#ignore the typo. by the time I noticed it the piece was nearly done so I didn't want to go back and fix it. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jincherie · 6 years ago

Text

fox rain | intro

• ☽ — pairing: bts x reader • ☽ — genre: crack, fluff, angst, college/uni au • ☽ — words: 9.9k • ☽ — rating: sfw? • ☽ — warnings: this is PRIME crackheadery and headassery, this is literally such a mess fuckk, anyway-- accidental voyeurism, extreme amounts of stress, sleep deprivation (uni life amirite) • ☽ — notes: lets get it miss FOX RAIN!!!!!!!! also: links will be put in at a later date

— posted; 04.05.2019

When the love letter you wrote and submitted as an assignment is leaked to the entirety of your university, it becomes a race against time to dispel rumours and convince the seven suspected muses of the poem that they aren’t the subject before anyone realises that you are the author. Easy, right? Well... maybe not as easy as you think.

— • masterlist | intro | next • —

Living as a University student paddling through your second year means that, as one would expect, you aren’t exactly a poster-girl for good decision-making—especially when it comes to things like sleep and time management. Those two areas in particular are probably your biggest weakness, but at least, you think as you pass through the brief lawn that marks the beginning of your University campus and join the throng of tired, yawning students, you are not alone in your suffering. Inability to catch the recommended hours of sleep and manage your time is a common trait among the student population.

It is your poor strength in these areas that landed you where you are now; dead-tired and still dealing with a delayed stress response that was lingering from yesterday’s deadline. You were up stupidly late last night, running on probably about four hours of sleep across three days, and barely coherent as you hastily emailed one of your assignments to your professor. It wasn’t all that hard for you, but you’d forgotten and by the time you realised the deadline was looming so close it was practically on top of you. You’re pretty impressed with yourself that you managed to make it, in all honesty.

You aren’t unfamiliar with this particular state of exhaustion, but thankfully aren’t as completely out of it as you feared you might be when you finally allowed yourself to sleep last night—or rather, this morning. Which you feel might be a good thing, because if you were any more tired than you are right now then you probably wouldn’t have noticed the change in the air as you amble deeper into campus.

Chatter isn’t uncommon in the people you pass on your way to class most mornings, but currently the air is buzzing. A sense of excitement, anxiety and trepidation mixes together within you, a cocktail with a taste eerily similar to fear, as you push forward. The people are excited, animated… you don’t like it. What is there to be so hyped up about at 8AM on a Friday morning? You decide to ignore the buzz and continue to plod on as intended.

You don’t get too far before your ears are catching excited gossip and hushed whispers exchanged between friends, despite your best efforts.

“…who though? Do you think its someone we know? I really…”

Your ears burn with the effort it takes to strain them, but you’re still walking and now too far to catch anything more from them. The next few people you pass do an excellent job of filling in the blanks one by one, offering their own jigsaw pieces to complete the mystery in your mind. Each new thing you hear stirs a certain sense of paranoia in your mind, the voice that always whispers, is this about you? Usually dismissing it is easy, but the more you hear, the more a tendril of dread begins to twirl within you and entwine around your bones.

“… do they know it’s been leaked? I feel so bad for them…”

“… apparently it was sent to their whole class? That’s so embarrassing…”

Oh god, is it you? Something was leaked? Was it nudes? Wait—you don’t have any nudes to leak. Well, not digital ones anyway. You do your best to ignore the paranoid voice in your head that tells you the poor person everyone is so fussed about is you, hastening your pace and heading towards the building that houses your Music Composition class with renewed vigour.

The people you pass in the halls seem to be abuzz with the same news that everyone else was, and it’s at this point that the dread curling within you is joined by a powerful, burning curiosity. You want to know, god do you want to know what everyone is whispering about. What the hell happened that has everyone like this? How had you not heard anything by now?

More snippets of conversations brush your ears as you near your room, something useful finally brought to light as you hear someone mention an infamous facebook page made by students of the university. Perhaps that is where you will find the answer to the questions flitting across your mind. The morsel of excitement within you is squashed suddenly as you catch something else.

“… what an idiot, to accidentally email everyone. I mean, it’s something I’d probably do, but still…”

You almost trip as your legs freeze and your spine goes rigid, one very important detail surfacing from the depths of your memory. That sounds like something you would do too, and the realisation that just last night you were emailing something particularly sensitive has a horrified sensation sliding down your spine. Suddenly very, very worried, you bolt over the remaining distance between you and the classroom doors.

Your increased speed from before has landed you there much earlier than usual, and the few students that are normally there at this hour shoot you mild looks of alarm before returning to whatever they were talking about before you burst through the doors in your dishevelled, panting state. The teacher isn’t here yet and to your momentary delight there is much more space available, leaving you a wider spread of choices for your seat that what you usually have. You decide to plop your ass in a seat against the wall in the middle-back of the room, quickly pulling out the necessary items for the class and then whipping your phone out, nearly yanking your earphones out by accident in the process.

Hastily, with speed and agility you didn’t even know your fingers possess, you pull up the email app you have hooked up to your private and university emails and slam your fingertip onto the ‘sent’ tab. It takes a second to load, the duration of which you spend resisting the urge to vault yourself over the desk and flee, but when it does you feel your heart drop through your stomach in horror.

The first thing you notice is the abundance of typos and poor grammar that litter the very brief but very incriminating body of the email, and you internally die a bit as you take them all in. The second thing that catches your eye, to your absolute horror, is the actual email address you sent it from. You feel your cheeks catch fire, flooding with heat that spreads all the way to the tips of your ears, and you have never regretted not deleting that stupid, stupid email address you made when you were twelve, more than you did in this moment. You’d not even come anywhere near partly to terms with those first two observations, when you unwittingly make your third, and arguably the worst, observation.

‘bcc: Jodi, Yuki, Jacob… and 423 others’

On god, you’d fucking emailed your heartfelt poem-turned-assessment piece to the entirety of your creative writing course.

You sit in horror for a moment, brain producing some sort of static in the absence of intelligent thought. You feel kind of faint, would it be very alarming to your classmates if you suddenly passed out? Probably—you slap a hand to your cheek, the person in front of you jumping and turning around in alarm at the noise. You don’t even have the presence of mind to assuage their worries because your embarrassment meter is completely fucking maxed out and if you make eye contact with another human being in the next few minutes you know for sure you’re going to combust. God, oh god this is literally your worst nightmare—you’ve had nightmares about shit like this since the night before your first day in high school. Is this karma? You can’t think of anything you’ve done in your meagre years on this earth that would be atrocious enough to warrant a fate like this.

It is in the midst of your current humiliation-fueled crisis that you remember some of the people you passed mentioning a certain facebook page that the university students here held dear— CCU Love Letters, a page where shy individuals could anonymously submit love letters or other such media for the page to post without it being linked back to them. A new shade of horror begins to paint your insides and it’s almost at double speed that you bring up the app on your phone and search for the page in question. It takes a moment to load, but when it does you’re once more stuck fighting the urge to throw yourself over the desk and run away.

There, for all to see, is the poem you’d spilt part of your heart into and submitted as what was supposed to be a confidential assignment piece.

The sight of how many likes, reactions and comments there are already alarms you, but it is as you’re avoiding the comment section that you notice, with an incredible feeling of relief, that nothing like your name or anything similar is present to possibly link it to you. Pausing, you switch apps and go back to the email, scanning it to confirm your suspicions. The great gust of relief that passes your lips has a few heads turning as more people enter the room but you don’t even care, too busy trying not to cry as you console yourself.

Sleep-deprived and incoherent as you were, by some serendipitous miracle you’d forgotten to tack on your name or anything that identified you in the original email, aside from your student number. Even then, the only way someone would be able to link that back to you would be if they find your student card or hack the school systems or something. You’re really about to weep in relief right before your class starts, resting your face in your hands. Have you ever been so close to death that you could almost taste it before? The answer is that you haven’t, but today you almost glimpsed the ruler of the heavens and you’re not keen to repeat the experience.

Attempting to quell the remaining anxiety and humiliation swirling within you, you give yourself a pep talk of sorts. It’s fine, everything is fine. There is no way that anyone would know it was you, and yeah a private poem meant only for your eyes and the eyes of your teacher— perhaps even the person you had in mind while writing it— had been shared to a very public platform where the entire student population could view and read it, but it’s fine. Why? Because they have no way of knowing it’s you who wrote it. A shuddering breath leaves you as you attempt some sort of abridged form of meditation. Fine, it’s fine. You know what? You bet that by the end of your class, no one will even be talking about it anymore. It’s probably old news already, you doubt the mass of student that have better things to worry about than a leaked poem are going to keep being so fussed about it.

Yes, you reassure yourself as the teacher finally enters the room and you begin to prepare the necessary items. By the time your class is over this humiliating incident will be long gone and forgotten in the minds of the student populus, and everything will be fine— just fine.

x x x x x x x

Sweet cheese and bacon rolls, things are not just fine as you leave your classroom two hours later and return to the halls that are now ten times more busy and bustling than earlier. You’d stayed in the room long past the time your class was over, using the excuse of studying on the spot, but now you can no longer avoid leaving as the next class’ students begin to filter in and you dart out.

The buzz is worse, everyone is still talking about it and even though it kind of makes you want to throw yourself into the lake on campus you keep self-soothing with the reminder that no one knows the author of the poem is you. Slapping a half-assed smile onto your face in an effort to convince yourself and think a better mood into existence, you leave the building and head towards the food court. You’re in need of comfort and food mightn’t be the best answer but at least it’s better than letting loose a blood-curdling scream in the middle of the road.

Twenty minutes later finds you sitting at a table in the outside area of the food court with newly bought coffee and a big kebab, dissociating as you attempt to ignore the obnoxious chatter about you know what that floats around you. It’s to no avail, evidently, and you pout as you finally reach for the kebab that’s been sitting there for the past few minutes, untouched but still warm.

“... Are you eating a kebab?”

You don’t even jump at the sudden sound of a voice to your side, remaining in your seat and facing forward as the owner comes around to sit across from you, seat scraping the ground. The familiar sight of your best friend as she gets comfortable in front of you makes the urge to spill your current troubles to her rise within you, but just barely you resist. It’s already a mess enough as it is, you don’t need to add to it.

“And if I am?” you ask, raising a brow in challenge. If she’s surprised you’re getting defensive over food that is clearly a very indulgent choice, then she doesn’t show it.

Sera instead laughs, her eyes closing in her mirth as she sweeps her hair over her shoulder and out of her face. “Seriously? It’s almost ten in the morning, you didn’t want something a bit lighter to munch on? Lunchtime isn’t that far away.”

You grumble incoherently, taking a generous bite of the food in question and glaring at the sweet chilli sauce that threatens to drip down your hand as a result. She simply smiles at you, taking out the container of fruit she likely cut up and packed the night before along with a fork, and digging in. This is a bit of a ritual, since your classes align every second day or so— the two of you usually meet after the first class of the morning for something to munch on and chat over. You both eat in silence for a while before she speaks up again, the chatter of a nearby couple apparently reminding her of something she had to say.

“Oh!” she bursts around a mouthful of kiwi fruit, pointing her fork at you as her eyes widen almost comically. If you weren’t busy attempting to chew and not choke on an alarmingly sized mouthful of meat and lettuce, you might have laughed. “Did you see?!”

Ignoring the feeling of apprehension beginning to seep into your abdomen, you tilt your head in question, prompting her to continue. Thankfully, the overly excited girl takes a moment to finish chewing what is currently in her mouth before she speaks once more.

“Did you see?!” Sera repeats, with just as much zest as before. She quickly amends her statement at the perseverance of your questioning gaze. “Or rather, did you hear? Everyone is talking about it!”

The feeling of apprehension in your tummy grows heavier, weighing it down further, but you can only continue to chew your food with a sense of resignation as the girl reaches into her bag for her phone, pretty, manicured fingernails tapping against the screen with a satisfying sound once it has been retrieved from the depths. Her fingers fly across the screen a few times, metal bangles around her wrist tinkling as their charms collide, before she is setting it down and sliding it over to you. Just as you had expected, what she is showing you is the CCU Love Letter post that displays the entirety of your shamefully romantic poem. You swear, the one time you let yourself be a sap and it gets plastered all over the internet for the entire campus to see.

A part of you is thankful you’d figured it out and seen it earlier in the day, because you know that if the first time you saw it was when Sera showed you then your following reaction would have given you away instantly as the author. Of course, you didn’t know why that would be a bad thing— she was your best friend, this was the kind of shit you should be telling each other. You supposed you just weren’t emotionally prepared enough for the embarrassment that would follow your recount of events. So, it is a confession that can wait until another day when you’re less… vulnerable.

Eyes narrowing at the post displayed before you, you glare at the number that displays reactions and comments. It’s gotten bigger, much bigger, since you last checked, and you don’t like that at all. A sense of betrayal fills you at the thought of the student population doing you dirty like this— are you not bros in suffering? Where is the solidarity? The sisterhood? The brotherhood? The sting of this betrayal is not one that you will forget anytime soon.

You make a discontented noise around the food in your mouth, one that Sera misinterprets as one of incredulity and interest, and wallow in a distinct feeling of regret as she immediately takes it as a signal to let her building excitement flow. This is probably the most interesting thing that has happened for her all semester, you don’t doubt she’s going to hold onto it for a while— you can only hope and pray the same won’t be the case for everyone else.

“Some poor soul in our writing course accidentally emailed their assignment to the entire cohort, and then from there someone must have leaked it and submitted it to the CCU Love Letter page,” Sera whispers, as though she’s spilling trade secrets to you. Her words make it seem like she feels sorry for the idiot that has messed up so badly— little did she know that idiot is you— but the expression displayed on her elfish features is anything but sympathetic. It is excitement and a tinge of something else that gleams in her eyes, but you choose not to dwell on it for the sake of your sanity. You feel like you’re going to implode.

“God,” you begin after finally swallowing the gargantuan mouthful you’d taken before, like the idiot you’re gradually proving yourself to be. “That’s so… I feel so bad for them, whoever they are…”

Sera doesn’t even notice the awkward nature of your weak attempt at contributing to conversation, too busy scrolling through her phone— a quick peek tells you she is reading through the comments on the post. You resist the urge to smack the phone out of her hands. You’re a rational being, you’re above such caveman instincts.

“It sucks for them,” she agrees, once more completely unsympathetic. You can’t say you’re surprised; Sera is the type to develop tunnel vision of sorts whenever it comes to the latest bit of gossip or news across campus. “But god, it’s so juicy… I wonder who shared it— I wonder who wrote it?”

Wisely, you choose this moment to take another, perhaps unwisely-sized, bite of your second breakfast. Sera drums her fingers against the flesh of her cheek as she skims through the comments once more, making a sliver of irritation prick your insides.

“Is this what everyone is talking about?” you query, unable to help your next line of questioning. “Why is everyone so hyped up about it?”

Sera hums, bright eyes flicking from her screen to meet your own. You think she looks perhaps a bit too gleeful considering her best friend is suffering immensely at this current point in time, but then again… it’s not like she knows.

“Don’t you see it?” she asks, tinted lips curling. She pauses only to flick her finger over her screen, scrolling through the ridiculous plethora of comments under the post. “It’s like a modern-day rom-com storyline! Everyone is rooting for the mystery author and their ‘one true love’, and the fairytale ending that is bound to result… I’m pretty sure if people had any idea who the author was there would be OTPs and ships already, to be honest.”

Her words have a shudder of horror rolling down your spine before you can stop it, but thankfully her attention is otherwise occupied with the comments once more.

“Touching…” you attempt to smile but can feel it come as more of a grimace, the panic from earlier beginning to return at even the slightest mention of a hypothetical situation where your identity is revealed. “I suppose that would be kind of romantic…”

Sera hums, nodding, and spears the juice-box you didn’t even realise she had with an alarming amount of vigour. Her grin bunches her cheeks as she faces you again. “I’m dying to find out who the author is and who they wrote the poem about, though!”

With a slightly sickening feeling in your stomach, you take another hasty bite of your food. “Mmhm, me too.”

Is it too late to flee the country?

x x x

By the time your ‘brunch’ with Sera ends and you’re making your way to your next class, you’re fighting the imminent return of the anxiety and panic from earlier. You feel a little high-strung, admittedly, and you’re sure that anyone who passes you in the halls must get the message to give you a wide berth. Resiliently, you continue to console yourself with the fact that no matter your paranoia and fear, no one knows it was you who wrote it. You cling to this a bit like a lifeline, and while a part of you acknowledges that isn’t a very healthy way of dealing with the situation the other parts are living la vida fucking loca and dancing on the precipice of a cliff, the edge of which reveals the possibility of a minor mental breakdown. You’re far too tired to be dealing with this shit but karma got its kiss for you, you guess. What the hell did you even do to deserve this again?

It’s as you near the room where you attend your History of Music class that your attention is wrought from your depressing inner monologue and drawn to a slight commotion in the small seating area to the side. Unsurprisingly, the first person you see is the tall noodle of a man that usually haunts the halls of the musical arts building— surprisingly, the second thing you see is that he’s currently surrounded by a gaggle of girls and guys alike, who flock around him in a manner not all that dissimilar to the way reporters yap at people walking up the steps to a courthouse. You squint, wondering if you were seeing things— since when was Kim Namjoon this popular? Did he commit some blasphemous act forbidden to university students? You once heard he attempted to cut a fruit with the blunt side of a knife, but you didn’t think that counted as a crime against the university— that was more of a crime against common sense sort of thing.

As you walk past, pace quickening because that is one mess you most certainly want no part in from the looks of it, you catch a few of the words thrown into the air. Brows furrowing in confusion, you hasten your steps even more in accordance with the sudden shred of alarm tickling your ribs. The questions the students, who in all honesty look like a bunch of first-years, are throwing at him are all about the moon, and to the odd stranger nearby probably sound like nonsense. To you though… let’s just say that after the events of today so far you have a healthy dose of fear already coursing through yours system and aren’t about to risk your face being caught anywhere near that line of questioning no matter how ridiculously paranoid it made you seem.

“Hey, not to be rude but, uh, I kind of have somewhere to go…” you catch Namjoon’s low register as you zoom past, unable to resist the urge to spare him a brief glance out of curiosity. There are men and women grabbing at his clothes like lost children and he has a look of complete and utter alarm, mixed with a bit of befuddlement, as he attempts to pry their grip off. “Please… my reputation is at stake— HEY, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE TOUCHING—”

Unfortunately for you, your haste to leave the scene means that you’re entering your classroom, the door clicking shut behind you and muffling the sounds of the ensuing struggle, before you can catch what happens next. Angry at yourself for moving too fast for once, you move to your usual seat in a similar manner to a sulking toddler and settle in for the lesson. The teacher arrives soon after and you wish you could say your attention was stolen from the scene you’d just witnessed but alas, today was not the day your poor, weathered professor finally received your complete and undivided attention.

For once, the lesson that usually drags on passes quickly, although you think this probably has something to do with the fact that you weren’t paying attention like, at all. Which for you wasn’t unusual, but you were particularly distracted today— understandably so— and you were in all honesty surprised that your teacher hadn’t called you back to earth at any point in the lesson.

Pointedly ignoring the chatter and topic that is becoming so hauntingly familiar to you as the day wears on, you attempt to reassure yourself again as you depart the room once the class has ended. Everything is fine, this is just a temporary fad, a brief trend. It will die down soon like all trends do, surely.

You aren’t sure if you could have really convinced yourself of that completely, but the further into the day you get the wearier you become. As the day continues, you also begin to notice an increasing number of weird incidences. You haven’t touched your phone since this morning and, quite frankly, refuse to until you get home— at which point you will clear your alarms and attempt to sleep through your problems and the entire weekend. Just barely do you resist the urge to pull out your phone when, on the way to your next class, you see a large gathering of people in the lush, green courtyard area outside the older part of the campus. Slightly concerned, you eye the group when you catch sight of them in between columns, the fact that you’re a little pressed for time being the only thing stopping you from halting in the middle of the path and squinting to see better.

You nearly stumble in your steps though, when you finally discern what is going on. What you thought might have been a pop-up food stall or a club gathering was actually a tall male— who you quickly recognised as one of the campus heartthrobs, Kim Seokjin— who appeared to be holding court over the small mass of people that had gathered before him. You couldn’t shut your mouth it dropped so far open in incredulity at what you were seeing as the male yelled something indiscernible and stepped up onto— onto a stool?— and began gesturing emphatically, as though he was a fresh hire presenting his first pitch in front of company executives.

Coming back to your senses somewhat, you try to shut your mouth and turn on your heel, returning to your original path, as quickly as possible. You’re pretty sure his brand of idiot is contagious and you aren’t willing to hang around and find out if it’s airborne. A part of you desperately wants to know what the theatre major is being so dramatic over, but the remainder reminds you that he’s a theatre major and therefore prone to being dramatic about anything and everything he can get his hands on. You pointedly ignore the tiny minority in your mind that whispers suspiciously that god, what if he was talking about the poem?

Nope, he isn’t. Not a chance. You’re safe because the poem is in writing and you’re eighty-five percent certain Seokjin doesn’t know how to read.

Your next class passes in a little bit more of an anxious haze than the last, and you should be relieved because it’s technically your last class of the day but, unfortunately, your current source of income takes the form of tutoring sessions that occur three days of the week and are held in the closest library to the edge of campus that you leave from. Considering that, despite your two hour block of tutoring that you have yet to get through, you have finished classes for the day, your mood is considerably lifted. As well as that, you’ve either grown very good at blocking the voices out or people have finally stopped gossiping about your stupid poem. Regrettably and unbeknownst to you, the part of you that deep down knows the latter is most definitely not the case would soon be proven right.

The soft scent of vanilla and caramel isn’t one you’d traditionally associate with a library, but thanks to the soft-spoken library worker that resides in the one you frequent it’s a scent that greets you often. The young student enjoys having a nice-smelling work environment and you’re not one to complain; while you like the smell of books and paperback you hate the musty undertones that accompany it in libraries. The second you step foot into the library, somewhat early for your first session, your gaze first zeroes in on the table you usually take, free for you to plop your ass in once more, and second onto the tall form of the boy behind the front desk. You decide to throw him a quick greeting on your way over, for once momentarily distracted from the prominent problem that has followed you through the day.

“Hey, Koo!” you throw a smile over your shoulder as you pass the desk, missing the way the boy startles and drops the thick textbooks in his hold all over the desk. You hear the noise though, and when you turn back the boy, Jungkook, is flushed bright blossom pink and hurrying to bend and gather the scattered tomes. Embarrassed that you scared him so badly he dropped absolutely everything in his grasp, you hurry to take your seat and duck out of view. God, can you please just catch a break today? You’re not asking for much, just a little reprieve from the all-encompassing humiliation that’s been dragging after you like a second shadow all day.

Settling into your seat and avoiding looking back to the front desk like the plague, you bring out the books and materials you’ll need— your first client is a bright-eyed, bright-smiling boy whose name the whole campus pretty much knows thanks to a somewhat hilarious incident that ensued in his first year and had you instantly very easily convinced to stay away from moonshine when looking to get drunk off your face. His sunshine-y disposition meant that what would have been crippling for the social wellbeing of anyone else, had actually turned him into one of the most well-known and popular students that attended the university. It is incredible and you are in awe of it, but have yet to crack the code of exactly how he did it. In all honesty at this point you’re willing to accept that it was just part of his nature that had people loving him unconditionally.

The peace and quiet of the library is more than welcome at this point, and you are able to enjoy it without qualm for a good few minutes before your still-racing mind begins to get antsy. You’re not one that deals well with boredom or being patient for extended periods of time, and you got here early enough before the session that its too much time to pass quickly and not enough to spend doing anything meaningful, like studying. You consider your options for a moment, pondering your last resort. It isn’t the most appealing idea right now, but the thought of sitting in boredom for another however-long-it-took-Hoseok-to arrive is even more unappealing. It is for this reason that you finally cave and reach into your bag, pulling out the phone that has remained untouched since early morning. The screen lights up and regrettably unlocks before you can read the notifs, thanks to the over-eager facial recognition feature your phone has. Deciding to just bite the bullet, you open facebook and click the post to survey the damage so far.

Instantly, you are filled with regret. You don’t know how but the stupid thing has become even more popular since the last time you saw it, and to your absolute horror not only has the reactions and comments increased but also the number of shares. Wincing and regretting your choice of schooling, you allow your finger to press somewhat shakily onto the ‘view more’ option in the comments. Your screen adjusts to fit more into view and you don’t get very far before you’re freezing in your seat, heart stuttering anxiously. There, in the body of the most popular comment, is a link— your stomach sinks as you press it, swallowing heavily. What are you about to see, did someone post a response to your poem? Are people making fun of you? Of your shitty, sappy writing? You wait with bated breath as the page finally loads.

You nearly throw your phone.

Just as you feared, the link leads to a post made in a forum on one of the most popular sites that students at this university used to keep up to date on things that were usually dumb or none of their business, aptly named ‘CCU Campus Stalker Space’. It is the first post in a subforum labelled, “Mystery Moon Author & Their Mystery Muse”, and a feeling of nausea begins to rise within you before you even read the first word.

‘posted by u/triceratops [12:36PM]:

unless you’ve been living under a rock all day, you’re bound to have seen or heard about the latest drama to take the campus by storm. it has been learnt from various sources that in the early hours of this morning a poem was sent to the entire cohort of a creative writing course, presumably by accident, and then leaked to the CCU Love Letters page where it has since taken off and gone viral among the students. the questions on everyone’s minds right now are no doubt the same— who is the author, and who is the subject of this lovely poem? well, that’s what we aim to find out, and that’s what i have dedicated some time to figuring out this fine friday. this thread will be dedicated to getting to the bottom of this mystery, and finding the answers we all want, as well as bringing about the happy ending we’re all rooting for! now, please find below my analysis on the poem and the situation, and the connections i have been able to make thus far ^^’

Distantly, you feel your breath quickening slightly as your chest begins to pinch, wide eyes locked on the screen as you continue to read as though in a trance. Your fingers grip the pen in your hold so hard that it threatens to snap and still, you can’t stop reading— even as abject horror begins to seep into your abdomen and slide over your insides like slick ichor and oil.

‘after analysing the poem extensively, there is one clear theme that surfaces frequently throughout; that of the sky, the stars, but most importantly— the moon. evidence and instances of this will be attached in the post below this, but before that i will say that, taking into consideration the various personalities and reputations attending this university, i have been able to narrow potential subjects/muses of the poem down to seven people. each of them is tied to the moon in some form or another, leading me to include them in this shortlist— i will include my reasoning in the post below this along with the other information. without further ado, here are the seven people i believe to be strong candidates for possible subjects of the poem by our mystery author;’

You want nothing more than to stop reading, to throw your phone and flee the scene, yet you cannot stop— each word your eyes rake over hammers home a feeling of dread and horror that swirls with the distinct sensation of regret within you. One after the other, the names listed below the paragraph you just finished punch out the remaining shards of your sanity and ground them to bits.

‘Kim Seokjin’

Your teeth sink into your lip, gripping at the flesh anxiously.

‘Min Yoongi’

You feel kind of faint, hints of the panic from earlier in the day brushing your senses.

‘Jung Hoseok, Kim Namjoon’

The slightest sting of pain registers in the back of your mind from the pressure with which your fingers are gripping the table increases, knuckles turning white.

‘Kim Taehyung’

Each name your eyes pass over brings you closer to the section that has an undercurrent of fear thrumming in your veins.

‘Park Jimin, Jeon Jungkook’

Your brain almost refuses to let you read the next part, still reeling over the information it just recieved, but as though you’re in a haze your eyes continue to roll down the screen anyway, thumb scrolling absently.

‘these are the candidates i believe most likely to be the subject of the poem. before we explore further on that, i will list those i have narrowed down as potential authors. the list of students in the writing course is vast, but i have been able to discern the most likely few— only 115 of the 423 students in the course submitted their assignments by email, and of those only 12 were in the class that had the deadline that aligns with the time the author’s email was sent. here are the possible authors of the poem;

Jodi Figuro Lee Melody Sarna Sinter Lee Sera…’

Impatient and desperate to prove yourself and your worst suspicions wrong, your eyes skip ahead, scanning frantically. To your absolute horror, you find exactly what you were looking for, exactly what you feared.

‘and finally; y/n l/n.’

For a moment your mind is silent, buzzing almost like a fluorescent light in a classroom, and then the information fully registers and you kind of want to hurl. The last of your sense and sanity is thrown out the window, food for dogs, and you shoot from your seat, cramming your belongings back in your bag. Oh god oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no—

This can’t be happening— it is happening, oh good lord you’re a good person why is this happening to you? You shouldn’t have sent that stupid email in the state you were in, hell you probably shouldn’t have even written that poem in the first place. Now it’s a mess, a big, massive mess and oh god you can’t even console yourself because now you’re a suspect! Now people think you might be the one who wrote the poem! And you are! But people cannot know that! You nearly trip over the chair in your haste to flee. You want to go home, oh lord do you want to dive beneath your covers and perish in the suffocating comfort of their embrace. Is that too much to ask? You really don’t feel like you’re asking too much—

“Hey, y-y/n are you okay—”

You jump so badly at the sound of a voice behind you that you nearly throw your bag into their poor, undeserving face. The abrupt spin you perform on your heels has you facing who you quickly realise is Jungkook, who you rationally know works here and has likely come over out of concern, but all your brain can think at the sight of him is SUSPECT and suddenly your fight or flight instinct is decisively engaged.

“No! Y-yes!” your brain isn’t fast enough to catch up to your mouth, brain cells on their absolute last fucking legs. “It’s not you!”

Poor Jungkook stares at you with a look of complete and utter befuddlement, whipping out the puppy eyes that usually have you caving when he asks for help sorting textbooks at the desk but right now you’re a shell of a woman, a ghost of who you were this morning before all of this, and you can barely summon coherent thought let alone carry a conversation.

“I— what?” the boy is stuttering but you’re three seconds away from a mental breakdown wherein you scream and dig a hole to shove your head in the dirt like a disillusioned ostrich and you can’t handle this right now.

Your brain is running on a loop and the sad truth is that your speech isn’t much better. “Not!” you almost yell, voice at an absolutely inappropriate volume and pitch for a library. “Not you! It’s not you!”

You then have the sense of mind to flee while you can, and without further ado spin and bolt out of the library. If you can just get home in one piece you can gorge yourself on ice-cream, the expensive shit, and pretend none of this ever happened. Head in the sand, that’s where you want to be.

Unfortunately for you, it seems the universe has other plans. You don’t even make it out of the library before you run into the next person to push you closer to a mental breakdown.

“Woah, y/n, where are you going?” the alarm riddling Hoseok’s tone might have touched your heart on any other day, but right now you were too focused on your escape to appreciate the sentimental value of the moment. “We have a session right now? Hey, are you okay?”

You go to tell him that no, you are not, in fact, ‘okay’, but all that escapes you for a moment is a choked sound from the depths of your larynx. You don’t think Hoseok has ever looked as concerned for another person’s wellbeing as he does now, dark eyes wide and slightly frightened. Is it you? You feel like your head is about to explode, does it show?

“Nghgh…. Hoseok,” your voice is a little too high and it only serves to alarm the poor redhead even more. “For personal reasons… I will be cancelling away— passing today— away— I will have cancel. I’m s.. I need to go.”

Making the most of his current shocked-senseless state, you turn and begin to dash down the hall once more. Are you acting suspicious? God you hope not—

“y/n, wait—”

“IT’S NOT YOU!” you squawk in a mismatched response, scurrying down the hall as fast as your wobbly legs will take you. Each step you take is a step closer to home, each step you take is a step closer to home—

Careening around the corner of the library hall, only metres away from the glass double doors that mark the entrance, the last thing you expect is to almost run into two of the other people who are on that god forsaken list.

Kim Taehyung, with his artistically messy mop of light honey hair, is leaning against the wall that houses the vending machines. He appears to be mid-discussion with the shorter red-haired male before him that you know to be his friend, Park Jimin, who in all honesty you don’t think even goes here? You’re so close to the exit that you’re almost frothing at the mouth in relief yet you can’t help the way your eavesdropping little ears pick up on their conversation.

“Have you ever heard of this dude, Kim Nam— what was it? Kim Nam-Moom? Nam-Moon?” It is Jimin that is currently talking, gestures wild and emphasised as he shifts his weight and cocks the hip that has his hand on it. “Anyway whatever his name is that bitch has gotta go, there can only be one winning protagonist in this romcom and it’s gonna be me.”

Taehyung, who thankfully hasn’t seemed to catch sight of your wired form yet, slaps a hand to his chest as his mouth drops open. The part of you that isn’t running around and bouncing against the walls of your skull like a headless chicken thinks that he’d probably do pretty well in your Tuesday morning drama class, he has that sort of air.

“I’m on the list too?” he says, and points a finger at his friend, brows raising. You think the effect he is looking for with his expression is somewhere between heartbroken and accusatory and, oddly enough, he achieves it for the most part. His voice drips with challenge. “Are you gonna kill me, Jimothy, after all I’ve done for you?”

Admittedly, a particularly-wired part of you wants to burst into borderline hysterical laughter at hearing the male call Jimin, who is actually the second student you tutor every other day after Hoseok, something like ‘Jimothy’, but your instincts are still stuck on fight or flight and your poor brain gets stuck choosing between them. The end result is like when you can’t choose whether to say ‘have a good day’ and ‘goodbye’ and end up saying ‘have a goodbye’ instead.

Your first bet is to dart past and hope they don’t see you, but when you embark on that journey it takes all of a second for their gazes to move to you and for you to be, regrettably, caught out. Panicking, you halt to point at both of them and present your winning argument.

“It’s not either of you!” It comes out a garbled mess and you want to shrivel up and die already, but somewhat productively choose to instead channel that energy into your prompt escape from the scene.

Before either of them can even open their mouths and ask what you mean or, better yet, if you’re alright, you’re already bolting to the glass doors and darting through the first narrow gap big enough to fit you through it as they automatically open.

Realistically, you know that everyone is looking at you because you give off the energy that you’re about to have a mental breakdown and not because they know, or even suspect you’re the author. Even so, it feels as though everyone’s eyes are on you at once and you suddenly feel extremely paranoid, making the executive decision to shortcut through a building in an effort to escape the weight of their gaze.

Lady Luck has truly scorned you and thrown you to the dogs, you know this because the second you step foot into the building, the glass door not even having time to slide shut behind you, you’re being pulled to the side and hands are gripping your shoulders.

“y/n! Please tell me I need to know.” To your utter shock and horror it’s Namjoon that has you in a panicked death-grip and you want to fall back and let the wind carry you away to a place where none of this is happening to you. You’ve hardly come to terms with the fact you’ve managed to so far run into five of the seven candidates mentioned in that stupid post when he continues, shaking you a little. His eyes are wide and filled to the brim with concern, but for what you will never know.

“Do I look like a Nam-boob to you?”

A scream bubbles in your throat before you have the presence of mind and self-control to stop it, and you yank yourself from his hold with a shriek. You don’t even have the capacity to process how dumb what he just said is, nor the energy for the incredulity that would follow. All you can manage, mind stuck on the fact that he was listed as a possible candidate and you cannot have him thinking he is the subject of the poem, is a sharp, warbled, “IT’S NOT YOU, EITHER!”

With that, you leave him standing in place, wide-eyed and slightly scared as you tear off down the hall like a madwoman. In your haste to flee and the result of your poor decision-making earlier, you don’t even realise you’ve entered a building you’re completely unfamiliar with until it’s too late. Relief floods you as you find an exit, finally, and you bolt from the building as quick as your legs can take you.

You emerge onto the grassy area that you’d passed by earlier, bag slipping from your shoulder almost as you register the throng of people dispersing from the centre of the area— you choose to ignore it for the sake of your current mental state. Perhaps unwisely, you take this as a moment to catch your breath and adjust your bag, but evidently it is a moment too long because barely a split-second later there is another all-too-familiar voice greeting your ears and making you jump five feet into the air.

“y/n?” The voice is coloured with surprise and you turn, a knowing horror lurking in the pit of your abdomen, to see the one and only Kim Seokjin standing before you. His eyebrows shoot up at the sight of your face and the confirmation it is, indeed you. He is apparently blind to your frazzled appearance, you note this because he immediately continues like nothing is amiss in your current high-strung presentation.

“Aw, y/n, you literally just missed the greatest TEDtalk of my career, perhaps even all time,” his plush lips are tugging into a shit-eating grin and you can feel your last brain cells, the final frontier, depleting just looking at him. “You see, I just brought around thirty-something people to see the light on why I am the true subject of the moon poem. Don’t worry though, the next session will start soon, you didn’t miss out. I’m actually booked out until about eight PM so you’re kind of lucky—”

A muted sound, awfully akin to a sob, escapes you, but the pink-haired male doesn’t even notice, too busy enjoying the sound of himself talking. He turns to you, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. Compassion drips from his features, brows furrowed as he places a hand on his heart.

“I understand you must have heard the news late and rushed straight here to hear my piece… fear not young padawan for I am nothing if not a humanitarian always willing to help those in need.”

“You’re so stupid,” you finally manage to dislodge the incredulity holding your tongue in place and your words come out in a sob. You slap your hand to your face as your eyes genuinely sting with tears. “You’re so— so stupid oh my god, I’m going to kill you—”

It’s like the fucker is deaf to anything that isn’t praise and compliments because he’s not even remotely phased by your words. The simper that curls his lips kind of makes you want to throw your fist in his face but instead you turn on your heel, choosing to be the bigger woman.

The sensible thing to do would be head in the direction you need to go to get home, but you’re currently too focused on the need to escape and instead end up darting across the field into another building. If the universe won’t let you go home then you guess you’ll just lock yourself up in a janitor’s closet or something for some reprieve. You hear Seokjin yelling after you as you make a hasty retreat, despite your best efforts to block him out.

“Should I book you in for a later session? y/n? HEY COME BACK YOU KNOW I NEED PRAISE AND VALIDATION DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE WITHOUT GIVING IT TO ME—”

The firm thud of the next building’s doors closing behind you might just be the best sound you’ve heard all evening. Eager to put even more distance between you and Seokjin, you start to move once more. Idly, you recognise the building as the one next to the engineering centre— the architecture building? You know this part of campus is actually close to the dorms you used to stay in, but the realisation isn’t as comforting as you wish it was.

Feeling like an absolute shell of a woman at your complete and utter witt’s end, you scrape your feet down the halls with all the energy of a tired victorian-era ghost. Closet, or a classroom? Which is a better place to have a mental breakdown? If you don’t cry soon you’re worried the suppressed tears are going to leak out your pores, and you really don’t want to look or feel like you’re sweating a monsoon’s worth of tears. Realising that classrooms come with the risk of students entering whenever they please, you settle on the next closet you see embedded into the wall. It’s a room deep into the bowels of the building, not too far from the bathrooms you accidentally stumbled upon last time you were here. The sight of it brings a morsel of hope amongst the trauma the day has brought you and you think any minute now you’re really going to cry from the stress. The thin plaque near the top of the door informs you that this particular closet houses cleaning supplies and you’re not really in a position to be picky so you take what you can get.

Eager for the next best thing besides the sweet release of death— complete and utter solitude, for anyone wondering— you waste no time in gripping the handle and yanking the door open. Usually you’d rather tear your own toes off and feed them to the monstrous fish in the lake than trespass into a cleaning closet but you’re truly a hair’s breadth away from total mental collapse and at this point in time you could care less. You should have known that the universe wasn’t going to let you choose a damn closet in peace.

As you swing the door open with enough force that the hinges squeak, there are several things that come immediately and alarmingly to your attention. First, is the light hanging from the ceiling which is already on and humming softly. Second, is the tall old-school mop leant against one of the walls in the small space, a pair of mismatched googly eyes slapped onto the twisted bundles of thread that hang limply, despondently, on the side of the mop not pressed against the wall. Third, the closet reeks of must and sweat and a sneeze is already building in your nostrils when you realise the fourth and fifth, arguably the most alarming, details about the closet.

You’re not alone in the space and the male standing kind of slumped against the wall, momentarily frozen and staring at you with wide eyes, is someone very familiar to you. Min Yoongi, your old RA from when you were staying in the dorms last year, stands like a deer caught in headlights before you— your gaze trailing the length of his pale arm leads you to the fifth and final discovery that, arguably, is probably the one that finally pushes you over the edge. Your brain flatlines and heat floods your face so unbearably you feel like your head is about to tip off your shoulders.

It would seem as though you’ve walked in on Min Yoongi having a bit of good, old-fashioned one-on-one time with Min Jr.

The two of you stand in silence for a few seconds as the situation sinks in, your eyes unable to remove themselves from where they are fixed on his Min Sceptre until you forcibly tear them away. It’s only as your cheeks burn and your gaze flicks shamefully between his face and where his hand stays frozen mid-stroke that Yoongi seems to realise you’re not an apparition and indeed he’s been caught with his literal hand down his literal pants— well, they’re open and halfway down his legs but you get the idea.

For some reason, the male doesn’t think to tuck away his junk before he begins speaking in defence of himself and his actions. It hangs loud and proud still engaged and engorged, ready for battle, as he sputters in an attempt to form a response.

“It’s not- not what it looks like— actually,” the shamed expression that had contorted his features quickly twisted into one of indignance; shamefully you note that he’s still full-mast and not looking like he’s about to lower any time soon. “It’s exactly what it looks like. What, you want me to say sorry? Can’t a man jerk his gherkin in peace? I don’t have to explain myself to you!”

Your mouth drops open, brain still decisively flatlining and out of commission for probably the next few days, and the male continues on, his free hand flying into the air to gesture emphatically while the other remains in a trusty grip around the long balloon that still— still— doesn’t look like it’s going to deflate anytime soon. “I just need five minutes— five minutes! — without a freshman asking me for some god damn fucking TOILET paper, alright?”

You really can’t help but wonder, how is it that he’s still got such impressive blood flow to his lower region despite the situation and his rapid, indignant defence. He drops into silence for a moment, dark eyes looking at you expectantly. You’re still speechless.

“Well?” he prompts, his free hand resting on his hip in a posture similar to that of a middle-aged mother with a can-I-speak-to-your-manager haircut scolding her misbehaving child. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I…” you feel kind of faint, too much blood rushing to you head, and struggle to formulate a fitting response— and really, what the hell can you say in response to this? He’s still standing there with his dick out! His DONG-saeng! His home-grown churro! Is he not embarrassed, at all? How is he still fully pumped and rearing to go?! “Y… p-pee- peen—”

“Go on, do you have anything to say about rudely walking in on me at such a crucial moment? Mop-ssi here was about to get to the good stuff, do you have any idea—”

For the first time since you’d entered the closet, Yoongi releases his grip on his ramrod serpent and your gaze is caught, once more, as it bounces heavily in the air. All the remaining blood in your body rushes to your head and you have a moment of realisation that you’re about to literally pass out, right before you do. At least, you think as your vision fades to black and the last thing you see is Min Jr winking at you salaciously, at least you were finally getting some reprieve from the nightmare this friday turned into. When you wake everything will be fine, this will be just a dream. It’s fine, it’s all over now.

Unfortunately for you it is, in fact, not over.

— • masterlist | intro | next • —

[please like & rb and pls pls pls let us know what you think!! <3 thank u for reading!]

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gstqaobc · 5 years ago

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💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG:THE CRACKED POT🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜💜

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THE CRACKED POT🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜💜

EACH DAY, I TAKE MY OWN PERSONAL TIME WITH GOD 🙏🏻🙏🏻THROUGH DEVOTIONALS. I HAVE SEVERAL LOVELY DEVOTIONAL BOOKS, AND MORE RECENTLY ONLINE AS WELL. TODAY, MY MIND TOOK ME TO A DEVOTIONAL FROM MANY, MANY YEARS AGO. I CANNOT RECALL FROM WHERE, OR WHO IT IS CREDITED TO. I THINK IT WAS SO LONG AGO THAT THINGS WERE NOT AS COPYRIGHTED AND CREDITED AS THEY ARE NOW. IF IT IS FAMILIAR TO YOU, AND YOU KNOW IT’S ORIGIN, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT FOR ME.😊 OK LET ME BEGIN, IN MY OWN WORDS SO FORGIVE TYPOS ETC OK.

SOUNDS OF SCREECHING BIRDS AND VARIOUS OTHER ANIMALS CAUSED HER TO STIR, SLOWLY OPENING HER EYES. THOUGH IT WAS STILL DARK, SHE COULD FEEL THE INTENSE HEAT OF THE PREVIOUS DAY STILL HUNG IN THE ARID, DRY AND HEAVILY. EVERYONE ELSE WAS ASLEEP IN THEIR HUT. DIRT FLOOR, THATCHED ROOF AND WALLS, NO DOORS 🚪, ONLY A FLIMSY PIECE OF FABRIC AT THE ENTRANCE/EXIT. LITTLE PROTECTION WAS OFFERED, BE IT NATURE OR THE VARIETY OF DANGEROUS WILDLIFE IN ALL ITS FORMS.

QUICKLY SHE AROSE, NO OPTION OR TIME FOR BREAKFAST, SHE HAD A LIFE AND DEATH RISK DAY AHEAD OF HER TO COMPLETE A LITERAL LIFE AND DEATH TASK. THIS WAS HER CROSS TO BEAR, SO TO SPEAK. DUE TO THE ONGOING DROUGHT AND LACK OF LOCAL POTABLE WATER SOURCES, EACH DAY SHE WALKED THE EIGHT MILES ONE WAY, JOURNEY TO THE NEAREST SAFE WATER SOURCE, A TAP THAT HAD BEEN PUT IN, BUT SHE KNEW NOT BY WHOM. ALL SHE KNEW WAS THAT THIS WAS HER JOB.

HER FATHER HAD FASHIONED A LONG THICK WOODEN BRANCH , INTO A CARRYING DEVICE, IT WENT OVER HER SHOULDERS STUCK OUT FAR ON EITHER SIDE OF HER. THERE WAS A NOTCH ON EACH SIDE WHERE A ROPE WAS AND HUNG FROM EACH WAS A LARGE CLAY POT. SHE KNEW NOT HOW OLD THEY WERE BUT THEY WERE THE ONLY POTS SHE REMEMBERED HER FAMILY HAVING AND THEY LOOKED CERTAINLY FAR FROM NEW. MOST IMPORTANTLY THEY WERE INTACT TO CARRY THEIR PRECIOUS CARGO, FRESH POTABLE WATER!!!

SO SHE HOISTED IT OVER HER SHOULDERS AFTER PUTTING A BIT OF FOOD WRAPPED IN CLOTH INTO HER POCKET, FOR ALONG THE WAY. EIGHT MILES ONE WAY, IN VERY OLD THIN SANDALS. EVERY NOW AND THEN SHE MET A PASSERBY SOME WERE KIND AND TOLD HER HOW BIG THE CROWD FOR WATER WAS, SOME IGNORED HER AND SOME WERE RUDE, INTIMIDATING OR WORSE. HAVING MADE THE EIGHT MILES, SHE QUEUED UP, AND NIBBLED ON THE SMALL BIT SHE HAD BROUGHT WITH HER. AFTER A FEW HOURS IT WAS HER TURN AT THE WATER TAP. CAREFULLY SHE FILLED BOTH JUGS AS FULL AS SHE THOUGHT SHE WOULD BE ABLE TO CARRY THEM, SLOWLY HOISTING THEM OVER HER SHOULDERS.

SHE BALANCED HERSELF AND BEGAN THE MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TASK OF WALKING THE EIGHT MILES HOME AGAIN.

WHEN SHE REACHED HOME, THERE WAS NO, HOW WAS IT TODAY OR EVEN HELLOS. IT WAS, WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG ETC, YOU CAN IMAGINE. SHE WAS SO EXHAUSTED, HAD CHORES TO DO, HAD A BITE TO EAT AND FELL INTO ANOTHER NIGHT OF FITFUL RESTLESS SLEEP.

SHE AWOKE, CLOSED HER EYES AGAIN AND PLEADED TO THE HEAVENS THAT HER LIFE WOULD BE MORE THAN THIS. SHE LONGED TO BE MORE THAN JUST A HUMAN CAMEL! NO ONE ASKING HOW SHE WAS, A LIFE OF FEAR, EMPTINESS, SURELY THERE WAS SOME MEANING OR BEAUTY IN LIFE, THERE MUST BE.

THE NEXT DAY BEGAN AS EVERY OTHER DAY. AS SHE STARTED HER LONG ARDUOUS JOURNEY, NOTHING WAS UNUSUAL. ABOUT HALFWAY THERE, SHE NOTICED A LARGE FLOCK OF BIG BLACK SCAVENGERS BIRDS CIRCLING AROUND IN THE AIR. THIS MEANT ONLY ONE THING, DEATH! AS SHE DREW CLOSER, IN THE DISTANCE SHE HEARD LIONS ROAR, AND SAW THE MASSIVE CARCASS OF PERHAPS A BUFFALO 🐃?WHATEVER IT HAD BEEN, IT WAS NOW LEFT TO THE SCAVENGERS OF THE AIR AND GROUND, TO DO MOTHER NATURE’S JOB OF CLEANING. ASHES TO ASHES ETC YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

SHE SUDDENLY WAS FILLED WITH FEAR AT THE NEARNESS OF DEATH. IN THIS DISTRACTED MOMENT, SHE LOST HER FOOTING AND NEARLY FELL. THE BEAM OVER HER SHOULDERS TILTED AND ONE OF THE WATER JUGS LANDED HARD AGAINST THE PATH. SHE WAS TERRIFIED TO LOOK. SHE WAS SURE IT WAS SHATTERED😫. HER FATHER WOULD BE FURIOUS WITH HER AND THERE CERTAINLY WAS NO MONEY TO BUY EVEN AN OLD JUG!

SHE LOOKED, MIRACULOUSLY, IT LOOKED INTACT. A HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF CAME OVER HER! SHE WAS SO GREATFULL! SHE PUT THE BEAM BACK OVER HER SHOULDERS AND CONTINUED ON HER JOURNEY.

SHE REACHED THE TAP SITE. SHE JOINED THE QUEUE AS USUAL, AND NIBBLED ON HER BITE OF FOOD. SOON IT WAS HER TURN. SHE FILLED THE FIRST JUG AS FULL AS SHE DARED. THEN THE SECOND JUG, SHE FILLED IT AS FULL AS SHE COULD. SHE PUT THEM BACK UP ON THE BEAM , HOISTED THEM OVER SHOULDERS AND BEGAN HER LONG JOURNEY HOME. SHE WAS SO GREATFULL, SHE THOUGHT HER FATHER WOULD BE MAD IF SHE TOLD HIM ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED, SO, SINCE ALL WAS OK, SHE THOUGHT SHE WOULD NOT SAY ANYTHING.

AFTER AWHILE, SHE BEGAN TO NOTICE SHE FELT OFF BALANCE. IT WAS ONLY THEN, TO HER HORROR, SHE REALIZED WHY. THOUGH THE POT LOOKED UNBROKEN AND UNDAMAGED, A SMALL FISSURE/CRACK WAS PRESENT AT ABOUT THE MIDWAY LEVEL OF ONE JUG, AS SHE TURNED AROUND LOOKING BACK SHE SAW A SMALL WATER TRAIL ON THE ONE SIDE OF WHERE SHE HAD TRAVERSED MOMENTS EARLIER.

SHE ABSOLUTELY PANICKED. AT THIS RATE, THE ONE JUG WOULD BE NEARLY EMPTY BY THE TIME SHE MADE IT HOME AND CARRYING WITHOUT A COUNTERWEIGHT TO BALANCE WOULD BE EXCRUCIATING. SHE CRIED OUT TO GOD, THE GOD THAT SHE HAD HEARD OTHERS TALKING ABOUT. SHE HAD NO CHOICE, BUT CONTINUE HOME. JUST AS SHE THOUGHT THE ONE POT WAS ONLY 1/4 FULL, ONCE SHE ARRIVED AT HOME. ALSO AS SHE EXPECTED HER FATHER WAS FURIOUS. HE BLAMED HER ABSENT MINDEDNESS, ALWAYS DREAMING HE SAID, DREAMING AND WISHING FOR BEAUTY IN LIFE , WHEN THEIR LOT IN LIFE CONTAINED NONE NOW NOR WOULD IT EVER.

HER JOB CONTINUED, WATER DUTY, HER SHARE OF THE WATER THOUGH WAS SEVERELY LIMITED. THUSLY, WHEN SHE WAS AT THE TAP SHE DRANK AS MUCH AS SHE COULD.

EACH DAY WAS THE SAME, NO MORE DAY DREAMS, NO MORE ATTEMPTING CONVERSATION WITH OTHERS, NO MORE WATCHING NATURE, NOTHING. HHER FATHER WAS RIGHT, THIS WAS HER LOT IN LIFE, ONE AND ONLY ONE THING TO DO, LOOK STRAIGHT AHEAD, GET WATER, COME HOME, SLEEP, DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN. DAYS TURNED INTO WEEKS.

THEN SHE REALIZED THAT SHE REGULARLY HAD PEOPLE GREETING HER, BEING SO KIND TO HER AND ASKING HOW SHE WAS. SOME EVEN GAVE HER FLOWERS! WHERE ON EARTH WERE PEOPLE GETTING FLOWERS?? SHE WAS BEYOND MYSTIFIED, BUT SHE JUST KEPT AT HER DUTY.

ONE DAY, A LADY SHE ONLY KNEW AS ‘THE MISSIONARY LADY’, WHO TAUGHT OTHERS ABOUT HER GOD, MET HER ALONG THE PATH. THE LADY ASKED IF SHE HAD TIME TO TALK BUT SHE SAID NO. THE LADY SAID, HOW ABOUT I WALK WITH YOU? SO SHE SAID, WELL, YOU CAN IF YOU WANT TO.

THE LADY BEGAN TALKING ABOUT HOW IT WAS SO LOVELY THAT THINGS HAD CHANGED, HOW EVERYONE WAS SO HAPPY ABOUT IT AND THAT THEY WERE ALL TALKING ABOUT THE WONDERFUL THING SHE HAD DONE FOR EVERYONE TO CHEER THEM UP.

SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS, SHE HAD NO UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THE LADY WAS TALKING ABOUT.

THE LADY SAID, OPEN UP YOUR EYES, DO NOT JUST LOOK STRAIGHT , LOOK ALL AROUND AND SEE THE MIRACLE GOD HAS BROUGHT ABOUT THROUGH YOU. SHE TURNED HER GAZE, ALL ALONG ONE SIDE OF THE PATH, SUCH AS IT WAS, WERE VARIOUS WILDFLOWERS BLOOMING, BEAUTIFUL COLOURS AND GREENS, THE ONLY BEAUTY IN THE DRY HOT ARID LANDSCAPE. THE LADY SAID, YOU THINK THE WEE CRACK IN YOUR POT WAS A DISASTER? LOOK AT THE MIRACLE YOU HAVE BEEN A PART OF!! FLOWERS, COLOUR, JOY, HAPPY PEOPLE ENJOYING THE BEAUTY OF NATURE.

THE LADY SAID TO HER, THIS CLAY POT STILL CARRIES SOME WATER BUT IT SERVES A GREATER FUNCTION NOW. IT HAS CAUSED HAPPINESS TO BLOOM , SOME JOY IN VERY DIFFICULT TIMES. TEARS BEGAN TO STREAM DOWN HER FACE AS SHE TOOK IN WHAT THE LADY WAS SAYING TO HER AND HOW RIGHT SHE WAS. MANY OFFERS OF NEW JUGS CAME IN BUT ONLY AS LONG AS SHE KEPT WATERING THE FLOWERS THAT NOW GROW ON BOTH SIDES OF THE PATHWAY.💐💐🌷🌷🌸🌸🌼🌼🌺🌺🌹🌹

SO MY FRIENDS, LIFE IS ABOUT BEING MINDFUL, FINDING JOY AND BEAUTY EVEN IN WHAT, ON THE SURFACE ARE SEEMINGLY DARK, FEARFUL, HOPELESS TIMES IN OUR LIVES.

THIS WAS AND IS ESPECIALLY POIGNANT FOR ME BECAUSE MY IDENTITY WAS WRAPPED UP IN MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER. WHEN MY SPINE ISSUE DEVELOPED AND MY WHIRLY BUSY HIGH STRESSED FAST PACED LIFE, IT STOPPED ME IN MY TRACKS, LITERALLY!!! IT WAS A CRACK IN MY POT, IF YOU WILL. MANY MANY BLESSINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN MY LIFE THAT NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF I KEPT WORKING THE EXTENDED HOURS AND EXTREMELY HIGH STRESS JOB I HAD. DONT GET ME WRONG, I WOULD LOVE TO BE WORKING OR TAKEN AN EARLY RETIREMENT VERSUS THE DRASTIC ALTERATIONS IN MY ABILITIES. I WOULD LOVE TO STILL TRAVEL, DRIVE, GO OUT WITH THE GIRLS BUT I AM BEYOND BLESSED IS INNUMERABLE WAYS😊😊😊!

I AM NO LONGER ABLE TO BE FILLED WITH WATER BUT I CAN STILL SPREAD WATER VIA LOVE, CARING , PRAYER, FRIENDSHIP, LAUGHTER, AND ON AND ON!

SO DEAR ONES, NO MATTER WHAT OUR CRACKS ARE, HOW MANY OR HOW FEEL WE ALL ARE SPECIAL, WORTHY OF BEAUTY AND MEANING IN LIFE, DESERVING TO LlVE, LOVE LAUGH.

THANK YOU FOR TAKING YOUR PRECIOUS TIME TO READ MY WORDS. I FELT SO COMPELLED TO SHARE THIS. GOD BLESS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES, FUR BABIES AND FRIENDS.

💜💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻PG🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜💜💜

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fantasyoverreality98 · 5 years ago

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Fight the Darkness Pt. 7

Masterlist

Pairing: Gaius Augustine x MC

Summary: Amy begins to give in to her darker desires.

Author’s Note: Gore. Also, possibly disturbing content? MC has some disconcerting thoughts, let’s just leave it at that. I got extremely excited to publish this chapter so apologies for any possible typos or grammatical mistakes.

Word Count: 3,490

-----

Blood. There was so much blood. It coated the walls, her body, her hair. A warm metallic taste filled her mouth as she released her grip on the body and let it fall to the floor.

Amy studied the room, wondering how she had ended up here. The last thing she remembered was the plane landing in Greece.

“Hello?” Her voice seemed to rattle the walls, each word laced with unimaginable power.

No answer.

When she looked down, she saw that her hands were bright red. Bodies lay strewn around the room, the mess so much worse than that in the Irish town.

After a moment, Amy finally realized where she was. Fear of herself grew when she noticed the snacks laid out for the humans. There were couches for people to sit on, some music still played through speakers, and the lack of windows made it obvious. She was at a club for vampires.

Amy started to breathe heavily, panic striking her heart as she began to search through the bodies.

“No, no, please. No.” She let out a sigh of relief when she did not see Gaius among the fallen.

But that relief was only temporary. There were much bigger problems for her to deal with.

What had she done?

The taste of blood suddenly made her nauseous. She scanned the room for a bathroom sign, rushing to it when she found it. Amy burst through the door, collapsing at a toilet as a rush of blood flowed out of her mouth into the bowl. Heaving, she continued until her stomach felt empty.

Tears burned her eyes and she sobbed, shaking as she rose to her feet. It took everything within her not to scream when she saw her reflection in the mirror above the sinks. She stared at herself, trying to convince herself this was all a dream. Her eyes were red, her normally brown hair black from the amount of blood sticking to it, clumping the strands.

They were all dead. And it was all because of her.

A scream unlike any sound she’d ever made before ripped its way out of her throat, and Amy smashed the mirror. The glass shredded her hands, but she didn’t care. She grabbed shards off the wall and threw them on the floor, destroying every piece that was big enough for her to see herself until there was little left but dust.

The wounds on her hands healed soon after, and she screamed again. She should have to deal with the pain. It was the only thing that made her feel even somewhat normal anymore.

Something poked her in the side when she slid to the floor, and Amy reached into her pocket, frowning when she pulled out a key card. It was for a hotel. The name seemed vaguely familiar, the room number giving her a tiny glimmer of hope.

Gaius had to be there. Any other possibility was too horrific to consider.

She knew that she couldn’t go out looking like this. Any sane person would immediately call the police. So, she made her way to the men’s bathroom, making sure to only look at her reflection long enough to clean up as best she could.

The water in the sink ran red, the amount of blood that clung to her alarming. Amy scrubbed at her face, her hands, her neck, trying to get the reminder of her crimes off. Vampire and human alike, all dead because of her growing power.

After nearly ten minutes, it seemed she would not get any cleaner. Amy shut the tap off and stared at her face in the mirror. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, forcing herself to turn away before she did the same thing she had done in the women’s bathroom.

Upbeat music filled the club when Amy walked back into the main room, her eyes falling on the trails of blood creeping their way across the dancefloor. To count how many bodies there were would be too much. Sometimes it was better not knowing.

Birds were chirping when she stepped out onto the street and lifted a hand to shade her eyes. There were few people on this stretch of sidewalk. Someone met Amy’s eyes and turned around, hurrying back around the corner they had just come from.

With a sigh, she tried to find her bearings. Nothing looked familiar. At this point, it would take all day to get back to the hotel. It seemed unlikely anyone would help her when she looked like this.

The birds stopped chirping. Amy turned around, realizing that the street was empty now. She frowned and started walking in the direction where the person had backtracked away from her.

Uneasiness washed over her as she searched the streets to no avail. They were empty. It seemed like everyone had disappeared.

Even more energy hung in the air, the power of it calling out to her. Before she stopped to consider it, she started drawing more life in. People started to scream, and Amy gasped, her steps faltering.

This is all your doing, the voice laughed. It sounded just like her now.

Amy walked further along the street until she reached the sea. There was a railing separating the street from the beach, and she leaned over it. She felt a pull, an unseen force out in the water calling to her.

Mydiea.

It was summoning her.

“Almost there,” she whispered to herself, scanning the shore for any signs of life. Nothing.

Silence filled the island. It was though everyone had disappeared.

A seagull screeched overhead, the sound startling her after spending so long alone. The bird seemed to break her concentration, and life once more roared around her. When Amy turned back to the city, people seemed to have appeared out of thin air. Brow furrowed, she stepped away from the railing.

Several passersby turned to look at her as she continued her journey to the hotel. They watched with awe, marveling at the being that walked by.

A goddess among men. Infinite power made flesh.

It would be too easy to end their lives. All she had to do was make a choice.

Already, she could sense herself changing. The moments in the club that she could not remember had made her stronger. A new person had emerged from the wreckage. A better person.

People continued to watch her pass, dozens of heads turning as if drawn by an incomprehensible magnetic force. Vehicles stopped for her when she crossed the road in front of the hotel. The employees simply smiled at her as she walked through the front doors, their behavior reminding her of how Rheya had managed to influence those around her in New York all those years ago.

“Morning,” Amy said with a grin, brushing aside the instinct to feed. That could wait until later. Right now, she had to find Gaius. Surely he would be waiting for her in the hotel room.

A chorus of mornings sang back to her, and she glided past them to the elevator. This hotel was much nicer than the one in Ireland. She could imagine herself staying her on a honeymoon.

In another life, she liked to think that’s how it would have been.

“There you are.” Gaius crossed the room in a few strides when she opened the door with the key card, wrapping her in his arms. “Where have you been?”

“Out.” Amy almost felt like her old self. Perhaps even better than her old self. “The last time I was in Greece, I didn’t have the opportunity to explore much.” She tilted her head back to look up at him and smile.

Something drew his attention, and Gaius frowned, pulling back an inch as he reached an arm out. “Is this blood?” He ran a finger across her temple, rubbing at the spot she could not see.

“It’s nothing. So, how are we getting to Mydiea?”

“We’ll have to find a boat to use during nightfall.” Lines appeared between his eyebrows as he studied her face, the frown a sight she hated to see. She reached up and tried to push his lips up into a smile. Gaius’ frown only deepened. “What’s gotten into you? One minute, it’s like you’re on the verge of losing your mind, and then the next, you—”

“Shh.” She smiled, releasing him. Amy brushed past him to the bathroom, ignoring the questions thrown her way. For the first time since last night, she felt at peace. The voice had finally quieted, and everything felt right.

Gaius followed her into the bathroom, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. “Why was there blood on you? The minute we got our hotel room, you left! I tried to find you all night, but I had to return here when the sun started to rise.”

Too many questions. Some peace and quiet was all that she asked for. After six months of horrible flashbacks and a constant war waging within, she deserved some rest. It had been so long since she felt this numb that a part of her enjoyed it.

“I’m fine. I’m okay now.” Amy stripped off her clothes, relieved to be free of the filthy material.

“You may be fine, but what about the humans you fed on?”

She could hear the accusation in his tone, and whirled to face him. “Either you join me in the shower, or you can get out. I’m done with this conversation, Gaius.”

“Fine.” He stood up straight and left the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Amy stood in shocked silence for a moment, listening to the sound of water hitting the shower floor. Whatever. She didn’t need him.

How could anyone possibly understand how it felt to possess such power? To know it was dangerous, and yet slowly grow to crave it?

The possibilities with this power were endless. Given enough energy, she could make the world a better place. A safer place. One where people wouldn’t still discriminate against vampires and make them fear for their lives like she had in that town.

Even better than that, she could actually bring Jax back. It wouldn’t be like her dream. No, she would do the world good. The sacrifice of some mortals would be worth it to bring one of her closest friends back.

Amy stepped under the spray of water, smiling as she rinsed off the last remnants of dried blood. If absolutely necessary, she could help Gaius understand. They had a mental connection, after all. She’d seen the real him on that plane to Japan. He would be able to see the real her too. It just might take a little persuading.

Another door slammed, and Amy turned her head in the direction of the sound. She paused, ignoring the fall of water and instead focusing her attention on the room beyond. It sounded empty.

Gaius couldn’t leave the hotel with the sun out. He would be somewhere within the building. She would deal with him later.

Once the water ran clear down the drain, Amy turned the tap off, stepping out of the shower to grab a towel to wrap around her body. As she passed the mirror, she came to a halt, backtracking to glance at her reflection.

The scar from Jax’s katana was gone. Her skin was now flawless, each tiny scar that had once remained from when she’d been human vanished. Her eyes, returned to their usual brown, looked brighter than before. As if something more swirled behind them, buried deep inside her.

There was nothing else for her to change into, so Amy grabbed the outfit she’d been wearing when she first found Gaius and slipped it on. The smell of blood lingered on the fabric, but it was better than the other option.

After she’d dressed, Amy stepped out into the hallway, feeling the life surrounding her but seeing no one. It seemed strange to her that most people remained hidden within their rooms.

A cool breeze blew in through the open window to her left, and she turned to looked outside. Crystalline blue water shone in the sunlight, the calm waves lapping against the shore. The people on the street below went about their day, and she watched as a small family ran toward the sea. She missed the days when life had been so simple. Back before she’d met and started working for Adrian, the most she could hope for in life was to someday have a family of her own.

That would never happen now.

Sadness swelled in her chest, and Amy stood to watch the family for a while. Any chance at a normal life had ended the day she walked into Raines Corporation. Some days, she still regretted that decision. It may have granted her access to a world she’d never known existed, and given her immortality, but it had also destroyed her. Whatever she gained from that job, there was equal loss.

Anger toward both Adrian and herself bloomed, replacing the sadness. She should have left when she had the chance. Now, the world’s very existence was at stake. Maybe it was what was meant to happen all along. Rheya had represented life, the birth of the vampires. Amy was the Bloodkeeper. She could bring life and death, chaos and balance. The world was at her mercy.

Laughter from one of the nearby rooms drew her attention, and turned her head in the direction of the noise. Footsteps pounded down the hallway, accompanied by the sound of rolling wheels, and she straightened, hoping to see the one person she still felt anything for. Instead, an employee rounded the corner, smiling when their eyes met.

“Good morning, miss.” He gave a quick bow with his head before walking to one of the rooms, a cart full of food in front of him. “Can I help you with anything?” the man asked before knocking on the wooden door.

Amy shook her head, the smell of his fresh blood overwhelming her. “No. No, I’m good. Thank you.” She hurried away, sensing his eyes on her back until she reached the end of the hall and rounded a corner, coming to the elevator.

There was a group waiting when the doors opened on the main floor. They all watched her, stepping aside as she emerged from the elevator, as if in a trance. Several pairs of eyes followed her journey across the lobby. Part of her enjoyed the attention. Everyone seemed to notice her for the first time in her less than impressive existence. They saw her. They admired her. She felt none of the fear that her friends had radiated in New York before she left.

Speaking of her friends, she wondered if they really were trying to find her. The curiosity was too much to ignore, and Amy pulled her phone out of her pocket, waiting a moment as it turned on. Her battery was almost dead.

There was an accident in an Irish airport that ended with fourteen dead. Did you have anything to do with that?

Adrian’s message was no surprise to her. Sooner or later, words of the things she had done would reach international news. She really had to learn to be more careful.

Amy, what you’re doing is unnatural. Tell us where you are. We can help you.

The message from Kamilah only made her want to leave sooner. If they found her, she knew that it wasn’t going to end with a simple conversation. She was becoming the enemy, and the enemy always paid the price.

That would not happen to her. She refused.

Without taking the time to consider the consequences, Amy crushed her phone in her hand, reveling in the sound of it crumbling under her strength. Distractions were too big a risk now. For far too long, she had listened to Adrian. He had constantly convinced her to fight the power, to lock away a part of herself that she should feel no shame over.

They did not understand. They would never understand.

Feeling as though a weight had been lifted off her chest, Amy crossed the lobby and disposed of the destroyed cellphone. No one would find her now. She didn’t want to be found. A part of her even considered abandoning Gaius, leaving him here while she finished the plan alone. He would only get in the way.

“What was that that you just threw away?”

A smirk tugged at her lips as she slowly turned to face the very person she was just thinking about. “My phone.”

“Don’t take this as an insult, but you’re starting to concern me.” His clothes were still something she wasn’t used to. It made him like so…normal.

Amy laughed, and the sound momentarily sent shivers down her own spine. “Are you scared?” The sky outside seemed to grow darker, and the lobby revolving door started to spin faster.

Gaius met her stare, and she recognized little affection left in his eyes. “Yes.”

She took a step closer, tilting her head to the side as she studied his face. It was a face that had once haunted her nightmares, and then her dreams. Somehow, she had gone from hating this man to caring about him more than anyone else. Just thinking about it made her want to laugh hysterically.

“Good.”

Gaius shivered when she whispered the word, closing his eyes as their breath mingled. Their lips were inches away, and she pulled away with a smile, admiring his beauty. It was a face she wouldn’t mind seeing forever.

“We leave for Mydiea at dusk. Get some rest while you can.”

And with that, she walked away, straight into the sunlight.

Amy wanted to take advantage of the day while she still could. She didn’t need to stay inside, and so she would walk around the city until sunset.

Hunger gnawed at her; the kind that could only be satisfied by more feeding. More energy. More power.

She needed more.

Amy walked along the sidewalk, admiring Rheya’s plan in New York to gather the masses at the opera house. It had been genius. So much life, so much blood…all in one convenient gathering. She would have to find another way to feed.

The fear she had felt for so long was gone. Amy felt at peace, as though the only solution was to accept the darkness growing within her. She could utterly understand how Rheya had felt now.

Without anyone around to try and stop her, she could reach her full potential. She could bring Jax back, set out to make the world a better place once he was safe. No one would ever have to worry about tyranny ever again. All their problems would be over. If she could just get more power.

Wonder for what other powers of Rheya’s she possessed filled her, and she turned down an alley where no one else could see. Amy looked down at her hands, picturing flames bursting from her palms. Warmth spread throughout her body, and she laughed with disbelief when fire sprang from her fingers. She surveyed the alley, and spotted a garbage bin several feet away. It exploded with fire when she imagined the metal container engulfed in flames.

“Unbelievable,” she said, extinguishing the fire with a wave of her hand. Her face hurt from grinning so much.

Just a little more, and she would be unstoppable. She could become a Goddess. She could do what Rheya could not. Amy took joy in that thought. She was not like The First, she was better.

“Hey! What are you doing? Get away from there!”

Amy turned toward the voice, panicked for a moment until she remembered she had the upper hand. No one was a match for her. She had killed dozens of humans and vampires without even having to try.

The man’s anger turned into fear when he came face to face with her.

“Hello.” She bared her fangs, certain no one would hear his screams over the roar of traffic ten feet away.

---

Amy wiped a drop of blood off her lips and licked it off her finger, strolling out of the alley with a smile.

“Welcome back,” the receptionist said at the hotel, giving her a dreamy smile as she breezed past once more, a bag of new clothes in her hands.

“Good afternoon.” Her voice echoed in the lobby, the musical tone of it making those around her smile.

The elevator ride was short, and when Amy reached her room, she paused outside to listen. It was quiet again.

Surely he would still be here. There was nowhere else for him to go.

When she pushed the door open, Gaius was on the other side, waiting for her.

#choices: stories you play #choices fanfiction #gaius augustine #gaius x mc #gaius augustine x mc #bloodbound #bloodbound 3

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mymindsmadness · 5 years ago

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Mermaid Draco Part 2

Just to be clear, I had never planned on writing the first part of this. I’m not even sure how I got here XD. It started with an idea, and now I’ve gone and played myself. I suppose I can’t stop now. For every part I write, more and more ideas come to me. I’m not sure if this will be a fully fleshed out story. More of little scenes here and there that would make up part of a story, if that makes sense?

I blame @imadumbbinch @pretty-in-pink007 and @captainchanglingkhat for talking me into it ;D

Once again, I am not a writer. I do this for fun and because I have no life. I’m American, so I’m sorry for any terminology that doesn’t quite mesh well! Also, I’m sorry for typos. It’s just me sitting at a computer, probably with insomnia.

Read PART ONE

Harry couldn’t help the way his lips pursed as he watched the bright pink tail breeah the water and smack back down. He knew it was Malfoy’s way of messing with him. Because Harry had been the one to reach out and try to help (again). Why wouldn’t Malfoy want to get under his skin?

“Tell me why he has to stay here again?” He looked to Hermione who mirrored his expression, though he was sure hers had more to do with the paperwork she’d be buried under.

“We’ve never seen a curse like this, Harry. The unspeakable are beside themselves. Ron spoke with Bill and got the names of a few curse breakers, but they’ve never heard of anything like this. Rolf Scamander is on holiday with Luna, so we haven’t heard back from him yet.”

“Are you sure it was a good idea to call him? We don’t want Malfoy on the front page of the Quibbler.”

“You know Luna would never.” She smacked his chest lightly. “Besides, you never use this room anyway.”

That was true. It had been Walburga Black’s old room. Although there was no screaming portrait in here, the room felt dark. It still smelled of stale perfume and tobacco despite the charms that reshaped it into a small pond. It was only about the size of a swimming pool, but it was deep enough for Draco to stretch his – uh… fins? It was all so bizarre to Harry.

“That’s odd…” Hermione mumbled as she watched Malfoy pop out of the water. “His tail… it’s gone white.”

Harry looked over to where Malfoy was leaning on the edge of the ‘pond’, his head resting on his arms as the faux sunlight warmed the room and caused it to grow humid. The scales that lined his sharp cheekbones seemed to shimmer under long blonde lashes. Harry couldn’t help but notice how serene Malfoy looked. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen the other man quite this way. No scowl. No sneer. Just a soft expression. Even his thin lips seemed delicate and plumper under the lack of tension. He cleared his throat and remembered that he was supposed to be looking at Malfoy’s tail. For some reason, that seemed far more intimate. Hermione was right (as she so often was). His tail had turned an iridescent white. It reminded him of Aunt Petunia’s mother of pearl broach.

“What have I told you about my eyes, Potter?” The tone wasn’t as cross as Harry would have expected. When his eyes flickered to Malfoy’s face, he paused. Instead of a sneer, he was met with a small smirk and an assessing gaze. The short twelve hours at Harry’s house had done wonders for him. His skin was no longer translucent, but a creamy white dotted with scales here and there. His cloudy eyes had sharpened and darkened into the familiar mercury color Harry had come to know over the years. And his tail… well, that was still a tail, wasn’t it? Apparently, the folks at the aquarium had put him in the wrong sort of water. Maloy had tried to tell them, but they didn’t understand a word he spoke.

“Your tail’s gone white.” He said dumbly, not enjoying the way his stomach rolled as Malfoy scoffed.

“I must say, Potter, your skills of deduction speak volumes about our ministry’s auror training programme.” His face had gone flat again; a mask of neutrality. “It changes sometimes.” He shrugged one scaled shoulder.

“What causes that?” Hermione whipped out a pad to write on, nearly scaring Harry out of his skin. He had forgotten she was still there.

Harry watched in amazement as the scales along Draco’s cheekbones started to shift from a pearly white to a light pink, darkening as the color stretched to his shoulders. “I don’t know, Granger. Isn’t this your department?”

“Cursed mermaid gits? Wasn’t on the NEWTS.” Hermione mumbled under her breath, causing Harry to smile fondly down at her. “Given the timing…” She hummed as Malfoy’s eyes darted away. “You know your father’s still locked in Azkaban.”

“Hermione...“ Harry tried to interject. There was no reason to bring up their pasts now.

“Last I heard, he’s gone a bit mad. They say your mother has taken a lover though. Some muggle barista from what I hear.” Harry’s brows knit as she ignored him and pressed on. Was this even Hermione? Since when did she speak like this? It was almost callous.

“My mother would never!” Harry turned back to Malfoy just in time to see the scarlet red of his scales reaching his tail. “And if you think-“

“Ah.” Hermione smiled and jotted down a few notes. “It is provoked by emotion then.”

“That was a dangerous game.” Harry sighed, tucking his hands into his pockets. He figured he wouldn’t have intervene since the color of Malfoy’s tail was slowly receding. Though, the pouty frown kept its place.

“That’s all I need for now.” Hermione pocked her book and leaned up to press a quick kiss to Harry’s cheek. “We’ll see you at dinner tonight?”

“Yeah.” He would rather sleep off this nightmare of a day, but Hermione enjoyed cooking for him and Ron. It was a shame she wasn’t very good at it. Neither man had the heart to tell her as much, however. Typically, they would take turned shoveling their food into the carnivorous succulent Neville had gifted them. Hermione always commented on how much it’s grown, but could never figure out why. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

When she left, there was a heavy tension in the room that had nothing to do with the newfound humidity. It was only then that Harry realized Hermione had never answered his question about why Draco Malfoy had to stay in his house. Unbuttoning the neck of his auror robes, Harry sank into one of the folding chairs he had brought inside. He pretended to not know that Malfoy watched his every move, once again lounging on the edge of the pond. When Harry forced himself to look in the other man’s direction, only the smallest hints of red remained on his cheekbones. The rest had gone a light pink. His eyes traveled from the iridescent scales to the equally bright eyes. It had been years, years, since Harry had felt that familiar churn in his stomach. At Hogwarts, he couldn’t quite place it. He knew it happened whenever he looked at Malfoy, and figured it was due to apprehension. He was always up to something, after all. After he broke things off with Ginny, he was able to assess it further. It was only after Malfoy disappeared and Harry grew into his own that he realized it was blatant attraction. Even now, as a sodding mermaid, Draco Malfoy was ethereal. And he was still watching Harry.

That was it though, wasn’t it? They were always watching each other, then and now. Harry never told Hermione or Ron, but when Malfoy went missing, Harry pleaded with Robards to be put on the case. If Malfoy had pissed off to France or whatever, that was fine, but Harry wanted to be sure. There were a lot of people – there were still a lot of people – that wanted the Malfoy’s dead. Harry just wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case. Robards had refused, telling Harry it would be a conflict of interests. When Harry had asked again, Robards threatened to send him back to academy. Slowly, Harry had let the case and Malfoy slip from his mind. But now that he was back, that piece of Harry, the piece that had always been owned by Draco, had awoken again.

“Maybe I should sell you admission like that bloody muggle. If you’re going to stare, I might as well get something out of it.” His words were cross, but his tone was lazy. He had even gone back to resting his chin on his folded arms.

“You’re living in my house, so I think that ought to make us even.” Harry shrugged.

“Technically, it’s my family’s house. But if you’re so desperate to not owe me anything, I suppose I’ll take pity on you and call it even.” Even as a mermaid forced to live in a charmed pond, Draco Malfoy managed to sound superior.

Harry closed his eyes, rubbing them and pushing up his glasses with one movement. “I’m going to leave for dinner soon. Shall I leave you a bucket of kippers, or would that make you feel the need to preform tricks before eating?”

No harsh curses or snarls came after his words. He had just settled his glasses on the bridge of his nose when Malfoy spoke again. “… Harry?” His breath caught and his chest was far too tight as he met steely eyes again. Had Malfoy ever used his first name without insult? But hearing it from Malfoy’s lips wasn’t as good as Harry had hoped. It was small and timid. Maybe under all that bravado, he really was scared. Maybe - “My mother isn’t really dating a muggle, is she?” Harry felt himself deflate with a light laugh and a shake of his head.

“No, Malfoy. She’s not dating a muggle.” It seemed like he deflated too, a small smile on his lips. “Last I heard, it was a house elf.”

#harry potter #draco malfoy #mermaid draco #drarry #my fic #sort of #if you can call it that #what have I done

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spidergwenstefani · 6 years ago

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@claraxbarton I heard you were having a long day so I wrote you some unrepentant fluff. Idk anything about professional costuming, but I do know some stuff about school theatre. So here’s college AU winterhawk where Bucky is also having a long day. Sorry in advance for all the typos that are definitely in here.

Bucky swears, pulling the seam ripper through the next stitch just a shade too viciously, catching his thumb with the stabby bit as thread gives way.

“Fuck,” he shouts, because the costume shop is empty save for him and this dupioni nightmare. Even the other student employees went home sometime after the witching hour, each classmate shooting Bucky a look of tragic sympathy as they individually decided witnessing Coulson’s stress hurricane wouldn’t be worth the sheer amount of caffeine they would have to chug to get through the day tomorrow. “Motherfucking shit. God damned son of a fuck. Fucking Christ on a-”

“Um,” somebody says from the doorway.

The headrush Bucky gets from looking up tells him that tomorrow will be another Gender in Shakespeare lecture skipped. There’s a guy hovering in the doorway, a small pink purse wedged under his arm and a look of… fear? Maybe? Probably fear on his face.

“What do you want?” Bucky snaps, because he doesn’t have time to spare on conversation. He still has the shoulder seams to undo, still needs to open up the sleeves, and the basement of the theatre building is drafty on the best days. Bucky’s a little worried his fingers will freeze stiff if he pauses for longer than a minute.

“Oh,” the guy in the doorway says. “Well, I came to get Bobbi’s purse for her. She said she left it here during fittings.” He gestures to the sparkly clutch under his elbow, and Bucky realizes he’s on the way out, not in.

“Okay?” If this is another one of Bobbi’s boys (pretty, fratty, and not a singular brain cell,) Bucky’s in danger of getting ensnared in a friendly conversation. He keeps his voice cold, putting on what Natasha calls his Fuck Off Face. The guy does a sort of shuffle in the doorway, physically swaying with the weight of whatever mental battle he’s having about staying or leaving.

“It’s just,” he says, stepping a little further into the fluorescent lights of the costume shop, and fuck Bobbi sure can pick them. “You seem a little. In distress?”

“In distress?” Bucky repeats, and the ice in his voice impresses even him. “In distress? Well, I have to seam rip the rest of these sleeves and salvage what I can for reworking the waist of the jacket, which was a bitch to make in the first place. I also have to take off the appliques that I put my blood, sweat, and tears into stitching on not even a week earlier. Even if I get that done before sunrise, I still have a fucking obscene amount of buttonholes to hand make, and I’ll probably have to modify the appliques for the new jacket. All because the actors are over-dramatic children who throw fits and drop out halfway through a show, and our costume shop assistant is an idiot who ruined half our dupioni right off the bat by steam pressing it. So yes, I’m a little bit fucking in distress.” The frat boy winces a little at the venom in the final word, and Bucky actually feels a twinge of regret, especially when he speaks again.

“I just meant, you look like you could use some help.”

Bucky narrows his eyes, straightening up and ignoring the way his spine pops in protest. The guy is greek life down to his toes, probably never handled anything more delicate than a football. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, a battered leather jacket thrown on to keep out the January chill.

“Can you sew?”

“I can’t make you a new jacket, but if most of your work is just cutting threads I can offer an extra set of hands.”

He makes a fair point, and if the seam ripping goes fast enough, Bucky can probably make a dent in the buttonholes before morning. He probably can’t fuck things up worse than anyone else has already.

“Okay,” Bucky says, and frat boy breaks into a crooked smile that has Bucky’s stomach feeling kind of fluttery. Maybe he should do more acting next year, see if Bobbi knows any other pretty frat boys.

The jacket is still technically in one piece, so frat boy takes the stool right next to Bucky, his thigh pressing against Bucky’s and reminding him just how much body heat he’s lost to the chill that creeps into the costume shop. Bucky hands him a seam ripper, holding up his nearly-separated sleeve.

“You just cut the threads with this. You have to work to find the stitches at first, but once the seam is cut a little more, it’s easy work.” Frat boy nods, examining his weapon. He looks incredibly serious about the weight of the whole thing, and suddenly Bucky finds himself biting back a smile. “I’m Bucky, by the way.”

“Clint,” frat boy says, sticking his hand in the small space between them. Bucky shakes it, and the warm, callused skin makes him notice how icy his own hands have turned. Clint catches his hand before he can pull it back. “You’re freezing,” he says, frowning like he’s actually worried.

“It’s a little cold in here,” Bucky agrees, not sure exactly what to do about Bobbi Morse’s boyfriend holding his hand in the wee hours of the morning.

“I guess gloves would get in the way,” Clint says, taking Bucky’s other hand and wrapping them up in his own. Clint is warm, and Bucky can tell that feeling is already creeping back into his fingertips.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Bucky points out, his voice not quite as commanding as he wanted it to be. Clint hums in agreement, like he’d already forgotten what he sat down to help with, and lets go of Bucky’s hands.

They work well together. Somehow Bucky manages to keep a semi-steady conversation through his sleep deprivation, and Clint doesn’t seem to mind when a particularly tricky part makes them lapse into silence. Bucky fights through the distraction of Clint’s thigh still pressed against his own and gets the rest of the shoulder seam cut through. They switch pieces, Clint working on opening up the sleeve while Bucky separates the other shoulder. It’s comfortable silence, and Bucky’s running on too little sleep to get very panicky about the way Clint’s foot will brush his or the quick glances he keeps shooting him.

They’ve been working for close to two hours when Clint sits back, tugging his jacket off by the sleeves. Bucky surveys their work, noting with surprise that almost all the seam ripping is done.

He feels a sudden weight on his shoulders, freezing up as Clint’s breath tickles the back of his neck.

“What are you doing?” Bucky says flatly.

“I’m giving you my jacket. You keep shivering,” Clint says, like that explains it. Bucky frowns, staring resolutely down at his work and nothing else. He hopes his cheeks aren’t as pink as they feel.

“You’ll get cold,” Bucky points out, because it’s true. Clint’s got nothing more than a worn t-shirt on under the jacket, the collar stretched out in a way that’s a little distracting. Clint just shrugs.

“I run hot. And you’re the talent here, right? Hypothermia can get me first. I’m expendable.”

Bucky doesn’t laugh, finally looking over at Clint and immediately regretting it. It’s a struggle to keep a scornful expression when faced with bright blue puppy dog eyes. Not to mention the shoulders.

“I bet Bobbi doesn’t think so. She’d probably like me to return her boyfriend in one piece.”

Clint blinks once, looking surprised. Surprised, but not guilty. Bucky’s frown deepens.

“I’m not her boyfriend,” Clint says. “I mean, we dated for a while last year but I’m not- I came to get her purse because she had a hot date and didn’t have time to come by. Maybe that makes me kind of a loser, I don’t know. I kind of can’t resist pretty damsels in distress.” Clint laughs a little at himself, then. “Also, Bobbi definitely thinks I’m expendable.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, pulling the jacket tighter around his shoulders. He blinks, Clint’s words slowly worming their way through his sluggish brain. “You think I’m pretty?”

Clint lets out a huff of air, like he was holding his breath as Bucky parsed through the conversation.

“I was hoping that’s what you’d get from that.”

“I am a little tired.”

“Take a break,” Clint says, putting his hand over Bucky’s seam ripper like that would do anything to stop him. “I think I’ve proven I can work without supervision. At least for a little while.”

“I’ll supervise you,” Bucky says, although the salaciousness is lost a little as he yawns hugely. Clint winks at him anyways, his lopsided smile coming back full force. Bucky lets him reach across the table, sliding his work away and into Clint’s space. He crosses his arms on the table, using them as a pillow so he can watch Clint work with minimal physical effort.

“You should volunteer here sometime,” he says, a little entranced by the way Clint’s blunt fingers move almost elegantly. Maybe his sport of choice has a little more finesse than football. Clint shoots him a grin.

“You trying to get more free labor out of me?”

“Oh, you have a price now?”

“The distressed damsel discount is single-use only,” Clint says, smiling down at his work. Bucky falls silent for a moment, biting his lip and enjoying the way that exhaustion has bled all his typical nervousness out of his flirting.

“What’ll it cost me?”

“A date,” Clint says, glancing sideways at Bucky, kind of anxiously. Bucky knew the words before he said them, but his heart still flutters a little now that they’ve been said. Bucky hums like he has to consider it.

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“I would settle for food, too,” Clint says hurriedly. “Or, like, if you had a dog and you let me pet it-”

“If we make it a dinner date, will you volunteer twice?”

“Okay,” Clint pauses, turning to Bucky with a small furrow in his brow. Bucky bites back a smile at how worried he looks. “I was really just trying to be cute with the whole free labor thing. You don’t owe me a date. Or food, or anything. I just want to make sure you know that, because I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.” Bucky snorts, burying his face in his arms to hide his laugh. When he glances back at Clint, there’s a dopey expression on his face. “I would like to go on a date with you, though.”

“Does this count as a date, or volunteering? Who’s tab does this go on?”

“Bucky,” Clint groans, and hearing his name out of Clint’s mouth sets Bucky’s heart hammering again. “You’re stressing me out.”

“I would like to go on a date with you too,” Bucky says, and his face is probably about as dopey as Clint’s is.

“Cool,” Clint says, soft and a little surprised. He turns back to his work with a shy smile. “Cool. Awesome. Cool.” Bucky hides a laugh in his arms again.

“Clint?”

“Yeah?” Clint looks up immediately, his cheeks a little pink.

“I’m going to nap for a little bit.”

>>==========>

Bucky wakes up to sunlight shining directly in his eyes, and Steve shaking his shoulder belligerently. He bats at him uselessly, wincing at the crick in his neck.

“Fuck off, Stevie,” Bucky hisses, grumbling when Steve switches to sharp pokes.

“If you keep doing this, you’re going to have a hunchback by the time you’re thirty. How long have you been sleeping?”

“What time is it?” Bucky asks, petulantly not opening his eyes.

“Eight”

“At night?”

“No, Buck. What the fuck?”

“Oh. Like three hours then.”

“Well, at least you finished those buttonholes you were griping about.”

“What?” Bucky shoots bolt upright, almost falling off the stool in the process. The costume shop is marginally cleaner than it was when he fell asleep, and the jacket is flat on the worktable, the fabric from the former sleeves pressed and lying on top of it. There are other garments on the table, too. The vests Bucky had piled on the end of the table are now next to the jacket, his viciously scribbled ‘needs buttonholes!!!’ note added to in sloppy purple marker.

“I can’t sew a jacket,” Steve reads out loud, giving Bucky a very layered look, “but buttons I can do. Tried to wake you up, but you’re kind of mean when you’re half asleep. You can bring the jacket to our date.” Steve crosses his arms, wrinkling his nose a little. “He also put his phone number and a little heart with an arrow through it.” Bucky feels himself blush, biting back a smile. Steve narrows his eyes at him, doing an impeccable impression of Sarah Rogers moments away from a scolding. “Bucky. Did you give someone a blow job for buttonholes?”

“Not yet.” Bucky grins, feeling a little like he’s floating.

#my fics #winterhawk #buckyclint #claraxbarton #rated: g #but like college g #so there's a bunch of swearing

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calleo-bricriu · 6 years ago

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You’re doing it wrong.

(( Cleaned up thread with @retired-death-eater. Minor edits to fix typos or to add clarity. ))

“Is it supposed to hurt?” Calleo’s question came off as more of an incredulous laugh than something said in the aftermath of being surprised with a Cruciatus.

“Yes — yes.. YES IT IS SUPPOSED TO HURT,” Delacroix snarled irritated as he pointed his wand at Calleo. “Are you literally mocking me?” He continued with a hiss.

He was grinding his teeth while he stared down on Calleo. “I did tell you – I would crucio you,” he hissed, making a swipe with his hand in order to strengthened the spell.

“I have been getting increasingly irritated by that bloody thing you sent up to my department. It is ruining the furniture and almost ruined my wand!” Bellowed Delacroix, wide-eyed as he clenched his wand.

“It RUINED my desk – I need a new desk, Calleo. God damn it,” he waved an hand, as he swore something vulgar about Calleo in French. “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT YOU? I don’t even know what you do. Why do I have to suffer being chewed out by the higher ups for God knows why?”

He stopped his ranting and tried to control his breath while staring furiously at Calleo. “…For fuck sake…”

Somehow, by some often not granted grace by the universe, Calleo managed not to laugh when he asked the question. It being said in an utterly deadpan tone probably wasn’t much better, though, considering how Delacroix reacted.

“I’m not mocking you,” Calleo brushed a bit of imaginary dust off of his cardigan and smoothed it back into place, “it’s more that I’ve researched and tested that particular curse extensively and you’re doing it wrong.”

“Well–not wrong, technically, it was mostly correct, but mostly correct doesn’t make it nearly as painful as it’s capable of being. Next time, sharper movements, don’t round your corners, and at least have the courtesy to modify it enough so it does more than cause me to lose my breath for a few seconds.”

Smart. Very smart. Just encourage the already angry man to cast another Cruciatus. That’s always a good idea, no possible way it could backfire for everyone involved. Still, if he hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud, it was far too late to remedy the issue now. It most certainly did hurt, it was, after all, the Cruciatus Curse and even an unmodified one was exceptionally painful.

“Yes, well,” Calleo began as he gathered his hair to loosely tie it back. The gesture in and of itself held no hint of any potential retaliation or preparation for retaliation still, it was a rarity for Calleo to tie it back at the Ministry, “that’s the sort of thing that happens when gentle verbal reminders to not tie up other departments in your own department’s backlog go ignored, isn’t it?”

“Wands can be replaced,” he squinted a bit despite already having his glasses on, “and yours doesn’t look all that chewed anyway. As for the desk, try reparo. It’s not as though someone transfigured it into several hundred thousand spiders, all of which you need to find before you can even begin to put it back together. It’s just a bit gnawed on and maybe a tiny bit burned.”

“As for why?” Calleo smiled in an almost obnoxiously friendly manner, “I don’t like to suffer alone; misery does love company, after all, and if you don’t think I don’t hear about it from those above me–despite the fact that the situation was, in no way, any fault of my own–you’re completely out of your mind.” As opposed to just partially out of his mind, presumably.

“Now,” Calleo folded his hands on the desk in front of him, still smiling like an idiot “care to try again, or were you satisfied with how that first one went? Fair warning, though, if it’s another disappointing one, I’m going to be inclined to show you how to do it properly whether you ask me to or not.”

The corner of Delacroix’s lips twisted even more and he took a deep breath. “I bloody hate you sometimes, Calleo,” he hissed as he turned around before making a sharp move, as if performing a fencing move at Calleo.

“CRUCIO!” his dark eyes stared, making a follow up move that was sharp enough for him to add strength to the spell. “Quiet – just be quiet. By Salazar!” He kept throwing crucio at him in a pure fit of rage before eventually burning himself out.

“My wand has been with me since I started at Hogwarts. I refuse to let some stupid creature of whatever sort, eat it… Of course not. I kicked the beast out of my office.” Delacroix breathed out, leaning up against the table, clearly out of breath from swinging his arm sharply around himself. “I am not out of my mind, Calleo. If you need someone to join in your misery you should have asked rather than forced me into it!” He slammed a fist into the desk, eyebrow twisting a bit as he tried to control his breath.

“Spiders – why the fuck spiders? I would kill whoever did that if it happened.. I don’t care if my desk was burnt into a crisp. I’ll just go reparo it ….,” he rasped hoarsely before he bowed his head, shifting his weight from one foot to another. His wavy black hair hung down his face, blocking his view.

“I was not satisfied with the first, thank you very much. And I would rather not have you show me how to do a proper one,” he rasped, glancing up at Calleo with narrowed eyes that burnt with anger.

Calleo did stay quiet, at least, for the short duration of the second round of curses. If nothing else, a few years of occasionally random visitors hitting him with it only knocked him back into his chair instead of out of it.

And for a few minutes after Delacroix stopped, Calleo was quiet, more to get his breathing back into a regular pattern again than anything else and, when he spoke, it was definitely something stupid that came out of his mouth, “I’ll forward the research paper on to you. Honestly, I don’t have the time to deal with the lecture you know we’d both get if an actual fight broke out.”

“That,” he took a deep breath and leaned forward again, “and I don’t want to have to deal with everything that’d go off in this room if that happened. Most of what’s in here reacts–interestingly–to a lot of hostile magical back and forth anyway.”

“That said, you’re absolutely at least half out of your mind if you lost enough of it to come down here flinging curses that usually get you a life term in Azkaban!” He laughed, as that was evidently funny but, then, after a few repeated hits, one could hardly blame Calleo if his sense of humour went temporarily off balance.

“As for asking? We don’t have that kind of relationship and I’d venture to guess we never will. I don’t think you’d care for it anyway; I’m kind of insufferable if you haven’t already noticed that.”

“I don’t know why spiders,” now, Calleo pointed to an area of the desk that seemed to be missing random small pieces, “David used to do that; it’s why he’s in Azkaban–not for doing it to my desk, for doing it to a Muggle then hitting it with a shoe.”

And as quickly as he mentioned that, he moved on, “Well, now, is that fair? You repeatedly demonstrated it semi-competently on me, don’t you think you deserve at least a second or two of what it’s capable of in proper hands, just so you have a frame of reference the next time you decide to use it on someone?” That set of questions was rhetorical. Almost before he’d finished the last word, Calleo had his wand out and the curse cast. He was, if nothing else, true to his word of ‘a second or two’, though it likely felt as though it lasted significantly longer than the exact count of two before Calleo ripped it away rather than simply stopping the cast. Calleo then stood to peek over his desk just to make certain Delacroix was still, in fact, breathing, “All right?”

Delacroix barely got to respond to anything before he fell to the floor with a stiff face, all stretched out. He could not even blink, move or say anything. When Calleo finaly forced himself to roll around onto his stomach. “… Merde,” was the only thing he could say. He curled together onto the floor, grinding his teeth as he did so.

He laid there breathing for a while before trying to stretch out his limbs, but recoiled. “Well done…,” he rasped, still curled together, one hand stretched out. “I …. think I need to see a healer. And if I was your boss, I would fire you at the spot,” he coughed before rolling around onto his back.

“I need a priest.. I think I’m literally dying….,” he continued, eyes squeezed shut. “Big time — can you tell my family I died not so much in pain as I actually am?” He popped open an eye, looking at Calleo.

“I need go to the hospital… Not the muggle one, though… ,” he tried to move an hand, but gave up. “Merrrrrrrrrrde,” he groaned clearly distressed before he forced his hands up to his eyes. “This is worse than what I experienced during the war…. I feel like I am on the edge of passing over ….”

He took a sharp inhale before breathing out in a wheezed gasp before he slowly closed his eyes. “…. I fucking hate you… Be that my last word if I die in your office… I will fucking haunt you for the rest of your life. In hell if I get there…,” Delacroix curled together again onto the floor in a fetal position.

“And if I were your boss, I’d have sacked you and had you hauled off to Azkaban for casting it repeatedly; you probably wouldn’t even get a trial on account of that thing on your arm, so perhaps we ought to just call it even, hm?”

Calleo pushed his chair back and moved around to the other side of the desk, casually sitting next to Delacroix on the floor, “You’re being a little dramatic, and you’re not dying,” now, however, his tone was different.

A bit calmer and more even and certainly not antagonising any longer. and, as he spoke, he casually reached back and untied his hair, stuffing the tie itself back into a pocket.

“You’ll be mostly fine in about twenty minutes or so, though I wouldn’t recommend trying to move much for another five or ten. Best just to focus on keeping your breathing regular for that time span. If you like, I can switch the metronome on at a slow pace so you can keep track.”

Calleo leaned back on his hands, looking now much more like an overgrown student chatting away about a homework assignment than someone who had just done what he had knowingly done, “Four minutes and–I think it was forty-five seconds.”

“Not for you, that was exactly two seconds, but for the testing I did a few years back; I’d wanted to see how long it would take before it might actually kill me. The one doing the testing stopped at around that mark as they weren’t able to control it to the point to keep me breathing–and it was only their movements with it that let me keep breathing. Any movements made under that modification are being made by the caster, not the victim, it shuts everything down by overloading everything, including involuntary sound and movement.”

He was, now, oddly conversational, “After the first couple of minutes you go numb yet somehow still feel everything, which makes no sense but it’s about the only way I can describe it.”

Calleo grinned up at the ceiling, “Couple of weeks before I could walk again, and nearly a year before I could reliably do so without use of a cane. Couldn’t feel my fingers for almost two months and, for some reason, my left side took more damage than the right. For the longest time, that leg would just stop working without warning, or the arm would shake so badly I couldn’t do a thing with it. It’s all mostly fixed now but getting that repaired was almost worse than having it done in the first place!” Why he laughed at that was anyone’s guess.

“Some of the damage is permanent. My whole left side is still a little funny.”

“Oh! That does remind me!” Calleo stopped looking at the ceiling and looked back down at the man on the floor, “You might have a slight pins-and-needles sensation in your extremities for a few days–or a few weeks, it varies from person to person, but it shouldn’t cause any lasting damage with that quick of a hit unless it went over existing damage, in which case it might make it temporarily worse. Any numbness should clear up within a couple of hours.”

“Anything else–essential tremor, unsteadiness, headache, fatigue, those sorts of things–should clear up within a couple of days or least, at most, a week or two. You could go to St. Mungo’s if you like but, they won’t be able to do much for you apart from maybe knock you out for a couple of days–and even if you told them what it was, we both know that I would absolutely claim self-defence after you cast it at me first.”

“If you ever very quickly want to disarm and subdue anyone though–that’ll do it every time. Pity it’s not technically allowed, it’d save a lot of drawn out fights when you lot go to arrest someone who doesn’t want to go quietly.”

He smiled broadly at the declaration of hatred and intent to haunt, “See, now, that’s how I know you’re not dying; if you were dying, you wouldn’t threatening me with any of that, you’d just kind of be laying there. The fact that you can talk at all tells me you’re fine. In general. Mostly.”

#stories #retired-death-eater #curses #cruciatus curse #hp rp #hp indie rp #1991

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chuckling-chemist · 6 years ago

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An Actually Decently Comprehensive List of Preferred Lusii

Otherwise known as “My Accidental Life’s Work Thus Far”

So, before I really go into this, this wasn’t any sort of action done out of spite. Well, okay not that’s wrong. It totally was. But not at the fantroll community. It was actually in spite of this one guy who said “Don’t use birds for lusii, that’s too common” on a critique blog a longass fucking time ago (like uhhhhhh 3 years? Maybe 4?), and you know what’s harder than just ignoring it? Spitefully pulling from a stock of 500 noncanon trolls as a reference pool to prove he’s wrong, even though the comment wasn’t even directed at me, it was just pompous. 500 turned into 1000. 1000 turned into 2000. 2000 turned into 4000. Effectively, as the spite disappeared and interest at the statistics and variation fully took hold, I couldn’t fucking stop myself. But first, before I actually go and post some of the stats that I found, some questions that I can only imagine are going through some people’s heads.

Q. How will you be posting this?

Initially? I was going to do one absurdly long post under this. But even under a read more that’s going to kill a lot of people on their phones. So I’m posting this, there’ll be another one just about mammals, one of them birds, etc. This will let me really break some stuff down.

Q. How did you prevent doubles?

I listed the name of every blog name and given troll name. If I took an extended break and couldn’t remember if I covered it - there’s seriously over 250 creators logged into this - I could search both by blog name and/or a few OC names to see if one of them already existed. In fact, if I noticed I had already covered one and they changed their name, I’d go fix it to keep stuff updated. This had happened at least once.

Q. How did you get so many creators?

Mostly? I hopped on the fantroll tag. A few of them come from the classpecting meta discord I was on, at least one of them came from a popular AU fanfiction involving OCs and canon.

Also there were some very different players when I did this in 2014. For reference In 2014, Megg (fantrolls-anonymous, now irrelevanttrolls) and Bonny/rancidfantrolls were still highly active. Now, their blogs exist but they’re largely inactive. What I’m getting at is that blogs come and go, and when you’re as high-key a lurker as I pretty much am, you end up catching most of them active at least once. (In fact, while many of the older ones I did are still either active or archived, many others have deactivated, taken their content down, or switched their blog name so many times it would be difficult to track them anymore.)

Look, I gotta do something with my time if I don’t RP on Tumblr and lurk because I only follow like, 90 given blogs on Tumblr at any given point in time.

Q. Are mine listed?

Probably. If you didn’t have any lusii listed for your fantrolls, I skipped over it. Also if there wasn’t anything listed and the page in question looked unfinished. Only a few people I tried to sniff anything out, and that was very early on. Now, if it’s not listed, it’s not listed. And I’m sure if you looked at the names of some of those I included, Lord knows there’s probably someone listed who’s been agreed to be a problem. I dunno, man, I don’t keep track of the Fandom Wank(TM)

Q. If they used troll terminology/typos/nonspecific language/descriptions instead of names, how did you piece what they were going for?

Much of the time, you can use pretty easy context clues. “Amalgamation of eyes and wings. indescribable beyond this to most who saw it" sounds like a seraph. For those, it’s very liberal usage of the Notes feature, so I can add the exact description and any details of note I can make out. Typos, it’s pretty much the same thing. “Infrit” is probably supposed to be Ifrit. If I really couldn’t piece it together, I made the category “unsure”. It’s nothing bad, literally just for all of those that didn’t know what exactly or where exactly to put it.

Q. Why didn’t you just use Google Surveys or something similar?

I only have 287 followers, 4 of those are fantroll blogs, another maybe...4? actually have fantrolls (the ones from the Homestuck discord basically), [snipped for complaining] and in general only my shitposts only gather any traction, so the likelihood of getting nearly as many numbers is far lower.

Q. Why didn’t you go up to 5000 characters?

Okay, but 4000 characters was hard to do. The first 3000 or so? That was fine. But that 3000-4000, I was starting to find blogs largely unfinished, or didn’t list a lusus at all, or were so hard to navigate it wasn’t worth it. It doesn’t help that, as I found out, it’s easier to find rp blogs via jumping from blog to blog instead of the tag.

Yeah, fantroll tag mostly seems filled with general art blogs.

Anyway, I think that’s most of what I can imagine is going through everyone’s heads? I’m working on up assembling the mammalian list now, and hopefully if all goes well it won’t take impossibly long.

#fantroll #fantrolls #homestuck #long post #lusus #That Comprehensive Lusus Post #...dunno what else to tag this

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differencesintheworld · 3 years ago

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A one shot of Kira and Keriahe in their past

(( A little piece of how Kira/Keri became a duo. Keriahe 15, Kira 17, before the murder. Daiko is Kiras boss. Please ignore the typos))

Kira walked into Daiko’s office with a deep sigh, tired. The first case was done and gone months ago, but work never stops and the bad guys don’t rest. She doesn’t even look up.

”Did you want to see me, Uncle?”

“Aaaaw great, you’re here…” a familiar voice rings out. Kira immediately looks up, to recognize the same redheaded brat she babysat. Keriahe glared her down through her furrowed brows, with a bandaid over her nose.

“God fuck, who did you fight this time to end up HERE?!” Kira exclaimed, already expecting Daiko to lay out what she needs to cover up.

“Girls, GIRLS!” Daiko interrupted. “Please behave, as you two will be working together from now on-”

“BULLSHIT-!” both girls yelled in unison, before glaring at each other.

“Uncle Daiko, this is unprecedented. I know that her parents worked for the agency way back when, but for crying out loud, she is a civilian! And a brat to top that off-”

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU CALLING A BRAT, YOU SPOILED BRAT!?” Keriahe interrupted Kira’s protesting.

Before the argument could continue, Daiko knocked on his desk with his cane as if it were a gavel.

“GIRLS, you two better behave before I have to put you in time out! Kira, as you might have heard, Keriahe has been working with Miles Smiley, and training under his command. I have a very special case for you, but you will need some additional muscle.” Daiko explained, as he rummaged among his papers, tossing the file closer to the two. “This case involves a specific couple of ex-mafia members. They have been messing in our area, and according to Agent Smiley, his men have seen them trying to sabotage cameras and other communication centers near police stations.”

Kira grabs the file before Keriahe can, skimming over it. Keriahe lets out a louder huff. “Isn’t this something you cops can figure out together with electricians? Like, why am I necessary here?”

“For once we can agree…. This looks open and shut, the perpetrators have been caught on cams, and their motives are obvious.” Kira muses, looking over the photos.

“Are they obvious?” Daiko teased, arching a brow. “Do inform me…”

Keriahe joined Daiko on the skeptical look. Kira glanced over the photos and reports one more time, before passing the papers to Keriahe out of courtesy. “The bags they have look suspiciously like they could have a bomb in them, and we have received multiple false alarm bomb calls from those areas. They are trying to set up a mess and a half, while everyone is scrambling to fix the cams and whatnot for someone to blow the place up.” she simply lays out, looking satisfied with her conclusion.

“Are you a dumbass or something? Why would they let themselves be seen then?” Keriahe asked, scoffing.

“They are decoys. It’s obvious they aren’t at the top of the operation, just acting like pawns in this scheme.” Kira proclaimed, sticking her tongue out at Keriahe. Sure the redhead is younger than her, but god did her attitude piss her off.

“Not bad..! But, this is exactly why you need back up. Corner them and get information from them. Who are they working with and why.” Daiko explained, walking around his desk closer to the girls, placing a hand on their shoulders. Keriahe immediately pushed his hand off with a growl.

“STILL doesn’t explain why Kitty cat over there is here! I can do this just fine by myself, or I can grab someone to join from our team!” Kira protested again, glaring daggers back at Keriahe, who was seething over the nickname, cursing her out under her breath.

“Because of her affiliation with Smiley. She would know how to find a common language with gang members, and a better way to intimidate them. She will be the bad cop to your good cop, so to say…” the old man explained. Keriahe sneered.

“Fair enough, most of those rat bastards still remember me as the teenage street fighter Feral Cat, so they know not to dick with me-” Keriahe proudly admitted only to hear a “HAH!” from Kira.

“Oh yeah, coz a 14 year old tiny delinquent is sooooooooo scary, oh I am SHAKING in my boots-”

“OH SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT?! You are only a year and a half older than me, you are a kid yourself!”

“I have proper military and police training, and I am taller and more mature than you! Maybe if you actually listened to the adults in your life you wouldn’t be in a gang right now…”

“OH YEAH, Coz being a pain in literally everyones ass is SO much better right?! I bet I could kick your ass here and now! Fucking go die-”

“GLADLY, but unfortunately, I have work obligations that won’t allow it!”

“Glad to see you two get along…” Daiko sighed, sarcastic. “LOOK! You two must come back alive and in one piece! Your assigned names for this mission are Midnight Wolf and Feral Cat respectively.”

“OI! Don’t go thinking I am joining this circus only coz I am helping out right now-” Keriahe interrupted.

“Of course not, but code names are necessary, so that you two can’t be tracked… Now, play nice you two~” Daiko wished to the two. The girls shot a glare to each other again, before Kira bowed to Daiko. “Whatever…” Keriahe scoffed, making it for the door, leaving Kira to catch up.

The two teens marched on through the streets, Kira taking the lead. As Keriahe trailed behind she kept shooting looks at the older one. The intense expression she caught on her face before was beginning to irk her, even more so because of what she said earlier.

“Can’t ya make a less stone face? It looks like you’re about to shit your pants or something…” she tried to chide her, only to get a huff.

“Oh, sorry, I guess I can’t help it with a pain in the ass trailing after me…” Kira grumbled back, finally shooting a glare over her shoulder. Keriahe stopped dead in her tracks at the stare. This sort of agression wasn’t common from Kira. Sure the insults and remarks were a daily routine for them, but something in those eyes didn’t look normal.

“Jeez louise, get that stick out of your ass- All I’m saying is that you look like you are about to fight a man…” Keriahe responded, catching back up. “What happened to ya?”

The sudden tone shift only caught Kira off guard as she snapped back from her own thoughts for a second. Sure, Keriahe wasn’t the type to never check in on her, after all they have known each other since the twins were born. The shift simply was too sudden. However…

“Must you always be so curious? Just a rough day is all it is, and let’s leave it at that.” she rambled off, trying to keep her cool. Though Keriahe couldn’t help but snort.

“You’ve always sucked at lying, you lanky bitch… Come on, cough it up..” Yup, there was the call out. Kira might have been trained well to read people. Yet outright lying never worked for her. She shuffled a little uncomfortably into her jacket, the readheads eyes boring into her, as much as she avoided eye contact. Keriahe got impatient, nudging her arm. ”Oi, ya deaf or somethin’-”

Kira cried out in pain, forcing Keriahe to step right back. She clutched at her arm where Keriahe nudged her, trying to regain composure.

“Okay, I know I hit hard, but that should NOT have caused that shriek-! Did you get hurt?” Keriahe questioned, trying to put a hand on Kira’s shoulder, only for her to move away.

“DON’T! Touch that side…. I.. I fell earlier… That whole arm is fucked up… I’ll be fine, I managed to finish training today even like this, I can keep working…” she explained, avoiding looking at Keriahe entirely. Yet still Keriahe knew something else had to be wrong.

Spitefully the redhead touched Kira’s shoulder, noticing the wince. “Yea… sure… If that’s a fall, I’m Saint Mary… Was.. was your stepdad back at it again?” she asked, her voice surprisingly softer. Kira however was not too happy to be figured out, looking over at her.

“It was mom… Is… Am I that obvious?”

“Not really… Working for Mister Smiley though taught me a bit… Ya know you can stay with my family if something happens right? Sure, I might hate your guts, but my siblings damn adore ya, and I guess I can suffer through a couple of days-” Keriahe tried to offer some support. As much as Kira was her rival, she still took care of her little siblings and helped them all with homework and other things where she could. Despite everything, she had to admit Kira isn’t just some asshole.

“That won’t be neccesary… If I try to run away or hide it will get only worse I recon… But… Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it.” Kira responded, looking away again. She couldn’t get choked up now, not on the job anyway.

The rest of the walk to the destination continued in silence. Of course Keriahe had more snarky comments up her sleeve, but right now they all sounded out of place. She nearly bumped into Kira as she suddenly stopped.

“Okay, so this is the crossroad they seem to target the most… Am I wrong or is there a metro nearby?” Kira asked, as she survayed the area.

“Yeah, I think so…? Onarimon station should be around the corner that way… This is Atago, right?” Keriahe mumbled, looking around further. “Yeah, there’s the Family Mart I stop by-!” suddenly she chimed out, pointing in that direction. “Wait… why are you asking?”

“Hmmm… Onarimon… that should be the Mita line…. Could the culprits be traveling along that line?”

“Thaaat doesn’t really narrow it down, does it? The line goes from Meguro to Itabashi, that’s like five cities through…” Keriahe huffed.

“You seem to know that line well. How so?”

“Me and the guys were trying to plan out a trip and one of the lines we needed was Mita, plus school stuff… What can I say, my memory serves me well I guess…”

Kira hummed in response. Keriahe observed her as Kira started watching people closely. She seemed lost in thought before she suddenly began walking again. “Wait, where are we goin’?” Keriahe exclaimed, running after her. Kira merely shushed her, seemingly following something. Keriahe furrowed her brows, looking up ahead. A few sharp turns, and they found themselves in an alleyway near the station. Only then did Kira’s phone ping with a new message. The two men they had tailed after suddenly looked up at the sound.

“Right, so that’s the notification for the damaged camera, the third time this week. Mind explaining yourself, gentlemen?” Kira asked, innocently tilting her head. Keriahe stared at the two men, already taking position next to Kira, blocking off the way if they tried to bolt.

“Huh? And what are you little girls doing here, hmm? In an alley with two old men, do you really want to test your luck?” one of the men tried to feign innocence. Kira sighed. “Tadashi Yashihiro, age 40, and Sugihara Keisuke, age 38. Ex-members of Inagawa-kai… To leave the third largest family in Japan, and do something petty like this… I wonder what the pay is…” she said, matter-of-factly.

“OI! How do you know-”

”Do you really think your criminal records don’t show this? Inagawa-kai might be huge, but they don’t bother erasing traffic violations for a couple of lazy idiots who don’t know how to park.” Kira inrerrupted. Keriahe snorted loudly. “Man- Imagine going under the radar for most of your crimes, but it’s a traffic violation that does you in, what losers…” she taunted. Both girls smirked to each other as the older men growled. “Alright you shits, what do you want?”

“It’s simple… Tell me who you are working for now, and I might let you leave…” Kira suggested.

”HA! Why should we tell you anything!? You are just some little teenage brat, bet you would sell nicely on the red light district!”

Keriahe’s eye twitched at the remark, feeling a growl grow in her throat. However Kira’s giggle interrupted whatever insult she was about to spew.

“Please, you two have been caught on camera’s and multiple police stations know I am on this case. If I were to go missing, do you really think they wouldn’t put two and two together? Or are you both truly so daft?” she asked, making small yet determined steps closer. “I should probably actually introduce myself. Detective Kira Tenkuu of Tokyo Private Agency. Now are we willing to-”

An abrupt stop as one of the men pulled out a gun, aiming right for her forehead. “Alright, enough jokes kids, get lost.” he growled. Kira however stared straight at him. Something about those piercing ice blue eyes and empty gaze made his hand shake. ”Glock 26…9 times 19milimeters… Good to conceal due to it’s small size, perfect for fast operations, and shoot up to 6 meters… We found rounds of this gun at a different location near Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum… Still on the Mita line… So my theory was correct, your current group opperates in and around Mita station lines…” she spoke, her voice calm and clear, as if her life wasn’t being threatened right now. It sounded almost as if she were reading an excerpt from a book. Even Keriahe had to take a double-take at what was going on.

“I-I will shoot! Shut up!” the man shouted. A sudden cold enveloped the two men, a chill so strong that their breath was hanging in the air. His hands shook worse as he could have sworn the girls eyes were glowing in the darkness of the alley. ”Now now, no need for that… Even if you did shoot me, Atago station is nearby, and there are plenty of people in the street… The more of a ruckus you will cause, even if you get rid of me, you can’t get rid of everyone in the street… How about you put that down?” Kira responded, the emptyness of her voice making her sound less human. The man lowered his gun, hand shaking. This little girl was instilling fear in two grown men.

Finally Keriahe snapped out of her own shock, composing herself. “Alright, now that you two clowns have stopped causing a show… Who do ya work with anyway?” she asked, approaching them, still more cautious than Kira did. ”W-We won’t tell you brats nothing-!”

”Very few mafias function near this area you know… Simply process of elimination could work this out.” Kira suggested.

Keriahe grumbled. “Oi, what’s with the dragging it out, we can just beat the shit outta them for intel-” she argued.

“Really there is no need for that.” Kira huffed, glaring at Keriahe once again, this time in annoyance.

”Yeah, so instead we will start guessing every mafia on the fucking street, GRAND idea - do we start alphabetically or will you pull the order out of your ass?!” Keriahe barked back. Kira growled before turning back to the men, looking them over. It suddenly dawned on her.

“You two never left Inagawa after all, huh?” she asked, only barely letting the surprise come out.

”WHAAA-?! Bullshit—” Keriahe was about to argue, to be interrupted.

”H…how did you know?”

”You don’t JUST leave one of the three largest syndicates in Japan and JUST join a small gang that operates locally. Noone could pay the ammounts Inagawa do, and you have to be a complete idiot to just switch over like that. But this isn’t Inagawa-Kai signature at all, you lot work very quietly and even do charity work on the side. So what’s the deal?”

The men looked to each other, groaning. Kira looked to Keriahe, signaling something with a tilt of the head. At first Keriahe didn’t understand what she meant, before noting the phone in Kira’s hands behind her back. She took it from her, looking at the message discreetly.

”Co nt Act The Polive”

Horrid spell-check fail aside, Keriahe realized what she meant, staying behind her still.

It was in this moment one of the men suddenly came for Kira, grabbing her by the arm. “We’re willing to take our chances.” he growled, tugging her by the injured arm. Keriahe didn’t hesitate, running at the man and slamming him with all the speed and strength she could muster, knocking him back. The other man fired his gun, but luckily the girls were quick on their feet. A swift sweep to the mans ankles had him down as well. Keriahe roared as she pounced on the other man, forcing him to fall over. The police got there quickly.

“Hm, not bad, for a short-stack you hit pretty hard…” Kira praised Keriahe, as they were on their way back, after getting some taiyaki.

”Who ya calling a short-stack, Fucking weirdo!?” Keriahe yelled back. “I still can’t believe ya sussed them out like that… What gave it away even?!”

”Don’t yell… Well… Like I mentioned, Inagawa is the third largest family in Japan, they even function overseas, and hold too much power and are allied with THE largest syndicate in Japan, the Rokudaime Yamaguchi-Gumi… Splitting off from them would be a death sentence… I should have known though, that they were trying to cause mischief for antoher gang - the gun is not popular in Inagawa…” Kira began explaining, pulling out her small notebook from her pocket.

“Tokyo Washi, huh… Eagles… With a name like that they can’t be that big of a family yet…” she mused.

”Ya recon they work around this area?” Keriahe asked, peeking over at the notebook.

”Hmm… I might need to find a way to speak with them… Having Inagawa medle in their affairs must mean they are a threat to them… And a threat to them could be a friend to us.”

“Wha, ya thinkin’ of joining them or something? After giving me shit for Smiley?!”

“Oh no no no…. Simply to offer an Alliance is all… We will see~ Now keep up, I don’t want Felitzia on my ass for you getting home late!”

“ ‘tte OI! WHOSE FAULT IS IT THAT YOU TOOK YOUR SWEET ASS TIME!? …UGH WAIT FOR ME, DUMBFUCK!”

#Yin yang duo #Midnight wolf #feral cat #lurkers writing

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tcm--holland · 7 years ago

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simple // peter parker

summary: you’re just a superhero girl who wishes everything wasn’t so complicated. the only thing that’s constant and simple in your life is the one and only peter parker. except whenever you’re around him, you just can’t seem to act normal. at least you have your good friend spider-man to confess your thoughts to, all while having no idea who he is.

word count: about 2.5k

a/n: this is my first imagine, hope someone likes it!! // warning for mild profanity // and if anyone wants it I'll make a part 2! also it’s unedited so ignore any grammatical errors/typos! thank you so much <33

masterlist

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"The thing about algebra is that it's unnecessarily and unfortunately complicated." As you explain this to the freshman sitting across from you, your eyes drift slightly to the boy at the other table. "But sometimes, it's simple and fun. It's the one thing in your life that ever seems simple."

Peter Parker is easy to figure out. He's a shy, smart, and blissfully average guy. And honestly, that's what you like about him above everything else. His simplicity is beautiful to you, but your friends just think he's boring. So maybe they don't want more than a pretty face. Fine by you.

The freshman, Iris, looks at you, eyebrows furrowing as she follows your gaze to Peter. "Oh my god, do you have a thing for that guy?" She whisper-shouts. You give her a glare that is a clear indication that she should shut up. But she continues anyway. "Because if you do, I can totally see that happening. That sounds like the cutest-"

This time, you shut her up by crumpling a piece of scratch paper and throwing it at her. She doesn’t have much of a reaction, but she gets the memo and shuts up. God, freshmen can be so annoying someti - oh lord that's just not fair.

Peter stands up to get a book, but it's on a higher shelf. Instead of using a chair to get it, he stretches. His worn blue sweater slides up past the waistband of his jeans to reveal his stomach. Where did one of the nerdiest people you know find the time to get absolutely ripped?

Your mouth is slightly open, and you can't stop staring at him. You hardly notice what you're doing until he turns around and sees you. You quickly close your mouth and look away, your face heating up. Iris nudges you.

"Say hi," she mouths to you.

You look back up at Peter, trying to will away the blush and smile instead. He holds his book in his hands, looking at you expectantly. "Hi, Peter."

"Hi, Y/N," Peter returns the smile. The silence afterward is so awkward it makes you want to scream, until Iris opens her mouth to speak. You can only cross your fingers and hope she doesn't say anything stupid.

"Y/N was wondering where you work out." Iris grins a little. Your hopes seemed to have gone to a bit of a stretch in thinking she would've said something reasonable.

Peter raises his eyebrows slightly, and your eyes widen. "Uh, I mean...what she meant was that I need to work out. And I'm very, um, bad at working out on my own. So if you go to a gym or anything..."

He looks even more confused now, and he obviously doesn't know what to say.

"I'm just kidding, I'm fine," you say. By now, you're thoroughly embarrassed and kind of feel like you might start tearing up. You shove your things into your bag and nearly race out of the door.

You just want to get to saving the world already. Well, maybe not the world just quite yet. You're a relatively new superhero to the scene, just like Spider-Man. You and him actually formed a bit of a friendship, but you decided it was better to keep your personal lives out of it by only knowing each other by the superhero personas.

And now, Spider-Man must be waiting on a roof for you somewhere. But it's all complicated. You just want someone without secrets and mysteries, and Peter Parker seems just the type for you. If only he looked at you, or talked to you, ever.

You sigh and head out before you get the chance to see Peter again. You don't think you'll get over this for a while. Not that you blame Iris, either. You're sure she was just trying to help you with your crush, but you think it's better keeping the distance for now.

By the time you get to your alleyway, you start hurrying. You quickly unbutton your shirt and slide off your jeans to reveal your suit underneath. You scramble around in your bag, finally coming up with a slightly crumpled mask. You slide on the mask and activate its features. You're proud of it; you made your own suit and you think it's pretty damn cool. Spider-Man thinks Tony Stark can do better, but you're not ready for that quite yet. You know Stark can be a little...intense.

Surprisingly, you're on the roof before Spider-Man is. You wait for a few minutes, not wanting to leave without him. Just when you're about to stand up, he lands on the roof in a pose.

"Whoa, there, Spider-Man. Let's not get too into our heads, shall we? You're still just a friendly neighborhood superhero."

"Ugh, don't remind me. I'm getting sick of this. I wanna do something, y'know? I wanna save the world from destruction like the Avengers do! Then maybe Mr. Stark'll get it." He plops down next to you at the edge of the roof, sighing. "I'm not complaining about, like, free churros or anything. Free churros are great."

"I've never even met the guy and I know he'll never 'get it'. Until something bad happens and you stop it. This is why I don't mess with Stark. It's just...too much."

"It's a chance to be apart of something bigger!"

"It's an empty promise to keep you from turning against him." You cross your arms and stare at the horizon.

"Uh, okay. I know you're not enthusiastic about this, but you look grumpy."

"You can't see my face," you point out.

"You sound grumpy."

"The voice filter does that."

"Oh, come on, just spill. I don't even know who you are, so it's okay, right? I've told you like everything about me, but you don't talk about yourself." Spider-Man turns towards you, and for a second, you stare blankly. “Oh, I was smiling. Sorry, forgot you can’t see.” He gives a thumbs up instead.

"I just kind of embarrassed myself in front of my crush," you mumble, so quiet you're not even sure he heard you.

"Aw, don't think about that too much, S/N. I know the feeling. You know, I accidentally embarrassed someone today, but I didn't think anything of it. I just thought it was cute. I kind of like her."

"You're lucky. I still don't think I can talk to him for a while, and that sucks," you look at him.

"You gotta do it eventually. Sometimes you just have to throw your fear out the window and do it. Who knows, you might even get a churro out of it."

You laugh a little. "Are you hungry?"

Spider-Man's stomach grumbles in response. This only makes you giggle more, until you're both laughing.

"Let's go see about those churros, then." You stand up, getting ready for a few hours of kicking ass. You and Spider-Man know if you work together, the media will go crazy. And you hate that. So, to keep on the down low, you work alone.

That doesn't mean you can't talk to each other while you work. You installed a cellphone system into your suit that connects back to your regular phone, so you don't have to carry around your phone all the time.

"Ready?" Spider-Man looks at you. You nod, and the count of three, you both leap off the edge of the building. From there, you go your separate ways.

He starts up the phone call and speaks, "Hey, S/N."

"'Sup, Spidey," you greet as you race down the block after a wallet snatcher.

"Did you just say, 'Suck Spidey'?"

"No! Hold on." Your advanced phone system isn't as advanced as you'd like it to be, but you're working on it. Meanwhile, you're wrestling with the thief. When you're done, you dust off your hands and move on. "I said what's up."

"Oh. Uh...this lady is up. Literally, like she's hanging off the edge of a fire escape."

"Shit. How did that even happen?"

"I don't know," comes the response, followed by silence for a few minutes. You assume he's in the middle of saving that woman.

When he's done, you keep talking. "I keep forgetting to ask. How's your aunt?"

"She's okay."

"...You haven't told her, have you?"

"I can't, S/N. She has enough on her shoulders already."

"She'll find out eventually, you know."

"I know." You sense he doesn't want to talk about it anymore, so you don't push it further.

By the time it's nightfall, you're both weary and have loads of homework to do. "You're sure this doesn't drain on your cell plan or anything? It's been like three hours." Spider-Man sounds a little concerned.

"Nah, it's alright." You mute yourself for a minute while you take time to buy Spider-Man a churro and a can of Coke.

"Hop up to the building real quick," you say, churro in one hand and Coke in the other.

"Too tired, how about the alleyway next to it?"

"Sure."

You slide into the alleyway, wondering where Spider-Man went until you get a strange feeling. You turn around to see him against the wall, and you nearly jump ten feet. "Spidey!" you exclaim, but he's just laughing. "Screw you."

"Sure," Spider-Man says, and your eyes widen slightly. He hops down from the wall.

"I buy you a churro and soda, and all I get is an innuendo?" You hand both to him, but not before taking a bite out of the churro first.

"I know you're smiling behind that mask," he teases, poking your cheek.

"I am and I hate it," you groan, poking him back. You can tell he wants to devour that churro already, so you decide to get going. "I'll see you later, okay? Thanks for the encouragement."

He gives you a quick hug, making sure not to get any cinnamon sugar onto your suit. "No problem. Thanks for the food."

You chuckle, hugging him back. You ignore how your heart begins to race a little. "Anytime. Bye, Spider-Man."

"Bye, S/N."

The next day at school, you keep Spider-Man's words of motivation in your head. You spot Peter a few times but can't bring yourself to say anything. You know you'll have to talk to him for sure in Chemistry, so you put it off until then. You see him at lunch and manage to smile before walking over to your friends.

Right after lunch is Chemistry. You walk slower than usual, dreading what's going to happen. You planned the conversation in your head ten times already, but you just can't seem to shake yourself out of your fear.

Sometimes you just have to throw your fear out the window and do it.

Spider-Man is right. You walk into class and take your seat next to Peter. Anxiety courses through your veins and makes your hands shake slightly. You ball them up into fists to make them stop, but it doesn't work. You look over as the class begins. "Peter, about yesterday..." You begin.

He glances at you, eyebrows drawn for a moment. And then he remembers. "Oh. What about it?" He asks slowly, a hint of a smile curving his pink lips.

Now you kind of want to slap him for teasing you, but you ignore the urge, because you kind of want to kiss him too. He's leaned towards you slightly, and you look into his deep brown eyes. Your faces are inches apart, and nothing else really matters. You just want to lean in and do what you’ve wanted to do for a long time. Kiss hi-

“Mr. Parker, Ms. Y/L/N, what are you doing?” A voice interrupts. You snap yourself back to reality and lean away from Peter, looking up at your teacher. You can feel the gazes of the other students boring into you, and for a second, you start panicking. Peter looks just as nervous as you.

But if you don’t start making up an excuse soon, you’re both done for. “Uh, there’s - I mean, there was a, uh, thing on his chin.”

“Y-Yeah, she was just checking, um, to make sure. That there wasn’t anything like, a, uh, chemical on my face.” Peter tries to back you up.

“Because that could, like, corrode his skin or give him a chemical burn...I think. And that’s bad.”

The teacher raises his eyebrows. You and him make quite a pair at lying. It seems that together, your excuses are even worse. “We’re using extremely diluted iodide, with gloves, goggles, and pipettes. So I wonder how some of it could have possibly ended up on your face?” He turns his pointed gaze to Peter. Your hands start sweating a little.

“He didn’t say anything about it being on his face, just that I was making sure there wasn’t any,” you say quickly.

“Stay after class,” the teacher finally says, sick of your shenanigans. You slump into your seat and sigh as he turns away. Your E/C eyes shift to Peter, who’s been looking at you. You both do your best to contain your nervous laughter at the ridiculousness of what just happened.

The feeling churning in you is strange. You feel like you know him already. Peter already feels so familiar, as though you and him have done countless stupid things together. You don’t know why. You’ve never felt that close of a connection with anyone like that, except maybe Spider-Man.

Butterflies flutter in your stomach as your hand brushes his under the table. Your eyes drift to meet his gaze, and you give him a grin before looking back at your worksheet. You have a lot to fill out, so you get to work.

After class, you both stand side by side in front of the teacher. You really don't want detention. After all, you have crime fighting to do! And Spider-Man’ll probably get sick of waiting and leave before you even get there.

You glance at Peter. Has he always been this short? You must be taller than him by at least an inch or so.

“I know this is Chemistry class, but I don’t have time for that kind of chemistry while I’m teaching.” And just like that, your Chemistry teacher destroys you in one sentence. You can feel your ears heating up, eyes glued to the ground. “Understood?”

You both nod quickly and obediently. By the time you both leave, it’s not too late. You can still catch up with Spider-Man if you hurry. You turn to look at Peter, smiling hopefully.

“I’d better, uh, get going. Lots of homework to do,” you say, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear coyly. Now that you’re alone with him, you’re anxious again.

“You too?” Peter grins a little, going to a bench nearby to get a piece of paper and a pen. “Um, here’s my number. Call me sometime?” He looks just as shy as you do. You gratefully accept the paper with slightly shaky hands.

“I will. Um, maybe tomorrow. I’m seriously loaded tonight,” you give an apologetic smile and adjust your backpack straps.

“That’s okay! Whenever you’re free!” Peter says, clearly just happy that you’re going to call him eventually.

You laugh and nod, feeling something very special inside you. It’s like fireworks, multicolored and explosive. Or like confetti exploding on your birthday. You don’t really know what it is, but you’ve never felt happier.

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker imagine #mcu #mcu imagine #spider man: homecoming #tom holland #spider man: homecoming imagine #peter parker imagines

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allyngibson · 5 years ago

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Throughout January I worked, off and on, on something of a private project, to make an ebook of Ellery Queen’s long-out-of-print anthology, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes.

An anthology of Sherlock Holmes parodies, sprinkled with a few genuine pastiches and two play scripts, essentially a survey of non-Doyle Sherlock Holmes literature to mid-century, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1944 then allowed to go out of print, due to legal threats from the Arthur Conan Doyle estate. Never reprinted — twenty-five years ago in The Game Is Afoot, which contains about a third of The Misadventures, editor Marvin Kaye says there was (then) movement toward a reprint, but nothing ever came of it — The Misadventures has been a kind of Holy Grail, something I’ve long sought (and once held in my hands, in a college library) that I’d never own. That’s not to say that one can’t find them for sale, but I have better things to do with my meagre income than to spend several hundred dollars on a rare book.

A decade ago, someone uploaded a scan of the entire book to the Internet along with a very rough OCR of the book’s text. I found it, pretty much by accident, one day, and downloaded the files, assuming they might quickly disappear. (Which they have not, but I won’t point you in their direction. They are quite easy to find.) Whereupon they languished on my hard drive for several years.

Around Christmas 2013, after reading an article about it in The Atlantic, I began to use the now-defunct ebook reader software Readmill. This line in Robinson Meyer’s article intrigued me: “I’m nearly certain it has the best digital typography among e-reading software today. On Readmill, digital books look like books, not text files foisted into an extensible reading environment.” I sideloaded the software onto my Kindle Fire tablet and quickly discovered that, yes, Readmill had great typography, and then I began thinking about what I wanted to read with it.

I’ve been making ebooks for myself since 2000, when Microsoft released the Reader ebook software. (Though the software has been long unsupported, to this day I regularly use Berling Antiqua, the font that came packaged with Reader.) One of the first things I did was to download Overdrive ReaderWorks, a software package for making the LIT files that Microsoft Reader used. Even then, twenty years ago, nascent ebooks were simply containers that contained HTML files, CSS files, and images — essentially, the components that drive the Internet to this day. When I got a Nook, I downloaded Calibre, an ebook management package that can convert ebooks from one format to another, even let you build them from scratch.

Making an ebook of The Misadventures, then, was a deeply intriguing idea.

The first thing I noticed when looking through the scanned PDF of The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes was that it was a beautiful book. I fell in love with the typography, the heavy use of small caps, the old-style numerals.

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It was a book I wanted to look at and savor, not only because of its words but because of its beauty. I wanted to recreate, as much as possible, the look and feel of the original book, and I wanted my ebook to be just as beautiful.

I worked intently for about two weeks in early 2014. I would go to the text file — which was very, very bad — and copy out a story and paste it into Notepad. Then, comparing it to a printout from the PDF, I would correct the errors and lay my HTML tags. I even created CSS code so the story introductions would be formatted correctly.

Then, in mid-January, after completing a clean-up of about a third of the book, I stopped. To this day, I don’t know why. Did I lose passion for the project? Was I overwhelmed at work? Whatever happened, my working files sat, unwanted and unloved, in a directory on my desktop, and at some point I moved them off of my desktop, out of sight and out of mind. I’d think about The Misadventures from time to time, and do nothing.

Around Christmas, I said to myself, “Dude, why don’t you finish it?” And a few days after New Year’s, I picked it up again.

I had new ideas. I’m a big fan of Standard Ebooks, a project that makes free, professional-quality ebooks from public domain texts. Their books look great, they’re coded well, the CSS produces beautiful typography. Essentially, they made exactly what I wanted my ebook of The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes to be, so, using Calibre, I took a Standard Ebooks book apart and decided to use its code as my foundation, adding my chapters and my CSS code on top of the basic CSS typography.

I started with what I’d done six years earlier — the introduction and dozen stories I’d cleaned up — and added them to the Calibre project. Most stories started with a block at the top that indicated its detective and its narrator, side by side on the opposite sides of the page. I experimented with CSS code to make that work — I settled on using two SPANs and floating the text left or right — but most of it was fairly straightforward. The advantage to working in Calibre in this way was that, as I finished proofing and polishing a story, I could add it to the ebook file and see how it worked, building the book one story at a time.

There were challenges. Footnotes don’t work in ebooks, so I moved all of the footnotes in The Misadventures to an Endnotes section. There’s an index, which I wanted to keep, so I coded internal hyperlinks to the stories or, in some cases, endnotes that the original index would have. In so doing, I discovered one entry in the index that actually wasn’t in Ellery Queen’s manuscript, and there were two Wastonian characters that should have been in Queen’s index that weren’t. These I silently corrected.

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One thing I was keen to do was to retain the illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele. Sidney Paget is considered the definitive Sherlock Holmes artist, but I have a distinct preference for Steele.

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One thing I did not do was to retain the dropcaps that led off each story. Dropcaps don’t work well in ebooks. But I did retain the way the original book began each story with a few words done in small caps.

It took about two weeks of work to complete the book. The two play scripts were probably the most difficult part of the book to format correctly. After assembling the finished book, I did a proofread on my Kindle, highlighting things that looked like they were wrong, comparing those highlights to the manuscript, and editing my files to make corrections. Doing so, I believe I’ve fixed a couple of typos from the original book. There was one howler of a fact error in a single story that I silently corrected by changing a single word, and I thought about adding one note to explain the reference to “32mos” in John Kendrick Bangs’ The Adventures of Shylock Homes, as that’s a term I don’t believe I have ever encountered (it’s an old publishing term, today we’d call it a “trade paperback”), but that I left alone.

Whether it looks the way I want it to is due to the ebook readers software, not my work. Different ebook readers implement the CSS3 spec incompletely or inconsistently. I thought the finished ebook would look fantastic in Moon+, which is considered one of the best ebook reader apps out there, but there were parts of my CSS that it simply ignored in favor of its own way of formatting. Small caps and old-style numerals are, shall we say, edge cases that aren’t always implemented. I tried various epub plugins for Chrome in Vivaldi and got exactly what I wanted in a desktop browser. On a phone or tablet, Gitden Reader did the best, but it’s not a particularly user-friendly piece of software.

Readmill did well with it. I discovered that I had implemented the detective/narrator block leading off each story badly. When I replaced the SPAN tags with P tags and a display: inline; rule in the CSS, they formatted correctly. But it can’t do the small caps or old-style numerals at all. Six years ago I might have driven myself mad trying to figure out why it wasn’t doing those things. Now I understand that it’s not Readmill, it’s simply how ebook readers work.

My decade-old Nook Simple Touch, poor thing, did better than I thought it would. The Nook has a well-known problem with centering images — it can’t handle the simple CSS rule margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; display: block; at all — nor does it do the small caps and the old-style numerals.

My Kindle Fire and the Kindle app on my phone do very well with it, as you can see from the screenshots above. It does the small caps correctly, but for old-style numerals I need to use the Georgia font instead of my preferred Palatino.

It’s unfortunate that The Misadventures has been out of print for the last seventy-five years as it’s rather entertaining and provides a nice overview of the state of Sherlock Holmes literature at the time of its publication. There’s an Arsène Lupin story (“Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late,” the first meeting of Lupin and “Shears”/”Sholmes,” which you can read in Standard Ebooks’ Arsène Lupin collection), Vincent Starrett’s classic “The Unique Hamlet” makes an appearance, as does Mark Twain’s A Double-Barrelled Detective Story. There’s a Solar Pons story from August Derleth, there’s a story that a serious Raffles story and a Holmes parody at the same time, there are stories from Anthony Boucher and Manly Wade Wellman that place Holmes in a World War II setting, there’s even two stories about Sherlock Holmes’ children, one played for humor (his three year-old son is even better at deduction than his father, but with the maturity and discretion of a three year-old), one a serious mystery (with a Joan Watson, no less!). Many of the pieces are parodies and burlesques that poke fun, sometimes gently, sometimes savagely, on Sherlock Holmes. The script from The Adventures of Ellery Queen radio show with a Sherlock Holmes theme is really the only self-indulgent inclusion, but the story introductions by the Queen gestalt are fascinating, warm, and chatty in their own right. It’s a nice collection, one that, if someone brought back into print, I’d happily add to my bookshelf.

In spite of the limitations of the ebook reader software, I achieved what I set out to do. I created an ebook of Ellery Queen’s The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, one that looks professionally produced and maintains, as much as possible, the formatting of the book as originally published in 1944. Sometimes I will open the book on my Kindle, just to flip through and look at it. It’s a good looking book, an attractive book, and I’m glad I spent the time, picked up the project again, and finished it.

The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes Throughout January I worked, off and on, on something of a private project, to make an ebook of Ellery Queen's long-out-of-print anthology, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes.

#Arsene Lupin #eBooks #Ellery Queen #Kindle #Microsoft Reader #Readmill #Sherlock Holmes

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