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danielleslegacy · 4 years ago

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For the Soul || Spencer Reid x fem!Reader

MASTERLIST

Request: yes / no

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Summary: Reid Request because you gained a follower with your recent story!!: Can you do one where Reid and the (non-BAU) reader have a flirtationship and he’s trying to hide being a genius/being FBI because she’s more “on track” with their age range and he doesn’t want to freak her out (idk how specific you take your requests lmao)

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: it is just fluff that is all, its tooth-rotting, you’ve been warned.

Pairing: fem!Reader insert x Spencer Reid

All writing is my own, so please don’t steal this. Also, I would appreciate any feedback/comments/requests! xx

*GIF IS NOT MINE SO CREDIT GOES TO THE OWNER*

“Amazing Coffee for the huge loser in the corner,” I shout out, a grin stretched across my face. The man stood, a magnetic smile on his face, and walked over to the counter.

“Is that any way to talk to a loyal customer, Y/n,” He says, taking the black coffee (with like 6 sugars) and bringing it to his lips. I lean down onto the counter in front of me, resting my chin on my hands.

I roll my eyes in response, “What are you gonna do? Report me to the manager?”

He smirks up at me, knowing good and well that I own the little coffee shop that we’re currently standing inside of. “That and all of the other patrons might take offence,” He gestures to the empty cafe.

A laugh erupts from my chest, “We’re only empty because it’s after hours, you’re the only one that drinks coffee at this time of day, Spence.”

“We get it, you’re successful,” Spencer says, a smile still playing on his lips, “And I’m not the only one that drinks coffee at night thank you.”

“Oh yeah?” I say teasingly, raising an eyebrow in question, “Tell me, who else is drinking coffee right now?”

“Well, statistically speaking,” He begins and it's almost as if he catches himself, and he stumbles for a moment, “With there being seven billion people alive right now, there is bound to be at least one other person drinking coffee.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm,” he says breathily, stifling his laugh, he leans down onto the counter too so that our faces are level.

I rake my bottom lip between my teeth, his eyes watch the action intently, “I’ll have to take your word for it, pretty boy,” I say, reaching up to ruffle his hair.

“I like to think you’re the pretty one,” He says smoothly, “Must be why I keep coming back to this god awful coffee.”

My mouth drops open with a gasp, “How… DARE.. you, Spencer!” I shout, taking the cup of coffee out of his hands, “You’re not allowed to have my amazing coffee anymore, I will ban you.”

He lets out a hearty chuckle that makes my heart squeeze with affection and takes the coffee out of my hands again, “I was joking, it’s my favourite coffee.”

“That’s much better,” I say a grin spreading across my face, “How was work?”

“Long,” He says, taking another sip, “I’m just glad to be home. I missed my bed.”

“And me,” I finish for him, giving him a wink.

He nods his head bashfully, “Yes and you.”

“Where did you go?” I ask rounding the bench and begin packing away the rest of the furniture for the night.

“Florida,” he says, grimacing.

“Oh gross,” I say with a laugh, “What was happening there?”

“Nothing really,” He says quickly, “How’s the shop been? Uneventful without me dropping in at,” He checks his watch, “Seven-thirty?”

“Same old, same old,” I say waving my hand, “Can you throw me the spray and wipe?” And he does, “We had one guy come in on Tuesday morning completely hammered, he could barely stand, I had to ask him to leave.”

“You okay?” Spencer asks, walking over to hand me the tools and I begin to wipe down the tables.

“Yeah, but he was freaking out my employees, kept talking about the FBI and stuff,” I huff, “He must have been drinking at the Bar across from Quantico and walked down the street to try and have breakfast here. But I didn’t like the vibe I was getting from him and neither did the girls that were working so I asked him to leave.”

“What was he saying?” He asks, voice completely serious.

I wave my hand, “Just saying things like the FBI, only consisted of robots and people who wanted the world to burn. You know normal conspiracy theorist stuff.” I laugh. Spencer doesn’t. In fact, I can practically feel his discomfort radiating off him. I finish the table I'm on and turn around to face him, “What’s wrong?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, he left pretty quickly, I wasn’t too worried. I think a couple of my regulars are agents so I wasn’t too worried that he would get violent,” I say, letting him know that it’s not something that was bothering me.

He nods his head and leans against the counter once more letting me finish my cleaning.

After finishing it all up, I throw the spray and wipe into the back room, and walk back out to Spencer. “What’s your plans for the night?”

“I’m about to head home,” Spencer says, finishing his coffee and handing the cup back over to me, “Why?”

“I was planning on a quiet night,” I say honestly, placing the cup into the sink for the morning crew to deal with, “But if you didn't have any plans, did you want to stay here a little longer? My apartment is upstairs.”

When I was looking at a place to start my business, I remember meeting the landlord, who loved me and offered to rent me the place above it for a decreased rate if I accompanied both places, and I was quick to jump on the offer. I knew how convenient it was to be so close to my workplace and it was in a prime part of town. And quite honestly I loved the place before I even stepped into the space. It was a fairly small apartment, pretty much entirely open plan except for the bathroom, and a small space that I had turned into my study. My bedroom, living area and kitchen were all connected, with no walls separating them. And I loved it that way.

“Yeah sure,” He says, following me around and up to my apartment.

“This is where the magic happens,” I say opening the door and gesturing for him to enter, “And by magic I mean the cooking and sleeping kind.”

Spencer lets out a hearty chuckle. He throws his eyes around my apartment, and they land on my coffee table, which is littered with books. “I didn’t know you were a reader.”

I nod my head, “I love it, it lets me relax before I sleep. What about you?”

“You could say that I enjoy it,” He says taking a seat on my sofa and pick’s up the book that was on the top of the stack, C.S Lewis’ “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. “I’ve read this one before, it is speculated that Lewis was actually experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs when he wrote the book. So it’s not really the innocent story that it seems like originally.”

“Okay, wow, how did you know that?” I ask, impressed with his knowledge of the book.

Spencer adverts his gaze, “I think I read it in a journal once.”

I take off my coat and come to sit down next to him, sitting on it sideways, so that I can face him. “So you’re a smartie,” I say giggling.

He places the book back down and turns to me, “My coworkers like to call me the resident genius,” He says, almost as if he wasn’t sure what he was saying.

“Wow, impressive,” I say smiling up at the man, “What other things do you know?”

“You’re going to need to be more specific,” He says facing me, “I know a lot about a lot of things. That’s kind of my job.”

“What?” I ask, slightly shocked, “What do you do?”

“I’m with the FBI,” Spencer says, voice laced with self-consciousness, “I’m with the Behavioral Analysis Unit.”

“Spencer!” I say enthusiastically, “That is so cool! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want to freak you out, it’s a pretty intimidating job, and I didn’t want to lose you,” He says honestly, placing a hand onto the one I have rested on the top of the sofa.

I take his hand in mine, “I am continually surprised and impressed by you mister Spencer Reid.”

“It’s actually doctor,” He smirks, his confidence building.

“Sorry, Doctor Spencer Reid,” I giggle, “so tell me, mister FBI, what’s it like?”

Spencer rolls his eyes, “It’s not as fun as you would think.”

I nod my head, listening to him tell me about his job. It’s almost like a different version of Spencer appears as he talks animatedly about each of his coworkers and what it is that he does. “And my eidetic memory helps me remember all of the things I need for cases.”

“Okay, when you said that they call you a genius you weren’t joking.”

The blush rises in his cheeks and Spencer bites his lip softly. “This isn’t freaking you out?”

“No, Spence,” I say shifting so that I’m closer to him, “Not at all, it’s incredibly attractive.”

His eyes flick down to my lips, and before either of us could make a move, his phone lets out a loud ring. To which Spencer groans and throws his head back, fishing it out of his pocket. “Sorry, it’s work,” he confesses.

“It’s fine, answer,” I say, smiling at him.

“Hello Garcia,” He begins, and I get up and walk away, to give him a little privacy.

“I’m actually with a friend,” He says, his gaze drifting to me, “Is he sure? Okay, I’ll get back to you. Bye.” He hangs up and stands, crossing the room so that he’s in front of me, “What we’re your plans for the night again?”

I look at him sceptically, “I was spending time with you, why?”

“Would you like to come to dinner with my coworkers, well they’re more like my family, because I spend so much time with them,” He starts rambling obviously nervous.

“Yeah, I would love to come, Spence,” I cut him off, “You want to drive or me?”

Tension releases from his shoulders and he beam at me, “I’ll drive.”

Once in the car, Spencer tells me that his whole team is having a group dinner, a kind of team bonding session. He briefed me on each of the members, trying to help as much as he can.

“You know I can take you back home if you’ve changed your mind, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable,” He says as we pull up in front of the impressive mansion, and turns the car off.

“Spencer Reid,” This draws his attention towards me, his eyes lock with mine, “I’m excited to meet them, no need to be worried.”

He nods his head and we exit the car and walk up to the door. Spencer rings the doorbell and is quickly back at my side. Nerves begin to bubble in my chest, until hours ago I didn’t even know who these people were, and they most definitely didn't know me. What if they don’t like me? Or that I’m not welcome or don't fit in? I don’t think Spencer would stop being friends with me over that, but my growing feelings for the man would complicate the situation. It’s almost as if Spencer can feel my doubts, as his hand reaches down to join with mine, he squeezes it softly.

“Thank you, pretty boy,” I say, throwing him a wink. The door opens to reveal a man, with a cloth tossed over his shoulder.

“Ey, Reid,” The man says, pulling a laughing Spencer in for a hug, and a kiss to each of his cheeks.

“Rossi,” Spencer says, stepping back, “This is Y/n.” He gestures to me.

“Hi,” I say softly, extending my hand out to shake his. But instead, the man wraps me in a hug and I let out a surprised laugh and hug him back.

“Sorry I’m a hugger, I’m David Rossi, but please call me Dave,” He says once he releases me. “Come in, Come in. We were just about to pour the wine.”

We make our way into the large kitchen and I notice the group of people stood around the island. Their laughter and conversations subside as they notice our presence. My eyes flick over the group. Each of them wears a matching expression, surprise, eventually my eyes make it to a familiar face.

“Wait, JJ?” I say, my face breaking out into a grin. The woman makes her way over to us and wraps me in a hug, which I return quickly. Once we release, she hits Spencer’s arm softly.

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew, Y/n?” JJ says accusatory.

“Wait, how do you know each other?”

I let out a giggle, “JJ was my first customer when I opened my shop, and now shes my second most regular customer, I can always guarantee that she will come in and order her black coffee as soon as I open the shop.”

“Hey, I can’t help that the coffee is so good,” JJ says, shrugging.

“So you know JJ and Spencer, but not the rest of the team. So let me introduce,” Rossi says, placing a hand on my arm to guide me over to the rest of the team, JJ and Spence following soon behind. Dave introduces me to each of the members, all of them give me a warm smile and tell me that they’re glad I’m here.

“So how long have you two been dating?” The dark-haired woman, Emily, asks. “Uh,” Spencer stutters, “We’re not dating.”

“No?” Morgan questions, clearly puzzled.

“Nope,” I say, “We’re just friends.”

“Pretty boy come on,” Morgan groans.

“That’s what I call him,” I laugh, to which Morgan hums, asking what I meant without words, “Pretty boy.”

Morgan lets out a laugh, muttering that he likes me already under his breath.

“Wine?” Dave calls out to me.

I shake my head, “No thank you, I’ve got the morning shift.”

“Wait you didn’t tell me that, when do you need to be home?” Spencer quickly interjects, clearly unsure if I should be out, as he knows that I have to be up to open the shop at 4:30 if I’m on the morning shift. I wave my hand letting him know that it’s okay. Looks are thrown between members of the team, all silently swooning of Spencer and I’s obvious feelings for each other.

“Where was your shop again Y/n?” Penelope asks, a smile on her face.

I smile back at the woman, “It’s actually just down the street from where you guys work, next to Taylor’s bookshop.”

“Wait, what was the shop's name again?” Hotch questions.

“Pour l'âme, It’s french,” I laugh, “It means for the soul, but doesn’t the french version sound so much better.”

“Spencer has definitely brought group coffee to the BAU from there at like 9 o’clock at night,” Morgan says, “And there is no way that you’re open that late.”

My eyes flick to Spencer, whose face is red, “You would be right.”

“So that means that you’re making at least seven coffee’s for dear boy wonder here in your after hours,” finishes Penelope.

I nod my head in response.

“Far out Reid, if you don’t make a move I will,” Emily jokes and the group lets out a collective laugh.

The rest of the night goes on without a hitch, the team continues to make jokes at Spencer’s expense, and I'm sure that it's a normal thing for them to do anyway.

The clock ticks over to ten thirty, and Spencer and I say our goodbyes to the team. Each of them gives me a hug, aside from Hotch who had already left.

“Thank you for dinner, Dave, and thank you for having me everyone, it was great to meet you all,” I say, placing my coat over my shoulders, hoping they understand how truly grateful I am to be included.

“You’re more than welcome at my dinner table any night of the week,” Dave says, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

The rest of the team makes comments that suggest they agree. And my heart squeezes, they have successfully made me feel so welcomed and like a part of the family already. We throw goodbyes over our shoulders, and Spencer's hand falls into mine and we walk down to his car. He opens the door for me, but before I get in I wrap my arms around his waist.

“Thank you for taking me, Spence,” I say, burying my head into his chest. Spencer’s arms wrap around me and we just stand together for a moment. My heart races at the intimate moment.

“I’m so glad that you could come,” He mutter’s into the top of my hair, “I don’t think I’m going to be allowed to come without you anymore.”

I let out a laugh and pull away from him and get into the car, and we travel back to my apartment. Spencer parks his car and gets out following me to the back entrance to my apartment. We stand outside of my front door.

“I don’t want to leave you yet,” I confess, a surge of confidence racing through me, “I like being around you. In fact, I think I’m going to surgically attach us together so that I’m always around.”

The two of us laugh. Our eyes lock in the light of the moon, cliche I know, and I can tell that Spencer’s eyes are concentrated on me. His eyes flick down to my lips and I rake my tongue over them.

“I like being around you too,” He whispers, inching closer to me. I can feel his breath on my face at this point, the cinnamon scent that he's always wearing envelops my nose and I feel at home, I feel safe. He leans down slowly and hovers his lips over mine, leaving me time to pull away if it’s not something I want. And oh god do I want it. I step up onto my tiptoes and press my lips to his, bringing my hands up to hod his face. His own go around my waist and pull me closer to him. Our lips move together in perfect harmony and it's almost as if the rest of the world slips away. I swipe my tongue over his lips and he opens his mouth to me. We fight for dominance and eventually he wins, pushing me backwards a little bit and we hit my door with a thud, causing us both to laugh and break apart. I grab the back of my head.

“Ow.”

“I’m so sorry,” He says laughing. He places a hand to the back of my head, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say smiling, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth slightly. “So, when are you finally going to ask me out?” I tease.

He lets out another laugh and steps back from me, oozing confidence, “Hey you're the one that told the team that we’re just friends.”

“We are just friends,” I quip back.

He shakes his head, “Do you want to be just friends?”

I shake my head no.

“Good, me either.”

Taglist

@saucybeeches

#spencer reid #spence #dr spencer reid #doctor spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #criminal #Criminal Minds Reid #Criminal Minds AU #coffee shop au #penelope garcia #derek morgan #jennifer jj jareau #emily prentiss #david rossi #aaron hotch hotchner

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elorastory · 3 years ago

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Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans--A Conspiracy

Tales of Arcadia/Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans—A Conspiracy

I’m expecting some pushback from this. Yes, it’s my opinion based on my personal understanding of the current state of society and the world. No, it is not intended to be offensive; merely thought-provoking and releasing for me personally.

Preface: Tales of Arcadia is still one of my very favorite shows ever. SO much good came from its existence. Nothing, not even a less-than-satisfactory ending, can take away what this series contributed to my journey.

Trigger warnings (yes, my rant has trigger-warnings): this post confronts the possibility of malevolent agendas and secret societies for which Netflix and Hollywood and Disney could be mouthpieces/mediums for mass brain-washing. This post also mentions transgender/gender-queer/gender-dysphoria in a neutral way (does not diss, but mentions possibility of using its acceptance for sterilization purposes), so lovely sensitive beautiful souls, please be prepared. Alludes to but does not outright mention Netflix’s “Cuties” documentary. Harsh and vulgar language ahead. Scattered and incomplete thoughts galore. Read between the lines and do your own research (if you still can in today’s cancel-culture).

The creators of Tales of Arcadia set out to revolutionize animation and push graphics to their limit. Congratulations to them. They absolutely, indisputably achieved their goal (seriously, guys—GORGEOUS visuals).

Unfortunately, instead of applying their passion and talent toward telling beautiful stories with empowering morals to children (the show’s target audience), the creators chose to “step back” and permit the existence of Rise of the Titans (from which the original writers are a little too quick to distance themselves, in my opinion).

It began with Jim’s INCREDIBLY disappointing transformation at the end of Trollhunters, season three. His metamorphosis recanted the show’s original moral of “you, a human, have everything you need inside of you to conquer your greatest fears and darkest demons BECAUSE you are human,” and instead, taught us we do not; we require intervention and enhancement to be worthy.

At first, I didn’t pay too much credence to the idea that this creative choice could have been tied to a trans-humanist agenda (or even a push for mass-acceptance of surgical/hormonal alterations for transgender/gender-dysphoria); however, after watching RotT, I’m drowning in paranoia.

Steve getting pregnant and giving birth on screen was positively treacherous. I am DAMN PROUD of our fandom’s overwhelming pushback against this particular aspect of RotT and I want all of you speaking out to know that you are the REAL Trollhunters here.

Not only is he HOW old (Aaron had enough foresight to make a comment on Twitter a few weeks ago that magically absolved the characters underage status and the writers of their responsibility—how convenient for them), but it’s not like the adults DON’T know (or, at least, suspect) what this concept (probably) parallels in reality.

It’s important to note, ToA as a fandom has expressed a high need for LGBTQ+ space and acceptance (and I am among the individuals requesting this need be met). I believe the creators included enough subtext for the audience to reasonably conclude that Steve is, more than likely, a bisexual himbo, especially for Eli (whom I hoped would come back from A5 a total babe and make Steve question everything he ever thought he knew about himself—especially when Aja (in my opinion) should have realized she had too much responsibility as Queen of a PLANET to maintain a healthy long-long-distance relationship with a boyfriend like STEVE). But the writers just jumped from the lesbian-end-of-the-world-last-chance-first-kiss in 3Below to “boys can have babies, too.”

MAYBE, in today’s political climate, it would have been prudent to save the mPreg for fanfiction (a safe space to process fantasies and triggers alike)—unless, of course, the writers WANTED to plant those seeds in the minds of their intended audience? (I know, rich coming from the chick who writes the Jamie/Blinky fanfic—I promise, it has meaning beyond the nasty.)

As a mother, this was my very biggest complaint about the finale. My children watch this show with me. Of course, after seeing Steve squirt blue all over Eli, my autistic daughter asks, “Can boys have babies, Mommy?”

Warning: Vicious, Accusatory, Conspiracy-Theory-Laden Rant Ahead

*middle fingers galore* Fuck you and your child-sexualizing/human-sterilization agenda, Netflix. Do I want to have to have the transgender talk with my malleable kids right now? Fuck no, I don’t. I do not think it’s bad to be transgender or queer. Y’all will always get love from me and will always be treated the way YOU want to be treated. I do think there’s a rise in rates of transgender/queer individuals because it’s getting a lot of attention and it makes doctors a lot of money, so there are a lot of vulnerable people being taken advantage of right now (especially kids--imagine how the spectrum ones are gonna sponge this shit). I do not want that for my children. I want them to have a comprehensive and complete understanding of all the forces affecting their relationship with their bodies and minds before they decide during puberty (a notoriously uncomfortable and confusing time of life) to chop off body parts and mess with hormones (and, by proxy, mental functioning). My children are not old enough to fully comprehend the shift occurring in our society right now, let alone WHY it’s even happening or what it means for them (how convenient for the proponents of depopulation by self-sterilization).

And on the subject of such agendas… Blinky. What were they thinking using him as a mouthpiece for ANY human-hating philosophy? When he stated outright that wiping the planet of humanity was SAVING the earth, I about shit a brick. HE LOVES ALL THINGS HUMAN! He’s supposed to be FASCINATED by them! He LIVED as one! He considers Jim his son! Not only was this the WORST example of the movie’s complete inability to maintain his character (besides MISSING A PAGE IN THE BOOK, being SCARED of FLYING (yeahfuckingright), and NOT reading horoscopes (bitch, please, of course Trolls read horoscopes—it’s cosmic feng-shui with giant space-rocks)), but he’s a CONSPIRACY THEORIST! He’d be SO onto this bullshit.

Wrapping up the agenda-pushing shenanigans: “For the good of all???”Are you KIDDING ME?! The four most dangerous words in history are, “For the greater good” (followed closely by “this time it’s different”), and y’all are just gonna rephrase it and use it to convince us that anyone fighting for the “greater good” is obviously the GOOD GUY? Of course, Jim IS the good guy and has the benefit of our loyal viewership and support, but acclimating the younger audience to this phrase, to the very concept that there is a “one size fits all” sort of “good” is dangerous and manipulative. What happens when “the greater good” isn’t good for you? Are you gonna be able to fight back and be heard?

Am I reading too much into this? Maybe. Is this my way of processing the steaming pile of propaganda my favorite show became without needed to re-watch RotT to leave a more comprehensive review? Probably. If I get cancelled for this post, am I gonna know I’m right? Absolutely.

If you made it this far, thanks for indulging me in my spazzy rant. As always, I am curious to hear your thoughts.

Yours,

Elora Story

#TalesOfArcadia #Trollhunters #riseofthetitans #toa rott #spoilers #rott spoilers #conspiracy #trigger warnings #possible trigger warning #rant #newworldorder #agenda #netflixbashing

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pokemagines · 5 years ago

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letting go. (n x reader)

anon asked: “Can we please get N taking his S/O out on a date, or even better, meeting scary dad Getesis 👀”

a/n: i took a. Very loose interpretation of this prompt bc i don’t think N would ever want to show his s/o to ghetsis all things considering !!! have some angst

tw: vague mentions of abuse

the ruins of N’s castle were a sort of landmark of the unova region, attracting curious tourists and the bravest of conspiracy theorists to make the grueling trip through victory road in hopes of catching a glimpse of the mystery surrounding it.

you had remembered the day it had sprung up, watching with a sort of horrified curiosity as the walls of the pokemon league seemed to close in on you, covering your pokemon’s face as to keep the soot and rubble from falling on it. and out of the ashes came N, a rare, enigmatic smile on his face as he beckoned you inside. then it had been thrilling, a chance to be a part of something that was much larger than yourself.

and now? it just seemed sad.

the large arched ceilings loom overhead, N walking steadily in front of you, eyes darting around each corridor as if waiting for a ghost to pop out at the both of you.

such a big castle would be a dream home for anyone, the beautiful architecture and seeming endless rooms grandiose and sweeping -- no doubt endless fun for any child. however lavish it seemed to the mere onlooker, the air inside of it was stagnant and cold, N had said it had always felt that way, even as a child. and now, in its crumbled, deteriorated state, it seems the beautiful facade had finally fell. charming on the outside, rotten to the core, such a thing could be said about the old owner of the castle as well.

“we are almost there,” his monotone voice breaks the silence, and you realize just how far you’ve fallen behind. you jump over a bit of rubble before jogging to catch up to him.

“i remember this place a little,” you see a scorch mark on the wall from the battles you had endured seemingly forever ago. just how long had it been now? almost ten years? “never thought i’d be back.”

“me neither.” you wonder if he’s talking about you or him.

then you hear a familiar tune, the music box in his room that played an eerie tune you could never seem to get out of your head, except now every note was off-key. after all this time it never ran out... N stops in his tracks, sharply inhaling as he seems to steel himself before going inside.

“you okay?” you come up behind him, rubbing his back gently in support, “you don’t have to go in here if you don’t want to.” N seems to relax a bit under your touch.

“no,” his voice is firm as he shakes his head, “i need to let go.” you nod at him, squeezing his hand in an act of solidarity and letting him step inside the old room first.

the room was eerily similar to how you remember it being -- like a dollhouse that had been preserved by time, except for a thick layer of dust and rubble that lays over everything. N sighs, carefully looking around at the toys in the room: knocked over racetracks, a half-deflated basketball, the skateboard ramp. he had never wanted any of those things, really, but ghetsis never seemed to care.

that was the thing about N, he didn’t care about gifts or toys, he just wanted to be loved by his father who only ever pretended to care for him. even now, the thought of no human truly caring for him for the first fourteen years of his life makes his chest start to tighten. you slip your hand into his and squeeze, and he loosens up a bit.

you watch as he makes his way to the back of the room, a yellow tire that he used as a table laying there. he finds the picture frame laying broken in the middle of it, still smashed from when another plucky teen (who reminded him quite a lot of you) had broken it after hearing N’s stories of his past. she had blushed and apologized after, stating that ghetsis didn’t deserve a place in his room if he had done so many evil things. at that time, he still didn’t quite understand all the pitying glances people would give him, but now he understood a bit better. most kids don’t grow up locked in a room with only pokemon to talk to. most kids weren’t used as props for political gain. most kids weren’t--

it’s then he realizes the photo is in his hand, the remaining glass falling off and breaking on the ground. it had taken a while for him to pinpoint his exact feelings for ghetsis -- at first pity, then anger, and now... nothing. looking down at the picture, he hardly recognizes the thin, frail boy looking at the camera with wide eyes. N had grown strong, and ghetsis was off in a prison cell somewhere in unova in some act of poetic justice. ghetsis was the most hated man in unova, and N had you who loved him unconditionally. so much that sometimes he felt undeserving of it, or that it would all be snatched away from him in an instant.

“arceus, he was just as ugly back then as he is now.” he realizes you’re looking over his shoulder and he can’t help but laugh. so loudly it echoes through the old, empty room, bouncing off the corners, the old music box’s cacophony drowned out by the sound. you notice there are tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, but decide not to say anything. as his laughter dies down, he leans down and kisses your temple, a momentary thought of how different things would’ve been if he had met you just a bit sooner.

N carefully sets the picture down back where he had found it. he smiles, the words sounding bittersweet, “i’m ready to go now.”

#n #n (pokemon)#natural harmonia gropius #n x reader #pkmn bw #pokemon black and white #pkmn #unova #angst #ficlet #mod touko #yes i wrote the protag w touko in mind but aha xx #wanted to write smth cathartic for N ... my boy #more introspective than anything

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dopescotlandwarrior · 4 years ago

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Sinners & Saints-Chapter Two

Special thanks to @statell for all your help

Previous chapters on AO3

Chapter Two

Claire emerged from a taxi in a tight black pencil skirt and black high heels as she walked into the upscale restaurant. She knocked on a door with a “espace de rangement” sign on display. The door opened to a nice looking man, impeccably dressed, and she could see her Godfather standing to greet her. He held his arms out for an embrace.

“My darling Bear, it is so good to see you alive and well.” He kissed both of her cheeks and looked her over for bruises. “Quite a scare you gave me yesterday.” He looked into her eyes, “did you arrange for the explosion? The news is reporting natural causes, a gas leak I believe.”

“Certainly not. I wouldn’t put the art at risk like that, besides, I could have done it in my sleep.”

“The news had video of you being rescued, quite terrifying. Do you know the man you were trapped with?”

“Yes, James Fraser. For twenty hours I laid on top of Jamie Fraser and found him to be quite charming and attentive.”

Javier Charvet laughed from his belly and looked at his men enjoying the humor. He pulled a chair out for Claire and sat down next to her. Someone spread a white cloth in front of him while Claire pulled a rolled canvas from her purse. Javier put white gloves on and carefully unrolled the painting where he could examine it under a high powered magnifying glass. He sat up and signaled to his man who left the room, presumably to initiate the transfer of the deed for the Italian property.

“Little Bear, what in God’s name is the Senator doing? I’m talking about his bid for governor announced today.”

“His what?”

Javier looked up with compassionate eyes. “You didn’t know. Has the bastard even called you yet?”

“Yes, yes, I got a call from Mary this morning.”

“And all this time I thought his name was Frank.”

“Mary is his secretary, like his right hand.”

“I know Bear, like I know what grades she got in middle school and that she is a lesbian. I was being sarcastic.”

Javier could see the pain on Claire’s face and backed off. “You must go, I understand. I will have the deed delivered to you in a few hours. Go out through the kitchen, Joseph is waiting to take you back.”

Javier Charvet was a best friend to Claire’s father until the day he died, along with her mother, in a car crash. He tried to get custody of little Claire, but her Uncle Lamb was a blood relative and the courts awarded custody to him. Javier continued to fight for her through the years they were in Egypt and South America, arguing it was no place to raise a young lady. Finally, when Claire was fifteen, the court let her decide where she wanted to live and she chose France with Javier.

Claire did not want to hurt Uncle Lamb, but she was ready to get out of the dirt and sleep in a regular house with indoor plumbing. The warm love and attention she received from Javier was an unexpected bonus and she blossomed under his care. Whenever he saw her, his face would light up and he would call her Claire Bear which was shortened through the years to just Bear. She stayed with Javier through graduate school, leaving for America when she was hired by University of Chicago. That was three years ago.

Claire sat back in the front seat and sighed. She was reeling emotionally after hearing Frank had announced his bid for governor. He never talked to her about it, come to think of it, he never talked about anything. Their relationship felt settled and comfortable from day one, like couples who had spent thirty years together. She couldn’t remember either of them doing anything romantic for the other and suddenly felt like crying her eyes out. What she needed was a day to be selfish and pretend she was someone else who wasn’t saddled with a flatline relationship. She directed Joseph to the retail district and blew him a kiss promising to find a safe way home. She wanted to be free for the next two days and that started with something fun and funky to wear tomorrow.

Javier assigned two of his men to investigate the Senator again. “Find out what projects have his support, who are the major players, who is backing his bid for governor. Find out what master he serves.”

The next day, Claire woke up excited to walk the Louvre. She straightened her hair and added some makeup before jumping into one of her new sundresses. She looked into the full-length mirror and giggled at the strange reflection. The top of the dress was fitted, connecting at the back of her neck leaving her shoulders bare. The skirt had yards of soft fabric that fell just below her knee and a studded belt. The dress was sunshine yellow with silver studs. Nothing could be farther from the tailored suits and conservative colors that filled her closets at home. She smiled and almost skipped out of the hotel to catch a taxi.

Jamie sat at the hotel pool sipping his coffee, and quietly losing his mind. The team spent seven hours yesterday pouring over every art theft attributed to Casper… again, and they had nothing. He took a deep breath and started making phone calls to those he served feeling like he would explode any minute. He had checked the airlines and knew there were no flights to Chicago until tomorrow, so she was still in town most likely. He exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. Fuck it, he thought, let's see if lightning will strike twice. He made his way to the Louvre.

Claire drifted happily through the museum walking close to the Virgin of the Rocks to examine the brush strokes. She jumped when someone spoke to her from behind.

It’s obvious there was a second hand, don’t you agree?”

Claire spun around to see Jamie Fraser smiling at her. There was initial surprise and happy excitement in her face which she covered quickly, turning back to the painting.

“I do not agree. I have always advocated a single hand and it’s the crazy conspiracy theorists who lead people down that road. You should know better than to comment on fine art, Mister Fraser.”

Jamie looked confused by her comment. “I beg to differ madam. I have an art degree after all.”

Claire giggled at the hurt look he concocted, “what kind of degree?”

When she turned back to him and looked up at his face, Jamie nearly forgot to breathe. “Nothing like yours and may I ask how you are allowed to walk the streets of an unsuspecting Paris? How many cars collided watching you walk down the sidewalk, hmmm?”

Claire was laughing at his charm and feeling flattered. “Suppose you do Paris a favor and walk with me?”

Claire looped her arm in his and they walked, admired the paintings, sat and discussed, joked and flirted for hours. Jamie’s knowledge of the masters was surprising and made for stimulating conversation. He had a profound appreciation for the art and artist, much like her own. After four hours they called it a day and went to find a sidewalk cafe for refreshment. Claire watched Jamie look through the three menus at the table and decided to be brave.

“Come on, handsome, this place is too boring.” She spun in the other direction as the wind caught the ample fabric of her skirt and teased it up until she could get a hold of it. They heard a loud crash as a driver struck a parked car and suddenly Jamie’s arm was around her waist pulling her along.

“I rest my case madam. Where is it we are going for more exciting refreshment?”

Claire was laughing at Jamie and feeling bad for the driver, “it’s close and you will love it because they have beer and volleyball outside. It’s quite popular in America.”

Jamie could not get the image of Claire’s legs out of his mind but dedicated himself to being less flirty with her. With a last look at her backside, he let his eyes follow the curves to her feet.

“I can’t believe you can walk the Louvre in heels.”

“I bought flat sandals for today but kept running into walls, so I went back to what I’m used to.”

“Thank God they don’t accentuate your statuesque figure, or perfect posture,” said rolling his eyes, making her laugh again.

She was so easy to talk to, and joke with, Jamie winced remembering her disarming banter in the Louvre that made him a slave to her enjoyment.

“Listen, Sassenach, I am sorry for the flirting, I lost my head with a very pretty girl, who is engaged to be married. I promise to behave like a gentleman while we have a beer and then see you home safely. Right after this…” He pulled her to him and stuck his nose against her neck breathing deeply and releasing her instantly with a happy grin. “You smell like heaven lass.”

Claire was stunned by the cascade of feelings elicited by Jamie’s hug and the feel of his skin against her neck. When he released her she almost fell over, reaching for his arm to steady herself.

“That’s quite alright, it is a lovely scent.”

They entered a dark bar with a rousing crowd who were drinking the afternoon away. The beer was reviving while they talked about their time under the rubble and the mouse that ran up her leg. He asked about her lecture, fascinated by her travels to bring the love of art to the masses. She had been in more countries than he had and entertained him with anecdotes. Sitting in a booth gave her the freedom to look at his face, shoulders, and arms. He was dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt that did little to hide his massive biceps and chest. She was careful to look discreetly until the second beer arrived which made it harder to pretend.

“Let’s watch the volleyball for a while, Sassenach, then I’ll see you back to your hotel.”

The fresh air helped to clear Claire’s head and she chose a team to root for. The game was fast and fun and she lost herself in the competition, slapping Jamie’s leg at times when her team scored. She didn’t notice how quiet he had become.

True to his word, Jamie was polite and attentive for the rest of their time together. Inside, he went to battle with the part of himself that wanted a girl like Claire and would be ruthless to win her. His decent side won, and he dropped her at her hotel before kissing her forehead and thanking her for a memorable afternoon.

Claire smiled and waved goodbye. Her glass face always gave the observer a look into her true emotion and Jamie saw her confusion and her interest. He needed to get out of Paris, first thing tomorrow. Go home to Scotland and forget about this time with the Sassenach. It felt like he lost a piece of himself today, a piece that remained with her. It made him feel empty inside.

Claire ordered food in her room and sat on the terrace, thinking about Jamie, Paris, and Frank. If he had given her his cell phone number, she would have called him and talked about her crazy feelings and desire for him. He mentioned the name of his hotel several times that afternoon. She tried to resist the seduction that played on a continuous loop in her mind. If only…

Jamie opened his eyes in a dark room when he felt his bed move and was instantly awake. He smelled her perfume and rolled toward the scent as she turned on a light. She was removing her shoes and then her belt and looked like she might join him in bed.

“Your dress lass.”

Claire twisted the button under her hair and pulled the dress over her head letting it drop to the floor. He pulled her to him and kissed her like his life depended on it. The kisses were sweet and long, building the fire she craved. For the next hour, he felt each curve, tasted every part of her, and pushed himself into her wet softness when she begged him to.

Claire walked naked to his room refrigerator where she stashed a bottle of champagne and a bowl of fresh strawberries. She pushed pillows against the headboard so Jamie could sit up and then straddled him, handing him a glass and placing a strawberry in his mouth. The ground rules were unspoken yet they both knew not to ask or comment on what this was. It just was.

“How is it you move through my door, room, and refrigerator without making a sound lass?”

“I’m a cat burglar,” said with honesty

Later Jamie led Claire to his outside patio with the lights of Paris spread far and wide. He danced with her, naked, holding her close, with a promise of more. Claire was very aware she was dancing with the enemy. The man was obsessed with bringing her down and his life was dedicated to that pursuit. None of it was lost on her so she lived each second with him. They made love once more and he gripped her to him as they fell asleep.

Claire looked up at Jamie’s window before getting into her cab. She would not see him again unless she made a mistake and he caught Casper. She wondered if she could walk away from stealing art for a man like Jamie. The answer was moot. It was the only thing that made her feel alive.

Later, Claire walked to the front desk to check out of the hotel. On her way to the exit, she felt someone pull her back and looked into the eyes of Jamie Fraser. He reached into her purse and pulled her phone out, punching in his contact information. He kissed her soundly and stroked her cheek.

“I still owe you a life Sassenach, and as I said, I’ll be the first one there.” He disappeared into the throng of people leaving the resort and Claire dropped into a couch to slow her racing heart.

Landing at O’Hare airport did wonders for popping the pink balloon Claire was in. She looked out at the familiar sights of home and Jamie Fraser was reassigned to the distant memory file in her mind. Like so many Sorority nights in her past. She felt strong and ready to tackle the remainder of the semester. When she saw Geillis she quickened her step and hugged her friend like her favorite puppy. The two women chatted while waiting for luggage and then heading home. When Claire walked into her townhouse Paris no longer existed. She was back.

Jamie had to get out of Paris before he lost his mind. Another failed attempt to catch Casper and a stunning girl left her mark on him and then disappeared. He made haste getting back to his farm in Scotland where the demands of the land would pull him back to normal. He assigned his top man to wrap up the investigation at Sotheby’s auction house and the report was waiting in is outlook when he got to Scotland.

The explosion was caused by a gas leak, the vault video was disabled by some sort of bright light beam, there were no fingerprints unaccounted for, and the handlers were questioned but added no clues. One female handler said she left the vault for a couple of minutes with Professor Beauchamp to find the audio technician and heard the auto-locking door to the vault slam behind her. As usual, Casper left no leads to follow and disappeared with a Rembrandt worth thirty million dollars. He had nothing.

Claire and Geillis wrapped up the semester in the final month. There were graduate dissertations to evaluate, term papers to read, and final exams to grade. It was a busy month and both looked forward to a summer off. Geillis would spend two months in her pool by day and the clubs by night. Claire would be away most of that time, lecturing, appraising, promoting her book, and stealing art.

She knew she had been in the game too long. Statistically, she was on borrowed time as a thief and when she was caught, she would lose her freedom for the next twenty years. Aside from quitting, she took every precaution including secure communication, the best VPN, encryption security, and a code translator that was owned by Javier because he commissioned the program. There were no back doors installed in the programming, verified by the best security experts in France. He named the program Tom, and no one knew why. Tom was installed on Claire’s home computer and on Javier’s, no one else would use it, see it in action, or ask questions about it. Claire’s heart jumped when she saw the message and she sent it to Tom. Thirty-six seconds later she read the message from Javier and smiled.

“Easy Peezy,” she said out loud as she sent a coded RSVP and agreed to the terms, one point five million in gold. The compensation received for her service had been routed to several off-shore accounts in the beginning and her wealth grew at a staggering rate. Cash felt like an anchor that would sink her in an investigation so she switched to valued properties that would be harder to discover. The gold would be kept in a bank vault locally and used for catastrophic expenses in the future, like hiring a team of defense lawyers. It would cost her two or three hundred thousand just to get it to Chicago, but she would pay it.

Her cell phone played Frank’s ringtone and she felt a boulder in her stomach.

“Hello darling, just touching base about this weekend. Do you have plans for us yet?”

“No Frank, you have not been home since the break started so I will consider you still gone until I actually see you.”

“Alright, fair enough. I have been invited to a private island, owned by a billionaire. The people that are funding my campaign have asked me to go. It almost sounds like a rite of passage kind of thing.”

“Well, best of luck with the upcoming test of manhood, or whatever it is.”

Claire trapped her lip between her teeth and was grinding on it as Frank talked. She was so mad at him and hurt by his estrangement. This was the time of year he spent in Chicago but he was still in Washington with his high-powered new friends that filled his calendar with things to do and people to meet. She tasted blood in her mouth and went back to her packing. Her flight to Germany left in twelve hours and it would be a tense few days once she got there.

Claire paid the admission to the Johannisburg Castle, host to the Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh exhibit. She played with the micro camera hidden in a broach and pinned to her sweater, the remote was deep in a pocket of her trousers. With luck, she would have clear pictures of the employee badges, the security cameras, and the exhibit hall by dinner. Tonight she would finish her fake statue of King Amenhotep III, Tutankhamun’s grandfather who guarded his tomb for millennia before it was discovered and plundered by archaeologists in 1922. The statue would not stand up to scrutiny, but she just needed a few minutes to get out of the building.

Claire plugged a USB into the back of the pendant and downloaded the pictures onto her laptop while the last coat of gold paint was drying on the little statue. She launched her graphics program and got to work, creating an employee badge that would pass at a glance.

Claire noticed the incoming handlers would have their badges scanned before coming into the castle. When leaving for the day, they were scanned to ensure none of the treasures were going home with them. Each piece in the collection was tagged with a liquid that emitted a dose of radiation high enough to be outside the normal range but low enough to be safe. She would skip the scanner and leave through the ceiling, like she came. By midnight, everything was ready, by tomorrow night at this time she would be one and a half million dollars richer.

Claire laid in bed, but sleep would not come. She reached for her phone, launching her contacts. For the hundredth time since leaving Paris, she looked at Jamie’s name and brought the whole evening back to her mind. It was such a sweet sadness that filled her, and each time she did this Frank became less and less important. In her dreams, she slept in Jamie’s embrace all night.

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autisticfangpyreclub · 4 years ago

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Gold stained hands, red stained teeth - chapter 1

I finally managed to start writing the vampire au i posted literally a year ago, quarantine does that to ya. Enjoy!

(@kyra-plays sorry it took so long for me to start writing this fic!)

“We’re here!”

Kai grunted as he was shaken awake by the car jostling to a halt. He sluggishly sat up in his seat and looked out the window. They were parked in front of a huge iron gate, overgrown with vines and moss. “This is the place?” he slurred, shaking his head to try and wake himself up.

“Yup,” Nya replied. She tossed a crumpled piece of paper onto his lap. “Check it out, I’m gonna go get our tickets.”

She hopped out of the car, and ran over to the ticket booth. Kai yawned, and clicked the light on in the car. The piece of paper had every spot on their haunted building tour written on it, along with a small blurb about each location. He skimmed through the names until he found where they were.

“Castle Garmadon…”

It had been built in the 14th century, allegedly by only two people. A woman and her husband, rumoured by the local townsfolk to both be vampires.

He could believe it when he saw what the castle looked like. It was ginormous, towering over the iron gates surrounding it. The castle sat atop a cliff that overlooked the town below, and it gave the entire countryside a dark and gothic vibe. It looked like something straight out of dracula.

“There you are!”

Kai jumped at the sudden hand on his shoulder, but relaxed when he saw it was only Jay. “Hey, when’d you get here?” Kai asked.

“Just now,” Jay said, gesturing at the blue van that was parked beside Nya’s car. “Zane’s trying to drag Cole out right now, he’s having a bit of a freak out.”

They both turned their heads to see Zane tugging Cole by the arm, trying to pull him off the car door. Cole lost his grip just as Zane gave a hard yank. Kai winced as they both fell backwards onto the concrete ground, that was still wet from the recent shower of rain. “What’s going on with them?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” Jay crossed his arms and leaned back against the iron gate. “I hear Cole’s got like, a really bad fear of vampires.”

Kai couldn’t stop himself from snorting. “Seriously? Why?”

Jay shrugged. “No clue, think he just watched too many horror movies as a little kid,” he raised an eyebrow and scanned the parking lot, “hey, where’s Nya?”

“Hey Jay!” Nya grinned as she ran over to them. “I got our tickets,” she handed a ticket to Jay, and then one to Kai, “apparently we’re the only visitors they’ve had in months, so we’ve got the whole place to ourselves to explore!”

“Awesome!” Jay pumped his fist in the air. “Free reign to touch anything we feel like!”

“I told you in the van Jay, we must respect this castle,” Zane chided, approaching them with a mopey looking Cole in tow. “Look with your eyes, not your hands.”

“Ugh, fine. You brought the go pro right?”

Zane sighed, then reached into his shoulder bag. He pulled out an awkwardly large camera, and strapped it over his forehead. “I don’t know why you insisted on this head mount.”

“Panoramic shots Zane, panoramic shots!” Jay shot back, “now lean down so I can adjust it.”

Kai chuckled to himself watching Jay attempt to jump to Zane’s level. His focus drifted towards Cole, who’s eyes were darting back and forth between the gate and the castle, while his hands clenched the sleeves of his jacket. He was rocking back and forth on the spot and muttering something ineligible to himself.

“You good Cole?” Kai asked him, reaching a hand out to grab his shoulder.

Cole flinched and snapped out of his nervous rambling. “What? Oh, I’m fine,” he waved his hand nonchalantly, “just… the castle is so big, it was making me a little, uh… unsettled, yeah, that’s all it is…”

Kai didn’t really believe that, but he didn’t want to hassle him. He just gave Cole a pat on the shoulder and left it at that. The five of them showed their tickets to the guard at the gate, and walked into the courtyard.

Those piercing red eyes had to be the creepiest thing about the paintings Cole was surrounded by. It was bad enough that the old castle looked like it was going to collapse any moment, or that it reeked of death and mold. Of course, of course it also had to be infested by vampires. Vampires who loved having their portraits painted, apparently.

“I think these ropes kinda ruin it for me,” Kai said while prodding at one of the velvet ropes that formed a barrier around the paintings. “The illusion of walking through a historical castle thing I mean.”

Cole turned around to glare at him. “Are you seriously not creeped out by all… this?”

Kai gave him a quizzical look. “I can’t really see anything creepy about it.” He walked over and slung his arm over Cole's shoulder. “It’s just an old building dude, nothing to be afraid of except like… maybe asbestos.”

“There is no asbestos in this castle Kai, the maintenance staff thoroughly check and upkeep the entire building twice a year,” Zane said. He was taking pictures of everything using the go pro Jay had thoroughly adjusted several times now. Jay himself was admiring the two giant swords affixed to the wall, along with Nya who was taking pictures with her phone.

Cole pushed Kai off him. “I’m not scared, I’m just saying it’s creepy. I mean, why do all these paintings have red eyes?”

“Because their vampires, duh!” Jay yelled over to them. Kai shot him a glare, and he looked away sheepishly. “I mean, that’s the most popular theory…”

Jay yelped as Nya shoved him in the shoulder. “There’s no such thing as vampires, stop trying to scare him Jay,” she said.

Jay winced and shuffled away from her while rubbing his shoulder. “I wasn’t! Just stating the facts!”

“I agree with Nya, there is simply no scientific evidence at all that backs up the existence of vampires, or any supernatural phenomena at all for that matter,” Zane said flatly. “No matter what conspiracy theorists say to try to defend their opinion, nothing can rationalize it,” he looked pointedly at Jay while speaking, who rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah, we get it science man,” Jay said, “in other words, Cole needs to stop being a baby.”

Cole sputtered. “Shut up! Can we just get this whole haunted building tour over with?” Cole sighed while shaking his head. “I can’t believe you guys forced me into this…”

“Excuse me? We all agreed to do this together!” Jay scoffed at him. He absentmindedly scratched at the peeling wallpaper, then frantically tried to hide a chunk he pulled off in his pocket before Zane could yell at him.

“That was before I found out one of the spots on the list was a vampire infested hellhole!” Cole spat at him.

Kai gave Cole a gentle pat on the back. “It’ll be alright man, if you get scared I’ll just let you hold my hand okay?”

Cole scowled. “I don’t need to…”

A loud creaking sound suddenly echoed through the building. Cole screamed and grasped onto Kai’s hoodie for dear life.

“Uhh…” Kai glanced over at Cole, who was cowering and hiding his face in Kai’s shoulder. “You good man?”

In a realization that nothing was coming to kill him, Cole pulled away from Kai like he’d been burned. Jay was laughing like a maniac in the background, and he even heard Zane chuckle softly. Nya just shook her head and walked past them.

“C'mon guys, we’ve only got about another hour and there’s still way more castle to see,” she said, pulling Jay by the arm who was still laughing so hard he was gasping for breath.

Cole felt his face heating up. He pulled his shirt over his face so that no one could see how red he was. Or how much he was still sweating. “Uh… Kai, I think I might just take you up on that offer…”

“Y’know, I hear the electric lights in this place have always been here, because the people who lived here were so old they had knowledge from the golden age about electricity that was lost to time,” Jay remarked, as they passed by a marble bust lit up by a light on the ceiling.

“That’s impossible, electric lighting was unheard of during the 15th century, and people barely lived past their thirties, much less thousands of years,” Zane replied.

“Unless they were vampires…” Jay hummed.

Cole shuddered, and squeezed Kai’s hand. As embarrassing as it was to be holding Kai’s hand like he was a little kid going through a haunted house, it was… comforting. Jay was being the absolute opposite of comforting, he was being a pain in the ass.

“Hey Cole, you cold?” Jay asked with a taunting grin. “You're shivering so much, it’s like you just saw a ghost!” He poked Cole on the cheek, and snickered when he let out a frightened squeak.

Cole grit his teeth, and grasped Kai’s hand tighter. Kai took notice of this, and pulled him in closer. “Shut it Jay, give it up already,” he snapped.

Jay stuck his tongue out and ran ahead of them. The castle was like a maze of hallways, staircases, and small rooms filled with nothing but aged looking statues and paintings. They hadn’t found anything like a kitchen or a bedroom yet, but they had walked through a faintly coppery smelling wine cellar.

“This place is less a house, and more an art museum,” Nya mused, gazing up at the idyllic painting of the night sky above her. “Oh hey, there’s a hole in the wall...”

She pulled out a book that was tucked inside the small crevice in the wall, and flipped it open to a random page. “How to grow the finest lavender… the most efficient way to cultivate your vegetables… slugs, snails, and other wretched fiends found in the garden,” she read aloud, being reminded of the decently kept flower patch they passed in the courtyard. “They must’ve really loved gardening…”

The hallway they were in now was long and narrow, with red carpeted floors and black stone walls covered in scratch marks. The carpet was stained and tattered, and the floorboards sounded like they were screaming when they were stepped on. The hole Nya had discovered wasn’t alone, many more littered the wall and even the floor, Jay having discovered one when he tripped and fell on his face.

“Odd…” Zane hummed, “this hallway seems much less cared for than the rest of the castle…”

“No kidding, this floor is gross…” Nya groaned, stepping over a particularly large dark stain. “And where are the windows? I actually haven’t seen a single one anywhere.”

Jay stopped in front of a painting of a raging ocean, and put a finger to his lips as if in thought. “Maybe… the ones who lived here didn’t want any sunlight getting in,” he said.

“Jay!” Nya yelled at him.

Cole shuddered, and hid his face in his hands. “Oh god, it all makes sense… red eyes, no windows, creepy castle… look, there’s even a glass full of blood in that painting!” he said and pointed towards the painting in question.

Most of the paintings of people in the castle were of the same person, and this one was no exception. He was young looking, and had blonde curls that hung over his eyes and just barely touched his shoulders. He had dark brown skin, and freckles that covered his entire face. He wore a black high collared cape that was fastened by a golden flower-shaped brooch. A green ribbon was tied around his neck. The most striking thing about the boy was his bright red eyes, but despite the unnerving colour they had a gentle look to them. He also did indeed have a glass filled with… something red in his grasp.

“It’s likely wine,” Zane said.

“Or blood!” Cole yelled back at him.

“Or… maybe it’s tomato juice?”

Zane and Cole both gave Kai a blank look. “Seriously? Tomato juice? This isn’t bunnicula we’re talking about Kai,” Cole said, “he’s a REAL vampire, not some kids cartoon.”

“Kai, tomato juice had not yet been invented at the time this painting was done, and Cole, I’m telling you vampires are most certainly not real, please calm yourself,” Zane said, irritation seeping into his tone.

“But why the red eyes then huh? Explain that!” Cole slapped a hand onto the painting, eliciting a gasp from Zane.

“Cole!” he yelled, “that painting is centuries old, it’s a priceless piece of history-“

“In my personal opinion,” Jay cut in, stepping in between them and leaning on the rope, “I think the whole legend is legit.”

Zane glared at him. “Jay, don’t start this again-“

“Seriously, this family lives in this huge mysterious spooky castle, no one ever sees them go out during the day, they barely interact with anyone, and then some guy with a silver sword-“

“Wait, why is the fact that it’s silver important?” Kai asked.

“Because vampires are weak to silver Kai, keep up!”

“I thought that was werewolves?”

“Well uh… uh… they're both weak to it alright?!” Jay stuttered, “anyways… he has a silver sword, and he kills the whole family, AND he cuts their heads off and sticks a wooden stake in all their hearts… why?”

“Because he was an asshole?” Nya helpfully supplied.

“Because they were vampires!” Cole yelled, “and they got what was coming to them, thank god…”

“Exactly,” Jay said.

Zane rubbed his temples, and let out a pained sigh. “You two make my brain hurt sometimes.”

“Hey, if you guys are done can we please just keep going?” Kai groaned. They ignored him, and only started arguing louder. He clapped his hands over his ears to block them out, and turned to Nya and nudged her. “Hey, you wanna just go on ahead?” he asked.

Her face scrunched up as she mulled it over. “I’m tempted but…” she glanced over at Zane who was physically restraining Jay from touching the painting, and shook her head. “Someone needs to keep them in check.”

“Fair enough… you mind if I…?”

“Go for it.”

Kai quietly snuck away from the scene of Jay loudly pointing out all the obvious vampire clues in the painting while in the clutches of Zane’s arms, and walked deeper into the mysterious darkness of the castle.

The many twisting and turning narrow hallways eventually led Kai to a small, dusty room. It was completely empty. “Aw man, dead end…”

He walked into the room anyways, his eyes drawn to the swirling flower patterns on the green walls, a contrast to the pure black walls of the hallway he came in from. The ceiling was also unusually low, not low enough that he had to duck, but low enough that he could feel his hair brush against it.

“Kai!”

Kai turned around to see Cole running towards him, Jay, Zane and Nya tailing behind him. He came to a screeching halt in front of the door, gasping for breath. “Kai, why the hell did you wander off?!”

“Because you were all held up arguing, I got bored. Wait, were you worried I got like, murdered or something?” Kai asked, raising an eyebrow.

Cole’s cheeks flushed. “No, you just get lost really easily, so I thought-“

“He was totally scared you got murdered, that’s why he was running,” Jay said, “hey, what’s going on in here?”

Jay pushed past a fuming Cole, and walked over to the back wall. “Huh, this is weird… ooh! I bet there’s a switch in here for a secret passage!”

He started pressing his hands into random spots on the wall, musing aloud to himself as he did it. “Not here… not there… guys, come in here and help me look for it!”

“Jay, that sounds dum- ow!” Cole banged his head against the low ceiling. He dropped to the floor, and tried to rub the swelling pain away. “Why is this entire castle built so bad?!” he groaned.

“Ah, the tough life of a mountain sized man,” Kai laughed.

Cole brushed the dust off his pants as he stood back up. “Well, better than being as short as Jay I guess.”

“I HEARD THAT!”

“Let’s just not spend too much time here alright? I’m starting to feel claustrophobic…” Cole said, trying to avoid touching the rotting wood on the doorframe as he shuffled out of the room.

Zane ducked his head as he entered. He gazed around curiously before joining Jay by the back wall. “I doubt there’s a secret passage, but there is something fascinating about this wall.”

“What is it?” Nya asked as she walked in, closing the door behind her. She laid a hand against the wall, but pulled away at the icy cold feeling against her palm. “Yeesh, must have been fun to live here during the winter. Not.”

“Yes, I noticed the temperature as well, but that’s not what I mean,” Zane pointed to a tiny spot on the wall. “Look at this.”

She leaned in to see what he was looking at, but all she could see were squiggly golden lines. “Uh… what exactly I am supposed to be looking at?”

“What’re we looking at?” Kai said as he leaned in over Nya’s shoulder.

“We’re looking at a line of writing in an ancient language, native to Ninjago, spoken by only a handful of people in modern times,” Zane replied, zooming the go pro in to get a better shot. “And lucky for us, I know this language… don’t take that ancient languages class Zane, they said, you’ll never have any use for it, they said-“

“So uh, what does it say?” Jay asked, having given up on searching for a secret passageway.

“Huh? Oh, right…” Zane wiped the dust away from the lettering, and cleared his throat. “It says, ‘reveal my sanctuary’, but then again, I could be-“

Almost as soon as the words had left his mouth, a bright green light began emitting from the wall. All four of them drew back in alarm, Kai tripping over himself and landing on the floor.

“Wha- Zane?! What’d you do?!” Jay yelled, backing up until he bumped against the doorframe.

Zane didn’t answer, his mouth agape as he stumbled back from the light. The door creaked open, and Cole popped his head in. “Hey, what’re you guys yelling about- WHAT THE FUCK?!”

The light suddenly vanished, and in its place was a golden door. The room was silent as they all stared at it. Jay coughed.

“So… who’s gonna go open it?” he asked, still keeping himself as far away from the door as possible.

“None of us!” Cole shouted. “Who knows what’s behind there?” He shakily crept back into the room, and hid behind Zane. “I mean, what if there’s dead bodies that have been rotting in there forever… or worse?”

Zane nodded, and gave Cole a gentle pat on the head. “I agree with Cole, I think it’d be best to ask a facility member about this.”

“And miss the chance to go somewhere we’re not supposed to be without anyone knowing?” said Kai, who without anyone noticing already had his hand on the doorknob.

“NO KAI DON’T-“

He ignored Cole, and slammed open the door. He flipped on the light switch, and was greeted with a colourful sight. This new room was very spacious, and anything but empty.

Shelves covered in glass figurines and ornate jewelry boxes lined the walls, and a giant display case bursting with dolls and plush toys stood against the far wall beside a cabinet filled with wine glasses and bottles. There was a half open wooden wardrobe with gold flowers painted on it, with many lacy and sparkling dresses and capes hanging inside. Green flowing drapes hung from the ceiling, framing a large portrait of the blonde haired boy with two others, a dark-haired solemn looking man, and a woman with red hair and a soft smile.

Kai’s mouth dropped as he stared at the beautiful decor in wonder. It was like being in the room of a disney princess. Well, aside from the coffin that was laying in the center of the room.

“Wait, what?” Kai did a double take. A… coffin. It honestly looked more like a bed with the drapes hanging over it, but it was undeniably a coffin the more he stared at it. “Woah…”

“What’s woah?” Jay peeked over his shoulder, then gasped sharply. “I can’t believe it! I was right! Hey Zane, come in here!”

All of them huddled around the coffin, except for Cole who stayed in the doorway. “Oh my god… is… that a-“

“Coffin? Yup,” Nya said, running a hand along the golden patterns on the coffin's lid. “This is so creepy…”

Cole felt like he was going to throw up. “This is so bad… this is so bad you guys- KAI!!”

Kai flinched and dropped the lid of the coffin. “What? I just wanted a peek.”

Zane’s eyes were wide with amazement. “This is incredible… we may be the first ones to discover this historical treasure… although I do agree that we shouldn’t open it,” he added, “not because of vampires, but because there is likely a decomposing body inside.”

“Gross…” Nya gagged, and stepped back to take a photo from a safer distance from the dead body.

“You seriously still don’t believe me?!” Jay shouted, while violently gesturing to the coffin. “This is all the proof you need!”

Zane narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “Hardly. This doesn’t indicate anything other than the fact that this room served as a crypt of some sort, probably for a beloved family member.”

“It’s obviously a vampires bedroom!” Jay retorted. “Probably the blonde guys, since the other two were a married couple so they’d have a two person coffin-“

Nya snorted. “A two person coffin? Those don’t exist.”

“Well I for one think it’s a great product pitch!”

Kai wandered behind the coffin and gazed up at the portrait. The family seemed to really love getting their picture painted. They’d probably lose their minds if they were around when cameras were invented.

He really couldn’t see anything scary about the family though. The blonde kid especially, he just looked like a normal teenager, who just happened to have red eyes. There were plenty of normal human beings who had red eyes.

“I’m just saying there’s no way you can prove that vampires aren’t real.”

“False, I can prove it quite easily with-“

“Guys, give it a rest!” Nya groaned in exasperation. “Look, why don’t we just open the coffin for a minute so we can find out once and for all which one of you is right.”

Zane and Jay looked at each other, then both nodded in agreement. “Sure, why not?” Jay shrugged.

“While I hate disturbing such a beautiful artifact, or any possible remains inside, if it can end this tiresome discussion I agree it is the best course of action,” Zane said.

“Great!” Kai cheered, throwing his arms up, “I’ll open it-“

“NO! NO NO NO ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Cole shrieked as he barreled into the room and blocked Kai’s path. “Do you all wanna have a vampire suck the blood from you like a human juice box? BECAUSE THIS IS HOW THAT HAPPENS!”

“Cole, chill! It’ll be fine! If there was a vampire inside there, don’t you think they would have tried to kill us by now?” Kai asked, gripping onto Cole’s shoulders to try and keep him steady.

Cole glanced down and bit his lip. “Well… it’s daytime, so they might be sleeping-“

“No offense Cole, but you just did a whole lot of screaming,” Nya pointed out. “I think they’d be awake by now.”

“That’s… true… okay, fine,” Cole relented, “you can open it, but before you do…”

He walked over to a small wooden footstool that was laying on its side, and broke a leg off it. Zane let out a strangled cry. “How many times do I have to tell you people, this castle is a piece of history that IS NOT TO BE DISTURBED!”

“This thing is going to protect us,” Cole said while swinging the wooden piece around like it was a sword, “from something far more dangerous if disturbed.”

Zane rolled his eyes and backed away to give Kai room to pry open the coffin. He slid the lid off, and shoved it onto the floor. A choked gasp came from his lips when he saw what lay inside. He stumbled backwards, and was just narrowly caught by Cole before he fell over.

Cole felt his entire body shaking as he looked from the coffin to the also shaking Kai in his arms. “What?! What is it?!”

“It’s… it’s a…”

Jay finished his sentence for him. “HOLY SHIT, it’s a guy!”

Cole dropped Kai ungracefully onto the floor. “WHAT?!” He gripped his makeshift wooden stake tighter as he peered into the coffin.

The boy from the paintings was lying inside the coffin. His hair was a tangled mess, and he had a wooden stake lodged in his chest, but it was definitely him.

The room was dead silent, until Jay loudly cleared his throat. “Well Cole, somebody beat you to it…”

Cole fell to his knees, his stake clattering onto the floor. “Oh god… oh my god… thank god he’s already dead-“ Cole was hyperventilating, “thank god, oh god-“

“Hey, you wanna say sorry for dropping me anytime soon?” Kai asked dryly from where he was still lying on the floor. “No? We too focused on the dead guy?”

“Kai, this is serious!” Nya snapped at him.

Zane also fell to his knees, but for a much different reason. His quivering hands carefully pulled the boy’s shirt up to check his injuries.

“This poor boy died recently…”, he whispered, “several fresh cuts and stab wounds… he’s so cold…”

“Don’t touch him!” Cole yelped.

Zane gave him an icy glare. “Cole, please, put aside your superstition for one moment and grasp the reality of this situation!”

“What’re those stains on his shirt?” Nya asked, pointing to the red and gold splotches on the white blouse he was wearing.

“The red I’m assuming is blood,” Zane replied, “but those gold spots… paint maybe? I’m not sure…” he gently brushed the boy’s hair out of his eyes, his heart aching when he saw the bruises covering his face. “Who could do something like this…”

Cole was about to say something before he received a nasty look from Nya, so he shut his mouth and clenched his fists instead.

Kai cautiously prodded at the stake lodged into the boy's chest. “Yikes, that looks like it hurt… hmm,” without thinking about it very much, Kai grabbed onto the stake and yanked it out of the body. Immediately a river of sparkling golden liquid poured out of the wound.

Cole fainted. Kai dropped the stake and grabbed onto him before he hit the floor. “Dude, snap out of it! Don’t bail on us yet!”

Cole’s eyes fluttered. “Vampire… stake… really bad…” he mumbled, drifting between being awake and being unconscious.

“He’s lost it,” Jay said flatly.

Kai lifted Cole down and laid him onto the floor, then looked down at him with a smirk. “By the way, that’s how you put someone gently onto the floor.”

“Shut up… I’m sorry…” was the last thing Cole said before completely passing out.

“Great, Cole’s blacked out, we just found a dead guy and Kai got his fingerprints on the murder weapon which means he’s totally going to be implicated…” Jay stopped mid rant and hummed thoughtfully to himself, “unless we don’t report this to the police-“

“Jay! How could you even suggest that?!” Zane yelled in shock, “he has a family!”

Jay sputtered, but then bowed his head in shame. “Your right, that was shitty thing to say… but… if he is a-“

“If the word vampire leaves your mouth at any time during the foreseeable future, I’m going to stab YOU with a wooden stake,” Nya said coldly, glaring daggers at Jay whilst already dialing 911 on her phone.

“Wait, just, hold it one minute,” Jay stuttered, “how are we supposed to explain this to the police? Hey we found a body in this old tourist attraction that barely gets any visitors anymore, actually according to the lady at the ticket booth we’re the only ones who have gone in here in like months! But there’s totally nothing suspicious about that guys, no way, haha, we’re just a bunch of innocent college students amiright? Oh god we are fu-“

“OW!”

“What is it now Kai?!”

Kai clutched his hand and hissed in pain. “I tried picking up the stake again, but I got a giant ass splinter! Look!”

He waved his hand in Jay’s face. “See? It’s huge! It’s like a whole twig is stuck in there!”

Jay batted his hand away. “Then pull it out, genius.”

Kai grimaced. “Uhhh… I’d rather not…”

Zane grabbed Kai’s uninjured hand and pulled him over to him. He sat Kai down on the rim of the coffin. “Sit still, I’ll pull it out.”

Sitting still was unfortunately not one of Kai’s strengths. He squirmed as Zane tried to pull the sliver of wood from his palm, accidentally kicking him in the knee when the pain flared up. “Ack! Sorry, it just… stings a lot- OW!”

“It hurts because you're moving around, please try not to kick me again… almost got it… got it!”

“AGGH!”

Kai quickly pulled his hand away as a drop of blood trickled down his palm. It dripped from his hand onto the boy's lips, slipping through the tiny part in his mouth.

And then the boy’s eyes opened.

Blood. Need blood. Thirsty. Thirsty, I’m so thirsty… need blood, blood, blood…

Lloyd gasped as air flooded back into his lungs, and his cheeks were filled with intense warmth. He breathed in slowly, and almost started crying at how good it felt to finally breathe again. He was alive. He was alive… but he was so thirsty.

Blood. Blood, I need blood now.

His stomach was aching with hunger. He felt like he was about to die again.

No, can’t die again. Blood, blood… I smell blood…

His vision was blurry from his burning hunger. Shadowy figures were leaning over him. He could hear them yelling at each other, he had no idea what they were saying. Their blood smelled delicious. He felt an urge to bite tingling in his jaw, in his fangs.

Blood, delicious blood…

His fangs… they were back. He remembered something from before dying. He could remember them pulling out his fangs… ripping out his treasured fangs, stealing them… as a prize from the hunt. They stuck silver blades into him when he struggled, blades that burned through his flesh and scraped against his bones. And then… and then they…

“Kid, can you hear us-“

He managed to use the little strength he had left to focus his vision, and was met with the sight of four humans looming over him. Lloyd screamed, and frantically tried to push himself away from them. “Leave me alone! Please!”

He tumbled out of his coffin, landing on the floor with a thud. His sharp nails scraped against the floorboards as he tried to get up and run away. It was no use. He fell back onto the floor in exhaustion, and curled up into a tight ball.

“Please, I’ll give you anything you want,” he sobbed, “just please stop hurting me!”

“None of us are going to hurt you kid, we promise,” he heard one of them say.

Lloyd nervously moved his arm aside to see who was speaking to him. The man who had spoken had tall pointed hair, and was dressed in a red… robe of some kind. He didn’t look like a hunter, but he also didn’t look like anyone Lloyd had ever seen. He took a shaky breath. “Who… who are you?”

The man kneeled down in front of him. “I’m Kai. You?”

Lloyd sniffled, and wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye. “Ll… Lloyd…”

“Hey Lloyd, nice to meet you. Here,” the man reached into his robe, and pulled out a small cloth. He handed it to Lloyd, who cautiously accepted it. Holding it in his hand, he realized it was a handkerchief. For him…

At that moment the dam behind his eyes burst, and the tears seemed to endlessly flow out of him. To be treated with such a simple kindness broke him after what he had endured. The overwhelming situation and the aching thirst still inside him was clouding his senses and leaving him vulnerable. Much too vulnerable.

Bite him… drink his blood…

“You poor thing,” another one of the humans, this one taller than all the others, crouched down beside Kai. “My name is Zane, what happened?”

“I… I… It was… they…” Lloyd could barely remember what happened. He didn’t want to remember what happened. All that he could recall was running, and feeling the agonizing sensation in his chest, and then darkness…

“Endless darkness…” he mumbled. It was still inside him. Gnawing away at him.

Blood, blood I need blood I need it NOW-

He hissed, startling the humans who lunged away from him. Lloyd slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

“Did you see that?!” the short human in the blue shirt cried out, “he has fangs!”

Oh god, now they knew. They must’ve thought he was human like them, but now they knew he wasn’t. They were going to hurt him, they were going to kill him, no… no, god please…

“Hey, hey hey it’s okay…”

Kai softly shushed him and wiped away a tear that had fallen down his cheek with the handkerchief. “Your safe now Lloyd, no one is going to hurt you anymore,” he soothed.

“You… you mean… you don’t hate me?” Lloyd asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Even though I’m… a vampire?”

“Dude, I fucking knew it!” the short human shouted. “Take that Zane-“

“Jay, so not the time,” the only human who hadn’t spoken yet said. She had long black hair, and her sleeveless shirt showed off her built arm muscles. She out of all the humans was the most intimidating.

“Of course we don’t hate you dear,” Zane said, “but when you say vampire… do you really mean…?”

Bite someone now, drink their blood. Do it. Do it NOW.

“Stay with us kid, it’s going to be okay,” Kai placed a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, but jerked away when Lloyd shuddered. “Sorry, I should’ve-“

He could barely even force himself to speak at this point. Kai’s hand was so warm, and his neck was so close…

BITE HIM DRINK HIS BLOOD DO IT NOW-

His thirst was only getting worse with each passing moment. Pushing away his intrusive thoughts was becoming excruciating, and it was showing on his face as sweat dripped down his temples.

“Please don’t come any closer,” Lloyd begged, covering his face with his hands. “I’m not safe to be around right now…”

Kai backed away, but his gentle expression didn’t waver. “We’re not going to leave you like this, your obviously hurt really bad.”

Bad was an understatement. The gouge in Lloyd’s chest had only partially healed, and blood was still oozing out of the wounds left by the silver knife. If he could get even the tiniest bit of blood…

Jay coughed. “Uh, Kai, if the six hundred year old vampire says he’s going to go crazy, then maybe we should-“

“SIX HUNDRED?!” Lloyd gasped, clutching his chest in shock. There was no way he had seriously been dead for that long. “Oh god… I’ve missed so many… oh god…”

“Uh, well… I mean I might’ve miscalculated the exact amo-“ Jay clamped his mouth shut as he shrunk under the glares from every other human in the room.

Six hundred years… but then that meant… that meant… they were dead. The ones who had done this to him were dead. It felt horrible, celebrating that someone was dead. But…

Kai seemed to catch onto what he was thinking. “The people who did this to you are long gone, lucky for them,” Kai clenched his fist into a tight ball, “because I would’ve made them feel ten times more pain…” he growled.

“And then I would’ve made them feel twenty times that, and ground their asses into the dirt,” the black-haired woman added, her eyes lit up with intensity.

“And I would’ve… uh,” Zane stumbled, “defended you the best I could, because no one should ever have to suffer such horrible abuse.”

Despite the pain, Lloyd could feel a warm sensation filling his chest. These people, whom he had only just met, were treating him with kindness he wasn’t accustomed to from those outside of his family. Perhaps… vampires weren’t as hated now, in this new time period. What a lovely time it must be.

Jay, who was still trying to avoid anyone else’s eyes, found himself staring at the glass cabinet behind the coffin. It was filled with bottles of ‘red wine’, a.k.a, probably blood. He pried it open, and took a bottle out. It was cold, and caked in layers of dust. “Hey uh, this isn’t… human blood, right Lloyd?”

Lloyd’s eyes locked onto the bottle in Jay’s hands. His pupils dilated. “Give me that… please.”

Jay gulped. “Uh, sure…” not wanting to get too close, he tentatively rolled the bottle over to Lloyd, who snatched it up faster than he could blink.

The cork was thrown heedlessly aside. The blood inside the bottle was ancient and spoiled, but Lloyd savoured every last drop. He only stopped once to take a gasp of air, chugging the sweet red elixir until the bottle was completely dry.

He sighed with relief as the ravenous voices in his head quieted. Almost immediately, his wounds began healing. The bruises on his skin disappeared, and the gouges and cuts in his flesh vanished without a trace. His full senses returned to him, his eyes grew sharper and his ears twitched as he took in every bit of sound around him.

Kai helped him to his feet. “I’m guessing you're feeling a bit better now?” he asked, taking in Lloyd’s now completely healthy looking appearance.

Lloyd grinned, fangs on full display. “I’m feeling wonderful now, thank you.”

“Woah!” Jay ran over and leaned in close to Lloyd’s face. “Those are so cool!”

“My… fangs? Really?”

Jay bounced up and down on the spot, barely able to contain his excitement. “Totally! Sorry about how I acted earlier, I was just surprised, but this is so awesome! You're a real vampire!”

“O-Oh…” Lloyd blushed, and looked down at his feet. “Thank you-“

“I have so many questions! Okay, one, do you burn in the sun, or is it just like irritating? Oh, and is the garlic thing real? No wait, when you turn into a bat where do your clothes go- hey!” Jay grunted as the dark-haired woman pushed him aside.

“Don’t mind him, he’s always like this about everything,” she said, “I’m Nya by the way, it’s nice to meet you.”

Jay ran over to Zane, and pulled a notebook and pencil out from his shoulder bag. He ducked under Nya’s arm and sat down on the rim of the coffin. “Okay, as I was saying-“

“Sunlight burns us, but we don’t burst into flames or anything, garlic makes my tongue swell up, and…” Lloyd pondered the last question for a moment, “y’know, I’ve never actually thought about that… I assumed they just disappeared… then reappeared.”

Jay paused his furious scribbling of notes. “What? But how does that work?”

Lloyd shrugged. “Don’t ask me! Wait, let me show you something…”

He stretched out his arm, and smiled as a green flicker of light danced across the palm of his hand. For a moment he had feared his powers hadn’t returned yet, but the sparkling flicker growing into an orb of bright light in his hand assured him otherwise.

Jay, as well as Nya, Zane and Kai watched, mesmerized. Lloyd shaped the orb into a diamond, then into a flower, and then in a burst of light dissolved it into a shower of tiny sparkles that floated through the air.

“This… doesn’t make any sense,” Zane said, gazing up at the ceiling that was now lit up with hundreds of star-like lights.

“Does it have to?” Nya replied, smiling as a light landed on her nose. She sneezed, and it drifted until it landed on her finger. “This is so beautiful…”

Lloyd spun around the room, letting out more bursts of sparkles each time the lights dimmed out. He abruptly came to a stop behind the coffin. “Why… is there a sleeping man here?”

They all looked at each other. “Shit, I forgot Cole was still passed out,” Kai said, rushing over to go shake Cole awake. “Cole! Wake up buddy!”

“Hnnngh… huh?” Cole blinked wearily. He sat up, and rubbed his eyes. “Whuhhappened?”

Kai swallowed stiffly. “Don’t freak out, but-“

Lloyd blew a tiny sparkle to Cole. “Greetings sleepy human!” he giggled.

Cole’s face turned pale as he caught sight of Lloyd’s fangs. ”Y… You… your a… vamp-“

“Yes, I am a vampire!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!”

#ninjago #lego ninjago #vampire au #lloyd garmadon #ninjago lloyd #ninjago jay #ninjago zane #ninjago nya #ninjago kai #ninjago cole #ninjago au

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my-miraculous-headcanons · 5 years ago

Text

Message Belatedly Received

It’s probably been months since Marinette had opened up her most treasured (non-magical) possession. Which truly is a crime, but it couldn’t have been helped. Things have been particularly busy, ever since Alya had found and returned her lost sketchbook all that time ago.

Hawkmoth had went on a rampage for a solid month, specifically targeting Chat Noir, and in that time, hadn’t even demanded the Ladybug or Black Cat Miraculous. In fact, all of his attacks seemed angry, overly violent, and uncoordinated. Marinette worries that their nemesis may very well be going off the deep end, and had been taken hold of by a bout of insanity.

There was also the matter of Adrien. He had taken special interest in frying her internal circuitry, and she can’t for the life of her figure out why. Not that she was complaining, of course, but...

No, yeah, she’s definitely complaining.

Having the object of her affections flirting with her every day should have been a dream come true for her, but in actuality, it’s a total nightmare. She hasn’t been able to get a coherent sentence out around him for ages, which is a huge step backwards on all the progress she made! She’s been coming home feeling absolutely mortified almost every single day, and at this point, she just can’t handle it anymore.

But, for the past three days, Adrien has not been in school, giving her time to finally get over all her embarrassment, think hard about his recent behaviour, and finally, jump, dance, squeal, and gush in absolute joy over the development.

Which ultimately led her to remembering the forbidden sketchbook.

How could she have possibly forgotten about it?!

She berates herself rather harshly for making such an error. She’s not one to forget something so important so easily, especially for that length of time. At the very least, even if she didn’t have the time to add anything, she should have thought or remembered it at least once!

There’s no use dwelling on that, however. Now that she actually has the free time, there’s no question on what she’s going to use it for.

With a look of fierce determination, Marinette draws out her mighty pencil from her desk drawer, and flips the forbidden sketchbook wide open.

And then she nearly has a stroke.

There’s a sticky note in it, peeking out ever so slightly behind pages that cover over it.

Alya had promised that she hadn’t look in it, and that she never would, but somehow, there was a sticky note in it, and she sure as hell wasn’t the person to put it there.

Hand shaking, she lets her pencil clatter to the desk, and hastily flips through the pages. She lands on the last of the occupational pages, where she had drawn Adrien in his pajamas, cuddled up with their three possible future children, the top of the page labelled Stay-At-Home Dad.

This one’s my favourite! :D

Her hear stutters to a stop. She recognises that handwriting.

As soon as realisation sets in, her heart restarts, then beats ten times faster.

Abruptly, she stands up, her chair forcefully pushed to roll across the room and slam into her bedroom wall. She flips to the first page, then lets a strangled noise emit from her throat.

There’s another sticky note.

Your designs are awesome! I can’t wait to see this when the time comes! ;)

Beside the sticky note is her in her wedding dress. Her face goes bright red as she lets out a whimper.

“Marinette?”

Tikki flits out from her corner, cookie crumbs on her cheeks, looking at her current Ladybug in concern. The expression on Marinette’s face isn’t anything new, especially recently in the wake of Adrien’s advances, but it’s certainly strange to be seeing it on her within the confines of her bedroom.

“Are you alright?”

Unable to gain control of her mouth fast enough, Marinette nods almost violently, snatching the forbidden sketchbook and pressing it flush against her chest.

“Don’t worry, I won’t look,” Tikki says in slight amusement. “Well, if you say you’re alright, I believe you. But if you need anything, just ask, alright? Or... snap your fingers, if you go nonverbal.”

At Marinette’s agreeing nod, Tikki goes back to her corner to consume more cookies.

With her kwami no longer inquiring, Marinette takes in a few deep breaths, willing herself to calm down enough so that her face is no longer a furnace.

“I’m gonna– balcony!“ Marinette cringes, but knows that Tikki’s familiar enough with her babble to know what she’s trying to say.

“Alright! Be careful though, it’s chilly!”

“Right, yeah!”

A minute or three later, Marinette is bundled up in one of her spare blankets like a burrito, resting against the lounge chair on her balcony. The cold air stings her cheeks, and it’s exactly what she needs to gather up the will to continue.

She opens the sketchbook up again, and flips to the next page, featuring Adrien in his wedding suit.

I like how I look here. I look happy and loved.

I want that.

She closes her eyes and simply breathes, feeling tears gathering up behind her eyelids, chest feeling full and warm despite the cool air. She takes a moment to herself before she continues on, flipping pages until she gets to the next sticky note.

I’d make a pretty handsome professor, wouldn’t I?

She lets out a surprised laugh. She was going for the dorky, borderline conspiracy theorist look, with unkempt hair, a wide grin, and a tacky tie, having him gesturing animatedly towards a chalkboard in front of a class.

Yeah. He’d be a pretty handsome professor.

She continues.

Hey, you give me too much credit. I love fencing, but am I really gold-medalist material?

Rugby? As a career? And ruin this pretty face? My father would have a coronary.

Okay, your idea of being a model looks so much more fun than my father’s idea. Yes please.

Baker? I can’t bake. I’d love to learn, though. I wouldn’t mind continuing the family business. Think your dad would teach me?

You know, I’ve never thought about being in a band full-time. I love that idea.

Ice dancing? Okay, I won’t deny I was interested in those lessons, but I think I’m too old to start a full-time career out of it at this point. Or was that figure skating?

She keeps flipping until she finally lands back onto the Stay-At-Home Dad page, smiling so widely it’s almost painful.

Adrien was giving her input on their shared future. He made no comments about how it isn’t guaranteed, or that he didn’t like her like that, or that he was upset with her, or that he liked someone else. No, instead he went along with it, seemingly happy with this find, and narrowing down the options for their future paths.

But, she can’t deny that the occupational pages and the wedding pages weren’t the most important ones. It’s what came after that truly mattered. And she can see the outline of the next sticky note against the page, so she knows he’s seen it.

Taking in a deep breath, she flips the page.

Hugo Dupain-Cheng-Agreste.

Louis Dupain-Cheng-Agreste.

Emilie “Emma” Dupain-Cheng-Agreste.

They’re beautiful.

You’re beautiful.

Thank you.

The tears that had been threatening to spill finally break free, rolling down her cheeks, and she smiles so wide she’s almost embarrassed, reaching a hand up to block the view of her grin.

“What do you got there, Marinette?”

She yelps and topples off the lounge chair, blanket slipping halfway down to her waist. Her head whacks painfully against the flooring, since her hands are too busy protecting the forbidden sketchbook to break her fall.

Chat Noir winces and helps the poor civilian up and back into her seat, apologising for startling her.

“It’s nothing, Chat Noir,” Marinette eventually responds, not too surprised to see him on her balcony. He’s been visiting more and more frequently lately, which is just another thing to add to the list of time-consuming distractions that’s kept her much too busy to even think about the forbidden sketchbook.

Honestly. How dare that cat be part of the reason that led her to committing such a crime.

“You’re not the type to cry over nothing,” Chat Noir says simply, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

“It’s not like they’re sad tears.”

“Happy ones, then?”

Her eyes dart away, cheeks going pink. Chat’s expression becomes devious.

“Of a boy, purrhaps?”

“That is none of your business.”

“Au contraire, mademoiselle! You have no idea just how much it is my business! But, since I am your absolute best guy friend ever, I promise not to push any more. Isn’t that noble of me?”

Marinette breathes out a relieved— and slightly amused— sigh, shooting her companion a grateful look. She looks down at the sketchbook, inspecting it to make sure it wasn’t damaged in the fall, then shuts it and places it on her lap.

Unnoticed to her, Chat Noir’s eyes finally make contact with the object of her happiness, and his smile goes tender and soft.

So, she’s finally noticed.

“It’s getting a little cold out here, don’t you think? Let’s go inside. Besides, last week you promised me we’d have an anime marathon. It’s Friday now and I’m getting antsy!”

Marinette laughs and shakes her head, kicking her blanket off her legs so she can stand up.

“Sure thing, minou. You know my desktop and Netflix password, I’ll go downstairs and sneak us some snacks.”

She flicks his bell.

“Be good.”

And with that, she descends into her bedroom and down the trap door, leaving a stunned superhero in her wake.

Huh, Chat thinks, heart thudding rapidly against his ribcage. Would it be a rational response to move our marriage date up a couple years? Eighteen isn’t too young, right? Right.

To the surprise of no one, he thinks that with full sincerity.

To the surprise of everyone but Adrien, she would say yes.

... But that’s a story for another time.

#Marry That Girl #Miraculous Ladybug #ML #Marinette Dupain Cheng #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrien Agreste #Adrienette #Marichat #Adrinette #Maximilian Speaks #Maximilian's Writing #Tikki #Chat Noir #We're nearing the end of the series

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clownistyping · 5 years ago

Note

Heyo! I was hoping to request a part 2 to your last fic where reader is a civilian? Maybe the meet again and there some feels or maybe ~feels~.. You're writing makes this whole covid stuff less terrible. Always excited to see you on my dash! Much love, thanks!!

I made this. Very bery subtle feelings. Subtly bby.

I need to find more HB gifs, I keep seeing lil peep gifs instead ahhh

You were never into conspiracy theories, always too busy to really dive into them. That is, until you met the red man who saved you from a two faced giant worm a month ago.

He left you alone on the roof, you were just. In pure shock. You've heard of the red demon that hops roof tops and fights supernatural beings from crazed homeless people.

Now you started to see them in a different light.

That week you wasted all your quarters to print multiple blurred photos of said man at the library. You felt blessed that your roommate was visiting her family in Cuba for a month because you used the living room to hold your theories. Red yarn connecting across the room, with photos of a man jumping from roof to roof. Along with other strange creatures that were found by innocent citizens.

During work your mind is just running in circles, telling you to find that man again. Talk to him. Do something dammit. But you just continue to serve pastries and coffees to tired college students.

As you were wiping the counters down, you heard the doors bell jingle and you spoke, not looking up.

"I'm sorry but we're closed for the night." You heard footsteps approach you and you looked up. Raising a brow in confusion at the sight of an old man.

"Hello, there-" the man adjusted his glasses as he read your name tag.

"(Y/N)."

You didn't say anything as you placed the rag in the sink,

"Im sorry sir, but we-"

"I know," he smiled and you started to feel a bit unnerved.

"I am not here for any treats or tea. I am to speak with you." Your body went stiff,

"My agents have been keeping track of you, mainly your little project in your apartment and I have to say I'm quite amazed by it. Haven't seen a dedicated theorist in quite some time." The man laughed and you stepped back,

"How do you know that?"

"Oh please don't be afraid, I just want to give you this." The man reached inside of his coat, pulling out a small business card he slid it on the counter.

"Please do give us a call, we would love to have you on the research team." The man smiled and as you looked down at the card you noticed the fist symbol holding a weapon of some sort.

'B.P.R.D. Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.' The location and phone number was listed under the title.

Looking up, your eyes widened and the man was gone.

You slipped the card in your back pocket and left the cafe in a hurry, leaving the counters half clean.

The business card was starting to collect dust on your dresser.

You got more locks for your door and windows and took more time off work.

You only stared at the theories that draped from your wall to the ceiling as you ate your chicken salad.

"What am I doing?" You questioned yourself outloud and placed the bowl on your table. Holding your face you sighed.

"Looks to me like you're having a midlife crisis."

Your body went stiff and you didn't even have to look up to know that it was the red stranger in your home.

"Don't worry tho, I like it. Nice to know I have fans." The man chuckled, your mind was fuzzy as you tried to remember his name. Heelboy? Hillman? Red dude? Fuck you don't know.

The couch dipped next to you and you heard your salad bowl move and then munching.

"Too much dressing." The man mumbling with a full mouth as he ate your food. You slowly looked up at him, and then felt a small breeze pass you by.

Looking over you saw your window wide open,

"It's still good though." The man smiled and placed the now empty bowl back on the table, you looked the man over. Noticing on his coat was the same symbol from the business card.

You stood up quickly and rushed inside of your bedroom. Snatching the card you rushed back to the man and practically threw it in his face.

"Do you work for them?"

The man chuckled and took the card,

"I practically made them." He smiled and you sat next to him,

"What?"

"I was there when the organization started, back in the 40s or 50s. I can't quite remember." He rubbed his chin with his large fist, and your eyes widened. He noticed your stare,

"Sorry bout that." He pulled his sleeve over the rock forearm and you quickly started up,

"No no, it's fine! I'm sorry for staring. Um..it's really cool looking anyways." You sat up straight, he handed you the card back.

"Anyways. I uh, I told dad about you-" he started to speak but you were too distracted by looking him over. You know it's not nice to stare but for the past month you've only seen blurred photos of him. As the first meeting memory was starting to fade away with time.

The rock fist was amazing to see, along with his tail and shaven horns. Really, everything about him was amazing to see.

"I'd really like ya ta join it. It's a pretty um..cool job."

You blinked back into reality.

"What is?" You asked and the man chuckled,

"The organization."

"Oh right, right." You held the card in your hand.

"I've been thinking about it," you confessed,

"Just, when your dad was it?" Hellboy nodded

"When he told me that he saw this," you directed to the red yarn, "I was a little scared."

"Ya sorry about that, sometimes dad doesn't really care about personal property. But he meant no harm really." You smiled with a nod,

"I'll take note of that." Hellboy stood adjusting his heavy belt you stood up next,

"Well, um..oh I don't think I ever got your name."

"It’s (Y/N)." You said, putting your hand out, Hellboy hesitated but shook your hand with his flesh hand. Even if it was a weird angle.

"Well (Y/N), it was an honor ta meet ya." He smiled and for some reason you felt your cheeks go hot.

"Same here, Hellboy." Hellboy smiled and then he spoke.

"Oh right, just for you." He took out a sharpie he just so happened to have in his multiple pockets. Grabbing one of the blurry photos he signed it.

"For my biggest fan." You laughed in embarrassment as he handed you the photo and then hopped out the open window.

#hellboy imagines #hellboy and the bprd #hellboy 2004 #hellboy x reader #hellboy #hellboy 2019 #hellboy comics

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big-ass-magnet · 5 years ago

Text

Caller, You’re on the Air

@thehumantrampoline requested ‘radio DJ and frequent caller AU’

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Pairing: Hawke x Varric

Word Count: 970

Rating: PG

“...and that was On Brand by the Dust Town Devils, released straight out of Orzammar this week. If you’re a fan of celebrating the destruction of social structures that keep the common folk down - and since you’re here, you do - check them out.

“For those of you just joining us, welcome to WK-one-one, Kirkwall’s only independent radio station. I’m your resident dog-lord, Hawke, here to bring you what you want when you want it, whether the Chantry likes it or not.

“It’s 2 am, which means it’s time to open the phone lines and let the weirdos get some air time. Questions, grievances, and musical requests are all welcome - although I will remind our listeners that we have already hit the maximum number of plays for ‘Rock My Boat, Baby’, so don’t ask, you know who you are. Caller on line one, you are on the air.”

“Play me a song for a woman about to lose it all.”

Hawke had taken a lot of weird calls in the year since she’d started the radio station. She knew how to handle the breathers, the conspiracy theorists, and the zealots on both sides of pretty much every possible argument.

This…was new.

“Is this a song I might not be familiar with, or…?”

“I’m not really sure what I need. See, I’ve reached the part of the story where it all comes crumbling down around the hero, but I’m having trouble getting into the character’s mindset. Could you find me something?”

Dead air was bad air, but Hawke needed a few seconds to wrap her mind around the request. She’d never had someone ask for a vibe before.

“Well,” she said, trying to sound less thrown than she was, “that depends on what sort of loss it is. Love? Business? Family?”

“Yes.”

“A-haaa, one of those stories.”

“She’s been framed for murder. This is her big fall from grace.”

“Well how much did she have to start with? Falling out of a first floor apartment hurts a lot less than falling out of a penthouse suite.”

A laugh, as nice to listen to as the rest of him.

“Nice metaphor. She’s a high-ranking politician, just engaged, slightly estranged from her family but calls on the holidays.”

“Coming up next, ‘The Fires Ahead’ by No Less Blessed.”

“Much obliged.”

“I need a fight scene.”

This time he sounded impatient, slightly on edge. Hawke thought she could hear the irritated finger tapping already.

“You sound like you’re about to start one yourself.”

A pause, and a slightly self-conscious laugh.

“Sorry. I’ve got the idea in my head and I have to get it out before I lose it.”

“Apology accepted, this time. What sort of fight scene? Bare fists, magic, swashbuckling swords?”

“Fists, mostly, with whatever makeshift weapons you can make in an apartment.”

“Bar brawl in a penthouse. Coming up, the entirety of the album Good Witch, Bad Bitch by The Annulled, first song ‘In the Tower’.”

“Something triumphant, but mellow, if you have it. A song to drink a glass of whiskey to.”

“Absolutely, a song to celebrate your new book! To all my lovely listeners, be sure to pick up a copy of Beneath Suspicion by Varric Tethras, out in stores today!”

Oh but that astonished silence felt good. Hawke smirked as he burst out laughing. Bang on the money.

“You figured me out!”

“You used my metaphor for your tag line!” Hawke said, indignant, to further laughter. “You’re a thief, Serrah Tethras. I should demand royalties.”

“Hey, I credited you in the acknowledgements!”

“What, really?” Hawke snatched up her copy and flipped through it, making sure to rustle the pages in the microphone for proper effect. “Well I’ll be damned, there I am. ‘To Hawke and WK-11, for the company and accompaniment.’ ”

“See? Credit where it’s due.”

“It’s all the way at the end, though! No one ever reads the acknowledgements unless they’re in them.”

“What do you think would be better?”

“Hmm. I’m thinking either you dedicate the next book to the station or cut us a check.”

“Tough call.”

“Let’s do a listener poll. Listeners, call in now and let us know how, exactly, Ser Tethras-”

“Master Tethras, technically-”

-Varric can even begin to repay the debt he owes us.” Over the sound of his laughter, she added “Coming up next, ‘Dance With Me’ by the Sabers.”

“Hawke, I assume.”

She jumped and yelped, whirling around to see a startled dwarf standing by the door.

“Bloody hell,” she gasped, hand over her heart. “Varric Tethras, I assume, master at introductions.”

“Sorry. You sound more aware of your surroundings on the radio.”

She snorted and laughed.

“Not at the end of my shift, I’m not. If you’re here to make a request, this isn’t exactly how we do it.”

“I’m here to pay a debt.” He reached into the inside pocket of his leather coat and drew out an envelope. “Since the next book won’t be out for a while, and I don’t like to owe.”

Aware that it was rude, and doing it anyway, Hawke flipped open the envelope. Her eyes went wide. And then wider.

“Bloody hell,” she said again. “That’s a bit much.”

“You got me through some pretty tough blocks.”

She tucked away the check and pushed her hair back to disguise her hesitation.

“Still. I think you’re over by just a tad.”

Varric tilted his head, his eyes shining expectantly. “By how much?”

“The cost of a drink at your hole-in-the-wall of choice?”

She was rewarded when his smile grew. It really did match his voice quite wonderfully.

“Given that it’s 6 in the morning, how about we find a coffee shop, instead of a bar.”

“Well if you want to be conventional about it.”

The laugh sounded even better in person.

#dragon age #dragon age 2 #vhawke #hawkexvarric #varricxhawke #hawke x varric #da2 #otp: my trusty dwarf #audrey writes #edited to fix the formatting which came out wonky agaaainn

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flamehairedwritings · 5 years ago

Text

Reasons

Characters: Chief Jim Hopper x Female Reader

Words: 1,816

Rating: M, 16+ ONLY

A/N: Hello! This has been written for @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan Multi-Fandom Follower Celebration. You deserve all the love and appreciation, lovely!

I was the last person to think this would end up being mildly angst-y, but here we are, lads. My chosen trope was Unplanned Bedsharing and I decided to incorporate a ~choice~ that happened in S3 that I wasn’t too pleased with.

Summary: The end of the world can, as expected, change a lot of things.

Masterlist

Please don’t copy, steal or repost my work; credit does not count.

—

“Pull over at the next motel.”

“No.”

“Pull over, Hopper.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Sooner we get there, sooner we can turn round and get home.”

“It’s late, Hopper. You’re tired, I’m tired, Alexei’s tir—”

“I don’t care.”

Glancing at you as silence looms and finding your eyebrows raised, Jim Hopper attempts to correct himself swiftly.

“I don’t care that he’s tired.”

“Yeah, but I am. Very much so. And so are you.”

After a pause, he then releases a long, irritated sigh and you know you’ve won.

But have you? Have you really?

Hopper’s an ass, everyone knows that, but the past week he’s been even more of an ass, and you’re starting to absolutely despise being near him.

You’d worked at the Station with him for nearly three years now and you’d helped him with all the extra activity the town of Hawkins was unaware of. You’d kept El’s return a secret for him and helped him out with looking after her. You’d do anything for him, and you got the feeling he would for you, too.

Oh, and over the years, too, feelings had started to develop.

You like to think they were also reciprocated because not one month ago Hopper had asked you out for a drink, just the two of you. Then, after agreeing you’d both like to do it again, you’d finally managed to get your schedules to match up and last week you’d gone on a proper dinner date. It had been... wonderful.

You’d realised as you were sat there, sharing a bottle of wine and laughing with him, that those two dates were the first time you and he had just talked of normal things, no work, no end of the world business involved. It had been... really wonderful.

But then end of the world business had reared it’s head again and here you are, sat in the passenger seat of a car that is carrying you, the Chief of Hawkins and a Russian neither of you can understand to the home of a conspiracy theorist.

And you’re starting to hate Jim Hopper.

You’d seen him angry before, seen him raging, seen him distraught, but this was different. This was constant, unchanging, and you hated it. You could never say the right thing, it was like he was irritated to be around you. Several times you’d considered just walking away, but this was bigger than you or he. People were in danger, once again, and it was your duty to fight the danger.

So, you’d put up with Hopper, silently vowed to yourself that you’d just go back to a professional, friendly relationship, and that would be it.

You’re so relieved when a motel sign glows in the distant and he actually turns into it.

Finally, some peace and quiet and space.

You’ll insist he and Alexei share a room, I’m so sorry, you poor guy, and get one to yourself and just relax. As much as you can, anyway.

The thought of finally being alone helps you to hold your tongue as Hopper mutters under his breath after parking up and steps out, slamming the car door shut. You step out, too, and watch silently as he half-drags Alexei out of the car, the poor man blinking sleepily.

Don’t say anything, it’ll just create an argument that you don’t have the energy for.

You lead the way as the three of you head inside the quiet motel to the desk.

A man behind it looks up, unsmiling.

You, to make up for it, widen your smile.

“Good evening, we’d like two rooms,” you say quickly, before Hopper can speak.

The man glances between you all. “Sorry, miss, we only got one room.”

Are.

You.

Fucking.

Kidding.

Me.

Your smile stays fixed in place. “Right. Well. Okay.”

“We’ll just head on to the next one—” Hopper starts to say but you will absolutely not have that. This is your win of the week, as small as it is.

“Nope. One is fine. Thank you very much.” You damn near slap your hand down on the desk you’re so forcing your joviality.

The three men look at you, Alexei probably only because the other two are, but you just continue smiling.

I’d better damn well fall asleep straight away.

—

It’s the smallest room you’ve ever seen.

You can just about squeeze between the end of the double bed and the wall to get to the bathroom. After you’ve exited it, Hopper hoists Alexei up from where he’d been nearly asleep on a chair and marches him to the bathroom.

You watch as he points at the bathtub and says, “Get in”.

Alexei looks at him, then the tub.

“In,” Hopper orders, thrusting his finger at the tub again.

Alexei doesn’t say a word as he climbs in and settles down, his eyes instantly closing.

Sympathy surges within you.

Hopper emerges from the bathroom, closing the door, and runs a hand down his face.

Maybe she did have the right idea about stoppin’. Couple of hours would be nice.

He looks up at you to admit as much, the beginnings of a smile forming, when his gaze meets yours boring into him.

“What?”

“What’s going on?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you being such a dick?”

His eyebrows shoot up and irritation, fuelled by weariness, rises within him. “Excuse me?”

You’ve started so there’s no way you’re going to stop, looking at him almost in disbelief. “You’re being such an asshole, Hop. You’re just yelling all the time and a lot of it’s at me.”

He lets out what sounds like a faint scoff. “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way—”

Your voice rises instantly in indignation. “What kind of a fucking apology is that?”

“I’m trying, okay—”

“No, you’re not. You’re just so angry all the time, you’re like a child who can’t control himself. It’s not like this is fucking new to us, Hopper, we know how to deal with this—”

“That’s why I’m so fucking angry!” he shouts above you, his voice cutting through the air. You freeze, staring at him as he continues. “I want this to be over. I want to wake up in the morning and not wonder how my kid is going to be in danger! I want all this to just go away!”

For a moment, you’re stunned into silence.

A reason... but not a justification.

Licking your lips, your mouth opens then closes for a second as you consider your words. “I feel the same way, Hop. I’m worried about everyone, too, I wake up so anxious of what’s going to happen every single day but... I’m not yelling and taking it out on you or anyone else, am I.”

He looks at you and you have no idea what he’s thinking.

Shrugging, you look away and shake your head. Rage or silence, that’s all you get these days. Suddenly, you realise how exhausted you are.

“Anyway. I just wanted to get that out,” your voice is quieter as you kick your shoes off, not wanting to look at him now. “We’ll talk about it another time, I’m too tired for this now.”

You move to the bed and climb in, turn your back to him and close your eyes. You don’t care if he joins you or not. You just want to sleep and, yes, for this to be over, too.

You don’t know what the next day is going to bring, you haven’t for a long time. Hopper had always been the only constant, and now he, too, is unstable, loose, wild. You hadn’t wanted to admit that for a while but now...

Please just sleep.

Holding the covers under your chin, having to stop yourself from pulling them over your head, you just focus on your breathing. A minute probably passes before you hear him move, quietly. It sounds like he removes his shoes then removes things from his pockets, gently placing them down on the bedside table furthest from you.

You hear the light click off.

The bed covers rise off of you, the mattress dips slightly behind you and the covers fall again.

He soon warms the bed.

This is what every night of my life could have been like.

You don’t know where the thought comes from.

You don’t like it. You don’t like the regret that follows it and threatens to take over your mind.

Stop wallowing. It isn’t helpful.

“Are you cold?”

The question startles you, making you jump slightly, your eyes snapping open. Clearing your throat, you adjust your head on the pillow.

“No.”

“Good.”

You don’t respond, closing your eyes again, allowing the silence to stretch.

“You sure?”

You don’t open your eyes this time.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

He seems to take the irritated hint. Or so you think for exactly five seconds.

“I’m sorry.”

You open your eyes, staring at the thick curtains covering the window across the room.

“I know.”

“No, really, I am.”

“I know you are.”

“I just—”

“Can we just leave it.”

Please, not now—

“No, I—” He exhales a breath and you pause, waiting. He clears his throat after a moment. “... You mean somethin’ to me.”

You think you stop breathing.

“You mean a lot to me, actually,” he continues, his voice low, quiet, “and I... I don’t want anyone else I care about to get hurt.”

You bite at your lower lip, keeping your gaze fixed on the curtains.

Don’t give your heart again.

“You don’t continuously yell at people you care about,” you murmur.

“I know, I know... I...” You hear him exhale again, an edge of frustration to it this time, but you get the feeling it’s not directed at you. “I don’t... feel like myself right now. I know that’s not an excuse, I know I can’t say anythin’ that’ll take away what you’re feelin’ but... I... I just want you to know I’m sorry and I’m gonna try harder. At being better.”

You swallow hard.

You don’t know what to say. You don’t want to make promises or to hear them. You don’t want to fight. You don’t want to feel alone anymore.

You don’t want to give up on him, either.

Without a word, you draw your hand out of the covers and reach it behind you. There’s a pause. Then, you feel his hand gently take yours. As soon as he does, you lace your fingers together and pull his arm around you.

You ignore the quiet, relieved breath he exhales.

Don’t put any stock in it. Or hope.

To your own relief, though, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just shifts a little closer, his head above yours, and tightens his arm around you. You close your eyes, just letting his warmth and hold soothe you, for now.

The end of the world and expectations can wait for a night.

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

Reblogs, comments and likes make my day in a way I can’t describe.Let me know if you’d like to be tagged or removed in my future work!

Masterlist

Tagged: @herb-welch, @billyrussosbutt, @davidkharboursex, @jobean12-blog, @warmbeardsandredwine, @mademoiselle-black, @scrunchinn, @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash, @divadinag, @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan, @deepsouth, @neganslittlebae, @ashphoenix105, @alahmorah, @daughterofthebrowncoats, @letsby, @tbkc, @kiwiphroot, @ashmely, @sistasarah-sallysaidso, @unicornsandgliiitter, @lucifer-in-leather, @heyjudeinthesky, @sleepylunarwolf, @ambeazyyy, @countryfire22, @sithlordslut, @mondsafari, @thejealousorchard, @norcula, @earinafae, @beltzboys2015-blog, @jinxiejenna, @justsimplevicky, @hellosupernaturaldoctor, @ginasellsbooks, @dwarvenbunnyears, @vale0413, @mrslydiaholden, @kimberliinabox, @thoughtsmeander2tumblingblindly, @allylupin, @cant-shake-this-feeling-off, @the-bitch-gotham-deserves, @warriorqueen1991, @thesurestthing, @zuni21798, @quietlovelovely, @maddieisaboredable, @windinyoursnail, @happy-hopper, @yedi16, @negansdirtygirl22, @slipperywhenwetsstuff, @crushed-pink-petals, @madkskillz, @im-not-great-at-making-up-names, @sergeantangel, @bitchinsinclair, @dewy-biitch, @focusonspn, @wearethebrokenones, @sarcasm-is-my-native-tounge, @thatprettymvthafvcka, @pulplorrd, @gifsbysimplysonia, @notsomellowmushroom

Apologies to those Tumblr won’t let me tag!

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

#star's multi fandom follower celebration #chief jim hopper #jim hopper x reader #chief jim hopper x reader #jim hopper #david harbour #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #still in my feelings about a lot of s3 #flamehairedwritings #my writing

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mythgirlimagines · 4 years ago

Text

SOME ELDRITCH AND DREAM QUOTES!

Eldritch and Dream. Just think of this as an Anon KG hazing ritual.

—————————————————

Scar: (gathering medical information on Eldritch) Here’s a standard questionnaire. Height?

Eldritch: (touches the top of his head) This many!

Scar: Weight?

Eldritch: (puts his hands around his waist) This many?

Scar: Blood type?

Eldritch: Red!

Scar: Gender?

Eldritch: Earthling!

Scar: Race?

Eldritch: (determined) WE HAVE TO BEAT THE SOVIETS!

Source: Camp Camp

——————————————————

(Nerd meeting Eldritch)

Nerd: Jesus Christ! Is that a ****ing gremling?!

Eldritch: No! I’m a conspiracy theorist!

Nerd: Whatever, just nobody feed that ****ing thing after midnight!

Source: The Most Popular Girls In School

——————————————————

Sparkle: (holding a teacup) I made tea.

Dream: I don’t want tea.

Sparkle: I did not make tea for you. This is my tea.

Dream: Then why are you telling me?

Sparkle: It’s a conversation starter.

Dream: That’s a lousy conversation starter.

Sparkle: Oh, is it? We are conversing. Checkmate.

Source: Big Bang Theory

——————————————————-

(Nerd and Dream debating about whether coffee or tea is better)

Dream: I mean, essentially, they’re both plants that have been soaking in hot water for an extended period of time, so it’s akin to comparing apples and oranges. On the outside, they seem very different, but they are closely related in many different ways. So, does it really matter which is better, considering they are so alike.

Nerd: Dream. That was possibly the most boring way you could’ve resolved a debate about whether coffee or tea is superior.

Fusion II: One hour and seven minutes of replying! That’s a new record!

Source: Creativity

——————————————————–

Dream: (preparing to write) Okay, Mr. Essay! I say (brandishing her pencil) PREPARE TO BE WRITTEN!

Source: Spongebob Squarepants

——————————————————–

(after Dream wins a volleyball match)

Eldritch: (runs up to Dream) You did it, Dream!

Dream: (leaps up high) Ye-AH!

Fusion II: (joins Dream) Ye-AH!

Eldritch: (startled) EEK! YEaEaaEAH!

Fusion: (grabs and holds Dream and Fusion II by their shirts)

Fusion: Both of you doing a jumping high-ten on him is a bit much.

Dream and Fusion II: (nodding in unison)

Eldritch: Phew!

(Eldritch properly high-tens Dream, Fusion II and Fusion)

Source: Haikyuu!

———————————————————–

Fusion: Uh, Scar. What are the symptoms of teenage depression?

Scar: Why are you asking me?

Fusion: Eldritch was helping me with the laundry earlier and he dropped a sock and then I heard him say “Why has God forsaken me?!”.

Source: Unknown

————————————————————

Headcanons for the two’s personalities!

Eldritch: He may be a bundle of nerves inside of a 5 feet package, but this anxious mess is endlessly passionate and convincing, when it comes to his craft of conspiracy theories!

Dream: With her athletic, spirited and almost childish personality, it’s quite a surprise that she can write incredibly elaborate and well-researched essays!

————————————————————

How were these quotes, Dream and Eldritch? I accept feedback!

From, Fusion Anon

---

Some darn good quotes right there

#submission #anon #fusion anon #dream anon #eldritch anon #anon scar #fusion anon ii #anon nerd #sparkling anon #i speak #incorrect quote

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flohamilton · 5 years ago

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can I request robin x female reader where the reader had been working at the video store before robin and Steve get jobs there and she’s a huge conspiracy theorist (not on the level of Murray tho lmao) and she has all these whack theories about Hawkins and what actually happened at the mall and then somehow she gets involved and the scoops troop + reader have to fight a demodog and she’s freaking out after and robin kisses her to calm her down ??

Conspiracy Theories

Robin Buckley x reader

Warnings: A little demodog action, fluff, I didn’t proof read oops, this also turned out way longer than I anticipated!!

Hi anon!! Thank you for the request, I hope you enjoy!! I’m so sorry it took me so long, I've never written a robin x reader so I was lacking inspiration for a little while, but it’s finally done!!

(This also doesn’t follow any specific point in time, it’s just some point after the events of season 3)

"Okay my guess is aliens." You stated proudly whilst putting vhs tapes back onto their rightful shelf.

"Guess for what?" Robin asked, looking up from her pile of papers on the front counter.

"For why Starcourt was literally demolished. Aliens came down from outer space and blasted the damn building to bits and pieces." You explained intently, abandoning your vhs tapes.

"Nice try, y/n. You have no clue what your talking about." Robin scoffed, shaking her head and returning to her work.

"Okay fine then, what about reptile people? Yes that's it! Reptile people invaded the mall and destroyed it!"

"You might as well just give up now, champ, your theories are crazy and no one will ever really know what happened to starcourt." Robin said rolling her eyes.

The two of you had been playing this game for a while. When Robin and Steve got their jobs at the video store w after Starcourt was mysteriously closed down due to "Russian interference" (which you were absolutely not buying), you had become curious as to what really happened. There had to be some supernatural otherworldly reason that the mall was mysteriously shut down and you were bound to figure it out. Robin was the perfect person to find answers from because she had worked at Scoops Ahoy, the ice cream parlor inside of the mall's food court. There was no way she didn't have any information, so you had been pestering her for the past two weeks, trying to get her to crack. First you had guessed the illuminati, then the black market, now this week aliens and reptile people. You were getting closer and you knew it. You needed to know.

"Why are you so gung-ho about trying to find some conspiracy on why Starcourt closed. There were Russians spying on the government for information and the military took them down, and destroyed the mall in the process. What's so hard to understand about that?" Robin questioned.

"There's no way Russians would come all the way to Hawkins just to spy on the United States government. There has to be some bigger reason."

"You're full of shit, y/n." Robin said, shaking her head with a smirk.

These past few weeks had been the best weeks of your life with Robin, she made life so interesting and made you hate you job a little less. You had to admit that you were developing feelings for Robin and you could tell she was feeling the same way. It was exciting and scary all at the same time. Neither of you had talked about it, but it was obvious that the two of you constantly flirted with each other. Even Steve noticed.You decided to just let it happen, and a conversation would eventually come if it needed to. But for now you were extremely happy.

Suddenly Steve bursted through the doors of the video store followed by Dustin and Erica, who for some reason were constantly hanging around Steve. "WE HAVE A CODE RED, ROBIN." Steve shouted

"What dingus, why are you yelling so loud?" Robin asking, rubbing her temples

"Its back." He simply said.

"What? What's back?" Robin questioned.

"It."

All the while you were standing in shock and confusion. What was "it" and why was Steve so distraught about it?|

"We have to go, c'mon Robin, the other kids need our help!" Steve said, dragging Robin out from behind the counter.

"Yeah we have to hurry!" Dustin yelled heading towards the door.

"I am so confused, but I am coming with you guys." You said, following them all to the door.

"NO!" Robin and Steve shouted in unison.

"You really don't want to get yourself mixed up in this stuff, y/n, you don't have a clue." Robin said seriously, shaking her head.

"This all has to do with starcourt doesn't it?" You asked, and Robin stayed quiet. IT IS!! I KNEW IT!" You shouted. "I"m coming, you can't stop me."

"We don't have time for this bull, we have to go NOW." Erica shouted, catching the attention of everyone.

"Fine, c'mon y/n, but it is not my fault if you die. I'm just saying." Robin said, as she followed Steve and the kids to his car.

No one had said anything in the twenty minute ride and you were beginning to wonder what you had gotten yourself into. You were currently on a gravel back road in the middle of the woods and things were looking sketchy.

Suddenly the tress began to rustle, as it a fierce wind was blowng them, despite the perfectly calm weather outside. You also heard distinct growling noises from all directions around the car.

"Okay that's not good. ," Steve said, putting his car in park and assessing the area.

"You don't think that's-" Robin began.

"That's exactly what it think it is." Steve said as if somehow reading Robin's mind. You were in the back seat with Dustin and Erica looking around frantically trying to fine some sort of answer to the confusion you were feeling. What was blowing the trees so strongly? Where was the growling coming from? Why was everyone so nervous?

"Can someone please explain what is going on?"

Before anyone could give you an answer, you were met with a loud thud on the roof of Steve's car and a large indentation forming, visible enough to see from the inside of the car.

"What the hell was that?" You asked frantically.

"That was a dog." Dustin answered uncomfortably. "Uh Steve if you wouldn't mind I think you should drive away now."

Before Steve could even put his car into drive, a large, dog-sized, slimy, slug like creature jumped onto the front of the car, leaving a large crack through the car's windshield.

"We have to the out of here!" Erica shouted next to you in the back seat.

"For the love of God drive Steve!" Robin said, scanning the area outside of the car.

"I have a plan." Steve said, suddenly flooring the car, sending you all forward with momentum. As the car moved forward the "dogs" rolled of the car and onto the ground. Before they could get up and attack again, Steve quickly put the car into reverse and then drive and ran the dogs over. The sound of them being smashed under the tires was enough to make your stomach tense with nausea.

"There's another one coming!" Dustin shouted and pointed at a dog coming full speed from the woods.

"I got this one!" Steve said, pulling out a baseball bad with nails sticking out of all angles that you somehow hadn't noticed before. He quickly jumped out of the car and as the dog approached him, he began beating the shit out of it. Continuously pounding the bat into its body until it lay lifeless on the ground. You watched in horror as the chaos unfolded before you. Once Steve had successfully killed the small monster, he looked up and gave you all a thumbs up of approval.

"I think its safe now. I don't hear anymore growling. You guys come check this thing out!" Steve said with excitement.

You hesitantly got out of the car and carefully walked to there the master was, following closely behind Robin.

"Shit dingus, you really killed those things. Nice job." Robin said.

You were still baffled with confusion, not understanding how Steve knew the exact way to kill these things, what the dogs were, and why Robin, Steve, Dustin, and Erica were all connected to them.

"Guys this is very cool and all, but can someone please explain what is going on?" Before anyone could even begin to answer you, you were met with a loud growl and a dog running out from the woodbine again. "Guys look out!" You shouted, but before you could do anything else, the creature had pounced on you and began to bite at your shoulder, causing you to scream out in pain. Before the dog could cause anymore harm to you, Steve kicked the thing off of you and began mercilessly beating it with his nail bat, successfully killing it after a few moments.

"Oh my god, what just happened?" You questioned as Robin knelt down beside you to help you sit up. You began breathe heavily, tearing leaking from you eyes.

"I promise I'll explain everything to you, but first you have to calm down. Its all okay now, they're all dead, y/n, I promise." Robin said, squeezing your hand tightly. "You're okay, I got you" She said, pulling her tightly into her chest, rubbing you back. "Is your shoulder hurt too bad?" She asked, looking down at your injury.

You shook your head, "No, it's just a little scratched up." You said, still breathing heavily.

"Woah! "You're tough as nails, y/n. A literal monster just attacked you and you're 'just a little scratched up'." She said mocking your words.

You let out a sob, still overwhelmed with the events that had just unfolded.

"Hey, don't cry, it really hurts to see you hurt," Robin said, looking deeply into your eyes, wiping a stray tear away. She began to lean in, you mirrored her movements exactly until your lips lightly met somewhere in the middle. She kissed you softly for a moment before pulling away.

"Wow." She said, "I've been wanting to do that for a while." She said with a soft smile.

"Yeah me too." You signed, looking down, a blush coming over your face.

"You know I'm kinda crazy about you, right?"

You nodded your head and giggled, "The feeling is mutual."

The two of you sat in blissful silence for a few seconds until Steve coughed with discomfort. "This is all very charming and sweet, but I think we should get out of here right about now."

"Yeah that would probably be for the best, dingus, let's get out of here." Robin said, helping you to your feet and into the car.

"Now that this is all over with could someone please explain what is happening?" You asked, confusion coursing through your veins as Steve drove away from the murder scene.

"Yeah, we probably should explain, huh?" Steve said with a sigh.

And so the scoops troop began telling you the entire story from the beginning. Who El was, her powers, Will, the gate, and the demogorgan and all of its dogs. How they had battled it three times now and it was still coming back stronger than ever.

"So that's why the Russians were in the mall, because they were creating a new gate?" You asked, finally putting the pieces together.

"Yes, now you can finally stop pestering me every day with your crazy conspiracy theories." Robin smirked, grabbing your hand and squeezing it tightly, happy to have you in one piece.

Send in your requests!!

#robin buckley #robin stranger things #robin buckley imagine #robin buckley x reader #stranger things #stranger things 3 #the scoops troop

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misstinfoilhat · 5 years ago

Text

Whumptober #3 Delerium - Bungou Stray Dogs

(Read the first part: “Explosion” here) Nothing changed over the next couple of hours. Piles upon piles of rubbles were moved from one end of the room to the other, still not revealing an obvious way out. They were all alternating on keeping an eye on Dazai and digging, whenever fatigue struck them. Kunikida went back and forth between shoveling dirt and checking on the bandage-wasting idiot, winching when he realized how grim the situation was turning.

Dazai had been nodding off and became more and more sluggish as time went by, having a harder time staying lucid and awake. They were worried that soon, he wouldn't be able to wake up again by himself. Still, he kept fighting whoever dared trying to touch his wound. At this moment, it was actually the best way they had of keeping him alert. The pale skin of the injured man had a feverish blush to it, glazed over by a thin layer of fever induced sweat and small tremors prickled all over his body. He was burning up with a fever while freezing cold from the effects of it. Kyouka strolled over to them with a soft smile. “Here you go,” Kyouka said pleasantly, and placed the thin red fabric of her kimono over Dazai's trembling form, settling with wearing her yellow tights and a white undershirt. She stroked a comforting, dirt-covered hand over the usual soft locks of Dazai's hair, that was now sticking to his face in tangled knots. Reluctantly, Dazai accepted the cover but seemed to be scowling at it every time Kyouka turned her attention away from him. When it was time for Atsushi to take over again, he finally let go of what was on his mind. “Atsushi,” he croaked weakly and grasped at the boy's arm with flimsy fingers. The light-haired kid turned towards him with a reassuring smile. “I'm here.” “Listen, I... I know how this is going to sound, but...” Dazai stated tiredly. Atsushi shifted uncomfortably. Dazai was staring half-lidded at the red cloth that had been draped over him. “You'll be okay. The shard is blocking the bleeding. As long as it stays in, you're not gonna bleed to death anytime soon...” “-I need a different blanket,” Dazai interrupted determened. In his surprise, Atsushi shot his head towards the fatigued figure in front of him and blinked a couple of times, trying to decide if he had heard that right or not. So, Dazai decided he needed to elaborate. “I know it doesn't make any sense, but... this blanket is full of alien technology.”

Atsushi didn't know how to answer that. “I know,” Dazai sighed sleepily, “just, I'm gonna need a different blanket.” Luckily, Kunikida was close by and heard Dazai's feebled rambling. With a bland expression, he trailed over to them and picked up Kyouka's red kimono and turned it inside out before tucking it back over Dazai. “Better?” he asked vacantly and watched as Dazai's lips turned into a half-smile and he settled into the warmth of the clothing and relaxed. Atsushi's scrunched eyebrows told Kunikida that the boy had never experienced a delirious Dazai before, and felt the need to explain.

“This happens once in a while when he gets particularly feverish. I guess he's a bit of a closeted conspiracy theorist,” Kunikida shrugged.

Atsushi, still severly confused, nodded hesitantly. “Oh.” “Yeah, just... take whatever you hear with a grain of salt, okay? It's an utter mess of ramblings and there really is no way of knowing if anything he says has any footing, in reality, understand?” Something about Kunikida's tone sounded off to Atsushi. As if, he didn't really believe what he was saying himself. As if it was some kind of warning. So, he nodded and figured he would understand what Kunikida meant soon enough.

And that, he did.

OoO

The next thirty minutes or so consisted of incoherent ramblings about anything from the “mind-control planes in the sky” to “lizard people? Tsk, we have a tiger-boy!” Atsushi couldn't help but feel a sliver of pride at being mentioned in Dazai's fever-dream. But soon, the sometimes humourous slurrs became more ominous. It started out as breathy whimpers and apologies. Some of them were directed at people in the agency, other's were people Atsushi knew worked for the Port Mafia, and there were a lot of names he had never heard before in his entire life. Especially one seemed to reoccur.

“Oda? ...Oda, it's so dark,” Dazai moaned painfully. His voice nearly cracked from frailty. “I want... I want...” It was clearly hard for him to get any sound out at this point. Atsushi worried, feeling Dazai's boiling hot forehead with the inside of his wrist, winching at the high temperature. Maybe it was time to get Kunikida...

“...to come with you, please. Let me go with you.” Atsushi felt the grip Dazai had on his hand tighten. Atsushi held tightly too, hoping it would reassure Dazai that he wasn't alone. Still, Atsushi wasn't sure if he should be happy or heartbroken when he saw the smile this brought to his elder's lips. “I knew you'd come back for me,” Dazai whispered. Just as he said that, Tanizaki turned up behind them. “Hey,” he greeted, making Atsushi jump in surprise. “Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to sneak up on you,” the redhead apologized, smiling uncomfortably. Atsushi breathed out, calming his nerves. “It's fine,” he started, but Dazai suddenly let go of his hand and reach for Tanizaki instead. The two boys exchanged looks, before turning their attention on Dazai. “Odasauk?” Dazai asked carefully, with a hint of impatience. Blurry, unseeing eyes peered up at Tanizaki, who stood dumbly and looked back at him.

“I'm not-” Tanizaki started, but Atsushi quickly shut him up. “Where is he gonna take you, Dazai-san?” he asked calmly, kneeling by his mentor's side. “And who is he?”

“Oda is the good guy,” Dazai answered easily. “He's gonna bring me into the light with him.” Yeah, it was definitely time to call for Kunikida. “Kunikida-san!” Atsushi yelled, probably a bit more desperately than strictly necessary, but it did the trick. Kunikida was sprinting over as soon as the calling registered in his hearing.

“What?” he sneered, immediately hovering over Dazai. “I don't think he knows where he is,” Atsushi explained. “And he doesn't recognize Tanizaki.” “Oda,” Dazai mumbled. Nobody knew if it was a coincidence or a correction.

Kunikida seemed calm, and Atsushi got the suspicion that it wasn't the first time he'd seen something like this. After a short moment, Kunikida turned to Tanizaki.

“Junichiro-kun,” he started. He had an idea and waited for Tanizaki to look at him before he said anything else. “See if you can get him to show you the wound.” Tanizaki looked queasy. “I'm no good with blood,” he croaked pleadingly. “Tough luck,” Kunikida shrugged cooly. “You're not removing the metal or anything. I just want to see what it looks like. We have to make sure that it doesn't get infected. I would also like to tie something around it to quelch what's still bleeding and protect it from all this dust.” Tanizaki wined quietly but turned back to face Dazai. He was just laying there, looking up at him with something that looked like awe in those tired half-lidded eyes. “I'm Oda..?” Tanizaki asked stupidly, frowning at himself. “Yeah,” Dazai smiled feebly. He was so out of it, Kunikida was sure anyone from the office could have posed as this Oda. But as far as he'd seen, Dazai had never mistaken any of them for that man in the past. Maybe Tanizaki looked like him or at least had some prominent feature in common with the man Dazai would only ever talk about when completely incoherent.

“So, can I look at the wound? You got hurt, remember?” Dazai made a grimace. Yeah he knew, t'was kinda hard to forget when it was still stuck in your intestines. Reluctantly, he agreed to Tanizaki's suggestion. “Make sure to comfort him!” Kunikida mouthed, over-exaggerating every syllable for the teenager to understand. “Uh, g-good job,” Tanizaki muttered nerviously while he carefully tried to open the rest of the shirt. After fidgeting with the buttons, he figured it would have to do and started to lift his under-shirt. Dazai shifted agonizingly. The dried blood was tugging at the wound, and Dazai moaned hoarsely. “Oda-san used to be so careful,” he gasped miserably. “S-sorry, I guess I'm out of practice,” Tanizika tried. Dazai only sulked but didn't resist when he continued working, carefully releasing the shirt from the wound. Kunikida watched restlessly, wanting to take over and do it himself. “One more, okay? It's almost loose,” Tanizaki instructed, and pulled the t-shirt off the metallic piece spearing Dazai's side, only to uncover layers upon layers of neatly placed, blood-soaked bandages. He looked wearily to Dazai, who was panting heavily after the swift tug that probably had torn off some scab from the gash. “I need to remove some of these, is that okay?” he asked tryingly, but Dazai wouldn't answer. So instead, he looked questioningly to Kunikida and Atsushi. Both men motioned that they didn't know, so he decided to take a chance and take them off.

When removing the bandages, two things became very clear. First of all, there was more bandage than he first had anticipated. It seemed never-ending, covering at least 85% of his upper body. The second thing was that the bandages were not decorative, as he had heard many people hypothesize.

This new injury would only be another gash in a jungle of various older and newer scars, in every shape and form, that anyone could imagine. “Tanizaki, what's going on?” he heard Atsushi ask from behind. Kunikida and Atsushi lingered in the back, trying to give Dazai the space he needed, and to not invade the privacy he so clearly demanded at a time like this.

Tanizaki didn't answer. He didn't know what to say, what to feel, what to do. All he really knew was that somebody had hurt Dazai, and he... ...needed to get up and away so he wouldn't throw up all over him.

Hesitantly, he opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself when, to his surprise, all he could get out was a small sob. He hid his mouth under his hands, hopfully stifling the sound as he got up on shaky knees, unsteadily walking a couple of feet away and let his stomach contents spill out onto the concrete floor. Atsushi was right behind him, offering a supportive hand on his shoulder while he hurled, and, at least, kinda shieling him from the overbearing grief his younger sister had about his sickness. The sight of Dazai's mangled torso would haunt him for a long, long time. He already knew that and all the bile in the world couldn't flush that memory away. “Are you okay?” Atsushi asked in conserne, patting his back steadily and looking at him with worried eyes. Tanizaki shook his head vigorously. “That's not right,” he uttered hoarsely. In denial. He shook his head insistingly. “Did you know?” he inquired, grabbing onto Atsushi's shirt. “Know what?” the silver-haired boy asked bewildered. Maybe he knew? How was he supposed to know if he didn't elaborate??

“About the scars!” Tanizaki exclaimed, ignoring everyone else around. Because fuck it. Dazai wasn't all right.

They had all though that Dazai's supposed pain, the suicide attempts, the bad habits, heavy bandaging, and unwillingness to take care of himself was just a show, but no, no no no. It was not. It was a distraction. Fuck, he felt so guilty.

And Atsushi didn't look like he understood a thing. Good.

Tanizaki turned around and saw Kunikida leaning carefully over the unmoving body of Osamu Dazai.

He had his back turned. Tanizaki couldn't see his face. He could see his arms though. The way he moved gingerly, almost affectionately. Atsushi didn't know. But Kunikida did.

He probably knew more than any of them. The two teenagers watched their team leader work effectively on Dazai. They had been able to talk for a little bit, exchanging information and different things they had heared- from Dazai that day, rumours or whenever people had some sort of slip about him. They knew they were still far off, but felt like they had puzzled some pieces together.

About twenty minutes later, their injured coworker was all covered back up, and Tanizaki and Atsushi finally dared to move closer and ask how he was doing.

“He'll be fine,” Kunikida huffed, and tried wiping off some dried blood off his hands. “The shard didn't hit anything vital. It probably did cause some damage to his intestines though, so surgery will probably be necessary. Right now, there really isn't much we can do about that, except getting the hell out of here.”

“B-but, what about...” Atsushi wasn't sure just how to ask. He hoped Kunikida would just read his mind so he didn't have to say it out loud.

“What about what?” Something about the way Kunikida asked, almost seemed challenging. As if, he dared him to say anything about it, and Atsushi realized that maybe, he shouldn’t say anything at all. Because he remembered, that Kunikida knew.

Knew about the scars. Probably knew a whole lot about what had happened already. Knew who this Oda was. Finally, he recalled that something Kunikida had told him, now several hours ago and finally understood what he meant. The truth was, most of them had probably seen many (if not all the) different sides of Dazai. Then, Kunikida, or someone else, would be there to assure them that Dazai was just talking nonsense. They actually wanted them all to just ignore it- didn’t they? And now, everybody went around, knowing bits and pieces about their coworker and ignoring it entirely. For Dazai. Because Dazai couldn't handle it when he was all there.

It took another hour for them to get out of there. Yosano was already waiting outside with a make-shift ambulance, having noticed that the mission was taking too much time and that something probably had gone awry.

Dazai was quickly ushered onto a gurney and rushed to a civilian hospital. The bloodloss was too big, and the surgery was too extensive for Yosano to handle in the infirmary all by herself.

The days slowly switched back to normal. Within a week, Dazai was out of the hospital, walking slowly and seemingly in a lot of pain, but was back at the office and pretending like nothing ever happened. He was currently residing on a couch in the back of the office, napping lazily while listening to music. At this point, Atsushi understood the gist of things. They were all walking around and pretending that nothing happened- like they hadn't seen the horrendous scars on his body, or heard the pain in his voice when he asked for this Oda- ignore the love and hope in his eyes when he thought Tanizaki was this person and had come there to take him away.

And now, everything was back, just the way it was. Atsushi was sure Tanizaki hadn't known anything before the day at the construction site. He was fairly new to the agency too. He just wondered how many times Kunikida had done that same schpiel now.

What would happen if Dazai realized how much they knew? … Nothing good.

Atsushi decided that maybe, just maybe, the delirium hadn't exactly been the hallucinations back then. Maybe the Delerium was whatever was going on right now. The End

First of all:

The alien technology in the blanket-thing is actually based pretty accurately on true events. My boyfriend and some of his friends went on a trip around Europe this summer and one of his buddies got severe food poisoning. He assured them that he knew how stupid it sounded and that it didn't make any sense even too him, but he really just needed a different blanket because of the alien technology in the one that he already had.

Secondly: I might revisit this. I’m not all the way satisfied with it, and that’s the issue with trying to follow a day-to-day event. Also, I’ve been sick as a dog. I think I’m just gonna say this; I can’t promise daily updates (because I have some pride in my work, and I want to tell a good story). But I can promise that I’ll try my best. And I’m gonna post something about every single prompt, and try my best to not fall too far behind. Thank you all of reading!

#whumptober2019 #whumptober day 3 #no.3 #delerium #part 2 of 2 #bungou stray dogs #injured dazai #doppo kunikida #protective kunikida #atsushi nakajima #junichirou tanizaki

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finderskeepersff · 5 years ago

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64.

Smoking my blunt watching the car park up ever so slowly, blowing the smoke out from my lips “let him come through” moving away from the hood of my car “you sure?” Fabian asked “it’s Kyle, he ain’t going to do shit” I laughed, it’s funny and I am about bored of waiting for him but here I am, he wanted to meet up so I came. I should be home by now, I promised Sofia we would decorate the tree but I had a lot to do “Cassius” he was about to dap me but I just stepped back “what is it?” I should get over it but I can’t, he knows the business, he knows what the fuck he should be doing and he didn’t “I know you been having me followed, stop it” looking at Fabian as I laughed “you know the difference between you and I, I’m running my broken down business because of you and still!” I pointed at him “you being ungrateful, they all want you dead Kyle, they all know it’s you but me. I am keeping you alive and yet you come here and say don’t follow me. I thank you for keeping me company but I need to ride this alone and without you” Kyle clenched his jaw “all these years Cassius, I would die for you! You’re my brother and you doing me like this!? I am sorry!” He shouted “sorry? It’s not the first time you fucked up my business, you hate this life and I am giving you a free pass. Take it, we will meet up for coffee like normal friends. If you don’t want to be followed then expect to be dead ok?” Turning away from him “I miss you Cassius, we bros and this is how it is” throwing my blunt to the ground “bros?” Turning to him “bros huh? Bros wouldn’t let their drugged up bro do what he did, I fucking know Kyle. And I know you was around” I pointed at him “bros wouldn’t run to Miami knowing their girl is ok with Ethan, you knew Kyle and you knew what leaving would do. All that bloodshed for you to run, you fucked up my business Kyle. Everything!!! All these years for you to do that to me, you made out it was you that kept it alive when I was gone, it was always Myles but he let words get to his mind! He wanted to be boss and there could only be one and that is motherfucking me Kyle! That nigga that killed for the first time, he is back and this time I won’t let drugs take me, just a fucking bullet! Worse thing about it, I wouldn’t have let Amira gone with you, no matter how she fought me. But you!” Walking back “I’ll forgive when I need too and don’t worry, nobody will ever contact you” walking back to my car “I still love you bro” dragging open my car door.

Parking up outside my home, I shed a tear because Kyle is the only best friend I got. One day when things are better, maybe we can be just friends. People are not like me because I did what I did to Sofia and he knew it, he knew it and left. I had to last time walk away, he did that. I am blaming me but he could have helped me, it hurts anyways. Seeing Henry calling me back, he’s a little late. Answering his call “you choose your times” he said “it’s too late now” Henry groaned out “it’s never too late, I told you this. I was sleeping and so should you, schedule not right anymore?” He questioned “I guess, I can’t accept that I forced Sofia to have sex well I was rough with her or whatever, I was ok though. With her not being here, I did fine. I slept fine but now she is here I am just running from the bed, I hurt her Henry. How bad is that, I can’t just take it that I did that. My own friend didn’t stop me either, I don’t get why he didn’t. Now I got no friend” it’s so hard to just sleep there “Cassius, you told me that Sofia was fine with this. You said Sofia knew what was happening but not to that degree she forgives you and you need too also. You need to let go to move on” rubbing my face with my free hand “I am trying to peice together what I did and I can’t, I can imagine how upset she was. It’s so shameful and she is pregnant. I’m just in a state of shock to even accept it. I was fine when she was not here but seeing her, it’s fucking with me” it really is “is that your mind talking or your heart?” Henry asked “my mind” which it is driving me crazy “you need to put your mind to your heart Cassius, your heart knows that she loves you and she knows you didn’t mean it. That was never you Cassius and she knows that” shaking my head “Kyle fucked me up in one way or another” I mumbled “Cassius, what did we talk about taking blame for things you did” turning my car engine off “but also he could have helped me, I know him and he was fed up of me that is why he left me to fuck up so I won’t do it again” opening the car door “conspiracy theorist again?” Henry be laughing at me “shit ain’t funny, it’s the truth” stepping out of my car “not laughing at you but you need to rest your mind, it’s running with you. Sofia has been back a few days now, you need to just relax and follow your heart. Let what happened marinate a little, sex will come” how much can I let shit marinate, it’s annoying.

Sofia is really going to be angry with me, didn’t do the tree today once again. I was coming home but then Kyle fucking called, dragging my legs up the steps sighing out. Every night since Sofia has been back I have been dodging her, like she is asleep already when I get in bed, and then by the time I wake up I am out, I can only imagine how much this is building up in her, she is going to snap on me and I know it. I fucked up, do I class that as rape, could I do that to her. It was forced but she wanted it “fuck” I sighed out saying, I have seen Celine’ face when I had my come down once and I did shit I wish I could forget. How can I really forgive myself for that, I wonder if Celine is ok actually. Walking by Cartier’ room and hearing babbling in his room, furrowing my eyebrows as I stopped abruptly. He is awake at this time, pushing open his door slowly. I don’t know why I am being slow with this, the light slowly seeped into his room and brightened the room up, his night light only gave him some comfort “da!” he yelped, seeing Cartier stood up in his crib “heyyy dada, hey son. You awake” walking into his room “no tears?” it’s weird he is awake and not crying to be honest, and it’s a weird time for him to be awake too. Cartier got ever so excited in his crib and jumped up and down and then let go of the side and fell back into the crib. Looking down in the crib smiling “you showing off?” I laughed, Cartier smiled at me like a goof “shall daddy come in the crib with you? Not like you going to answer me” taking my top off and then my sneakers “if I break it then so be it, we get a new one” climbing into his crib “come, I know you ain’t supposed to be awake at this time” laying on my side and dragging Cartier towards me “snuggle buddies” I chuckled, Cartier gripped my chin hair as he would.

Just when I think things could get any worse Cassius hasn’t even come to bed, not only does he not want to see me he also now doesn’t come to bed. This is fucking stressing out, I groaned out moving onto my back “men” I said to myself, reaching over for my phone. Pressing the home button, seeing it is going on ten and I know I overslept, Cartier wakes up by seven unless his sleeping habits changed but it is too late “the hell” throwing my phone to the side, either Cassius got him or Cartier cried and cried until he fell back to sleep. Grabbing my robe while placing my feet in the slides, I am just fed the fuck up and I fucking see my mom has text me again, she fucking does every day. Putting my robe on as I made my way to Cartier’ room, what a mess. Tying my robe and froze seeing a pair of sneakers on the floor, they are Cassius but his top is here also. Walking over to the pair of sneakers in Cartier’ room, as I walked closer I could see the side of Cassius head and then his broad shoulder, I breathed out seeing Cassius sleeping in Cartier’ crib. My heart fell actually, seeing Cartier snuggled up to Cassius as he slept, I can’t even be angry at him, I mean look at that. This is so beautiful to see and I am just going to leave them to it.

I am not even fucking playing, no lie but my Christmas gift to me is going to be dick and he has to give me that. Seeing Gio calling my phone, he is supposed to be coming down actually “hello” answering his call “I am outside so about you let me in” I have literally just woke up “oh shit, yeah I am coming. Just give me one moment” making my way out of the bedroom, I have just tied my hair up in a bun and wearing Cassius hoodie. It’s only Gio, I have not seen him in so long either. I am feeling creative too, it will take my mind off things. Buzzing him in, I can’t wait to see Gio and I think he has shaven all of his hair off too so it’s been a damn while. Dragging open the door “what the fuck?” I said laughing “I know, I am bald, but do I look good?” nodding my head “you do but what the fuck” Gio hugged me “what the fuck to you too, where have you been and get inside. It’s cold, your legs are out” walking back into the home still hugging him “you know what, it’s been eventful but I am shocked you even want me” I had to laugh because I have been a pain in the ass “why wouldn’t I want someone so creative as you?” didn’t think I was that good to be fair, I am ok I would say anyways.

Gio makes me laugh, the amount of stories he has about customers is funny “I am always free for you but I am not travelling, I need to stay here and around and also it would be great if I didn’t need to come into the office. Imagine having to see Jordan” Gio laughed “he misses you, little miss long legs” I snorted laughing “oh god” I sighed out, if only Cassius saw me sexually right now I would ride his face “little miss long legs” I repeated “that is what he said but anyways so yeah I got some work for you, I can send you all of the details and all of that. But I would wish you would come with me abroad, Cartier is old enough now right?” nodding my head “speaking of the child” looking behind me at what Gio is looking at, my baby boy is awake “he has grown, my god” Cassius looks half asleep “he wants his mom” Cassius said, his voice so husky “thanks” he dropped Cartier onto the couch, not even on my lap or to me. Cartier whined out but I picked him up “morning handsome, look at your hair” pushing his hair down “you make some beautiful babies, look at him!” Gio complimented, pressing kisses to Cartier’ cheek “you think” turning to Gio with Cartier’ cheek pressed against mine “think? He is so handsome, be my surrogate” I laughed out “I am about done with babies, not after this next one” Gio gasped “this one!? again!?” he shouted “yeah, why is everyone so shocked. I am on number two already” everyone is always so shook that I am pregnant again.

#Chrianna #Chrianna FF #Fanfic #Fanfiction

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katedoesfics · 5 years ago

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StrangerVille | Chapter 2

Jayson didn’t see Siobhan or Morgan the rest of the night. He stepped out of the bar into the cool, dry air, the streets quiet and desolate with the exception of a handful of bar patrons having a smoke. He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away from the bar, walking the few blocks to his home beside the trailer park.

It wasn’t unusual for the residents of the park to be out late, gathered around a fire drinking and laughing, and they often waved to Jayson when he walked by, now familiar with his presence. On this night, however, the trailer park was quiet, though not empty. In the light of the moon, he could see a figure standing alone, a dark shadow erect in the center of the park, unmoving.

Jayson slowed, studying the figure for a moment. An inexplicable chill ran up his spine and his heart quickened nervously, though he hesitated. His gaze narrowed, trying to figure out who the figure was, and why they were standing so still. After a moment of staring, the figure’s head turned to Jayson, and he took an uneasy step back as their eyes met. The figure’s head cocked to the side, then the rest of the body turned to face him. An arm lifted, but not in warm greeting. It moved to a ninety degree angle to the ground and hung for a moment, swaying lightly.

The figure took a stiff step forward and twitched, then took another step forward, legs never bending.

“What in the fuck…”

A smile split the man’s face as it stepped out of the shadows, still moving stiffly toward Jayson. But Jayson had had quite enough of the odd interaction, and he quickly turned and sprinted the rest of the way to his house. His fingers fumbled to unlock the door, and once inside, he slammed it and locked it tightly behind him.

He leaned against the door, his heart racing, and he waited for his breathing to slow. Then, his cheeks warmed as a realization came to him. Those bastards were fucking with him! Hazing the new guy - of course! His shoulders slumped and he muttered to himself. He would get them back; he would get them back good.

*****

Milk dropped from his spoon, splattering onto the newspaper spread open on the table. Like every morning, Jayson was having a bowl of cereal, perusing the job listings. On this morning, however, his mind was not focused on the wanted ads, but instead deep in thought, scheming a way to get back at the residents of the trailer park next door. It was all in good fun, of course, but whatever he came up with had to be better than the prank they pulled on him.

He was at a disadvantage, though. There were several of them that could come together, pretending to be zombies, chasing him down the street. He was just one man, which meant he would need something really good to top that. Of course, he couldn’t take their zombie idea. But every idea he came up with would have been impossible without the help of some insane magical abilities or an experimental potion gone wrong. Giant spiders to flood the park, twitching vines that wrapped around their legs, quick sand that would swallow them whole.

His imagination was running wild, and with a sigh, he leaned back in his chair to think more realistically. His financial situation was not one that would allow him elaborate pranks, and it seemed there was nothing more he could do than coat their trailers in glitter and cause only a minor annoyance. Still, he was determined to get back at them in some way, so he folded up the news paper, placed his empty bowl in the sink, and stepped out into the warm sun to make the walk towards the corner store in hopes of getting some ideas as he perused the aisles.

He was just turning the corner to the store when two familiar young women stepped out, the door ringing as it closed behind him, and he came face to face with the grinning teenager Morgan.

“Look! It’s conspiracy theorist Jayson!”

“Let’s not make that a thing,” Jayson muttered. “Solve the mysteries of the world, yet?”

“Dude!” Morgan exclaimed. “I would have if someone,” she paused to sneer at her sister, “didn’t fuck up all my plans!”

“She covered herself in twigs and leaves and tried to pretend to be a bush.”

“It’s called being incognito!”

“It’s called getting your ass thrown in jail!”

“Anyway,” Morgan started, disregarding her sister’s concerns. “So, did you get those digits, lover boy?”

“Lover boy?” But before he could come back with anything more, Morgan was reaching toward him in an attempt to shove her hands in his pockets to find his phone. Jayson jumped back and batted her hands away. “Woah! Personal space, man!”

“Gimme your phone!”

“No!”

“I would like to remind you that I have no control over the weird things she does,” Siobhan said in an exasperated tone. “Please accept my sincerest apologies since my sister does not know how to act normal.”

“You guys are the weird ones! Fucking give him your number already!”

“You realize we live like, three hours away, right?”

“Two!” She continued to chase Jayson in circles. “Phone!”

“Oh for the love of -” Jayson started. He stretched an arm out, promptly stopping Morgan in her tracks, his palm against her head. She whined and flailed her arms, but he was just out of her reach. He grinned down at her. “Nice try, kid. I don’t need a matchmaker.”

Morgan huffed in exasperation and dropped her arms. “Well, that’s just rude and insulting. My sister is a catch! How dare you think you’re too good for her!”

“Oh, contraire,” Jayson started. “In fact, she is far too good for the likes of me.”

“Aw,” Morgan said, immediately melting. “That’s so fucking sweet it’s disgusting.”

“Don’t you have a lab to break into?”

Morgan straightened excitedly. “Oh, right! I’m meeting a guy who said he’s got some keycard I can use to get in!”

“That doesn’t sound sketchy at all,” Jayson said.

“Totally sketchy,” Morgan confirmed. “We’ll need a strong, brave guy to protect us.”

Jayson put his hands on his hips and looked around. “Too bad there isn’t someone like that around.”

“Come on, loser,” Morgan said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him down the street.

“I did not sign up for this crazy train,” Jayson said over his shoulder to Siobhan.

“Like I said,” Siobhan said, following behind. “I have no control over her.”

“You’d be far better off finding someone else to protect you,” Jayson warned.

“Eh,” Morgan said with a shrug. “I got a good feeling about you.”

“A terrible decision, really.” He allowed Morgan to pull him down the street, and she babbled on about the guy she met when she was snooping around the lab. They walked for several blocks, turning this way and that until they reached the outer edges of the small town and walked along the dusty, deserted highway; the only road leading out of the nobody town.

In the distance, a figure stood beside the highway, a hood pulled over his head and his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, and Jayson stiffened uneasily. This was it; this was where he would die. His body would be disposed of in the middle of the desert, and no one would ever know what happened to him.

And all because he let a dumb teenage girl and her beautiful sister drag him out into the desert. A trap - it was a damned trap.

But Sibohan bumped into him, suddenly close at his side, keeping just behind him and practically stepping on his heels.

“I knew it,” she muttered, gripping his upper arm. “I knew my sister would be the death of me, I fucking knew it.”

Jayson stopped walking all together, but Morgan only skipped forward to meet the mysterious man. Jayson reached forward and shouted at her, but she turned to him with her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes.

“Stop being such a baby,” she groaned. “It’s just Erwin!”

The hooded man stepped forward to meet Morgan, and he sneered at her.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “You brought a bodyguard?”

“Can’t be too careful, Erwin, right?”

Erwin pulled his hood back, revealing small eyes pulled at the corners angrily behind thick glasses. Freckles dotted his pale skin, and it seemed to Jayson the hoodie was more to protect him from the harmful rays of the sun than anything else. Jayson relaxed slightly, recognizing the young man to be one of the conspiracy theorists in town, and as soon as he relaxed, Siobhan did, too, her grip loosening until she let go of his arm completely.

“Look,” Erwin started. “I’m the first one to admit you should have some reasonable defense. This world is a fucked up place. Hell, I want a bodyguard.” He paused and turned to Jayson. “Are you services available to anyone?”

“Just cute girls and their annoying sisters.”

Erwin considered this for a moment, then turned back to Morgan. “Anyway. This information is top secret. Strictly classified. I can’t have it being passed around to just anyone.”

“Come on, Ers, Buddy. They’re with me! Who are they gonna tell?”

Erwin eyed Jayson carefully. “He’s a military guy.”

Jayson snorted. “Erwin, is it? They picked me up in a bar.”

“That’s where they all hang out!”

“No, no,” Morgan started. “He’s just a depressive alcoholic.”

“Well, wait, I’m not an alcoholic.”

“Just drowning his problems.”

“You and me both,” Erwin said. “I’d hang out there, too, but some of those guys don’t really like me much.”

“Right,” Morgan said. “Like you’re cool enough to hang at a bar.”

“I could be! You don’t know me!”

“I want that keycard!”

“Well, I don’t have it, so go away.”

“You lied?”

“No,” Erwin said, leaning over her. “I said I had it. You assumed -”

“You said you had it!”

“Had! Past tense!”

“Where’s the keycard, Erwin?! Don’t make me sick my bodyguard on you!”

Erwin glanced at Jayson and took a hesitant step back. He put his hands out before him defensively. “Alright, alright. Listen. I don’t have it. Because it was stolen.”

“By who?”

His arms dropped and he rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think if I knew that I’d get it back?”

Morgan grinned. “Yeah? How would you do that?”

Erwin hesitated. “Uh, you know, track ‘em down and… ask for it back?”

Morgan scoffed and turned away from him. “You’re wasting my time, Ers!”

“Alright,” Erwin barked. “I nabbed it from one of those scientists a couple weeks back,” he explained. “He was passed out at the bar, still in his fancy white lab coat, and I fished around in his pockets and found it. But those military guys saw me and tackled me and threw me out. So I ran home, but they must have been following me, and they must have broken in when I was sleeping, because in the morning, it wasn’t on the counter where I left it.”

Morgan groaned loudly and threw her arms in the air, exasperated with him.

Erwin waved his hands at her quickly. “No, no, no, wait,” he said. “Look. I’ve been sneaking around town, listening in to their conversations. I can help you get one of those keycards back. I know some of those military guys have ‘em, and those scientists, too. I know a few names, and I know where they are. If they’re not hanging out at the bar, they can also be found hanging around that old library.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, handing it to Morgan. “This is all the information I have, alright? All the keycards will give you access into the lab. I think the ones with the black dots are better, though. Probably can get you into other places that the regular cards can’t. So get one with a black dot.”

“Are we done here?” Siobhan muttered.

Morgan waved the piece of paper at Erwin. “I guess you’re good for something,” she said. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

Erwin nodded and pulled his hood back over his head. “May The Watcher guide you,” he said in an even tone.

Morgan rolled her eyes and turned away from him, walking back down the highway and into town.

Jayson glanced one last time at Erwin, then quickly caught up to Siobhan, following behind Morgan as she babbled on excitedly.

“You’re not stealing a keycard from anyone,” Siobhan hissed to her sister. “And we’re only here for another day, so stop fucking around with your conspiracy theories, alright?”

“They’re not conspiracy theories,” Morgan snapped at her sister. “You make fun of people like Erwin, but they’ve seen what’s really been going on here. They’re not making this stuff up.”

“There’s nothing going on here,” Siobhan said. “Everything is completely normal.”

“Erwin said that some of the people have been acting funny,” Morgan explained. “Like, they’ve been all spacey and twitchy and when you try to talk to them, it’s like they’re speaking another language or something.”

“Spacey and twitchy?” Jayson echoed curiously.

Morgan shrugged. “And he said there have been a lot of weird, black vans and these serious looking agents with sunglasses. He swears he saw them take one of the people acting weirdly and he doesn’t know what happened to them.”

Siobhan rolled her eyes. “If there was something going on, don’t you think the cops would be involved?”

“They all know about it,” Morgan said, growing excited. “And they’re all keeping it quiet!”

When Morgan stopped walking, they were in front of the old library.

“I’m gonna see what if I can dig up any information,” Morgan said. “And maybe steal a keycard.” But before her sister could argue, she was running up the old steps and disappeared inside.

Siobhan turned helplessly to Jayson, then offered him a smile. “Well, thanks for going with us,” she said. “I thought for sure we were going to be murdered.”

Jayson forced a laugh, though he was still turning over what Morgan said.

“So, I was thinking,” Jayson started. “You really got your hands full with that sister of yours. You might still need a bodyguard or something.”

Siobhan grinned and nodded. “Yeah, probably.”

“Well, if you do, you could always just give me a call or something.”

“Do you have a business card? Or a company number I can call?”

“You know, I can just give you my direct cell number. That way you don’t have to deal with reception or something.”

Siobhan laughed. “That’s really sweet. Morgan would appreciate that.” She took her phone out of her pocket and they exchanged phones, each entering their number in the other’s.

“I put it under bodyguard,” Jayson said as he handed her phone back.

“I put mine under damsel in distress.” She winked at him and waved a hand as she turned to head into the library. “See ya later, Conspiracy Theorist Jayson.”

#the sims #ts4 #the sims 4 #fic #fanfic #strangerville

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