemon-coloured scarf wrapped around your neck.

Just like the first time, you’re smiling as you read your book.

Just like the first time, you manage to take his breath away.

And just like the first time, he doesn’t know what to think, let alone what to do. 

Despite that, he knows that he might not have a chance to see you again and thus, musters up all his courage and approaches you, which is exactly when Felix decides to announce that he brought brownies for everyone. Minho has to clamp his mouth shut to stop a groan from escaping him. 

Great, he thinks, now he would never ever have a chance with you again and he would die an old cat gentleman.

Even in his head, he thinks it sounds ridiculous. He reminds himself not to hang out too much around Hyunjin. The dramatics were rubbing off on him. 

Shaking his head, he goes back to retake his seat when he notices Felix distributing scrumptious looking brownies (that he knew were delectable) to the large group of people, by himself.

He also notices another box, and maybe it is because he’s gotten so used to serving people, he takes the box up and starts distributing brownies to the other table.

Felix offers him a cheery thanks and Minho just waves him off. 

When he gets to your table, Minho holds his breath. He expects you to have forgotten him, but you lift your head and say,

 “Hey, Minho right? We meet again.” 

and all the practice he’s given himself goes down the drain. Clearing his throat, he pretends he isn’t affected by the fact that you remember his name, and extends a brownie towards you. You look at his outstretched hand and take the brownie, and just as he’d predicted, you look up at him, still smiling, and gift him a:

“Thank you.”

 He’s just as bothered, with the base of his neck going red at the words. However, in a burst of courage, he’s taking a chance with you just to lengthen the conversation. 

“I’m not the one who made them, Felix did.”, he informs you and you tilt your head slightly. 

“I know, I’ll thank him later.”, you reply, “I’m thanking you now.” 

“Why?” he asks. He doesn’t know, why you did it. He wanted to know. 

“Because”, you say, your words slow and deliberate, like you had all the time in the world,

“you could have let him distribute them to everyone, all the thirty five students, all by himself. It wouldn’t have been a big deal. But you chose to help him and give some of us a brownie, when you could’ve eaten yours first. So, thank you.” 

He’s stunned. Both by the sincerity of your words and the honesty you delivered them with. 

For a moment he stands there, absorbing your words. Before he can respond, one of them asks if they can have one more cupcake and he gets to his senses. You smile and wave him off. 

The second time too, he thinks, was just as delightful as the first. 

Maybe Chan chose the right spot after all. 

iii. 

Slowly, Minho eases his way into your life until you’re both latched together, like two sides of the same coin. He makes you milkshakes even when he’s not in the café and you smile and thank him for it, every time. 

He’s grown used to your words of gratitude, but he knows that you don’t throw the words around lightly. So, he makes space in his heart for all your thank yous, and slowly learns how to respond to them too. 

He wonders whether it is because you two aren’t close yet, that perhaps you feel the need to thank him for every little thing. He shrugs it off, feeling like you might stop your adorable habit once you fully get to know him. 

But mostly, he wants you to stop looking at him and smiling at him like he’s the candle burning on your desk at dusk, the only source of light when you need it. Because, he feels like it might never be enough when he falls for you. 

It was so easy to fall in love with you, your entire existence a balm to his soul effortlessly. 

He thinks about it then, when he jogs to get you your water bottle from your bag, placed at the very end of the basketball court you were running in to get your daily laps in. 

Just as he’d predicted, you tell him: 

“Thank you.” 

His chest feels too tight, like he’s been running for an hour, when he’s only been jogging for twenty minutes. 

He wants you to stop. 

He wants you to tell him those words for the rest of his life. 

Minho feels like collapsing in the middle of the basketball court, to hit his head hard enough. Just so he can stop this heady feeling from consuming him whole. 

iv. 

Minho feels himself flying in love with you. Why? Because he sees you are already in love with him too. 

It’s unmistakable in the way your eyes search for him whenever he comes into a room.

It’s in how you always try to say yes to all his plans even though he tells you it’s okay if you feel otherwise.

It’s in the way you smile at him, something only for him to see.

But mostly, he knows it because of your eyes. Your eyes light up at his arrival, and they are transparent pools of your love for him, as clear as daylight.

And that, he learns, makes all the difference. 

v. 

Before you, Minho had a hard time trusting words. 

Why?

Because they were grand and promising at first, but empty if they weren’t followed by true actions. 

Most of the people early in his life only talked and talked, empty words with thoughts of what could’ve been, except they never were. 

But with you, Minho knew they were true to their meaning.

 He’d seen you bear the weight of them when you stayed behind for two hours in class to help a failing classmate.

He’d seen you fulfil them when you stayed up for hours writing something for the highest grade you had ever gotten, even if it was for extra credit.

He sees you stay true to them when you call your mom every single day like you’d promised, and when you call him without fail each time you go to the department store to ask him if he wants something. 

All he sees is you. 

You were an exception to his every agenda, every single time. 

He has no complaints. 

vi. 

One week before the finals, you're holed up in your room, ignoring all his calls, and Minho knows what's up. 

Your Psychology exams are what’s up. 

He drops by to your place and lets himself in, shoes placed in your shoe stand, just the way you do it. Going in, he gives a shout to let you know of his arrival. You holler something back & he takes it that you know.

Wandering to the kitchen, he spots a fruit bowl. Thinking that you could use a snack after all the studying you've done, he takes a few oranges from it and heads to your room. 

The sight of you hunched over your desk, buried in your books, your glasses barely hanging off your nose is what greets him.

 For a moment, all of it ceases to exist except him and his thoughts and you.

 He'd read all about the pinings of writers and poets who'd sworn that their lovers and muses were capable of taking their breath away at any time, even when they might look unflattering to the rest of the world.

 Minho had disagreed. One had to look unpresentable when they were buried in work and gave no thought about maintaining their appearance, right? 

 Wrong.

 He's rendered wrong. 

So, so, wrong. 

Because the sight of you then, bare-faced and bespectacled, puckered lips and furrowed eyebrows elicits an emotion he doesn't know how to name.

It's strong, this little feeling and every time you purse your lips or scrunch your nose, it grows stronger. He doesn't know what to do with the stubborn feeling, but he knows it's there to stay.

You were so engrossed in your reading that it took you a good three minutes to find out Minho was in the room.

After you do though, you abandon your textbook on the study desk and turn your attention to Minho. 

“Oh hey. Need something?” 

He chuckles, running a hand through his silky, wine-red strands as he takes you in fully, eyes subtle but greedy in their perusal of you.

 “I should be the one asking you that, you being buried in work and all.”

He gestures to your growing pile of papers, notes, and books. 

You let a whine in response.

“Don’t remind me of that. I’m taking a break. Seriously, I don’t get why I need to know the names of all the medical records used in the world. How am I supposed to treat other people, when I myself am slowly going insane?” 

You punctuate your rambling by sinking further into your chair until it shakes. 

He doesn’t know how to respond to that. But he does know how to make you feel better, that’s one thing he prides himself in. 

Coming to stand in front of you, he slowly reveals the arm behind his back and flourishes the oranges he’s fetched, like a magician exhibiting a miracle. 

You’re a magician of your own, giving away one of your dizzying smiles that he can see in his head for days on end. 

He slowly sits down on the floor, and starts peeling an orange. You join him and reach for one, but he swats your hand away. You frown, but abandon all thoughts of oranges when you remember your assignment, still very much unfinished. 

You abruptly get up, startling Minho out of his trance. He flinches before glaring at you. You cheekily smile down at him. 

“Sorry Min, I have to get this done before nightfall.” 

“Okay.” He says, even as gets up to shove a piece of fruit in your mouth. 

“Mo, yw don undastan-“ 

“Don’t talk while you’re eating.”

You glare at him, but do as he says.  

Even in your disgruntled state, you manage a quiet “Thank you.” 

You know how Minho left the comfort of his home just to come to cheer you up, even when he’s a homebody. And you’re grateful for it; you would’ve holed up in your room until you disintegrated into bits otherwise. 

He just shakes his head. 

Silence prevails in the room for a while, unless interrupted by the clicks of the keyboard and the quiet chewing as he feeds you slices. 

“You don’t have to say thank you to me all the time, y’know?” Minho begins, leaning beside you on your mahogany desk. 

You absently hum and finish typing the sentence. Only then do you fully process his words. 

“Huh?”

“We’re friends now, or at least I think we are. So, you don’t have to thank me for every little thing. It feels like you’re being formal with me.” 

This is the longest you’ve spoken with me, and it’s because of my thank yous. Isn’t that reason enough for me to tell you those words every time? 

The words are at the tip of your tongue, but you swallow them down. They weren’t for now, this moment. 

You just exhale and give his head a ruffle. He dodges it, and glares at you, reminding you of his cats.

Your mouth curves upwards. 

“What are the words ‘Thank you’ for then?

I don’t think they exist just for a half-hearted appreciation for someone I barely know.

I think they exist so I can try and convey my gratitude to the people close to me. I won’t ever be able to fully convey the feelings in words, but I can try.

So think of each of my thank yous as a two-word love letter sealed with joy for being in my life.

Is that better?” 

You duck your head down, shy after your sudden outburst of emotion.

I won’t ever be able to convey my gratitude fully, but I can try. 

A two-word love letter sealed with joy for being in my life. 

Good god, he believes you’re an angel at that instant.

You were ethereal in every way, whether that be the way you talked, the way you walked or the way you looked at him with thoughtful eyes, like he was the star in each one of your universes.

No ordinary person could be like that, could they?

He’s at a loss for words, like usual. And that doesn’t surprise you. He was a man of a few words anyway. 

Stealing an orange slice, you get back to work. 

This time, Minho thinks, even the word ‘delightful’ doesn’t cover it. He’s sure that no word can encompass even a sliver of your essence, except maybe the words ‘Thank you’. 

And he hopes that now you’ll let him tell you that every single day. 

© booksndpoetry 2024. All rights reserved. Please do not plagiarise, translate, repost or steal my works in any way. All idols used in this piece are just inspiration to character. They do not reflect the real people in any way.

[cartoonus-maximus]

Notes and Observations on FNAF TFTP Vol 5: "The Bobbiedots Conclusion"

(Was that always the title of this volume? I swear it used to be something else.)

I didn't enjoy this volume as much as "Submechanophobia," but I think it's about on par with "Somniphobia" -- parts of it were really good, while other parts just didn't grab me like that. Overall I found it a very middle-of-the-road volume.

But I absolutely love the cover art for this one! It looks so cool. (And it depicts a character that we'll meet in "Bobbiedots, Pt 2," a choice that I find interesting for reasons I'll get to later.)

As always, these are just some of my notes and observations made while listening to the audiobook, which I borrowed from my local library. Fair warning: there will be spoilers. If you want the whole experience for yourself, you should skip this and go read/listen to the book yourself first.

Here are my observations on the other books from this series if you’re interested.

I have nothing else to say about this volume as a whole, so let's dive right in!

"GGY"

The protag for this story is Tony Becker, a 12-year-old boy with aspirations of becoming an investigative journalist. As a small child, Tony was interested in newspapers and reporting on events, and he wrote his own "newspaper" about his neighbors.

Tony lives with his mother and grandmother. His father is currently in jail, having been accused and found guilty of embezzling money from the company he worked for, and he will be in prison for the next 20 years. His mother has struggled with going back to work after spending years as a stay-at-home parent, and Tony often performs odd jobs for his neighbors, feeling that he needs to help his family out financially in some way.

Tony's dad was found guilty and is in jail, but he insists he's innocent. Tony had to promise his dad he wouldn't investigate who actually stole the money from his company. (I feel like this implies that his father is really innocent, but knows who the real culprit is and would literally rather take the jail time than rat them out. At least, that's how it came across to me.)

The story opens with Tony sitting in a class at school. It's a writing class, where the students are supposed to be learning about different styles of writing, both fiction and nonfiction, but the teacher has a preference for fiction stories so that's what they mostly focus on. Tony is frustrated with his teacher's choices, because he wants to learn how to write nonfiction books and news articles.

There's this throwaway moment at the opening of the story. Tony is staring out the window instead of paying attention to the lesson, and he thinks he's sees something drop to the ground. For a moment, he thinks it was a person who jumped from the roof, but he ultimately dismisses the idea when he doesn't hear the sound of a body hitting the ground below, and decides he must have just seen a tree branch swaying in the wind. (This scene is never touched on again, or similar situations even alluded to; if it's foreshadowing, it's really badly done.) (If this were a "Fazbear Frights" book, I would assume that shape moving was Eleanor or the Stitchwraith.)

The students are assigned a group writing project, and Tony teams up with his best friend, who is called "Boots" for now, and their new friend, "Rabb." The three of them have been doing group projects together and hanging out after school for several weeks now, and have started calling themselves "the Three Amigos."

The three boys like to use pseudonyms during their writing assignments, and they make up new ones for themselves every week. This week, "Boots" has derived his name from the story "Puss in Boots" (which makes me think this kid has watched one or more of the "Shrek" movies no less than a dozen times!), while "Rabb" is short for "Dr. Rabbit," the pseudonym he's chosen for the week; Rabb doesn't explain to the others what "Dr. Rabbit" means or is in reference to, and Tony decides it's just a random word and a random title. Tony himself decides to go by "Tarbell," after Ida Tarbell.

Tony and "Boots" (whose real name is Ellis) have been best friends for years. However, in the past year, Tony has started to notice that the two of them are maturing at different speeds and developing different interests, and he feels himself pulling away from Ellis. It doesn't help that since "Rabb" joined their friend group, Ellis has been spending more time with him than with Tony.

Rabb is fairly new to their school, having only transferred in a few months ago. He's one of the smallest boys in their grade, and he has large brown eyes and choppy hair, which he admits he cuts himself. Despite that particular admission, Tony perceives both Boots and Rabb as coming from "well off" families, and he believes that the two of them aren't familiar with the cruelty of the world the way he is. He also thinks Rabb is a little mysterious, and has a "feeling that Rabb had layers that Boots would probably never have." (Which is… such a thing to say about your fellow 12-year-olds.)

Instead of getting started on their writing project right away, Boots and Rabb want to go to the Pizzaplex to play in the arcade, and they drag Tony along with them.

The Three Amigos have been to the Pizzaplex several times together. They've ridden the roller coaster, explored the climbing tubes, played Monty's Gator Golf, played Bonnie Bowl, raced Roxy Raceway, and they have most of the animatronic stage shows memorized. Today they're heading for the Faz-cade, Boots and Rabb's favorite part of the Pizzaplex -- this is the giant arcade, filled with games and home of DJ Music Man. There's even a karaoke section, apparently.

Tony goes with his friends, but he's not much of a gamer, so while Boots and Rabb play games he wanders off to people-watch, hoping to get an idea for their writing assignment. While walking around the arcade and watching various gamers play various games, he starts looking at the high scores on the machines, and notices the repeated initials "GGY" as the highest scorer on several arcade machines.

He talks to a few gamers around the arcade, but none of them know who "GGY" is. Some of the other kids he talks to also have high scores on different games, pointing their own initials out to him. A couple of them say that GGY's scores are "too high," suggesting that GGY's scores are impossible to win fairly, and that GGY is hacking the arcade games in order to achieve such numbers. Tony wonders who this "arcade phenom" could be (I hate that word with a passion now, btw) and decides to dig deeper, thinking he could write a story about this mystery gamer.

During this segment, we're also introduced to a pattern of the initials left on the high score list -- there are always three letters, and they're always the initials of the gamer's full name. For example, Tony sees the initials of a top scorer "ABC," which ends up being a high schooler named Axel Brandon Campbell. This established pattern means that every set of initials Tony sees throughout this story are meant to be read as the initials of the player's legal name, with the first letter being the first letter of their first name, the second letter being the first letter of their middle name, and the third letter being the first letter of their surname. By this logic, GGY's full name should be G___ G. Y____.

Tony spends the next week trying to figure out who GGY is, but every turn only gets him more questions and makes him more confused.

Tony runs into and ends up chatting with a Pizzaplex employee named Finbar, who works as an arcade attendant and has a very laid-back personality, addressing everyone as some variation of "dude." When Tony asks what he knows about GGY, Finbar confirms that GGY is a mystery player, and that their scores are all much higher than what should be possible. He and the other arcade attendants and technicians have run diagnostics on the arcade games GGY has played, making sure that the games weren't somehow hacked; their searches came up with nothing.

Finbar suggests that GGY could be another employee, since they would have access to the arcade after hours and would have more time to play the games and get better at them. He also suggests that it could be someone who has stolen or otherwise come into ownership of an employee key card, and is simply using it to play the games after hours.

As Tony asks around about GGY, he gets the feeling he's being watched. When he looks around, he only sees Glamrock Freddy looking in his direction; Tony waves a greeting to the normally friendly animatronic, but Freddy just continues to silently stare at him "like he was sizing Tony up." It creeps Tony out, and he leaves the arcade, aware of Freddy's watching him the entire time.

Later, Tony thinks over this encounter with Glamrock Freddy, and just thinking about it gives him goosebumps. He decides he just experienced an uncanny valley moment from meeting the gaze of a pseudo-sentient robot, and decides not to think any more about it.

At home, Tony tries asking around on internet forums dedicated to arcades, the Fazbear brand, the Pizzaplex. (Who let this 12-year-old make a Reddit account? Get him off there! DX) He ends up having multiple cryptic conversations with someone called "Morrigan99" about the mystery player GGY. "Morrigan99" turns out to be Crystal, a high schooler who lives in town and who Tony met at the arcade earlier in the week, and the two meet up again later to talk. (We'll get back to their conversation later; they talk to each a few times throughout the week, but Crystal doesn't say anything interesting until they meet in person a few days later.)

Thinking about Finbar's theory about GGY having a key card, Tony decides that his next step of investigation is to steal a key card from a Pizzaplex employee. He's read up on pickpockets, and he's sure it can't be that hard. He pretends to fall and injure himself near a Pizzaplex employee, and then steals her key card when she checks to make sure he's alright.

He uses this card to get into an employee computer kiosk, where he accesses the building's computer system. He searches the system for the play pass that GGY would have to use to play all those arcade games, and finds that GGY's play pass has been modified, and it doubles as a security pass.

A 'play pass' in this case is a card that can be won or purchased for use in the Faz-cade or on any other arcade machines on the Pizzaplex property. Using it allows the player to bypass use of physical game tokens, tickets, or money on each game (as the card carries a certain amount of digital currency on it) and allows the more serious gamers to play arcade games without spending time counting out tokens or quarters.

GGY's play pass also acts as a security pass, like the Pizzaplex security guards use, which means that GGY can go anywhere in the Pizzaplex building at almost any time. Tony comes to the conclusion that GGY is good at hacking technology, since they've obviously gotten their hands on either a security pass or a play pass and successfully altered the card in such a way that the computer system recognizes it as both.

While there's no user name attached to this play pass/security pass combo card, there's some information about the card's use. Obviously, the card is used to play several arcade games, after which the player inputs the initials "GGY" into the game when they get a high enough score. But there are also three other names attached to the card as people of interest; it sounds like GGY's card was used to enter locations in the Pizzaplex, but the security cameras only picked up footage of a second person that GGY brought with them after hours, and these other visitors have been identified by Pizzaplex employees at a later date. Tony only sees parts of the names, making out "Mary," "Rae," and "Tree."

While Tony is in the employee kiosk, he sees something move out of the corner of his eye, and looks up to see that Glamrock Freddy is nearby, keeping a careful watch on the kiosk. He manages to slip away from the robot's watchful gaze, and leaves the Pizzaplex.

"Were the animatronics programmed for security as well as for entertainment?" (Y'know, that's a good question. And I think the answer is 'yes, but actually no.')

The evening after this mini adventure, Tony meets up with Crystal. Crystal tells him that she thinks looking for GGY is dangerous, and that he may get hurt or something if he digs too deep. She explains that she hacks into computers as a hobby, and that she likes to poke around the computer systems of various locations and businesses just to see how they're set up and how they work. (Strangely, this isn't the weirdest hobby a teen can have, in my opinion.) She says that she's seen GGY's trail around the Pizzaplex computer systems, and specifically in the programming for the animatronics; she's looked at their code before, just to see what it looked like and how it functioned, but the last time she looked at it, it was different, and now there's new pieces of coding attached to Glamrock Freddy, Chica, Roxy, and Monty's programming. She doesn't know enough to know what the code does, or what sort of commands the animatronics are receiving, but there are a lot of repeating 'G's and 'Y's in the filler spaces of these new lines of code, leading her to believe it may be GGY's doing.

Crystal thinks GGY may be trying to take direct control of the animatronics. Between that and GGY being in possession of a hacked card that looks like both a play pass and a security pass to the computer system, she's come to the conclusion that GGY is dangerous, and she warns Tony against pursuing them, whoever they are.

At first, Tony takes Crystal's advice, and decides to stop actively looking into the mystery of GGY. He doesn't stop thinking about it though, and, when his partners Boots and Rabb show no interest in working on their shared writing assignment, Tony gets to work writing the whole thing himself, and he decides to write from the point of view of the version of GGY he's built up in his mind. In his story, GGY is a clever, shadowy figure who is quietly taking over the Pizzaplex from the inside out, and commands an army of animatronics.

While Tony is working on his homework, his grandmother is watching the news in the next room. On the TV, Tony hears a follow-up report about Mary Schneider, a woman who went missing a few months ago. She worked as the school counselor at Tony's school, and he remembers how worked up everyone was when she first went missing, so he stops to listen to the news report; they haven't found her or her body, and her family are still looking for her.

Later, Tony wonders if the missing school counselor could be the Mary that GGY was presumably seen with. Given the possibility that GGY is one of the kids who frequents the Faz-cade, it's possible that they go to the same school as Tony, and would have at least known about Ms. Schneider. And if that's the case, it's possible that GGY was the last person to see her at all. He decides to investigate into Mary Schneider, wondering to learn if A) GGY is a kid at his school who knew her and B) if they wanted to get rid of her for some reason.

Tony finishes writing the story for the assignment, and shows it to his unhelpful partners the next day at school. Boots skims it and decides it's boring, and Rabb doesn't even read it. (Wow, guys. Really pulling your weight on this group project, aren't ya?) (I kid, but I've definitely been paired up with these kids before in my life. So glad I'm not in grade school anymore.) Both boys decides to rewrite the story together after school, even though Tony already wrote it and it's due tomorrow. Inwardly, Tony thinks real hard about asking the teacher for different partners.

Tony, Boots, and Rabb are aware of a loose window that leads to the school's basement, which they found months ago and is easy enough for them to slip in through from the outside. (Tony doesn't think this is important, and only passively thinks about it as inspiration for another story, but it's important to note that it's a way for someone to slip into the school building without anyone knowing about it, since that's also what GGY is doing at the Pizzaplex.)

In order to investigate his missing school counselor, Tony breaks into the school after hours through this loose window. He makes sure to avoid any of the security cameras around the school, and he heads straight to the computer of the school's secretary. The school's secretary is an elderly woman who asks students to help her with errands sometimes and often types very slowly, so Tony has literally watched her type in the computer password before, so he knows how to log onto the computer.

Tony logs onto this computer and tries to find information about the missing counselor and any students she had sessions with, thinking a troubled student might be his best bet for locating GGY. He finds a list of the counselors that have worked with the school in the past few years: Mary Schneider was the school counselor for a few years, and when she went missing, she was replaced by Raelin Lawrence, who went missing a few weeks later, and then by Treena Welch, who also went missing within a few weeks. Their current school counselor, Georgia Lowe, has only been with the school for a month.

Tony recognizes the names as the names listed beside GGY's card pass. He notes that, while Mary Schneider going missing made the local news, the disappearances of Raelin Lawrence and Treena Welch has been kept pretty quiet; this is the first he's heard of it.

After thinking about it, Tony comes to the conclusion that if GGY is up to something bad in the Pizzaplex, but is also a student at his school, it's possible that the adults have recognized them as a troubled kid and sent them to the counselors office; somehow, the counselors piece together whatever it is GGY is up to, and GGY ends up bringing the counselors to the Pizzaplex to potentially kill them off. (Which is a lot of leaps, but it does fill in some gaps in the information we've already been given.) Tony scrolls through the list of students enrolled in the school, hoping to see someone with the initials "GGY." He doesn't find any.

Tony hears some weird noises around the school, and he gets spooked and runs out.

The next day, Tony goes to school, and has a lot of thoughts in his head about the whole GGY and reprogrammed animatronics and missing school counselors, and he wants to share some of his thoughts with his oldest friend, Boots. But Boots ignores him, and instead shows Tony how he and Dr. Rabbit "improved" Tony's story for their assignment. Apparently, Rabb butchered Tony's story, removing every reference to hacking, technology, arcade games, or the Pizzaplex, and instead turning it into a story about magical wizards doing battle with tentacle monsters.

Understandably, Tony is hurt and angry about his hard work being trashed by his supposed friends. He gets so upset, he stops thinking of them as "Boots" and "Rabb," and instead starts using their real names, Ellis and Greg.

During the school day, Tony gets called to the principal's office, where he is informed that he was caught on the school's security cameras when he broke in and accessed the secretary's computer. Tony knows this is a lie, since there are no security cameras in the locations he went in the school, and he gets the idea that someone was watching him and tattled on him.

Tony tells the principal that he broke in and accessed the computer on a date, and since it's the first time he's gotten in trouble at school, the principal lets Tony off lightly -- Tony has detention, and he also has to help the school secretary as her errand boy for a week.

The secretary, Mrs. Hawkins, isn't bothered by the fact that a student got onto her work computer without her permission. She's comically unbothered about the whole thing, and instead encourages Tony in searching for whatever information he needs in whatever way he needs to. (I just found her character really funny. She's so invested in living vicariously through this boy's misadventures, lol.)

Greg approaches Tony after school, apologizing for changing his story so suddenly. He watches Tony strangely for a few minutes, but then smiles and invites Tony to come with him and Ellis to the Pizzaplex.

.

.

Wow. What an abrupt and anticlimactic ending to this story.

This entire story was basically just: a kid notices some weird things happening, comes to an extreme conclusion and creates a whole story in his head about the weird happenings, but there's never any real answers or explanations. (So, y'know, just normal FNAF theorizing stuff.)

So in total, here's everything we actually know about the mysterious "GGY":

"GGY" plays a lot of the arcade games at the Pizzaplex, and achieves incredibly high scores.

The arcade games show no sign of being bugged or hacked, so "GGY" is very likely not cheating, and is actually just that good at the games.

"GGY" has a play pass (something that is generally assigned to customers) that's been modified so that it also acts as a security pass (like what the security guards of the building carry with them), so "GGY" would be able to use this card to enter 'employee's only' sections of the building, and would likely be able to get into the building after hours.

While they haven't hacked the arcade games, "GGY" has hacked into another parts of the Pizzaplex's building-wide computer system. The only thing they've done is embed commands into the code of the free-roaming Glamrock animatronics, but we don't know what those commands are (but we know Glamrock Freddy perks up and goes on the defensive whenever he hears someone talk about "GGY").

"GGY" doesn't have a customer profile or an employee profile attached to their play pass/security pass access card. There also doesn't seem to be any security camera footage of "GGY." (It's possible that "GGY" has hacked into the camera system to remove video evidence of themself, or it's possible that "GGY" simply looks like any other customer in the building and blends in with the crowd.)

Although "GGY" doesn't have their own customer or employee profile, there's a list of people that have been seen on the security cameras in restricted areas after GGY's card was activated. These people include three adult women, who previously worked as counselors at the same school and have all gone missing; this suggests that GGY, whoever they are, was the last person to see these missing women.

"GGY" is implied to be a set of initials (First name, Middle name, Surname).

Now, these facts, while interesting, don't really tell us much. If anything, they only raise up more questions. Questions that this story isn't interested in actually answering.

Put it's pretty clear that "GGY" is supposed to be the equally mysterious character "Patient #46" from the secret audio CDs in the "Security Breach" game. On those tapes, we hear a series of therapists talking to two patients, one of whom is the security guard Vanessa and the other is unnamed, and just has a case number attached to them; this unnamed patient is never heard speaking to the therapists (seemingly communicating with hand gestures and body language and other visual forms of communication that don't translate to the audio recordings), but we learn a few things about them from what the therapists say, including that the patient is young, is good with technology, likes the Pizzaplex, and is capable of hacking into computer systems. It's also implied through these tapes that the unnamed patient kills off any of the therapists who learn too much about them.

(Also, a thought I had about the whole "GGY has coded secret commands into the Glamrocks, but we don't know what it does" thing. The story implies that this code causes the animatronics to act as GGY's protectors or attack dogs, as they're actively seen responding in a defensive manner when Tony tries to learn about GGY. But, in the "Security Breach" game, we're also told that the Glamrocks have been given the order to go to the basement at night and dig through the rubble, searching for something. Could Patient 46 be the one responsible for that, and sending the animatronics to look for something down there?)

So okay, we have a parallel for "Patient #46." A hacker and a gamer who keeps disappearing therapists. But who are they really, why are they important to the greater FNAF universe (and to the audience), and what is their goal? Those, we don't know.

Except that this story tries to imply that Tony's classmate "Dr. Rabbit" (aka Greg) is "GGY." So, let's look at what we know about Tony's classmate, Greg:

Chooses to go by "Dr. Rabbit" as a fake name. Doesn't explain why.

Loves playing at the Pizzaplex arcade, and is constantly shown either dragging his friends there with him or going there by himself.

Actively tries to dissuade Tony from investigating "GGY," and even rewrites Tony's entire story in which Tony had portrayed GGY as a hacker who wants to take over the Pizzaplex and lead an army of animatronics.

Knows how to get into the school after hours without getting caught.

Is implied to be the one who catches Tony sneaking around the school after hours; to do so, he would have had to be sneaking around the school after hours as well, and would have to have admitted this to the principal when he reported Tony… which may be why Tony sees Greg in the detention hall later, assuming that the other boy got detention as well.

Greg's first name starts with 'G,' like "GGY's" name probably does, but the rest of his name doesn't follow the pattern of initials. When Tony checks the list of students, none of them have the initials G-G-Y, so we know Greg's name doesn't follow the pattern. (Although obviously, Greg could be short for "Gregory," a name that contains two 'g's and a 'y.' But every other set of three letters are people's initials in this story, and it would be strange for GGY to not follow that pattern.)

The story ends with Greg asking Tony to come to the Pizzaplex with him.

Greg asking Tony to come to the Pizzaplex with him isn't weird. It's already well established that Greg likes spending time at the Pizzaplex, and frequently asks Tony and Ellis to join him. However, if we're assuming that Greg is GGY, and if we assume GGY took people who knew too much about him to the Pizzaplex to get rid of them, then the invitation becomes sinister. This involves a lot of assumptions on our part, but it also seems to be what the story is telling us.

So then, if Greg is GGY, and he's trying to accomplish something at the Pizzaplex (which we don't know what his goal is), and he doesn't want anyone to know what he's up to, but people keep noticing him and looking too closely…. then the implied ending of this story is really "Tony prods at something he shouldn't be prodding at, and as a result he's led to the Pizzaplex by someone he thought was his friend, and is then likely killed off in some manner. He's possibly killed by the Glamrock animatronics (mostly likely Freddy), since GGY has control over them." Is that what happened to the counselors? Were they lured to the Pizzaplex somehow and killed by the animatronics? And if so, where are their bodies? They weren't reported dead, they're missing.

… I feel like this story is trying to make the case that Gregory, the player character in "Security Breach," is/was "Patient #46." The Patient 46 parallel character in this story is, presumably, a 12-year-old boy named Greg (potentially short for Gregory) who likes the Pizzaplex and is actively protected by Glamrock Freddy. But given that this Greg/Rabb kid doesn't read as "Gregory stand-in" to me, I'm going to table that for now.

(Although, to some extent, Greg reads almost like a Vanessa stand-in. Has a rabbit persona? Has security clearance of the Pizzaplex, which he uses to lure victims in and probably kills them and hides their bodies? Seems to be leading a double life? I dunno, man, he reads more as a Vanessa parallel than a Gregory parallel to me.)

Also, just a short note: This story seems to take place sometime around 2014-2015. I say this because the high school girl Crystal uses "Morrigan99" as her internet handle, and generally when someone has two numbers in their handle it's representative of their birth year. If Crystal was born in 1999, and we're assuming she's about 15 or 16 years old, that would put our story in the mid 2010s.

And that's all I have to say about "GGY." Onto the next one.

(photo by Pedro Szekely on flickr: link)

"The Storyteller"

This story opens on a board meeting that's happening in an office room on one of the upper floors of the Pizzaplex. We're specifically introduced to two members of the board -- Burrows and Edwin -- who will serve as the protagonists of this story, the first time in this series we've seen a story POV shared between characters.

Burrows is the chairman of the board of the Pizzaplex, despite only being in his 20s. He was some sort of child prodigy who started taking college courses at age 13. He's kind of an obnoxious tech bro in my opinion, and we later learn that his original dream was to become a video game developer, but he ended up in business and his new goal is just to make a name for himself. He's very narcissistic and proud, to the point where he won't even let anyone know his first name so they can't call him by it, forcing everyone to think of him only as "Mr. Burrows."

Edwin Murray is 64-years-old, making him the oldest member of the board and he's often treated by the other board members like a decrepit old man with dementia because they're all so much younger than him. Edwin used to own his own company, and he used to be a highly-respected robotics engineer, but his company ended up going under and getting bought out by Fazbear's. Part of the buy-out deal was that Edwin would become a board member at the Pizzaplex and that he can't quit or be fired; this feels like a punishment of some kind, since Edwin hates interacting with the other board members.

Apparently Edwin has a collection of old vintage posters and signs of Fazbear's characters, despite not having a lot of positive feelings about the company. He seems to keep them partially out of nostalgia and partially out of guilt, but we're not told what the guilt is from yet. We're also later told that Edwin used to have a wife and son, but both died, his wife dying in childbirth and his son dying in a tragic accident we aren't told about in this story; Edwin also keeps an undisclosed memento in his bedroom that makes him feel guilty about his son's death. (I think we'll learn more about that in a later story.)

We're also passively introduced to the rest of the Fazbear board of directors, which consists entirely of relatively young (most of them are in their 30s and 40s), good looking, wealthy people. They're also talking about technology and its functions during this meeting, and none of these non-main-character board members know anything about tech work, so they all just say whatever they thinks Burrows wants to hear.

One of the company's accountants predicts that, based on how the Pizzaplex is currently operating, they aren't actually going to be making any money -- the company will break even with their costs of running the Pizzaplex, but won't actually make a profit. Obviously, this isn't the company's goal, and Burrows needs to come up with ideas for how to make a profit margin.

"I refuse to be trapped in a box!"

The Pizzaplex has a creative team, which is a group of employees who create characters and write stories for those characters to enact. So these are the people who decide what sort of characteristics the animatronics should have and how they should behave, for example. Burrows' plan is to fire all of the people on the creative team and replacing them by an AI program that he'll program himself. Edwin argues that a computer program can't create good characters or tell good stories the way humans can, but Burrows ignores him. (Hitting this man with a stick in my head.)

Burrows decides to call this AI program "the Storyteller," since its job will be generating stories for the Fazbear characters to act out. He describes the AI's role as being "the Pizzaplex's ringmaster." Having to listen to this plan makes Edwin antsy, and he soothes himself by "envisioning himself setting the building on fire." (Yeah, Fazbear's seems to have that effect on people.)

The Storyteller needs to be in a console inside the Pizzaplex, and the console that they finally decide on is one that looks like a fake baobab tree. It's built in the middle of the Pizzaplex's front atrium, and it's very big, the "roots" in the floor and the branches running along the ceiling both concealing wires that lead all across the Pizzaplex, connecting to things all over the building. (I think this tree console is roughly in the same spot where the big golden Glamrock Freddy statue is in the "Security Breach" game.)

You can tell this story was at least partially inspired by the tree character at the Rainforest Cafe, which is a decorative tree with an animatronic face and tells short stories to children that hang out near it.

Burrows says that the baobab tree should be colored in reds, yellows, and blues, instead of using any colors that would naturally occur on the tree. I actually love that idea, because I think that makes for a fun visage that kids would enjoy looking at and planning on, but Burrows wants this color palette specifically because "Green is such an uninspiring color!" which is… such an incredibly moronic thing to say. Green is literally considered a happy color across a lot of cultures in our world, because it's associated with growing, healthy plants and bountiful food, but it's also been observed as inspiring people and boosting creativity. He also says that the tree should be red, yellow, and blue, describing them as "the colors of the rainbow." Like… does he know that's only a fraction of the rainbow? Does he know green is part of the rainbow? Does he know??? Can I hit him with a stick???

So far the most unrealistic part of this story is the 64-year-old man having positive feelings about the younger person with piercings and tattoos on her face.

The inner workings of the Storyteller are designed and programmed somewhere else, and it has to be transported into the Pizzaplex once it's finished. When Edwin asks specific questions about it, Burrows is evasive toward him; it sounds like Burrows found an old animatronic in Fazbear's storage that had a really robust AI, and he's done some work of stripping it of its old personality and reprogrammed it to generate stories.

Being forcefully kept out of the loop, Edwin spies on the Fazbear employees who are relocating the Storyteller while they're bringing it into the Pizzaplex to install inside the tree. To Edwin's surprise, it's not only not a conventional computer like he thought it would be, it's an animatronic, and one that he instantly recognizes. It's an animatronic from Edwin's old company, one that he designed and built himself, and seeing it again makes him have a panic attack.

This animatronic has a tiger head, and it has four arms on its torso. When it's installed inside the tree, it's connected in place by the arms being spread out and secured to the inside of the tree in a way that's clearly meant to suggest that its a captive or a prisoner. (But I'm weird, and my first thought when I heard this description was "oh, like Da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man!'")

Since Edwin built that particular animatronic, he knows why it was scrapped, and he knows that it's going to cause problems once it's wired into the entire Pizzaplex. And of course, this is exactly what happens: within the first week of the Storyteller being plugged into the Pizzaplex computer system and brought online, things start to go sideways around the building. The electrical system (which is hooked into the computer system) goes haywire, with lights coming on and turning off at random times. Doors with electric locks start glitching out, locking and unlocking without prompting. It's nothing dangerous, but it's enough to cause more work for the Pizzaplex employees.

"[Edwin] had to get inside the Storyteller's tree." (I, uh… I got a sneakin' suspitchin about what's going to happen next.)

Despite having been on the committee for designing the console for the Storyteller, Edwin isn't actually allowed to see inside the thing, and he isn't supposed to touch any part of the Storyteller's programming (mostly because he and Burrows don't personally like or trust each other). The main door for entering the Storyteller's tree for programming work is not only well hidden in the grooves of the fake bark, but it's locked to everyone except Burrows and two other unnamed programmers. Edwin does some digging, and learns that there's a hidden maintenance hatch near the top of the tree, and he uses that to get inside, sneaking in during the night when no one else is around.

Once inside the tree, Edwin comes face-to-face with his old tiger animatronic. A computer screen next to the animatronic shows a read-out of the code the AI is running, and Edwin is horrified to see that it's still running his old "Mimic 1" program.

(This isn't out first time hearing about Mimic 1, but it's our first time actually seeing what it is in the stories. Mimic 2 is the animatronic that's been chasing the kids around in the epilogue story, but Mimic 1 is a completely separate AI program. Both were created by Edwin.)

After this, Edwin continues sneaking into the tree every night for the next five nights. We aren't told what he does while he's in there. (… Five Nights at Storyteller's.)

Throughout the first week, the Storyteller begins to have a very negative affect on the animatronics, and the Glamrocks in particular start to display some new emotional behaviors that they didn't have before:

���💅 Roxanne Wolf was designed as a sassy character with a narcissistic streak, who exudes confidence and cares about her appearance. After the Storyteller comes online, she turns into a bully, saying mean things to customers and laughing about it. 🐥🧁 Glamrock Chica was designed to be sweet and fun-loving, as well as a lover of food. She also has a sidekick character, Mr. Cupcake, who she's supposed to have playful banter with. After the Storyteller comes online, she becomes really rude and snarky, ignoring food entirely and only interacting with Mr. Cupcake to pick verbal fights with him. 🐊🎸 Montgomery Gator was designed to act like a wild rock star with a bad boy streak, who breaks his guitars for show but is also charming and gentle with the kids. After the Storyteller comes online, he's started lashing out violently against everyone and everything. When he's not throwing temper tantrums, he's in some sort of depressive episode, and it gets so bad that little kids cry from just being near him. 🐻🎙️ Glamrock Freddy was designed to be kind and reliable, and friendly with the young customers. After the Storyteller comes online, he becomes a self-centered brute, who tries to steal toys from children and breaks down into tears when he's told off for his bad behavior.

(During this segment, Chica is also described as being yellow and wearing a bib. While these characteristics are common design choices for Chica across the franchise, it's not what she look like at the Pizzaplex; the Pizzaplex design for Chica is usually white and wears a leotard. So either the author of this story simply got confused between the different versions of Chica, or we're dealing with a different version of Glamrock Chica than the one we see in the "Security Breach" game/s.)

Burrows knows that Edwin has been sneaking into the Storyteller's tree during the night, but he didn't know what the other man was doing, so he chose not to do anything about it. After he witnesses Glamrock Freddy get into a fight with a little girl over a plush Freddy toy, Burrows grows concerned about the changes the Storyteller has made to the animatronics' personalities, worried that the robots may end up hurting someone. Since Edwin was so vocally against the Storyteller every step of the way, Burrows comes to the conclusion that Edwin is sabotaging the program.

Burrows has a remote locking mechanism installed on the maintenance hatch of the Storyteller's tree, which he can activate and lock remotely from another location. On the sixth night, from the comfort of his own home, Burrows watches the feed from a security camera as Edwin climbs into the tree. He locks the hatch once Edwin is inside.

At this point, Burrows genuinely thinks Edwin is trying to sabotage both the AI program (and by extension the computer systems of the entire Pizzaplex) and the Fazbear's company as a whole. He knows how dangerous that could be (since the Storyteller is connected to literally everything else in the Pizzaplex building, a serious malfunction could be fatal to both the employees and the customers). With this in mind, Burrows decides to imprison Edwin inside the tree, at least for awhile. He knows there's only a limited amount of air inside the tree, but, even if Edwin dies, Burrows thinks he's doing the company and the customers a favor.

He leaves Edwin in the tree for the next week. Throughout this week, Burrows thinks a lot about the man he trapped, and he thinks in circles to himself about whether or not he really did the right thing.

No one notices that Edwin is missing. And no one notices that there's a person inside the tree. When no one else says anything about it, Burrows (for some reason) comes to the conclusion that, since no has noticed a man trying to escape from inside the Storyteller tree, Edwin must have found another exit. (Or he, y'know… ran out of air and died?? You incredible moron???)

After the week has passed, Burrows decides to look in the tree himself. When he enters, he's surprised to find it filled with construction paper, each sheet covered in crayon drawings of squiggles, basic shapes, strange symbols, stick figures, and the repeated words "I'm sorry." Amidst the pile is Edwin's corpse, clutching a crayon in his hand; it looks like he was halfway through writing another "I'm sorry."

Burrows is suddenly beset with panic, and a sense of needing to be anywhere else. He tries to leave, but is unable to, having locked himself inside by mistake. He tries to access the Storyteller's control panel, but his passwords are denied. He ends up attacking the physical body of the Storyteller, tearing off parts of the tiger animatronic. He beats at the insides of the tree, yelling and trying to make enough noise to attract someone's attention outside. No one can hear him, and he realizes that the tree is soundproof just as he blacks out, running out of air.

… And that's it. That's where we end off!

.

.

So mainly this story introduces us to the Mimic AI, a related but entirely different beast from the Mimic Animatronic. The Mimic animatronic is the endoskeleton that's been chasing and killing the kids in the epilogue stories, and at this point it's not clear if that animatronic has any sort of intelligence, artificial or otherwise; it mostly just seems to follow a very simple set of protocols, and doesn't seem to have anything like a creative thought process. The Mimic AI, conversely, is literally just a computer program with rudimentary problem solving and creative capabilities; while it has an animatronic body, it doesn't have any motor skills in that body, and it can't move or anything.

Mimic 2 is an animatronic that, right now, is behaving like a mindless monster.

Mimic 1 is an AI system that is in control over the entire Pizzaplex, but has no functional physical body at the moment.

(Makes me wonder if the animatronic and the AI used to be a single Mimic entity, and they've been separated for some reason.)

Also I think this story tells us a little bit about the infamous Post-It Note Room. The story ends with Burrows finding Edwin with the Mimic 1, surrounded by scraps of colorful paper that (presumably) Edwin has drawn and written on. The notes and drawings on these paper pieces don't mean anything to Burrows, but, since we know Edwin and Mimic 1 have a connection with each other, the drawings and notes are probably meaningful to them. And, given the sheer volume of these paper pieces that are in the tree, I wonder if Edwin was bringing packs of construction paper and crayons with him into the tree each night for the first week, and has been sitting inside the tree drawing and writing these things as a way of communicating with the Mimic 1.

In the "Security Breach" game, there's a section known to many fans as "the Post-It Note Room," or similar names. It's a room filled with broken Staff 'bot heads and lots and lots of sticky notes; the note papers have lots of drawings and coded messages on them, which are very interesting to look at and try to decipher. (And another big part of this room is that it conceals a closet where a makeshift "family" of broken Staff 'bots are sitting around a table, seemingly arranged as though having dinner together.)

So obviously there's a connection here. Someone in the Pizzaplex has a connection to the Mimic AI (presented in the games as both Glitchtrap and Helpi), and has been using the Post-It Room to interact with it. But who this is, we don't know. Maybe Edwin exists in the games? Or maybe there's another character in the games that is a parallel to Edwin? It could potentially be Vanessa or Tape Girl, two game characters who we know have some sort of interaction with the AI. Or it could be someone else entirely. We're missing this very big, very important puzzle piece. But the connection is there, and it's definitely something we should make note of.

I can't really explain why, but Edwin and Burrows read to me as character parallels to Henry and Afton. I don't have clear evidence for why, but that's the vibe I got -- it may just be me looking for something that isn't there. (But I will say that rabbits and foxes live in burrows, and of course those are the animals associated with the Aftons and with the animatronics that are conspicuously missing from the Pizzaplex.)

"Bobbiedots, Pt 2"

(Here's a link to where I talked about "Part 1" if you need a refresher course!)

In this story, we pick back up where we left off with our boy, Abe. Abe thinks over some of his injuries and even near-death experiences he's had in this apartment, and how the Bobbiedot AIs blame their robotic predecessors. Since Abe still hasn't actually seen any of the Gen 1 Bobbiedots, he realizes he doesn't know anything about them. He doesn't even know if they're real, or if his little AI friends have been lying to him. He decides to look deeper into it.

Since Abe works as a technician at the Pizzaplex, he has access to all the company's information about their animatronics, other robotic creations, and computer programs. He searches through the files for specs about the Bobbiedots' prior incarnation as cleaning robots, but he only finds information about the designs and installation of the current Bobbiedots, the virtual assistants.

Abe's thought process informs the reader that it's not unusual for Fazbear to simply delete or otherwise hide files related to any robot that's malfunctioned to the point that they had to be recalled; he believes that, if the Gen 1 Bobbiedots really exist, this is likely what happened.

Not finding any computer files about the Gen 1 Bobbiedots and not having access to the archived paperwork, Abe decides to go look around the storage facilities in the Pizzaplex basement. The Pizzaplex has multiple underground levels, only accessible by employees and robotic assistants, and Abe thinks of them as the dungeon below the building. The highest of these underground levels is a storage warehouse, where machinery, animatronic pieces, and large decorative items are kept when not in use; this level also contains the Pizzaplex's main utility maintenance section. We're also told that there are several Pizzaplex employees who work specifically on this level.

In the utility section of this level there's an opening that leads to "the sewer system." Abe's thoughts tell us that this isn't a true sewer system, but rather just a space where water flows through and trash builds up (it's not connected to the city's sewers or anything). A lot of discarded robots tend to up here; since many of the robotics can't really be shut off, they tend to just wander around in this trash-filled space, almost like metal zombies. Abe thinks this whole space is a waste, and he doesn't understand why it's here.

Abe enters the "sewer," thinking that, if the Gen 1 Bobbiedots existed, there might be some old models or parts that got lost in here. When he enters and turns on his flashlight, the first thing he sees is a severely damaged Glamrock Chica, sprawled out on the ground and blinking up at him. Her face is broken and her beak is missing, leaving the lower part of her face a "gaping maw." (So, Chica after Gregory literally trashes her in "Security Breach?")

While he's down here, Abe sees a broken, eyeless Mr. Hippo animatronic. The sight makes him sad, since Mr. Hippo was always one of his favorite characters of the Fazbear cast. Beside the animatronic, he sees a Mr. Hippo magnet on the ground, and he decides to take it as a souvinir. We're told that the magnets were made too strong, and they often shorted out electrical items they were stuck on, so they had to be recalled.

Abe finds many discarded endoskeletons and other robots and robotic parts, but no Bobbiedots.

A day later, Abe goes to bed early, which causes the Bobbiedots to enter sleep mode for the night. He gets up during the night, trying to avoid waking the AI assistants. His bedroom door is locked, locked by Olive "to keep him safe during the night," but the lock is electronic and he can't manually unlocked it. He uses the Mr. Hippo magnet on it and the door opens easily. He sneaks down the hall toward the kitchen of the apartment, and he sees the ceiling trapdoor open. He doesn't see any robotic cleaners at first, but he can see the cables they're connected to leading from the trapdoor to the floor, moving about like tentacles. These tentacle-like cables move around, seemingly with a mind of their own, feeling around the area.

Abe finally sees one of the Gen 1 Bobbiedots. This robot's body is mostly silver and black, with feminine features and the black cables coming out of her head like hair. She has a pink panel on her chest, designating her as #3, the precursor to Rose. One of her eyes is missing entirely, and the other one doesn't seem to work, and feels her way around the apartment using her hands and cable-hair. When Abe makes a soft sound of surprise, she runs toward him, and he runs back to his bedroom, closing the door on the blind robot. After a moment, #3 returns to the ceiling compartment.

A few nights later, Abe decides to leave the safety of his bedroom again. He's trying to figure out what he should do about the old Bobbiedots. This time, on his trip out, he runs into the other two robots. The first one he sees has a blue panel on her chest, designating her as #1, the precursor to Gemini. She has a black and silver body like the first one did, with with the same hairlike cables on her head. She's in worse shape than #3 was, and is missing an arm and large pieces of her exoskeleton. The lower half of her face's outer shell is completely gone, exposing her endoskeleton mouth and teeth. She has blue eyes, but is also blind, and she walks right past Abe when he stands perfectly still. She seems to be trying to hum to herself, making some sort of rhythmic sound with her voice box, but her voice box is clearly damaged and the sounds she makes just sound like low-pitched gurgles. (This is the character featured in the cover art for this volume. Congrats on making the cover, girlie!)

Abe accidentally gets #1's attention, and she chases him through the apartment. He almost trips over #2, who is in even worse shape than her sisters, missing her entire exoskeleton shell and missing her legs entirely. She moves by dragging herself along the ground.

(Does the damage of these robots sound familiar? It should, because it mirrors how we see the Glamrock animatronics in parts of the "Security Breach" game and in all of the "Ruin DLC." In those games, Roxy is blinded, and the player has to avoid making noise to attract her attention; Chica loses the lower part of her face, and can no longer speak properly; Monty gets wrecked, losing the lower part of his body and most his outer shell, and he crawls after the player for most of those games.)

Abe is cornered by #1 and #2, and is saved by the Gen 2 Bobbiedots coming back online. Gemini turns on the TV full blast and plays loud music, causing the damaged robots to jerk around and writhe in panic. Abe sustains injuries from where the damaged robots try to grab at him, but flees and makes it to the safety of his bedroom, where Rose and Olive instruct him in cleaning and wrapping his injuries.

Some of his injuries are bad enough that he thinks about going to a hospital, but he ultimately chooses not to, unsure of how to explain where he received these injuries. He wraps himself in gauze and bandages. When he goes to work the next day, several of his coworkers express concern about his many bandages. Abe waves their concerns off, saying that he walked into a glass door at a friend's house.

At work, Abe repairs a broken down part in Monty's Gator Golf. One of the holes has a decorative birthday cake that's supposed to spin on a pedestal, but it's not working. When Abe first arrives at the broken machinery, he finds a small child hitting the side of the fake cake, and she tells him that that's what her daddy does with the TV when it's not working right. (Which I thought was comical, but I don't think that's something you can do with modern TV sets, is it?)

Later in the day, Abe walks down one of the main walkways of the Pizzaplex, passing the animatronics' green rooms and the gallery displays that showcase parts from both old and new Fazbear animatronic designs. While here, he meets a woman named Sasha, a social worker who wants to talk to a Fazbear employee about the animatronics.

Sasha explains that she specifically works with troubled kids, and that she's checking out the Pizzaplex to see if she thinks it's a good place to bring her young clients. While she likes the place, and she knows a lot of children do as well, she expresses her concerns about the Glamrocks in particular, citing that she feels they often come across to children as self-centered and loud, and she doesn't think a child who's already dealing with other problems would have a good time around them; she actually thinks many of the children she works with would find the animatronics scary. She wants to know Abe's opinion, since he works here and knows more about the animatronics. Abe tells her that he thinks the Pizzaplex is a great place for kids, but he admits that, if he was a dad, he wouldn't bring his hypothetical child here very often, or leave them unattended, and he certainly wouldn't want them spending very much time near the animatronics.

The two really hit it off during their conversation, and Abe ends up asking Sasha out. She agrees, and the two later meet up for a dinner date, where they continue their conversation. Sasha says that she's fascinated by the history of Fazbear's, and that she's read up on all the rumors, the mysteries, and the scandals. When Abe tells her about the virtual assistants in his apartment, Sasha gets intrigued, and she says she'd like to meet them. Against his better judgement, Abe ends up inviting her to his apartment for a second date.

Back at his apartment, Abe installs a padlock on the ceiling trapdoor. The Gen 2s watch, and tell him that they don't think the Gen 1s will be able to break the lock, so they should be safely contained. With that problem out of the way, Rose, Olive, and Gemini are eager to help Abe impress his new lady friend.

The home dinner date with Sasha goes well. When she comes over, Sasha immediately hits it off with the Bobbiedots, finding them very cute, helpful, and pieces of impressive worksmanship. The Bobbiedots express their approval of Sasha, then leave so she and Abe can be alone. Abe and Sasha have a good evening together.

After a few more good dates, Abe tells Sasha about the full situation with the Bobbiedots. Sasha listens, and, to his surprise, believes what he says; she knows enough of Fazbear's and their robots to believe that some cleaner 'bots could easily go off the rails. But she compares the actions of the Gen 1s to those of some of the troubled kids she's worked with in the past, and suggests that they could be acting out like kids do, either because there's something wrong with their emotional processors or because they've been mistreated in the past. Abe realizes he doesn't know much about the apartment's previous tenant, and he decides to do some digging.

Later at work, Abe looks up the personnel files of the previous tenant, learning that he was a Pizzaplex employee named Landon Prout. According to the file, Landon was undergoing treatment for "delusional paranoid disorder," as the man apparently thought that all of the animatronics at the Pizzaplex were actively stalking him, and were going to kill him. Landon was convinced to take a leave of absence, but seemingly never returned to work at the Pizzaplex after that. When Abe tries calling the phone number on Landon's file, it's answered by a woman who bursts into tears and hangs up with Abe asks for Landon.

Abe wonders if Landon was genuinely suffering from a delusion, or if he was genuinely in danger; he's seen enough shady things around the Pizzaplex to know that Landon's fears may have been for nothing.

The Gen 1 Bobbiedots beat on the trapdoor enough that Abe's padlock is forced out of its own screws, and it falls off entirely.

Sasha wants to spend the night at Abe's apartment. Since she's trained in how recognize the actions of a troubled or otherwise unwell person, and Fazbear animatronics are programmed to experience and act on something akin to human emotions, she thinks she may be able to help understand what's going on with the Gen 1s by observing them in person. Abe is uncomfortable with the idea at first, but relends. Rose, Olive, and Gemini get excited about the idea of a sleepover.

During the night, Abe and Sasha silently observe the Gen 1s as they move throughout the apartment. When they accidentally make noise, the robots all rush Abe, circling around him and hemming him in -- they don't seem to notice Sasha at all. When Abe and Sasha make it back to Abe's bedroom, which the robots can't seem to enter for some reason, Sasha says she doesn't think the Gen 1s are trying to hurt him. When they first slipped into the room, it looked like one of them was taking down a trap of some kind, but not setting it to start with. When they all circled Abe, it looked like they were acting as bodyguards, trying to protect him. She believes that the robotic Bobbiedots are trying to help and protect Abe, but, because they're damaged, their intentions come across wrong, and they end up harming him by mistake.

When Abe asks aloud "If the Gen 1s are trying to protect me, who are they protecting me from?," Sasha glances at the screens where the Gen 2s usually project themselves. Abe and Sasha quietly get up and try to leave the apartment, only for all the doors to suddenly lock themselves. The Gen 2s' screens light up, revealing Rose, Olive, and Gemini all smiling evilly at the two humans. Chaos erupts as the evil virtual assistants turn on every piece of equipment in the apartment at once.

Abe and Sasha escape the havoc by climbing up through the trapdoor in the kitchen ceiling. The Gen 1s had already returned to their crawlspace, and they start wailing and shrieking at this intrusion. Sasha calms them down, and they respond to her like scared children seeking comfort.

#3 is the only one with a functional voice box, and she manages to speak a few broken sentences. Sasha and Abe ask her about herself and her sisters, and #3 tells them that they were supposed to take care of Landon, a task that became more and more difficult as he fell deeper into his paranoia. At one point, during his leave of absence from work, Landon had an episode and was going to burn down the apartment building, and #3 and her sisters were forced by their programming to kill their own tenant in order to protect the building and the other tenants. None of these Bobbiedots seem happy about that outcome.

#3 tells Abe that the Gen 2s in this apartment were experimental, the prototype that came before all of the other AI Bobbiedots. They have a glitch in their system, causing them to perceive all humans as parasites that need to be eliminated. (It can't be a very big glitch, since they haven't made that many attempts on Abe's life, all things considered.) She then talks Abe through the process of shutting down the AI Bobbiedots.

This conversation is interrupted by the AI Bobbiedots opening a water pipe in the ceiling, filling the space with water and causing the ceiling below them to burst open. The two humans and three robots are washed out of the space, falling down into the kitchen which is quickly becoming flooded. The Gen 1s short out in the water, due to having so much of their inner workings exposed, and they all shut down and sink to the floor. Abe and Sasha are left scrambling for high locations, trying to keep out of the electrified water.

Abe manages to get to the computer terminal and shuts down the Gen 2 Bobbiedots. The electricity in the apartment dies with them and, while the apartment is completely waterlogged, it becomes safe to walk around again. Sasha frets over the unresponsive Gen 1s.

A sensor in the apartment sends out a flooding alert, and a maintenance robot calls Abe on the phone to ask about the water. Abe says that the bathtub overflowed, and the robot tells him that a team will be sent for clean up.

After the apartment floods, Abe is forced to come clean to his superiors about his unlawful stay in the apartment. Instead of firing him, the higher-ups at Fazbear are just glad that he solved their problem of the misbehaving Bobbiedots for them, and they just give him the apartment outright. No longer having to hide, Abe starts using the building amenities and starts meeting his neighbors.

With his job and living situation secure, Abe and Sasha decide to take their relationship to the next level, and Sasha moves into the apartment with him. The renovate and redecorate the apartment together, turning it into a proper living space, and make plans to move Abe's mom in with them, so she's not isolated from her family in the care facility anymore.

Abe also starts salvaging a lot of old robotic parts from the Pizzaplex basement levels, and he and Sasha work together to repair the Gen 1 Bobbiedots. They repair both the robots' inner workings as well as their outer appearances, trying to make them look as cute and friendly as possible. Sasha has even named them, naming the three robots after European queens:

#3, the pink-coded one who was missing an eye, is Victoria

#2, the green-coded one who was missing her legs, is Isabella

#1, the blue-coded one who was missing her mouth, is Elizabeth (!!!)

Their plan is for the Bobbiedots to help take care of Abe's mom during the day while Abe and Sasha are at work. Abe thinks his mom will like having some robot girlies to talk to, and he thinks the Bobbiedots will like being able to help people again (y'know, the thing they were originally programmed to do). The Bobbiedots are still off-line and unresponsive at this point, but Abe and Sasha are both hopeful about getting them up and running again soon.

.

.

So this story is interesting to me for a lot of reasons. For one, it's the first (and only) two-part story of this set, and I think Andrea did a pretty good job with it. For another, it ends on a happy ending, one that leaves both the human and robot characters on a good note, and we don't get that very often in this series.

And I just gotta say… Elizabeth? The blue-eyed robot on the cover is named Elizabeth? In this franchise? What a choice. (To clarify, it doesn't strike me as an actual reference to Elizabeth Afton, but it definitely feels jarring to see that name used again.)

Speaking of reused concepts, there are a lot of references to "Security Breach" in this story. Abe goes to several locations from the Pizzaplex in that game. He encounters a trashed Glamrock Chica. He finds a Mr. Hippo magnet. But, despite these parallels, he's not a stand-in for any of the characters in that game. He doesn't have anything in common with Vanessa. There are several moments where he feels almost like a Gregory stand-in of some kind, but then his actions in specific situations are the opposite of what Gregory does (he reacts positively to find the Mr. Hippo magnet, for example); it feels like Abe's journey and Gregory's journey are parallel to each other, but they as characters are not.

Strangely, for being a plot device rather than a character, Landon feels a little bit like Gregory and/or Glamrock Freddy: he trashes the robots around him, believing that they're out to get him, and he tries to set the building on fire.

Sasha also reminds me of Cassie, Gregory's friend who we meet in the "Ruin" DLC. She has positive feelings about the Fazbear animatronic characters, and she expresses concern over the broken robots (and again, the Bobbiedots are directly parallel to Roxy, Chica, and Monty).

Sasha, apparently: "All robots are queens!" Rose, Olive, and Gemini: "If she cleans, she's a thot!"

And again, we are being directly told "It's not the animatronics themselves that are evil! It's the AI running the building that you need to watch out for!"

So yeah, overall this was a really fun story with plenty of "Security Breach" and "Ruin" vibes built in. I really enjoyed it in a way I haven't been enjoying most of these stories.

(I want to see Abe, Sasha, and their robot daughters again sometime. I think that would be fun.)

"Epilogue"

Unknown to them Lucia, Kelly, Adrien, and Jace are the only ones left; our cast of kids have been literally halved. The four of them have been closed up in a room, trying to operate an old, broken radio in a bid to contact someone on the outside for help.

Lucia and Kelly get the radio working briefly, and they hear a static-y voice calling for help. Thinking one of their friends is trying to contact them from somewhere else in the Pizzaplex, they ask the voice for directions that they then try to follow; following these directions leads them out of the safety of the room they're in, and also leads them directly to the Mimic.

The Mimic attacks them, and is now wearing a monkey costume. All the lights in the area go out. (I guess the Mimic's presence just always messes with the electrical systems?)

The kids escape, and find another hiding place. They realize that, if the Mimic is focusing entirely on them, that probably means Joel and Wade are dead. They also realize that the Mimic was the voice talking to them over the radio, pretending to be one of their friends or another victim.

The kids end up splitting up again. Since the girls are good with technology, they're assigned to stay in the room and work more on the radio; hopefully they can get it working well enough that they can contact someone for help. The boys take the task of leaving the room and searching for a way out.

Lucia picks up the Mimic's user manual again, studying it for any information that could help them. All she learns is that there's a power-off button on the back of the Mimic's neck, but this doesn't help then right now. She thinks about how much she had been enjoying a robotics course at school, and she thinks that, if she ever gets back to school, she'll probably drop the course; all enjoyment she had on the subject has been sucked out by the Mimic.

Kelly focuses on working on the radio. She admits that ham radios is one of her hobbies, something about herself she's never shared with any schoolmates before. Both Kelly and Lucia connect further with each other over their shared experience of having hobbies that are "too nerdy for girls."

The boys crawl through an air duct, trying to avoid the Mimic. They see the Mimic through a vent cover, and it seems to see them, but it's unable to get to them while they're inside the vent. After some searching, the boys find the room where Joel and Wade were supposed to be, and they're shocked and horrified to come face-to-face with their classmates' remains.

Adrien hears the hum of the fan above them, and, like Joel, he think they could use the fan's duct as an escape hatch. He shares his thoughts with Jace, and they begin searching for a way to turn the fan off. Unable to find any controls or switches that control the fan, the boys have to go searching around the Pizzaplex for something to jam into the fan.

During their search, they run into the Mimic again. The Mimic is now wearing the costume of a "mangled dog, with one ragged ear and a torn muzzle." The boys run, ducking into the theater stage are to hide. Eventually, the Mimic wanders off, and the boys race back to the systems room where the opening to the fan is.

Having collected an animatronic leg, Adrien plans to climb up the chute and jam the fan with the metal leg. Just as Adrien enters the chute, the boys hear the Mimic outside the room, and the lights start to flicker. Adrien gets in the chute, and Jace finds a space to hide under the control panel just as the lights go out completely. (Very "Sister Location" Night 1 of him, tbh.)

The fan's motor is too powerful, so when Adrien jams the animatronic leg up into it the fan just chops the leg up, and Adrien is sprayed with heated shards of metal. The burns make him fall down the chute, where he's caught by the Mimic. From his hiding space behind the control panel, Jace listens as Adrien is killed by the Mimic.

(… And then there were three.)

[acacia-may]

Hmmm… What to ask? 🤔/lh

1) Between sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty, which do you like best?

2) What’s one piece of media you thought you might watch but just never found the time/energy for?

3) Favorite character (from any media) to dislike/dunk on?

Hi Erika! Thank you so much for such a fun ask and for playing my game!

From this Ask Me Any 3 Questions About Myself Game 🥰

1) Between sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty, which do you like best?

Definitely salty! I can enjoy the others from time to time, but I think I gravitate most towards salty foods when I'm picking meals or snacks for myself. I actually got a bag of my favorite kind of potato chips as a birthday present this year! It was great! 🥰

2) What’s one piece of media you thought you might watch but just never found the time/energy for?

Goodness, my to-be-read and to-be-watched lists are embarrassingly lengthy... I feel like there's a time and place for certain stories so even things I end up really loving tend to sit on those future media lists for a long, long time. With Fairy Tail for instance, a family friend stayed with us for a while about 5 years ago and recommended it. I finally started it last year 😅 (which was perfect for me because it was really the uplifting and wholesome story I really needed at the time, but it was still a little embarrassing when I reached out to my friend like "hey thanks for that recommendation from 5 years ago. It took a long time for me to actually get around to it, but I loved it!" 😁😂).

Until recently Fairy Tail was kind of "the big thing" on my to-be-watched anime list so I had to think about this one a little bit... but I think I'd say Noragami. I had a friend who was really into it for a while, and I actually watched the first episode with her and liked it. Always intended to go back to actually watch it but kept getting distracted by other things. It's been in my queue for years now... 😅

[This was not part of the question but for manga, Blue Exorcist... I watched the anime and wanted to know what happened so I checked out a ridiculous amount of volumes from my local library (probably around 15 or so)--three separate times! Never got around to reading any of them and had to return them each of the three times. Now I'm too embarrassed to try to check them all out again 🙈]

3) Favorite character (from any media) to dislike/dunk on?

Ooh! This is such a fun question! I actually really love doing this in real life, believe it or not. My sister makes a lot of jokes that I need "Swear Jars" for certain characters because I can just bash them for hours at a time. 😂😅

I have code names for all of them so I don't give my friends spoilers if they haven't seen, read, or watched the story they're from since a lot of them aren't to that level of visceral detestation upfront and my friends would be all "What? Why this character? I know they're an antagonistic character, but...really? You don't like them that much..." (And yes, really! I don't like them that much! But I want my friends to get to have the experience of coming to their own conclusion about things without being swayed by the fact I just can't stand this or that character).

All the code names are various specific and/or unusual forms of milk (i.e. Bagged Milk, Spilled Milk, Moldy Milk ect.). It's a bit of a long story but "The Milks" phenomenon basically started when I completely misread a meme my sister sent me about one of them ("Bagged Milk"), and (after thoroughly teasing me for my silly mistake) she thought it was such a funny insult to this character to call him “Bagged Milk” so we just started calling him "Bagged Milk" when bashing on him (which was one our favorite activities at the time). It just so happened that all of my friends and all of my sister's friends were starting to get into this particular series around this time, and we wanted to have a way to discuss it with them without spoiling things, so when I went to a party with my friends and mentioned to someone that my sister and I call a particular character in the story "Bagged Milk" (trying to avoid spoilers). My friend started laughing and said he knew exactly who I was talking about before having to explain, and the code name quickly took off in my friend group and we all started calling this character "Bagged Milk." 😂 My sister introduced the same thing with her friends too so now we have a very small circle of people who just call this one character "Bagged Milk" (which honestly might be my greatest contribution to the world given how utterly detestable this character is). One of my best friends actually read this entire series for the purpose of discovering the identity of "Bagged Milk," and memes have even been made amongst my family and friends using a picture of literal bagged milk in lieu of a picture of this character. 😅 (My sense of humor is really bizarre at times, friends).

Anyway, after that really round about answer to your question, I'm going to put my actual response under the cut because I don't want to be responsible for anyone's accidental spoilers, but, naturally, I've chosen "Bagged Milk" who is the King of All of "The Milks" and started "The Milk" phenomenon in the first place. I definitely detest him the most and will bash on him for hours and hours and hours (and have so much fun doing so), so I'm going with him. 🥛

(Warnings: Spoilers for Demon Slayer below the cut)

The answer to your question is Doma from Demon Slayer (otherwise known as "Bagged Milk" in incredibly specific, small circles). UGH!! Freaking Upper Moon 2! I can't stand him. I thought about including a picture, but you know who he is and even looking at him makes me feel viscerally disgusted. I fully admit he is a well written villain and an incredibly interesting character. He is even entertaining at times--admittedly he even made me laugh on occasion which only makes him so much more detestable than he would've been otherwise. Admittedly, he is a masterfully crafted antagonist, but I cannot describe to you the complete and utter loathing and disgust I feel for him viscerally, deep in my bones. I have never enjoyed detesting a character this much (and probably never will again though I do enjoy bashing on the other "Milks"), and I have literally bashed on him for hours and hours at time. (It's one of my favorite things to do with my friends! 😁) I will spare you from me doing that here, but yes, Doma deserves to be bashed, detested, disliked, and dunked on. And I have taken it upon myself to do so which is why I need a "Bagged Milk" swear jar... 😅

Also for your trouble, please have this poor quality meme that was being passed around between my friends at the beginning of the "Bagged Milk" phenomenon... 😂

[aemoglobin]

watched half of a manga collection organizing video and got overwhelmed with resentment towards the past!me who decided it was a great idea to let some ungrateful kids have pretty much her entire manga and shonen jump collection 

like i gave up two boxes of manga and magazines to my sister’s ex-boyfriend’s stepsisters because they were in their manga phase. i didn’t even get a ‘thank you’ card.

on one hand i DID need to downsize, and a lot of those series i wasn’t reading or enjoyed having, so i was glad to see them gone so i could start over. on the other hand oh my god i want my naruto manga and my shonen jump magazines back soooooo badly. on a third hand i really hope those girls treasured what i gave them because it represented hundreds of dollars and years of investment lol. on my fourth hand there was no way i could have kept all of those manga volumes AND moved out from CA to WI......so it was better to have given them to some kids who would enjoy them even if that enjoyment was momentary. like it was that, or i would have donated the entire collection to a local library.

so now i have only one box of manga that hasn’t been unpacked in years, and it’s most of the series i DID enjoy enough to keep + the BL volumes i obviously wasn’t going to give to a 12yo lmfao. i have some of these out on my bookshelf but it’s not Enough room for the whole collection i still have. 

i am taking it slower with collecting manga now. putting more thought into the series i want to buy, etc. the thing that stops me from preordering every series i like is the fact i have nowhere to put any more volumes unless i buy more shelves, and i don’t want to do that because if i end up moving again any time in the next 5 years it’s gonna be THE biggest pain to get everything packed and transported. i don’t know how people with 500+ volume collections do it. maybe they’re homeowners. who knows!

[elenajohansenreads]

I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday

for my birthday, because I had one new(ish) and one very old gift card to burn. ($20.00 and $1.19, as it turned out; I genuinely don't remember when I got the old one, I found it sitting at the bottom of the junk drawer and wasn't sure it had anything left on it at all.)

I don't think I'd been since before the pandemic; I used to go a lot as a teenager living at home with my bibliophile mother, then less and less as the years went on, and even in the late 2010s pre-pandemic, barely at all because I had discovered the cheapest source of random physical books to try reading, my library system's constant cycle of used book sales.

I know this is hitting me late, and it's going to keep hitting me at surprising times, but I was totally overwhelmed. Not by people (it wasn't that busy and it's a very open space) but by the sheer volume of books, and thus, my choices.

I didn't go in with a plan of what to buy. I used to pick up bargain books there a lot; random cookbooks that looked interesting, or discounted journals, sometimes even fiction hardcovers that were deeply marked down because they didn't sell all that well and the store needed them gone.

I looked through the bargain section (though it's been rebranded and moved to a different place in the store, I could tell by the stock that it was the bargain section) and didn't find a single thing I wanted. I have the internet for recipes instead of cookbooks (half the YouTube we watch are cooking channels!) and they didn't have any fiction I wanted and I definitely didn't need any of the random "learn to do X craft" kits because I pretty much know how to do all of those already.

Which meant I was going to buy actual books and I was not prepared.

I wandered around for a bit and started to feel really pressured; not by my husband, who was with me but perfectly happy to wander around himself and not hustle me out of the store, but by myself, and the feeling of "I'm a writer and book nerd, I write reviews of every book I read basically for fun at this point, why the fuck can't I decide what to buy."

I ended up checking my Storygraph app to remind myself what was on my TBR, combined with the vague knowledge of "oh yeah I can't get this easily from the library system so let's see if they have it in stock."

(I haven't organized my entire TBR this way, but I do have some of it broken down by availability: I can get this from Hoopla, this from Libby, this from my local library branch, but these I would have to request, and so on. I'm trying to work through my TBR now oldest to newest for the most part, but some things are definitely hung up by availability, because buying a book feels like A Big Investment if I have to get it full price in order to read it at all, and I'm not sure I'll want to keep it; shelf space is always at a premium.)

Finally, I walked out with Chemistry by Weike Wang and The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai, and no more gift cards burning a hole in my junk drawer, mission accomplished.

I'm not even sure yet if this experience makes me want to go back more often (to less the feeling of being overwhelmed through exposure) or never again (because feeling imposter syndrome in a bookstore was so deeply fucking unpleasant, why couldn't I just enjoy being in a bookstore without feeling like I didn't belong there when that's utterly ridiculous.)

[inukag]

Hiii! Where do you read the manga online? Some of the translations you post look different than the ones I find online.

Example- I forget which chapter exactly but when Kagome was trying to dress Inuyasha’s wounds after their fight with Yura- Kagome’s like “Take your clothes off!” And Inuyasha was like “Beg me to!”

The manga I’m reading has Inuyasha calling Kagome a bitch every other sentence. There has to be a better way to enjoy this story 🥲

Hi! I've talked about this before but there is 2 different translations of the Inuyasha manga that you can find online. I have a lot of things to say about the different translations so I will use your ask to ramble a bit ^^

So basically when the Inuyasha manga was first released in Japan, fans would get the raw scans in Japanese, translate them and upload them online. This is the "fan translation". I know the first half of the manga was translated by one person (but I don't remember their name), and the second half by @inu-fanon / @fast-moon aka Patches.

The manga was also officially translated and published in North America by Viz Media. If you find physical volumes of Inuyasha in English this is the translation you'll find. Viz also recently released digital versions of their "VIZBIG" (3-in-1) volumes of Inuyasha, so that's why we now have high-quality scans of the Inuyasha manga.

The scans you're reading where Inuyasha calls Kagome a "bitch" is the fan translation, and the scans I've been reblogging recently (mainly posted by @mustardyellowsunshine), is the Viz translation. You can easily tell which translation you're reading based on the font of the text: The fan translation usually uses either Comic Sans or Manga Temple while the Viz translation uses Whizbang (just google the name of the font and you'll see). Also the onomatopoeia (sound effects) are translated to English in the Viz version, but usually they're not in the fan version.

The thing with Inuyasha calling Kagome a "bitch" is that the word he uses in Japanese is pretty hard to translate. When he's angry at her, he uses the word てめぇ [temee] which is a rude way of saying "You".

He uses that word in the Japanese dub of the anime too by the way, so it's not something that the anime "toned down". It's just that the translation varies a lot. The fan translations usually opt for "You bitch" or "You bastard" while Viz and the English subs and dub usually go for "Why you", "Damn you" or they change the sentence completely to make it clear that Inuyasha is angry at Kagome.

Here's a few examples so you can see what I'm talking about. From chapter 6 / episode 3:

Chapter 411 / TFA episode 1:

Chapter 520 / TFA episode 18:

If it really bothers you then I would suggest reading the Viz translation! The only problem with the Viz translation is that they don't always translate the text "literally". Quite a few times I read something in the Viz volumes and went "uh??" so I asked my friend who has the Japanese volumes of the manga what the original text says, and every time the fan translation was correct but not the Viz one.

I can give you a few examples on top of my head where the Viz translation was really amusing or frustrating and it turned out to be the Viz translator doing whatever they want....

Chapter 34:

This one had me going "Have to tell her WHAT???" until I learned he was really just saying "Kagome..." :')

Chapter 332:

"Too long" is funny because it makes them sound like an old married couple, but it's also kind of mean? He only says "Quite a while" in the original text.

Chapter 417:

Sango says "Sesshomaru should be sneezing" because there's a superstition in Japan that says sneezing means someone is talking behind your back. Viz changed it because non-Japanese audiences probably wouldn't get the joke.

Chapter 458:

I was laughing so hard at the Viz translation here because Kagome getting called out for "behaving as if Inuyasha annoys her while dreaming of having him all to herself" was just so funny to me but it turns out the actual dialogue is completely different and not amusing at all lmao.

Oh and Sesshomaru speaks French at one point in the Viz translation, but I can't remember which chapter it's from:

There's only one instance where I've been told the Viz translation is more accurate than the fan one, and it's in chapter 465:

Apparently it's hard to tell who the subject is in Japanese sentences so there was some confusion here. But the Viz translation makes more sense and the English dub of the anime also has Inuyasha saying that line.

Anyway there's a lot more examples but I'm sure you get the idea.

So the unfortunate answer is that there is no perfect way to read the Inuyasha manga! The Viz scans are a lot nicer in terms of quality but the text can be quite different from the original, while the fan translation has a lot of swearing and the scans are low-quality but you get a more accurate translation of what the characters are saying in the original text. Someday someone should take the Viz scans and fix all the mistranslations and reupload them somewhere but that would be a looot of work.

Here's where you can read each version online: Fan translation: Manganelo Viz translation: Mangapill

[chrisbitchtree]

I humbly offer you some mid-2000s punk band Billy and captain of the basketball team Steve to get you through this Tuesday!

2k

***

Fell In Love With A Boy

Billy’s head shoots up, his eyes scanning the parking lot as Céline Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ starts to blare from someone’s car, the sound polluting the crisp, early March air. He's about to go find who it was and tell them to turn that shit down before his ears bleed, when he notices that it's coming from Steve Harrington’s car, parked right at the front of the lot, giving Billy a perfect view of the brunette slumped down in his seat, head in his hands.

As if drawn in by a magnetic force, Billy stands and starts to walk away from his group of friends toward the car.

“Leave it, Billy,” Carol calls when she notices where he's headed. She knows all about his crush on the other boy, how it consumes his thoughts, even though they all know nothing will ever happen.

Steve's the most popular boy in Hawkins, ruling the school with his perfect princess girlfriend, Nancy Wheeler. He's the star of the basketball and swim teams, and a great artist, his work competing in in competitions at everything from a local to national level. He's also gorgeous, with his floppy brown hair, mile long legs, and preppy clothes.

It would be easier to deny his feelings if the guy was a jerk, but along with being the most popular guy in school, he volunteers at the old age home on the edge of town, and he works weekends in the children’s section of the town library. He's also unfailingly kind to teachers and students alike. He's basically everything Billy wants, a complete opposites attract situation, worlds away from Billy’s punk bands and skateboard, his tattoos and role as drummer for Corroded Coffin, a local pop-punk band.

Billy gives Carol the finger as he walks away, laughing as she tells him to go fuck himself.

As he approaches Harrington’s car, he notices that the other boy singing along, off-key, and that he was crying. Big, hiccoughing sobs wracking his body.

“Uhhhh, hey, Steve?” Billy shouts, trying to be heard over the music. Harrington doesn’t react at all, continuing to cry into his hands. “Steve?” Billy tries again, louder this time.

The brunette pulls his hands off his face, looking up at Billy with big, tear stained eyes. “What do you want?” Harrington shouts back, sounding uncharacteristically gruff. Billy recognizes that it's a little weird that he's there, considering he and Steve’s paths don’t cross a whole lot, but he can’t watch the other boy cry and not do something about it.

“Just wanted to check that you’re ok? You seem a little upset.” That's an understatement. Full on meltdown is a better way to describe it, but Billy isn’t going to be the one to say it.

Steve laughs, almost maniacally. “Upset. Yeah, I’m fucking upset. Nancy just broke up with me. Three years together and she dumps me out of nowhere, saying she’s fallen for the photographer for the school paper.”

Jonathan Byers. Shit, he’d always seemed like an alright guy too. He's Billy’s dealer, and he always gives him a fair price. He's a little quiet, and there was this whole weird thing where his brother had disappeared the year before, presumed dead, only to show up out of nowhere a month later, seemingly perfectly fine, but Billy never expected something like this. Not from Wheeler either, straight A student, editor of the school paper, captain of the field hockey team.

“Can I sit for a minute?” Billy asks, pointing to the passenger seat.

“I guess,” Harrington replies, eying him suspiciously.

He unlocks the door, and Billy walks around, climbing in, sliding his skateboard down at his feet and his backpack into his lap. He turns down the music to reasonable volume and turns to the other boy. “I know it seems like the world is ending, and I know it sucks to have feelings for someone who doesn’t want you, but there are plenty of other bitches in the sea, Harrington. You’ll find the right person for you. Someone who loves you and respects you. Just give it some time.”

Harrington looks at him with those beautiful Bambi eyes. “Uhhh, thanks, Billy, that’s nice of you to say, but it feels like my entire world is crashing down around me and I can’t breathe, and I can’t stop thinking about Nancy and all the good times we had together. I thought I was going to marry her someday.” He breaks into a fresh wave of sobs, turning the mopey music back up.

Billy can’t watch this any longer. He hits eject on the car’s stereo, taking the CD and flinging it into the back seat. “First step to getting over someone. Don’t wallow and think about the good shit. Get angry. Céline Dion’s not going to make you feel better, but I guarantee that I have something that will. Are you free tonight? 7pm?”

Steve eyes him skeptically, but agrees to have Billy come over that evening.

***

Billy spends the rest of the day plotting, creating the perfect playlist. As soon as school lets out, he jumps on his board and heads home, ignoring his friends as they call after him to have a smoke with them.

Thankful that his dad isn’t home until 5, Billy grabs a blank CD and loads up Limewire on the family computer. After an hour’s work, he's satisfied, burning a CD filled with Puddle of Mudd and Blink 182, Rancid and The Used. Music that Harrington can get angry to.

At 7pm, he's at Harrington’s door, handing him the CD labeled FUCK YOU NANCY WHEELER AND JONATHAN BYERS. The title is a little on the nose, but it gets a laugh out of Harrington, so that’s all that matters.

Harrington leads Billy up to his room and pops the CD in his state of the art stereo system. As “She Hates Me” starts blaring from the speakers, Steve bobs his head, looking adorable in his khakis and pink polo.

“Come on, Harrington, I know you’ve got more fire in you than that. You need to get into it.” Billy demonstrates, closing his eyes and thrashing around his room to the loud music. He stops, looking expectantly at Harrington, who's still just bobbing his head. Billy takes his hand, feeling a zip of electricity up his arm at the contact, and leads him around the room. By the time the closing notes of Dammit are playing, Steve is a ball of energy, moving all over the place, screaming along to the music.

They collapse on the bed as the last song fades out, trying to catch their breath. “Don’t you feel better?” Billy asks.

Steve grins. “You know, Billy? I think I do. Thanks.”

***

After that night, he and Steve start hanging out on a semi regular basis. They'll sometimes go to punk shows, or Steve will watch Billy’s band practice. Some nights, Billy will just lay on Steve’s bed, watching him paint, and Billy starts volunteering at the old age home. At first, the seniors don’t know what to make of his tattoos and piercings, but they’ve warmed to him, and now it’s one of the highlife of his week. He’s even burnt a few CDs for one resident, Margaret. She gives him feedback on what she did and didn’t like every time she sees him. She’s a big fan of Blink 182, but could give or take the Dropkick Murphys.

The whole time, Billy falls harder and harder for Harrington, but doesn’t know how to tell him. He knows Billy’s gay and doesn’t seem to have a problem with it, but Billy doesn’t know if he even likes guys, let alone reciprocates Billy’s feelings.

Months slide by, and before Billy knows it, it’s late May and Harrington’s a high school graduate. Billy attends the ceremony, ignoring the scowls of Steve’s parents as he cheers loudly for the other boy. They’re disappointed that Steve’s chosen to stick around Hawkins for another year to get his grades up before reapplying to universities, but Billy’s beyond excited to have Steve around for his senior year.

***

Billy’s friends encourage him to let Steve know how he feels, even as Billy denies that Steve likes him back. They tell him that he doesn’t see the way Steve looks at him as he walks away, like it hurts to see him go, how his eyes light up when Billy enters a room, or the look on his face when Billy chats up another guy at a party or a show.

There are a couple of times that something almost happens, when they’re laying out watching the stars in Steve’s yard, or when they’re getting high on Steve’s bed, but something always bursts the bubble and brings them back to reality, the moment ruined.

Unable to take it any longer, Billy’s bandmates help him hatch a plan. At their next show, Billy makes sure that Steve’s in the front row.

They come out on stage, and their singer, Eddie, walks up to the microphone, greeting the small crowd gathered in the local Elk’s Lodge. “Hey everyone, thanks for coming out tonight. We’re Corroded Coffin. Our regularly scheduled show will start soon, but first, we have a special treat. Billy, take it away.”

Billy’s sweating bullets at his drum set, his heart beating a hundred miles a minute. He looks at Carol, who gives him a nod and a small thumbs up from her place behind her bass.

He leans into his microphone, grabbing his drumsticks. “Steve Harrington, this one’s for you.” He takes a deep breath, and starts singing. “In the car, I just can’t wait, to pick you up on our very first date…”

The rest of the room falls away, his eyes only on Steve for the whole length of the song. He gets to see the range of emotions on the other boys face, going from confusion, to shock, to giddy happiness, a grin splitting his face as he bops along to the song, just like Billy taught him.

When he’s done his song, Eddie takes back over and the show goes on. Energy is high in the crowd and among the band members, and Billy’s practically vibrating by the time they’re done performing.

As soon as they walk off the stage, there’s Steve, waiting for him, bouncing on the balls of his feet, smiling wide. “You were great, Billy!” He says, placing his hand on Billy’s shoulder. Billy smiles back at him, the tips of his ears turning pink.

“Thank you, can I meet you outside in a minute? I just have to put my drums in Eddie’s van. Meet me at your car.”

Steve nods, heading out towards the parking lot.

Billy scrambles to get his equipment together, practically running out to the van to toss it in. The cool air feels nice on his flushed skin, and he takes a moment to just breath before running over to Steve’s car.

“So, what did you think of my song?” He asks as he gets in passenger seat.

Steve blushes, ducking his head. “I think it was great. You don’t exactly have Eddie’s voice, but you did pretty good!”

Billy elbows him for that, sticking out his tongue as he lights a cigarette. He’s been trying to quit, but he needs to calm his nerves.

“I also think I’m an idiot for not trying to scoop you up earlier, Billy. I was trying to give myself time to get over Nancy, but I don’t want to wait any longer. What do you say to that first date? Friday night? You, me, a bucket of popcorn and whatever trash they’re playing at the Hawk?”

Billy’s heart leaps. “I say yes. A million times yes, Steve.” He stubs out his cigarette in the little dashboard ashtray. “Can I kiss you?”

Steve grins, nodding. As their lips meet, Billy’s hand cupping Steve’s jaw, Steve’s fist grabbing Billy’s shirt, ‘All The Small Things’ plays softly on the radio, setting a perfect mood.

***

Seven years later, as Billy’s band plays Warped Tour, Steve stands just off stage, wearing a Corroded Coffin t-shirt of his own design, looking out into a crowd of concertgoers wearing matching shirts, cheering and screaming louder than anyone.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Looking for a Place to Happen

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape (series), age gap, general stupidity.

This is dark!biker!Sam Wilson x reader and explicit. 18+ only.  Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Series Synopsis: There’s lots happening in Birch and you find it all too amusing.

Sister series to Smalltown Bringdown, When the Weight Comes Down, Little Bones, and Fully Completely

Note: We’re starting Sam’s installment but this weekend I’ll probably only be catching up on my headcanons and drabbles because I’ve been a lazy bitch and I’m sorry to those who have been waiting.

Thanks to everyone for their patience and feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

Chapter 1: I've got a job, I explore

💀💀💀

The sleepy town of Birch was awake. 

In those last weeks, the arrival of outsiders had roused the attention of many once passive residents of the timeless territory. Those brick buildings unchanged by the tick of the clock inlaid into the old tower above the library that chimed every hour on the hour. They still stood with only chips in the mortar but the air tasted different. The frost was more bitter and the sky more grim. An omen of something no one could predict.

It was the perfect setting for a screenplay. The isolated town with its unsavoury secrets and the visitors who threatened to bring them to the surface. It was inspiring to you, to imagine what was hidden behind the stern wrinkled faces of the town elders and under the jackets of those men who wore the cut of the local club. The bikers ruled the town covertly but everyone knew that Bucky Barnes’ palm was lined with the map of Birch.

As a bystander, an unnoticed observer, just another ant in the hill, you watched from the side and amused yourself with the drama of others. It was like a soap opera or another HBO hype machine. Those things you aspired to when you could be free of this ho-hum town.

The snows added to the natural gloom of the place. The deep heaps smothered the noise and harkened back to those days of colonial settlement. Forgotten, desolate, fearful. 

You ventured down in your heavy boots that stretched to your knees and pushed your chin down into your scarf. As a child, you ran and jumped in those piles, now you were out of breath just trying to walk past them.

You stopped in the bakery that doubled as the only café, a place where the owner, Babs, tried to to intimidate the last caffeinated trends. She was always a few seasons behind but you didn’t mind so much. 

You ordered the salted caramel mocha and waited patiently as the quiet woman fought with the steaming machines. She was older than you but you’d work with her for one summer during high school, only five years ago. She had the eyes of a child still, but there was something worn in her. As if she’d been exposed to far too much in her three or so decades in that place. She was a harbinger of what you didn’t want to become.

You thanked her for your drink and set out once more into the billowing winds. Birch winters were never kind but this one was crueler than most. Your teeth chattered as you blew the steam away from the lid and hugged it with your mittened hands.

You stopped short as you heard the familiar ding of the diner door across the street. You recognised the mechanic who kept to herself and once growled at you in the grocery store. She stormed across the street, followed closely and quickly by a black-haired man you’d only seen once before. He was one of those outsiders who came to deal with the club men.

You sped up as you sensed chaos brewing and pulled out your phone as you balanced your paper cup in your other hand. You flicked your camera on just as you got to the front of the shop and the man grabbed the mechanic. You let out an ‘oop’ as she turned on him and you aimed the lens at the couple as they fell into the snow, the man’s shoes giving little traction to his steps. 

You moved closer, stunned by the scene, and kept your cell phone rolling as you found a better angle around the snowy walks. As she choked him on the ground he elbowed her and she coughed as she rolled away. She snarled as he clamoured to his feet, slipping and sliding as he marched away.

You killed the recording and watched the man cross the street again, nearly wiping out as he did and when you looked back to the mechanic, she was gone behind the clattering door. You chuckled to yourself and tucked away your cell. It was prime footage for TikTok; with a bit of editing, it would be comedy gold.

💀

You stomped up the steps of your grandmother’s house, this time through the front door as you heard her chair rocking in the front room. You usually took the stairs in the back as you paid her to live on the upper floor of the duplex. You checked in with her daily, she didn’t get out much more than the occasional trip to the grocery store when you couldn’t or you dragged her out to join you for a tea at Babs’.

“You’re late,” she grumbled as you set your cup down and unzipped your coat.

“For what?” you scoffed.

“It’s after noon and you don’t even come down to say hello? A ‘good morning, nan’,” she harrumphed.

You chuckled and hung your coat before shoving your boots over on the mat. You grabbed your mocha and leaned on the doorway as you watched her crocheting in her chair, reruns of some court show playing from the boxy television.

“I was working,” you said, “sent in some stuff for review. Hopefully not much work to be done.”

“I don’t know how you make money on that interweb,” she bemoaned, “I don’t trust it.”

“Maybe you’d trust it more if you used the Netflix subscription I got you,” you crossed your arms, “then you wouldn’t have to watch trash daytime TV.”

She shrugged and muttered under her breath. She could be crotchety but you liked her sense of humour. Your aunts and uncles never came around because they just took it as spite. You were the only one who knew how to handle the jaded old lady.

“Maybe you coulda looked out the window,” you snickered, “quite a show going on in town.”

“Hmm, what’s that?” she stilled her needles and reached for her tea stained cup.

“Just a fight. You wouldn’t believe it, that lady mechanic beat the shit--”

“Language,” she huffed.

“Anyway, she had this guy in a chokehold. It was awesome.”

“What guy?” she squinted at you over her glasses.

“I dunno. Some out of towner. Remember I told you about that burly dude hanging around the library?”

“There’s more?” she sucked on her teeth, “those bikers have never been good news and now they’re bringing in more.”

“Yeah, well, what’re you gonna do?” you sniffed as you took out your phone and rewatched the scuffle with the volume down. You shook your head and opened up your TikTok. 

“I don’t understand why you’re always on your dang phone,” your grandmother pestered.

“I’m not always on my phone,” you smiled at her smugly, “there are those time when I’m listening to you prattle on or you know, making you tea, oh, and cooking you dinner. What was it I did last week? Oh that’s right, I got Pippin out of the crawlspace.”

“I’m too old to be chasin’ that cat all around,” she huffed, “where is he anyway?”

“He’s your cat, I don’t know? Last time I saw him, I sent him back out the window for shredding my charger.”

“He knows you need to give it a rest,” she laughed to herself, “got your nose to that screen too much.”

“And what do you do, old lady? Crocheting doilies to put where exactly?”

She gave you that dry smile, the one that said watch it but carried a hint of humour still. You hit post and put your phone away as you waved off her irritation.

“Well, you know what, I sit all day at my computer, doing who knows what and you know what it got me?” you taunted, “a large mocha!” you sipped as you sat on the sofa and grabbed the remote, “and it’s paying my rent and putting bullet points on my resume.”

“Mhmm,” she scowled, “just remember, real life ain’t online. Those videos you’re always laughing at like hyena, that’s not reality. You forget it and it’ll come back and bit you. ‘Specially with those bikers.”

“Oh, nan, you know too well, don’t you? Didn’t you have a fling with one back in your hippie phase?”

“Two, actually,” she raised her brows, “I was young and stupid. Not like you, but still.”

“I love you too,” you chirped and sipped from your cup, flicking the station to Jerry Springer, “that’s more like it.”

💀

Your usual TikToks were sarcastic and dull complaints about your small town life. The response was less than pleasing but it gave you an outlet to vent. You liked to goof around and document the very specific type of weirdos that resided in Birch. But the video of the fight in the snow blew up your phone and made it difficult to ignore the buzzing as you went back up to your room to eke out the last of your captions for the ad agency.

When at last you could call your day hard-earned, you logged off and sent in your hours to the agency. Social media promotion was easy enough but the working gigs for a thousand different companies was tedious. You hoped you could build your portfolio enough to manage a single corporate page as you continued to chip away at your creative outlets.

You picked up your phone as you waited for Netflix to load on your tiny smart tv and flopped onto your bed, not two feet from your desk. You hit the icon in the upper panel of your phone and scrolled through the notifications, pausing to turn on another episode of the cable sitcom from ten years before. You snorted as you read each comment but the number under the video made your eyes round. The thing was bound to go viral.

As usual, you went down to help with supper. Pippin, the orange tabby, returned to cry at his dish and you fed him too. Your nan peered through her glasses at a crossword as she tasted the tangy pasta sauce. 

“More basil,” she snipped.

“Well, I asked if you wanted to help,” you muttered, “I think it’s good.”

“Hmmp, I need milk,” she jutted her chin out, “for my after-dinner tea.”

“You couldn’t say something like three hours ago?” you blinked.

“I could have but I didn’t,” she snickered. You rolled your eyes and she took another forkful of penne and filled in another line on her puzzle, “ah, no hurry, girlie, you know I’m patient.”

“Patient? You?” you chuckled as you took your plate and shoved it in the microwave to keep it warm. The ancient thing had a dial and the door stuck, “I’ll just go get it over with.”

“Don’t forget your mitts,” she called after you as you tramped into the front room, “it’s cold.”

You pulled on your knitted cap and matching mitts. You zipped up your parka and shoved your feet into the deep boots. You grabbed your wallet and buried it in the spacious pocket. You bounced out the front door and down the steps as the sky sent down another coat of powder for the night.

You went up White Forge Street and through the short path behind the diner that led to the main road. You glanced over at The Asp, the beacon of the dull town, and turned towards the grocer. Like anywhere in Birch, the store was outdated and stuffy. It felt like stepping into another time with the paper bags and chunky tills.

You went down the center aisle and stopped at the fridge to search through the frosted glass. Your nan only drank whole milk and the last time you carelessly grabbed skim, she whined that even Pippin wouldn’t drink it. She was particular but that was just her nature. You couldn’t say you were any less fussy in some instances.

You grabbed a jug and the door slapped closed against the worn rubber seal. You headed up the candy aisle and brushed your woolly thumb over your chin as you considered gummy bears or Reeses’ Pieces.

“Hard choice?” The deep voice jolted you.

You snatched the box of chocolate and looked over at the man in leather, his chin tucked down behind the collar as snow dusted his shoulders.

“Sure,” you said as you brushed past him.

The cut of the leather told you he was better not entertained. While you thought the men amusing, you weren’t stupid enough to engage with them. You rarely listened to your grandmother but she was wise in her own way. 

You knew a girl in highschool, she was fucking around with one of the club men in her junior year, she ended up with a baby and no support. You didn’t think he was into you that way but he could hardly have innocent intentions.

“How’s the old lady?” Clayton asked as he rung in your order at the end of the belt, you moved along with the groceries and pulled out your wallet.

“The usual, you know? She’s tryna quit again. Don’t know how long it’ll last.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll keep a carton aside for her,” he kidded as you felt your phone vibing in your back pocket.

“Don’t encourage her,” you swiped your card and punched in your pin, “although I don’t know what’s worse; the smoke or her sucking on those mints all the time.”

“Oh, it’s not the bitchin’?” he laughed.

“That, too,” you scooped up the paper bag and put your wallet away, “have a good one.”

As you came to the end of the first counter, you were nearly cut off by the club member as he swept around from till two. His own purchase of a car magazine and jerky was tucked under his arm.

“Ah, sorry,” he smiled, a sparkling smile, almost charming.

“No worries,” you continued on and he followed close behind.

“Those mitts look real warm. ‘Specially in this weather,” he said as you pushed open the door.

“Uh huh,” you kept on as your boots crunched out into the snow.

“You know where I can get a pair. Leather isn’t exactly thermal, you know?”

“These? My nan made ‘em. I’m sure Clayton got some hung up back there,” you looked across the street as you stepped up onto the ledge of snow between the sidewalk and the road.

“Am I bothering you?” he asked.

You looked at him dumbly and almost laughed in his face. You glanced back across the street then down towards The Asp.

“Sorta,” you answered.

“Make you a deal. Leave ya alone for your name.”

You eyed him. He was older than you like many of the Commandos. At least a decade, likely more than that. You chewed on your hesitation and cradled the bag more firmly against your side. His eyes strayed as he tried to see through the thick layer of your coat.

“Nah, I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers,” you said and hopped off onto the road.

You heard him behind you as he struggled to follow and as you came up to the other side, he came parallel with you and kept stride with you easily.

“I know you’re young but you’re not a kid,” he intoned, “what’s the harm in a name?”

“It’s a small town,” you stopped short of the end of White Forge, “I think I know enough about you to avoid you.”

“Oh ho, is that it? Well, I’m Sam, I’m not a stranger now, am I?”

“Not interested, Sam. Sure there’s women your own age over at the bar,” you nodded behind him.

“You wanna come see? Maybe have a drink?” he gave a crooked grin.

“You don’t give up, do you?” you shook your head, put off by his forwardness.

“Well?”

“Not tonight, Sam,” you turned around and headed down White Forge.

“Then what night?” he asked but you didn’t answer and he didn’t follow.

You turned down onto your street and refused to look back in case. It would be best not to mention the run-in to your nan, she was paranoid enough as it was. Besides, you’d forget about it by the end of next week.

[lonewolfel]

Found

Read on AO3

For @ssilverscale

Hunter and the others have returned to the Demon Realm. It takes some reminding that he is no longer alone.

They had returned to the Demon Realm. Eda and King were relieved to be reunited with the human and the rest of the kids were reunited with their families, except for Hunter.

It was a bitter-sweet moment for Hunter. He was glad to be back in the Demon Realm. Back to where he grew up, back to the familiarity, and back to where there is nothing confusing. Though apparently, he has spent too much time with the human, cause he didn't think about what he was going to do after returning. 

All his friends had places to go. Hunter couldn't impede them and their families. Gus's father had taken him in after the incident in Hexside, now that he wasn't carrying vital information he wasn't sure if he would be welcomed.

No.

It's best that Hunter not impose on them. So as his friends all had their tearful reunions he slipped away with a bitter taste in his mouth. After all, without Belos he was safe to go anywhere. 

It's been a couple of days since they returned from the human realm and the Collector was locked up again. 

Hunter has been living in a cave in the forest. He would occasionally go to the local town to do odd jobs and get food. He mostly did some bounty hunting. It was odd capturing his former coworkers but he had to make up for following Belos. 

Hunter and Flapjack had a routine. That was until they came along.

He had been reading one of the books that he "borrowed" from the library. Then he heard the sound of shuffling through the fauna. Hunter was quick to react. He stood up and Flapjack turned into a staff. Hunter located the source of the sound.

He teleported behind the source. It was a witch wearing a hooded robe. Hunter swung with his staff hitting the intruder with it in the head. With an umph the figure dropped to their knees. He kicked them down placing a foot on their back and holding his staff pointed towards their neck.

"Who are you and how did you find me?" Hunter demanded.

"Hunter?" The witch asked in shock. Hunter quickly recognized the voice; it belonged to Raine Whispers the former Head Bard. Hunter took a couple of steps back and Flapjack returned to bird form.

"What are you doing here Raine?" Hunter asked. Raine grunted as they touched their head.

"I see you haven't changed much," Raine muttered. They then stood up. "There were reports that there was a wild witch living in the forest here. I assume that is you."

"Maybe," Hunter said. Flapjack pulled at his hair strand. He waved away the bird.

"How long have you been here?" Raine asked. Flapjack chirped his displeasure but Hunter kept quiet. The silence spoke volumes. "I thought you were staying with the Porters." Hunter rubbed the back of his neck.

"Doesn't matter," Hunter muttered.

"Hunter," Raine said firmly. Hunter flinched back. Every part of him wanted to run but he knew he couldn't. They would just follow him or get everyone involved. Hunter didn't want that.

"I'm fine on my own." Hunter snapped.

"I never said you weren't, but why are you," Raine said calmly. Hunter hated that. How they were always so calm when dealing with him all the while Hunter felt as if he was going to fall apart. He had seen them stutter and fall apart on stage and yet when he was involved they never did. Not to mention he didn't know where they stood; after all, they haven't talked to each other in a long time.

"Doesn't matter." Hunter huffed. He turned around only for Flapjack to begin to tug at his hair strand. Again Hunter swatted at the bird. "Knock it off.

"Wait," Raine called out. The placed a hand on Hunter's shoulder. Hunter froze in place. He felt panic run through him. Raine seemed to realize it. They withdrew their hand quickly. "Sorry, I..."

"Forget it." Hunter snapped. He needs to get out of her but Flapjack was being difficult.

"Hunter talk to me, please. What is going on?" Raine begged. Hunter turned around. A part of him still wanted to run away but he couldn't. He had never heard them beg before. 

"I...well...it's stupid." Hunter stuttered. Raine gave the teen a small reassuring smile.

"I promise it isn't," Raine reassured him. Hunter took a deep breath.

"It's just when we returned everyone was so happy to see their families and I didn't have anyone. I didn't want to impose." Hunter rambled. Raine gave him the look that he hated. It was the look that Willow and Gus gave him when he said something about being raised in the Emperor's Coven.

"Hunter you wouldn't have imposed. You could have come to me or Eda or even Darius." Raine said

"I didn't want to be a burden," Hunter muttered.

"Oh, Hunter, you're not a burden." The bard reassured him. Hunter wanted so badly to believe them but he couldn't.

"But I...I'm useless. I have no magic. I have no useful information. There is no enemy to fight. How am I supposed to earn it." Hunter cried in frustration.

"Hunter, you're not supposed to earn it. You are a kid that had been in a bad situation previously. What Belos did to you was awful and no one will ever ask anything of you like that again. You deserve to be a kid and have a safe place to go." Raine said. Hunter wanted to cry. Naturally, he didn't. He wasn't a baby. He had once been the Golden Guard. He was above crying. "Come, I'll take you home." 

The duo began to walk through the forest. Flapjack perched onto Hunter's shoulder.

"Tell them” Flapjack chirped into the teen's ear. Hunter stopped walking.

"Raine, I..." Hunter started but then cut himself off. Raine stopped and turned around to face the boy. The words, I'm a Grimwalker, were lodged in his throat, threatening to choke him. What if Raine thought of him differently? What if they redact their offer once they found out he wasn't a witch at all? "Never mind." 

Hunter continued his walking ignoring Raine. The bard seemed to respect his wishes and just returned to walking.

[tlcartist]

Thinking about how I consumed both The Lord of the Rings and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in the wrong order when I viewed them for the first time. LET ME EXPLAIN

So I grew up SUPER religious and there were a lot of things I wasn’t allowed to read or watch because it was considered “witchcraft”. Basically anything in a fantasy setting was off limits no matter how tame the story was. When I turned 15 I left the religion I grew up in and suddenly the world was my oyster. I could read anything I wanted! This was during the height of the LOTR films so I knew that was the first formerly forbidden thing I wanted to read.

So I do what any poor teen in the mid 00’s would do and I go to my local library. Problem was that, again, since LOTR was still really popular at the time every copy of the books in that series was checked out. Except The Return of the King. So I go sweet let’s go read this and I had literally no idea what was happening the whole time. It was a fever dream. But in spite of it all the book had my complete attention and, though I did realize my mistake while reading it, I was too engaged in the story to stop. I did eventually finish it and then went back to The Fellowship of the Ring and reread it in the correct order lmao.

JoJo was a different story. I’ve been a fan of anime in some capacity since I was a teen and I’ve known about JJBA for a really long time. I’ll admit it, I judged it pretty harshly before I got into it. The art style is just so insanely different than basically any other mainstream anime series and I didn’t get it. There were even a couple of times that I tried reading the manga but I noped out half way into the first volume because the art style was very 80’s and the writing was so over the top. Figured that was the end of it and that the JoJo fans could just keep it and do their thing but I was very much Not Interested thank u very much.

Then about a month ago I got the idea to try watching some anime that I’ve never seen before because I have plans to do anime conventions next year and I wanted to expand my knowledge a bit. So I thought, ehhh let’s try JJBA again. I’ll give it a couple episodes and if I hate it I can dip. Pull it up on Netflix and didn’t realize that it was playing season 5. I was confused because it wasn’t the setting or character that I’d read briefly in the manga but I shrugged and kept watching. And watching. And watching. I fell in love with Jolyne and the supporting characters. Needless to say that by the end of S5 I was thoroughly hooked and immediately went back to S1 and watched it in the correct order. I was so hooked that I watched all 5 seasons in a week and a half.

Moral of the story is don’t judge a manga by it’s first chapter and maybe doing things in the wrong order is actually a good thing sometimes.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Happy Oct. 1 and the start of Halloween! Please enjoy this spooky inspired Nessian fic! :) 

It had been an accident. A complete and absolute accident. Cassian had agreed to host a mini Halloween party at his loft apartment. They would order food in, play some drinking games, maybe binge some horror movies. It was going to be fun, and Cassian simply wanted his place to look the part. So he had bought those fake spiderwebs and hung them from the lamps and across the curtains. He bought some fake skulls and plastic pumpkins to set about the living room and kitchen. 

And he simply thought it would be funny to draw a pentagram on the floor. It looked just like in those cheesy Halloween movies, and he knew Azriel would get a kick out of it. He even set some candles around it to really make it look the part, and he couldn't help but put on his best 'spooky' voice as he said some words he'd read in one of Rhys' musty books in his library, some language he'd never heard of but sounded cool. He didn't think anything of it. 

And that's how Cassian ends up with a woman standing in the middle of his apartment. 

Cassian has no idea who she is, but he can’t deny that she is breathtakingly gorgeous. Her golden brown hair is braided up into an intricate crown, a few wisps of hair falling against her temples and framing her face. It brings out the cut lines of her cheekbones. She’s wearing a form fitting dress, the black fabric hugging her curves and arms before it flows into a deep blue at her feet. But Cassian’s eyes get stuck on her eyes, as dark as night as they pierce into Cassian’s own. 

"I am the Goddess of Death, Princess of Decay,” the woman says, her voice seeming to boom and echo in Cassian’s apartment. “Who are you who commands me?"

"How did you get in here?"

The question seems to give the woman pause, and she blinks at Cassian for a few seconds. Cassian watches as her head tilts slightly, her eyebrows pinching. 

"Excuse me?" the woman asks. 

"I mean my front door is locked so I'm just confused how you got in here."

"You summoned me."

"I summoned you…?" 

Cassian takes in where the woman is standing, right in the middle of the pentagram, her too dark eyes, and the way power seems to radiate off her in a way that rumbles in his own bones. Finally, his brain catches on. 

"You're a demon." 

The woman crosses her arms, her weight settling on her left leg. She raises her eyebrows at Cassian, her face cold and unimpressed. It pretty clearly reads ‘no shit.’ 

“I summoned a demon?” 

“Are you asking me?” 

“I summoned a demon,” Cassian mutters, mostly to himself. 

“What are you expecting? Congratulations?” the demon-woman quips. “Look, just tell me what you want.” 

“About that…'' Cassian starts, clearing his throat awkwardly and rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. “I actually didn’t mean to summon you. It was an accident.” 

“Is this a joke?”

“Unfortunately not. But I don’t need anything from you, so I guess you can just go back to wherever it is demons live.” 

“That’s not how it works. I’m tied to you until you banish me.” 

“And how do I do that?” 

“You don’t know how to banish me?” 

“I just told you I summoned you by accident. I’m not even sure how I did that.” 

The demon-woman closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh through her nose like she’s trying to stay calm. Cassian can’t help but wonder what would happen if she doesn’t stay calm. Would she attack him like demons in movies? Are the representations of demons in movies accurate? Would it be rude to ask her? After a moment, the demon-woman takes a deep breath and smooths back her hair before settling her eyes back on Cassian. 

“So, let me get this straight,” the demon-woman says. “You summoned me by accident, you don’t actually have any biddings for me to do, and you don’t know how to banish me.” 

 “Yes,” Cassian replies, chuckling sheepishly. 

“Great,” the demon-woman mutters. “I was summoned by an idiot.” 

“But I can Google it,” Cassian promises. 

It turns out, Google isn’t that helpful when it comes to actual demons. Cassian tries various different searches, but all that he’s able to come up with is a bunch of television and movie references, a Buzzfeed article comparing different celebs to demons, and a weird article about making deals with the devil. Luckily, he is able to find a local witchy shop that’s only three blocks down from his apartment. Unfortunately, they’re closed and don’t open until the next morning, so he and demon-woman are stuck together for the time being. 

He had moved to the sofa when he started his Google deep dive, and the demon-woman had stepped gracefully out of the pentagram to sit on the opposite end. She hasn’t said anything since their initial talk when she appeared, and Cassian can’t help but steal glances her way out of the corner of his eye. She looks like a queen the way she’s perched on the cream colored sofa cushion. 

“So,” Cassian drawls into the silence. “Do demons eat? I can order pizza.” 

The demon-woman turns to him, one eyebrow poised. The look sends a shiver down his spine. He's not entirely sure it's out of fear. 

As it turns out, demons do in fact eat, as Cassian learns. He also learns that this particular demon prefers her pizza topped with veggies and that her name is Nesta. 

“Have you always been a demon?” Cassian asks, taking a bite of his pizza slice. 

“Seriously?”

“You’re the first demon I’ve ever met. You can’t blame me for being curious, sweetheart.” 

Nesta’s eyes snap to his, a scowl pinched across her lips. The expression pulls a smile across Cassian’s own face, which only makes Nesta’s eyes narrow more. Cassian’s fingers itch to reach out and smooth the lines between her eyebrows. The desire is so sudden that Cassian busies himself with grabbing another slice of pizza out of the box to distract himself. 

“First of all, don’t ever call me sweetheart again,” Nesta starts. “And to answer your question, no. I haven’t always been a demon.” 

“Then how did you become a demon?” 

“I made a deal.” 

“Was it worth it?” 

Something passes over Nesta’s face then, like ghostly fingers leaving a haunting trail against her skin. Her spine straightens like steel, and when her eyes meet Cassian’s again, there’s a guardedness to her expression that speaks volumes yet leaves Cassian with even more questions. 

“Most days,” Nesta replies simply. 

~ * * * ~

The witchy shop is decidedly less spooky than Cassian had envisioned, but perhaps that’s just his biases and what movies taught him coming into play. He expects cobwebs and weird animal parts in slimy jars, and maybe a black cat that screeches at him when he steps inside. Instead, there’s an aisle dedicated to herbs and another dedicated to crystals. He squints at the black scrawled writing of the placards declaring what each crystal is for. He supposes it would be a bit too easy if one just said ‘banishing demons.’ 

Nesta sighs loudly from over his shoulder when he picks up a candle to smell. When he glances her way, her arms are crossed and that scowl from before is back plastered across her face. Slowly, he turns back around and sets the candle back down on the shelf. 

“Do you mind?” Nesta quips. 

“Alright, alright,” Cassian acquiesces, keeping his voice down to avoid attention. Another thing he learnt last night was that only he could see and hear Nesta.

He heads for the counter of the shop where a young woman is arranging jewelry in the display case. As he approaches, the woman looks up and offers him a friendly smile. Cassian tries to offer one back, but he’s sure it must look more like a grimace. Once at the counter, Cassian clears his throat, shoving nervous fingers through his tangle of hair. 

“Hello,” Cassian starts awkwardly. “This is probably a weird question, but you wouldn’t happen to know how to banish a demon, would you?” 

“Do you have a demon problem?” the shop worker asks. 

“Something like that.” 

“Well, is the demon powerful?” 

Cassian looks over his shoulder to Nesta, raising a questioning eyebrow at her. In response, she merely smiles. It’s all teeth and the exact opposite of innocent. It stirs something deep in his gut. 

“Very,” Nesta bites out.

Cassian turns back to the shop worker. “Very.” 

“Wait,” the shop worker replies. “The demon, is he here?” 

“She,” Cassian corrects. “And yes.” 

“But how did she get past my wards?” 

Cassian’s gaze follows the shop worker’s own, to the silver trinkets that twist and clink together softly above the shop’s door. He can hear Nesta’s scoff at the suggestion, and he doesn’t need to be looking at her to know that she’s rolling her eyes. 

“It would seem they don’t work,” Cassian offers sheepishly. 

The shop worker gapes for just a moment before she turns on her heel, pushing past the beads hanging over the doorway to the backroom. When she returns, she has a box of crystals that she sets down on the counter, a bundle of herbs labeled ‘sage’ and a folded up piece of paper nestled on top. 

“You’ll need to draw a circle and set these crystals around it,” the shop worker explains. “Make sure you charge the crystals under the full moon and don’t wait. Do it the next day. That’s when they’ll be the most powerful. Burn the sage to cleanse and say this incantation, and you should be free of your demon.” 

“Great,” Cassian exclaims, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “I’ll take it.” 

After paying and gathering his items, they head out of the shop. Cassian feels lighter already. They have a plan. Plus, the fall weather today is gorgeous and that always helps to lift his spirits, the cool breeze and canopy of yellow and reds above their heads. It definitely helps that fall and Nesta look amazing together, the golden rays of the sun bouncing off her hair. Cassian can’t help but offer her an easy grin as they walk side by side. 

“See? That was super easy. We’ll have you banished before you know it.” 

“And when’s the next full moon?” Nesta asks dryly. 

Cassian startles slightly at the question. He shifts the weight of the things he just bought to one arm and digs his phone out of his pocket with the other. A quick Google later, and Cassian takes in the date glaring back at him on the small screen with a frown. When he looks back up at Nesta, she’s staring back at him unimpressed, clearly already knowing the answer. With a roll of her eyes and what sounds to Cassian like a muttered ‘idiot,’ she takes off ahead him back toward his apartment. 

It’s going to be a long two and half weeks. 

-- 

And Cassian simps the whole time for those two and a half weeks. And there’s feelings. And Cassian makes a deal of his own to save Nesta’s soul. And they live happily ever after. 

[britishassistant]

Supervillain AU! I formally request the special addition of Yuu’s first kidnapping please.

Thank you for the ask, dear anon!

“Yoo-hoo, Reporter-chan? Wakey-wakey, it’ll be bad for you if you don’t get up soon~”

Yuu shakes their head groggily, the sing-songy voice not helping the pounding in their temple.

“Did someone get the number of the truck that hit me?” They mumble, blinking to try and get their eyes to focus.

“Dammit Deuce, you gave them brain damage.” A familiar, much more annoyed sounding voice said. “Their head’s gonna be all screwy and useless now, dumbass.”

“It was just a lovetap though!” A third voice, also familiar, protested.

The floor finally stopped moving in front of their eyes and Yuu realized some very important things.

One, the floor they were staring at was not the floor of the library where they last remembered being.

Two: Their arms and legs seemed to be tied tight to the arms and legs of an iron garden chair.

Three: There are many odd-looking people standing near them, all in clothes that are too coordinated not to be a uniform but too outlandish to represent a government group of some kind.

Oh Great Seven, Yuu thinks with a rising sort of hysteria. It’s finally happened.

Clowns have come to take me away for not brushing my teeth enough like Mom said when I was little.

“...Are ya sure you didn’t break ‘em?”

“...”

“Deuce.”

Yuu wonders if they should feel offended at being talked around like this.

“Enough of this nonsense!” A hand seizes Yuu’s chin and pulls their head up to face the latest speaker. An imperious-looking young man stands and walks towards the reporter, clicking his fingers. “Three of Clovers.”

A tall man in glasses hands the imperious young man what Yuu recognizes as their wallet. The shorter man glances at the contents disdainfully. “You. First and last name and age, now.”

“Y-Yuu Radcliffe, 23 years.” The reporter stutters, their initial hysteria morphing into a sinking feeling in their gut. If not the clowns, then... “Can I ask who I have the pleasure of talking to?”

“No.” The redhead holding their wallet snaps. “Current occupation and birthday?”

“Field reporter at TWST local news.” They force themselves to relax the fists their hands have balled into. “March 18th.”

Remember what Uncle Divvy always says. Stay calm, act cooperative, do or say whatever you need to to avoid injury. Any supervillains on this level trying to curry favor with or blackmail the dumb bird will have to go through Uncle Divvy first to contact him, and he’ll take care of the rest.

All Yuu needs to do is keep themselves alive until then.

They still can’t help but dread what they know is coming next.

The supervillain seems to notice their distress, and smirks cruelly. He takes his time walking forward and leaning down until he’s on the reporter’s eye level, hands resting on the back of the chair and eyes flicking over their face, almost as if he’s savoring the moment before he makes their life that much more painful.

Yuu braces themselves as he opens his mouth–!

“What is the best type of tea?”

Huh?

“Wait, what? I don’t—” Yuu asks, backpedalling as the supervillain’s face grows stormy at their lack of response. “Uuh...green tea? I guess? I mean, it’s the one I like the most, but I’m more of a coffee or hot cocoa person, so I’m not the best one to ask...”

The person holding their chin sucks in through their teeth and the annoyed familiar voice outside their periphary snickers “Oooh, busted~”

The supervillain is beginning to go as red as his hair, and the reporter can hear his teeth grinding. His hands are now gripping the back of the chair so tight Yuu would almost swear they hear the metal by their ears creak.

“Ri–Royal.” The man with glasses says.

The supervillain inhales and exhales almost violently, until what’s visible of his face under that mask is looking less flushed.

“The correct answer,” He says, voice trembling with emotion. “Was all teas at their due times. To drink green tea instead of rosehip at breakfast, or lemon tea at 8pm...the nerve of your arrogance is astounding!”

Yuu...genuinely isn’t sure how they’re supposed to respond to that. Instead they just go with, “I’m sorry, I’ve never had rosehip or lemon tea. Do you like them?”

“Do I—?!” The supervillain’s mouth works soundlessly, gradually going red again. He pushes off the chair sharply. “I—the ro—i-it’s not a matter of liking!! These are the Rules!! And the Rules must be obeyed!! Three of Clovers!”

“Yes, Royal Flush?” The glasses man asks.

“The reporter is forbidden from having any montblanc after dinner, and will take two cups of lemon tea at 8pm tonight and two cups of rosehip tomorrow at breakfast.” Royal Flush flashes them a cruel smirk. “Consider it a light punishment for your impertinence.”

Yuu blinks. Tries to make sense of what they’ve just heard.

Blinks again.

“You know if you just wanted to ask me out to dinner, I’d have taken a nice invitation or a bouquet. You didn’t need to knock me out and tie me up like this, I’m not that picky. I do have Tinder.”

Glasses guy makes a choking noise and erupts into a coughing fit.

The hand that’s been holding Yuu’s chin migrates to their shoulder for support as its owner lets out an undignified snort and gasps out something that sounds vaguely like “why wasn’t I recording, that was Magicam gold!” as he giggles. He’s a redhead too, but much more orange than his boss.

There’s a sputter of hysterical laughter that has Yuu twisting their head to see the two guys and the cat from the hydroelectric plant, both with these odd-looking metal collars around their necks, but otherwise unharmed. The talking cat is trussed up in so many ropes that it looks more like a bobblehead, also wearing a weird collar.

The third redheaded one is bracing his hands on his knees, wheezing out a litany of “holy shit, holy shit” between chortles. The dark haired one is holding the cat a confused expression, cutting off his friend’s laughter when he turns to ask, “Ace, what’s tinder?”

The momentary silence lets an odd squeaking noise be heard.

One that gradually grows in volume until it’s an outright screech coming from the supervillain in front of them. He’s so red Yuu is honestly worried about his blood pressure, pointing a shaking finger at them.

“I—YOU—YOU—OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!!”

Yuu chokes a little at the feeling of cold metal materializing around their neck, dragging their head down with its weight. The supervillain continues screeching, refusing to even look at the reporter. “YOU—! DUNGEON! RIGHT NOW!! NO DESSERTS!! GO!!”

There’s an awkward moment as Royal Flush turns away from them, as if expecting them to get up and walk out of their own accord while his back is to them.

“...So, does that mean you want them to untie me or something, or...?” Yuu wiggles their firmly bound hands and feet for emphasis.

The supervillian makes a sound like a kettle whistling, before he barks out. “Two of Spades! Ace of Hearts! GET them OUT OF MY SIGHT until they’re WILLING to COOPERATE!!”

The dark haired young man quickly shuffles forward, grabs the back of the chair, and drags it and the poor reporter attached to it out of the room and into the corridor. The metal screeches as it moves from carpet to concrete.

“Wh—Two, no, untie them first.” The man with glasses says, despairing, appearing in the doorway. “You’ll mark up the floor otherwise.”

“Ah! Sorry, senpai!” Two looks between the cat in his arms and the knots on the chair, before shoving the cat into the arms of the redhead who answers to “Ace”. Neither of them look happy with this development.

“Fgnah! Quit squeezing, ya jerk!” The cat protests, wriggling as best it can.

“Oh? What’s that? I’m sorry, I just need to make sure that greatest, lamest supervillain in the city doesn’t escape to go setting random crap in the lair on fire again.” Ace says sweetly, grip tightening.

“Tha’s your fault, an’ you know it!” The cat wheezes out, thrashing harder.

Yuu winces. “Hey, quit hurting him. Whatever he did, he doesn’t deserve this.”

The dark haired minion barks out a laugh as he tugs the ropes away from their right wrist while his redheaded counterpart sneers at them.

“Oh really? Bet you’ll change your tune real quick once you learn it’s thanks to him you’re here in the first place.” Ace of Hearts mocks. “Dumb monster sang like a damn canary when Royal pressured him a tiiiny bit, saying it was all your fault his precious ingredient is now in the sewers.”

“Tha’s a lie!” The monster? cat blurts out too quickly for comfort. “It’s all these two morons, I swear!”

“Why you little—“

“I don’t care.” Yuu cuts in before Two of Spades can hit the animal. “I didn’t destroy that thing, but even if none of you said anything, your boss would’ve found out I was involved anyway from watching my report on it on the news. So I don’t care, just-just quit hurting him.”

There’s a tense moment as the two minions stare down at the reporter. They do their best to meet the gazes without flinching.

Then the Ace of Hearts tosses the cat into their lap as the Two of Spades sinks back down to keep working on their ankle. “Fine. Since you like it so much, you can take care of it. Just don’t expect me to cover for your ass—you still owe me for the power plant.”

“I’m sorry?” Yuu curls their free arm around the bundle of rope, fur, and yowling insults and pulls it closer to them. “Shouldn’t that be the other way round?”

“You locked me in a closet with him!” Ace hisses. “Do you know how hard it was to get out before the cops came with him freaking out and messing stuff up?!”

“Oi.” Two shoots him a dark look from where he’s finished untying the reporter’s left hand. “Like you weren’t whining about us being digested until you knocked a broom over!”

“Sh-shut up!”

“Well excuse me for trying to save your lives.” Yuu bites back, rubbing the rope marks on their wrists. “Next time I’ll just run and let the sludge monster eat your unconscious bodies.”

“It’d save us all the trouble of this shit if you did!” Ace spits, jabbing a finger at his collar. “At least then we wouldn’t be on Royal’s shit list!”

Yuu lets the piece of information they were just given marinate in their brain as they glare at him. Well, now what exactly was that supposed to mean?

“Ngh...this knot won’t come loose.” Two says from by the reporter’s left foot.

“How about now?” Replies an unfamiliar voice, as a disembodied hand pulls deftly at a loop in the rope.

“Ah!” Two of Spades brightens up as the rest of the rope falls away. “Thanks a lot—”

The disembodied hand punches him in the face.

Yuu cries out in alarm at the sight of the minion falling backwards into the Ace of Hearts, knocking him down like a bowling pin.

A pair of clawed hands are then scooping them up, extra cat and all, and the reporter finds themself looking at the unsettlingly wide smile and purple cat ears of one of the city’s top heroes, running at full speed while sharpened playing cards whizz past his face and Ace calls out behind them “Senpai! It’s him again!!”

There’s a percussive boom somewhere in the distance, and screams of how the flamingos are loose as the hero winks down at Yuu. “Seems you’re a popular one today, kitten! But let’s get you back to where you where before you were so rudely catnapped, yes?”

“Not so fast, hero!” The orange haired guy choruses from the entrance to the staircase, and—from behind them as well?

The reporter’s heart sinks as more and more versions of the minion keep popping up around them, to the point where the hero is forced to stand on the bannister of the balcony they’re on.

And based on the fact that the hero hasn’t used his invisibility? Intangibility? powers, it’s likely that he can’t use them while holding Yuu and the cat.

They’re surrounded.

“You really can’t keep your paws out of anything that’s mine, can you?” Royal Flush’s tone is clipped as he glares up at the hero.

“Hey R-kun, Three-kun!” The hero pouts, hugging Yuu closer to his chest. “I come a~ll this way to play, only to find you’ve got a nyew toy you’re already playing with without me! How mean! You guys really are cruel!!”

“We’re sorry about that.” Three of Clovers says, edging closer. “If you just hand the reporter over to Four, they’ll be put away and we can all “play” together, no distractions. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

The hero makes a deliberating noise, holding Yuu out and away from him over the drop, tilting his head this way and that.

His grin grows unsettlingly wider.

“Look, R-kun, Three-kun!” The hero calls out. “Nyo hands!”

Wait, what—

The hero’s body vanishes.

Yuu and the monster cat plummet screaming past the illogically winding staircases of the evil lair.

Yuu tries to angle their body so that the frantically crying cat will be shielded from the brunt of the fall—!

“NO!!”

There’s a sound like glass shattering, and a feeling of being enveloped in something soft, cold and buoyant. The two of them bounce a few times and land back on it more gently each time.

Yuu cracks open their eyes to see that they’re seated on a strange, red, jelly-like mass. The cat in their arms tentatively sniffs, and then lunges to take a bite out of their cushion before the reporter can stop him.

“Shtrawberry?” He says through a full mouth. “Tashtes good!”

The reporter grabs him before he can go for another bite, a little thrown by his speed now that collar isn’t weighing him down. But where did this thing come from–?

Yuu looks up.

Royal Flush is leaning dangerously far over the balcony countless flights of stairs above them, one arm outstretched down towards them.

They stare at each other for a moment.

Then clawed hands fasten around Yuu’s waist again with a cheery “Nyow wasn’t that fun?” and Royal Flush visibly tenses and begins screaming things after the escaping hero that are barely legible through his rage.

The hero deposits them both outside the TWST news station with their wallet and phone back in their pockets. He at least helps them untie the monster cat, who promptly declares he just let them protect him, and scarpers.

Of course the hero is gone too when Yuu turns back around, before they can ask him what the hell he was playing at, dropping them like that, was he insane?! If Royal Flush hadn’t interfered...

The reporter has to fight the urge to lose their lunch.

Their boss rushes out and envelopes them in a surprisingly powerful hug, the woman almost lifting the reporter off their feet as she babbles about whether or not Yuu needs a hospital after getting kidnapped by one of the seven major supervillains.

Yuuken is quick to join the embrace with a bear hug of his own. He pulls back, fingers prodding gently at Yuu’s bruised temple and declaring he’ll drive them to hospital to make sure they don’t have a concussion.

He graciously waits until they’re in the car to ask why Yuu smells so much of strawberries.

The reporter can only give a half answer, partly because they don’t want to worry him, and partly because they have another question of their own buzzing incessantly around their brain.

Why was Yuu kidnapped in the first place?

Royal Flush never even mentioned Crowley, despite all the chances he had to do so. Not even an oblique or confusing metaphor or code. Does that mean he’s ignorant of the connection between Yuu and the League?

But if that’s the case, it circles back around to the first question: why kidnap Yuu to begin with?

Somehow the reporter doubts it was to just ask their tea preferences or invite them to dinner.

Those minions referred to that monster as Royal Flush’s “precious ingredient”. Ingredient for what? Is there something that Royal Flush thinks they witnessed that’s integral to a scheme? Did they witness something and just not realize it’s significance?

Yuu’s reporter senses are screaming that there’s a deeper story to uncover here. Yuu’s common sense is screaming that investigating the dangerous plans of the supervillain they’ve just escaped from is a terrible idea.

Though he could have just...let them fall. But he didn’t. And won’t he just kidnap them again regardless?

...

This is a terrible idea.

But if Yuu’s common sense was stronger than their reporter senses, then they wouldn’t be in this city in the first place, would they?

[wordynerdygurl]

Hello Everyone! I've been conspiring with @sammy-jo1977 to create a new series of sorts. We want to explore all those characters that started us on our journey into Fandoms, large and small.

This series will be a place for those ladies and gents who haven't had a lot of attention recently, are old favorites or the ones you can't seem to shake. If you would like to contribute a chapter to this guide, please send me a message! We want to have a full and accurate guide, so we are hoping you'll hop in with your character of expertise!

As an example, I'm posting our first story... I'd love to get your thoughts! With Love - Your WordyNerdyGurl

In The Stacks - A Rupert Giles Story

Author’s Note:  This story is due, in large part, to my beta-bestie @sammy-jo1977 and it is part of the afore mentioned series.  This character might be off television, but his fiery spirit lives on!! As always, reblogs/ shares are encouraged as are comments and love!

Pairing:  Female Reader x Giles (Buffy The Vampire Slayer Series) Summary:  You get up to mischief with the librarian, in the stacks. Warnings:  SMUT ahead.  General Buffy knowledge might help, but is not required.  There’s a moment with a bit of blood, but hopefully nothing too triggering for anyone! I hope you enjoy!

“Mr. Giles?” “Just a moment!”  You heard the clipped British voice answer before being drowned out by the heavy thumping of falling books and the rustling sound of shifting papers hitting the floor. As you stepped further into the Sunnydale High library, you weren’t surprised to see the familiar faces of Buffy, Willow, Xander and Cordelia huddled around a small table.  The friends were practically inseparable and clearly close.  You found their kinship adorable and couldn’t help smiling at the group as you drew closer. “Hello to some of my best students!  And of course, to you Mr. Harris.  How is everyone today?”

Willow, stalwart student and overachiever, smiled broadly, “Pretty good.  I did ace my math quiz and got an A on my English paper… but, well, I only pulled a B on my Bio test and I just know that I could have done better.” Offering her friend a consoling pat to the shoulder, Buffy sighed, “It’s ok, Will.  You’ll get those cells next time!” “Tune in next week as Willow passes her AP Biology test with flying colors, on ‘As Sunnydale Turns’!” Before anyone could counter, Giles came around the corner carrying a sturdy stack of texts which he dropped onto the table as gently as the large load allowed, “As always, you four are the best assistants a librarian could ask for.” “Come on Giles!  You know I only hang out here for the beautiful ladies!” Pinching the bridge of his strong nose, Rupert Giles sighed, “I am well aware of where your interests lie, Xander.” “Please, he can hardly handle being with one beautiful girl.”  That was from Cordelia who pouted prettily, her hand mirror open as she fixed her hair. “My girlfriend, ladies and gentlemen!  Thanks for that, Cordy.” Snapping the case shut, staring down her beau, she smiled, “You’re welcome.” “Uh, Mr. Giles, if I may?”  You hated to interrupt but you had come in with a purpose and you meant to see it through. “Yes, of course, how can I help?” Shuffling your feet, a bit nervous now with the asking, you smiled shyly, “I asked at the local library but they were absolutely no help.  You see, I’m looking for a specific point of reference and I was led to believe that you could help me.” “Oh!  Is it something for our Inner Vision collage boards?  I love working on mine, only… It’s not my fault that I only see dark clouds and blood when I close my eyes.” “Well, Miss Summers, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  And the best art challenges us to see that beauty.” “I hate to tell you what I see when I close my eyes.”  Xander retorted. “Ah, Mr. Harris, your collage certainly showcases your, ahem, cultured world view.” “Hey!  The Simpsons are fine art, ok?  Just because they don’t live in a museum doesn’t mean they aren’t culture.” Giles, unable to stand by any longer griped, “Xander, I am almost positive that cartoons do not count as culture.” You started to answer but Buffy cut you short, adding, “Don’t mind Giles.  If it doesn’t come out of some dirty, dusty old book it can’t be culture.” “It’s pop culture!  The entertainment of my generation!” It was your turn to cut in, turning to the tweed clad gentleman, “Actually, Mr. Giles, Xander has a point.  Cartoons and animation in general are all increasingly seen as valid forms of art.  No matter what your tomes might tell you.” Smirking a little, he appraised your answer before replying, “Be that as it may, Mr. Harris, the amount of television you consume is corrosive.” Raising his hands in defense, Xander’s head swiveled between the two of you as Willow chimed in, “Give it up, Xander.  You know you’ll never win and besides, I’m pretty sure that animation and art are different.  Wait.  They are, aren’t they?” “When I was in Rome last summer, the very attractive, very Italian tour guide told us that they’ve found painted graffiti on the Coliseum.  It only goes to prove that times change but people don’t.” “Cordy’s right!  About the art, not the dishy Italian.  And they didn’t paint it, they carved it.”  Bouncing her blonde hair decisively, Buffy made her declaration.   “Wouldn’t paint be easier?  I mean, who wants to carry a chisel in order to deface a wall?” “Oh!  Oh!  I know this!  The kind of paint needed to last for centuries hadn’t been invented yet!”  Willow, lifting out of her seat in the excitement of academic excellence, was giddy. “Yes, Willow, that is correct.  In fact, a lot of the graffiti is simple and very crude.  Mostly of the phallus, if memory serves.  I’m sure I can find a documented case in Agrippa if you’ll all just-” And you watched as everyone rolled their eyes as Giles trailed off, lost now in the hunt for a specific volume which could be sited, should further proof be needed. “Ew.  Pass.” “I’m with Buffy here, Giles.  Keep your Grecian graffiti out of my brain.” “I’ll stick with the Simpsons, thank you very much.” “Yes, well.  It’s not Grecian at all, is it?  It’s Roman-” Smiling broadly, Buffy hopped off the table, “Giles is right.  The Greeks were more into orgies!” “Buffy!”  Willow’s shocked response made you cover a laugh with a fake cough. “-Of course, cites are rare.  Very difficult to find documentation.”  Giles, typically, hadn’t given up the search. Cutting through the chatter, louder than it ever needed to be, the period bell sounded. "Ugh.  Gym class for me.  Why is this even a thing?" "I don't know Buffy, I thought you liked showing off in your little shorts and beating the boys at basketball." "Cordy, that's enough.  And while us boys do love looking at you, Buff... we don't love the beatings you regularly deliver." "Well, I have a free period Giles!  Do you want me to stay and -" Snapping shut the leather book he was gripping, Giles caught your eye and turned to the peppy student, "Uh, no Willow, I don't think so.  I believe I need to see what our Art Department is in need of at the moment." With a shrug, Willow began packing up her belongings as Xander slung his back back over his shoulder, "Will, you can come with me.  I'm going to find a nice little corner, under a tree, and sleep away my study hall." “But, I… I could help find the Agrippa?  Or… some other old Roman book?” Xander wrapped an arm around Willow and took Cordelia’s open hand, “But why do that when nothing calls?” "Another fine example of your scholastic aptitude, Mr. Harris", was your parting shot at the foursome as they walked out the door. "Well. Mr. Giles, now that we’re alone… Could I talk you into helping me out?" “Of course, of course.”  Pushing his glasses further up his nose, fixing his light eyes on yours, “What are we looking for?” Sighing deeply, knowing the chances were slim, “I was hoping we would find some examples of Pre-Columbian deity carvings.” Pausing, his look serious, Giles peered at you, “Interesting.  Anything in particular?” “Yes, actually.”  Again you flushed, more than a little flustered at what you were really looking for, “I’m researching fertility icons.” Raising his eyebrows, Giles started, more than a little outside of his comfort zone, but you had to give him credit.  He recovered from the shock rather quickly, “Oh… I… I see.  Well yes, I’m sure we can find… something.  If you’ll follow me, please.” “I’m right behind you.”  Biting into your bottom lip, you smiled to yourself.  Right behind Mr. Giles?  What a place to be.  Giles led the young art teacher through the deepest stacks of the library, pausing once or twice to confirm that she was keeping up with him.  He was ashamed to admit that he had lost travelers a time or two as he stalked through his overstuffed shelves, knowing instinctively where to find the book he needed most. For her, watching the tweed covered bottom of Mr. Giles was no hardship.  True, he was older and tad bit reserved in the best British way, yet she had the sneaking suspicion that underneath all the wool and starched cotton was the heart of a wild man poet. "Uh... just a bit further, I'm afraid.  Books like this, well, I keep them at a greater remove." "It makes sense.  Don't want the kiddos getting a hold of anything too tantalizing." "Of course not.  As you well know, they don't need much help in the libidinous response department." You chuckled softly, nodding as the air around you grew stuffier, "Too true!  You should see what some of them turn in and call art.  It would make a blind man blush." And at the mention of blushing, you were shocked to see a rosy hue grow on Mr. Giles' cheeks.  You liked it.  It reminded you of the high color in a Vermeer painting.  You couldn’t help the flutter in your belly at the thought, "Mr. Giles, have you ever seen a South American fertility statue?" "I can't say that I have... have... have you?"  Something about the idea of you examining an ancient artifact directly connected to sexual congress made his body stir.  "Hmm... Oh, yes.  I was able to study in Mexico for a semester.  Some of the art work is just incredible and the carvings, they're truly magnificent.  Carefully made.  Usually stone or..." swallowing hard, your throat suddenly dry, "hard wood." Breaking fast at the implication in your words, Giles froze in place which caused you to press directly against his broad, vest covered back.  You had a second to register the soft scent of his aftershave; something spicy and masculine, which made your mouth water.  Moaning quietly, you offered a weak apology, “Oh, I am so sorry, Mr. Giles.” Offering you his profile, the bookcases too cramped for him to turn around fully, you saw his sweet smile, “That’s… that’s quite alright.  In fact, we’re here.” Stepping out of the way, you pushed back against the opposite wall, the shelves digging into your spine in the confined space.  Giles bent over, giving you a great view of his backside, as he extracted a slim book from the bottommost ledge.  When he stood up, directly in front of you, the narrow, book covered alcove caused him to stumble. Giles’ chest collided with your own, forcing the air out of your lungs.  Instinctively, you lifted a leg, curling it over the swell of one trousered hip and lifting the hem of your knee length plaid kilt.  Nose to nose in a compromising position, you exhaled a shaky breath as Mr. Giles inhaled, “Close quarters around here.” Shifting under his deceptively hard figure, it was difficult to ignore all the places that were firm to the touch, especially when you could feel so much through the thin barrier of your cotton panties.  Bracing one arm on the obliging shelf biting into your shoulder, Giles pushed back a bit, lifting his weight off of you without making any other attempts to move away.  He was so close now.  Close enough to feel your fuzzy sweater and all the soft skin that trembled beneath it.  Close enough to see the pound of your pulse in your throat.  Close enough that when you licked over your bottom lip Giles could almost taste it too.  And why shouldn’t he?  “Giles?”  Your voice was whisper soft, fanning hotly over the face of your colleague. “Uh… yes?” “I’m stuck.” Blinking behind his thick lenses, it took the normally quick witted Brit a second to process your words, “You’re stuck?” Nodding slowly, your hair curling over your cheek, “My… My skirt.  It’s… uh, caught.  Caught on something behind me.” “Good heavens!  I’m so sorry, let me help you.”  Slowly, Giles lowered your bare leg to the floor, his hand lingering for a second longer than absolutely necessary.  He was still in your space.  Still incredibly close to you. You arched away from the bookcase in an attempt to free yourself with a groan that sounded heady in the stuffy stacks.  All you managed to do was force your sweater covered décolletage into Giles’ chest.  Stammering, a wave of sweat breaking over his brow, “Allow me?” The way your skirt was caught pulled the bright plaid lower on your waist than you would normally consider decent.  It meant that you had a fleshy strip of skin exposed along your tummy and Giles raised his eyebrows by means of asking permission to touch you.  “Yea, yes.  Please!” Tentatively, gently, you felt the strong fingers of Rupert Giles circle your waist and shivered at the unfamiliar familiarity of his touch.  Your chin rested on his shoulder as he worked and you couldn’t help sighing when he opened his hands and pulled you closer.  Under other circumstances you might have misunderstood the embrace but you were both professionals.  Not that you hadn’t considered the handsome book guardian a time or two before. “I… I think we’re almost there.  If you’ll just, maybe to the right?” “Um, sure.”  Following his directions you twisted in his arms, trying hard not to tear your outfit or rub against Giles.  All the close contact and talk of fertility gods had you feeling a little aroused and it wouldn’t do for your colleague to learn that fact. With a triumphant grunt, Giles set you free, only for gravity to kick back in.  The momentum created by your falling took the gentleman and the entire Grollier’s Gothic Almanac collection with you.  A cascade of papers, scrolls and dust rained down on you both. Coughing, aware that you were laying on something softer than the floor, you struggled into a sitting position, swatting away clouds of disintegrated pages, “Rupert?  Are you alright?” From beneath you a rumbling grumble that sounded like, “Yes quite… you?” was heard.  It was then that you realized exactly where you were.  Straddling your friendly neighborhood librarian, surrounded by debris, but safe, all the same. “Oh my!  I’m so-” “No, No.  Please, don’t apologize.  I’ve been meaning to reorganize this section and well, now it seems I’ve got no choice.” “You’ve got a bump.  Right here…”  Just over his right eye a small bruised egg, the color of lilacs, was starting to rise and you gingerly touched the swelling spot. “Then it will match the one on the back of my head perfectly.” “Poor Giles!  All of this injury in the name of research!” “No one ever tells you the dangers one might encounter in the library.” His dry British wit sent you both into giggles and suddenly nothing could be funnier than the moment you were in with Mr. Giles.  Looking up at you, his fingertip traced over your cheek, suddenly serious, “I’m not the only one with a war wound, it appears.” “Oh?”  Your hand covered his as you realized that you had a small cut, bleeding just a little, over the apple of your jaw.  Smoothing his thumb over your injury, Giles soothed you, saying, “Hush now, I think you’ll live.”  And you watched as Giles sucked the drop of scarlet from the pad there, his green eyes on yours, daring you.  Something about it was so… sinful.  So dark.  So alluring. Then his lips were on yours, suddenly and savagely.  Hands, firm and capable, slid under the fluff of your sweater along your spine as you tangled your own in his dark hair.  Giles, drawing you near, was satisfied only when you were splayed over him, writhing between the piles of text and stacks of piled paperbacks, as his tongue plundered your mouth. Trapped by his bent knees at your bottom, Giles helped center you over the firmness of his excitement, teasing you as you moaned, “Oh, oh Rupert!” “Call me Ripper.”  Before the word had left your throat, Giles was sloppily kissing over your neck, sucking lightly on the skin revealed by the v-neck of your top.  Sitting up quickly, you lifted the soft sweater over your head, tossing it away from you without concern.  Like one of the teenagers you might chastise, you then hugged your lover tight, gasping when you felt the nip of teeth over your bra.  “Giles… Uh, Ripper!  Please, go easy?”  With a hard grip on your upper thigh and one hand on the back of your neck, Giles held you still, smirking, “If you wanted easy you shouldn’t have come looking for fertility icons, my dear little art teacher.  And if this particular article of clothing-” He paused long enough to pinch at your hardening nipple before continuing, “-is dear to you, take it off.” Clenching your abdominals at his crass language, more turned on that you could remember, you reached behind you.  Unhooking the pretty scrap of lace and satin, you shyly covered yourself, biting into your bottom lip, “Fine… Ripper.  Should I be worried for my virtue?” “Absolutely.”  Without waiting for permission, Giles pulled your arms away, exposing your bare body to his blazing gaze, “You have nothing to hide, you know?  You are-” “Just shut up and kiss me, Ripper.”  And he did. Grinding your hips into his, it was impossible to ignore his hardening manhood, even through the fabric of his pressed trousers.  Giles cupped your bottom, under your skirt but over your panties, bouncing you in place as if he was already inside of you.  For your part, you tried to unbutton his pin striped shirt, but the force of his kisses was proving too distracting. “Oh, dear!  Poor thing been kissed senseless?”  He was teasing and cruel, but in the sexiest possible way. Red cheeked and huffing, you nodded, “Yes… let me touch you!” “Tsk… you didn’t say ‘please’.” “Please!  Please, Ripper!  Oh god, please let me!” Unseating you slightly, Giles leaned up on his elbows, cocking his head to one side as he took in the mess he had made of you, “Go ahead then.  Unzip my pants.” “What?” Removing his glasses, eyeing you darkly, “You heard me, I think.” Swallowing hard, your hands shaking with excitement, you reached for Giles’ belt.  Watching him, and only him, you slowly slide the leather from it’s buckle.  When you popped the button of his pants and let your hand drag over his hardened length, Rupert groaned and tossed his head back, “Yes.  Keep going.” Slowly, agonizingly so, you lowered the zipper as you were ordered to do, “What now, Ripper?” “Take me out.  I want you to feel what you do to me.” “I can do that.”  You played it cool, but the saucy words being said in that clipped British baritone did things to you.  They made your thighs tighten, your belly flutter and your breath catch.   Trailing a hand over Giles' barely exposed hip, you moved closer to the prize, your prize, as it pulsed with need.  Wrapping your hand around the meaty girth of Rupert's member, you couldn't help stroking the silky hot skin, so vital in your palm.  That it caused the man beneath you to moan your name only added fuel to the fire of your desire. Slick and sorely wanting, you licked your lips, ready to savor the flavor of your book stacking beau but he stopped you, saying, "Last chance to run back to the studio." "No way… Ripper."  And you felt a rough jerk as your panties were removed by force, the air cool on your overheated core.  Another kiss, full of needful things, distracted you as Giles parted your lower lips with his nimble fingers. Pumping into you, once, twice, just to ensure that you were ready, Rupert swiftly stretched your center.  With your small hand guiding his shaft, you lowered yourself onto the engorged tower of his power, crying out a ragged, "Oh God!" You thought you were capable of handling any man, but the delicious spread Giles' fine form forced you to endure was more than you expected.  Clutching at his bunched up sweater vest, your back arched tautly as Rupert dragged your hips down onto his unrelenting hardness over and over.   In your head, a rhythmic, tribal tattoo that made you think of ancient fires and curved statues took hold and you rose and fell against Giles on the beats vibrating through your brain.  He sensed it too, alternating his stroke, slowing down and speeding up in time with the thrumming pulse only the pair of you could hear.  "I want you to cum for me.  Do you understand?  Tell me you understand." "Yes!  Yes!  I'm so close, Ripper!  So close!" "Good.  That's very good."  Tingling now, your muscles tensed, ready for the release Rupert would provide.  You flung yourself onto his swollen sex without thought or reason, merely searching for the pleasure he had promised.  His thumb, so thick, so clever, pressed against your sensitive clit and your world imploded. Rupert felt it.  The moment your body and his melded together was forceful.  It tore his pleasure from his loins in grunting gasps as he experienced your ecstacy at his hands. Limp and listless, you draped your half nude body over his, dazed and drained.  Who knew screwing the librarian would feel this good?  In your post coital haze you started to laugh.  Giles, his hands roaming over the sweat soaked skin of your back, heard your chuckles and joined in.  It was another release, of sorts, and you found it almost as intimate as the act you had just committed. Folding your hands under your chin, flashing Rupert a wide smile, "Ripper, huh?" Sliding his glasses back into place and carding a hand through his hair, Giles grinned, "Oh, uh… yes.  Ripper.  My nickname in London." Toying with the collar of his shirt, "I'd love to hear about London sometime… Ripper." At the sound of that name in your voice, Rupert flexed inside of you, "Call me that again and you'll miss last period." Gasping against him, nodding weakly, "Hmm… promise?" That made him smile broadly as he handed you back your sweater, "We can't have a repeat of last week, can we?" "It wasn’t my fault you didn't hear the bell ring, Mr. Giles!" Sitting up, you fastened your bra and shrugged into your sweater before asking, "Did you have to destroy my undies?" "I'm afraid I did.  Although I told you to remove anything dear, didn't I?" "What am I gonna do for the next hour, Giles?" Pushing his glasses up, "I would advise you not to bend over." Swatting at him playfully, you used one of the sturdier shelves to stand, adjusting your skirt and fluffing your hair.  Looking around at the absolute mess created by falling books, embarrassed, you asked, "Can I help clean this up?" "No, I don't think that'll be necessary.  After all, Willow will be in-" "Along with Buffy and Xander and Cordelia.  Got it." Standing himself, Giles chuckled as he fastened his trousers and set himself to rights, "Precisely.  Now-" he bent over to retrieve a slim volume, "- The book you asked about.  Fertility iconography in Meso-American subcultures." "Thanks.  Ya know, I always enjoy coming to the library.  I'm surprised more people don't." Walking with you, his hand on your lower back, nuzzling into your neck, "I enjoy you cumming in the library." It was on the tip of your tongue to say something fresh when the overly loud bell clanged.  Lifting up on tiptoes you pressed a kiss to the goose egg over Giles' eye, saying, "I hope that makes it feel better!" Snagging you into a tight hug, Giles stared into your eyes before kissing you deeply, "That.  That makes it feel better." And then the library door swung wide on the four students who called the library a second home, "Um… are my eyes deceiving me or is Giles sporting a black eye?  I was only gone for an hour, big guy, what happened?" "If you must know, Xander, a shelf collapsed in the back.  We were fortunate enough not to be badly hurt but, there were some bumps and bruises." "A shelf!  Oh no… which one?!" Giles turned to Willow solemnly, "I'm afraid all the Grollier’s… and most of Crentist." "On it.  Come on Xander.  You can help me sort!" "Aw, gee.  That sounds like fun." As the pair trotted off, you turned to Giles, whispering low, "Dinner?  My place?  You can tell me about London, your childhood and why you love tweed." Eyeing Buffy, who was distracted and a distraught, Giles answered, "Tonight?  Um…" "He'd love to!  Say 9 o'clock?  And, he'll bring the wine."

Spinning on your heel, surprised that Buffy was your champion, you grinned, "Great!  Awesome!  I will see you then."

As you left you heard the bubbly blonde doling out instructions, "No Giles.  You can't wear that outfit to dinner!  You need to look nice.  Nicer than you do now.  Also, why is there so much dust in your hair?" If Giles answered you didn’t hear it over your big yawn.  You had a lot to do between now and 9 o’clock.  Rupert Giles was coming over for dinner and you could hardly wait.

------ Fin ------- I’m tagging my minxes, even though this is specifically NOT a Loki story.  I do want you guys to send me stories that might fall under the “Hot Characters” banner though!   Minxes:   @scrumptious-finicky-illusion​ @iamverity​ @mizfit2​ @sammy-jo1977​ @wolfsmom1​ @jessiejunebug​ @iluvsumbucky​ @unadulteratedwizardlove @procrastinatinglikeabitch @shxdowofdarkness​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @ahintofkiwistrawberry​ @alexakeyloveloki​ @rorybutnotgilmore​ @crystalizedcaramel​ @lokislittlecorner​ @capcapcapsicle @jamielea81​ @caffiend-queen​​ @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore​​ @jenjen8675309​​ @that-one-person​​ @roguewraith​​ @toomanystoriessolittletime​ @vodka-and-some-sass​ @just-random-obsessions​ @brokenthelovely​ @lots-of-loki​ @thefallenbibliophilequote​

[murderslugs]

Slasher Bf/Gf Scenarios/Imagines! || Meeting Them

Jason Voorhees (Friday The 13th)

You were out with friends, and it was getting awfully late. But still, there you were, with a flashlight and a backpack with a first-aid kit, some snacks, and water in it, just in case, walking through the abandoned camping trail with your friends. You guys had grown up in a town not too far away from the little old camp, and you’d heard all the stories that surrounded the place. For years you had just dismissed it, you all had passed it off as a local legend or rumor, but still there was a little spark of curiosity. Of course, this is what led you to where you reside now, exploring the camp in search of something peculiar, maybe a story to tell.

“Maybe we should go home...It’s late and I’m not feeling well..” your friend, Ruby, said wearily. It was true, you could see the illness in her dark, drooping eyelids. “Oh, bullshit! You’re fine, just drink some water and go throw up on a tree or something!” another friend yelled out. You just rolled your eyes. “Shut up! She doesn’t look too good, Otis! I think I should bring her back to the car to sit down.” You said with concern. To the dismay and groaning of the group, they let you and Ruby on your way back down the trail and to the car while they continued down the path. 

As you made your way to the car, Ruby fell close behind in your steps. Your flashlight flickered continually, and then suddenly gave out; leaving you two in the dark, and the pale moon barely illuminating through the trees above you. “Shit,” you muttered to yourself, hitting the battery pack to the light repeatedly. “Stop, quiet,” Ruby whisper-shouted. That’s when you heard the rustling of the branches getting closer. Closer. Closer. “Maybe we shou…” You turn around, to see Ruby gone. 

“Ruby? Ruby?!” You shouted out, to no response. You turned frantically, searching for any sign of her presence. A large man in a ski mask and an old, ruined jacket stood before you, silent. Before you could turn to run or get around him, you felt a sudden pressure on the side of your head, and then you saw black.

Michael Myers (Halloween)

It was Halloween night, and you were home from college for fall break. Your mom insisted that you took your younger sister trick-or-treating, even though you refuted that she was 12 years old, and could handle herself. So, you just took her block to block instead and sat on the corner of the street for her to walk down to the other end and get to all the houses. It was a small town, so there were never really concerns about kidnapping and such. It was just never a problem, you guess. 

“Go, Riley. You’re a big kid, you can go down the street.” You groaned, tired of her constant whining. “But (y/nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn), It’s dark down there!! There’s not a street light at the end!!” she whined insistently. You sighed heavily and pulled your phone out of your pocket. “Here. You can use the flashlight on my phone, just don’t snoop through my info.” You told her, handing over the old smartphone, and pulling a pumpkin-shaped sucker from her trick-or-treat bag. “You owe me this.” 

You unwrapped the cheap candy and popped it into your mouth, leaning on the house fence as your sister skipped down the sidewalk. The leaves rustled in the trees, and suddenly you heard footsteps behind you, and whipped around to see who it was. It was on the quieter side of town, and it was getting late. This meant that there shouldn’t be many people out, so there shouldn’t be someone behind you. But still, you came face-to-chest with a tall man in a dark blue jump-suit type outfit, and a white mask. You panicked, and thought quickly about how to fight back. Unfortunately, he seemed to be faster than you, and your mouth was covered as you were picked up and carried off into the darkness, legs kicking uselessly. 

Carrie White (Carrie)

You were at the library when you saw a pale girl browsing through the young adult fantasy section. You observed her actions, as she readjusted her dress and collar. She carefully picked a book from the shelf and flipped it to the back to read the description. You saw a flash of the cover, and realized it was one of your favorite series, Chronicles of Narnia. You hesitated but stepped forward in a bit of excitement.

“That’s a good one, I, um, really recommend checking it out.” You told her with a smile, and she looked up, seemingly a bit taken aback. You realized this, and took a step back to give her space. “Sorry, didn’t mean to alarm you...I’m (y/n).” You stuck out your hand, and she just looked down at it, book in hand. “Carrie...Sorry, mama never liked me talking to strangers…” “No, no, it’s okay, I underst-” “No, it’s okay...She’s been gone a while now.” She looked down. 

You stood awkwardly, feeling a bit bad now. “You seem kind enough. I’ve got to go, but we can talk again another time. I come here every Sunday, around noon.” Carrie said quietly, smiling softly and turning, taking Narnia with her. You sat to yourself, a bit confused about the interaction. You shook your head and carried on. “Next Sunday it is,” You thought to yourself.

Jennifer Check (Jennifer's Body)

There was a new girl at school, as you had heard. How could you not have when everyone was talking about it? She had moved here recently after some sort of tragedy occured, or so you’d heard. It was rumored that she had to have surgery cause someone tried to kill her, she was all stabbed up and shit and nearly bled out. You can’t imagine how awful that would be, and you kept thinking about how she probably came here for a new start, and wouldn’t want people asking about it, but you knew it would happen anyways.

It was 3rd period, Anatomy, when a girl you’d never seen before walked into the classroom. This, of course, must have been the new girl. She was absolutely glowing, even from afar. Her hair was voluminous, rich, and dark, her skin was clear and shiny, her eyes were sharp and bright. It took your breath away trying to take in the sight. The girl’s heels clicked as she trailed to the back of the classroom, to where you were. She sat beside you, at the lab table. 

You tried not to look at her, after all, you didn’t want to seem weird. You looked at the floor and over to her shoes. A few drips of a thick, crimson substance were on the floor beneath her, seemingly originating from her shoe. You wondered for a moment if she was hurt. Or, could she have hurt someone else..? It scared you a bit to think about the second option. God knows this school didn’t need another bully, or anything worse than it.

You were tranced, stuck in your own looming dark thoughts, when a velvet voice came to your ears. You snapped your glance up from the floor, to see the girl looking at you, specifically. To your dismay, blood rushed to your face out of embarrassment. “I’m Jennifer. Do you have a pen I can use?”

Billy Loomis (Scream)

You were in your brand new house, you had moved out and into the next town over from your parents. You wanted to be further away, but you knew that your mom would be upset, she was always so protective. She even said that she expected you to come visit her on the weekends. The relationship was a bit exhausting sometimes. But now, you were in your own house, and it was great. You could decorate it however you wanted, you could have whoever you wanted over, you could do basically whatever.

Though, for now, you decided to just make some off-brand pizza rolls and blare some music, maybe even dance around a little bit. Season Of The Witch by Donovan was playing on your stereo when suddenly your phone rang. You paused the music, and quickly answered. Normally, you would check the caller ID, but you were in a good mood and it completely slipped your mind. I mean, who cares if it's a scam caller? You can just hang up. To your surprise, it wasn’t a familiar voice, but didn’t seem to be a scam-caller. Maybe a wrong number? 

“Do you like scary movies?” The other line said. You were suspicious, and for a second you considered that maybe it was a survey. It didn’t seem to be a harmful question, so you replied, “Yeah, duh. If you don't, you're pretty lame.” You turned the music back on, but turned the volume down. He asked a few follow-up questions, and you gave your honest answers. You just strolled around the kitchen, occasionally checking the timer on your food so that it doesn’t burn. 

You had your phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder, and you had on oven mitts as you grabbed your pizza rolls from the oven. “What’s your name?” The caller suddenly asked. You paused for a second as you put the cooking sheet on the counter. “Why do you wanna know..” You asked cautiously. “Well, I wanna know the name of the cutie I’m looking at.” He said, and your heart damn near stopped. “Excuse me..?” You hung up and quickly ran to the doors, double-checking the locks and locking the windows and shutting the curtains. You grabbed a knife from the silverware drawer and locked yourself in your room, where you eventually fell asleep in the dark silence.

Thomas Hewitt (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

You had just moved out to the country-side to start anew, planning to start a small farm and just live in peace on the quiet little land. Little did you know, you had neighbors across the field that weren’t exactly the type of neighbors that you could ask for a cup of sugar. You were hanging the new drapes for the windows after having taken the old ones down. They were old, dirty, ragged. Honestly, the old farmhouse was sort of let to rot for a while, and you knew it. It was cheap though, and you were up to the challenge. You decided that you would decorate it, clean it up, and make it like brand new, even with the little money that you had. 

As you were hanging the drapes, you kept looking out into the distance of the rolling fields outside the window, littered with patches of wild flowers in the grass. You fantasized about making gardens, maybe even building a little stable for a horse or two. It was a lovely thought; there was a small village a little while away from the farm that you could ride a horse to if you wanted. 

Though, some distance away in the field, you saw the figure of what looked to be a man wandering in the field. You weren’t too worried, as you had all the locks in place, it was the middle of the day, and he looked peaceful. So, you just forgot about it and went on fixing up your house, unpacking, and getting the rest of the things in place. Although you had been there about a week, you still understandably weren’t completely unpacked. 

A few hours later, you were doing a bit of drawing on the couch and taking some time to relax. That’s when you heard a thud on your door. Just a single thud, that’s all. Still, you had reason to be concerned, as you were sort of in the middle of the country and it was starting to set into the evening. You quietly walked to your bedroom and grabbed a shotgun from the closet that you kept for protection, a tradition in your family. You carried it with you as you checked the door. You looked through the thin peephole, but saw nothing. You opened the door to find a paper stuck to the door by a rusty hatchet, buried deep into the oak. Your heart rate spiked as you tore the note from the door and read it. “Welcome to the neighborhood, pretty person” was spelled in crude handwriting.

[bevioletskies]

love will never do (without you)

summary: Despite his increasingly frequent social visits to Baker Street, none of its inhabitants have been able to convince Kazuma to stay for dinner. Ryunosuke is determined to finally change his mind.

word count: 6.7k | read on ao3

a/n: For @asoryuu-week, day three of seven (prompt: "family"). This fic takes place post-Resolve; mild spoiler warning for Adventures and Resolve, where events may be alluded to but not described in detail. All names and honorifics are taken from the official localization, with the exception of Haori, Sherlock, and Iris.

Fic title is from the song Love Will Never Do (Without You) by Janet Jackson.

“Are you sure you won’t stay, Kazuma? I promise Iris won’t be making roast chicken this time.”

Kazuma chuckled, drawing his coat a little tighter around his midsection as he buttoned himself up, though to Ryunosuke, it mostly seemed as if he were trying to avoid Ryunosuke’s pleading gaze. “I’m happy to hear that, but I’m afraid I can’t. Lord van Zieks and I are getting on a train first thing in the morning to attend that conference I told you about, remember?”

“You seem to spend more time with him than with us,” Ryunosuke said, frowning somewhat. “Though if it’s work-related, I suppose it can’t be helped. Next time, then?”

“No promises,” Kazuma said, offering him a regretful smile. “Enjoy your not-roast chicken dinner without me, won’t you? I’ll come by for tea sometime next week, and that’s a promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Ryunosuke nodded. “Have a safe trip, Kazuma.”

“Have a good evening, Ryunosuke,” Kazuma replied, bowing his head slightly before disappearing into the carriage that awaited him. Sighing, Ryunosuke lingered on the sidewalk for a moment, watching him go, then turned and headed back inside, back to where the others were waiting for him with hungry bellies and questioning gazes. When they noticed Ryunosuke had returned to the table alone, their curiosity was quickly replaced with disappointment.

“It wasn’t meant to be, it seems,” Sherlock commented blithely. “What a shame; I’d been hoping to continue our conversation on Japanese martial arts. I would’ve loved to hear his opinion on my boxing technique.”

“Oh, I wish he’d stayed,” Iris sighed, slumping in her seat. “I even made all of his favorites! Surely, that should’ve been enough.”

“Unfortunately, Kazuma-sama is a very busy man,” Susato said, patting Iris’s hand in sympathy. “Well, there’s no point in dwelling on it at the moment. I’m sure he’ll stay for dinner someday, just not today. Shall we eat?”

As much as Ryunosuke loved Iris’s cooking, this time, it was hard for him to enjoy even a single bite. Over the last several weeks, Kazuma had inexplicably been coming by Baker Street more and more often despite having spent the last several months politely but firmly rejecting Ryunosuke and Susato’s invitations. Usually, he only stopped by if someone was sick and he wanted to pass on his well wishes, or if they’d had a particularly difficult case together and he wanted to decompress. Both of them had resigned themselves to Kazuma’s apparent desire to keep them at arm’s length, only to be surprised when he showed up one day for afternoon tea. It had become something of a regular appointment ever since. Still, none of them had been able to convince him to stay long enough for dinner.

“Naruhodo-san?”

Ryunosuke startled; he barely remembered finishing dinner and returning to his desk in the attic, only to shuffle mindlessly through his paperwork without reading any of it. “Ah - sorry, Susato-san, were you saying something just now?”

“No, I’ve only just come back up,” Susato replied, looking at him curiously. “You seem...distracted. Is it because of Kazuma-sama?”

“I just...don’t understand what’s going on with him,” Ryunosuke admitted, rubbing his aching temples. “I can’t help but worry he’s caught up in something again. He spent months keeping his distance, and now, he comes round twice a week, only to leave after an hour or two of conversation. It’s...it’s strange, is what it is.” He then sat up, his eyes wide. “Do you think he’s spying on us for someone?”

Susato tilted her head, looking at him worryingly. “...oh dear, I hope not. And I don’t think all of Kazuma-sama’s secrets are wrapped up in conspiracy, Naruhodo-san. As I said, he’s a busy man, so we should be grateful that we get to see him as often as we do. And I’m glad that he’s been so happy and healthy these days.”

“Yes, of course,” Ryunosuke agreed. Kazuma was definitely smiling more, talking more, laughing more, and that was never a bad thing. It didn’t stop him from worrying, though. “I hope he’ll stay for dinner eventually, especially for Iris’s sake. She went to all that trouble tonight, after all.”

“Perhaps we’ll have to guilt him into it,” Susato said with a mischievous giggle. “If Iris were to cry and bat her eyelashes at him, he’s sure to come around!”

“...I’d like to try less underhanded tactics first, Susato-san,” Ryunosuke replied, sighing.

_____

Of course, that wasn’t to say Ryunosuke had any tactics in mind to begin with, short of cornering Kazuma and asking him outright. Every single time, without fail, Kazuma had somewhere to be or someone to see, even when he knew he was coming to Baker Street well in advance. Every single time, Ryunosuke went to see him off while asking him to stay, and every single time, Kazuma seemed to be avoiding his eyes while telling him he had to leave. Then, days later, the same thing would happen all over again.

They’d tried a few different things in the beginning, naturally. Sherlock had offered to spar with Kazuma, and when that hadn’t worked, offered to discuss literature and politics with him instead. Iris had bribed him with tea, then sweets, then science; unsurprisingly, Kazuma only had a polite interest in hearing about Iris’s smoke bombs. Ryunosuke and Susato tried to persuade him with the promise of stories from their brief return to Japan, what with Ryunosuke finishing his formal law education and Susato taking a few turns in the Supreme Court as the elusive Ryutaro. Frustratingly, even that failed to work, and everyone was at a loss as to why.

“Your head appears to be in the clouds today, Ryunosuke. What’s on your mind?”

“I - oh!” Ryunosuke coughed, blushing. “Sorry, Kazuma, I seem to be drifting off quite a bit these days. What did you say?”

Chuckling, Kazuma moved in closer, the side of his hip pressing into Ryunosuke’s. He lifted a hand to affectionately rap his knuckles against Ryunosuke’s forehead. “I said you seem distracted. Is something bothering you?”

Ryunosuke cast a worried glance around the courthouse library, hoping no one could see the strangely intimate stance they were suddenly in, then turned back to meet Kazuma’s intense, albeit slightly concerned gaze; he swallowed. “Are you free this evening, for dinner?”

Kazuma’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Dinner?”

“At Baker Street, with the others,” Ryunosuke clarified. “I think Iris is making beef stew and freshly baked bread, so…”

“Ah.” Kazuma cleared his throat, taking a few measured steps back before turning back to the bookshelf he’d been perusing. “No, I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it.” When Ryunosuke motioned for him to continue, he frowned. “What?”

“I was waiting to hear what excuse you had to offer this time,” Ryunosuke replied, his tone harsher than he’d intended; Kazuma looked just as taken aback as Ryunosuke felt.

“Excuse? You think I’ve been making excuses?” Kauma said coldly, eyes narrowing. “I didn’t know you thought so little of me, Ryunosuke. Do you really believe that I’m making things up just to get out of joining you for dinner?”

“I’m not sure what to believe,” Ryunosuke said, more resignedly now. “You’ve been coming over so often these days, but you never stay longer than a couple of hours, and never for dinner. I can only assume that you’ve been told to visit us but not to stay too long, or...or, I don’t know, that you think Iris will poison your food or something.”

Kazuma scoffed, looking away so he could yank a volume off the shelf rather violently. “Don’t be ridiculous, Ryunosuke. It’s convoluted thoughts like that that keep us in court longer than we need to be.”

Ryunosuke flinched, hurt. “There’s no need to be so short with me. All I wanted to know is why my best friend has been so distant, but...if you continue to act like this, I’m not sure I care to find out.”

Now it was Kazuma’s turn to appear wounded; he let out a lengthy sigh. “I...I’m sorry, that was unnecessary of me. And…” He inhaled sharply. “You’re right, I have nowhere to be. But I won’t be coming all the same.”

“But why?” Ryunosuke whisper-shouted, frustrated, mindful of the other library patrons who were watching them curiously from a few shelves away. “I understand not wanting to accept every single invitation, and I understand that you’re busy, but you haven’t even stayed once, so...I can only assume that something must be wrong.”

Kazuma visibly swallowed, tucking his books underneath one arm, folding the other defensively across his stomach. “Have a good day, Ryunosuke.” And with that, he swept past Ryunosuke rather hurriedly, disappearing out of sight before Ryunosuke could even fathom what had happened. Groaning, he slumped against the shelf he’d been standing beside; his head was starting to hurt again. He barely even looked up at the sound of Susato’s footsteps.

“I’m afraid they didn’t have the records we were looking for, Naru - Naruhodo-san? Are you alright?” She placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “I thought you were with Kazuma-sama.”

“I was, but...I really don’t know what’s happening, Susato-san,” Ryunosuke sighed. “I asked him if he’d be able to join us for dinner, and this time, he didn’t even give me an excuse. Simply told me he had nowhere to be, but he wouldn’t be coming, anyway. I mean, what are we supposed to think at this point?”

Susato’s face fell. “Oh. I...I see.”

“Is it…” Ryunosuke hesitated. “Is it strange to miss someone, even when they’re standing right in front of you?”

“I don’t think so,” Susato murmured, offering him a sad smile. “Because I feel it, too.”

Dinner was a somber affair; the moment Ryunosuke and Susato arrived home, Sherlock and Iris could instantly tell that something was wrong. They seemed resigned, too, especially given that Kazuma hadn’t bothered interacting with them much prior to Ryunosuke and Susato’s return to London. Even Sherlock confessed he wasn’t sure where to begin when it came to deducing Kazuma’s reasons, or worse, his potential ulterior motive.

“And I was so looking forward to having another big brother around,” Iris said, chewing rather despondently on her piece of freshly baked bread. “Do you think he might be mad at us for some reason? I can’t think of anything we’ve done to offend him, but…”

“If he were upset, I don’t think he’d be visiting us at all,” Susato reassured her, though she didn’t sound very sure herself.

Finally, things seemed to come to a head one drizzly morning when Ryunosuke managed to acquit his client rather quickly, ending the trial sooner than expected. As he and Susato finished packing their things so they could join their client in the defendants’ antechamber, Kazuma approached them with a broad smile.

“Well done, Ryunosuke. That last deduction of yours was ingenious,” he said, extending a hand. “I was thinking, instead of visiting Baker Street, we could go all go out for tea sometime and - ”

“No.” Ryunosuke had said it so quickly, so immediately, that all three of them looked surprised; Susato only just managed to stop herself from gasping out loud. “No, I - I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Naruhodo-san,” Susato whispered, aghast.

Kazuma’s hand dropped unceremoniously to his side. His mouth was set in a hard line, his jaw taut. “Ryunosuke…”

“I really don’t know what’s going on with you, Kazuma, and...and maybe I’m simply overthinking it, but…” Ryunosuke shook his head, fists clenched. “It just feels as if you don’t care about us anymore. That you only come round for tea to keep up appearances, and not because you actually want to spend time with us. It even seems as if...as if you can’t wait to get away when the time comes.”

“That’s not true, I - ” Kazuma’s lip curled, but even he couldn’t seem to find the words to speak. “I want to, but I...I can’t.”

“Are you in trouble, Kazuma-sama?” Susato said urgently, stepping forward. “If there’s something we can do to help, anything at all…”

Kazuma turned abruptly, his head bowed, shoulders trembling. For a moment, Ryunosuke wondered, panicked, if he was about to cry. Yet, when he turned back to look at them, his eyes were sharp, determined. “...fine. Let’s have dinner, then. Is tonight too soon?”

Ryunosuke and Susato exchanged confused glances. “I’m...sure Iris would be happy to cook for you,” Susato said slowly, uncertainly. “Do you really mean it, Kazuma-sama? You’ll be having dinner with us tonight, just like that?”

“Just like that. I’ll be there, I swear,” Kazuma promised. As much as Ryunosuke didn’t want to believe him, something about the look on Kazuma’s face told him that he could trust him, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Swallowing thickly, Ryunosuke held out his hand. Kazuma instantly accepted, giving it a firm shake. “Tonight.”

“Tonight,” Ryunosuke echoed numbly.

_____

Hours later, Ryunosuke still felt uncertain as he was getting dressed for dinner. He’d believed Kazuma at the time, but now, he expected to see nothing but yet another empty place setting at the table. And, of course, Ryunosuke couldn’t forget the haunted look in Kazuma’s eyes when he’d accused him of not caring about them - did I go too far? Ryunosuke wondered, chewing his bottom lip worriedly. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions, I shouldn’t have pushed it -

“Naruhodo-san!” He startled at the sound of Susato’s voice, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. “Naruhodo-san, Kazuma-sama is here!”

“Wait, really?” Ryunosuke stepped out of his bedroom and promptly almost fell over - again - at the sight of Kazuma, standing at the bottom of the attic stairs, wearing a casual outfit and a radiant smile that actually seemed to reach his eyes. For a moment, Ryunosuke felt his heart stop. “Kazuma, you - you really are here!”

“And I’ve brought a gift for everyone,” Kazuma added, motioning towards the box tucked underneath his arm. He looked cheerful, amicable, nothing like the cornered, wounded animal he’d appeared to be just hours ago. “Nothing too exciting, I’m afraid, but I hope it will please everyone all the same.”

“I’m sure it will,” Susato said, beaming. “Shall we head to Mr Holmes’s suite, then?”

“We shall,” Kazuma agreed, holding out his hand for her to take. When she accepted with a giggle and an exaggerated bow, Kazuma then turned to extend his other hand to Ryunosuke with a wink for good measure. “Ready?”

“I…” Ryunosuke’s cheeks warmed; he quickly made his way down the stairs and pushed past them, nearly knocking his shoulder into Kazuma’s. “I-I should see if Iris needs help setting the table.”

By the time everyone was seated, Ryunosuke’s stomach was tossing and turning like nothing else. It wasn’t unusual, he supposed, for Kazuma to act like this; he remembered getting a little too drunk with him in their university days, only to find Kazuma’s face a little too close to his, looking him up and down in a way that made Ryunosuke wonder. It had only ever been wondering, though, with nothing ever coming to fruition. Now, despite his current frustration with Kazuma’s erratic behavior, Ryunosuke still thought about it every now and then, about his meaningful glances and his sly, almost suggestive remarks.

“So how’ve you been, Kazzy?” Iris chirruped brightly. “The last time you were here, you were telling us about some of the work you were doing with Susie’s daddy.”

“Yes, Professor Mikotoba invited me to spend some time with him in his new laboratory so I can familiarize myself with the latest in forensics,” Kazuma replied, smiling gratefully when she handed him a generously-filled bowl of soup. “I’m assuming he’s done the same for you, Mr Holmes?”

“Indubitably,” Sherlock said, nodding. “It’s also given me the opportunity to see the wonderful Miss Haori at work as well.” He then turned in his seat, beaming in Susato’s direction. “Of course, I already knew she was perfectly lovely, Miss Susato, but now I’ve seen first-hand just how whip-smart and delightfully curious she is. I can see why you’re so taken with her.”

“O-oh,” Susato managed to say, blushing. “I’m sure she’d be pleased to hear you say that, Mr Holmes.”

“Already knew?” Kazuma echoed, looking at Sherlock curiously. “I didn’t know you were acquainted with her.”

“Oh, Haori stops by for tea and a chat all the time!” Iris said, beaming. “She’s always curious about the different concoctions and inventions Holmesie and I have been working on, you see. She even brings some incredible ideas of her own!...none that have worked out, mind you, but I’m sure that someday, we’ll create the perfect invention together.”

“I...I see.” Kazuma cleared his throat, taking his first spoonful of soup.

Sherlock and Iris exchanged dubious looks across the table; Ryunosuke could only hope that Kazuma wouldn’t notice. “Well, what else have you been up to?” Iris asked as she began to eat as well. “Surely you’re not spending all your time working, Kazzy. Do you have any hobbies? Ooh, or a secret lover, perhaps?”

“Iris,” Sherlock said, frowning somewhat, but she didn’t seem to be deterred at all.

“Susie and Haori are so sweet together,” Iris continued, idly stirring her soup with a dreamy sigh. “And we’ve even had a few of Holmesie’s clients take interest in Ryu, can you believe it? Just the other day, there was this young woman who stopped in, worried about her brother’s dubious business dealings. Ryu happened to be home, so he offered to keep her company while she waited for Holmesie to return. She was so charmed, I think there were literal stars in her eyes - ”

“Iris,” Sherlock repeated, firmer this time. Ryunosuke wasn’t sure his face could get any hotter; he didn’t dare look up to see how Kazuma had reacted. “Now might not be the time for that sort of talk. After all, Mr Naruhodo made it clear that he wasn’t interested in her.”

“He did?” Kazuma’s voice was strangely affected, almost hollow.

“I think I remember her,” Susato said with a rueful smile. “She was quite forward, asking Mr Naruhodo if he’d like to have dinner sometime. Once he understood what she meant, he told her he was flattered, but that he already had someone.”

“A gentleman’s rejection, if I do say so myself,” Sherlock added unhelpfully. “Seeing as Mr Naruhodo has precisely no one.”

“...a kind reminder, Mr Holmes,” Ryunosuke said, sighing. It was only then that he noticed the severe pull of Kazuma’s mouth, almost as if he were clenching his teeth to stop himself from speaking. “Anyway, er, Kazuma, didn’t you want to tell Mr Holmes and Iris about that odd contraption you saw when you accompanied Lord van Zieks to that crime scene in the countryside?”

Kazuma’s expression quickly shifted into a friendlier one, though he still seemed more guarded than ever. “Yes, thank you for reminding me. I wish I’d had a camera on me, it was the strangest thing…”

An hour or so later, after their somewhat awkward dinner had ended, Sherlock elected to put on a record rather than provide the musical entertainment himself, a lilting sort of waltz that had everyone swaying in their seats while they sipped their tea and continued to chat. Susato was in the middle of recounting the plot of the latest novel she’d been reading when Sherlock suddenly pulled Iris to her feet, humming along all the while.

“Quickly, Iris! Here, stand on my feet,” he instructed, grinning brightly.

“Are you sure?” Iris asked doubtfully. “Won’t that hurt?”

“Not at all, not at all,” Sherlock insisted. “You mustn't dawdle, either, for the best part is about to begin!”

Ryunosuke and Susato couldn’t help but burst into raucous laughter, watching Sherlock clumsily guide Iris around the room as the music began to pick up in speed, the heels of Iris’s shoes constantly slipping from the toes of Sherlock’s, her fingers clutching at the back of Sherlock’s waistcoat as she held on for dear life.

“I already know how to dance, Holmesie!” Iris exclaimed through her own fit of giggles. “You hardly need to teach me.”

“Ah, but isn’t it so much more enjoyable this way?” Sherlock beamed. “Naturally, this doesn’t work with everyone - imagine me doing this with Mikotoba, for instance - ”

“And you know perfectly well that Father already knows how to dance,” Susato interjected, still laughing.

“ - but you, Iris, are the perfect size!” Sherlock declared, scooping her into his arms. Iris squealed at the sensation of suddenly being lifted up in the air, giggling hysterically as he spun her around. Ryunosuke and Susato continued to clap and cheer them on, applauding happily as the song came to an end. Sherlock finally set Iris back down onto her own two feet, looking understandably winded. He let out a quiet groan, bringing one hand to cup the small of his back. “We’ll have to do that again sometime, my dear girl. Not immediately, you understand.”

“Oh, perfectly,” Iris replied, glowing. She then collapsed onto the settee, situating herself right between Ryunosuke and Susato, her head dropping to rest on Ryunosuke’s shoulder. “And we must invite Ginny round for it, too. I bet she’d love to join in!”

“And now I simply must see you and Father dance together as well, Mr Holmes,” Susato added, chuckling. “I’m sure the two of you would look positively enchanting!”

Ryunosuke then turned to look in the direction of the armchair. “What about you, Kaz - Kazuma?” But Kazuma wasn’t there; the only indication that he’d been sitting there at all was the saucer on the table beside it. Frowning, Ryunosuke shot to his feet and headed straight to the entryway, ignoring Susato’s startled cry. “Kazuma, are you seriously going to - ” But Kazuma’s boots were still neatly lined up beside his own, his coat still hanging from the coat rack, leaving Ryunosuke to turn and head straight into the kitchen. There, he found Kazuma hunched over the sink, hands gripping the counter a little too tightly. “...Kazuma, are you alright?”

“...I just needed some air, sorry.” Kazuma made a point of not turning around. “My head, it...it still hurts sometimes, and the music was a little too loud. But please, don’t let me spoil your fun.”

“It’s hardly fun when you’re not around,” Ryunosuke said, sidling up beside him. Up close, he could see sweat beginning to form on Kazuma’s brow, his bottom lip clenched between his teeth. “I’m sorry to hear about your head, though; shall I ask Mr Holmes to turn the music off? Do you need water, or - or maybe you should lie down.”

“No, it’s...I’m fine.” Kazuma straightened up, smoothing out the front of his shirt and letting out a labored breath that seemed to rattle from within his chest, though he still refused to look in Ryunosuke’s direction. “I must say, it seems I’ve been learning quite a lot tonight, more than I ever expected to.”

Ryunosuke frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I knew of Professor Mikotoba’s frequent visits to Baker Street, of course, but I didn’t realize Haori-san and Inspector Lestrade came by so often,” Kazuma remarked with a dry laugh. “And to hear that some of Mr Holmes’s clients had a keen romantic interest in you...who would’ve guessed?”

“Hey,” Ryunosuke protested softly, chuckling. “I’ve been told I can be quite charming when I want to be.”

“That sounds like the sort of thing a doting parent would say,” Kazuma teased, finally lifting his head to look at Ryunosuke with a warm, inviting smile. What exactly he was inviting him to do, Ryunosuke couldn’t be sure. “Hardly the words of a potential lover.”

“Well, uh…” Ryunosuke’s gaze softened; he moved closer. “...what would a potential lover say?”

“Passionate, perhaps,” Kazuma mused, taking another sharp inhale, though his breathing didn’t sound quite so painful anymore. “Clever, kind-hearted, loyal…” He then smirked. “Gullible, a little cowardly, overly agreeable - ”

“My apologies for being too agreeable - what a terrible character flaw I’ve got there,” Ryunosuke shot back, elbowing him. Kazuma’s sweet, raspy laughter finally rang out for the first time that evening, like music to Ryunosuke’s ears. Still, a sobering thought quickly cut through the sound. “Speaking of agreeable...Kazuma, why did you finally agree to come to dinner tonight, of all nights?”

Kazuma went quiet again. “...I’d like to hear your thoughts first, actually.”

“I…” Ryunosuke swallowed, silently wishing he hadn’t said anything. Now all he wanted to do was go back to mere seconds before, just so he could hear Kazuma laugh again. “I don’t want to think the worst of you, Kazuma, I really don’t. But I can’t help but feel you only accepted our invitation to prove a point. To prove us wrong.”

Kazuma shook his head, smiling bitterly. “I had a feeling you’d think that. It sounds like something I’d do, doesn’t it? But no, that’s not quite it. It’s more like you...like you helped me see reason, in that I finally saw how I was being entirely unreasonable.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Ryunosuke admitted. “If anything, I felt like I was being unreasonable by accusing you of not caring about us. Without evidence, no less!”

“This isn’t the courtroom, Ryunosuke,” Kazuma replied with a faint laugh. “But if you’d like, I can testify. I’ll even be generous and let you cross-examine me.” Ryunosuke wordlessly motioned for him to continue, unamused. “Yes, er...I really do apologize for making you and Susato-san worry about me, for making you doubt my friendship. I swear, I’m not in any sort of trouble. I’ve simply been...evasive of my own accord, not to mention selfish.”

“You’re not selfish, Kazuma,” Ryunosuke insisted, frowning. “Self-important at times, yes. But we know you mean well.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kazuma said hoarsely, slowly lowering himself down onto the kitchen floor with a lofty sigh. “I’ve been terribly selfish, in fact.”

Ryunosuke went to sit beside him, concerned. “How so?”

Kazuma seemed to be staring straight ahead at nothing, evidently lost in thought. When he finally spoke again, he sounded angry, Ryunosuke suspected, at himself. “I was ecstatic when I heard you and Susato-san were coming back to Great Britain,” he began. “I’d spent what felt like a lifetime here alone, talking to almost no one, trusting almost no one. So, I…I started imagining all the things we’d get to do, the memories we’d get to share.”

“Of course,” Ryunosuke agreed. “That’s all we’d been dreaming about since we departed from Japan, too.”

“So…when you returned, I just assumed it would be like old times,” Kazuma continued, smiling ruefully. “Instead, it seemed as if the two of you had made friends with all of London. Between dinners, parties, society events...I never knew you were such a social creature, Ryunosuke. And of course, you have something of a family now, here at Baker Street.”

“Yes, I do. Iris thinks of Susato-san and I as her older siblings,” Ryunosuke replied, nodding. “But...Kazuma, I still don’t understand. No doubt we’ve been busy, yes, but we’ve made plenty of time for you as well. Have you been feeling ignored?”

Kazuma ducked his head. “No, nothing like - you know what? This isn’t...I’m not seeking out your pity, alright? I’m not asking for you to feel sorry for me. I should have never brought it up, so why don’t you rejoin the others before they - ”

“No, I want to hear this,” Ryunosuke insisted, clasping his hand over Kazuma’s knee. Kazuma shuddered, but he didn’t move away. “I want to hear what you have to say. It’s obviously been bothering you for ages, so - please, tell me. Tell me everything.”

“...I wasn’t feeling ignored, exactly.” Kazuma lifted his gaze once more, his eyes suspiciously glossy. “It was more like...I felt as if there was no longer enough room in your life for me. And that you were the one keeping up appearances, being the kind of friend that you are, but...I started to believe you saw me as someone from your past, not someone you wanted in your future. Especially after...well, everything that transpired.”

“I made you feel as if I didn’t care about you?” Ryunosuke asked, his voice small.

“That’s where the selfishness comes in, actually,” Kazuma muttered. “I was too caught up in what I wanted, what I felt like I deserved, that I made everything carry more weight than it actually did. That I made your happiness about me. But…” His smile then softened, bittersweet. “...people have always been inexplicably drawn to you, Ryunosuke. When I first saw you on that stage, giving your speech, I assumed you didn’t have the presence to do it - ”

“...thanks,” Ryunosuke grumbled.

“ - but then I truly saw just how magnetic you really were,” Kazuma continued with a fond chuckle. “So, to bring this back to here and now, I...I wanted to keep seeing you, spending time with you - and with Susato-san, of course - but I didn’t want to stay around long enough to remind myself of how I no longer play a significant role in your life.” He let out a choked sob, dropping his head into his hands. “God, it sounds even more selfish when I say it out loud. I’m sorry, Ryunosuke. Once again, I...I let my feelings cloud my judgment. A terrible habit of mine that seems impossible to break.”

“Kazuma,” Ryunosuke breathed, stunned. “I...I had no idea.” He then moved even closer, reaching over to gently brush Kazuma’s hair out of his eyes. “Kazuma...look at me, please.”

But Kazuma merely got to his feet, knocking Ryunosuke’s hand away from his face. “I really should go before I spoil your night any more than I already have,” he said sharply, suddenly. “Please, give the others my regards.”

“You are not leaving before we finish this conversation,” Ryunosuke insisted, grabbing Kazuma by the wrist before he could disappear into the night. “Not this time.” Kazuma yanked his arm out of Ryunosuke’s grasp, his posture stiff and unyielding, but he didn’t seem poised to run off otherwise. “Kazuma, I - I’m so sorry that I ever made you doubt how much you mean to me. Believe me, I would not be the person I am today without you.”

“Ryunosuke, I really don’t want to make this about me - ”

“You’re my family, too, Kazuma.” Kazuma’s eyes widened. “And I want you here, always. We all do.”

Kazuma slowly turned on his heel, his hands dropping to his sides, the fight seemingly leaving his body all at once. “Ryu…”

“Yes, I - I won’t deny the importance of the friends I’ve made in London,” Ryunosuke continued, his voice trembling as he spoke. “And of course, I’ve got friends in Japan, old and new. But...surely you know that you’ve always meant the world to me, that you’ve always been more than just a friend, a-and you always will be. No matter who, what, or where we are, that will never change.”

Time seemed to stop for a moment, a moment that stretched out into what felt like minutes, hours, even, as Ryunosuke and Kazuma just stood there, staring at each other, waiting for someone to make a move. Then, Kazuma stepped forward, sweeping Ryunosuke in for a hug.

“You might not be the most articulate speaker in the world, but you’ve always had a way with words,” he murmured, burying his face into Ryunosuke’s shoulder. This time, he sounded halfway between a euphoric laugh and a relieved sob. “Thank you, Ryunosuke. You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that.”

“Then perhaps I should say it more often,” Ryunosuke teased, bringing Kazuma in even closer, his fingers curled into Kazuma’s shirt, refusing to let him go. He was warm, solid, comforting in a way that Ryunosuke had never quite realized until now. “For both our sakes.”

“I’d like that,” Kazuma mumbled; for a split second, it felt as if he’d pressed a kiss to Ryunosuke’s cheek, but he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it. “Anyway, we really should go and rejoin the others. It’s a wonder Susato-san hasn’t burst in here already, demanding answers.”

“I suspect she knows more than she let on...as she does,” Ryunosuke added, reluctantly pulling away. “Oh, and I’ve just remembered - would now be a good time to open that gift you brought?”

“Is that what you’re really after?” Kazuma asked, smirking. “But yes, I think so. Once I’ve apologized to the others for my coldness, that is.”

Mere minutes later, Kazuma found himself tackled to the ground by Susato and Iris, who were both crying tears of joy, clinging on to Kazuma like their lives depended on it. Ryunosuke and Sherlock stood back, watching on with bemused smiles as Susato then proceeded to scold him for being so distant, while Iris bounced up and down on her heels, begging him to sleep over so she’d have more time to read him her latest manuscript.

“Ryu always says you have a flair for the dramatic, after all,” Iris said, grinning cheekily. “So I’d like your opinion on whether this one particular passage gets your heart racing!”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay the night,” Kazuma said apologetically, taking a seat on the settee this time; his eyes widened slightly in surprise when Iris plopped right down beside him. “I’ve got an early morning meeting, unfortunately. If I were to sleep over, I think any Friday would be a safe bet.”

“This Friday, then?” Iris suggested. “You could set up in Ryu’s bedroom! I’m sure he’d like that.”

Kazuma raised an eyebrow in Ryunosuke’s direction. “...would he, now?”

“Hey, I - d-don’t - Iris!” Ryunosuke spluttered, his cheeks reddening. “Kazuma, your gift? Now?”

“So demanding,” Kazuma replied, clicking his tongue in disapproval. Still, he went to retrieve the box he’d left in the entryway, then knelt on the floor by the fireplace so he could open it. Iris immediately went to peek, while Sherlock only just managed to hold himself back, mostly because Susato had grabbed him by the arm before he could snatch the box out of Kazuma’s arms. Ryunosuke, on the other hand, went to kneel beside Kazuma, his heart racing with sudden anticipation. “Admittedly, I don’t really have an eye for art, but I was working on a crime scene diorama a month or two ago when I was struck by the idea. So…”

Small gasps filled the room as Kazuma carefully lifted out a mid-sized shadow box frame filled with the most beautiful papercraft any of them had ever seen, depicting 221B Baker Street and its occupants in a domestic scene - Sherlock playing his beloved Stradivarius, Iris pouring a cup of tea, Susato reading in the armchair, and Ryunosuke eating sweets by the fireplace, Wagahai nestled in his lap.

“Kazuma-sama,” Susato whispered, speechless, her eyes shining with tears.

“No eye for art, you say? My dear fellow, this is absolutely beautiful!” Sherlock declared, beaming.

“Oh, I’m not the one who made it,” Kazuma said, shaking his head. “No, I used my connections to find and commission one of the best artisans in the country, and this was the result. I thought it would make for a nice piece for you to hang somewhere - anywhere, really. Do you...do you like it?”

Ryunosuke made a quiet, incoherent noise, having clapped his hand over his mouth to keep himself from crying, too. “Kazuma, it’s...it’s incredible! I only wish we’d spoken earlier so you would’ve thought to include yourself, too.”

Kazuma’s gaze softened; he looked pleased, yet embarrassed. “Yes, well...I don’t live here, so it wouldn’t have been appropriate, anyway.”

“Well, then maybe you should!” Iris piped up. “After all, you’re Susie’s brother and Ryu’s partner, not to mention my newest big brother. Why wouldn’t you live here?” Kazuma opened his mouth, then closed it again, suddenly also at a loss for words. Ryunosuke couldn’t help but silently note that the tips of his ears had gone red.

“I think you might be moving a little fast for the poor man, Iris,” Sherlock said, chuckling good-naturedly. “Let’s start by having him stay the night sometime in the near future first, shall we?”

Susato hastily dried her tears, then straightened up, smoothing out the front of her kimono. “Kazuma-sama, if I may, I’d like for us to find a place to put this up right now before you go. Shall we keep it somewhere in your suite, Mr Holmes, or would you rather we bring it up to the attic?”

“The entryway, Miss Susato, the entryway!” Sherlock was already off before any of the others could blink, in search of a hammer and nails; Iris quickly followed him to ensure he wouldn’t hurt himself in the process. Ryunosuke, Kazuma, and Susato stood stock-still in the middle of the living room, staring after them in disbelief. Then, the three of them couldn’t help but burst into laughter in perfect harmony.

_____

It was pitch black by the time Kazuma readied himself to leave, buckling up his boots and slipping on his coat. He frowned somewhat when he realized he’d already pulled his gloves on, yet had forgotten to button his coat. Before he could remove them, someone else’s hands were on his front, dutifully buttoning him up on his behalf.

“Ryunosuke,” he said, surprised.

“I’m really glad you made it tonight,” Ryunosuke said, doing up the last of Kazuma’s buttons. He then took a step back, offering Kazuma a boyish smile. “As I said, I just wish we’d had that conversation earlier, but...I suppose the most important thing is that we had it in the first place.”

“How surprisingly mature of you,” Kazuma teased, smirking when Ryunosuke’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

“We’re back to this again, are we?” Ryunosuke sighed, elbowing him a little harder than necessary. “You never could resist poking fun on my behalf. I’d bet you some of our old classmates are still debating whether you actually liked me or not.”

“It's hardly my fault that no one reacts quite the same way that you do,” Kazuma grinned. Then, he squeezed Ryunosuke’s arm. “Really, though, thank you for hearing me out earlier. I’m not even sure I explained myself properly - honestly, I felt like a complete mess - but you seemed to understand me all the same.”

“I know a thing or two about...what was it? ‘Not being the most articulate speaker in the world’?” Ryunosuke mused, laughing when Kazuma scowled. “Your words, Kazuma, not mine.”

“Yes, well…” Kazuma ducked his head for a moment so he could readjust his gloves. “...Ryunosuke. Earlier, when you said that I’ve always been more than a friend...what did you mean, exactly?”

Ryunosuke’s breath hitched. “Oh, um...well, I-I’d just told you that you were part of my family, too. That you always have a place here, with me, Susato-san, Mr Holmes, and Iris.”

Kazuma nodded, making a noncommittal noise under his breath. “Right, of course. Anyway, I’ll be seeing you on - ” And suddenly, Ryunosuke’s lips were on his, just like that. He barely had enough time to blink before Ryunosuke pulled back, blushing furiously. “...Ryu?”

“Sorry, sorry, that wasn’t - I-I shouldn’t have done that,” Ryunosuke stammered, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “You were just about to leave, and - ”

“And if you meant it, you would do it again so I can actually kiss you back,” Kazuma said firmly. It seemed to take Ryunosuke a moment to process, then, he grabbed Kazuma by the coat lapels and pulled him back in for another kiss. Ryunosuke felt Kazuma smirk against his lips, wrapping his arms around Ryunosuke’s waist so he could hold him even closer, the two of them relishing one another’s warmth. “...better. Marginally better.”

“So mean,” Ryunosuke mumbled, sighing as he unceremoniously detached himself from Kazuma’s embrace, though any ill will he felt towards Kazuma and his acerbic nature was quickly quashed when he saw the way Kazuma looked at him - like he finally believed in every word that Ryunosuke had said. “Friday, then?”

“I was going to suggest we meet up for breakfast tomorrow, after my meeting,” Kazuma suggested. “We’ve got more catching up to do, after all. And I was hoping you could get me up to speed on Mr Holmes’ latest exploits before he or Iris starts questioning me the next time I come by.”

Grinning, Ryunosuke gave Kazuma one last kiss before finally letting him go. “...it’s a date.”

_____

a/n: Welcome to my third entry for Asoryuu Week 2021! I'm mad at myself for writing this entire Baker Street family fic and somehow completely forgetting to include Wagahai until the very end, especially considering how I include Mikeko in literally every Klapollo fic I possibly can. Anyway, I promise this is the last of my sad Kazuma hours for this week; I know this fic and day one's fic are similar in concept, but the rest of my entries (if I manage to finish them, that is) are established relationship and one modern AU, if that's something you're into!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Likes and reblogs would be much appreciated, and I hope you're all safe and healthy and doing well ❤️

[monstersandmaw]

Male vampire x male character - Part Two (nsfw) (Halloween ‘surprise’ Patreon story).

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

I'm really pleased that you and my Patrons enjoyed the first part, and that folks were keen for more. I’ve had more interaction with this post on Patreon than many of the others, which is surprising given how mlm stories are usually much less in demand than m/f ones. Thanks for that!

Anyway, here's more of our favourite oblivious dork Alec and his obviously-not-a-vampire crush... Part Three is on the way too (tomorrow), despite this having been planned as a quick porn-without-plot one-shot, as it were. Oh well?!

Hope you enjoy.

Part One

After his initial - admittedly strange - meetings with Sebastien, Alec didn’t see him on campus at all for the rest of the week, and he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. Yes, the guy had been a bit of a pompous arsehole in the library, but he’d made up for it by coming to the art room and apologising, engaging him in conversation — even if that conversation had been slightly… odd? — and being so god-damn-fucking beautiful too.  

He overheard his students gossiping about ‘Dr. Dulac’ earlier that afternoon while they all carved the pumpkins he’d bought for them at the local supermarket, and it seemed that the general consensus was that Sebastien was single, unfailingly polite (even in the face of Janette Hilton, the English Department’s longest-serving and least sympathetic lecturers), hotter than any celebrity you cared to name, and a specialist in the poets of the First World War like Sassoon and Brooke, among other more esoteric interests.  

After an hour of clock-watching in his tiny little office in the Art Department on Friday, he abandoned all hope of concentrating on his last few bits of admin, and shut down his laptop. After clearing up yet more pumpkin seeds that he’d somehow missed on the last two sweeps he’d done of the studio, he stepped outside, never wanting to see another bloody thing again. Too bad he had a whole bloody cardboard box of them waiting to go into the boot of Kay’s car for her party that night. Still, he was almost sinfully proud of the carvings he’d done on them. One was decorated the whole way around with the foliate style engravings usually reserved for the steel on antique guns, with different depths to create the highlights and shadows, and another particularly spherical one had been cut away in squares to resemble the Death Star.  

The October air outside bit into his lungs as he drew a deep breath - the spicy, fragrantly damp scents of autumn filling his nose - and his eye was drawn to the twinkling lights of the little coffee cart that still lingered in the park, selling tea, coffee, and hot chocolate to chilly students leaving the university campus for the night. With a black coffee for himself in one hand, he made his way to the Engineering Department, warily holding another frothy concoction in his other. It was apparently called a ‘London fog’ and it smelled of earl grey tea and lavender. He thought it sounded (and smelled) disgusting, but Kay perked right up when he deposited it on her desk five minutes later.  

“Bless you, Alec Twayblade,” she grinned, taking the plastic lid off and inhaling it like it was the best thing she’d ever smelled. “Oh my god. How can you not like this?” she said after taking a huge gulp and moaning obscenely.  

Alec didn’t bother to reply, his eye-roll speaking volumes anyway. They’d had this discussion so many times that they were both probably playing it out silently in their heads right that second. When Kay glanced up and saw that he certainly was, she snorted and grinned. “I love you, Alec,” she laughed. “You’re still coming tonight?”

“Against my better judgement,” he growled, leaning his weight on her desk and folding his arms across his battered, blue cable knit sweater. He had a huge daub of yellow paint on one elbow from that morning, and a small burn hole in the bottom from a failed attempt at pyrography a few years ago. It was the most comfortable jumper he owned, and he would probably wear it until it unravelled around him.  

“You’re still not going to wear a costume, are you?” she added as she stood, pouting.  

He shook his head. “I draw the line at that.”

“But you’d be so good making one!” she countered. “You helped me with that bat costume when we were at high school… Don’t you remember how fucking awesome it was?”

“I do,” he chuckled. “But I’m not going to wear one myself.”

She sighed, shoulders slumping. “Too much attention, huh?” she said softly. “Well, you know you’ll stand out more if you’re not wearing one tonight…?”

He shrugged. Honestly, he just couldn’t be bothered to dress up. Halloween had rather lost its shine for him anyway. “Not if I hide in the kitchen all night and make too-strong cocktails for everyone,” he said, flashing her his most roguish grin. “Plus, I spent much of today carving pumpkins with nattering eighteen year olds who are far too old to be carving pumpkins on academic time, but —”

“— you’re an awesome teacher who understands the need to let off some steam on the holidays,” she interjected. “Plus, it’s good practice anyway… working with a new medium…”

He allowed his lips to pinch upwards into a tiny smirk and let her have that one. “It’s nice to see them having fun,” was all he said.  

An hour or so later, just as he arranged the last of the pumpkins down the garden path of Kay's Victorian semi-detached house, a voice murmured from behind him, “I can see the hand of a master at work in these carvings.”

Not having heard anyone approaching, Alec jumped, cursed, and dropped the pumpkin - thankfully with the candle still unlit. It rolled in a semicircle until a black boot gently stopped it, and a familiar face dipped into view as the owner of the boot bent to pick it up. To his surprise, it was Sebastien, and he was in costume. Probably anyway. Hopefully? Fuck. Alec’s brain stalled at the sight of him.  

His eyes raked up Sebastien’s body and his jaw went quite literally slack.  

The slender man was wearing thigh-high boots and leather pants so tight they had to have been spray-painted on, into which was tucked a loose, old-fashioned, white shirt with a good bit of flounce at the collar. “Holy shit,” he whispered, and Sebastien chuckled softly, a low, amused sound in the back of his throat.  

“You recognise the costume?” he asked, seeming innocently amused. The long, dark coat, accented with gold brocade and bright gold buttons, opened briefly in a soft gust of wind that made the lit pumpkins flicker and lifted his loose, silver-white hair back for a breath as well.  

“I…” he swallowed. “Uh, you’re Alucard,” he croaked. “From the Castlevania games…” A wry incline of Sebastien’s head told him he was correct, and then Alec blurted stupidly, “Shouldn’t you be shirtless though?”

Sebastien’s smile grew from pleased to deeply amused, his eyes glittering, and it was only then that Alec noticed the contacts burning a bright gold in his eyes and, as his lips peeled back and Sebastien began to laugh, he saw long, tapering, white canines befitting a vampire costume. “It’s a little cold for that, don’t you think?” Sebastien asked, still laughing quietly as Alec flushed crimson.  

“Sorry,” he blurted. “I know. I just… forget it.”

“Where do you want it?” Sebastien asked, and Alec’s poor brain went blank.  

“What?”

“The pumpkin,” Sebastien deadpanned and Alec’s poor, blank brain melted out of his ears with embarrassment.  

“Uh… there’s fine,” he said, pointing at the little wrought-iron garden gate.  

Sebastien placed the pumpkin down on the flagstone path so that the carved graveyard scene glimmered and flickered with appropriate spookiness, visible to anyone approaching along the quiet, suburban street. Enormous London plane trees stood sentry every few paces, heaving up the tarmac pavement with their roots, like a sleeper shifting a blanket with a restless turn, and sheltering the cars snuggled and parked beneath them. A carpet of leaves clung to the gutter in a long, golden line, melting into nothing in places in the glittering puddles. It would have been beautiful, had Alec not been faced with quite literally the most beautiful thing in the entire universe.  

“Am I early then?” Sebastien asked, dusting off his palms and turning back to face Alec, who had barely managed to make his legs work long enough to stand up straight again.  

He shook his head. “No. Henry’s inside already,” he said, running his fingers through his scruffy black hair. “With Rachel and Alison. I just forgot to put the pumpkins out earlier.”

“No costume?”  

With a roll of his eyes, he shook his head. “Nope.”

“Too bad,” Sebastien said, eyeing the front door. The contacts were really creepy, shifting in the light that spilled down the stairs as the front door suddenly opened and Kay stepped out before he could worry that he’d been the only one to dress up. He could probably brush it off anyway, Alec supposed, and tried not to envy the man’s quiet confidence.

Silhouetted starkly against the hall light, with her high ‘Dracula’ collar on prominent display, Kay shrieked with glee and clapped her hands when she saw Sebastien. Apparently the two of them had been getting along rather well, while Alec had sequestered himself away in the Art Department like an ascetic.  

“Bastien! You look amazing oh my god!” she blurted, rushing forwards a step or two before halting abruptly. “Wait, does that make me your father for the evening?” she cackled. “Wow, your teeth are really good! Mine wouldn't stay in for more than a few minutes…”

Sebastien’s gold eyes flickered sideways to Alec but it happened so briefly that he almost missed it. “Custom made a long time ago,” was all he said. “Shall we go inside? It’s freezing out here.”

“Yes, of course, come on in,” she said, waving them all inside, Sebastien first. As Alec passed her last, she slapped him hard on the backside in rebuke and hissed, “Told you you should have worn a costume! You look like a big dumbo!”

“No different from any other night,” he quipped back, and she growled something indistinct at him. Perhaps a werewolf costume would have suited her better. “You could have told me you’d invited Dulac…”

“Why?” she retorted. “So you could suddenly decide that an evening moping alone with your PS4 playing Rocket League with strangers was more appealing? No fucking chance. Get inside. Sebastien’s right; I’m freezing my tits off.”

The distant murmur of voices in the living room made him veer off instinctively into the kitchen, and while they began to watch some old Hammer horror film, he made drinks. That, at least, he was good at.  

Entering a while later, he found that Sebastien was seated on the sofa beside Henry, who wore an enormously fluffy wolfman costume - mostly a repurposed Chewbacca onesie with a latex wolf mask. He’d pushed the mask up onto his head in order to eat the Halloween themed nibbles on the coffee table, and the effect rendered him entirely ridiculous. Another reason not to wear a costume: it’s impractical, and gets in the way, and washing ketchup out of matted fake fur is a nightmare. Alison and Rachel sat practically in each other’s laps, one a zombie and the other a ghost, both squeezed into one groaning old armchair.  

After half an hour of Christopher Lee’s admittedly creepy Dracula, Alec slid from his seat at the periphery, and ducked out again into the kitchen. Straightening from fishing a beer from the back of the fridge, he heard the soft click of the door and turned to find Sebastien standing there.  

“Get bored with late 1950’s horror too?” Alec asked. “Beer?”

Sebastien inclined his head in a way that said he wasn’t a beer drinker and held up his almost-empty wineglass as an excuse as he moved a little closer. “If you don’t like cheesy horror films, and you don’t seem to like Halloween either, I wonder why you came at all tonight?”

“For Kay,” he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “She loves this shit.”

At that, Sebastien paused, a delicate smile on his face. In the soft glow of the under-cupboard lighting, his tanned skin seemed to shimmer, and Alec wondered fleetingly if he’d put some kind of glittery body powder on. Next, he wondered what on earth Sebastien was doing in here with him, looking at him like that.  

“You are a good friend,” Sebastien said quietly, seeming perhaps a little sad around the edges.  

“She’s done more than her fair share of looking after me,” Alec sighed knowingly. “Not that I’m doing it because I owe her,” he added, twisting the cap off the bottle and leaning back against the counter to drink deeply from it. As the malty froth washed over his tongue, he felt eyes on him and looked over at the other man.  

Sebastien tilted his head slightly to the side, the false golden light in his eyes making him look like a cat in the dark. “You said she was trying to set you up with someone…”

Alec snorted, nearly shooting beer out of his nose. “Yeah. Well, she seems to think a good fuck will sort my mood out.”

“But you think otherwise?”

“You offering?” he asked bitterly, taking another swig and feeling uncharacteristically bold, though absolutely not expecting the answer he got.  

“Perhaps.”

His eyebrows shot up and this time he did cough a little. “You can’t be serious.”

“You think someone who looks like me is entirely straight?” he asked with a wry smile, and Alec had to hand it to him. Not many men he knew could pull of long, luscious, white-blond hair like that, or would have the confidence to wear fucking thigh-high boots and whisper-tight leather pants…

“Still… you don’t really know me… That’s all I meant…”

“Doesn't mean one couldn’t engage in — how did you call it? — ‘a good fuck’. Not that I’m averse to getting to know you better, before or after.”

Alec swallowed another enormous gulp of frothing beer and blinked. “You’re serious?”

With a melodramatic smile that revealed his vampire teeth clearly, ‘Alucard’ purred, “Deadly.”

And Alec burst out laughing. The spell was shattered and the two men shared the remnants of their drinks and their laughter together before Alec sighed. “Your place or mine?”

At that, Sebastien seemed to falter, as if he hadn’t thought through to that point. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I assume yours would be alright?”

Alec shrugged. “Sure, if you don’t mind smacking your head on the ceiling and being able to touch two opposite walls at the same time…”

Sebastien’s lips hitched into another wry smile. “I’ve fucked in tighter spaces, I’m sure.”

“You know what?” Alec said as he rinsed out the beer bottle at the sink and half-turned to look at the other man over his shoulder. “You’re absolutely not what I expected.”

“Nor were you,” he shot back, still smirking. “And it’s been a while since I was assaulted by someone in a library.”

“Bring back happy memories, did it?” he snorted.  

“Not exactly,” Sebastien murmured, and Alec realised he hadn’t actually been joking. “But I must confess that — despite my behaviour — I was pleasantly surprised by the sight of you when you rounded that bookshelf…”

Turning, Alec approached him cautiously. If he was genuinely serious about his proposal, Alec would find out now. “Pleased enough to seek me out afterwards…” he said, raising his eyebrows. He couldn’t do that ‘one brow at a time’ thing that Sebastien could, but it seemed to get his tone across all the same.

Unusually for Alec, Sebastien had an inch or two on him in height, and as Alec paused in front of him, close enough to catch the faintest hint of a woody cologne, the man angled his face just perfectly for the light to dance along his high cheekbones. Fuck, he was exquisite. The urge to kiss him rose in Alec; to feel his lips against his own, to have those elegant hands scrunch his hair…  

As if reading his mind, Sebastien slowly, carefully, raised his right hand and brought his index finger to Alec’s chin, tilting it upwards just a fraction with the lightest pressure. The intensity in his eyes was almost too much, and it left Alec breathless. Again. Panting slightly, he parted his lips and then swallowed thickly.  

Sebastien’s eyes darted instantly to the motion of his throat and for a second, Alec could have sworn he saw a vibrant red light reflected in his eyes. Sensing his moment of hesitation, of tension, Sebastian frowned. “What?”

“Nothing,” Alec breathed. “I thought your eyes went red but it must have been a car on the street outside or something.”  

“Indeed,” he murmured, but then blinked rapidly. “Do you still wish to continue this?”

“Yes,” he whispered. Don't stop now. His whole body was thrumming in a way it hadn’t ever before with casual encounters. He felt alive for the first time in months.  

Sebastien stepped back, turning his face away a little more. “Should we make our excuses…?”

Alec shook his head. “Nah, Kay will know what’s going on anyway, and I don’t want to face her smug looks until tomorrow at the least.”

With a softly amused chuckle, Sebastien stepped back and allowed Alec to leave the room first. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as the other man followed behind, but he didn't turn around or look at him until they were outside on the main street.  

“It’s a bit of a walk…” Alec said, only realising then how long the walk would be. “I’m way over on the other side of town by the station…”

The continuing intensity of Sebastien’s scrutiny was beginning to shift from a turn-on to just marginally unnerving, but he told himself that an esteemed professor at one of the country’s finest universities, with more letters after his name than anyone his age had a right to possess, was unlikely to be truly dangerous for a one-night stand… right? There was something about the way he stared at Alec — an unmistakable hunger in his eyes — that made his skin prickle and his heartbeat jump instinctively. Like a deer before the gaze of a tiger, he was entranced.  

Unexpectedly, Sebastien’s easy stride slowed at the brick gateway to a small, gravel park that sat between an old church and a chemist, the latter closed at this time of night. “May I kiss you?” he breathed, still gazing at him unblinkingly, as though Alec were the pretty one in this equation, not him.  

Alec couldn’t help grinning. The way Sebastien’s eyes bored into him then drove all thought of threat and fear from his mind, and he nodded.  

The man’s hands were chilly from the night air, but the moment they cupped his jaw and drew Alec toward him, he forgot about that. He forgot about everything at the meeting of their lips. Sebastien began tentatively, merely brushing their lips together, but when his golden eyes fluttered closed, he deepened the gesture, tongue just begging entrance, teasing him before withdrawing, retreating and returning.  

Searing want shot down Alec’s spine and he arched into Sebastien’s taller body, hips seeking contact through his jeans. He moaned, deep and guttural, and it seemed to awaken something in Sebastien, because the man grabbed hold of the back of Alec’s hair and pulled his head slightly to one side to begin to kiss along his jawline, down to wards his neck. For a heartbeat, Sebastien froze there, nose pressed to his rabbiting pulse point, his teeth just grazing skin, before he exhaled harshly and stepped back. “We shouldn’t get carried away,” was all he whispered, stepping slightly out of Alec’s dazed field of view. “My place is nearer though.”

“Ok,” Alec said, still reeling. “Sure.”

When they reached the apartment building, his steps faltered in amazement. “You live… here?”

A slight flush seemed to warm Sebastien’s cheeks as he stepped up to the main doorway, only to have it opened from the other side by a man in livery. “Good evening, Monsieur Dulac,” said the friendly doorman instantly.  

“Good evening,” he replied. “This is my friend, Alec Twayblade.”

It was impossible for the doorman not to realise that his ‘friend, Alec Twayblade’ was going to be a little more than that for the night, but he never let a flicker of judgement pass across his face. From the concierge desk - Sebastien’s building had a fucking concierge desk too - another man looked up and wished them both a good evening as they headed for the lifts.  

“Does the English department also sell diamonds or drugs or something? How the fuck can you afford a place like this on a lecturer’s salary?” but even as he said it and the doors closed with a soft chime, he realised the truth of it. Sebastien’s aristocratic features and bearing were not merely a persona. They were truth. He stared up at him while Sebastien turned a key in the lift panel.

“Are you secretly royalty or something?” he whispered, only half joking.  

The man shot him an amused look and shook his head, silk-white hair whispering against the rougher wool of his costume coat. “No, of course not, but I do have some inherited wealth.”

Some? “So you don’t actually have to work at the university at all then?”

He made a so-so motion of his head and said, “No, not really, but I genuinely enjoy teaching.”

“Your students certainly seem to enjoy you…”

“You don’t enjoy teaching?” he asked as the numbers on the dial climbed and climbed.  

Please don’t say you live in the fucking penthouse too, Alec thought, already suspecting it might be true from the whole ‘special access key’. He glanced at the number pad and saw that the button labelled ‘PH’ was illuminated. Fuck. “Most days I enjoy it,” he admitted. “But I kind of fell into it a while back and just sort of…” he shrugged, “Stuck with it.”

Sebastien asked no more, and the lift finally stopped on the top floor. The doors drew back to reveal an apartment beyond that Alec could only gawp at. It was like something from the set of an Architectural Digest photo shoot. Nothing was out of place in the hardwood floor paradise, with clean, crisp lines and white marble counter tops in the kitchen off to his left, while a comfortable, and yet still clinically modern, sitting area sat to their right. Deep, fluffy rugs dotted that part of the penthouse, and a wide balcony stretched out over the city beyond, complete with a little table and chairs for warmer evenings.  

“This place is incredible,” Alec breathed, the reason for his even being here completely forgotten.  

Clearly sensing that, Sebastien smiled bashfully and said, “Would you like something to drink?”

Alec cleared his throat and hoped he wasn’t going to be faced with a choice between very expensive wines that he’d never heard of. “Sure… thanks.”

“White, red, beer, or whisky?” he asked, walking towards the kitchen and dumping his ‘Alucard’ coat over the back of a white sofa as he went. Alec’s mouth went dry as he watched the point where his narrow hips met the flowing material of the white shirt. Dear god, an arse like that shouldn’t be… well, it just shouldn’t be. And yet there it was. Clad in leather and looking positively delectable. “Or a soft drink?” he added when Alec remained silent.  

Aware of where his gaze had landed, Sebastien halted and looked back over his shoulder, long, loose, naturally straight hair already losing the curls that had been worked into it for the Alucard costume. Definitely not straight, if he owned hair curlers.  

“Uh…” Alec said, unsure what the question had even been now.  

“I’m going to pour myself a whisky, if that helps…?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Sebastien smiled, looking almost endeared by Alec’s inept stuttering. Surely he couldn’t be unused to such a reaction? “Make yourself at home then.”

With a smoky, peat-tinged whisky in a wide, heavy-bottomed tumbler set on his glass coffee table, Alec watched Sebastien turn the gas fire on, and, to his surprise, he came to a halt directly in front of him. Setting his own whisky down on the table with a deliberate, and yet delicate, clunk, Sebastien turned back to him and raked his eyes down Alec’s body in a way that made him flush hot all over. His cock twitched with interest and he tried not to preen under that gaze.  

Sebastien’s eyes and teeth were back to normal now, with no hint of the golden contacts or the vampire fangs, and Alec fleetingly assumed that he must have removed them at some point between getting the whisky and appearing in front of him looking like he was about to ravish him. Oh dear god, please let him be about to ravish me, he thought with a big, dumb grin spreading across his face.  

Seeing his reaction, Sebastien reached down and knelt facing him on the sofa, running his palm over the already-growing bulge in Alec’s jeans. Alec let out a deep grunt and rocked his hips up into the contact, throwing his head back against the soft, open weave of the white fabric. “Oh fuck,” he hissed.  

Sebastien’s fingers found the button of his jeans and deftly undid it, but he paused. “May I?” he asked, and Alec found himself nodding before he’d even worked out what Sebastien wanted.  

He found out a moment later, when his jeans were around his ankles and Sebastien was kneeling on the floor between his knees and licking a long stripe up the length of his rapidly hardening cock.  

“Oh god,” he panted as the wet heat of Sebastien’s mouth engulfed half of his length and then drew back to leave his wet tip exposed to the slight chill of the apartment air. The contrast stole his breath for a heartbeat, but Sebastien returned his attentions to his cock, gently sucking and working him to full hardness in a matter of minutes.  

Pleasure sparked through Alec’s whole body and he strained not to thrust back into Sebastien’s mouth, even as Sebastien took him right to the back of his throat, the tip of Alec’s cock nudging against the silky resistance of his throat.  

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” he chanted as Sebastien’s fingertips just teased and caressed the underside of his balls too, and Sebastien hollowed his cheeks and sucked a little more insistently. “Oh fuck…” Really fucking eloquent here, Alec, he thought vaguely, but one look down at the vision kneeling between his legs and sucking him off drove even that thought from his brain.  

The suck and slide of Sebastien’s mouth was incredible, and while he had no idea quite how much time passed, it felt like mere seconds as the heat stoked in him until he could feel the orgasm threatening to crash through him. “I’m… I’m really close…” he gasped as Sebastien moaned against his cock, sending little vibrations thrumming through him and tipping him even closer. The sharp prick of his teeth every now and again was a perfect counterpoint to the slick heat of his mouth, and it was never enough to hurt. Normally Alec wasn’t one for including teeth in this, but with Sebastien, it felt perfect.  

Sebastien pulled back just as Alec felt himself beginning to coil up, his lips swollen and glistening from the exertion of bringing him that close, and he smiled. He looked radiant, and Alec’s cock twitched enthusiastically in his hands as he let out a soft whimper. The air was cold and his tip beaded pre-come freely, which Sebastien thumbed away with a surprisingly tender gesture, only to watch as more pearled immediately at his slit. Using just the tip of his tongue, Sebastien lapped at it delicately and Alec’s whole body shuddered.  

His thighs shook at the tiny, intense stimulation, with Sebastien's fingers gripping the base of his cock in a tight circle, and he gasped, chest heaving. It was too much and not enough, and as he found his perineum teased as well, he bellowed and trembled. He was half a heartbeat away from coming harder than he could ever remember coming in his life, and Sebastien wasn’t going to let him have it. He roared and ground his teeth, bucking his hips, which made Sebastien laugh softly.  

“Alright,” he heard him murmur, before he swallowed him down to the back of his throat again, and Alec shattered with a yell.

When he finally blinked his eyes open, he found that Sebastien had risen and was sitting on the small sofa beside him, whisky in hand, staring openly at him. He didn’t look smug exactly, but there was a quiet satisfaction to his brown eyes that made Alec flush, at which Sebastien’s beautiful lips drew back into a smile. He noted again those slightly larger canines, but they were nothing like the vampire teeth he had worn earlier.  

“What do you want?” Alec asked, voice hoarse. God, he sounded wrecked. Had he really shouted so hard he’d made his throat sore?

Sebastien’s dolorous, dark eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “What do you want?”

“To watch you come,” he said immediately.  

“And how would you like me to come?” Sebastien replied, sipping nonchalantly at the golden liquor as if the were discussing what Alec would like Sebastien to wear. As it was, his leather pants were constricting his obvious hard-on in a way that had to be painful for him, and his shirt was open at the neck to reveal delicate collarbones and a glimpse of his beautiful olive skinned chest.  

He was an absolute vision. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he blurted in a whisper before he could stop himself, and to his surprise, Sebastien laughed. The sound was bright, delighted, and oddly self-conscious, as if he hadn’t been expecting a compliment like that. “Sorry,” he added, looking away. “Look… if you’ve got condoms, I’m… I’m good to… you know…”

“You want me to fuck you?” Sebastien asked, his gaze sharpening again.  

“Yes?”  

“’Yes?’ Or ‘yes’…?” Sebastien asked, seeking clarification.  

“Yes. But I don't understand your question.”

“Look at me,” Sebastien said.  

“Hard not to…” Alec quipped back, still feeling utterly wrung out.  

“Most people assume I’m going to be the one taking it…”

Alec’s eyebrows rose as realisation settled. “Oh. And, what, I look like a top?”

Sebastien’s lips twitched. “Conventionally more so than I do, with your rugged looks and the rough shadow around your jaw…”

“So… do you want me to… you know…? Or…” Fuck, he felt like a teenager again, struggling to articulate himself and not get his sentences in a tangle while this breathtaking creature just sat there and watched him make an idiot out of himself.

“I very much want to fuck you,” Sebastien said at last. “If you’d like that as well.”

“Yes,” he said instantly.  

Sebastien set down his glass and rose in a single, elegant motion, and then held his hand out to Alec.

His skin was still cool, especially next to Alec’s searing body, and his hold was steady as Alec heaved himself to his feet and allowed himself to be alternately tugged and kissed into the bedroom. 

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Part Three

Behold, plot has appeared to go with the Halloween porn I had planned. Alec’s family will come up in the next chapter.

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I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me  know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

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