#in our current modern time he would be in his thirties which. huh

[fishareglorious]

avgust is technically a millenial lmao

[collecting-stories]

Yours - pt. 03 - Rafe Cameron

Summary: A chapter of firsts. 

A/N: This chapter is like 5.5k words so I apologize in advance for that. 

One Thing Right Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist

▽ △ ▽ △

-First Thanksgiving-

“You know what would be even better than seeing my family for Thanksgiving?” Rafe attempted, sitting at the wrap around counter on his laptop, trying to finish the last of his work before the inevitable holiday dinner you were hosting happened. 

“Is the answer, not seeing your family?” You asked, looking over at him. 

When Rafe’s dad had extended the invitation for Thanksgiving, for the first time since Rafe started paying his own bills, he knew exactly what the intention was. Despite the show at Christmas of a gift arriving to his apartment the only people he kept in touch with besides friends from back home were his sisters. Sarah less than Wheezie but they’d come a long way from when they were teens. And with Wheezie back home during her year off from school, he knew that Rose had no doubt seen his Instagram. Notably, the pictures of you that had begun to literal his once scarce feed. 

And just like that, out of nowhere, Ward called with the great idea that everyone get together for the holidays. 

“Thanksgiving.” Rafe has offered, “you can come up to Boston, we’ll host.” It was an olive branch. A tiny one, barren too, more like a twig but it was something and Ward took it because he was curious. 

Rafe had gotten a job with an economist firm right out of college and two years later he had completely cut his father out of his life. The firm was the reason he was in Boston, they offered him three locations, Los Angeles, which felt too far away from his sisters, Chicago, too windy, and Boston. He’d taken the job and bought an apartment that looked like something out of an ad for Restoration Hardware, sleek and modern. Cut the toxic parts of his family off and now it’d all seemingly paid off. 

When you placed the last dish on the table, thirty minutes from his family’s arrival, Rafe spun his barstool around so he could grab your waist and pull you back into him. 

“I could use the nap right now, honestly.” You admitted, leaning back against him. Rafe kissed the side of your head, hands brushing up the sides of your yoga pants, trying to find skin without looking. You’d started your pursuit of the perfect Martha Stewart approved Thanksgiving with a sweatshirt on, but that and the shirt beneath it had eventually been shed and tossed over the back of Rafe’s couch in favor of just your yoga pants and sports bra. Your anxiety had a habit of making you warm. 

“My dad and Rose won’t be here for like, thirty minutes, go relax.” He offered, loosening his hold on you when you twisted around in his arms so that you could face him. 

“I don’t have time, I still have to get dressed.” You mumbled, face pressed into his shirt. 

In all honesty, you weren’t sure you could’ve relaxed anyway. Ever since Rafe had told you his dad and step-mom were coming up for Thanksgiving with his sisters you had been internally freaking out. A meeting the family holiday wasn’t something you had never done before. You’d met Ian’s family at a Christmas dinner the first year that you’d dated. But that had been a dinner you simply showed up to, not one you put on yourself. 

This was your dinner, that you made from scratch, in Rafe’s apartment. It was your first real holiday together aside from the Halloween party you’d forced him to attend at Nina’s and now you were entertaining his family too.

-

“Things are moving really fast huh?” Nina had teased, standing over the bar cart in her small apartment, trying to remember how to mix a vodka martini. 

“Not...really fast.” You replied. Nina had been bugging you about the pace of your relationship for a while now, acting like it was so out of the ordinary that you had swapped structured date nights for take out at his apartment or yours. 

“You guys have already hit pre-moving-in-together stage.” Nina supplied, “trying to beat Anya out for a wedding this year?” 

“I’m not trying to beat anyone out?” You knew you sounded defensive but you couldn’t help it. “Can we please talk about something else?” 

“Too late,” she laughed, taking a sip of her finished concoction before grimacing. She looked over your shoulder, “do you know how to make a martini?”

“Afraid not.” Rafe replied, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and guiding you a little closer to him. He had agreed to Halloween at Nina’s because he wanted to spend the night with you and this party was a stipulation of that. He was dressed as Tom Cruise in Top Gun, something you had teased him about relentlessly from the moment he put on the costume but you’d be lying if you said he didn’t look insanely hot in the get up. Especially now that the small apartment had gotten so crowded and overheated that he’d slipped off the top of the coveralls and had them tied at his waist with just a white tank on. 

“What’re you good for then?” You joked, laughing when he pulled you even closer, pressing his lips to your neck. “Stop!” 

“Do you want one of whatever this is?” Nina asked, holding her drink out to Rafe. 

“I would but I actually came over here to steal my girlfriend.” He replied, attention moving from Nina to you, “I’ve got a meeting in the morning, I should head out.” 

“Okay,” you moved out of his hold to say goodbye to Nina, giving her a hug and trying not to let her slosh any of her martini on you. 

“No, stay!” Nina insisted, a bit whiny from tipsiness. 

“I‘ll text you tomorrow,” you promised, pulling away from her, already reaching your hand out for Rafe’s. You felt him take your hand, glancing back and smiling at him before giving Nina a kiss on the cheek, “love you, bye.” 

“Love you!” She called as Rafe pulled you away to the door. 

Once in the elevator you let out a breath, squeezing Rafe’s hand gently to get his attention. “Sorry, you could’ve stayed.” He finally said. 

“It’s okay, besides,” you replied, leaning against him and wrapping your arms around his waist, “I have off tomorrow and I know for a fact that your meeting is a zoom conference that’s like, an hour.” 

“That’s true,” Rafe said, nodding and grinning.

“So, I can bother you the rest of the day.” 

-

Wheezie and Sarah had been on zoom plenty of times while you were around and Sarah had even come up to Boston for her birthday a few weeks into you dating Rafe so it wasn’t his sisters that you were sweating. Ward and Rose were both pretty imposing. You weren’t impressed with their wealth or intimidated by it. You had grown up in a similar environment to Rafe but your parents had never felt quite as cold as his. 

“At least there’s alcohol,” Sarah teased, coming up beside you to pour herself a glass of wine. Her own boyfriend had opted out of Thanksgiving with her family to stay down in the Outer Banks and you were a little jealous he didn’t have endure this. 

“Thank god,” you replied, taking a sip of the only red wine you didn’t absolutely hate. A sweeter red from a subscription box that one of Rafe’s friends had gotten him for Christmas once and that he kept up with. 

Dates to fancy restaurants hadn’t been scraped altogether but they were usually reserved for dinners that included more that you and Rafe. You didn’t need over priced food and dry wine to be impressed by him and he certainly enjoyed just hanging out without all the pressure. But apparently fancy restaurants and the wine they served in them was exactly what Rose was looking for. 

“My god, you can taste the sugar in this. It’s like grape juice.” She complained, lips pursing at the unwelcomed flavor. 

“Drink something else then.” Rafe replied, annoyed that he was even putting himself through this. And that he was putting you through this too. He knew you were stressing about Thanksgiving. You’d been back from the wedding for a week, and things between the two of you had been better than before (though before they’d been pretty fantastic too), and now he was subjecting you to his family.  

“Well if there was anything here that was drinkable,” Rose snapped, glaring at her stepson, “I would.”  

“How’s business been?” Ward asked, drawing Rafe’s attention away from Rose and her scrutiny.

You tuned out their chatter in favor of listening to Wheezie talk about her current endeavors, which sounded a lot more pot driven then anything else. Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with a group of friends to “discover her inner self” was not quite the Wheezie you had heard stories about but Rafe had told you plenty of times that his youngest sister’s new girlfriend was a bit of an irresistible influence. Whether that was good or bad was still to be determined.  

“What about you?” Rose asked, interrupting her daughter’s novel-length plans.  

“What about me?” You repeated. You knew what the question meant and you certainly expected it. Rafe had an incredibly good job for a guy his age. He was smarter than his family gave him credit for, more responsible than anyone expected, and then here you were, and sure, you made a delicious apple pie but that didn’t qualify you to be party of them.  

“What do you do?”

“I teach first grade.” You replied, not as impressive as being an economic analyst for a firm that had offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Beijing, and Boston but it was yours and you loved it.  

Rose, clearly, did not, as evidenced by the way she grimaced at you. As if you were worse than the wine she had finally abandoned on the counter. “What age is that?”

“Usually 6 or 7 year olds.”  You replied. “There’s two first grade classes in my school and then two in the other three schools in our sort of, district. I teach my class but I’m also in charge of helping to finalize curriculum for all the other first grades.”  

“Sounds like a lot of stress and not a lot of money.” Rose replied. “You must be grateful to have found someone so financially secure.”  

The implication was there, and loud enough that the end of Rafe’s sentence teetered off as he turned away from the conversation with his father to look over at his stepmom. She had, in so many words, called you a gold digger, right there at Thanksgiving dinner and you hadn’t even sat down to eat the meal yet. If you knew Rafe, and at this point you certainly did, he was itching to say something. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, he wasn’t living under his dad’s roof or dependent on their money, he finally could say something and he looked ready to.  

But you wanted to at least have some sort of dinner so you attempted to speak up before he could, “actually, I make a fairly comfortable salary and-”

“You don’t have to justify anything to her.” Rafe said, “she’s just never met anyone who actually works for a living.”  

“I am one of the top real estate agents in the Outer Banks, do you know how many houses I closed on last year?” Rose snapped, looking toward her step-son and her husband.  

“Rose, please, let’s just sit and eat.” Ward commented. His attempts at keeping the peace were all for show. Everything he said seemed to have some sort of edge behind it. As if he’d worded it just right to compliment and insult at the same time.  

You sat beside Rafe once you’d served the dinner, staying between him and Sarah so you didn’t wind up anywhere near his parents. Wheezie dominated most of the dinner conversation talking about some guy who was doing podcasts from salvation mountain because he believed that he could commune with the “ancestors of America”.  

“Please tell me your sister is high right now.” You whispered, leaning close to Rafe.  

“Oh yeah, high as a kite.” He replied, “think she’ll give us some?”  

“That’s just what we need.”  

Rafe leaned closer, lips practically brushing your ear as he whispered, “It’ll be fun, kick everyone out, get high, have sex.”

“No.” You bit your lip to stop from laughing when he kissed just behind your ear, “now eat your food.”

“Is Fivel here?” Wheezie asked suddenly, interrupting her own story when she remembered your dog. She’d seen him on facetime enough that she had been dying to meet the black lab.  

“What is a Fivel?” Ward asked, looking at you and Rafe.

“He’s my dog. He’s in Rafe’s bedroom, I didn’t want him messing up the table or anything before anyone arrived.” You explained, turning back to Wheezie, “I have to walk him after dinner if you want to come?”  

“Yes.”

Rafe had told you, the first time he met your dog, that his father never allowed pets of any kind when they were kids. Not even a goldfish was permitted in the Cameron Household. He said that, according to Ward, the children were irresponsible and would never be able to care for an animal.  

-

“One time I brought a stray cat that I found home.” Rafe said, sitting in your bed, petting Fivel. The dog was beside himself, rolled to expose his stomach with his head in Rafe’s lap.  

“He didn’t like kill it, did he?”

“Honestly, wouldn’t have been surprised.” He admitted, “When he got mad he was scary. But no, he just made me drive with him to the SPCA to drop it off. I cried the whole way there over having to give up this kitten and then my dad made me walk all the way home.”

“Why?”

“Cause I cried.”  

The bed dipped as you climbed back onto it, sitting beside Rafe and pressing a kiss against his bare shoulder, “you dad sounds like a dick.”

“Oh yeah, no argument there.”  

-

Ward piped up again, seemingly in the mood for conversation and always happy to paint his son in a bad light. “Rafe wanted a cat once when he was younger but I didn’t allow it. The poor thing would’ve died in our house, Rafe’s never been good at taking care of anything, let alone himself.”

“Dad,” Rafe snapped.  

“I’m just putting it out there. I mean, you work with kids,” he said, looking at you, “you must’ve thought about having them.”

“Uh, yeah.” You nodded. It was a conversation that you and Rafe had for the first time when you stayed up north a ways for Anya and Ian’s wedding. Kids were not going to happen next month, certainly, but they were something you both agreed you wouldn’t mind.  

“Well, usually, you know, they say if you can take care of an animal then you can take care of a kid. And I’m just tell you, Rafe couldn’t take care of either.”  

“Dad!” Sarah interrupted this time, glaring at her dad. “Can we just have a nice family meal?”  

“We are.” Ward insisted. Under the table, you reached for Rafe’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly as his father continued talking, seemingly unaffected. “Did Rafe tell you he used to do drugs? You don’t do that anymore right? He snorted coke, wasted thousands of dollars on the stuff.”

The flatware and serving dishes on the table banged together as Rafe stood up suddenly, letting go of your hand. You thought for a moment that he was going to lose it and flip out on Ward and honestly, you wanted to yourself. But he said nothing, walking down the hall to the spare room that he used as an office, all of you watching in silence. Was he so upset he was locking himself in, you could imagine the absolute joy Ward would take in knowing he knocked his son down so far that he was sequestering in his bedroom.  

Finally he came back, piece of paper in hand, and he stopped at Ward’s chair. “Here, get out of my house.”

“What’s this?”

“A check. For 25 thousand. Now take your wife and get out of my house.” Rafe repeated, “dinner is over.”

You sat there in silence, too shocked to look at Sarah and Wheezie, who mirrored your expression, watching as Ward and Rose stood and left. Rafe walked them to the door, slamming it after them and, finally letting out the anger that had been boiling over all night, punched the wall, hand going right through the plaster.

“Wheezie and I can walk Fivel for you,” Sarah whispered, standing up and ushering Wheezie to the bedroom to get the dog and give you and Rafe some privacy.  

You got up at the same time though you headed for your boyfriend, who had his bloody hand pressed against a white button up, face red. “Hey,” you spoke soft, in what you hoped was not your ‘talking to kids voice’, “come on. I know you have a first aid kit cause I bought it.”

He followed you into the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet while you pulled the first aid kit out from below the sink. The front door opened and closed as Sarah and Wheezie left with Fivel. Just the two of you in the apartment now.

“Hey,” you brushed his hair out of his face and he tilted his head back to look up at you. “You did the right thing. He shouldn’t talk to you like that, or about you like that.”

“He’s right. I was a fucking screw up.”  

“In the vain of sounding like I’m going into teacher mode,” you said and Rafe laughed, leaning forward to press his forehead to your stomach, “Everyone messes up sometimes. You’re not that person anymore, and no one should ever talk to their kid like that.”

“I’m just glad he’s gone.” Rafe replied. “I don’t care if I never see him again.”

“Won’t argue with you on that.”

-

-First Christmas-

With the way that Thanksgiving had gone for the two of you, Rafe had proposed a Christmas without family. You might’ve agreed except he hadn’t met yours and you were more than determined to prove that not everyone was like his family. Christmas brought a lot of things. The four-month mark on your relationship, though Nina claimed it felt more like you had been dating a year, and your first major fight.  

Which began as a spat at his place and evolved into a whole verbal sparring match once you were at yours.  

“I’m not going.” He kept repeating the same phrase over and over.

“Christmas is so important to my family, I already told you-”

“And I already told you that the last thing I want to do is subject myself to a house full of people on Christmas when I could be home.” He was adamant about his ‘no family holidays’ decision.

“You haven’t met my family yet.” You argued. You’d been subjected to his and you talked with his sisters frequently but he had never bothered to meet any of your family.  

“Schedule a dinner.”

“Rafe! I did Thanksgiving, it’s not fair that you won’t come up for Christmas with me.” What wasn’t fair was bringing up Thanksgiving in the first place. The only physical memory of evening, besides the 25k that Ward did end up withdrawing from Rafe’s savings, was the hole in the wall that one of his friends had jokingly bought a frame for when they were up visiting from North Carolina the week after.  

“No.” He said the word with enough finality to end the argument.  

“Fine, I’ll go without you.”  

Dinner that night was tense and he didn’t stay over like he usually did. You didn’t text him in the morning and when he finally asked about getting dinner together two days later you lied and told him you were busy. Maybe you were being petty, probably you were, but you didn’t care. You were pissed, and rightly so. You had endured Rose’s scrutiny and had been there afterward for Rafe after he confronted his dad and he couldn’t even make the drive to western Mass. to see your family.  

So, you went alone. Packed your bags, packed up Fivel, and drove out yourself, arriving the day before Christmas Eve to your parent’s house. Christmas was a big deal in your family. The day of was always spent at home, together, with a brunch spread that could’ve fed far more people and the Hallmark channel on a constant loop of ridiculous movies that you loved way more than you should’ve. But Christmas Eve was a whole other story. Since you were a kid your mom had been hosting Christmas Eve at her house, family, friends, anyone who wanted to was welcome to come over. There was chili and meatball sandwiches and appetizers and none of the food the people usually ate for dinner. This was no Martha Stewart Holiday.  

The drive to western Mass wasn’t long, thankfully, because it took Rafe about an hour after you left to realize that there was absolutely no way he wanted to spend Christmas the same way he had the last few years. Alone in his apartment re-watching Die Hard or some other pseudo Christmas movie.  

He got there on Christmas Eve, pulling his car in next to yours in the crowded driveway. It was already snowing pretty heavily but his main concern was you. Would you be happy he changed his mind or pissed that he put you through all that fighting just to decide in the end that he was going to come?  

There were people on the porch and the front door was open so Rafe took that as hint enough to go inside. Your house was smaller than Tanney Hill but probably just as old, the woodwork inside that you’d told him about was as daunting as you said, though he still thought the house looked more welcoming than his.  

He weaved through people who said hello without knowing who he was until he managed to find the kitchen, and you, standing at the island talking to your mom. “I just think it would’ve been nice if she told you ahead of time that she wasn’t gonna show up. No one else wants to eat vegan spinach artichoke dip.”  

“She said she was going to try to make it.” Your mom replied, looking up from the oven and realizing that the two of you weren’t alone in the kitchen anymore. She had seen enough pictures of Rafe from your instagram and from what you’d sent her that she recognized him immediately. “Anyway, I’m taking this out to the living room.” She announced, grabbing the charcuterie board and passing Rafe on her way out.  

You turned, to finish your thought on your cousin, and caught sight of Rafe for the first time. “I thought you wanted to-”

“I know I said I wanted to stay home and not do family stuff but...I’d rather be here with you than stay in my apartment by myself.” He admitted. Rafe wasn’t one to fall on his own sword, he’d always been too stubborn to acknowledge when he was wrong but he couldn’t keep doing that. Not if he wanted this to last and he really did.  

You crossed the small space between the two of you, wrapping your arms around him, “it means a lot to me that you’re here.” You replied, “Christmas Eve is my favorite.”

“I think this is more people than house parties I’ve thrown.”

“Crowds are the best.” You stepped away enough to kiss him, the peach flavor of your lip balm making him lick his lips when you pulled away.  

“Why’s that?”

“Cause you can sneak off in crowds.” You replied, smiling enough that he knew exactly what you were insinuating as you pulled away from him, hooking your arm with his instead, “can I give you a tour of the house Mr. Cameron?”

“Absolutely.”

You walked him up the stairs, trying not to be suspicious as you ducked out of the party.  

-

“I watched this documentary about Nancy Reagan once,” you began to say, laying with your head against Rafe’s chest. It was Christmas morning, as your mom had reminded the two of you when she knocked on the door a few minutes ago.  

“Interesting post-sex commentary,” he teased, cutting you off.  

“Shut up.” You laughed, “I was trying to tell you something nice.” You sat up, angling yourself so that you were facing him, holding the sheet up in front of you. He looked at you skeptically, reaching for the sheet and giving it a tug but you held on. “No, cause you’ll distract me and then I won’t remember what I was gonna say and if we take too long my mom will come back upstairs.”

Rafe pouted, “no early Christmas presents?”  

“Trust me, you’ve had enough early Christmas presents to last until the new year.” You laughed, leaning over to kiss him. The moment you did, of course, he pulled the sheet away and grabbed your hips, guiding you back onto his lap. “Family Christmas.” You reiterated, determined to make it downstairs.  

And you did, though not before Rafe insisted he needed a shower and you needed to join him. The nice clothes you’d both worn for the party the night before were exchanged this morning for pajamas, yours a onesie that Nina had bought you from pink a few years ago.

Rose had always done Christmas for show, a gaudy tree and enough blinding lights and white on sliver to make someone feel like they were in a Kardashian’s house and not the Outer Banks. She never did yard ornaments or sentimental anything and someone else always baked whatever desserts they had for dinner at the holidays. Yours was entirely different. Red and green everything, the overwhelmingly large tree much more visible then it had been the night before with people crowded around the living room. There were ornaments from every year of your life, some silly figurines from Hallmark and others handcrafted with school pictures in them.  

“Guess how old I was in that picture?” You said, pointing to a baby picture of you that hung on the tree.

“I don’t know, two?”

“Five months...I just had a shit ton of hair. My mom said one time when she took my brother to Tennis the girl there asked if I wanted to join the seven-year-old class. I was three.” You replied.  

“So you were always weird?” Rafe asked, grinning when you smacked his arm.  

“How did you two meet? We didn’t get the story.” Your mom said, carrying a tray of food in and putting it on the coffee table. Your brother was with his husband’s family this year, but your sister was here with her husband and her three kids, one of whom was currently climbing onto Rafe’s lap the second he sat down.  

“Sorry, Garrett still gets u-p-s-e-t when he doesn’t get enough a-t-t-e-n-t-i-o-n.” Your sister said, as Garrett tugged on the strings of Rafe’s hoodie. Your sister was holding one of her twins and her husband had the other in his arms.  

“That’s fine, Garrett and I can chill, right?” Rafe said, tilting his head to look at your nephew.

“Yeah chill,” he repeated, smiling up at Rafe.

“So,” your mom said, drawing the conversation back, “how did you two meet?”

“Like how did we actually meet?” Rafe asked, smiling at you as you sat down on the couch beside him, Garrett repositioning himself so he was stretched out across both of you, laughing when you tickled him.  

Your mom nodded.  

“We uh, met at college but I was kinda still with Ian so nothing really happened and then Nina saw him on my Tinder and swipped and now we’re together.” You replied, “a modern love story.”

“Yeah, we,” he looked down at Garrett and then back to your mom, “h-o-o-k-e-d up and she broke my heart by not calling me back.” Rafe said.  

“Rafe!” You laughed, nudging him.  

“God, I hated Ian...what a d-o-u-c-h-e,”

“We actually just went to Ian’s wedding in November,” You replied, lifting Garrett so that you could grab some food off the table. Rafe put his arm around your nephew when he tried to rock back again.  

“No!” Garrett laughed, squirming around. “I wanna do presents.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll do presents.” Your stepdad promised. Garrett slid off of Rafe’s lap, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the tree. Rafe followed, sitting down at the base of the tree so that Garrett could look for the presents with his name on them.  

“How was the wedding?” Your sister asked, sitting on the floor by the couch with one of the twins. “I can’t believe he invited you.”

“Oh he didn’t,” Rafe piped up, “Ian married her grade partner.”

“Are you kidding?” She practically hissed, immediately going into older sister defensive mode.  

You rolled your eyes, getting off the couch and sitting down beside Rafe and Garrett. “Not kidding, and it doesn’t matter anyway.”

-

Being at your parents for Christmas had the same feeling as being out of the city for the wedding. Maybe even more so this time around, spending time with your family, made it easier for Rafe to think about the possibility of moving out of Boston and settling down with you somewhere like this.  

“I bought that bike unitard, by the way.” You mentioned, packing your suitcase to leave. Rafe was laying on the bed in your childhood room, Fivel spread out next to him.  

“The what?” He asked, raising his head a little.  

“The bike unitard, that I showed you, from that yoga website.” You replied, “its the shorts.”

He hummed, laying his head back down and brushing his hand through Fivel’s fur.

“What’s the ‘mmhmmm’ supposed to mean?” you asked, mimicking his humming.  

“You don’t ride a bike. Also, it’s December.”

“I might start.” You argued. In reality the chances of you biking were slim to numb but the outfit had been cute and the site had a 20% off sale.  

“No.” He replied, “Nina asked you to bike two weeks ago and you said it was, and I quote, the worst activity in the world.” He said, finally sitting up all the way when you stopped packing to sit on the bed with him.  

“Well I could stationary bike?” You suggested, though that was unlikely too. “They have those ones with the desk. So you can work out and work.”

“You’ll never use that.”

“I might.”

“Why not just use that stupid peloton in my office.” It had been a gift from Rose and Ward two years prior and Rafe had used it a total of never. It just sat there, staring at him as he worked.  

“Then I’d be at your apartment all the time!”  

“More than you are now? I’m surprised I don’t get mail in your name already.” He replied, getting off the bed and going over to his weekend bag. You should’ve left by now to make it home before dark but neither of you were rushing to leave.  

“Well, we’re always busy! If I was there and not busy-”

“Coincidentally,” Rafe started to say, only to have you cut him off.

“Coincidentally?”

“Yeah, here.” He turned back toward you and held a small wooden box out.  

You took it somewhat skeptically, “what is this? This looks like the Leslie and Ben box.”

“That’s because you have the best fucking boyfriend in the world who watches endless reruns of Parks and Rec with you.” Rafe replied, “open the box.”

Sitting inside the wooden box was a keycard and a spare, silver key, both of which you recognized. “Are these to your apartment? Are you giving me keys to your apartment?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I’m also asking you to move in with me. I know your lease ends in January and my building is animal friendly...imagine my bookshelves with actual books on them.”

“You want us to move in together?”  

“I want a lot more than that,” Rafe admitted, “but, it’s a good place to start.”

-

Taglist: @maplelattes22 @poguesrforlife  @freckled-and-daydreaming  @chasefreakinstokes @millie-753 @fangirlwithme @alex12948 @katherine097 @tangledinsparkles @carbonated-beverage @mariofgreengables @damonsalvawhore27 @dopedoodes @dolanfivsosxox @belledutchess @poguelifeeee @faded-blue @parkerpetertingle @thebookwormlife @summer-clouds-and-long-days @jellyfishbeansontoast @minigranger @hoewkeye @love-someone-special @tiredfeels @strangerthanfanfiction713 @the-only-nana @tomzfrog @mozz-are-lla @vindictive-hearts @ssprayberrythings @jenahbell @beautyandthebleh @gothackedalready @teenwaywardasgardian @sarahcxmeron @haha-fuck-you-thot @stillbelieve398-5 @rewindlr @queenniccimicci @thedarkqueenofavalon @alytavzla @bqmblebee @linniep @nerdypartytrashpsychic @xxchxrryxx  @danielladreaming @obx-saltlife @youngestxhearts @spnobsessedmemes @wowitswondergurl @aoba-josigh @pineappleandcherries @mysterious-adventurer @justawilddreamerchild @rhyetaylor62 @calm-rejects @oh-annaa @aiifandomsunite @x-lulu @ceruleanjj @wicked-laugh @obxwriterfan @allie-mcginn @literarycharleton @khiaraaa-in-spacee @crushe-s @teamnick @daydreamlilys @collectiveuniverses @activist-af @mdgrdians @buckys-sunflower @vindictive-hearts @copper-boom @talksoprettyjjx @5am-cigarette @smiithys @dontjinx-it  @mysticsthinking  @rudy-pankow-needs-an-oscar @babymatilda @raekenliar @lemur46 @under-a-canyon-moon @calums-betch @dpaccione @bbeauttyybbx @teenwolfobx @iccyyyybitch @popcrone818 

[pretchatta]

a little bit more of the university au I started here, inspired by @bythevay‘s amazing sweater vest kanan and date night hera. I still haven’t made it to the actual date yet... but it does exist in draft form! I’ll be putting the whole lot on AO3 as soon as I have a title (suggestions are welcome!) but until then it’ll be small sections on tumblr as and when I feel they’re finished.

edit: it’s on AO3!

rating: general; kanan jarrus/hera syndulla; 1.3k words

---

The soft, burbling sounds of the café reached his ears as Kanan pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the library. The foyer was grand, if a little tired, with wood-panelled walls and a polished marble floor that contrasted sharply with the modern security barriers cutting through the middle. Sweeping up one side was the long reception desk that served both sides, though only those with a university ID card could pass through the turnstiles to the café and, more importantly, the university’s precious trove of knowledge beyond. 

Kanan made his way to the desk, not needing to enter the library proper today, absently greeting the old librarian who sat on the other side.

“Morning, Okadiah.”

The human raised a white-haired eyebrow as Kanan reached over the desk to a currently unused library staff computer. “It’s past one.”

“Oh. Good afternoon, then.” He twisted the monitor around to face him and tapped a request on the keyboard in a practised way.

“Someone’s a little distracted,” Okadiah commented. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were thinking about a woman, but since you’re never off campus and the gender ratio of your department is abysmal, that’s about as likely as you reading my sign.”

The sign in question read ‘DO NOT LEAN ON THE DESK’, and Kanan had been ignoring it since graduation. That had been when he’d started working at the library to support himself through his PhD and learnt that Okadiah was far less formidable than he’d first appeared. Since accepting a permanent position in the School of Chemistry faculty he’d not stopped acting like a member of library staff, and he was pretty sure Okadiah only allowed it because Kanan was still one of the few people who could actually work the library’s archaic cataloguing software. 

“Well, maybe next time I’m here for a book I’ll ask you to call it for me, because this woman… I don’t even know how to describe her.”

“Oh boy.”

“She was incredible. She’d dropped a lab coat, and she had these eyes… I’m telling you, I’ve never seen eyes like hers before.”

"Eyes, huh -- is this her, coming in now? Lab coat, check. Eyes, check..."

Okadiah had no idea what Hera looked like, but Kanan's head whipped around to see if it was her nonetheless. He tried not to look too obviously disappointed at the diminutive sullustan woman in white who’d just come through the doors. Her huge eyes roamed around the room before landing on the desk, which she then made a beeline towards.

"Excuse me," she said, peering up at the librarian. The lanyard around her neck proclaimed her to be a guest speaker from one of the university’s affiliate companies by the name of Zaluna Myder. "I'm meeting someone inside, a member of university staff."

"You'll have to wait here until they arrive," Okadiah replied kindly. “When they do I can sign you in.”

The woman nodded. “Very well. I’ll just take a seat here then.” She slid down to sit on the floor at the base of the desk. 

Kanan frowned in confusion, but was distracted by a besalisk with an armful of books arriving at the other side of the desk. 

“You requested this one, Oke?” the woman grunted, passing the topmost one over to him.

“Thanks, Lal, it’s for Professor Jarrus here.” Okadiah took the slim textbook and the library assistant departed again. He glanced at the cover before sliding it over to Kanan. “Hey, this has got to be the fourth Physics book you’ve ordered this term. Is it for that kid again? I don’t know why you don’t just give him Young and Freedman and be done with it.”

Kanan rolled his eyes. “He’s fifteen. I’m trying to encourage his passion for the sciences, not break his spine.” 

“If you’re hoping he makes it to higher education,” came a new voice from behind, “a little strength training maybe wouldn’t go amiss.”

Kanan almost couldn't believe his ears, but there was no mistaking that voice. He turned, and sure enough, there she was. She was wearing different overalls today, but those eyes were the same as he remembered, if not even more beautiful.

Play it cool, Kanan. 

"Hey, Hera," he said casually.

“Kanan, right?” She was smiling at him again, and it made his heart flutter in his chest. “I thought you said you teach Chemistry? Do you often teach extra subjects?”

“Yes -- I mean, no --” He was flustered, and forced himself to start again. “I’m tutoring this kid, and sometimes he gets curious about non-Chemistry topics. Sometimes I worry I’m losing him to Physics, but then I give him a sheet of algebra and he’s back to asking about rates of reactions.”

He felt like he was rambling and stopped himself from saying anything further, but she was nodding.

“I’d be interested to hear more about your teaching.”

“I -- well, you’re always welcome to come by during my office hours.”

He heard what sounded like a disappointed sigh from Okadiah.

“Dr Syndulla?” came a voice from below; the sullustan woman had stood back up. 

“Zaluna!” Hera said brightly, apparently recognising her. “I’ve booked one of the private study rooms for our meeting - unfortunately we can’t use my office today, I share it and my colleague has a tutorial in there right now.”

“If you show me your staff ID, your guest can sign in here and I can grant a temporary day pass to the library,” Okadiah said, bringing out the visitor log book. Zaluna took the pen and started writing as Hera rummaged for her ID card.

Kanan started to feel a little awkward and wondered if he should leave - he had his book now, after all - but he didn’t want to. He wanted to talk to Hera some more, but he didn’t know how to start with Okadiah and Zaluna there.

“There’s a new restaurant that’s just opened up on Gorse Street, y’know,” Okadiah said, interrupting Kanan’s train of thought.

“Huh?” Kanan was momentarily confused, but caught the twinkle in the old librarian’s eyes.

“There,” Zaluna said, finishing signing her name.

“Great, let’s get going. It was nice to see you again, Kanan,” Hera directed the last part to him as she started walking towards the turnstiles with Zaluna.

“Wait!” he called, and she paused to look back. “Do -- would you like to get dinner? With me? There’s a new restaurant…” he finished lamely, gesturing at Okadiah, who covered his face with his hand.

But Hera didn’t seem put off. She smiled at him again, and he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of seeing that smile. “That sounds nice. I’m free tomorrow evening -- meet me under the Illum Bridge at seven?”

Kanan couldn’t help the smile that split his face. “See you tomorrow at seven!”

He watched her walk away, feeling like he was floating. He was taking Hera on a date! Him! And her! For a whole evening, at--

“Wait, what restaurant did I just invite her to?”

Okadiah’s eyes sparkled with mirth over the tops of his glasses. “Luna Cynda has received nothing but rave reviews since it first opened last week, and is fully booked for the next month.”

“What?” Kanan’s heart rate spiked with anxiety. “Fully booked? Where am I supposed to take Hera tomorrow?”

The old man merely smiled at him. “I’ve been meaning to give it a go myself, but since I can’t stand the thought of you taking such a lovely woman on what would otherwise undoubtedly be a terrible date, I suppose you can have my table reservation.”

“Really?”

“Tomorrow at seven-thirty. I’m living vicariously. Treat her well, please.”

---

Continue Reading

[sunmoonandeddie]

but here i am

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: 4,187

summary: After years of being separated from the Avengers, Bucky finds you during a job.

prompt: ‘You told me not to fall in love but here I am.  Coming back to you again was not the plan.  Barely coming up for air, what can I say?  Baby, I’ll go anywhere you take me’ - Pull Me Deep - Logan Henderson

warnings: swearing, violence

a/n: This was written for @fvckingavengers Writing Challenge!  Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy!

 “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

That stupid ass smirk tugged at James lips as he took in the sight in front of him.  Me with a knife in hand and standing over Harold Carr, billionaire and tech extraordinaire. There’s not a single hair out of place, my Valentino dress as pristine as ever.

“It’s been a while, sugar,” he said, and my attention is captured by the way his tongue flicks out over his lips.

I wanted to punch that stupid look off his stupidly attractive face.

I pointed the knife in my hand at him, the other hand going to rest on my hip.  “Get out. I got here first.”

“No can do,” he said.  As he sauntered closer, I just continued to hold the knife up.  He eyed it without a drop of fear.  He was too accustomed to being threatened with sharp objects.  “I’m an Avenger, remember?  That means that I have seniority over you.”

“Bullshit!” I snapped, my frustration growing.  “You don’t get to take over whatever you want just because you have a fancy ass suit!”

Carr’s eyes were flickering back and forth between the two of us, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to make sense of our relationship.  Or whatever you’d call it.  It was more of a love-hate thing, with him loving antagonizing me and me hating his guts for it.  The fabric I had torn from the curtains and stuffed in his mouth muffled anything he had to say about it.

“You used to have a ‘fancy ass suit,’ too, remember?”  James took a step closer, not even flinching as my knife pressed into the soft skin of his neck.  With just one flick I could slice his jugular.

He was trusting me not to.

“You really are stupid, huh?” I asked.  The sounds of the party wafted in through the cracked door.  A horde of rich cats all too preoccupied with playing a game of Who Has the Best Life to realize that their host had disappeared over thirty minutes ago.  “I could kill you right now,” I said, though even as the words fell from my lips, I knew that I wouldn’t.  That I couldn’t.

Even though I’d never admit it, James Barnes had wormed his way into my heart years ago and had never quite left.

“But you won’t.”  He swallowed and the knife nicked him.  A small drop of scarlet trailed down his porcelain skin, staining the crisp white shirt he donned.

“James.”  I dropped the knife and rushed to look at the tiny cut.  It was nothing compared to the injuries the both of us suffered almost daily. I hadn’t even realized what I’d done until a fond smile lit up his face.

“Told you.”

I opened my mouth to shoot back some smart ass response, but the look on his face stopped me.  There was a glint in his eyes, but it wasn’t malicious.  He wasn’t trying to taunt me.  “James,” I breathed, suddenly finding the dress I was in very, very restricting.

I swore I could see the raging ocean in his eyes as he towered over me.  His breathing stuttered as he tried to joke, “I think you’re getting soft for me, sugar.”

The moment that lingered between us was ended by the groans coming from the man currently tied to a chair.  With the spell broken, I took a step away and willed my heart to stop beating so god damn fast.  “You need to leave,” I said, clearing my throat as I turned to look back at my target. The feelings I’d harbored years ago were drifting out of the box I’d thrown them into in the back of my mind.

“Come on—”

“James.  Leave.” My voice was cold, and my eyes even icier.  There was a tone of finality to it, despite the fact that I was going against what my heart wanted.

But listening to my heart will get me killed.

I’d seen it all before.  People like us thinking that they could be normal.  That they could be in love and nothing would happen.

Then they ended up with a bullet between their eyes.

I’d almost been one of them, once upon a time. And then I learned that none of us get a happy ending.

The ballroom was filled to the brim.  There was hardly room to breathe, let alone walk.  Dignitaries from all over the world had come together for this one event. It was a modern day Babylon, with the myriad of languages floating around.

But as much as you wanted to drink your weight in champagne, you had a job to do.

“What’s your status, sugar?” His voice crackled in my com.

“Heading for the control room now, Sarge,” I said under my breath, ducking my head so that my hair fell like a curtain to shield me from the others at the party.  I sipped at a flute of champagne as I made my way towards the staircase.  My movements were languid, slow, as though I didn’t have a care in the world.

The super soldier’s chuckle fills my ear and I can picture it—him sitting in the limo outside that’s waiting for me, surrounded by surveillance equipment.  He was in his gear, ready to burst in at the first sign of trouble.  Wanda was probably rolling her eyes at his antics as she lazily watched the screens. “You know what calling me that does to me, baby doll,” he purred, mischievous even though it was most certainly not the time.

“Can you two not flirt when we’re on a mission?” Sam asked from where he stood at the bar.  He was playing lookout, making sure that no one followed me.  James had thrown a fit during the briefing when he’d been told that he was going to be stuck out in the van with Wanda.

But then Rhodey had reminded him that he tended to get reckless when it came to me, and it shut him right up.  It also helped that Sam had actually gotten an invite, since he’d taken on the mantle of Captain America about a year prior, and him sitting calmly by the bar made it seem as though the Avengers weren’t onto the operation’s antics.

If only they knew.

The hub of the operation we were working to take down was easy enough to find.  All I had to do was try each door until I found the one that was locked.

“Oh, the magic of a good bobby pin,” I said as I crouched down.  I slipped one of the pins out of my hair and bent it so it was a little easier to get into the keyhole.  With a few twists and jimmies, I had the door opening without so much as a creak.  It revealed rows after rows of computers, though it was clear that the most important one was the one situated on a huge desk at the front of the room.  “I think they’re just trying to do our jobs for us at this point.”

The door shut behind me with a soft click and I slowly made my way across the room. It felt too quiet and it was stupidly easy for me to get to the control room.  Everything I knew about this kind of situation was telling me that something really, really bad was about to go down.

“Something feels off.”  But even as I voiced my concerns to my team members, I took a seat at the head computer, plugging in the drive.  Hacking into it was easy enough, but it just added to my anxiety.

“You okay, L/N?” Wanda asked.  “I can send in Barnes if—”

“No,” I said, cutting her off as I began to load the files onto the drive.  “Sometimes I forget that people think they’ll never be caught and don’t bother with better safeguards.”

But even as I said it, it felt like a lie.

“Or they think we’ve all retired,” James offered.

Despite the dread that was pooling in my gut, I watched as the files loaded themselves onto the drive, willing it to go faster so that I could get the hell out of there.  “Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered, my leg bouncing.

My eyes kept flickering to the door, knowing that if anyone came in, I’d be screwed.  There was one entrance into the room, which meant one exit.  If I was lucky, I could hope that the monitor would turn off fast enough that I could duck down beneath the desk.

But, of course, luck wasn’t on my side.

I heard the twist of the doorknob before anything else, and I quickly turned off the monitor before scrambling to take cover under the desk.  The drive was still stuck in the computer, hopefully still loading files onto it despite the monitor being dark.

“I swear, I saw someone come in here on the cameras,” a strange voice said, and I cursed.

We hadn’t found any evidence of cameras in the blueprints of the building, and it would appear that it had come back to bite us in the ass.

Well, more specifically, my ass.

I couldn’t even call for backup.  The men were too close and Sam, Bucky, and Wanda wouldn’t make it to me in time.  My best bet was to stay completely silent and hope that they left.

“I think you’re seeing shit, Davies,” a second voice said.  It was much gruffer and it sent chills down my spine.

I let out slow, carefully measured breaths through my mouth, ensuring that I didn’t make a peep.  Even the softest of sounds could alert them and I had no desire to get caught.  My heart jumped in my throat as I heard one of the desks scrape the floor with the same jeering quality as nails on a chalkboard.

It was quiet for several long moments, and I could hear them start to make their way back to the hall.

“I swear, I’m gonna tan your hide if I check that security feed and no one’s there,” the second voice snapped.  The door opened and I was sure that I was in the clear.

“Y/N, are you okay?  What’s your status?” Sam asked, and my heart stopped as I heard the footsteps stop.

They’d heard it.

In the stark silence of the room, Sam’s voice was as loud as a gunshot.

My heart pounded against my ribcage as I prayed to whatever God there was that I was wrong, that they hadn’t heard him.  I slipped my hand down to the slit in my dress, my fingers curling around the handgun strapped to my thigh.  If I was fast enough, I could get the jump on them, but I’d have mere seconds—no, milliseconds—to shoot.

Steeling myself, I jumped out from behind the desk and fired in rapid succession.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Four shots total.  Three of them hit their targets, though nothing vital.

The men in front of me thundered towards me, anger twisting their faces.

“Y/N, I’m on my way!” Sam said, though I barely heard him as my gun was knocked from my hand.

Hand-to-hand, then.  I ducked as the larger of the two—the one with the gruff voice—reached for me, kneeing him in the groin.  The smaller man—Davies—tried his hardest, but he was easy to take down.  Even with my evening gown on, I flipped myself up and wrapped my thighs around his head, twisting until he fell to the ground.

But before I could get to my feet, the other had his hand around my throat, choking me until the edges of my vision went black and I went limp in his arms.

“You know I can’t do that,” James said with a deep sigh as he watched me twirl the knife in my hand.

Scoffing, I kept my eyes locked on Carr’s.  There was a twinge of fear in the cold green orbs of the tech genius gone terrorist.  Despite the front he put up, he knew what I could do.  What I could do.  “Why not?” I asked calmly, as though we were making small talk about the weather.  “You’ve done it before.”

Even Carr knew how low of a blow that was.

The super soldier stood so close behind me that I could feel the warmth radiating from his broad chest.  He always was some kind of human heater.  Memories of him holding me close in the cold of winter flashed through my mind.  A mission in Siberia that had resulted in us taking shelter in a safe house without electricity.

It felt like a million lifetimes ago.

“Really, Y/N?”

Even after all the years we’d been apart, my actual name slipping from his lips sounded foreign.  From the second we’d met, I’d always been ‘sugar’ or ‘baby doll’ or sometimes even ‘kitten,’ if he really felt like annoying Sam on the coms.

I didn’t want to admit how much his presence affected me.  How my entire body felt tense with him being so close.  How badly I wanted to turn around and throw myself into his arms, pretend that the years we’d been separated hadn’t happened.

But I couldn’t.

The pain of being left behind had seared my heart, left me reeling.

So I pushed aside the twisting in gut, gripping my knife so tightly that my knuckles went white.  “So, Harold,” I sneered, “are you going to tell me about your little operation or am I going to have to put in a little elbow grease?”

“Are you actually going to ignore me?”

“Are you actually wanting to have this conversation now?” I asked, my tone running over my teeth as I tried to control my anger.  I just wanted to finish this stupid job so I could collect my paycheck and go home to a nice bubble bath and a bottle or two of wine.

James crossed his arms over his chest, the Kevlar doing absolutely nothing to hide his thick muscles.  “Yes.”

I stared at him incredulously.  I couldn’t believe he was actually trying this right now.  “I’m working!”  I pointed at the man in the chair, the knife coming close to slicing his nose.  “I’m doing a job that I’m getting paid for. If you wanted to talk, you could call literally any other time.  I know that you all have my phone number on file, even though I’ve changed it at least seven times!”

“If I did call, you wouldn’t talk to me,” he said, his jaw clenched so tightly that I was sure his teeth were going to shatter.

“Maybe that’s because I don’t want to talk to you,” I hissed.

Both of us stopped as we heard a sputtering, turning to see that Carr had managed to spit out the wad of fabric in his mouth.  “Not that this isn’t riveting,” he drawled, not at all sounding like a man currently being held hostage, “but can you two stop your little lovers’ quarrel long enough to finish this?”

“We’re not lovers!”

“Stay out of it!”

Carr raised his eyebrows.  “Because that clears things up.”

I rolled head to the side to glare at him.  “Did anyone fucking ask you, Harold?”

The man looked a little taken aback, his mouth hanging open. It was clear that he wasn’t used to be talked to in such a way.  But, then again, most men like him weren’t.  Rich, white men were used to having the world bow at their feet.

There was no way in hell he was getting that from me.

“You were the one who left, Y/N,” James said, interrupting the stare down that I was in the middle of.

I whirled around, pointing the knife at him yet again.  “Don’t you start with that shit.  You guys are the ones that left me for dead!”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat as I slunk through the doors of the Avengers compound, still limping from the gun shot that had grazed my thigh over a week earlier.  I hadn’t gotten to shower since I’d managed to escape my captor eight days before, and I knew that I smelled like something fierce.

But it didn’t matter.

Because I’d escaped.

Agents were starting to notice me, stopping in their tracks and staring at me as though I’d risen from the dead.

And in a way, I had.  When I’d finally made it back to civilization after two days of wandering the forest surrounding the abandoned house I’d been held in, I’d found that I’d been held hostage for a little over seventeen months.

I knew that the whispers from the agents surrounding me were going to reach the people who used to be my team within minutes.  Being an agent of the newly rebuilt SHIELD was like being in a sorority.  Since everyone worked, lived, and breathed each other, anything new spread through the group like wildfire.

It was a little concerning when I realized that the doors still opened for me automatically.  The A.I. controlling the locks still recognized me.

“You should really update your security,” I said coldly as I stepped into the conference room that my team was in.

No, not my team.  My former team.

Sam, Rhodey, Bruce, and Wanda were all standing around the table staring at a hologram.  But the second I’d walked in, they’d frozen in place.

“What?”  I took a step forward, ignoring how badly I wanted to collapse from sheer exhaustion.  “No words?”

The door behind me opened once again, and I could feel who it was without even looking.

“Sugar…,” James said, completely breathless.  “Y/N… You’re alive.”

I didn’t turn around.  Didn’t even look at him.  My fists clenched at my sides, sweat on my brow from willing myself to keep standing. I was in so much pain, it was insane. “Do you want to know what’s worse than being kidnapped and tortured?” I asked, hating the waver in my voice.  The five of them were watching me with something akin to horror.  “Realizing that your team—your so-called family—isn’t coming for you.”  Sam took a step forward and I shook my head, taking a step back. “Don’t bother,” I said.  “I’m done.”

I turned on my heel and made to leave the room, but stopped in my tracks when I saw James staring at me with heartbreak in his eyes.  He looked just as beautiful as he had the day I was taken, with his dark hair half-pulled up.  Everything I had felt for him seemed to come back ten-fold but I pushed it away.  Taking a shaky breath, I brushed past him and began to head for the exit.

As far as I was concerned, I was done with the Avengers.

“Y/N! WAIT!”

I ignored the man calling after me, walking as quickly as I could.  It was a lot harder and had a lot less impact with a limp.

James quickly caught up, moving so he stood in front of me, blocking my path.  “Y/N, please.  Wait,” he said, blue eyes blown wide as his hands went to my shoulders.

I roughly shoved him away from me as though I’d been burned, eyes narrowing.  “Don’t fucking touch me,” I snarled.  “Did you even try to find me?”

“Of course, I did.  I—”

“Then how did you not find me?” I asked.  My chest was heaving from the exertion.  “I was in an abandoned house in upstate New York.  I managed to get out and find my way back here in eight days.  I’ve been gone for almost a year and a half, and I was in the same god damn state.”

James looked at me as though he’d had his heart ripped out and tossed to the ground. “Y/N, please…  I’m sorry we didn’t find you,” he croaked, his eyes watering. “Please, stay.  You…  You don’t have to be a part of the team, but—”

“Why?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.  My face was flushed as I tried to keep myself steady.  I needed to get to a hospital, or at least a place I could take care of my wounds myself.  “Give me one reason to stay.”

“Because I love you!”

I froze, my heart stopping.  “No, you don’t.”  I moved to walk past him, hyper aware of the stares we were attracting.

“Would you listen to me?!”  He chased after me, easily keeping up.  “Y/N, I am falling in love with you, okay?!”

“Well, don’t!”  I pivoted, almost causing the super soldier to crash into me.  I felt like I was going to combust from anger and frustration.  How long had I waited for him to say those exact words?  I’d waited for a year before the Snap, then desperately tried to get him back for five years, and then waited two and a half more years for any return of my feelings. But now it was too late.  “Okay?!  Don’t fall in love with me!  Because I’m done!  I’m done with this team!  I’m done with this family!”  The energy around the two of us crackled, like lightning was about to strike.  I took a deep breath, grounding myself.  “I.  Am. Done.”

“We searched for you!  For the entire time you were gone, we never stopped looking!” James retorted, his face red.  The vein in his neck was popping out against the rest of his skin.

My hands were shaking as I thought about that time.  I’d been so scared, even though I couldn’t show it. “I spent a year and a half waiting for you,” I said.  The tremor in my voice betrayed how hurt I actually was.  “And I waited years before then for you to want me the way I wanted you.”

“Sugar,” he said, earnestly searching my eyes.  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.  “Baby doll, please.  I love you.”

“I told you not to fall in love with me,” I whispered, though there was no conviction behind it.

A small smile tugged at his lips.  “I’ve never been good at following orders.”

“I’m still here!”

Scowling, I pointed the knife at Harold Carr, who got real quiet, real quick.  “We’re having a conversation.  Don’t be fucking rude.”

James straight up smirked at that, his tongue running over his teeth.  “So those feelings you had for me—any chance they’re still there?”

“Don’t be an ass, or I’ll carve up your face next,” I threatened, even though we both knew it was empty.  There was no way I’d touch his pretty face.

As if to prove that point, he pursed his lower lip and sauntered towards me.  His chest pressed against mine, his flesh hand moving to cradle my face.  “I’m in love with you.  Always have been.  Always will be.”  His calloused thumb rubbed against the soft skin of my cheek.  “If you don’t have feelings for me, I’ll walk away.  But if you do…”  His hot breath fanned over my face and his lips were so close.  I just wanted to kiss him senseless.  “Please.  Let’s figure this out.”

Everything that had happened over the years flashed through my mind.  My first time meeting him, realizing that I was in love with him.  Pining after him and spending five years trying to bring him back. Resigning myself to being just his friend after the Snap was reversed and he didn’t anything.  Being taken and praying for him to find me, only to rescue myself and walk away from life as an Avenger.

As much as I hated it, I missed it.  I missed being a part of a team.  Sure, the money was better doing freelance work like I had been since I left, but it was so lonely.

And there was no James.

My heart pounding in my chest, I grabbed him by the collar and pressed my lips to his.  Pieces inside me clicked together like a puzzle as his arms wrapped around me. Everything that’d happened faded away as my fingers tangled in his hair.

He was the one to break away first.  He leaned his forehead against mine as we savored in the moment.

“I love you.”  My nose nudged against his as I stole another quick kiss.

“I love you more,” he said, refusing to let me go.  There was a sort of magic that hung between us. A spell that could only be brought on by a kiss so right that it was as if fate had written it.

A spell that was broken by the man you had been interrogating before James had interrupted you.

“I still here!” He bellowed, his ugly face twisting.

“I guess we should take care of that, huh?” I asked, though my eyes didn’t break from the super soldier’s.

His lips brushed against mine in a promise of a kiss to come. “’We?’”

“Yeah,” I said, as though it was obvious.  “We’re a team, right?”

[greekgeek21]

The Codependency Competition Ch. 10

Ok, so I just realized that I'm way over 1M readers if I add all of the websites I have this story on together. And I'm in shock. You guys are so great, and I love the support I always get. It's really reassuring to have people say that they like my story because, to be honest, I was really nervous about posting this story. And now that we're on the last chapter, it's a little surreal to have so much recognition. But enough of the sappy stuff. I can do that after the actual chapter. So be ready for the spillage of my heart. Oh and the pic at the top does not mean anything, just in case anyone is hyperventilating right now.  

Also, I just got a new keyboard for my monitor and I'm not quite used to it yet, so if I make a mistake, please don't point it out. I appreciate it. That's also why this chapter took longer than usual to finish BTW.

Oh and if you still reading these, good for you! Not like you wanted to know or anything, but I'm eating a whole lot of Sour Punches right now. It's extremely unhealthy, but do I care in the slightest? No. Not at all.

Stay safe and happy reading!

– your author

P.S. go to FF and answer my poll there. My name is Ocean.breezzq cuz for some reason they don't allow underscores on FF.

ΩΩΩ

How did he end up in this position? Honestly, Percy could not for the life of him figure out how he got himself into this one.

He is currently standing in front of a full-length mirror, with his mother trying to figure out which tie he should wear. They had narrowed it down to two: a deep blue or a thin black one. He didn't see how it mattered, but apparently it does because his mom had been fussing over it for the past ten minutes. He was about ready to just not wear one. It was already bad enough to have to wear a dress shirt and pants (he had adamantly refused to wear anything but his converse).

But of course he was standing around and taking it because it was what Annabeth wanted, and what Annabeth wants, she usually gets.

"Mom! Just choose already! At this rate, we're gonna miss the dance altogether!" he exclaimed.

Sally sighed, "Oh, Percy. I can guarantee that you're going to be a little bit late. Annabeth still has a lot to do before you kids can leave!

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Clearly, his mom did NOT know Annabeth. She's the farthest thing from a girly-girl, only Clarisse could beat her. There's no way that she's fussing about getting ready as much as his mom is. If anything, she's already done and is just sitting in their room watching Youtube. Yeah, that's what she's doing...

That was NOT what she was doing.

In fact, Sally wasn't far off. Annabeth was on a FaceTime call with Piper, Thalia, and Hazel trying to figure out which lipgloss she should wear. She already had her hair and dress done. Her hair was styled in just a simple French braid, and her dress was nothing special. She was sure it cost a lot, but Sally hadn't let her see the price tag.

As soon as her and Percy had agreed to going to the dance, Sally had dragged to the mall to find a dress. She seemed so excited, so Annabeth had just let her shove dress after dress onto her until they found "the perfect match." Whatever that meant.

Anyway, Annabeth had only called her friends because she wanted to get their opinion on how she looked. However, she had ended up getting into an argument about when the appropriate time for makeup was. In her opinion, it wasn't required for school dances. Piper and Thalia thought differently. Hazel didn't want to voice her opinion because she was still getting used to common modern practices.

And that's how she ended up here, fretting over what lipgloss she should use. Sally had let her borrow her makeup bag because Annabeth's consisted of a single tube of mascara and an unused clear lip gloss.

Piper thought that she should use the pink lip gloss that Sally gave her, but Annabeth didn't want to be too flashy, so she wanted the clear one.

"You NEED to use the pink one, Annabeth!" Piper said.

"You already forced me into putting on mascara and blush, so I don't think you have the right to make me use the pink one," Annabeth stated factually.

"Oh my gods, 'Beth! Can't you just use the pink and get it over with? This conversation is exhausting," Thalia sighed.

Annabeth resisted the urge to stomp her foot like a child and responded with, "No! I can't! It's my body, so my decision!"

Piper was almost literally pulling her own hair out, but she told Annabeth in a deadly calm voice to "Put on the dam pink lip gloss before I charmspeak you into doing it."

Figuring it was an endless cycle, Annabeth just sighed and applied the pink lipgloss. When she finished, she stood back from the mirror, and gave herself a once-over. She would never admit it, but the pink kinda looked good.

"Happy?" she asked Piper.

"Extremely," was the deadpan reply.

"Ok, guys. I've gotta go. Talk to you later," Annabeth said, moving to sign-off.

Before she could, Thalia screeched, "Don't forget to tell me what Percy's reaction is! I want details!"

"Yeah, sure, Thals," she said and finally ended the call.

That was exhausting. And she still had a long night ahead of her. Great. Why did she want to do this again?

Back with Percy, his mom had chosen the deep blue tie. She said it brought out his eyes, or something like that. He honestly started tuning out what she was saying after she mentioned hair gel.

They had thirty minutes until the dance started, so he wasn't exactly joyous. In his ADHD brain, he was wondering if there was some way that he could skip the dance without being in trouble. Probably not.

And that's when he saw her.

She looked more than beautiful in her grey and gold dress and silver heels. Percy was pretty sure that his mouth was hanging open, but he physically could not close it. Sure, he'd seen Annabeth a little dressed up before, but never like this. For one thing, she'd never worn heels before.

He was speechless.

"You're drooling, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth stated, walking up to him.

That shocked him out of his reverie, "Huh? Oh! You look amazing, Wise Girl."

Annabeth laughed. It sounded so carefree, but on the inside, she was a nervous wreck. Just as she was about to walk out to meet Percy, butterflies swarmed her stomach. There were so many ways this could go wrong, and she hadn't even thought past seeing Percy yet!

"Thanks, Perce," she said, a little tersely.

Percy picked up on her mood, "Relax, 'Beth. Everything'll be fine. This was your plan, remember?"

"Yeah, you're right. Athena always has a plan. We're going to be fine," thought she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

They both turned to leave, but was abruptly stopped by a yell of protest from Sally, "Just where do you two think you're going? We still have to do pictures!"

Percy groaned, and Annabeth looked like she was trying to suppress one. Sally is great and loving, and kind, but she could be really embarrassing sometimes (especially when it came to Percy).

"Really, Mom?" Percy asked, turning back around to face his mother.

Sally sighed, 'Teenagers', she thought.

"Yes, really. This is one of the few times you get to act like a normal teenager, and I want to capture the moment ," she responded, "Plus, this'll be useful when you get married!"

Both Percy and Annabeth blushed bright red. Leave it to Sally Jackson to make a perfectly casual dance into a conversation about marriage.

Even so, they stood through the seemingly endless amount of photos. Once they were finished, Percy was practically dragging Annabeth away from his mother. The faster they got out of there, the least likely they would be ambushed for pictures again.

In the car, Paul's Prius, they were discussing their plan for the night.

"Ok, so what's the game plan?" Percy asked Annabeth, keeping his eyes on the road. (safety first kids!)

Annabeth sighed at her boyfriend's immaturity, but answered nonetheless, "We act like everything is normal. Well, our usual normal. We show up together, and stay together. Got it?"

"Yeah, I think so," he answered.

"Good, because I made it foolproof for your sake, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth teased, taking one of Percy's hands in hers.

Percy grinned that dopey grin that always made her heart melt, and then her mind clouded over, as per usual. How can he have this effect on me?, Annabeth wondered as she struggled to come back to herself.

Unbeknownst to her, Percy knew exactly what he was doing. It was all part of his charm, as Leo so tactfully put it once. Slowly, Percy was coming to realize what little action he could do to break through that rough shell that surrounded Annabeth. Not many people could claim to have that ability, so he was grateful he was one of the chosen few. Then again, they had been best friends for almost six years. He had some experience to put it lightly.

Anyway, they were almost at school. Time seemed to slow down as they pulled into Goode High's parking lot. Every step towards the gym–which was where the dance was being held–seemed to last an hour. The anticipation was rising in both of the demigods.

Percy and Annabeth both looked over at each other for comfort at the exact same time, as if their thoughts were one and the same. They didn't even have to speak for them to understand what was going through the other's head. They were both nervous beyond belief.

As they approached the double doors with colorful lights pouring out from under it, Percy squeezed Annabeth's hand, glancing at her and asking, "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," she muttered, reaching to open the doors.

Annabeth wasn't sure what she was expecting...maybe a movie moment where the music stops and everyone moves to stare at them? Or for everyone to start bombarding them with questions as soon as they stepped through the door? Whatever its as, she was sure it couldn't have been what happened.

Nobody noticed them.

The dance just continued as if nothing had happened. Maybe one person here or there would do a double-take at seeing Percy Jackson with his arm wrapped securely around Annabeth Chase's waist, but nothing more than that.

It was all very disconcerting. Or maybe the proper word would be anticlimactic? Yeah, that sounded better in Annabeth's head...

Oh! There she goes again, letting her control slip from her ADHD brain! Get a grip, Annabeth!, she practically screamed in her head.

She hadn't even realized that Percy was pulling her by the hand somewhere until they had already got there. He had spotted their friends talking to each other at one of the tables. That brought another question to mind: When did that happen?

"Hey, guys!" Percy greeted, high-fiving one of his friends (Annabeth was pretty sure it was the one named Jack), "What's up?"

All of their friends gave Percy incredulous looks. Percy was just trying to act normal, like Annabeth said, but apparently they hadn't gotten the memo.

"What's up? What's up?! You too are dating, and you're just acting like it's no big deal!" Nora exclaimed.

Oh, that's right. Most of Annabeth's friends hadn't been briefed completely. They must still be stuck in the shock of the reveal. Annabeth wasn't sure why they were making such a big out of it. It wasn't like they had announced they were getting married, or anything. They were just dating. What's so surprising about that?

And Annabeth asked exactly that, in her best accusatory tone.

Nora looked a little shocked before stuttering out a response, "Well-I mean-um...he's him and you're you!"

Not the best answer, Nora, Percy thought before grabbing Annabeth before she decided to gut her friend. He made it look like he had just casually given her a hug, but if you looked closely you could see how Annabeth's nails were digging into his wrists.

"Easy there, 'Beth. She didn't know what she was saying," Percy whispered in his murderous girlfriend's ear.

With one deep breath, Annabeth relaxed her rigid posture, finally letting it go.

"I apologize for keeping something as big as a relationship from you. I hope you can forgive me," she forced out in a robotic voice, clearly rehearsed beforehand.

Percy smirked, but didn't comment on it. He just went over to talk to his friends while Annabeth caught her group up on everything.

The rest of the dance went pretty smoothly. There was SOME dancing, but not much. Annabeth and Percy may have improved on their dancing skills slightly since Westover Hall, but it was still a little awkward. Even after almost 2 years of dating...

Just as they were about to retire for the night, the casual mood changed. Well, more like the entire gym's atmosphere darkened.

Kelsey Evans was blocking Percy and Annabeth's path.

Annabeth outwardly groaned when Kelsey started to advance toward them. Just as things were seeming like they would work out fine, the devil incarnate had to show up.

"Hey, Percy!" Kelsey chirped with her too-high voice.

"Hi, Kelsey. We were just on our way out, so can you move please? Or is there something you wanted to say first?" Percy asked, strangely diplomatic.

"Well, you see. I've been hearing about some CRAZY rumor going around that says that YOU are dating HER," she answered, saying 'her' with an expression of disgust.

Annabeth internally seethed. She was having to dig her nails into her palms just to keep herself at bay. She was so close to snapping, it's a wonder Kelsey was still breathing.

"It isn't a rumor. We are dating, and have been for almost two years. Can you move out of our way now?" Annabeth said, forcing herself to not call Kelsey some nasty words in Greek.

Kelsey faced Annabeth, her flirty look changing into a pitiful glare, "No. You don't deserve him! He belongs to me!"

Even Percy was having a hard time not punching the girl, and he's been taught not to hurt women that can't defend themselves. Well, that last part was added after he had first sparred with Annabeth.

"First of all, back off. Second of all, Percy isn't an object, he's a person. More specifically, he's my person, so you can go away now before I do something I can guarantee I won't regret," Annabeth walked up close to Kelsey, voice deadly calm.

Of course Annabeth was aware of the crowd around them forming, but that wasn't going to stop her. After 'that place' nothing could scare her up here, especially not a weak mortal girl.

Before Kelsey could respond, Annabeth shoved her out of the way and tugged Percy through the door.

Nobody spoke for a long time, but eventually Percy got up the courage to say something, "That was BA."

Annabeth smirked but didn't say anything. She was still coming down from her adrenaline/anger high, and she was afraid that what came out of her mouth would start a fight, even if it was with Percy.

Then Percy couldn't think of anything else to say, so he just shut up. At least, he did until they were changing out of their formal clothes into their pajamas. Annabeth was in their room, and Percy was in the bathroom.

"Are you done?" he asked.

"Yeah, come in," Annabeth responded.

Percy then walked in, threw his clothes somewhere near his overflowing hamper, and plopped down on the bed next to Annabeth. She was sitting up in bed reading some architecture book that he could never understand.

"Hi," he said, turning onto his side and looking up at her.

"Hello, Seaweed Brain," she said, not even glancing up from the words.

Percy sighed, So it's gonna be one of THOSE conversations, huh?

"You know I love you, right?" he asked, smirking his troublemaker smirk.

This tactic usually works the best when he's stuck in these situations.

A small smile played on Annabeth's lips, but she still refused to look up. However, she did respond with, "Yes, and I love you, too."

Percy pouted, stumped. What is so exciting about architecture? The only thing he likes about it is the way Annabeth's eyes light up as she rants about some random building he's never heard of before. That's the only reason he puts up with it. Or it's the only reason he'll admit to, anyway.

Just then, an idea popped into his head. And when ideas pop into Percy's head, everyone within a five-mile radius better clear out cuz' they can be destructive. However, this one was not that bad.

He gave Annabeth a light peck on her cheek, then slowly moved down to her jaw, then her earlobe, and then her neck. He could tell that it was starting to get to her because she hadn't turned the page for a while.

"Percy...," she warned.

He just smiled against her neck. Annabeth rolled her eyes, but relented. She set her book on the bedside table, and turned over to face Percy, giving him a deep, passionate kiss.

She pulled away for a second, "You're such a Seaweed Brain, you know that?"

She only saw a glimpse of his dopey smile before she went back to kissing the love of her life, stress nonexistent in her mind.

ΩΩΩ

Omg omg omg! It's over! I don't even know what to say! I just want to thank all of you guys, my wonderfully supportive readings, especially the ones who've been here since the beginning. You guys are amazing. I don't even know if I would've been able to make this story without the encouragement from you. So thanks.

Now, I think that's all the sappy stuff. I'm looking for a good beta, so if you are or know one who might be interested, please let me know. I'm also going to shamelessly promote my original series. Go check out "Secret Powers" and "Frozen Secrets"! They are the first two books in my three story series.

If you want to know this is Annabeth's dress and shoes from the dance:

Now for the good stuff. Somebody mentioned that they would be interested in a Percabeth proposal, so I'm going to give it to you. Here's a little BONUS SCENE set in their future, but I'm not giving it a specific date, so use your imaginations and decide for yourself. Hope you like it!

ΩΩΩ

Percy and Annabeth were visiting Camp Half-blood, and they were enjoying a nighttime walk along the beach. Annabeth was remembering all of the wonderful memories she had at this beach. Her underwater kiss with Percy, birthdays, all of her dates with Percy. Nothing but happiness came with being at the beach when you love a son of Poseidon.

Percy was in a completely different headspace. His mind was full of nervousness and worry. He was so distracted that he didn't even realize when Annabeth stopped and turned to look out at the water. When he bumped into her, she just gave him a weird look and went back to her previous position.

His hand was distractedly fidgeting with the small, velvet box in his pocket. It felt like it weighed more than the sky, and he should know! What if she says no? What if I mess up? What if the ring doesn't fit? Oh, gods, she's going to say no!

Those were the thoughts swirling around in his brain, making it a whirlpool of stress. He knows that Annabeth loves him, and that he loves her, but she could still say no!

"Seaweed Brain? Earth to Seaweed Brain! Percy?" Annabeth's concerned expression brought him back to reality.

"Huh? Oh, fine. Just-I'm fine!" he said quickly.

She gave him an unimpressed look, but didn't push it. Truthfully, Annabeth had noticed his odd behavior recently, but she still hadn't figured out what was bothering him. But, she knew that he would tell her eventually, so she was REALLY trying not to figure it out beforehand. The last time he'd been this nervous, he was asking her to move in with her!

Ten minutes passed before Percy worked up the courage to do it. His reasoning was that he just had to get it over with. Annabeth's told him she loves him so many times, why would she say no? There was nothing to worry about! Nothing!

"Hey, Wise Girl?" he asked, turning to face her fully.

"Hmm?" she hummed.

He was about to just ask the question, but his stupid Seaweed Brain got there first, "Wanna go for a swim?"

Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows, "Umm...it's 7:30 PM and I'm not wearing a bathing suit. What about this scenario makes you think that we should go swimming?"

Percy decided that he might as well work with what he's got so he went with the first backup plan that came to mind: the best underwater kiss of all time. Ok, not the ACTUAL one, but he could make another air bubble. It's not like he hadn't done it before.

"I'll keep it warm and dry, I promise. Come on! It'll be fun!" he started pulling her towards the water, himself already ankle-deep.

Annabeth started to protest, but he had already gotten her in enough for him to be able to pull her in with his powers. And just as promised, she was still completely dry. She could feel the water on her skin, but it wasn't wet. She had long-since gotten used to the feeling, after so many years of dating Percy, but it still shocked her for the first couple of seconds.

"Fine," she said, and Percy pulled them both all the way under, quickly forming a bubble of air around them.

"I love you," slipped out of his mouth.

It wasn't like it was a big deal, but the way he said it, with so much love, froze Annabeth. What is he planning?, she thought.

An idea began to form in her head, but she pushed it away instantly. Better not to get her hopes up. That way there's no chance of disappointment.

"I love you, too, Seaweed Brain," she said, trying to slip back into her casual tone of voice.

They sat in a silence for about a minute, just watching the scenery around them, before Percy finally ACTUALLY worked up the courage to do it.

"I've been thinking..." he started.

"Uh-oh," Annabeth teased with a smile.

"About us. And our future," Percy said.

Annabeth instantly sobered. He sounded serious, and a serious Percy was a SERIOUS Percy. There was no in-between.

"Yeah?"

Percy took a deep breath, "Yeah. And I know we're a little young, but we've been together for so long, and I just think that it's time. And you've always wanted something permanent, and I want to be that for you. I want us to be that for you. So, Annabeth Chase...will you make me the happiest demigod in the world and marry me?"

It might not seem like much, but to Annabeth, it meant the world. This was exactly what she had been dreaming of for her entire life. She was so full of emotions that she could barely speak, but she was able to get one word out...

"Yes."

ΩΩΩ

Ok, that's it! I'm officially done with this fanfic! I feel like I could've gone on in the bonus scene, but I think that you guys should get to come up with your own version of their happily-ever-after. Anyway, there's a poll on FF and you should go do. It's about my next story.

And you guys know I need to give special recognition to my amazing beta reader! JJ, you took me on when I refused to edit my own work, and you made everything WAY better! You should ALL go check out nightskywithrainbows on Ao3. They write, beta, AND are a student! So kudos to you, JJ! You're the best!

I hope you enjoyed this! Stay safe and happy reading!

- your author

[woofools]

Years ago I had a creative writing assignment while I was neck-deep in a Yin Yang Yo! hyperfixation, so I basically lifted a bunch of characters from the show, put them in a human AU setting, and changed their names.

BUT, I was talking with @yuckisalesbian, who was like “hey I’d read that!” This one’s for you, pal.

So here it is! A (sort of, very very loose) human/modern day AU! (Names changed back for clarity.)

Please be merciful this was written a while ago, as I’ve said. Beware of swears.

There was a series of crashes and the sound of glass breaking, then a muffled glugging noise. A pause, then, in unison,

“We’re so dead.”

Yo didn’t move from his spot in bed. He wasn’t sure of the exact time (checking it would require moving), but he was sure that it was too early for this shit. He entertained the thought of ignoring the sounds of rising calamity and just dropping back off to sleep, but then the smoke alarm went off. Regretfully, he had to let the fantasy of further sleep drop back to the hopeful abyss it’d sprung from. The noise, if nothing else, would keep him awake.

He still didn’t move, though.

There was the sound of feet approaching at a semi-frantic clip, and then he heard his door being thrown open.

“Heeeeeyyy, Yo, buddy, you awake?”

It was Yang. Yo grunted.

“Cool, that’s cool, so um, hey! Quick, completely random question that has absolutely nothing to do with our current situation: where do we keep the fire extinguisher?”

Yo heard Yin frantically yelling for her brother from the kitchen, and grumbled, “Back of the closet.”

“YANG!!”

“’KaycoolthanksYobye!”

And with that, his door slammed shut.

Yo stayed where he was for another thirty seconds, this time trying to convince himself that two twelve-year-olds could absolutely handle a fire on their own. Absolutely. In no way did they require his help. None at all.

Yang was distantly yelling, “How do you work this thing?!” as Yin screamed, “Squeeze it! Squeeze it!”

Yo groaned into his pillow, and pushed himself upright.

*****

An hour later, after the fire had been put out, the shards of dishware had been disposed of, and the half-gallon of milk had been mopped off the floor, the three of them sat on the sofa eating cereal out of pans (all the other bowl-like instruments were either broken or dirty). The twins kept glancing at each other. Yo braced himself.

Sure enough, after a minute or so of mental-twin-communication – or whatever the hell he was witnessing – Yang began, “So hey, Yo—”

“No,” he said through a mouthful of cereal.

Yin sputtered. “We haven’t even asked you anything yet!”

“Still no.”

Yang stuck his lip out. “Why not?”

Yo gave him an unimpressed, annoyed look. “Because I have to buy a new microwave.”

Both twins deflated.

“We were trying to make you breakfast,” Yin offered meekly.

“So you could butter me up for whatever you’re trying to ask for? Stick to something noncombustible next time.”

He watched the pair deflate further, staring dolefully into the last dregs of their cereal. Ah, and there was the guilt, right on schedule. Which he felt was (mostly) unfounded; he was fairly certain they weren’t as broken up as they were pretending to be, anyway.

And yet, here he was, falling for it.

“What were you gonna ask me?” he half-groaned.

The fact that they both instantly perked up only added to his “they’re just putting it on” –theory.

Yin began, “So our school’s hosting this thing—”

“—it’s kind of like a talent show—” Yang threw in.

“—and we signed up for it—”

“—because who’s more talented than us?—”

“And families and stuff can come to watch—”

“Yo, you have to come watch us!”

“Come see us do our bit pleasepleaseplease!”

They said all this very fast, and at roughly the same time. Yo reeled.

“…Lemme get this straight,” he said slowly. “You two were planning to bribe me into coming to see your school thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty much.”

“Which won’t actually cost me anything other than my time?” Yo went on.

“Uh… yes?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Yo wasn’t sure what to make of the outrageously hopeful faces boring into his soul. “That’s… that’s not something that needs bribing…”

“That mean you’ll come?” they asked in unison.

“I– yeah, knuckleheads, that means I’ll come.”

He rode out the mini-explosion of joy and excitement by grumbling that this was probably the stupidest reason they’d had to date for inadvertently destroying his kitchen.

*****

The twins left for a nearby park shortly after finishing their cereal, claiming they needed to go practice their act. They refused to tell him what the act was exactly, because for some reason kids relished the idea of surprises. Yo, who was old, took surprises with a mixture of apprehension and distaste. But it was making them happier than he’d seen thus far, so alright, fine, whatever. “Surprise” it was.

Yo was grudgingly heading out to Sears to pick up a new microwave. Microwavable meals had been the majority of what they’d been living on, so not having a usable one around the apartment would only make life that much more difficult. As the “adult” it was his sad duty to put aside his plans for the day to go get one. As compensation, he decided that this meant that there were two kids who wouldn’t be getting an allowance for the next three months. He hadn’t bothered to mention that to them yet. That should be a fun conversation.

He stood waiting for the elevator, absently swinging his keys, when a voice down the hall suddenly decided to take a metaphorical cheese grater to his eardrums:

“Yo? That you down there? Oooh how’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

He heard the woman shuffling down the hall towards him, and weighed the merits of pretending to have a heart attack and die. She linked arms with him before he could make up his mind.

“Hello Edna,” he said stiffly instead.

“Oh, Yo, it’s so good to see you, I was getting so worried! I never see you out and about lately, and whenever I go to check on you, you aren’t home!”

“Really? Huh. What a strange and completely unintentional happenstance.”

“I told my Herman— I said, ‘Herman, if poor Yo doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to need you to do something Herman!’ And d’y’know what he said? He said, ‘Yes Mother!’ He’s such a good boy, my Herman, he was worried about you too—”

“Interesting,” Yo grumbled, internally demanding God tell him why the elevator was taking so long.

“So you gonna to tell me where you been? Where you going now?”

Not seeing a way out, Yo said, “I have to go get a new microwave.”

“Really?! Why’s that?”

The elevator doors finally opened, but just as Yo was about to (happily) excuse himself, he realized what had taken it so long in the first place: a couple of guys were trying to move a couch. How they’d managed to cram the thing in there was a mystery to Yo, but now it seemed to be his unhappy privilege to get to watch them try to wriggle it out.

Despondently, he replied, “Kids blew up the old one.”

“Oh yeah, you’ve got those kids living with you now…” Edna’s grip on his arm suddenly got a little tighter. “So, what are they anyway? Niece and nephew? Second cousins?”

“Uh… no? They’re… y’know, mine.”

“Really.” Unless he was imagining things, her tone had iced over just a touch. “Adopted?”

“…Yes and no…”

“What?”

This was undeniably the last thing Yo wanted to be talking about right now. But then, talking to Edna was undeniably the last thing he wanted to be doing period, so in a way it kind of fit. “They’re my real kids – biologically, I mean – but I’ve only really been their ‘parent’ since last year.”

“Ah. And the mother?”

“Gone.” And fuck you Edna, because that was all he was saying on the matter.

But apparently that was good enough for her, because all she said was “I see,” and then resumed snuggling into his arm, warm and bubbly as ever. “I’ll bet she just took the kids and ran, didn’t she? How horrible for you! Well, I guess she got her just desserts, isn’t that right Yo? And now you have your precious little babies back!”

Yo didn’t say anything this time. He was too busy trying to convince himself that it was indeed a real person hanging off him, not some cartoon escaped from a kids’ show.

“But you said they blew up your microwave? That must be something they picked up from their mother’s side, I’ll bet you any money— Y’know Yo, if you want, I could send Herman over to talk to them for you— OOH! We could have a family dinner together! The three of you could come by tonight, I’ll make my famous creamed pork just for the occasion—”

The guys had finally freed the couch, thank Jesus. Swiftly untangling himself, Yo said, “Sorry, I’ve got plans,” and practically leapt into the elevator. The last thing he saw as the doors closed was Edna looking as though she’d just had her favorite treat snatched out from under her nose. Sighing in relief, he slumped against the back wall of the elevator.

He’d made a solemn promise to himself that the only way he’d ever have dinner with Edna Laskey was if someone’s life hung in the balance. He had no intention of breaking that promise today.

*****

Yang stuck the landing from his jump off the monkey bars, then spun around to face his sister, arms outstretched in showmanship. Yin nodded, smiling.

“Nice. I still think we should have some streamers though…”

Yang made a face. “We don’t need any stupid streamers, Yin. The act’s fine the way it is.”

“Says the guy who wanted to use rocket packs…”

“It would’ve been cool!”

“Uh-huh. Tell me again, where did you think we were going to get the rocket packs?” Yin asked, head tilted challengingly.

Yang pouted, and didn’t answer.

“I rest my case.”

“…still would’ve been cool…”

“Still would’ve been completely impossible, meathead.”

Yang stuck out his tongue, and his sister returned the gesture. Then his face lit up.

“Okay wait hold on… If we did use streamers—” (Yin squealed,) “—Lemme finish. If we used streamers, then could we also add some fight moves?”

Yin suddenly looked much less enthused. “‘Fight moves’?”

“Yeah, like karate kicks and stuff. We could throw ‘em in at the end.” Yang took the opportunity to display his karate-kicking prowess, with copious amounts of “hi-yah!”s and “chee-hoo-wah!”s for good measure. With a final, vicious kick, his sneaker went flying off.

“Nice going, dork-butt,” Yin said dully as she watched the shoe fly through the air.

The park they were in was, unfortunately, at the top of a high hill. At the bottom, there was a Walgreens and an attached parking lot. The twins watched the shoe plummet from the sky before rolling down the hill, right underneath the maroon Impala parked at the edge of the lot.

“Aw crud,” Yang groaned, stalking down the hill. His sister hopped up from where she sat and trailed after him, snickering.

Upon reaching the car, Yang ducked down and stretched his arm as far as he could. Which, since he was a twelve-year-old, wasn’t very far at all.

“I can’t get it,” he grunted. “Can you reach it from the other side?”

Yin circled around the car and imitated her brother’s actions, with similar results. “Nope,” she called back. “Try crawling under on your stomach.”

Yang grumbled irritably to himself, but nonetheless dropped to his stomach and began trying to worm his way under the car. Yin straightened up, using the door handle as leverage.

The door opened.

Yin stumbled, landing hard on her rear. A chunky Manilla envelope fell from the car and landed in her lap.

“What’re you doing?” Yang asked from under the car.

“The– the door opened.”

She heard rapid shuffling from under the car. Seconds later her brother came from around the front, hopping on one foot as he tried to tug his sneaker back on. By that point she’d already gotten to her feet, and was just about to toss the envelope back into the car and slam the door.

“What’s this?” Yang asked, plucking the envelope from her hand.

“It fell out of the car,” she said, trying to snatch it back. Yang dodged her hand and retreated several paces.

“Whatcha think’s in here?” he asked, holding it up to the light as if trying to see through it.

“It doesn’t matter dorkasaurus, it’s not ours! Give it back!”

“Lighten up dorkasaurus-rex,” he said, lifting the metal tab, “I’m not gonna hurt it.”

“Yang, don’t—!” but he’d already lifted the flap.

“Holy—”

Yin moved to her brother’s side and peeked into the envelope he was holding. Her jaw went slack.

The envelope was filled with thick rolls of hundred dollar bills.

“Put it back, Yang,” Yin begged. “If the owner comes back and catches us holding this—”

Yang hastily resealed the envelope and lobbed it back into the car. It landed in the center of the bench seat in the back, on top of a pile of blankets that had been heaped there. Yin could also see what looked like a champagne glass full of water (??) in the cup holder, and several journals strewn about the floor. As she wondered what any of these things were doing in the back of an Impala, she noticed, through a crack in the blankets—

She screamed and grabbed her brother’s wrist, dragging him back up the hill as fast as she could manage and ignoring his alarmed questions.

As she’d looked at the pile of blankets, she’d seen an eye looking back.

*****

Yo didn’t know up from down when it came to appliances, so after thirty minutes of futilely trying to compare microwaves against each other, he broke down and just bought the cheapest one they offered. As he exited the store with the box under his arm, he felt his cell buzz insistently in his pocket. The ID read “yin.”

“Y’ello?”

Of all the things he could have possibly expected to hear on the other end of the line, frantic, hysterical sobbing wasn’t on the list.

“Yin?”

She was saying something, repeating it over and over, but he’d be damned if he could pull a single legible word from the mess.

“Yin? Yin, you gotta calm down, what happened? Yin—?”

Yin gave a sudden loud exclamation, there was a sharp sound he couldn’t quite place, then silence.

“Yin…?”

For a horrible second, Yo thought the call had gotten dropped. But there was what sounded like shuffling from the other end; was that someone messing with the phone, or some kind of weird feedback? Then, a distant, very male, very adult voice said,

“That just won’t do, now will it?”

The line went dead.

*****

The cop had a bristly blonde mustache that hovered over the stubble covering the rest of his chin. His paunch threatened the integrity of his shirt’s buttons, and he had sweat stains under his arms. He paced absently in front of Yo while his partner sat off to the side behind a table, watching them. After another moment of silence, the mustached cop said, “Tell me what happened one more time.”

Yo’s fists clenched involuntarily, but he steadied himself with a deep breath. “I woke up this morning to a lot of noise because my kids had accidentally blown up the microwave—”

“No,” interrupted the cop, “from the beginning.”

Yo faltered. “That– That is the—”

“Where’d you get the kids in the first place?” the cop’s partner specified, the fluorescent lights creating a shining spot on his balding head.

“From… Their Mom went missing a year ago—”

“And what was your relationship to her?” asked the first cop, who was now standing directly in front of Yo, staring down at him.

Yo shifted a bit in his uncomfortable plastic seat. “Is there a professional way to say ‘one-night stand’?”

“Did you know your ‘one-night stand’ had gotten pregnant as a result of that night?” Mustache asked.

“…yeah. She told me.”

“But you didn’t want kids, did you?” asked Mustache, sneering.

Taken aback by the cop’s sudden hostility, Yo blurted, “What does this have to do with—?”

“Answer the question,” Baldy interjected.

Yo was quiet for a second, feeling suddenly disoriented. Eventually, he managed to grind out the half-lie, “No. Not at the time.”

Mustachio looked grimly triumphant. The queasy feeling Yo had gotten when he’d first heard Yin sobbing over the phone now had company: a twitching, pulsating kind of foreboding. He was having a harder time working out the origin of this new feeling, though.

“Keep going,” Mustache pressed (though Yo was starting to realize he most likely knew all this already). “How did you end up taking care of the kids you’d previously abandoned?”

“Their Mom had gone missing, and there was no one else to look after them,” Yo said, feeling like a child being grilled by a particularly sadistic teacher.

“So she did,” said Mustache, now falling heavily into the seat in front of Yo. “We had a look at the file before we brought you in, didn’t we Brian?”

Baldy nodded, producing a folder from somewhere underneath the desk and handing it to his partner. Mustache casually flipped through the papers inside.

“Mom was supposed to pick the kids up from school. Never showed. They had to walk home. Called the police four days later when she still didn’t show up. Kids didn’t have anyone else to stay with, so they briefly went into foster care. You, Mr. Yo,” the cop’s eyes darted up to observe Yo briefly, “were on their birth certificates as their biological father, so you were contacted. You showed up, the situation was explained, and after all the legal issues were ironed out, the kids were packed off to live with you. That sound about right?”

The cop’s steadfast refusal to focus on the fact that two children had just been abducted in favor of rehashing a year-old case made Yo’s frustration (and phantom sense of dread) increase by a factor of five. He nodded stiffly and hoped he would get to the point.

Mustache carelessly tossed the folder back onto the desk and pushed himself out of his chair. “Kind of suspicious that both your kids and their mom would inexplicably go missing, don’t you think? Especially only about a year apart from each other…”

He resumed his pacing, speaking almost thoughtfully. “Here’s what I think happened: I don’t think you planned on so much as calling this woman after you were done with her, so when she calls you saying she’s pregnant, you panic and hit the bricks. Years down the road, she tracks you down. Maybe she’s in desperate need of money. Maybe she just wants you to finally do right by your kids. Doesn’t really matter the reason; you want nothing to do with it. Angry accident or preplanned move, one way or another that girl ends up dead.

“I don’t know how or where you got rid of the body; that’s an issue for another day. Bottom line is you thought that was the end of things. But then you get the call. They tracked you down. There’s no one else to pawn the kids off on. And you don’t like that.

“Now the story as I see it can go one of two ways at this point: either you’d decided before they’d even moved in that they wouldn’t be staying with you for long, or you’d tolerated them until they made your microwave go bang, and then that set you off. Either way, you decided to do exactly what you did the last time you had a problem you couldn’t get rid of. Isn’t that right?”

The cop was staring at him with savage triumph, every inch the person who thought they’d seen through and dismantled a cunning ruse. Yo stared back in dumbstruck silence. He understood the foreboding he felt now, and understanding only made it stronger.

The police thought he was responsible for the disappearance of his children.

They weren’t going to help him.

*****

It was 2:00 am before the police finally let him leave. They didn’t have enough evidence to hold him, so when hours of trying to bully a confession out of him didn’t work, they let him go with a warning not to leave town and the promise/threat that they’d be in touch. By the time Yo got back to his darkened apartment, he was so numb that a faraway part of his consciousness questioned if he was still even a real person at all.

He closed the apartment door behind him, but paused as he went to lock it. Slowly, he removed his hand from the latch. He went to walk away, but stopped as he got to the corner of the hallway leading to the bedrooms, looking back at the door.

Sliding against the wall, he sat down on the floor and stared at the door.

He sat there for hours trying to convince himself they wouldn’t be coming back through it. He didn’t listen.

*****

Yin was sitting on the couch, trying to read a book. Yang was also sitting on the couch, trying to annoy her by imitating various bodily functions. Usually the twins’ squabbling set him on edge, but right at that moment Yo couldn’t have cared less. They were home, bickering like they always did, unhurt and whole. They both went silent when he hugged them, but then Yo wasn’t normally a hugger, so their surprise was justified. He suspected he’d be doing a lot more of it from this point on though, if he ever let go of them to begin with—

The phone rang.

Yo jolted slightly, and looked around, disoriented and groggy. He was on the floor, slumped against the wall facing the door of the apartment. Where had the twins gone? They’d been here, he’d felt the weight of them in his arms, heard their voices, they’d been here—

He stood up, head sent spinning, and stumbled down the hall. They’d gone to their room. They were just in their room. He ignored the phone.

Yin’s bed was neatly made, while Yang’s merely had its blankets haphazardly thrown back up over the bed. But they weren’t there.

Reality came smashing back down on his head. They weren’t there. They hadn’t been there all night. He didn’t know where they were.

The phone rang and rang in the background. Yo made no move to answer it. Eventually, it went silent. They weren’t there.

Haltingly, he pried himself away from the doorway. He wondered, dully, distantly, what he should do with himself now. The question was met with an agonizing barrage of white noise.

The phone rang again.

Yo stared at it for a couple of seconds before slowly reaching over and lifting the phone from the charger. He answered it with nothing more than a small “hm?”

“Took you long enough,” snapped the person on the other end. For a moment the white noise returned to completely consume the scope of Yo’s thoughts, and then he was white-knuckling the phone as he held it to his ear, eyes wide. The voice on the other end of the phone was the same one he’d heard when Yin and Yang had gone missing.

“You’ve misplaced a pair of things, correct? Did you know to find things you’ve lost, sometimes it helps to retrace your steps back from the place you lost them?” The voice paused. “In case you happen to be a complete imbecile, be at the park in twenty minutes. If you’re late or bring anyone with you, we won’t be speaking.”

They hung up before Yo could get a word in.

[celestialholz]

Star Trek: Picard. MON CAPITAINE, HE’S BAAAACK. <3

Well, I am a British idiot without a decent proxy, but it’s Friday and therefore Captain Picard Day officially for my good self, so... about time we got with the damn times and DID SOME REVIEWIN’, mes amis. Spoilers abound, naturally. I’m going blow-by-blow, but also elaborating on some lovely things here and there. Jean-Luc Picard means a lot to me personally, I write about him a lot for those who may not know me, and I’ve been SO excited for this - but does it measure up? Spoiler warning: oh yeah. Hellllll yeah.

Warning: Many crudely-drawn hearts incoming. None of them are mechanical, sadly.

- Okay, first thing: this show is GORGEOUS. Oh my god, seriously. CBS knew they were running a potential gold mine here and spent the damn money to prove it. That sweeping into the Enterprise? The credits? Boston? Jesus, my eyes haven’t been treated so well since Avengers: Endgame. It’s a damn Michelin-starred FEAST. It strikes precisely the right balance of feeling gloriously alive and futuristic whilst having the vineyard be oh-so-current, and thus retro for the era. 1701 out of ten, boys. <3

- Data. Picard. Poker. My soul aches. This immediate rich banter is just... *pinch emoji* Ten Forward, man. TEN FORWARD.

- Give me the dog. Just give me him. I love Will, super stoked to see him again, but THIS is my new Number One. Shaped like a goddamn friend.

- Boston, huh? Jesus. Immediate action, immediate knowledge without any knowledge at all of who this chick is. Great writing. <3

- Credits! Already said they’re visually lovely, but the music is also surprisingly effective. Has this contrast of giving us quaint vibes mixed with 24th century tech; the real message of this show, laid out right there.

- Romulans! In the vineyard! Picard said alien rights! Love him. <3 This whole thing feels so very him - he can’t ever quite be stagnant, even back home. He’s out here being forward-thinking and socially progressive as fuck.

- He has a found family again. Of course he does. God, you can truly tell Patrick Stewart exec-produced this. <3

- Decaf earl grey. “You’re getting old, Johnny.” (Don’t drink decaf earl grey if you can help it, guys. It’s fucking terrible. I’m sure he knows this. Bless him.)

- Journalist? She’s going to be an arse, isn’t she?

- ... Oh yeah. And a prejudiced one, too! Lovely. /end British sarcasm I love that layering of this against “Romulan lives -” “Lives.” This new universe feels so deliciously alive at every turn; visually, socially, culturally... this is the vibe I WANTED from a sequel. Beautiful. <3

- Picard, here, in this scene. Just dear GOD. This is why this character is so enduring - he’s kind, warm, soulful, deeply intelligent, principled as all hell, and he’s become so embittered by this horrendous miscarriage of justice... the utopia’s failing, folks, and it’s a delight. Patrick sells the absolute shit out of this whole thing like the absolute asset he’s always been to this franchise, and just the CARE that has gone into his portrayal? I’m in love. Just give me fucking ALL of it. He feels so very him whilst also being richer and a touch bolder and christ, all these things Patrick’s said about loving Picard and wanting to portray him faithfully shine here so very clearly. Flawless. <333333 

- Oh, and all of that, but also THROWBACK THURSDAY. <3 These flashbacks will murder me, I’m certain of it. Retro and new in perfect harmony.

- Oh, here’s the kid! And hang on, an intriguing quote... “You just wave your hand and it all goes away”? Can we just... step back and think about what that’s a reference to, because fuck, dude, I MAY JUST HAVE TO WATCH TAPESTRY AGAIN. (Hardly a chore, let’s be real. I’m a Q stan, leave me be. It’s likely not a reference of course, but for the love of the Continuum, give me De Lancie. This shit already can’t improve so far, just LET IT IMPROVE ANYWAY.) 

- This interview-on-a-random-screen thing is great, too; I love the dichotomy of it. Picard’s out here being principled and wonderful, solely for our eyes and the girl’s. It’s literally background info at this point and it’s a lovely little aside to how Picard’s just been here the whole time, abiding by what he believes in without any real fuss. 

- ... That lovely little vineyard confrontation. Yes, yes, yes. Dad vibes without being a dad. I so didn’t want him to be a dad, it’s so painfully out of character, and I’m so glad they went with ‘lovely old uncle’ instead. <3 This whole scene just again pitches Picard amazingly.

- Can I have that firepit, Jean-Luc? Thanks, Captain.

- ... Hold the entire galaxy’s collection of phones: IS THIS CHICK LAL?! How the hell would that even work?! Bro...

- This nostalgia suite thing in the archives? Incredible. The banner? He hated that shit, we all know this, but it meant something to him deep down, that those children had his respect and admiration, that he felt so inspiring to others... how very telling that it’s one of the things he chose to keep. <3 Parallels not-Lal and this whole mini-arc thing wonderfully.

- ... Is her name supposed to sound like Vash’s? Is that a coincidence? Anyway, she’s not Lal, which makes much more sense, but she is... Data’s daughter? When the sodding hell did that happen? Oh, I really don’t care, honestly. It’s beautiful. All these Data flashbacks continue to kill me, and just for the love of it, let’s chuck some Captain in there, uniform and all! Gaaah. Who gave Patrick Stewart the right to still be this attractive, good lord above. Brent out here absolutely nailing this naive joy we loved so much back in the day, too... <333

- That chat about Dajh (possibly? The sweet and misguided android chick, giving me major Amanda Rogers vibes - I was too excited to look up the spelling, do forgive me) and her connection to Data, and what it means to Picard? Lovely. Absolutely adorable.

- ... And we come to my only minor gripe with all of this joy - why in the name of all positrons was Dajh introduced and then more or less immediately blown to tiny android pieces? Can’t help but feel the potential she had was wasted. I understand that we needed a Picard catalyst to get him back in the game, but I feel as though she’d have done that whilst still being alive. Although, I’m not going to be too harsh on it... “I haven’t been living, I’ve been waiting to die” is a thousand percent the quote of 2020 twenty-three days in and I just about screamed. I’ve got Tapestry vibes again, my god. This man is such a legend. <333333

-  I was becoming rather invested in dear Dajh, though, and I know we have her identical twin elsewhere (more on that shortly) but that’s sort of like giving me Lore and expecting me to be fine without Data. Speaking of which... 

- B-4. In a drawer. Near a door? Well, probably about thirty metres away from one. Love it. And a Maddox namedrop at the same time as something of an explanation! Actually really enjoyed this tie-in to old lore (pun fully intended, folks) whilst being coherent in its own right. God, I’d love to see a non-Trekkie watch this, they’d be so fucking baffled...

- Okay, even with all I’ve said about the visuals, that segway from neuron necklace to space was spectacular. I’m never going to need an eye test again. <3

- Nice guy Romulan. Awww. Someone hug his awkward soul. Dajh’s twin looks immediately less interesting (as evidenced by the fact I’ve forgotten her name - it definitely starts with ‘S’) but I’m definitely reserving judgement for now, I’m sure she’ll be as great as the rest of this show.

- ... That’s a cube, isn’t it?

- IT’S A CUBE. WITH ROMULANS. WHO AREN’T ASSIMILATED. Did they steal it? How the hell did they steal it? Do they have an alliance? What the fuck is happening? Picard did not sign back up two minutes ago for this shit guys!

... Well, basically, tl;dr? Modern, socially developed, stunning; retro in flawless contrast, with an even richer and more nuanced main character than ever who still feels so very himself, which is all I ever wanted. Fucking fantastic. Is it Friday again yet? Can your esteemed reviewer hit up a proxy next week and not die in anticipation of whatever the shit that ending was being perhaps explained a little more?

To be continued...

[knightowl725]

Healing in a Graveyard, Ch. 5

Fandom: Critical Role

A continuation of my work for Fjorclay Week 2020′s modern au prompt. Thank you to everyone reading, leaving kudos, and commenting. Every comment adds 10 years to my unending lifespan, which will be used as irresponsibly as possible. 

And yes, I’m intentionally making the cover art that chaotic. I know two things about graphic design, and one of them is that I shouldn’t be doing it.

Read on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23828932/chapters/57440155

It took more legwork than their usual meal to eat their breakfast feast outdoors. At first, they tried moving the table out. But getting the long rectangle through the angled kitchen, then the cramped entry room proved too challenging. Instead, they laid out blankets and rugs and towels to set the food on.

While Caduceus began bringing out food, Fjord explained what had happened to the rest of the Nein. If he had expected shock or teasing, or even them questioning his sanity, he was surprised yet again that morning. His friends broke out in a joyous celebration.

“Does this mean you are going to stay, Fjord?” Jester asked, and the group went silent with bated breaths.

“I, uh, I don’t know just yet,” Fjord confessed. “I need to find work, and see if Caduceus would let me stay here.”

He remembered he needed to text Calliope, or had he texted already?

“But you want to stay,” Beau said. “If that all works out, you’re going to stay? And definitely not go back to Avantika?”

He took a deep breath. “Right.”

Jester leapt to her feet, arms up as she screamed, “Thank the Traveler!”

Caleb gently pulled her back to the ground by the skirt of her dress. “I think you’re thanking the wrong god.”

“Fine, the Wildmother can have this one,” she said with a sigh.

“We can go get your things today,” Yasha offered. “Do they have any...club activities?”

Beau coughed out a “cult” in her not-subtle way.

“We usually… They usually do some, uh, worship in the afternoon. Around 3.”

“Perfect,” Nott said eagerly. “We can break in while they’re out!”

“What? No!”

“Did you ever lock that window when I came to get you?” Beau asked. When Fjord shrugged, she said, “If you left it unlocked, maybe no one noticed and we can just get in that way. Easy peasy.”

“Breaking and entering is illegal.”

“Yeah, if you get caught,” Nott retorted.

“3 o’clock you said?” Caleb asked innocently. Fjord just looked at him.

Caduceus joined them with the last of their food, and they ate beneath the blossoming tree. The falling petals got into their food and drinks, which quickly became a contest of who could catch the most petals from the air. As breakfast came to close, the Nein leapt about, making personal piles of bright petals while Caleb counted.

They took photos, both for themselves and for Caduceus to share with his family.

When Fjord made his way back to his room, Caduceus followed to take a look at his plant.

“Huh, what do you know,” he said in an impressed tone, picking up the plant and admiring it from different angles. “Not supposed to do that overnight.”

“Another blessing, I suppose?”

“Another sign, yes.” To Caduceus, they were one in the same.

Fjord went over to his bed to pick up his phone. Not cracked, which was always a relief. But there was a message.

Don’t care about resumes, just come by the gym sometime and we can talk. Any day’s good. Hours on site. Arborexemplar.com

“Everything okay?” Caduceus asked.

“Yeah, of course. Calliope got back to me about the job. Asked me to come by sometime,” Fjord said, quickly looking up the gym’s site. It was open most of the day. “I’m going to go by now, I think.”

“Good plan. Tell her I said hello,” Caduceus said, gently putting the plant back. “You’ve been taking good care of it, by the way.”

“Just doing what you said.”

He only smiled, ambling out of his room so Fjord could get his things together and leave.

~~

Calliope was… intense. She bore the same intimidating height, same symbolic earpiece - if coupled with other piercings - and same pink hair. But she was more muscled, more intense, and more, well. Fjord didn’t want to call Caduceus odd per se, but his sister was definitely not the same tier of eccentric.

“You’re Fjord?” she asked when he walked into the Arbor Exemplar.

It was about thirty minutes’ walk from the Blooming Grove, but from his poking around his map app, it was closer to campus in parts. There was even one of the smaller campus libraries close by.

The gym was part indoors but mostly an outdoor gym. There were trees, vines, and plant life everywhere, as natural as the Grove and even wilder-looking with it nestled right between more traditional city buildings. As if Calliope had tried to cram the same amount of nature The Grove had across its territory into a much smaller space.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

She stepped around from the front desk, wearing a teal sports bra and matching leggings. Her long, pink hair was braided back tightly. “Let me show you around. We can walk and talk.”

He followed her around the maze of a gym as she pointed out supply closets and rooms or sections dedicated to specific classes and types of workout. The more high-end equipment was kept indoors, but most of the gym relied on less technology/based forms of exercise. Sparring areas, ropes and tires, weights and dance, and even an open-to-the-air yoga studio on the roof.

“We’re open rain or shine,” she said. “Working out in the rain is a different experience, and something we’re known for. Staying connected with nature is our M.O. It’s what sets up apart, but more importantly--”

He nodded. “The Wildmother.”

“Right. Caduceus said you knew a little about Her.”

“I’m learning,” was all he said for a moment. Then he added a quiet, “Hoping to learn more.”

She looked at him. “Well, this is a good place to learn. The Clays, we worship Her in different ways these days. You’ve seen how Caduceus does it, but now you can see how someone actually cool does.”

Fjord smiled at her sibling jab. “I’ve enjoyed learning from Caduceus.”

“Yeah, he’s just weird,” she said with a shrug. “And getting weirder. But what I really need from you is to man the desk. We have our hours, but I don’t really care who works when so long as someone is there. You need to get with Reani, our current receptionist, to figure out the schedule. I’ve got a few instructors too, to help cover the desk sometimes. Not feasible just for two students, so they can fill in some gaps. Reani knows the drill.”

“Are you offering me the job?” he asked.

She led him back to the front desk, where he made note of who he assumed to be Reani. The young woman smiled at him, but was busy on the phone.

Calliope shifted around the desk for a moment, then found a scrawled list. “Okay, here’s the pay and our perks. We got some good deals through a family friend, but also my dad’s a general physician at a little clinic outside of town, so if you go to him he’ll see you for cheap.”

“Okay,” said Fjord, overwhelmed as he looked at the handwritten list.

“You can take classes here or exercise for free when you’re not working. I don’t care as long as you don’t damage anything. You gotta respect the Wildmother, but you don’t have to worship Her. Just don’t be an ass about it. Let me know if you have questions. I need to fill the spot sooner than later, so if you can let me know by Tuesday, that works.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. She turned slightly away, a clear indication she was done. He said one last, “Thank you for your time,” before he went back into the street.

Looking at the time, he saw it was only just now hitting the afternoon. He had some schoolwork to manage, so he decided to test out just how far the nearest library was.

After finishing up his work and mapping out the routes he’d need to take from the gym to various classes, Fjord packed up and headed home. As he walked back towards the Xhorhaus, he felt a bubble of excitement well up inside him. He got to make his own schedule, to a degree. The gym itself seemed nice, if a weird concept. The job couldn’t be harder than the cafe, and he could use it for free.

Plus, benefits. He glanced at the notes again. It looked pretty basic, but it was something.

His eye was drawn back to the pay. He’d done some research on the walk over to see what receptionists were paid for part time work in the area. He’d been certain not to expect even that much, as it was a good amount over his minimum wage rates at the cafe - no tips. But here, he’d make substantially more than at the cafe, and right within the range of what seemed fair for the area.

It was too good to be true, right? This whole day had to be a dream. He would wake up any minute in his bed at The Champions’ house, and none of this would be real. Or he’d do something stupid and wreck the whole thing.

Today was supposed to be his last day in the Xhorhaus. And as certain as he was that this whole thing was about to slip through his fingers, he held on anyway.

And if he was going to hold on, he needed to talk to Caduceus.

On the way back, he wondered how best to handle severing ties with The Champions. The mature thing, it seemed, was to tell them face to face. Or at least text Avantika since he'd been booted from the group chat.

But he didn't want to talk to them ever again. Especially not Avantika. She was manipulative and calculating, and he wasn't sure how well he would stand against her. He’d told her the day Beau brought him to the Xhorhaus that he’d be back Sunday. Today. She’d be calling sooner than later. He had to do something.

The idea of talking to any of them even through text was too much. He took the coward's way out maybe, but he blocked every number from The Champion he had. Blocked their social media, their numbers, their emails. No contact. Hopefully.

It felt like freedom, but freedom tinged in anxiety. Still, there was a skip in his step as he bound up the porch steps into the house.

“Caduceus!” he called as he stepped inside.

“Fjord!” came a shout from the kitchen, matching his energetic tone.

Fjord let the door fall closed behind him and headed for the kitchen. As he pulled back the curtain, he was hit by a wave of warmth and mixed scents. He caught the smell of baking bread in there and took a deep breath.

“What are you doing?” Fjord asked, almost laughing at the sight before him.

Caduceus had every possible surface in the kitchen covered in plates, cutting boards, mixing bowls, and piles of ingredients - prepped and not. He stood before the stove. There were several pots pans before him, each actively cooking. His apron had turned a dusty purple from the layer of flour that coated it in splotches. He’d taken off his nice robe and rolled up his sleeves past the elbows. He twisted to smile at Fjord, eyes alight and a strike of flour across his cheek.

“Hullo Fjord,” he said, perhaps the cheeriest Fjord had seen him yet.

“Are we expecting an army?” Fjord asked, stepping further into the kitchen.

Caduceus laughed. “Watch this pot for me, will you?”

Fjord took his place at the stove, slowly stirring at some kind of soup. Caduceus wrapped the handle of a copper pan in a small towel and lifted it away, flicking off that burner with his free hand. The thick, pale sauce within it looked to contain some tomatoes and was speckled with spices and herbs. Caduceus poured it over a pair of tupperwares containing rice and what looked like meat, but was probably tofu.

Fjord saw an assembly line of other containers, pairs of matched meals in mismatched tupperware left open for their final touches. A few laid empty, waiting to be filled in kind.

Caduceus set the pan back on the off stove, sealing those completed meals and stacking them on top of each other. He turned and set them on another counter beside another set of sealed meals.

“What are you doing?” Fjord asked. “Meal prep for a month?”

Caduceus grinned at him, taking back his place at the stove. Fjord stepped aside, about to step back completely before Caduceus offered him a spoon holding some of the soup he’d been stirring.

“What do you think?”

Fjord accepted the spoon and took a cautious sip. Hot, of course, but clearly Caduceus’s take on a tomato soup. “It’s amazing!”

“Good, good,” Caduceus said. “I can never get it quite like Auntie makes it, but this should suffice.”

“For what, exactly?” Fjord asked for the third time.

“Here, hold this.”

Any attempts at discerning what Caduceus was doing were sidestepped with a cheery determination. Resigned, Fjord helped him finish what was easily two week’s worth of meals. Then, Caduceus wrote out dates on little sticky notes, firmly taping them to each container.

When he was done, all the meals were neatly stacked and clumped together, labeled, and the sink was overrun was dishes.

“Need to clean up,” Caduceus said to himself.

“I’ll help you if you tell me what this is all for,” Fjord said.

Caduceus finally faced him. “I’m not going to send you off without a few decent meals.”

“A few--” Fjord’s mind caught up with his mouth, and he said, “This is for me?”

“If you’re going back to that awful house, then I’m going to make sure you live another few weeks, at least,” Caduceus said firmly. “You were so gaunt and thin when you got here that you could have been part of the Clays, but a few good meals and you were a different man! So you’ll take this, and tell all your terrible friends that it’s completely vegan so they won’t touch it, and you’ll be okay until you get settled in a new job, I hope.”

Fjord’s stomach sank. Caduceus hadn’t been there when he told the group he wanted to stay. He’d gone and done all this work, cheerful as anything, to send him off. He seemed happy about it.

“This is...so thoughtful of you,” Fjord managed.

Caduceus, smiling proudly at his work, lost that smile. “Fjord? Is something wrong? I know you’d probably like more than vegan food, but I was afraid I’d only give you food poisoning if I tried to cook meat. I’m not saying you can’t eat it - it’s perfectly natural, but I’ve made sure to include a lot of protein, so--”

“No, it’s perfect, Caduceus,” Fjord said. “But, ah, thank you for the clarification on the meat thing. I hadn’t thought to ask yet if that was a tenant of the Wildmother.”

“We don’t really eat meat or dairy, the Clays that is. But She doesn’t have any issue with it, that I’m aware of. Animals eat animals. It’s just how we were raised. Calliope tried it once, got awful sick from it. Said it felt like eating leather.”

“I imagine it would,” Fjord said with a little laugh.

“If that’s not the issue then, what is?” Caduceus asked kindly. Fjord should have known better than to think he’d effectively distracted him.

He tried to gather his thoughts, but nothing seemed to connect. “I was hoping to talk to you…”

The front door opened. With all the cooking fans off, they could just hear it. Both men glanced towards the curtain instinctively. Silence. No one in the Nein entered that quietly.

Fjord took a step towards the entry room, but Caduceus stopped him by putting out a hand. His brows furrowed as he stared at the curtain. Without looking from that point, he shifted his head towards Fjord and put a finger to his lips. Quiet.

“Check upstairs for ‘im,” said a deep, male voice.

His heart began to race. Fjord knew this man. To Caduceus he mouthed, “Champion”. Caduceus nodded, and his face set into a darkened expression.

Someone headed up the stairs. Just one person, from the sound of it. A second, the speaker, began sifting about the entry room. Every step he took closer to the kitchen ramped up Fjord’s heartbeat until he was certain it was audible.

Why were they here?

No, that was obvious. It had to do with him. He’d been foolish to think he could block some numbers and be free. Even if he hadn’t taken the final step with The Champions, he belonged to them.

Leaving wasn’t an option. And now Caduceus was in danger.

[derenyanai]

Araquu Journal Session #10- So Here’s The Plan

Time: Sometime after Session 18 Characters: Maska, Cecily, Yue, Aldrid, Navi

Posts indented like this were typed by the GM.

Posts that were not indented were typed by the player(s).

After the incident at Floradai Park, the DISC Unit discusses what to do next...

Yue was laying on a couch in whatever meeting room they be in kicking her feet in the air as she lays on her stomach hands on her chin supporting her head, "Sooo, we're out of leads then huh guys? No more relics to go after then? Is there some Small crime going on we can handle then?" she wonders out loud.

Maska is sprawled on whatever table they have in the room, head resting on the hard wood. With a laptop in front of him i guess "I could look up news article of the past few days..."

Cecily is only standing up and leaning near a corner of the room, having her arms crossed. "I could call one of the council members and see if they have any more info on relic locations," she suggests, pulling out her phone.

"Is there any thing else we should be doing aside from relic searching?” Yue asks. “I feel like that's a fun pass time searching for relics and all, but isn't there some more important other things we should do? Like finding the person actually stealing the relics, then we don't have to waste time to look for the hard to find artifacts."

"I could look up the year they were made in," Maska blows his single strand of hair of his face, "What year was it again? 18 something?" He sits up and brings the machine closer to him.

"1944," Cecily corrected.

"Ah yes, the 40s" Maska said, in a mocking old timey voice "Where showing a single ankle was like hardcore porn to men" He typed up ‘City of Araquu, 1944′ on google.  

Some furious Google searching is enough to yield some rather interesting results. You have learned the following! • 1944 is the same year that the current Emperor became, well, the Emperor, having formerly been a part of the (then) council. • Several businesses and attractions were established in that year; Café Bleu de la Lune, Yinxiu Trinkets, Floradai Park, and Shimmering Fabrics are all familiar names. Attractions at the Park of the Lady, and a few recently discovered things (exhibited at the History Museum and Museum of Modern art) are mentioned. • Several powerful mage families also emigrated into Araquu at that time. Listed are the Summers family, the Noah family, and the Meyers family. 

"Woah what?" Maska gasp, "Wendy comes from family of mages?"

"This is Araquu, most families here are families of mages, why are you so shocked by this Masky?" Yue wonders.

"Even my father's side of my family are mages," Cecily offhandly mentions.

"Yeah, but they're pleabians" He opens the Powerful Mage families emigrations on a different tab, "Says here they're crazy powerful, this I gotta see."

Which one(s) are you looking into?

"Hrm, let's start with Wendys family" He clicks on the Summers Family.

The Summers family is currently composed of: • Mikhal Summers, aged 58. An expert at tracking magic and capable of using various other assorted magics. • His son, Matthew Summers, aged 26. Rather talented in the art of plant magics. • Matthew's husband, Mark Summers, aged 25. Rather talented in the art of song magics. • Their adopted daughter, Wendy Summers, aged 10. She's too young to practice magic.

"I'd expected the current family be bigger, then again Wendy’s fathers are gay" Maska rubs his chin, "Plant Magic, Song Magic and Tracking Magic... her grandfather's magic could be useful provided he lend us a hand, what do you guys think?" He turns to Yue and Cecily.

"Well we can certainly add that to the things to consider," she cuffed her chin. "...Check to see if there's anything else worth looking into to broaden our options."

"Let me check to see if I can find a connection to the Summers Family and those darn relics," Maska searches the entirety of family to see if there’s a link.

You search the article for a while but don't manage to find anything. Apparently it's not online for everyone ever to see?

"Nothing, let's check the Meyers Family" He goes back on the site and clicks on the Meyers "Never heard of these people."

You have learned that an old lady named Geraldine Meyers is the owner of Shimmering Fabrics.

"Oh hey, it's that old lady from Upper City" Maska shows Cecily the picture of Geraldine, "The one we got the pin from."

"I recall her," Cecily said, flattening her expression. "Reminds me of something else I plan on doing later. Anyways, see what it says about the family."

"Oh right, I should actually look up the actual history of the family." Damn it Maska, anyways he reads the history of the Meyers outloud.

Geraldine lives on her own with like, 50 dogs, she has no family.

"50 dogs? Living the dream right there, good shit." He looks over Geraldine's profile once again, "For someone who comes from a powerful mage family, doesn't seem like she has magical abilities."

"So you're saying that they're nothing to note besides working at one of the locations we've been to?" Cecily asks.

The problem is, no one really knows much about her. She lives on her own and doesn't socialize that often. There's not much information available online.

"Nope, well if you count that she had the relic in her shop and having come from a prestige family" He goes back and clicks on the last family to emigrated to Araquu, "But I don't think that's a connection."

THE NOAH FAMILY, aka Councilman Noah's family, probably his parents or grandparents? That's like all you can find, the council is pretty damn secretive.

"I forgot how secretive mages were with their history, it's really fucking annoying" Maska lets out a sigh with a grimace on his face. Fucking mages.

A sigh only comes from Cecily. "Great," she says. "In terms of people that doesn't leave us with much. How about any other places that relate to the date? Some we haven't visited?"

"Give me a sec, you know you can come and look see yourself instead of trying to blend into the wallpaper" He closes the tab of TreeAncestry dot com and goes back to the google one. He clicks on the page relating to the business that open during 1944.

Before you can investigate any further, the door opens and Navi walks in. "...WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK WHY IS MY HOUSE YOUR HANGOUT!?"

"Hey boo, we just invited ourselves in hope you don't mind" Maska waves at her.

"...if it makes you feel better, I brought food over," Cecily says, pointing to some left over donuts in a box. "You can help yourself."

Navi mutters something about having sworn she locked the door before going to grab a donut. "Any luck with those last few relics we don't know about?"

"No, but I did find out that Wendy’s gonna be a powerful mage when she grows up" Maska stretches a bit, "Right now we're looking into the business that open during the 40s."

Navi takes a few bites to eat her donut, munching as Maska searches. Unfortunately there are too many Dank Memes on the interwebs right now, so he can't find anything that they don't already know.

Cecily, it suddenly dawns on you that perhaps it wasn't so much businesses that were given relics, so much as people who were entrusted to take care of them and put together something they could use to hide it. A lamp at a cafe isn't something that draws attention; nor is a hatpin at a clothing store.

"...There is a connection I do notice," Cecily thought to herself. "Perhaps it's not so much as locations, as it's actually people we should be more concerned with paying attention to. Like, people the Emperor must of knew or trusted."

"Huh- oh uh" Maska quickly closes the Bill Wurtz video he accidentally clicked on, "Right Emperor, question; how do we figure out who he knew? The guy is a well guarded secret."

"That... is the tricky part," Cecily sweatdropped. "I mean, we could ask one of the councilmen. After all, Councilmen Noah is tied to the year 1944."

"Hang on I'm gonna check this article for a hot minute" He clicks on the search result on how the current emperor became as such.

It seems to be a 'picked by the council' thing; and they usually have a sort of trial of their own design to figure out if the person trying to become Emperor is capable of the tasks that would be set before them. Also, you've found a forum where people try and theorize what kind of magic the Emperor uses.

"They do a trial to see if they're fit to be the Emperor, huh i always thought it was more of  a 'who the most powerful mage of them all' cue lightning crackling-" He pauses at what he found "Oh hey! Look, conspiracy theorist!"

Navi groans. "Maska for the love of god no, when has anything useful ever come from conspiracy theories-" boom shakalaka

"Shut up! I'm listening to crazy people!" He clicks on the link to the forum.

Cecily facepalms. "...So, Navi," Cecily says, deciding to small talk while Maska is wasting time. Maybe he'll get back on track soon. "What have you been up to while we were in the Upper City?"

Maska, you can't find any signs of intelligent life here. There are approximately thirty different theories about what kind of magic the Emperor uses, although only two of them seem to be actually trying to present any evidence. There's also a running poll and betting pool about what gender the Emperor is, which is basically neck and neck for Male/Female right now.

"Mostly been runnin' deliveries and what not for Willow. Helpin' her out. She's expectin' a new shipment in soon and wants to be careful it doesn't get stolen again."

"Hm.... I should come back and bet on this when we find out," He mutters to himself and opens both theories that are at least trying their best in their own tabs.

"Robbed?" Cecily asks. "What was stolen?"

"It happened a while ago, she said it was some or other ingredients she doesn't actually sell 'cause they're usually illegal to hang onto," Navi explains. "Said she has permission to use 'em in her own private work though. Actually, she spoke to Aldrid 'bout it, I'm surprised he hasn't told y'all this happened."

 Maska, the two primary theories are that the Emperor either uses some form of Body Manipulation Magic (that is, manipulating their own body) or that they use some form of Time Magic. The argument for Time Magic seems to have more proof - various photos of things and locations in places the Emperor has apparently been that indicate time changed somehow - although a lot of the photos and things are "I took a picture here with my mom at this point in time, and then a thing happened and now it looks like THIS" or something similar so it's hard to verify the validity of any of those; on the other hand, Body Manipulation Magic has a very strong following and many people have pointed out that surely it HAS to be that because of all the photos of the various damaged areas from the scene, or the fact that no one fucking knows what the Emperor looks like so they have to be able to change themselves at will... tough to say, really! However, based on your own investigations of these things, you're more inclined to think the Emperor is some sort of time mage; a lot of the things being argued as going under Body Manipulation can actually be viewed as time magic if looked at from the right angle, and with how secretive the council is it's really no surprise that people don't know what the Emperor looks like either; especially if he or she could just, I don't know, pause time and go where they need to go and then unpause it or something similar!

"Pft maybe Wu Hou is the Emperor, or maybe related," He re-reads the time magic theory again. Hypothetically, a egg inside of Maska’s head begins to crack, crack, crack, and hatch to reveal a chick. Maska stands up and shouts "OH MY GOD WE NEED TO FIND WU HOE" frantically.

"AAAAH, JESUS!" Cecily replies, jumping a foot into the air.

"AAAAAHHH!" Yue falls off the couch and sits up looking around. “I'm awake totally.... what happened who's yelling?"

"It makes somewhat sense" He re-reads both theories on the forum he found "Maybe we really need to find Wu Hou..."

"Huh? Why?" Yue asks standing up and brushing herself off.

Maska explains to her the theories he found and his after thoughts on how the Emperor could be using it, also he brought her up to speed on what they had found out "...So, if we do find her, not only could we find more about people that are connected to 1944, we could find out more about the Emperor themselves."

"Assuming that this Wu person would be interested in even bothering to help us. What makes you so sure we can count on her?" Yue puts a finger to chin in thinking form.

"Same goals? Cecily did mention she was trying to 'save the city.'" Maska opens up a new tab and goes to youtube. Might as well get some music in the background, the silence is the deafening, "Besides, I trust this Hou person very little but I do trust Cecily's judgement. Most of the time."

"Huh, Well, glad to see you're not taking that at face value." she smiles, "I've run into so many people that claim the same thing in this line of work that it's hard for even me to trust everything someone says. Besides how would we find someone that could travel through time, and not alert HQ?" Yue sits down cross armed, "What about talking with the council again, maybe they can help us figure something out?"

"I think that’s the point, even if the Emperor would use time magic, wouldn't their magical signature already be notified by the police?" He clicks on some random music and lets it play on low volume, "And true we could take it up with them again, but remember they can't always help us. When was the last time we even met them again in person? Still, not denying that we could go talk to them."

"Did you have a reason to meet them again in person before now?" Yue wonders leaning in.

"Beside seeing Fira again, not really" He leans back on his chair and yawns, "So we can either find the Hoe person or talk to the councilmen."

"I feel like it would be in our best interest to go after the councilmen, if we wanna continue finding the relics. I feel like we could stop this relic running round thing easier if we go after the person hunting them down first. Any ideas on who we could try and track down?"

"I don't know about them anymore, it feels like we're going on a wild goose chase." Maska scratches his head. "What would that even accomplish? We have the Relics then what?"

"I don't think we should be collecting the relics right now." Yue flat out states.

“Well, what do you suggest we do then?” Cecily turns to Yue, while rubbing the back of her own head. “I know we’re a police force that also deals with small crime too, but that still doesn’t mean there’s no sense of urgency either.”

"No no, hear me out here, why would we need to collect all of the relics? Can't we use what we have now as bait to lure out the enemy instead of gathering all the trinkets to make things easier for the opponent?" Yue smiles.

"That sounds flawed, you want to use all of the relics we have to bait out the bad man?" Maska pipes in.

"Pardon my askin'," Navi pipes up from where she's cleaning up a bit, "But have we figured out WHY these guys want th'relics?"

“Nothing concrete if that’s what you’re asking,” Cecily groans. “The only thing I could think of is someone destroy them because of that ritual hiding warehouse we came upon. The relics are tied to the city, right?”

"The relics are tied to the shield that protect the city" Maska leans back on the chair, "If you destroy one the shield weakens."

"Finding the reason as to why they wish the barrier destroyed..." Aldrid starts to say as he walks in "May be part of our primary objective."

"I didn't say use all of the relics Maska, why are you jumping to that conclusion? We would only need to use 1 of them like my hairpin." Yue is stuck on that conversation, "It would help us try and figure out why they're going after these relics and determine if we'll be falling into their plans by just taking all of the relics ourselves."

Cecily crosses her arms and only looks downward. “It could also give us the chance in catching my mother as well...”

"So, we're doing that instead?" Maska rocks himself on the chair he was already leaning on, "We're going to lure out the baddies?"

"I don't see why not, and I have an idea on how to get the word out about the bait too." Yue smiles.

"I swear to fuck if you tell me you're gonna make a god damn video about it then I'm leaving."

“You’re gonna leave your own house?” Cecily deadpans.

"WELL WHY THE FUCK NOT YOU PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN IT FOR YOURSELVES"

"You seem upset," Maska observes.

“Were the donuts not enough as an apology?” Cecily asks.

"Yeah we brought you donuts, isn't that enough?" Maska asks.

Yue goes over to Navi, "Aw, come on, So, what's your bright idea then?"

“Correction: I bought donuts,” Cecily looked at him. “You just shrugged and walked about nonchalantly.”

"Yeah, but I got her this laptop so suck it" Maska that's your own laptop.

“I’m not sure Navi wants whatever you already have stored in there,” Cecily assumes.

Aldrid just kinda stands there, awkardly, like usual.

Navi lets out a deep and clearly frustrated breath through her nose. "We're trying to keep people from panickin', ain't we? Publically announcing something to an audience that may not even include who we're looking for isn't a great idea," she points out. "Also food as a bribe only really works when I actually taste things."

“Fine, I’ll just make it up to you another way then,” she sighs. “But... Navi does have a point. We don’t want a city crisis, and given your popularity...”

Yue sighs then smiles with a thumbs up, "Do you really think that I would state something like 'This is a relic, one that holds the city barrier together. Protecting us from the outside world. Hey baddies come and get it if you dare.'" she states the script like statement in the most sarcastic tone she could muster making sure to emphasize that if this is what you guys were thinking then you're kind of dumb. “I was going to make a video about showing off this pin that could resize clothing. It's a cool parlor trick and any bad guys that seem to know exactly what each of the relics are, would know that this is a relic. Also on the point of if they would watch the video, I have a big following in the city and people do talk about my videos, so while yes it is a long shot that the opponents would hear about this, it is still worth the shot. This way no one knows about any relics that shouldn't know, also they won't know about who the baddies are or heck about the barrier. There wouldn't be a city crisis or anything like that with this idea." 

“Okay, so stating you have a relic, but not flat out saying it is one,” Cecily followed along. “And the only people who would know about and make it known, that’s how we know the bait worked.”

"Well, the word would get around, and we would probably have to make a location known of where I'm live streaming or something... and we'll know if it works if the enemy shows up either at my home or on the stream, I guess really we'd have to wait and find out if it worked." Yue nods.

Navi stares at them. "...well, it's more thought-out than I thought it was, but it still seems stupid. Where would you be broadcasting from, first of all?"

"Unless you have a place, or we could use one of our houses," Maska rocks too far back and ends up flat on his back.

"Oh, I have a place we could use." Yue grins.

"Do y'all need me along or can I opt to NOT participate in this stupidity?"

"NO! You've been gone too long!" Maska struggles to get up a bit.

"It would be nice to have you along, Navi You're our friend, but if you don't want to join I won't force you." Yue says.

“We’ll need all the friends and help we can get,” Cecily says with a reassuring smile. “Please?”

Navi's eye twitches. "All right, all right, fine! I'll tag along on this stupid idea, but only so I can bail you idiots out when it backfires."

"Yay!" Oh he finally got up, "Thanks boo"

“We’ll owe you one if you have to,” Cecily smiles warmly.

"Can I use that to request that Maska never calls me 'boo' again?"

"Fine"

Yue does a quick hug on Navi, "Thank you, Navi. You're a true pal." she lets go with a smile.

"Let go of me," Navi bluntly says.

“Well in the downtime, might as well prepare for confrontation,” Cecily says, grabbing her sword and turning to everyone. “Need anything from me before I head out?”

"Let Eiriol know what's happening, then tell Willow I won't be able to make it to work for a bit, since I don't know how long this'll take."

“Sure then,” Cecily nodded. “Anyone else?”

"Nope, I'm good in fact I need to set up! See you around everyone." Yue smiles as she waves goodbye then leaves.

[[END OF JOURNAL SESSION]]

[scribblindown]

Law-Abiding Citizen

Prompto Argentum x Reader | fluff | College AU | Slight!Modern AU 

The sun had dipped underneath the horizon long before, curtaining the grounds in a navy blue blanket and the only salvation would be the light spilling from the streetlamps that littered the sidewalks. The campus was completely empty, save for some of the night students walking by or the late-night stragglers.

Now, college was a special time in one’s life where all logic and reasoning was thrown out the window. Everything you have ever known seemed to be a lie. Young adults were away from their parents for the first time, they were stuck in a small place with thousands other their age, It was a time for experimenting, learning, discovering, and adventures. 

Such as the blond male trying to climb a tree at nearly two-thirty in the morning. 

Prompto grunted and groaned, using all of the muscle in his right hand to try and swing his body up the overgrown tree branch while his left hand held his precious camera as if it was a delicate child. Sweat and precipitation collected on his temples and near the collar of his neck, dampening his Insomnia University sweatshirt. 

If any passerby cared to ask him why were you in such a compromising position with a tree this late at night, or why the hell were you laying on the grass trying to photograph some weeds earlier, Prompto would just say, “It’s for an assignment,” and suddenly all of his strange actions would be excused like some multipass. 

It wasn’t like Prompto wanted to wait till two-thirty to take the pictures for his night photography assignment—he’d much rather take his pictures at ten or twelve at the latest and go back to his dorm room with resident trust fund kid Noctis Lucis Caelum (aka his bestie) and sleep. But some kids were having a late-night party that lasted until one in the morning in the on-campus park. Which just happened to be the place that Prompto wanted to take pictures at, and as a man with a vision, he had to wait. 

He waited patiently for everyone to clear the park and took some pictures of the park benches and a street lamp, some pictures of flowers, and was now trying to scale up a tree to take some long exposure pictures of the stars. 

Right when he managed to stably sit on a sturdy branch, loud and rambunctious laughter broke through the empty night. He tilted his head in curiosity and he slowly climbed further up the branch. He had his camera at the ready, maybe a shot of some late-night youths would make for a good picture. Just as he looked through the leaves and past the lens, a small gasp escaped his lips and he froze in place. 

It was you—his crush for as long as he could remember. Even though he was a photography major, he had some obligatory classes to take, and somehow managed to sit beside you. He wasn’t even sure how he even managed to have decent grades in those classes, because he was sure that all he remembered was the way you looked or the way your hair smelled. Sometimes you would help him out, and you would lean so close and be so endearing that it would make his knees bump together under the desk. 

You were laughing with your group of friends, swaying slightly with a flushed face. Definitely drunk, and definitely from that party that just left. From the volume of your friends and the way they walked, they were just as drunk as you.

Prompto let out a small sigh and a lovesick smile fell on his lips. She’s so cute...even after a long day she looks stunning, he thought. His bright blue eyes followed you form as you and your group walked towards the dorms. He thought that he could get back to business the moment you walked in, but you and your friends stopped in front of the old and rickety sign that was barely hanging by a bolt. 

“Man, look at this,” one of your friends said, giving the sign a kick. It swung like a pendulum. “It’s been like this since freshmen year, and they still didn’t fix it!” 

“Just leave it alone,” a female voice slurred, “They say it’s been like this for twenty years.” 

“It’s not like we’d ever need it. It just says our dorm name, like that’s important,” another spoke up. 

“Hey, [Name].” One of your friends elbowed you, and you visibly jolted and widened your eyes like a person on the verge of a nap. 

“Hmm?” you asked groggily. 

“I dare you to steal it,” they said, their voice daring. 

“What?” you ask, eyebrows kitting in confusion. “That’s so stupid, no way.” You shook your head. 

“Come on! Do something adventurous for once!” 

“Yeah!” A laugh. “Do it, [Name]!” 

“We dare you!” 

Multiple voices spoke up at once, nudging you and shaking your intoxicated form like a limp doll until you finally pushed them off and shouted, “Fine!” With a cloudy mind, everything seemed to be a good idea, and you were going with this after all. Cheers rang throughout the silent night and you sighed in defeat. You staggered towards the broken sign and ripped the last bolt off the pole. With a grand gesture, you held the sign up like someone about to light the Olympic torch. Claps and cheers echoed furthermore. 

“This is such a stupid idea,” you couldn’t help but say, confusion marring your expression. 

“See?” one of your guy friends nudged you so hard that you nearly toppled over. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Live for freakin’ once.” He threw his arm around your shoulder and swayed with you. “Besides, there’s no one around, no cameras. You’ll never get caught. Who the hell would turn you in?” 

Who the hell turned me in? 

You thought this with your head in your hands as you sat outside the separate building. In the morning after, the sun shined overhead with puffy clouds drifting across the sky. The wind was cold, but gentle, but you couldn’t pay attention to the weather when you were worried about your soon-to-be punishment. 

That was a stupid idea last night, a dumb move, and you cursed your friends and yourself for drinking so much. You knew it was a bad idea, and even though it seemed like a brilliant move when you were drunk, even when you were sober you didn’t expect to be caught the next morning. Let alone with photographic proof. You told them that you didn’t want them around when you were getting your fine, but they said that they would back you up no matter what. 

The double doors opened suddenly and you jumped off the bench. You turned to the RA as he walked down the stone steps and waited with dread. 

“Is it bad?” you asked, face grimacing. He stepped down the final step and stood in front of you. 

“Well, they’re not going to press charges or anything since you did return the sign, but...” 

“But?” you asked, fearful. 

He didn’t answer, and instead handed you your fine silently. You looked from your RA to your fine at least three times before snatching the paper out of his hands. 

“Five hundred dollars?!” you shouted, louder than you should. You voice echoed throughout the campus. “I can’t pay that!” As broke as you were, there was no way that you could pay it in time. 

“They said that they’ll wait until next Friday, just in case you want to call your folks at home or—” 

“Are you kidding me?” your voice squeaked. “They’re going to kill me! There’s no way—I’ll have to—” You stopped suddenly, running a hand through your hair. “What am I going to do...?” 

“Um, I can pay the fine for you,” a voice suddenly spoke up. Both you and your RA whirled around.   

“Prompto?” the both of you asked at the same time. Prompto stiffened slightly under both of your gazes, but sent a large smile your way. The blond was currently dressed down in a white shirt under a bulky jacket and faded skinny jeans. He had large glasses perched on his nose, and he fiddled with them nervously when you looked at him. 

“Prompto, what are you doing here?” the RA asked. 

“One of the supports in our bunk bed is starting to get wobbly,” the blond said. “Noct’s too lazy to report it, so someone has to do it.” He laughed a bit at the end. “But I’m not joking, you know, about the fine.” 

“Prompto, don’t be insane.” You paused to sigh. “This fine has nothing to do with you.” 

“But I mean it!” He walked closer to you. “You’ve always helped me in class, ever since freshmen year. It’s the least I can do.” He gave you a disarming smile that could’ve stopped wars. 

“Nope, nope.” You turned to the RA. “Don’t listen to him—” 

“I actually have the money now...” Prompto trailed off to reach into his wallet and miraculously pulled out five hundred dollars. You watched, jaw dropped, as he passed the money to the other male. 

“What?” you asked. How the hell does he have that much money on hand...? “No,” you said, turning to the RA. “No! You’re not actually going to take the money from him, right?” 

“Well someone has to pay for it,” he drawled. “And if someone wants to give you help, you should take it.” He shrugged a bit and took the money from Prompto. 

Prompto laughed. “Consider this a gift I should’ve given you since freshman year, [Name]. Well, I guess I better go.” Just as he started to walk off, you finally snapped out of it, and quickly ran after him. You jumped in front of him, and stopped the man by grabbing onto his elbow. 

“Prompto, wait!” you said. You looked up into his blue eyes. “At least let me repay you somehow. Like, can I help you with any class or...?” 

“Ah...W-Well, there is something...” He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, averting his eyes as his freckled cheeks became tinted with a perfect shade of pink. “You can repay me by going on a date with me,” he said, starting off strong, only to break off into a shaky tone towards the end. “I-If you want...” he whispered. 

“Huh?” you asked, honestly surprised. You tilted your head and widened your eyes. Prompto stiffened and took your response as a negative answer. 

“I-I mean—” He started stuttering so bad that you had trouble following what he was saying. “I’m just joking, just forget about that!” His laughter faded away after being forced out. 

“Are you sure?” you asked, “I wouldn’t mind going on a date with you.” 

“Wha—Really?!” he asked, shocked then sounding more excited than a kid in a candy store. “You’d go on a date with me?” 

You laughed at his enthusiasm and nodded. “I’ll go on as many dates with you as you want, Prom.” 

“Really? This is—This is great!” he shouted, surprising you at the loud volume. He saw your shocked face. “Oh, sorry, sorry, but a date!” 

“T-That’s what you asked for, right?” you asked. He nodded quickly. 

“Oh, there’s so much we can do! It has to be perfect...! We can go to the nearest chocobo farm, or-or watch that new movie—” He turned around after rambling to himself and smiled widely. “You know what, I’ll just text you the details later, you must be busy.” 

“R-Really?” you asked. He nodded. “U-Um, okay. See you later, I look forward to that date!” You nodded and started to walk off, turning around every now and then to look back at the blushing sunshine boy. 

“Yes!” Prompto cheered into the air, fist-pumping and everything. He had to tell Noct! The blond started to run off to the dorms with a smile that never faltered. 

It looked like turning you in just so he could have an excuse to talk to you worked out in the end. 

After all, he was a law-abiding citizen. 

Fic inspired by 

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Little Secrets: Part 1

Fandom: Star Wars (Modern AU)

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Summary: After a one night stand with Poe in high school, you find out your pregnant. You end up moving away before anyone, including Poe, found out. You end up giving the child up for adoption. Coincidentally, years later, Finn and Rey adopt your child making Poe the honorary godfather. It’s killing Poe as to why this child looks so familiar.

A/N: Poe and Reader are both 18. And I think I’m going to make this a three part series.

You woke up in a groggy haze. You looked to your left to see a knocked out Poe. You stretched and stood up. It was just a one time thing, Y/N. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You told yourself. But you really didn’t want it to be a one time thing. You and Poe were close friends. He made you smile and laugh…he made you feel loved. You couldn’t help the feelings that emerged the more you spent time with him. But after this one night stand….everything’s been ruined. 

When Poe woke up, you weren’t there. He was upset. He thought that maybe you would’ve stayed. Maybe you actually had feelings for him like he did you. But he supposed he was wrong. Poe sighed in disappointment. Nothing was going to be the same after this.

Three weeks after that one night stand, you and Poe didn’t talk to each other. It was nearing the end of senior year anyway, so you were focusing on finishing your last year in high school with good grades. You put all your attention into your studying.

Lately, you’ve been feeling sick and you didn’t know why. Just every morning, you felt nauseous and couldn’t stomach anything down. Your mother was concerned so she insisted you go to the hospital.

About thirty minutes after giving a urine and blood sample, the doctor came back into the private room. She smiled at you, “Well, Y/N, looks like you’re doing fine and congrats! You’re three weeks pregnant!”

“Oh! Wow! Uh, thanks. That’s a relief. That explains the sick feeling.”

The doctor sensed your uneasiness, “It wasn’t expected, was it?”

You shook your head, “I’m on the pill…but like people say, it doesn’t always work.”

“Do you have any questions? Would you like to know about some counseling services we give?”

“No, no. It’s fine. I think I’ll be fine.”

The doctor hesitated, “Well, okay. You’ll come back in two weeks for a check up. And don’t hesitate to call if you have any questions. Okay?”

You gave her a small smile, “Alright. Thanks, doctor.”

When you told your parents, surprisingly, they weren’t very upset. They said things like that happened. You also told them that you wanted to have the baby, but didn’t want to keep it. They understood this. You were young. You were going to be entering college. You didn’t have a steady job. You just couldn’t take care of a child right now. You also definitely didn’t want to put your burden onto your parents. So adoption was the reasonable choice.

“We also have some things to tell you.”

“Okay? What is it?”

“We’re moving.” Your dad said.

“Wait, what?! When?!”

“After you graduate. The company wants us to move.”

“To where?! I don’t want to leave Yavin!”

“Across the country to the city of D’Qar.” Your mom said.

“Y/N, it wouldn’t really matter anyway, right? All of your friends are going to different colleges. You won’t be seeing them much anyway.” Your dad added.

You thought about his words. True, Rey was going to Ahch-To University. Ben was going to NYU. Finn and Poe were going into the military. Plus, you really didn’t have a choice. You still didn’t know where to go to school. You didn’t know what you wanted to major in. So you had to move with your parents.

5 years Later

You ended up having your baby when you moved to D’Qar. It was a beautiful baby boy and you decided to name him Lucas. When you gave him up for adoption, you remained anonymous. So no one would immediately know who gave him up. 

You also ended up going to the local college in D’Qar. You majored in English and received your teaching credentials. You were now a kindergarten teacher! You loved teaching the little boys and girls. They were just so cute!

The first day of school was here and you waited by the door of your classroom to greet all of the kids and their parents. 

You were currently talking to a little boy Cole, who was scared to leave his mom. You were reassuring him when you heard your name, “Y/N?”

You gave your last comforting words to Cole and looked up to see, “Finn? Rey? Oh my gosh!” You hugged them, “What are you doing here?!”

“We’re dropping off our son, Lucas to his class, which I guess is yours! I saw that the teacher had your last name, but I didn’t think it would be you!” Finn exclaimed. 

You looked to the little 5 year old boy. You remembered seeing it on facebook that after Finn and Rey got married, they adopted a baby boy, Lucas, “Hi, Lucas. I’m Miss L/N. I’m going to be your teacher.”

The shy boy with black curly hair, light tan skin, and y/e/c softly said, “Hi,” as he tried to hide behind Rey.

You smiled at him, “I promise I’m not scary. I’m actually really fun.” You glanced inside the classroom then to him, “There’s some toys in there if you want to play. Do you like legos?”

His eyes widened, “Yeah!” He hugged Rey and Finn, “Bye mom! Bye dad!” And ran inside with his big backpack bouncing behind him.

“Well, that wasn’t hard.” Rey noted, “So how are you, Y/N? We stopped talking after we graduated. You’re not even on facebook a lot anymore.”

“Yeah, been busy with school, got my teaching credentials, now I’m here! Been teaching for two years! So when did you move here?”

“A couple weeks ago. Finn and I decided we didn’t want to live back in Yavin. So we came here.”

“That’s amazing!” You looked at your watch, “Well, schools in session. I’ll talk to you guys when you pick up Lucas!”

Finn hugged you, “It’s so great to see you again, Y/N.”

“We’ll see you later,” Rey said as she hugged you.

You waved them good-bye and was ready to start the new school year.

Throughout the day, the kids were, surprisingly, well behaved. They all listened to you intently as you gave directions on what to do and gave your lessons. At the end of the day, they all loved you. Each and every one of them gave you a hug before they left for school. 

The last one with you was Lucas. You didn’t mind waiting for Finn and Rey, so you weren’t going to bring him to the office for them to pick him up there. You decided to play and talk with him. 

You then heard someone knock on the door. You looked up to see an all too familiar face, “Poe?”

“Y/N? You’re Luke’s teacher? What a coincidence!”

“Uh, yeah! Um, sorry, but why are you here?”

“Oh! Rey and Finn wanted me to pick Luke up. They got caught up in unpacking the last of their stuff.”

“UNCLE POE!” Lucas ran up to Poe.

“Luke! My buddy!” Poe picked up Lucas and held him. You looked at Poe and to Lucas. They looked…oddly similar. Lucas’s hair and skin color matched Poe’s exactly. 

“Miss L/N, this is my Uncle Poe! He’s the best uncle ever!” 

You smiled, “Is that so?”

Lucas nodded, “Uh huh! He’s cool! He flies planes and helicopters!”

“Wow. That is cool!”

“Alright, buddy, I think we’ve kept Miss L/N here long enough. I gotta get you home to your parents.”

[jiji-infires]

APRICITY (pt. 9)

OC X JUNGKOOK

GENRE: FLUFF, ANGST

WORD COUNT: 3K

SYNOPSIS: When his roommate moves out to live with his girlfriend, Jungkook is faced with a new reality, one that includes a 5′3′’ sac of bones that is too nerdy and curious for his liking.

CHAPTER 9

Jungkook wakes up to the sound of heavy rain, violently smashing his window and threatening to shatter it. Rainy days are his favourite; he gets to appreciate the warmth of his blanket more and the rhythm in which it rains creates a pleasant atmosphere for him to continue drawing.

Today, unfortunately, he won’t be going near any pens or papers, for he has far more important tasks he has to prioritise. Today, he will be meeting his mother, a gathering he anticipates, yet dreads. He has no idea what the consequences can be, but he can only hope that they’ll reach a mutual understanding.

It’s six in the morning, too early for a Sunday, but he has already taken a shower and is now putting his clothes so he can head out.

 After almost a five hours drive without any pauses, he finally arrives at his destination, hungry and tired. Driving through the neighbourhood brings memories to his mind, especially when the gate to his house opens up and there’s always the same guard at the door.

He steps out of his Porsche and an umbrella is immediately held above his head, to shield him from the rain. Jungkook takes the umbrella and climbs a small set of stairs and presses a white bell that glows with a faint yellow light. Seconds later, the door is opened by a young maid who he can’t even remember; it seems she’s a new one since she can’t recognise him.

“How may I help you?” she asks and just when he’s about to open his mouth he hears his mother’s piercing voice.

“Jungkook!” she runs to him and just when he steps further in the house, she throws herself on him. The boy almost loses his balance, so he wraps is arms around her to hold her, and to hold on to her.

“I missed you so much” her face is buried in the crook of his neck and he can only hum in response, hoping that it’s enough to convey his message. “How have you been?”she holds his face in her palms.

“I’m alright”

 Jungkook sits awkwardly in the living room of his own house that looks twice as big as his current apartment; not that his current house is small, but his old one is excessively large.

The excitement on his mother's face is more than obvious as she looks like she wants to hold him captive there forever. He understands.

"What do you wanna eat for lunch honey?" She asks and he just shrugs; he'd be lying if he says that he's not hungry after a continuous five hours drive.

"Anything" he replies and she nods eagerly, heading to the kitchen, while he jogs upstairs to his room.

 Jisoo wakes up to Juno licking her fingers. It’s a rainy Sunday morning and she doesn’t know what to do with her day; she finished reading her fantasy book and she needs another one, and she has already sorted her ideas for the upcoming project with Ten.

She leaves her room after thirty minutes of pure spacing out, heading to the kitchen to make some breakfast for her as well as her roommate, only to find out that Jungkook has already left. It takes her by surprise since he wakes up until midday when it’s Sunday.

After having a quick breakfast and cleaning the house, she waits until it isn’t raining as heavily as before. She takes a warm shower and changes into skinny jeans, combat boots and her khaki bomber jacket; a gift from the king of eye smiles himself, Park Jimin.

 “That’ll be 9,000 won” the cashier says as he hands her a small box that contains a selection of strawberry green tea flavoured macaroons. She pays with an internal sigh and leaves and heads out, trying to remember where the store was.

The bus she took led her to Hongdae and she’s determined to find the woman who gave her the dress. Sure macaroons won’t be as expensive as the dress she was gifted, but she sincerely hopes those sweet treats will convey her gratitude.

Fifteen minutes later, she’s climbing the stairs to the second floor where the store is. The place is the same as last time, except that the clothes aren’t the same anymore; it seems like they’ve got a new collection. Jisoo moves further inside and towards the receptionist who smiles upon her arrival.

“Hi” she says, “I need to ask you something”

“Sure! Do you have anything particular in mind?” the late twenties woman asks. “No, not about a dress” Jisoo clarifies, “a woman, I think she’s the owner of this place. I just came to thank her for her gift”

“A gift?” the receptionist is confused, “the owner is actually a man”

At this Jisoo frowns; she’s pretty sure that the person who she met last time is a woman. She’s quick to reach for her phone and hunt for a photo she has taken of herself wearing the lace dress, which she shows to the woman whose eyebrows jump a little.

“This dress was given to me a week ago. A woman was here and she insisted that I take it”

The woman looks up the dress reference on her computer that displays details of the dress; when was it bought, by whom, and how much.

“Oh! It was Mrs. Song who bought it” she chirps with recognition, “she’s one of our best customers”

“Where can I find her?” Jisoo asks her with eagerness. She now wants to find the person more than ever after what the nice receptionist has told her. Why would a random person she doesn’t even know buy her a dress that costs a fortune?

  Jisoo finds herself standing few feet away from one of the largest banking services firms in the country; Seinan Financial group. The building is overwhelmingly massive, sticking out like a giant needle piercing the ground, and the longer she looks up at it, the more she feels like if would collapse on her.

She walks to the reception desk and asks if she can meet Mrs. Song, unfortunately for her the receptionist here is not as nice as the one in the store, and she curtly asks her to wait until she verifies if she can meet her. Jisoo sits on one of the leather chairs, her macaroons box awkwardly resting on her idle thighs; she kind of regrets coming in the first place; what if the woman sends her away? What if she’s bothering her?

 She is dragged back out of her contemplation trance with the voice of the woman who beckons her, and she is lead to the elevator that whisks her up to one of the highest floors. And after what seems like a decade, she is escorted inside an office, a very large one to say the least.

She is amazed at how clinic it looks and how it’s modern yet simply designed with white and grey furniture. She wants to look around more but a clearing of the throat catches her attention and she turns around to find the woman in question rising from her chair that hid a perfect view of the metropolis. The woman approaches her with a warm smile but she looks somehow ... nervous.

“I’m sorry if I came without an appointment” Jisoo is the first to speak, apologizing for her lack of courtesy. Mrs. Song waves it off, excitement showing on her features as she ushers the girl to the L-shaped couch at the far end of the bureau.

“This a pleasant surprise” she is genuine as she utter those words while staring fondly at Jisoo who can only muster a shy smile as she hands her the box.

“This is something I picked up on my way; I hope you like them”

The woman can only gasp in pure surprise, her eyes darting from the younger female to the box “How did you know I liked green tea macaroons?”

“I honestly picked those I liked the most– green tea ones, and another random flavour” she replies sheepishly and the older female can’t help but smile warmly at her. She orders coffee for both of them and they enjoy sweet heaven on earth.

Mrs. Song notices that Jisoo has something bugging her, like she wants to say something but she’s hesitating.

“You must be wondering why I gave you the dress, right?” she says as if she can exactly read what’s on Jisoo’s mind. “The moment I saw you, I had a very weird flashback, especially when we talked”

“You said I reminded you of someone”

“Yes,” the woman replies, putting down her coffee “You remind me of a man I used to know. Very calm and serene demeanour, you move and talk in a composed way, yet I can see in your eyes a power that can stir the oceans. Quiet like a butterfly”

Jisoo finds herself staring at the woman in awe, not really comprehending what she’s referring to but it plays in her head over and over, and it jogs her memory back to when her father used to call her a butterfly. Her eyes start to water but she’s quick to blink the tears back.

 Minutes pass as they talk some more, and Jisoo stands up, feeling like she has taken quiet a lot of the woman’s time. Mrs. Song takes Jisoo’s hands in hers, asking her to comeback once again and the girl nods eagerly with a smile on her face.

Just when she makes it to the door, she catches a glimpse of a photo situated of the wooden desk. A very young Mrs. Song, probably mid twenties, sitting on a chair with a man standing above her. What the woman says next sounds muffled to Jisoo who nods absentmindedly, everything from bidding her goodbye, to travelling down to the depths of the building; the blur continues until she’s a few feet away from the building, trying to understand what she just saw. What was her father doing in that picture?

 She climbs the stairs​up to her house, body coming through the door but head elsewhere. Her father looked a couple of years younger than when he passed away and looked far happier than he was in the last few years, and Mrs. Song looked just as youthful in that picture, with her hair reaching her waist, nothing compared to the bob cut she has now; the picture looks like it was taken before her father got married. She almost steps on Juno's tail if the poor dog didn't yelp at the right time.

Jungkook is already in the house and is now setting his PS 4 when he notices Jisoo's form walking aimlessly and sitting on the couch next to him.

 "Everything alright?" He asks

"Huh?... Oh, yeah, I'm fine" she replies and the boy doesn't fail to recognise the confusion that's plastered on her face; living with her for a while now he'd say that it's her face whenever she hits blunt.

"Do you wanna play?"

"Sure" she says as she takes the controller from him, "I'm a terrible player thou, so take it easy on me"

Jungkook only grins as he gets his head in the game. He honestly doesn't know how she does it, but she almost crashes into every car and every item that comes near her. Her face scrunches as she holds on to the controller for dear life, repeating a silent mantra in her head. Jungkook on the other hand is biting his lip to stifle his laugh, stealing looks at her struggling form.

The game ends with his victory of course and Jisoo sighs loudly.

"You’re a terrible player, I'm sorry"

"Told you" they both chuckle and she stands up, saying that she'll head to her room to get some sleep, when he stops her.

"Aren't you hungry? I brought some Thai food on my way home" he doesn’t want to eat alone, not after they got to know each other better and they got used to one another’s presence.

Her mouth waters at the mention of it; she hasn't really eaten anything the whole day aside from the insignificant bites of macaroons with the lady on the picture with her father, and she honestly can't remember the last time she has savoured something Thai. All she knows is that at the moment she has some weird food cravings and she can practically eat anything as long as it tastes good.

She nods at Jungkook who can only smile and moves to set food on the table while she goes to her room to change into pyjama pants and a cotton sweater.

 Jisoo feels an uncomfortable humidity between her legs and she prays that it's not that time of the month again as she slowly pushes down her pants.

"Crap" she mutters under her breath when she sees a dark red stain on her cotton undergarments, confirming what she dreads each month; because not only it comes with extreme pain, but also she can't even recognise her own self when she's on her period.

She reluctantly grabs some clean clothes and a towel and twists the door of her room open to reveal a startled Jungkook with his fist awkwardly hung midair.

"Uh... Dinner is ready" he says sheepishly and her face instantly reddens. Internally, she feels uncomfortable with her current situation and the boy asking her to come eat.

"Ahm... Just get started without me, I'm gonna take a quick shower"

Jungkook feels the uneasiness in her voice and the sudden change of her skin coloration, but he doesn’t want to press it by asking her if everything is alright; in fact she has been acting weird since she came back.

“I’ll wait for you” he says and feels awkward right after those words leave his mouth; it’s as if the four words sentence held more meaning than he intended to deliver, and it doesn’t take that much time to sink into Jisoo’s head who only gulps down the lump in her throat as she looks at his with an unwavering gaze, and he can’t help but stare at the warm maroon colour of her iris, wondering if she can remember his eyes from that rainy afternoon at the library.

  After she takes a quick shower and wears her clothes, she joins him for dinner over the small table they have by the living room area. They eat in comfortable silence before the girl breaks it with one of her daily question on nights they sit to eat together.

“Anything interesting today?” she asks, hoping that he’ll tell her where he has been since early in the morning, for the guy doesn’t get up until it’s midday. She wants to slap herself for asking that because his response starts with a long sigh and it kind of throws her off.

“I went to Busan to see my mother”

“Oh... how is she?” she enquires out of sheer politeness and Jungkook smiles at her in a fond way. “She’s doing fine” he answers, “She just needed to see me, that’s all”

She nods and continues eating, rotating from one dish to another.

“How about your mom? When are you going to see her?” his question makes her halt her movements, a slice to mushrooms sliding from her chopsticks and falling back to the plate. She swallows hard.

“I don’t know where she is... she left when I was five” she clarifies. Jisoo doesn’t know where her mother is now, if she’s dead or alive, married or not, if she has other siblings, and every time she’s reminded of her she tells herself that she doesn’t care, but deep down it hurts to know that she left her only daughter just because she couldn’t put up with her dad. She also doesn’t want Jungkook to feel bad for asking the question in the first place or to pity her.

“I’m really sorry to ask; I had no idea” he apologizes, the sweet pork skewers leaving a bitter aftertaste in the back of his tongue; he doesn’t feel hungry anymore.

“Don’t be; people leave, everything changes”

 Jungkook is about to say something, when the sound of the bell interrupts him in the process of forming words. Jisoo jumps from her place and beats him to the door, and when she opens it she steps back, taken by surprise by the foreign person standing before her.

“Can I ... can I speak to J-Jungkook?” the man stutters with a slur, almost tumbling forward. The fool smell coming from him tells her that he’s probably drunk.

“Jungkook!” she yells at him without moving her eyes an inch from the guy slumping against the frame of her door that she considers closing, but Jungkook is right behind her, looking as stupefied as she is.

 “Hyung? What are you doing here?” he asks him, and Jisoo can’t help but watch her roommate drag the drunk guy in, who has very strange colour to his hair; mint.

“I need to tell you... some–” he hiccups, “–something” trying to stand straight, he latches himself on Jungkook’s shoulders, who only stares at him in utter confusion.

“Hoseok, he wanted you ... I wanted to tell you that” the man with mint hair squints his eyes as he tries to focus on forming comprehensible words, but he fails miserably after he collapses on the couch behind his knees. He snores softly against the fabric of the couch as the pair hovers over his crumpling figure, and Jisoo can’t help but voice out her curiosity.

 “Who’s this guy?” she solicits, her eyebrows knitted forward in a baffled frown. Jungkook only sighs and drapes a blanket over him, his expression matching hers, except that his curiosity is spiked by the nonsense he heard.

 “That’s Yoongi hyung.”

[shimmerfall]

Chapter 2: The Early Easy

"...so don't get rid of those heavy coats yet, folks, because even though we've dipped our toes into spring, this cool weather is here to stay for another few weeks..."

While the early morning newscast had been standard enough to treat as background noise, the volume at which the overly peppy weather person delivered their report was somewhat grating on the ears, and no doubt the opposite effect than what was intended by the bubbly demeanor.

Combined with the fact that all of this invasive noise was coming from the downstairs living room television, and had made its way through a purposefully closed door, the bedroom's sole occupant decided this was fate's subtle nudge for him to get his day properly started.

"Typha, come on down, breakfast is almost ready!"

And this, Typha surmised, was his uncle's far less subtle but admittedly more convincing attempt at motivation.

The young man sat up in his bed, blinking his eyes open and letting himself get used to the waking world. Though it was dark, he could still make out a few bits of his room from the scant pieces of light that made their way through his drawn curtains. A few posters lined his walls, and a bass guitar rested against his dresser. His laptop lay near his bed on an office chair next to his bed, and a large vanity mirror hung on the back of his door.

After mentally psyching up for the morning, he rolled out of bed and performed his morning routine of freshening up, then went about getting his backpack ready for school. Once that was finished, he threw on a pair of black pants with a white and blue shirt, and stood in front of the mirror for 'final checks'.

In the mirror, Typha saw a young man of average height. He had voluminous black hair with numerous curls, dark skin, and dark brown eyes. He had a somewhat youthful face, which he had, at one point, attempted to offset by growing out his facial hair. However, he wasn't able to grow either a full beard or a mustache, and ultimately decided that looking young was better than a series of desperate patches on his face.

Satisfied with his appearance, Typha slung his backpack over his shoulder and made his way downstairs. He could see his uncle preparing bacon and eggs in separate skillets over the stove while taking momentary looks back at the television. Typha took a moment to mute the TV, and the lack of volume finally alerted Markus to his nephew's presence.

"Zinniah had to leave early this morning, so you're rolling to school." Markus asked as he quickly placed four pieces of bread in the toaster before returning to his skillets.

'In the damn winter,' he thought, more than a little annoyed that he would have to be in the cold. However, he knew his aunt's job came before his discomfort. "No worries, I planned to anyway," Typha eventually said, leaning against the island countertop and waiting for Markus to finish preparing breakfast.

He wasn't terribly hungry this morning, but he knew the future version of him would appreciate the energy, and the current him would appreciate not hearing another ten minute lecture on the importance of a filling meal to start the day. He was tempted to ask his uncle to drop him off instead, but he'd already said he planned to go on his own. Plus, Typha knew the school was in the opposite direction from the gym where Markus worked, and he could hardly ask the man to inconvenience himself for his sake.

The toaster dinged, and Markus placed them on paper towels before retrieving two slices of cheese from the refrigerator. "Got a couple of loaded grilled cheese cooking, by the way."

"Huh?" Typha responded, as he was currently excavating a large thermal coat from the closet "Oh, uh, sure. Thanks, sounds good."

"Don't you think that's a little much, Ty?"

"Uncle Markus, it's like in the 50's or 60's today. I'm gonna feel the chill in my bones without it."

"Sure you don't want a hot cocoa to help fight off the cold?" Markus teased.

"Seriously? Cuz like, yeah, that actually sounds pretty good."

Markus looked up from washing dishes to give Typha a look. "Boy, shut up before I eat your sandwich."

"No hot chocolate and no breakfast? It's like I'm a common criminal over here." Typha walked to the front door, grabbing a now completed grilled cheese off the counter. "I'll accept this as an offering of forgiveness." Typha strapped on a pair of roller skates and waved goodbye to his uncle before heading out the door, breakfast in hand.

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

There's something of an otherworldly quiet to a city early in the morning, long after the nightcrawlers find their way back home, but just before most of the rest of the populace rises to bring life back to the town. Chirping birds heralded the coming of a newborn sun, which bathed the city in an orange glow and offered a thin but effective blanket of warmth against the chill of dawn.

At this hour, the only souls awake to disrupt the peace of the morning do so only out of obligation, such as bakers preparing their goods for the day, radio DJ's constructing set lists for their time block, and delivery boys pelting their neighbors' front doors with the latest local news.

Along with high school students that insist on traveling to school using the halfway point between walking and cycling.

Typha considered this one of the few, almost nonexistent, times anyone could expect relative quiet outside in Brillarville. The only noticeable sound to him was his skates on the pavement as he lazily glided down the street, and the crunching of his grilled cheese as he enjoyed his breakfast.

He appreciated the lack of pedestrians and cars that usually crowded the city, removing the need for him to restrict himself to the designated bike lane, or attempt to weave through throngs of people on the sidewalk. The frigid air was a definite negative, but even borderline frigophobic that he was, even he wasn't as bothered by the temperature as he thought he'd be. Maybe his solo trips to school could restart in earnest sooner than he thought.

The route Typha took this morning gave him a clear view of Mount Seer, the tallest point in the city. The mountain's height was impressive enough, but a different feature made it the infamous local landmark of Brillarville. Two massive, glasslike shards protruded from the top of the landform, each about thirty meters high, with no one knowing how deeply embedded they were into the ground.

A common wager among younger children was to journey up the mountain and write their name on one the shards. Though there was never any proof of this actually happening, or even any indication that anyone ever tried, the rumors of it happening had scared enough parents into convincing the police to cordon off the entrance and put up a sign threatening heavy fines for anyone caught trespassing. Typha himself was never frightened of the place, but he had to admit, looking at the mountain from a distance did give it a kind of ominous aura.

Typha's trek to school took him away from his home on the west side and through a decent portion of downtown. The shift in architecture was gradual but noticeable, as smaller businesses with their names on the front of the store slowly gave way to franchises and massive buildings with no clear indication as to what went on inside them.

Downtown Brillarville wasn't all large buildings of vague purpose. Typha passed several independently owned stores that looked like they belonged back on the west side, but were popular or essential enough to survive the harsher financial demands of downtown.

Coming up on a corner, he stuck his hand out to grab a light post and turn down a new street, where the sight of one of the aforementioned stores, a normally humble looking convenience store came into view.

The owner, Jorge Wellon, sunk a decent amount of money into a high end coffee maker that he stuck at the front of his store, and allowed time combined with man's dependence on caffeine to make him back his investment and then some.

Typha was aware of all of this, and normally wouldn't have looked twice at Wellon's Express. However, while the store was usually fit with the rest of the buildings around it, it stood out harshly that morning. One reason could have been that the inside was still dark so close to its hours of operation, which was a tad bit strange to anyone who paid attention, as Mr. Wellon was very serious about his opening schedule.

Another could have been the obnoxious, brightly colored yellow lizard with a crown sitting atop large, equally bright yellow letters that spelled out "REX" on one of the pale gray building's outer walls.

Typha couldn't suppress a disgusted groan at seeing the artwork. Not for any sort of altruistic stance against graffiti, nor an aching sympathy for Mr. Wellon, despite liking him enough to wish another building had been tagged instead. No, Typha had the distinct honor, accompanied by the distinct headache, of being familiar with this specific piece of modern artwork.

More importantly, with the artist.

Quite suddenly, Typha's casual trip to school became far more energized, and filled with sharp purpose. Sharp, annoyed purpose.

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

Students were already filtering into the building by the time Typha skidded to a stop on the sidewalk leading to the school. However, he knew his target well enough to know there was little chance they had already made it inside. He took a seat on a bench near the front doors, and switched his skates with a pair of shoes from his backpack.

Typha expected he'd have to wait until the attendance bell rang before handling his current situation, but that time table was cut thankfully short as he saw a shaggy looking student wearing a red beanie and a large gray hoodie ride a skateboard towards the school. Typha rose to meet the young man, who did not seem to be slowing down as he approached.

"Yo, Ty, brake me bro!" the young man shouted as he barreled towards Typha.

Who promptly sidestepped the incoming teenager, allowing him to ram into a metal handrail. The skateboarder impacted with a ringing thud, laying crumpled over the rail for a few seconds as he recovered from having the wind knocked out of him.

"Morning, Rex," Typha said as the skater removed himself from the rail.

After a few coughs, Rex responded. "What the hell, bro? Didn't you hear me ask you to stop me?"

"All I heard was the sound of someone who needs to remember how to skate safely. And don't call me Ty."

"Come on, yo, don't be lame—"

Typha held his hand up to interrupt Rex. "I saw what you did outside of Wellon's place."

"Yo, you came to school on skates today? Why didn't you hit me up, we could've come together." Rex was interrupted again, this time by Typha pulling his beanie down over his face, followed by slapping Rex's forehead.

"What the hell's the problem, dude?!" Rex asked, pulling his beanie up.

Typha pinched the bridge of his nose before answering. "You tagged the store with your signature."

The skater looked puzzled, not yet understanding what he'd done to earn a head slap. "Yeah, it looks sick, so what?

"Dumbass, your signature is your real name."

Rex at least had the awareness to look sheepish at this point, rubbing the back of his head. "Okay, so I was in a hurry right? Like I had to go quick cuz I'd been at Tiffany's, and the folks were gonna freak if I came back too late again. And I was, like, havin' a block, ya know, I wasn't feelin' anything special. So I just went with what I know the best. And yo, you gotta admit it was pretty clean, right?"

"Yeah, that's another thing," Typha said. "Why Wellon's place at all? There's tons of space down by the levees, and more than enough buildings not owned by people who know who you are."

"But Wellon's is freakin' prime real estate, dawg." They both began making their way into the school as Rex continued explaining. "People always go by that place, no better way to let the streets know who they belong to."

Typha let out an exasperated sigh. "This is a busy city, Rex. No one pays any real attention to stuff like a bit of graffiti on the side of a shop. And the only people who will notice are people who want it gone."

"...Alright, his old lady got all pissy cuz I rode my board inside the place a couple days ago, but that's like, only half the reason."

"I'm gonna say this once, because I didn't think it ever needed to be said," Typha began, placing a hand on Rex's shoulder. "If you wanna mark up a bunch of buildings, go crazy. Turn the city into your canvas, I don't care. But don't do it alone, and I know you did it alone, because Rico wouldn't have let you sign it with your name. And especially don't do it using the same tag you use in videos you put on the internet."

"Oh shit, that reminds me, we still good for this Thursday?" Rex asked, "Rico said there's this sick spot on the north side, perfect for a shoot."

"You..." Typha stared at Rex's face, who was clearly waiting for an answer and seemingly completely oblivious to his warning. "...Yeah. Yeah, I'm good for it."

"Nice. Hey, I'll catch you later man, I gotta head to class. Stay chill, dude." Rex took off down the hall to his first period, leaving Typha alone to reflect on where things went wrong during that conversation.

Eventually deciding he did everything correctly, Typha headed to his own first class of the day.

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

The bell for the second half of the day's classes sounded down the halls as Typha entered the library. His first period for the afternoon was an independent study hall, which was the school's way of offering its senior students time in the day to consult with career counselors, work on final semester projects, or continue progress on any other school related endeavors.

In practice, most students used it as a mental break from the rest of the school day, wandering the halls or spending time on the grounds outside. The only caveat to this setup was the unspoken but heavily implied warning by the administration of "don't make us regret letting you do this", which most seniors had the sense to heed.

Typha would often take this time to find a quiet corner of the library to catch up on sleep and risk missing his last class of the day, having eventually come to an understanding with the school librarian that her jurisdiction should be a place to enjoy both literature and relaxation. Today, however, he wasn't feeling particularly tired, so he decided to partake in the fulfilling and worthwhile pastime of mindlessly browsing the internet until the bell rang.

Easily finding an open computer, Typha logged on and let the muse of the internet take him, which simply meant he didn't have a clear objective and would just look at whatever was popular. The school blocked social media websites for the most part, but they didn't restrict access to VidMeo, a popular video sharing website. Something about ease of access for teachers, but whatever the reason, it was a good time waster. Once on the site, he scrolled through some of the trending videos, but they were either ones he'd already seen, or seemed completely uninteresting.

As he was scrolling, his eyes caught a video of an interesting news report titled 'Multi-Million Dollar Company Faces Scrutiny in Wake of Attack'. The video's name was indeed one that piqued curiosity, but the fact that a video from a local news station in Michigan was able to reach the trending page the same day it was posted was unique in and of itself. With nothing better to do, Typha clicked on the video to see what about it was so special.

Pressing play, Typha saw a group of men in blue uniforms, the sight tickling something in the back of his mind that he couldn't quite place. Eventually, the men came upon another guy in a white lab coat, who pulled something out of his pocket, then tossed it at the men in uniforms, who spasmed and fell over.

"Authorites and eye witness reports say," the news anchor voice over said as the scene changed to a close up of the lab coat man's hand, "that the suspect used this strange device to incapacitate the Jury members you see here. When questioned about the device's origin..."

Typha paused the video, staring intently at the disc shaped device in the attacker's hand. Almost unblinkingly, he looked it over, taking in every detail he could before he allowed his mind to go anywhere that would lead him to disappointment.

'Same basic design,' Typha thought, 'and from what I can tell, same shape. But there's nothing engraved on it. Plus, he's holding it bare handed. It's definitely based on the real thing, but it's gotta be fake.' He zoomed out of the video and allowed it to play again. He noticed a bit more information elaborating on the event, particularly about Greensly himself.

"Huh," Typha said quietly to himself, reading out Greensly's former place of work from the scrolling news banner. "Verbradyne..."

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

Absolutely forgot to put the link for this shillfest in the last one, but better now than never. If you read any of this, thank you for your time. Much, much, much more to come.

https://www.wattpad.com/user/GranShine

[ecotone99]

[AA] Battleship & The Escape Room of Victory

Battleship & The Escape Room of Victory

Wesley and Jackson’s friendship was born from the depths of competition. While Wesley was far more competitive, Jackson was a natural born winner. Jackson’s ability came with confidence along with a sizeable helping of ego. Wesley was a hard worker but a devout overthinker. They were simply made for one another. Alongside their studies in college, they played board games, video games, pick up games, and made money on the side through under the table poker games in the dorms. Furthermore, their competitive tendencies were backed by talent. In their last year at Cal, Jackson and Wesley decided to delve into something far more serious than any game – a prank war. Of course there was no good ending to what was being started. It was war after all. The only real way either could have won was by ruining the other's life.

~

‘Honey.’

‘Yes?’

‘You remember Wesley?’

‘God, talk about a name I haven’t heard in years.’

‘Well.’

Jackson took a sip of his coffee.

‘I just got an email from him this morning.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. And I have yet to open it.’

‘Hopefully it has some answers to how he’s been.’

Jackson’s eyes locked onto a notification reading email from [Wesleygraham22@gmail.com](mailto:haileygraham22@gmail.com). It stuck out like a fly Jackson had graduated ten years ago, and being a Berkeley Law graduate he lived comfortably.

He looked beyond his laptop screen at his own reflection in the glass wall of his home. Beyond his reflection he saw it all. The water, the bridges, the city, a regatta speckling the bay. He clicked the notification.

Dear Jackson,

Bet you haven’t thought about me in a long time huh? I know I kinda fell off the map but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about old friends, especially you. I know you’re also probably asking yourself why is Wesley contacting me? All will be explained. I didn’t have a lot of friends in college. You knew that. I’ve been working on something for the past few years and I couldn’t stop thinking of you during its final days of construction.

I want you to try my escape room. I know you’ve heard of them. Hell, is there really a game out there that we haven’t played? I’ve been waiting to open it publicly for the past few months but something still needs to happen. You need to have the first go at it. So yes - this is me inviting you to New Mexico to play a game. Oh yeah, I live in New Mexico now. Let me know if you can make it down here one of these weekends.

- Wesley.

~

Their “war” kicked off innocently, garnering attention from classmates and friends. Pranks consisted of genius plots with satisfying payouts. Their early pranks acted as training. The year went on and the pranks got worse, but they never caused any serious emotional or physical harm. Whatever the case was, it didn’t matter, because Jackson always won.

~

‘Well you’re not going right?’

‘Well, I’m thinking about it.’

‘Jackson.’

‘What?’

‘Are you fucking serious?’

‘About going?’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean, he is – well was my best friend. I dunno, I feel like I owe it to him. Never really got the chance to apologize.’

‘It’s weird though – him coming out of nowhere like this.’

‘Yeah, and it makes it that more intriguing.’

Jackson shrugged.

‘You’re a real piece of fucking work.’

Jackson’s wife left the kitchen again. His presence was occasionally unbearable, especially for his wife. He shortly followed up with an email saying that he'd love to make it but couldn’t find any cheap flights to Albuquerque that month, and that he didn’t want to hold up the show by keeping Wesley waiting. Thirty minutes later Jackson received an email from Wesley about potential dates he would be able to fly him out.

~

Never had any of their competitive endeavors lasted more than a few weeks, let alone months, until Jackson’s subconscious barriers crumbled due to the reckless and volatile inclination to win. Jackson’s inspiration spawned from his Intro to Politics and Current Media course in which he had just read an article on deepfake; a technique in which artificial intelligence superimposes images onto a video to present something that did not occur. Jackson spent the next two nights using an online service which superimposed images of Wesley’s girlfriend onto one of the millions of generic sex tapes online. His girlfriend’s Facebook provided a crammed vault of photos and video to digitally replicate her facial structure, features, imperfections and capture the once innocent tone and sound of her voice. After the service finished rendering the video, Jackson asked one of his fraternity friends to personally invite Wesley’s girlfriend to an upcoming formal.

~

The plane touched the ground and Jackson didn’t look normal, because what he was doing was far from normal. He walked through the terminals and consciously made an effort to not look visibly disgusted by the faux adobe walls and midwestern theme of every single thing surrounding him. His plan followed - staying the night at Wesley’s, completing the escape room the next day, and flying back home later in the afternoon. It was short, but he knew he’d still have to endure speaking with Wesley before he played the room and beat it. No one else could complete the room before him.

He saw Wesley standing outside the arrivals gate and moments later was engulfed in a bear hug. Jackson had to process the moment, but figured returning the hug was the only way out.

‘I’m so glad you could make it, how was the flight?’

‘Not bad, good ol’ melatonin knocked me out.’

‘Good to hear. Hey, let’s get going and catch up in the car. Every time I see this place I wanna throw up.’

Jackson and Wesley smiled at each other.

The drive to Santa Fe was long. Jackson had landed a few hours before sunset, allowing the sun played its part in maximizing the beauty of Wesley’s home. Orange rays shot through the glass walls which made up the majority of the house and the adobe walls surrounding the compound bounced a warm glowing light. Cacti and other desert plants surrounded the driveway and perimeter of the home, all of which was complemented by modern sculptures and a section of Roman statues leading to the front door.

They spent the night drinking and touring the home. Wesley had taken after his parents and delved into the stock market eventually landing himself in the profession of an art collector. His major in computer science was left behind. Wesley gave a guided tour of his home and of the sculpture garden in the backyard. It was as if nothing had changed. They talked about a multitude of things while dancing around the subject of the escape room and what happened years ago. However, Wesley and Jackson couldn’t dance forever. A stint of silence couldn’t have been a louder beginning to their inevitable conversation.

‘Jackson, I know you’ve probably been trying to avoid this, but I just wanted to say it now. Whatever you think was your fault – wasn’t.’

Jackson focused his attention on a sculpture of a naked woman outside. He couldn’t avoid the talk but he could avoid eye contact.

‘I was in a very bad state at the time – frankly, I just wanted to move on, so I used your – prank, as an excuse. I figured if I just dropped out without having some motive, then people wouldn’t be able to leave me alone, ya know? They’d ask me questions, tell me to come back, that sort of thing.’

Jackson couldn’t avoid this however. He turned and looked at Wesley.

‘I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time, Jackson. If anyone ever thought less of you for what you did I’m sorry. It didn’t affect me at all.’

Jackson stared through Wesley, unable to process his thoughts, let alone formulate a sentence. Wesley got up and patted Jackson on the shoulder and left him in the living room. Jackson had a hard time sleeping that night. It didn’t help that he was drunk.

~

The day after the formal, Jackson uploaded the video and waited till the evening to text Wesley.

Hey Wesley I think Anna cheated on you last night… Jesse you know ? Our friend in KA ? Well he texted me a link to a video this morning. I really hate to be the one telling you this, but no one else had the balls to say something. I’ll send the link but I think it would be wise to talk to Anna about what happened if you end up deciding to watch it.

Wesley watched the video first thing and jumped to any and every conclusion about what he saw. He went berserk, broke up with his girlfriend, moved out, dropped out of college, and fell off the map – because not once in his life had Wesley been betrayed. Jackson had dug a hole into the core of his best friend’s insecurities.

~

‘Morning buddy.’

Wesley was making coffee and breakfast while the beauty of his glass home was resurrected by the warm light that flooded in. Jackson woke up, hungover.

‘I should’ve woken you up earlier because we have to head out pretty soon.’

‘Oh. No problem. Where is the room anyways?’

‘It’s out on this rez a few hours away, it’ll only take about forty five minutes to finish so we’ll get back well before your flight heads out.’

‘A rez?’

‘Yeah, one of those Native American reservations, they let me and helped me build it out there for a lot cheaper. No building permits, contracts, taxes, nothing.’

‘Well that’s convenient.’

~

Wesley slept on the ride to the escape room. When he woke up he had no idea where they were or how long they had been driving for. Jackson didn’t ponder that fact for too long as he became fixated on the two story rectangular, concrete building in front of their car. It was windowless with a vault door leading into the first floor and a staircase leading up to the second. There was no road leading to the building or even a structure on the horizon. The building was a monolith of the desert.

Wesley admired the building for a few moments with a smug look. Jackson looked at him and the building in confusion. Escape rooms usually had a theme, and Battleship’s theme seemed to be an above ground fallout shelter.

‘Battleship – huh?’

‘That’s the name. Remember when Battleship became our escape from Settlers of –’

‘I do, yeah.’

‘Well I thought I’d give a little homage to those days.’

Wesley got out of the car and Jackson followed. They walked to the front door and were cascaded by the shade falling from the building. Jackson couldn’t see anything through the porthole in the door.

‘The actual escape room is on the first floor. I’ll be monitoring from the second. I doubt you’ll need any help though.’

Wesley handed him a blindfold and a plastic band.

‘Put these on and I’ll lead you in. After you hear a short alarm you can take your blindfold off and get started. You excited?’

‘Oh yeah. Just a little anxious.’

‘You have nothing to be anxious about. You’ll probably get it in no time with your luck.’

Jackson was going along with anything at this point, which was exactly how he ended up in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico with a friend whose life he thought he ruined. Jackson donned the blindfold. Wesley guided him into the pitch black room, let go, and walked back to the front door.

‘Jackson.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I never forgot about what you did to me.’

Wesley closed the door behind him and the sounds of hydraulics pierced through the air and his footsteps reverberated when he walked up the stairway to the second floor. Jackson heard the hydraulics again as Wesley closed the second story door.

Jackson hadn’t thought about the plastic band until he felt it tighten on his wrist. The alarm then sounded at an earsplitting level. Jackson tore off his blindfold, the alarm stopped, and the room was now completely lit.

A checkerboard print of black and white squares, big enough to stand on, covered and lit the entirety of the room. He reached into his pocket for his phone and looked around. The phone was lost and the door was covered – mixed in somewhere with the tiles.

Across the room from Jackson was a tablet with a flashing white screen. He walked over and picked it up. A video began to play.

‘Welcome to Battleship. Much like the original game, the rules aren’t too different. You will use this tablet to choose where to strike. If you get a hit, the squares to choose will change. You will start off by selecting positions on the floor. Once you or your opponent is hit by a floor strike you will then select positions on the wall. Once and if you get a wall strike then you will then select positions from the ceiling. You are allowed to change positions after your opponent’s attempts to strike. Do not move after you have chosen a position when it is your opponent's turn to strike. You will have fifteen seconds to move and select a position, and fifteen seconds to select where to strike. The first one strike the other opponent three times wins. Select heads or tails on the screen.’

Jackson had many questions and no way to answer them. Both the coin flip and the room stood as games of complete chance. He chose heads, and heads it was. The screen transitioned to the dimensions and pattern of the floor beneath him. A timer appeared at the top of the screen and began counting down.

He selected a square at random and waited for another fifteen. The square on the screen flashed red and it was a miss. The countdown began again on his screen and Jackson moved to a square while taking some time to observe his surroundings. Small indentations covered every square in the room. Fifteen seconds passed and a square in the corner of the room flashed red. The room spoke.

‘Miss.’

The back and forth went on for awhile. The room was flashing with red squares and announcing miss. The game showed no indication of ending anytime soon. Jackson attempted to play smarter, striking more on one side of the floor to possibly drive his opponent to the other side. He played that strategy for a while and finally made a move. Jackson selected a spot at the opposite corner on the tablet. After the timer finished he instantly heard screams from above him. The square he selected flashed a bright green on the screen and the room announced ‘hit’.

Jackson ran under the exact spot where he heard Wesley’s screams. Jackson cried out for him and as he cried out towards the ceiling he could see a reflection of green on the white tile above him. Before he had the time to look down, spikes ejected through the indentations beneath him for a split second and retracted back into the tile. One opened the side of his left leg, slicing through tough muscles and tendons, while another pierced through his heel and between the bones of his right leg. The other spikes inverted and severed a few toes. He was razed to the ground and splashed into a pool of blood and torn flesh. Lying flat on his back he saw the tablet across the room.

Despite the trauma, he remembered the rules well and knew he had to make a choice within seconds. He dragged himself across the room and hastily selected a tile. It was a miss. The experience of fatal injuries made time feel shorter and for Jackson, time was genuinely of the essence.

The tablet transitioned to a select number of squares. A square across the room on the bottom layer of the wall turned red. Whatever was next would come from the walls. The game would progress faster and the chance of getting hit was much higher. Again he hastily made a selection and then slid to a far corner of the room. His blood acted as a convenient lubricant.

He missed. At the end of fifteen seconds Jackson attempted to sit up, and failed. He let out a small scream and fell to the floor. A square at the other end of the room flashed red.

‘Miss.’

Jackson made a selection on the tablet and slid across the room again until the friction of the dry floor stopped him. Another miss. Wesley would either choose a spot to hit in his old or new position. Towards the end of fifteen seconds Wesley had chosen an opposite position. A tile to Jackson’s left turned green and an object flew through his torn calf. It wasn’t nearly as agonizing as the spike through his heel but he still couldn’t help from releasing a whimper that came out more like a suppressed shriek.

He was losing more blood and chose to remain where he was. He could only hope Wesley would think he moved like he did last time. Jackson made another random selection and at the end of fifteen seconds he heard a scream that would have been deafening if it weren’t for the ceiling between them. Jackson had gotten a wall strike. The timer was counting down again, Jackson stayed put, and Wesley’s shrieking continued. Ponds of blood were a reminder that moving would be just as deadly as settling in one place. A tile directly next to the one above him flashed red.

Wesley’s howls were relentless, despite the fact that they were nearly muted. It was obvious where they were coming from. Time was beginning to move slower. Jackson took the lapse in reality to cry. The timer was ticking and he closed his eyes. Jackson pressed the tile on screen where the weaning screams emitted from. The timer ended and a bang rang through the room followed by a swift thud.

Hydraulics sounded and three tiles fell from the wall behind him, splashing into a pool of blood. The door opened and the sun was setting. Jackson had won.

submitted by /u/maneyboymario [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2FEu7Zg