#kris being the only one in a towel

[acutecowboy]

why was he still wearing the fuck ass bolero in the sauna

[thesupreme316]

Aew reacts to you falling asleep in most random places or falling asleep on them

You can choose either one

Orange Cassidy x Fem!Reader, MJF x Fem!Reader, Kenny Omega x Fem!Reader, Hook x Fem!Reader, Eddie Kingston x Fem!Reader, Ricky Starks x Fem!Reader, Christian Cage x Fem!Reader nick Wayne x fem

AEW STARS React to: You Falling Asleep in Random Places/On Them

Pairings: Orange Cassidy x Fem!Reader, MJF x Fem!Reader, Kenny Omega x Fem!Reader, Hook x Fem!Reader, Eddie Kingston x Fem!Reader, Ricky Starks x Fem!Reader, Christian Cage x Fem!Reader, Nick Wayne x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 937

Supreme Speaks: hey yall, i'm keeping my promise. Hopefully this is the start of making up for lost time, sorry for being away. I miss writing tbh. But antiways, thanks for being patient. NOW BACK TO MY SCHEMES. Plz remember that you are loved and appriecated.

Taglist: @hooks-martin @sheinthatfandom @triscillal @cassie0sstuff @eddie-kingstons-wifey @hookerforhook @batzy-watzy @wwenhlimagines

Warnings: slightly proofread, failed comedy, GIFS AINT MINE AGAIN GIFS AINT MINE (rights are to the original creators)

Orange Cassidy (Random place):

He’s not fazed

Homeboy is impressed that you can fall asleep anywhere

In fact, he joins you

He has seen you in every random place in the house

Bathroom, linen closet, the kitchen, and how you fell asleep on the steps of the porch??

He’ll never know

It’s a regular occurrence to play “Where’s Y/N?”

One time Trent and Kris came over and saw the two of you sleeping on the porch steps

He just left a sign beside y’all that said “come back later”

After your neighbor called the police for a wellness check

MJF (Random Place/On them):

He thought you were joking when you said you can sleep anywhere

But was genuinely concerned about how you fell asleep in the laundry room

Makes fun of you on Twitter and uses your pictures to describe other people’s matches

If you fell asleep on him, he would melt

I think he would show off that his S/O is sleeping on him with a smirk

Would yell at someone for disturbing you and would blame the other person for you waking up

“No babe, it was Adam’s dumbass voice that woke you up, not me.”

Will bring you closer if you move in your sleep

But make no mistake, if his cat falls asleep on him, you’re sleeping on the floor

Hook (On them):

I can see this man being stiff as a log when you fall asleep on him

Strokes your hair to keep you calm

Doesn’t eat chips for fear that they will awake you

He woke you up once…and that was enough for him

Only answer his friends if they’re asking yes or no questions (will only nod)

Drapes a blanket over you if you don’t have his hoodie on

Eventually, he will fall asleep with you

But he quickly moves to sleep next to you cause you a wild sleeper

One time you were boxing him in your sleep…and won…

Eddie Kingston (Random Place/On them):

Mans would try out your random sleeping places before waking up and crawling back in the bed

“I don’t know how lil mama does it…that shit hurt.”

However, he made a ranking list and the best place is the dining room floor

Finds it funny yet very disciplining, might use it as a punishment for when he misses workout sessions

Will carry you to bed with him cause again….he aint doin that shit

When you fall asleep on him, he just becomes a big ole teddy bear

If he needs to argue or tell someone off, he’ll whisper yell

Will make sure that you are warm by wrapping his hoodie over you

Once you’re asleep, Eddie will never move you or himself

Ricky Starks (On them):

I feel like as long as you don’t drool you’re fine

Or leave makeup on his shirt

If you do, you won’t hear anything about it until you wake up

“I love you babe, but next time, there will be a paper towel barrier.”

Tbh, depending on how tired he is, Ricky will fall asleep on top of you

I can see him just talking you to sleep per your request

Even after you fall asleep, Ricky still be talking cause why not

Like those above, he will scold people if they disturb you

Will put your phone on dnd

Kenny Omega (Random place/weird positions):

At first, cause he couldn’t find you, he would be in distress

He would look in every single bedroom or cushion-based location

Would feel better once he finds you in the bathroom tub (cause he heard your snoring)

I think Kenny would catch on to your locations very quickly

But if you find a new one, he’ll add it to your location list

Knowing Kenny, he would make this into a bit on Being The Elite (BTE)

Like every time there is a fight or argument, you are seen sleeping in a weird position (like back twisting or somethin)

“Y/N sleeping so we have to fight in slo-mo”

Christian Cage (On them):

MANS WOULD FEEL SO PROUD AND POWERFUL

He would feel so happy that you feel comfortable enough for you to fall asleep on him

Anytime you get sleepy, it doesn’t matter where you are, he will offer his shoulder or chest as a pillow

Places kisses on your forehead while your sleep

He moves a lot tho, not on purpose

But you quickly got use to it and would snuggle closer to him

Would use you sleeping as an excuse not to fight

“You better be lucky that Y/N is sleeping or I- wait, I don’t need to fight anyways. Luchasuarus, get him.”

Nick Wayne (Random place):

I am 100 percent certain that this man is easily influenced

Therefore

He will follow suit with your weird sleeping habits

If he sees you sleeping, he sleeping too so move over

Like Cassidy, he would actually like the random sleeping places

He would fall asleep anywhere

I feel like when’s he stressed, he would just sleep in a random place…even if he’s at work

Christian and Luchasuarus would be like where is Nick

And Nick would be asleep on a ladder

[saucyjothoughts]

Dearest saucy,

How would the boys react if you ran out of tampons/pads while round theirs? Who would have a supply in their house already? Who would run (yes, actually run) to the shop?

Sincerely, ✨ boo

The boys have to take care of their girl, (or whoever is bleeding) don't they?

(Period talk and a bit of nsfw under the cut)

Nace: has a supply of your favourite kind stocked, both pads and tampons cause he knows it can change day to day. Has a bin next to the toilet too so you can dispose of them easily. Puts them on his shopping list when he sees they're running low.

Jure: being accident prone means one has an extensive first aid kit. He's never been shot before but has heard tampons are great for stopping the bleeding so he has some of them just in case. That and if he ever gets a blood nose. It's... unconventional but you appreciate the gesture none the less. He makes up for it by being very into period sex.

Jan: his preference is him being inside you or eating you out the entire time, you laying back on the bed while he services you, a towel down to catch anything and save himself a load of laundry. Shower sex is especially good during this as it all washes away.

If you must be out of his arms though he'll either have something random tucked in a draw or at the bottom of a bag from last time or he'll run to the shops to get what you need.

Bojan: would only know your cycle if he was trying to breed you, wanting to know exactly when you were most fertile so he could fuck you and know you'd be likely to have a baby with him.

Otherwise it's a surprise each time, him running out the door to the nearest open store, bringing home your favourite chocolates and ten extra packets of pads and tampons of all sizes you know you won't need just in case you bleed through it all.

Kris: has your cycle in his phone and makes sure he has everything you might need before you even ask. Keeps note of your preferences and makes sure there's also chocolate, a hot water bottle, his dick and snuggles on demand for you.

[hauntedcheesecakewizard]

Okay, can we talk about how broken Kris from Deltarune must be?

Imagine waking up one day and you can't control your body. Your moving without thought, saying things you'd never say, struggling with things your an expert at without the ability to cry for help.

And people don't notice.

They actually prefer you this way talking about how mature you've become, how nice you are. You've been so lonely but the moment you aren't yourself you manage to make friends.

You're only able to be liked when you're not you.

Your own mother doesn't notice that something is off.

Why would you want to gain your body back if you're only going to disappoint everyone because of the real you?

Everyone always says "be yourself!" But what if people don't like you when "yourself"?

Imagine Kris trying to be friends with Susie for YEARS and failing, then this unknown entity comes along and does it in less than a day. Why would you even bother with trying to come back when everyone is so much happier with this replacement of you?

Even if you did somehow come back, would they miss your replacement? How can you know they aren't secretly wishing you were like them?

That you were them?

Being constantly compared to this higher entity that knows exactly what to say, when to say it, and what to do to get a desired out come when you're just you.

A boring, lonely, typical teen.

Considering there are seven chapters (I believe) this means that we will control Kris for a week and I doubt anybody would notice that much (maybe they'll notice more if you go genocide/bad ends but I digress) that must be so demoralising knowing your closest family and friends aren't concerned by your sudden personality shift and applaud it.

What will happen at the end when everybody learns their friendships were built by an imposter? Will they still stick around Kris or drift away from them because they're not us?

Kris must have a soul of determination to keep yeeting us out (causing themselves serious harm by the look on their face as they plunge their fucking hand into their chest) because I would've thrown in the towel after day 1.

Okay I'm done 🫠

[kristannafever]

A Sky Full of Sun - 4

Kristanna Modern au Rated: M WC: 1706

Chapter Index

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

Anna was tickled pink that Kristoff seemed happy to go along with her suggestions.  Eating breakfast by the ocean was absolutely amazing, and the cab driver had taken them to a large grocery store in Zihuantanejo where they stocked up on all kinds of food, snacks and drinks.  It took them several trips to get everything upstairs and when it was all put away, they were set for days without needing to go for supplies.

After changing into a bathing suit, opting for the strapless one piece so that she wouldn’t get too many tan lines, Anna found Kristoff in the main area and they repeated the actions of the day before, spraying each other’s backs with sunscreen before heading down to the pools.

Anna noticed that the large group of women were at the adult pool this time, and she had a sinking feeling that Kristoff might suggest they swim there, but he didn’t.  He didn’t even say anything, he just went to the big pool.  They found two lounge chairs in roughly the same spot as the day before, and got into the water and resumed people watching from the edge.  Anna was racking her brain to try and start up a conversation when Kristoff got the jump and did it for her.

“So have you ever been to Mexico before?”

Anna shook her head. “No, never.  How about you?”

He shook his head eyes still gazing at the ocean.  “Nope. First time for me too.  So far, it’s amazing.  I would definitely come back here.”

“Me too,” Anna said. “I like this place, it’s, Oh! Kristoff, look!”  Anna pointed.

He followed where she was looking at saw a group of dolphins jumping.  

“Wow,” she breathed. She’d never seen anything like them in real life before.   Movies and television were one thing, to see them with her own eyes, jumping so playfully in and out of the ocean, was incredible.

“Aren’t they wonderful?”

He turned to her and smiled. “They are indeed.”

-------

After the dolphins moved on, Kristoff and Anna resumed their conversation, which turned into Kristoff asking Anna how much Spanish she knew and asking him to teach her some.  She knew only the basics but she was delighted to share then with him.  And hearing Kristoff repeat it all back to her was wonderful.  He had a natural talent for rolling his r’s which she had always found incredibly sexy, especially on him.

She would have loved to keep at it but wasn’t long before Anna’s stomach started to growl and Kristoff told her he was hungry too.  They agreed to grab a bite of lunch at the Palapa Bar and go back in the water after.

They got out of the pool and walked towards their lounge chairs.  Anna noticed the one woman right away as she was walking up the stairs from the bathrooms that were under the bar.  As soon as she saw Kristoff emerging from the pool, she stopped dead in her tracks a moment before she grinned and hurried into the Palapa Bar where her friends were sitting.  All their heads turned then his way.

Kristoff was oblivious, he went to his chair and toweled off before slipping a white t-shirt on. Suddenly feeling a little self conscious with that large table of women staring their direction, Anna grabbed her bathing suit cover from her beach bag and slipped it on, then followed Kristoff to the bar.

The women were all staring at him and not being subtle about it either.  Kristoff didn’t even so much as glance their way.

“Hola, José.”

“Hola, mister Kris,” José answered, remembering him from their conversation the day before. “Dos Dos Equis?”

Kristoff nodded.  “Si, gracias.  And can we get a menu please? I mean, por favor?”

He flashed Anna a smile at remembering what she had taught him and she smiled back even though her mind was distracted.

José handed them a laminated piece of paper and set two beers on the bar ledge for them.

The Palapa was pretty small, only about eight tables were inside, and of the two only empty tables available, one was right beside the large table of ladies and the other was about as far away as you could get in the small area.  Anna could not help but feel a sense of relief when Kristoff headed to the latter.

They sipped their beers and Kristoff went back to the bar to order them fries and taquitos to share. Anna was trying her best not to look over at the women and simply enjoy spending time with Kristoff, when he excused himself to use the washroom.  One of the ladies immediately got up and headed straight for Anna as soon as he was gone.

She stopped by the table and looked blatantly down at Anna’s hand to see if there was a ring.  No doubt she’d already done the same to Kristoff.

“Hey, that guy you’re with, are you two together, or something?”

Anna tried not to frown. The woman was tall and gorgeous.  Almost every fiber of her being wished in that moment that she could say yes.

“No, we’re just… friends.”

“Thanks.” The woman grinned at her and went back to her table.  The group burst out into fits of giggles when she whispered something as she sat down.

What the hell were they laughing at?  Her? Probably.  Anna suddenly felt dejected.  She knew better than to worry about what a bunch of strangers thought of her, but this was something about her and Kristoff and she was apparently acutely sensitive about that now.  It had to be because she really liked him and the more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to be with him.

He came back, table of eyes still following his every more, and Anna did her best to smile and then excused herself to the washrooms to gather her thoughts since she suddenly felt like crying.  She didn’t have to look back to know that he was going to be approached by that woman as soon as Anna was out of sight.  

After using the washroom, Anna washed her hands and splashed some water on her face.  The urge to cry was gone, but there was a sadness in her heart. She had half a mind to just tell Kristoff she didn’t feel well and just shut herself up in her room for the rest of the day, however,o they had some food coming and she really was hungry.  Not to mention she truly didn’t want to lie to him.

Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, she ascended the stairs back to the Palapa. Unsurprisingly, the woman who’d approached her was sitting at the table with Kristoff, in Anna’s seat no less. Anna placed a fake smile on her face and trudged forward.

Kristoff immediately locked eyes with her as she walked up into the bar, like he was already looking for her, then turned back to the woman.  

“Well, nice talking with you, but my friend is back now.”

Anna heard him as she approached and couldn’t help but feel giddy at the polite but clearly dismissive way that Kristoff had said that to her.

“Maybe I’ll see you around then,” she said as she stood, giving him her best ‘fuck me’ expression.

Kristoff didn’t even acknowledge her, wasn’t even looking at her, he was looking at Anna.  In turn Anna kept looking back at him as the woman brushed by her, gathered her friends and headed back to the adult only pool.

“What was that about?” Anna couldn’t help but ask him when they were gone.

“Oh, she was hitting on me,” he said matter-of-factly.  “Asked me if I would take her to dinner tonight.”

“And you said no?”

Kristoff’s eyebrows wrinkled as he gave her a bit of a funny look.  “Yeah, of course.  I don’t know her.”

Anna’s fought hard not to smile, feeling fluttery and tingly and excited and hopeful.  

*******

Kristoff stifled a yawn as he looked down at his phone.  

How are you feeling, buddy?  

Text bubbles appeared and Sven was quick with his response.

Like death warmed over.  But at least I’m done puking and shitting.  Evacuation complete LOL

 Well, that’s something

 How’s to Condo?  

You making nice with Anna?

 Condo is beautiful.  Yes Anna and I are getting along just fine

 Are you now?

 Kristoff ignored the comment.

                       I hear you’re coming down on Wednesday

 Can’t wait dude

Wish we had made it down there with you guys

 Well 10 days is better than nothing

 You better have a cold one waiting for me when I get there

                         You bet

 Kristoff slid his phone back in his pocket as he stood up and went to the deck.  He marvelled again at the view.  Anna had talked about staying in and cooking a meal after watching the sunset and that suited him just fine.

He thought back to the woman who had approached him in the Palapa.  She wasn’t rude, but her arrogance was immediately off-putting. Not to mention he was developing one hell of a crush on Anna.  

When she came out of her bedroom after her shower she was in a similar dress as the night before, only this one was black.  Simple and elegant, just like her, and she looked amazing.  He had a hard time keeping his eyes on the setting sun and not on her.

They had a great time talking while they made dinner.  Salad, rice and fried shrimp had never tasted so good.  Afterward they went through all the games and decided to play Cribbage. The rum and cokes they made for the game turned into two, then three, then neither of them could remember what number drink they were on and they giggled about embarrassing stories from their youth.

When they finally turned in, Kristoff was pretty drunk and he knew Anna was hammered.  He hoped she would sleep well and didn’t wake up with too much of a headache in the morning.  He flopped onto the bed with all his clothes on.  As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out.

-----

Previous 

Next 

[not-a-bot-just-blind]

Pretty description of Kris Dreemurr’s eyes because I had nothing better to do

Their dark hair often shaded their face. It was something that everyone around them had grown used to. For a brief stint, their mother had tried to encourage them to tie their hair back. Her ideas were subtleish, but also still more obvious than they could have been. Buying ribbons for them, asking them what’d happened to their old headband, teaching them how to towel wrap their hair when it was wet to keep it off of their neck and shoulders.

Eventually though, she’d given up on it, well aware of the fact that they could see—pun acknowledged—right through each attempt. They supposed she liked to see their eyes because they were the one part of her child that even slightly resembled her. Everything else though?

Even if they weren’t a human being raised by monsters, the differences would have been obvious. Their mother and brother had white hair, while their father’s was the color of the buttercups he often grew in his shop. Theirs was dark brown with the barest hinting of red undertones. Their family’s fur was white, and their skin was soft beige. Their parents both towered over even most other monsters, and their brother wasn’t far behind. Meanwhile, they hadn’t even reached 5.5 feet yet.

But their eyes?

Perhaps the resemblance was part of the reason why they kept them hidden. Not to separate themself from their family, but to keep that small part for themself. To tuck it into their heart like a secret note passed between friends in class. The warm, fierce carmine seemed inhuman, if only slightly, and that single word had ingrained itself in their brain from the first moment they heard it.

Most humans, they’d read online once, had one of four eye colors. Blue, green, hazel or brown. Colors like black, gray, amber and violet were rare, and ones like white, pink and red were nearly unheard of. That was something they liked about themself physically. It distinguished them just enough so that they could feel that they even slightly belonged.

In the Dark Worlds too, they’d found out. Whether it be in Castle Town, Card Kingdom or Cyber City, their eyes never changed. Always bright, always fierce, always red. Always theirs.

It was something they had control over too.

Most things these days remained outside of their hands, including those very hands. Their back often ached from the ramrod straight posture they were made to hold, their expression most often resembled a blank, emotionless mask, and they found themself running often despite never having been especially athletic. From their hair to their soles, their body seemed often to belong to somebody else, to that thing, that heart, that tried to make them resent the color of the one thing about themself that they liked.

They were stubborn though, and the creature knew it. They would not be stripped of themself completely. Each thing they could do on their own, they did. They made overly emotional speeches, they protected their friends, they jumbled the charms on a letter bead bracelet. They closed their eyes to not see Asriel’s room, they forced out confidence that didn’t exist when they were made to flirt, they tried to bully the puppet master into letting them eat moss.

And their eyes stayed covered.

The one thing that Kris Dreemurr liked about themself would remain theirs.

[falloutstasis]

Tales of Discovering Hope - Healing

12 year old Kris tugged in the handle of her hangbag that was hanging off on her right shoulder. She could hear soft crying on the other end of the hallway, and when she made a turn, there was a boy near her age crying.

His knees were bent and hugged around his arms, leaning against the wall. Soft cries were heard, even though were muffed by covering his face with his knees.

He didn't notice her walking towards her and when she did, she tried not to startle him. "Are you okay?"

Unfortunately, she did scare him a bit. His head shot up with tears falling from his face. A soft gasp was heard, not too loud. It was then when she got a good look at him.

He had a black eye, with a few bruises on his face, and his nose had a bit of blood, but looked like it stopped bleeding. Before she did anything, she looked at her surroundings to see if anyone was around. When she was done, she approached the boy and crossed her legs near him.

"I-I'm okay." He said as he saw her grabbing her hangbag. "It is nothing serious."

She remained quiet as she pulled out a mini ice bag that was perfect size for one eye. Quietly, she cracked it in order for the pack to get cold. Once she felt that the pack was cold enough, she put her hand in her hangbag again to pull out a small roll of paper towel to wrap the ice bag around once.

"Here." She handed him out the wrapped ice pack. "Put this over your eye, okay?"

Right away, he shook his head. "No." He rubbed his eyes to remove the tears away. "Do not waste your supplies on me."

"It's going keep hurting if that eye is left unchecked." Kris said, concerned on his wellbeing. "You have to keep your head elevated to avoid the swelling."

He was unsure if he should take the ice pack or not, not wanting to get either of them in trouble.

"O-Okay."

He grabbed the ice pack and gently pressed it on his eye. Kris grabbed a paper towel and gently wiped his nose. The boy gasped as a result.

"I-I'm sorry." She said, thinking that she might have hurt him. "Your nose wasn't bleeding anymore, so..." Kris trailed off nervously.

"It is alright. You did not hurt me." He was blushing feverishly because of this action.

"There you are."

Kris's father, Qui-Gon Jinn, walked into view with the two. The look he gave his daughter was stern, but he wasn't upset. "You shouldn't be wondering around like that."

The boy's eyes widen at the man in awe, seeing that he was a Jedi.

"But dad," She protested. "He was hurt."

Qui-Gon's face softened and smiled at Kris. He kneeled down to inspect the boy's injuries. "Are you hurt any where else, son?"

"N-No." He shook his head again. "It's just my face, sir."

"Alright." He didn't ask why he was injured as he didn't want to upset the boy any further. "Do you have a name?"

"My name is Tech."

"Tech." He smiled and stood up. "Come on, now. Let's take you back to your quarters, alright?"

Kris quickly packed her stuff, and stood up. She held her hand out for him to help him up. He slowly raised his arm to reach her hand, allowing Kris to pull him up.

As the three all followed Tech to make sure nothing else happened to him, he turned to Kris and asked, "What is your name?"

"Kris." She said with a warm smile. "It was nice to meet you, Tech."

Tech never really had friends outside Kamino. His brothers are the only ones he interacted with. It wasn't long before they were at the door to his room.

"T-Thank you." He gave back the ice pack, but Kris shook her head. "Keep it."

"Right." He entered his room and before he closed it, he took one final look at Kris, before giving her a small little smile. He turned away and closed the door.

Qui-Gon and Kris both left, but once they were near their ship, Qui-Gon spoke up. "Kris. I'm very proud of you."

"I was only helping, Dad." Kris modestly spoke out, putting her arms behind her back. She felt her hair being ruffled a bit, causing her to look up at Qui-Gon with a smile.

"But that act of kindness will go a long way, Kris. No matter if it's big or small. Remember that."

She would only nod and thought about what her father said as they made their way back to the ship back to Coruscant.

[deadman-walken]

I watch as the water mixes with the blood washing off my body, spiraling down the drain to never be seen again. Everything that I did afterwards was a direct result of no longer existing. I was a next level cleaner. Of course I had to be, I couldn’t leave my messes for someone else to take care of. That’s where mistakes happen. 

“FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK…”

My forehead fell against the soaked tile wall and I let the water finish its job by rinsing the night's affairs away, but only physically. Mentally was a whole other thing. Put a smile on, do a good job and keep everything surface level. 

I heard my fathers voice more often than I did my own, and he’d been gone from this earth for more than ten years now. It wouldn’t matter how long, his lessons had been drilled into me the minute I was cut out of my mother. 

I was saved from any more tortuous thoughts by the ringing of my phone belting out ‘Crazy Sexy Cool by TLC’ which was the tone designated to my cousin, Kris. I made quick work of getting out of the shower, grabbing a towel and draping it around my waist. It was still beating off the base when I finally snatched it off my bedside table.

“Speak or forever hold your breath, I’m dripping a lake on my wooden floors right now.”

I heard a snort and then laughter on the other end.

‘It’s not my fault that you don’t know how to carry your phone with you.’

I was rolling my eyes before she finished that sentence. Kris always said the same thing. I hated having my phone attached to me at all times, and she knew it.

“When they force us to take a shot up the ass and inject us with tracers, I will then keep an electronic device on me.”

‘HaHaHa…Maybe this is why you are single. You barely have your phone with you to receive and answer properly to calls or messages. Just food for thought.’

“And what is your reason for being single, since you have some form of phone/tablet/watch or anything with you at all times?”

Okay I am sure I heard a slight growl come through the line this time. That had me smiling in victory.

‘Meanie…anyway what are you doing tomorrow?’

I thought for a moment, it was Saturday night, I had taken care of the majority of what I needed to, and being busy tomorrow would be good for me.

“Nothing, I’m open for anything that’s legal.”

With Kris that needed to be added in, I’ve ended up behind bars or in the back of a police car a couple times because of my cousin, and I would do it again. I don’t have a large family, the ones I have I keep close to me, that includes the ones that weren’t blood but had become family along the way.

‘Perfect, wear work clothes, something you don’t mind getting trashed and I will be there to pick you up around noon.’

Questions and warning signs went off in my head but for now I didn’t have the mental capacity to ask or even broach the subject of what the fuck. Instead I just said. 

“Sounds good, I will see you then.”

‘Are you okay, Lenx?’

I could answer honestly but then that would have me with nighttime visitors that wouldn’t leave and right now I couldn’t handle being around another.

“Yes, I finished digging the trench and then went and poured the footers for Monday's job. I need my pupper cuddles, my bed and hours on hours of sleep.”

There was about forty seconds of silence before Kris finally answered, obviously appeased by my answer.

‘Okay, hug the little flea bag tight and I will see you on the morrow.’

The line went dead and suddenly I felt the exact same, giving into the exhaustion I literally fell into my bed that I had been standing by, soaking wet and all. I dropped the towel to the floor and slid under the blankets pulling them up over my head. It was right on cue that my little monster jumped on the mattress burrowed under the covers, curling up tight against my chest so I could feel his tiny heated fur ball against me.

[cryingoflot49]

BOOK REVIEW

Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon

    When I was on the cusp of adolescence, I had a smart but deviant group of friends. We weren’t the kind of kids who got straight A’s in math class or anything like that. We were smart in other ways, sneaky ways, like we knew how to pick the lock on the janitor’s closet, hoswto steal excuse notes and forge a teacher’s signature, how to throw food in the lunchroom and convince the monitors that the kids at the table behind us did it, and how to steal cookies in the cafeteria by sliding them under our hamburgers. We also learned how to dial a pay phone without getting charged, what neighbors dumped their old porn magazines in the trash so we could take them and look at them in the woods, as well as what supermarkets were best for shoplifting cigarettes. We had an extensive knowledge of obscene words in three languages , and we were often seen popping out of the forest to moon cards passing by in the moonlit night. Oh yeah, and we hated school. We conspired to blow it up because one of my friends heard from his cousin’s best friend who had a girlfriend in St. Louis or Evanston or something that told a story about a gang of students who wadded up paper towels and flushed them down the school toilets all at the same time. This cause the pipes to burst and the building blew up so the students had to stay at home for two months while construction workers repaired the whole mess.

    That was our grand conspiracy. We made our plans and almost got around to doing this once, but only two of us showed up at the meeting place, the boys room at the corner of halls and 2. We decided to try anyways, but a teacher was in there and we decided to try for another time. Hey Kris, Tom, Mark, Pat, Phil, Keith, Tommy, and Mike, if you’re out there somewhere I just want to say you guys were the greatest even if our conspiracy was a total flop.

    But this is why I could relate so much to the boys in “The Secret Integration” in Thomas Pynchon’s Slow Learner. This volume collects five stories and an essay, the stories all being early works written and published before any of Pynchon’s novels. This isn’t the best of Pynchon’s writings, the introductory essay was written to say as much, but fans of this author should find it interesting because it predates the themes, characters, and Pynchonisms to be found in the more developed later works.

    The last and best story in this collection is “The Secret Integration” about a secret club of boys in the fictional town of Mingeville. Here we are introduced to the kind of word and name play that Pynchon is famous for as “minge” is a British obscenity roughly equivalent to how “cunt” is used in America as a reference to the vagina or as an insult. The club is led by a precociousand morose, but sometimes trouble-making, boy named Grover. Another member of the group is an African-American boy which is significant in terms of the club’s reasoning and purpose. The boys have plans to sabotage the town’s development as it sprawls like a soulless suburban cancer through the wilderness areas they love. Part of their plan is to blow up their school. As Mingeville continues to grow, the adults are faced with integration; when an African-American family moves into a track house, the white people of the town harass them and try to chase them out. This is the crux of the conflict as the boys, on the verge of adolescence, want the town integrated and the racist adults, including their parents, don’t. Here we are introduced to a major theme in Pynchon’s novels: the conflict between the sick-minded corruption of the powerful ruling classes and the innocence of the oppressed underclasses. Despite this story’s dark humor and amusing look at youth, there is a simmering undercurrent of rage at the establishment and the world of adults that stayed with me long after I finished reading. “The Secret Integration” is the most powerful story here and also the clearest and most direct expression of Pynchon’s world view that I know of so far.

    The second best story is definitely “Lowlands”. Dennis Flange is having a party with his friends, some wine-drinking bohemians and mischievous sailors, the kind of people a husband’s wife hates to have around the house. When Flange’s old friend, Pig Bodine, shows up ready for a day of debauchery while on shore leave from the navy, Flange’s wife ends the party and kick everyone, husband included, out of the house. Their friend who owns a garbage dump agrees to let them stay at his shack. First they need to get mattresses to sleep on, so they descend into the garbage dump, located inside a massive pit, to find what they need. All the while, their friend tells them to be careful because his shack is being watched. After they all fall asleep, Flange learns what this is all about as he gets led away in the night by a three foot tall Romani woman who wants to marry him. She takes him through secret tunnels in the garbage pit to her bedroom, explaining that a community of Romani people live in the dump, but only come out at night. The story ends abruptly there.

    It has the feel of a novel’s beginning, but unfortunately it is a novel that never got written. It reads like magical realism with realistic characters in surreal situations. It also has some important Pynchonian themes with the secret underground tunnels, conspiracies among the underprivileged, paranoia, and a highly intelligent but highly unmotivated protagonist. Flange’s friends are also a prototype of the Whole Sick Crew in his first novel V. The execution of this story is vivid and brilliant, even if it doesn’t get around to actually saying anything.

    The other three stories are less spectacular. “Entropy”, the third story in Slow Learner, examines another major theme in the works of Thomas Pynchon, the balance between order and chaos that is necessary to keep a system functioning. While a party takes place in a house on Long Island, a man lies in bed with a woman while holding a dying bird against his chest. He tries to keep it alive by having the woman monitor the temperature in the room in relation to the temperature outside the window in the cold winter weather. Meanwhile, the party continues downstairs while people talk, play music, argue, play chess, and get sick until a group of sailors show up, thinking the house is a bordello. The house is a transmission ground for the exchange of energies and the party is symbolic of the ebb and flow of order and chaos. This isn’t really a story so much as it is an illustration of Pynchon’s understanding of entropy in thermodynamics and communications theory. In the introductory essay, Pynchon criticized “Entropy” as a mistaken attempt at starting with an abstract idea and dressing up characters as representations of aspects of that idea. His self-assessment is accurate.

    In “The Small Rain”. Nathan “Lardass” Levine is a soldier in the army who gets sent on a mission to clean up dead bodies in a lagoon after a hurricane hit a farming island in Louisiana. Lardass is another progenitor of Pynchon’s later characters being equal parts intellectual and lazy. He wants to make a career out of being an army officer because it allows him to spend a lot of time doing nothing. As Lardass goes with his crew to clean up the dead bodies, it starts to rain. While waiting for a work assignment to be given, he drinks beer at a bar and picks up a coed from the nearby university for a one night stand. The story has no definite plot and it is more of a character study of Lardass than anything else. It is fair to call it style over substance, but is is interesting to see how the style foreshadows an element in the first section of Gravity’s Rainbow. The encroaching rain and the entry of Lardass into the territory filled with dead bodies is a lot like the encroaching winter storms and V2 rockets in Gravity’s Rainbow that bring mass death into the city of London.

   The least exciting story is “Under the Rose”. Set in Egypt during World War II, a British spy named Porpentine is in pursuit of his nemesis, a German master spy named Moldweorp. He circles around Egypt in search of the other while his colleagues and the compatriots of Moldweorp interact with each other. The writing is labored and dull. It just felt like a chore to read it. This story would later be rewritten as a passage in V.

    Slow Learner is far from being the best of Pynchon’s work, but it should be of interest to those who want to see the rudiments of his later genius. A lot of the prose is clumsy and obviously written by an author with little experience. It isn’t amateurish though. I’m sure that Pynchon’s college professors could see in these writings the germination of a literary giant. Aside from being early experiments with prominent themes that would reappear in his later writings, some of his most significant characters are also brought to life, most specifically Pig Bodine and Tyrone Solthrop. These characters in Slow Learner bear little resemblance to the characters they are in Pynchon’s classic works, Tyrone Slothrop is a doctor in this book, but it is interesting to see how Pynchon is beginning to play around with them, later to resurrect them in new forms for his masterpieces.

    Slow Learner is not a good book for everyone and certainly not an appropriate introduction to Thomas Pynchon. It was probably published as contract filler during Pynchon’s dry spell from the early 1970s to the 1990s when he didn’t produce anything new. But that was a good time to release this volume after he had found success as a novelist with his first three early classics. Slow Learner gives readers a chance to go back and see where Thomas Pynchon was coming from before he got famous. These are his most stripped down, raw, and direct writings. It’s definitely a good read if you take it for what it is.

[everyone-needs-a-hoopoe]

[id: digital art of a redesign of queen from deltarune. instead of being humanoid, she resembles a robotic scorpion centaur with a big plug trailing red wires at the end of her tail. the blue parts of her body are translucent, with dark computer parts visible inside them. she’s lounging on a couch. end id.]

queen enjoyers please embrace my fat queen propaganda this queencember. this awesome design and linework are by my friend who doesn’t like to post their art online (their commissions are open though, pm me if you’re interested!). the colouring’s by me. we both like cool beasties and figured she deserved to look cool and fat like king spades rather than being Just Some Guy.

some headcanons under the cut:

she likes engineering and designing her own horrible deathtraps

she and spamton were besties while he was living in the mansion because they’re both as apeshit as each other. they designed stuff like the firebreathing paintings together and she still drives his exploding cars.

she kicked him out because that’s how the internet works; the algorithm is brutal and only the most popular things stay on the front page for long.

that doesn’t mean she isn’t culpable, though. she’s perfectly capable of defying her nature as a darkner made out of the internet, just like she does at the end of ch2 and after. she convinced herself that the way she ran cyber city was best for everyone, but most importantly for the lightners that darkners were made to serve.

her mind’s been thoroughly changed now and she’s working on being better. she’s commandeered ralsei’s castle to house a bunch of people like her mansion used to, but it’s no longer reserved for vips - anyone can live there. though she’s naturally assumed an organisational role in castle town, she’s doing her best not to be ‘in charge’ more than anyone else.

she gets swatch to bop her on the head with a paper towel roll when she starts exhibiting what she calls Hashtag Girlboss Behaviour. they don’t get it but anything for their beloved queen. (they aren’t free of blame either.)

she has a lot of technical intelligence, but she struggles with anything to do with emotions

she forgets stuff a lot because when you have the entire internet in your brain retrieving any one piece of data is extremely hard

she has a crush on toriel because toriel always says please and thank you to google. she keeps asking kris for advice on how to flirt with their mother. kris is in hell

[golbrocklovely]

okay, i'm gonna do this review fast bc we all know how i feel about this episode anyway lol

here's my review of snc's third episode in their season 2 series

aka "Our Unexplainable Night at Crescent Hotel (w/ KallmeKris & CelinaSpookyBoo)"

so, hilarious enough, i actually didn't mind this episode in the beginning. kris and celina's funny bits at first were really good, and i never mind when they all joke around before the investigation. and even during, to some extent.

but this one…. went well past just occasionally joking around. this was full blown "let's go back to 2019 and freak out over every little thing and make fart jokes" levels of bad.

and while the content they made back with corey and jake wasn't bad, it's just not on the same level as they are now. they actually take this seriously. they do and put a lot more work in, so to see them revert back to what they were like before…. no thank you.

so the beginning was fun and i generally liked it. finding out the hotel had a cat manager is adorable. and the little cat door for the current cat?? so sweet.

the hotel itself is actually really gorgeous looking. i like the decor and i like that it's so high up that later on, it's basically covered in fog.

during the whole entire video, the only thing they actually caught that i think was interesting was the towel being moved. that's strange for sure. bc where it moved to is a significant amount of movement. so unless they were lying to us about going back into that room at some point, then i think that is some interesting evidence.

as for the figure kris saw, i do feel bad that she got really emotional. i can only imagine how scary it was to see. that being said, if i was literally in tears, i would probably need to remove myself or just take a bit to calm down just to continue on bc there's no way i'm going into a place that worked up nerve wise. the spirits, whether good or bad, would be FEASTING off of her energy. i wouldn't be surprised if after this investigation (and then this weeks video) that kris was just drained.

the key turning in her hand… eh. i think it was just the weight of the key and an old ass lock.

i noted that 35 minutes in, over half way thru, the investigation never really seemed to start. like there might have been a title sequence for it, but…. it never felt like they actually took the time to chill and start the investigation. there was no settled moment in this video. everything was amped to 11 and loud. and i could not stand it for the life of me.

there was literally a point i had to TURN DOWN the volume bc they were screaming so much. like……………. no words.

their tour guide was fine at first but as time went on, i could just feel the theater kid vibes coming off of him (take it from the theater degree holder, me lol).

and someone else pointed it out, i forget who, but with how loud snc got that i wouldn't be surprised that if at some point they get kicked out of a hotel for being that obnoxious. i think that's my problem with them going to haunted hotels. unless they are completely alone or have rented out a whole floor or something, there's no way to tell if the bangs and random shit they hear are guest or ghosts.

two things i would like for snc to remove from their arsenal of devices: the cat ball and writing planchet. neither one are believable or interesting on camera to see be used/go off. just… get something else. use literally any other device. please.

fun fact about the meat locker: the apple smell that colby smelled and the rancid one kris was smelling was probably mold. mold to me sometimes smells like apples, but smells bad to my mom. so… that's fun sksks

also, idk if anyone else noticed or agrees, but the video's editing kinda came across like super rushed and not finished. i mean, they didn't even end with a preview for the next episode. that almost never happens. it almost felt like they stitched together what they could to make a video and dumped it out hoping ppl would enjoy.

overall, this video blew. i feel bad rating it low, bc i did laugh quite a bit, but i kept getting annoyed and everything was just TOO MUCH, so i'm gonna rate this like a 1/5. part of me thinks that harsh, another part of me thinks it's not harsh enough. if snc had sold this video as really fun, borderline jokey type of "paranormal" video, i probably would have liked it a bit more. but even then, i don't think so. the parts i enjoyed were cancelled out from the fact that the whole thing felt like a joke and was just too loud. so… hopefully if they ever collab with this duo again, maybe they will turned down a bit. possibly literally.

and this week's video… omg. just finished it not too long ago. it's so good. i'll try to post my review later this week and not like how i have been which is after next week's video lol

[saturngrqy]

These period cramps are kickin my ass right now and i was wondering if you could write something about grayson helping the reader with insane period symptoms ( cramps, headache, nausea) i am going through all this and i need that comfort right now😔

hope you feel better bestie <33

warnings- fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff

-

"Fuck," you groan, clutching your lower stomach in pain. It was your second day on your period, and it was heavier than ever ( am i the only one who always has the worst cramps on the second day). You shuffled around in the sheets, helplessly, trying to find a comfortable position to lay in.

You grunt, sitting up abruptly. You stomp out the room to the kitchen to find a heating pad in the cupboard. You turn around, bumping into a buff, hard chest.

"Woah, slow down babe," Grayson cooes. "That time of the month?"

You deadpan him, before suddenly crouching over in pain.

"These are the worst cramps I think I've ever had," you whimper. Grayson leans down, reaching out his hand for you to grab.

"C'mon, I'll run you a bath," he whispers, pulling you up. He grabs the back of your head, dragging you to him before softly kissing the top of it.

He led you to his bathroom, softly setting you down on the counter before turning on the faucet, twisting it to the hot setting.

"E says these always help Kris," he mutters, reaching into the cabinet to pull out a pink bath bomb. You smile, nodding your head in agreement. He continues shuffling through the cabinet, trying to find things to help relieve the pain.

"Do you want some bath salts?" He asks.

"Sure," you respond, jumping off the counter to pull off your clothes. Grayson walks towards the tub and plugs the drain, setting the bath supplies on the side of it.

You both stand in silence, waiting for the water to fill it up. Once the tub was full, you crouch into it, immediately moaning in relief. You lean your head back, looking at Grayson. You suddenly felt back he wasn't able to experience this absolute heaven.

"Come in," you tell him, gesturing your hand towards yourself. He nods, taking off his clothes. You shuffle forward, disturbing the calm water surface. He gets in behind you, wrapping his legs around your own. You sigh, leaning back against his chest.

"This is so nice," you whisper. "Thank you."

"Mhm," he murmurs, reaching his hands to your tummy to gently rub.

You two sat there for probably 20 minutes, doing absolutely nothing but talking about anything and everything.

After the bath, Grayson himself in a white towel. He reached to grab a black one for you so that you don't get blood on the white one.

When you both finished drying off, you walked back into his dark room. You both changed, you putting on a pair of his boxers that you always used and one of his Spread Positivity hoodies. You laid down in the bed, immediately wrapping yourself in his arms.

You sighed at the relief of being able to lay comfortably in the fresh linen, surrounded by the one person you love most.

[cosmiclatte28]

The Undead collab

for @biaswreckingfics the undead collab! such an amazing collab and I am honored to write for Lay.

summary : The world had been destroyed. Zombies. Yes, you heard me right. Zombies took over humanities. They said it was conspiracy, others said it was planned, someone said it’s a bio weapon but you? You said this was fate and this was meant to be. In the middle of the chaos, your last proof as being a human started to disappear. And in times where you wished for safety, you did finally come to find the man who’s been embracing you in your dreams. Your online sugar daddy.

Semi smut (not explained just mentioned), romance, survival story

members : EXO-M

Pairing : lay x reader

WC : 3702

tw : zombies, daddy issues

The world had been destroyed. Zombies. Yes, you heard me right. Zombies took over humanities. They said it was a conspiracy, others said it was planned, someone said it’s a bio weapon but you? You said this was fate and this was meant to be. In the middle of the chaos, your last proof as being a human started to disappear. And in times where you wished for safety, you did finally come to find the man who’s been embracing you in your dreams. Your online sugar daddy.

You’ve lost count of the days. To be honest day and night don’t feel different as you have to stay alert all the time. There’s no time to rest, no time to slack, and no time to worry about what you left behind. It all started as a gas leak in a big biohazardous factory. The company keeps it secret, slowly affecting the workers there who are trying to fix the leak. It’s not a green smoke like what you would see in a Disney villain movie, it’s a nicely colored pink gas that smells sweet but is deadly enough to churn your organs and make you turn into what the society calls “zombie”

The outbreak spreads faster than the plague, with the infected “biting” the human and changin them into zombies. The conspiracy theories maker believe this was planned as how all zombie films look exactly like this. The scientists believed this were an unprepared bioweapon aimed to be released a century from the latest pandemic in 2020. You? You believe this is just fate and that there’s no meaning to hustle about what’s right. You just have three things in your head. Run, Adapt, Survive.

You’re glad you still have your phone, charger, knife, and a radio to contact any bases that have survivors in them. You’ve survived the days by running, hiding, and stealing big cars to help you run over the town. This morning, you got a signal from your radio saying that there’s some group of survivors on a certain latitude and longitude. You quickly take notes of it, and tell them over that you’re going to join them. As you pick your stuffs and put your compass on, you hear your radio static voice.

“How can we ensure you’re human?” one of them with a deep voice asks over the radio and you roll your eyes “Would a zombie be smart enough to find radio signals and communicate?”

You hear a loud laugh on the other end and you note that there’s more than one person there.

“How many of you are there?” you ask suddenly afraid if it’s a too big group and you have to make hard decisions with bigger parties.

There’s a shuffle and a voice comes in “There’s only 6 of us. I am the leader, Kris and you?”

You start your engine, “I’m (y/n). I’ll arrive before the sun sets hopefully.”

“Good luck and stay safe. We hope to see you in one complete piece. Over.”

--

“Who is it Kris?” The young man with a sweet dimple asks the leader after hearing the short conversation on the radio.

“Oh, from the voice I’m pretty sure she’s a survivor like us.” Kris peeks over the blinds of their hideout and notices how empty the road is.

“Can you reach Suho? I wonder if they survive too.” the same guy asks again.

Kris pats his shoulder “They’ll be okay Lay, don’t worry. I’m sure Suho can take care of the guys. Now, what about we try to find food for tonight?”

Lay sighs “I don’t know. With Luhan being weak today from using too much of his powers, I have to be here to help him heal faster.”

Kris sighs, with the 12 of them divided it was harder to fight the zombies. They are gifted with supernatural powers, but at the moment 6 of them are in another place and its their goal to reunite.

Kris left his radio and went to shower. They call themselves the EXO-M, with 6 members of their own powers.

---

You stop over an abandoned supermarket, after making sure there’s no one around, you quickly hoard all the canned foods and waters. Picked up fires and some warm blanket for you to sleep tonight.

Your journey to their basecamp was not smooth, with you having to walk over some hoard of zombies. With your eyes shut close you hit the gas and just move forward without thinking.

“Hey, hey can you hear me?” your radio suddenly turns on and your ears perk up when you hear the sound.

“Yes?”

There was a sudden pause.

Lay gulps and shakes his head when he hears your voice.

“Sorry, but can you bring us some food supplies?”

You sigh “I already did. You’re lucky but did you know how crazy it would be if I have to go back?”

He groans “You’re a handful aren’t you?”

You were too focused on the road, not filtering your word “I AM. You can say I am a sugar baby at all time, so yeah I am a handful.” you yell that as you strive through some muddy place and you notice there’s a small strong bunker in the middle of the field.

Lay stays silent as he controls his beating heart. Why does something rings a bell in his memory.

He grits his teeth and shake his head “Just come here quick. We have to help our brothers.”

You groan “I am in front of a bunker pretty sure this is where you guys are. How come you can find a place without any infected people?” you ask as you see a man opens the door for you to come in.

“Chen, Tao, Xiumin and Kris go take her foods and keep it safe.”

You yell as the dimpled man grabs your hand into the bunker. You shake it off “Hey, that’s my food supplies!”

“First off my name is Lay.”

“Okay Lay,” you cut him off “Stop robbing my supplies.”

Lay’s eyes turn dark “Hey, you’re the guest here. Don’t you think it’s also dangerous for us to just accept you here?! If it’s not because of Tao’s clumsy hand pressing the radio to give you a signal, Kris won’t bring anyone in.”

You feel offended, “If you don’t want me here you can say that directly. You’re not my master or husband or whatever, i can go if you want that so bad, but let me take all my stuffs with me.”

As Lay was about to spit back words to you, a strong grip separates both of you and you gasp surpsied.

“(y/n) right? Nice to see you come in one piece. I am Kris, sorry if Lay said anything that hurts you. He’s been alert for the last two days trying to heal our exhausted brother. I apologize on his behalf.” Kris, bows at you in a respectable angle and your anger fumes down. He sure is the leader and you’re glad his words didn’t sting.

“Thank you Kris, I like your welcome better. I came here with supplies, I want to share it with all of you but Lay here just robbed my car.” you sneer at the tall man and he just rolls his eyes.

“Lay, would you mind taking (y/n) to the bathroom? She can use some shower and you can check if she needs any medical healing.”

“We’ll take care of dinner. Don’t worry, you’ve had a long day. Good job in arriving here.” Kris sends you off and walks away. You sure like how this Kris manners are

You want to protest for being left with Lay but Lay’s firm grip dragging you into the bathroom left you with no option than to follow him.

--

“I’m sorry, your voice just reminds me of someone and I was distracted.” he suddenly speak up from the shower stall next to you.

You turn your neck to see him, the shower walls are not that tall for Lay. You can see his head from the side, but it covers your height nicely.

You gulp and continue washing your hair, facing the other way as you always did when you wash your hair. Your back facing the shower so that your eyes are free from the water.

“It’s okay, i am sorry I was just stressed and tired too. I swear I am not a handful.” you blush when you remember the first introduction between both of you.

Lay has a special memory working in his head and he chuckles “You’ll say I am wild but you reminded me of my sugar baby.”

You blushed, feeling a tingle on your naked body “Oh, in what way?”

He turns the shower off and looks at you “I never see my sugar baby, We both don’t know how each other look. We’re just talking and chatting and having fun remaining anonymous.”

Now it’s your turn to gulp and turn the shower off, you grab the towel Lay prepared earlier and wrap yourself in it “Now that’s interesting. Mind to tell me why you suddenly remember her?”

Lay chuckles and looks to the ceiling “We did voice calls sometimes, and when you said “I am a handful” you really sound like her.”

You bashfully stare at your feet. There's a bothersome fact in your head that also says Lay sounds like someone you know.

“Alright, I guess we need to go join the others?” you reappear in front of him with your fresh set of clothes you just took from the supermarket.

Lay nods “Before that, a quick check. We can’t have you bleeding or injured around here.” He twists and turns your body checking and pressing here and there to see if you have any wound or broken bones.

“You’re quiet strong for you to be alone for days. Just wounds but no big injuries! I can heal your internal injuries so the infected at least can’t smell you that strongly.” Lay explains and you just nod.

“How will you do that?” you squeak and he smiles “You’ll discover tonight.” he winks and your heart stops a beat when memories of a voice comes back to your head.

He couldn't be…

Dinner was better than what you have had for the past days. Somehow the EXO-M have their own food supplies here but they are also running out of foods.

"Before we eat, let's thank you our new sister here (y/n)," the man with doe eyes smile at you nicely and make all the rest of the men stare at you.

You shake your head "No problem, I should he the one to thank you for accepting me inside. That's a big trust you have."

The men chuckles and Kris hushes them down "We sure knows because only special people like us can survive this long." He begins to take the foods on the table and the rest of them also joins.

You were sitting next to Xiumin and he helps you to get your foods on your plate.

"We eat from the same pan, so don't worry. We don't plan to kill you or hurt you." He grins "I am the one cooking so please enjoy it."

You chuckle, if this was Lay's cooking maybe you will be careful remembering how your first impression wasn't good. Though something still bothers your mind when you see him take a glance or two at you.

You learn about their abilities, a supernatural power that helps them survive until today. Just like you, the 6 men here have their powers and they have a separated brothers who also own powers. Their goal is to reunite and survive together but as far as you understand their story, they still cannot reach EXO-K and no news know what happened to them.

Kris was able to fly, making him the one to do errands like finding foods and shelters. Xiumin is their frost guardian. Luhan is gifted with telekinesis that's why when there was an attack, he had to work hard blasting the zombies away. You learned that Chen has a beautiful and powerful voice and he is gifted with making thunder. Tao can mess with time but he hasn't master time travel yet and finally lay. Lay has a healing power.

"So the 6 of you are unstoppable." You conclude as you drop your chopstick when you're done with food.

They nod "We're quite powerful now but you see we're getting weaker. And we need to meet the rest of the brothers to become more powerful."

"So what's your power?" Tao, the youngest, blurts out the question and you laugh

"I don't have a power. what are you talking about?"

Tao whines about how you don't need to hide it from them but you really don't know what they're talking about

"I am just a regular human." You snap and that brings an awkward silence to the room. You see kris looking cross at Tao and you can't stand the stares so you excuse yourself to hide in the only place you've been. The bathroom.

You turn the sink on and wash your hands, trying to cool your head down but you cannot focus when you see the small tattoo on your wrist. A tattoo of your family surname. You run your fingers over it. Feeling your tears collect again when you remember how they all died on the first week of the apocalypse. You lost everyone and everything you love. You're forced to run and you're so young to survive because your father reminded you that whatever happen go run for your life and leave your loved ones behind.

You wash your face, trying to hide the tears that fall on your cheeks.

when you hear another footstep coming into the room, you turn the water off. You saw him coming and you expected he'll greet you with a "Stop wasting the water silly" but all you heard was a sweet deep voice you've always heard on your lonely nights. On nights where you feel so lonely and dark thoughts loom around.

"May I little one?" A voice you remember.

You turn your head to face him and shake your head "Are you really who I am thinking?"

Your heart screams "Yes daddy," but that doesn't leave your mouth.

He stops and stares at his feet "Are you someone I am thinking of?"

Both of you don't answer the questions. Instead, Lay sits down on one of the benches there and you lean on the washing table.

"You really remind me of my online sugar baby. I hope she's doing fine. I hope she survived. I cared a lot about her."

You let Lay continue talking.

"She said she likes to shower backway, her face away from the shower head. You did that earlier and I was surprised. But hey coincidence could happen right."

You blush laughing a little "You sound like you really care for her."

He nods "She's my favorite."

You play with your hair "Tell me more. I guess listening to stories like this is better than just getting asked about how my journey here looks like."

Yes you really don't need a reminder on how scary getting chased after a mob of zombies is.

"I don't think I'll ever hear from her again." He suddenly leans back and closes his eyes

"Oh how I wish i ever see her."

You fish your pocket and grab your phone out

"Do you want to borrow my phone and maybe look up her account?" You pass him your phone and he looks interested

"We didn't get the chance to take our phones when we had to evacuate. Silly us right." He brushes his hair back and you caught a glimpse of his abs.

"Will this ring a bell to you?" You clear your throat and calm your heartbeat.

"Sugar sweets here ready for you daddy" you close your eyes ready to feel embarrassed if things didn't go as planned. You can feel your ego crumbling but instead of a laugh or a wtf, you got a reply "Daddy's here sweetie, tell me what you want"

Both of you avoid each other's eyes for a minute. Ears flushing red and stomach filled with butterflies. Both of you suddenly laugh and chuckle

"So, you're my sugar daddy?" You finally ask after realizing how weird this should be but its not that weird.

"And you are my sugar baby!" He smiles "I am glad you are safe and here with me."

You walk to his side and sit next to him "i am sweetcheeks14"

He pinches your cheek "And i am the man behind sinfulwhispers"

The two of you laugh and you exhale a breath to relax

"So. What is it your super power?" You chuckle suddenly feeling stupid for asking that

Lay looks at you seriously "You think we were kidding? I really have a healing power."

Before you can scoff and reply with another power to joke around, he already pulls you to face him and as he concentrates you see his hand sticking out just few centimeters away from the stomach you actually hurt yesterday. Despite your attempt to laugh, you actually feel your stomach ache gone and a warm feeling runs in your body.

"There should be good as new. You're welcome." He clicks his tongue and you still freeze there unable to say anything.

"I- i don't know what to say." You touch your stomach again making sure it is really gone the pain.

He just sits down calmly beside you. Giving you time and space to think what the heck just happened.

“I know it’s confusing, but try to think about this.” he brushes your hair away to see your face. His warm big hand creeps up to reach your chin and holds it there “You’re a wonderful sweetheart and you’ve survived this long by yourself.” he searches your eyes to see if you’re scared of him or not, and when he sees your eyes twinkle, Lay erases the gap between you two.

“You have a super power sweetheart, you just have to embrace it.” he presses his lips on to yours and slowly bites yours.

You give in to his touch, finally tasting the kiss from your sugar daddy and finally just finally you’re not tensed from having to sleep in full alert, not stressed over where to take shelter.

Lay hugs you deep and that’s the time when you realize having someone by your side on hard times like this is the best.

Your tear falls from your eyes and when Lay wants to pull away and wipe it for you, you keep pressing his head to your lips and with one gentle move you flick your tears away only for both of you to jump back in surprise.

“What was that?” he asks suddenly holding your hand that just flick the small tears away and definitely leaves a hole on the toilet door.

You stare at your hands in horror, no way you have a super power.

Lay and you freeze in time, did you have that much power? Is that why you keep on slaying and killin the dead?

“Baby, I have a good feeling.” he picks you up before you can say anything and drags you out into a special room where you see a lot of training equipments.

“Would you mind?” he is already holding a boxing tape and you raise your palm to let him wrap your hands with the tape before he gives you an apple to your hand.

“Okay, now let’s see. We both will throw the apple and see whose will stick to the wall there.” he points to a side and you ask if it’s going to be okay.

Lay chuckles “It’s bulletproof, so let’s see.”

Both of you stand from the same line and throw the apples to the wall, sure enough yours leave a crack mark on the wall but not Lay’s

Suddenly the room echoes with claps and you turn your head to realize that the others are already here.

“We saw you running here with Lay, so we watched the camera.” Kris explained

You blushed, what if both of you were going to fuck, will they still be watching?

“Now, the final check to see if you’re still human is this.” Luhan points to a chair and you look at them confused.

“We’ll take your blood and do a quick lab test, our antibodies will be different if you’re immune to the “zombies” here.” Luhan explained as he already poked a needle into your vein and take a tube to test your blood.

“Go sleep and don’t think or worry about anything. We promise we won’t do anything to you. Take your well needed rest.” Xiumin explains and soon after the brothers discuss, Lay decided to take you into his room.

No one has to know what happens in that four walled space. You’re finally with your virtual sugar daddy and there’s a guarantee that the room is sound proof so both of you didn’t hold anything back.

“I’m glad you found me.” Lay whispers after both of you are done chasing your highs and cuddled nicely under the bed covers.

You yawn “I didn’t expect to finally be in your arms, but I will trade anything in this world to be here. I feel safe. Thank you Lay.”

Lay kisses the top of your head “Love you sweetheart, let’s see the result tomorrow and if you’re totally immune and like us, you’ll stay with us.”

You wonder what if you are not immune, will they throw you out? But before you can ask Lay already hugs you closer and hums a lullaby to your ear.

You settled on not trying to know what will happen if you’re not like them, and choose to sleep trying to think that everything is okay.

--

After all, you’re glad you find them and that they don’t disown you. Because having one more of the undead in their 12 immortal group is a good thing.

[supermarvelgirl15]

Delicate Type of Beauty- Chapter 3: Plumbing Problems

Summary: You have a problem with your plumbing, but luckily Bucky just happens to also be awake at 2 AM.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes × f!oc-insert

Word Count: 1,940

Warnings: A few curses, a couple negative thoughts

A/N: The verb endings are probably all over the place, but oh well. I hope y'all enjoy!

Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist

××××××

    The footage didn’t make any sense. It didn’t necessarily show any indication to where he went, and you couldn’t understand why the footage would be erased in the first place. That was the only thing that made the whole situation stand out.

    It just showed Colton waiting in his car until another vehicle approached him. Colt then got out of his car with a backpack on, took whatever the unknown driver handed him, and watched as the driver left. He looked over the item that was in hands and placed it in his pocket before walking out of frame without his car. Even Rhett said that he thought that it was strange.

    You, however, weren’t going to let that stop you. With every resource you had, you were going to find out everything that happened in that video and where he went. You needed to know who the driver was and what they gave your brother. 

    You were sat on the floor in front of your coffee table looking through everything you had already acquired while you were waiting on one of your sources to grant you access to more footage from the security cameras at the docks. You were hoping that maybe you had overlooked something, but it wasn’t looking like it.

    With a sigh you grabbed your phone to check the time, groaning when you saw that it was just after two in the morning. It was late, but you weren’t ready to turn in just yet. Standing up, you walked into your kitchen to wash your face off at the sink. 

    When you turn the sink on though, only a little water was coming out the faucet. Your eyebrows furrowed together as you squatted down to open the cabinets under the sink, cursing when you saw that the pipe had busted and that water started running everywhere.

    You immediately ran to go get some towels, another curse slipping out of your mouth when you realized that you only had one. Why was today the day you forgot to pick up your laundry from down stairs?

    You rushed back to the kitchen, placing the towel on the floor to try to mop up what you could of the water. It didn’t take long for the towel to get soaked and there was still a lot of water. What the hell were you going to do now?

    Bucky just wanted to get at least a few hours of sleep. He would be happy with even as little as two or three hours. Was that too much to ask?

    The nightmares- or rather memories- had been bad for the last week. The most sleep he’s gotten lately has been maybe about an hour at a time. A man, especially at his age, needed more rest than that. He was tired, damn it.

    Knocking at his door shook him from his thoughts about rest, making him glance over at the clock. Who would be at his door at this time of night? He really didn’t want to deal with some jackass tonight.

    He quietly stood up from the floor, slipping on a shirt over his head as he made his way towards the door. Looking through the peephole, he saw you standing outside glancing frantically around you.

    Opening the door, he automatically hid his left side behind the door frame. “Kris? Everything okay?” He questioned you, his eyebrow furrowed as he looked you over.

    “Um, yeah, did I wake you? I’m so sorry if I did,” you apologize as you wring your hands together in front of you. Some of the guilt is lifted from you as he shook his head, his eyes showing that he was concerned. Now you felt bad for worrying him with something as stupid as this. 

    You glanced down the hallway, hoping you didn’t wake up any of the other residents. “I’m sorry for bothering you, but you're the only person I know here and I can’t go to the basement now because you know how the landlord is. Is there by any chance that I could borrow some towels?” You rambled to him, cringing slightly about how idiotic you sounded. Why does talking to him make you act like this?

    Bucky’s look of concern turned to one of confusion as he looked at you. “I… Uh, sure, hold on,” he tells you before walking away from the door to retrieve them. Seeing that he left the door wide open, you took that as an invitation to step inside.

    His apartment looked similar to yours, even though he had less furniture than you. Your eyes caught onto the blankets and pillows on the floor, making you lick your lips nervously. Every time you came back from an operation, you often found yourself sleeping on the floor as well. Sleeping on a bed was significantly different from going to bed in a sleeping bag on the hard ground. Recently, you've been sleeping on the couch to slowly break yourself out of that routine.

    Your attention goes back to Bucky when you hear him clear his throat, looking up to see him holding a few towels. “Is this enough?” He asked as you took the towels out of his hands.

    He noticed how your eyes immediately went to his bare metal arm before looking back at him with a nod. If he didn’t see that, he would have completely forgot that it was made out of vibranium and not flesh and bone. 

    “I hope so. I haven’t exactly dealt with a flooded kitchen before,” you quip as you turn to head out his apartment. Bucky raised his eyebrows as he followed behind you.

    “What happened to your kitchen?” Bucky questioned curiously as he held the door open for you. He really did find you in the strangest situations. 

    You stopped once you stepped back into the hallway, turning back to face him. “The pipe beneath my sink busted. I’m gonna spend the rest of my night figuring out how to fix it,” you sighed, internally groaning at the thought.

    You watched as Bucky nodded somewhat to himself, as if he was having a silent conversation with himself in his head. You would have never guessed the next words that would leave his mouth.

    “Do you need any help?”

                                            ★

    When you said that your kitchen was flooded, you really did mean it. Bucky was hoping that maybe you were overexaggerating, but there was a lot of water on the floor. If you two didn’t clean it up fast enough, you might get a complaint from the downstairs neighbor.

    “You know, I could talk to you in maybe five different languages, but I apparently couldn’t fix a dumb pipe even if I wanted to,” you joke as you mop up most of the water. 

    Bucky chuckled slightly as he looked over the sink. “Ei bine, ai putea începe prin a opri apa.” Well, you could start by turning the water off.

    He turned the faucet off, turning to see you looking at the sink with your mouth hanging open, making him laugh a little. “Chiar sunt prost.” I really am dumb.

    Bucky shakes his head, chuckling softly as he squatted down to look at the pipe. “It’s okay, everyone loses their common sense at times. But hey, at least you know Romanian,” he teases you, glancing back over his shoulder.

    You narrow your eyes on him, throwing the soaked towel in your hand at him. Bucky yelps, quickly getting the towel off him as he looks up to see your smug look. “This is what I get for helping? I could’ve just left the water on, I’m sure the landlord would love it,” he threatened playfully.

    “No, it’s what you get for being an ass,” you shrug, a small smirk creeping onto your lips as you grab another dry towel to hopefully get what’s left of the water. Bucky looks at you while you’re turned away from him, licking his lips before giving his attention back to the pipe.

    After looking it over for a few moments, he finally figured out what the problem was. He reached his left hand in the cabinet, tightening the pipe where it had come loose. “All right, I think I got it,” he announced as he stood up to turn the sink on, nodding when no water started leaking out. “It was just loose,” he tells you, turning the water back off before turning to face you.

    You throw your towel into the pile with the others, having cleaned the floor the best you could, before walking over to the sink beside Bucky. “You are a saint,” you comment as you look over what he had done.

    You are a saint. Those words shouldn’t have affected Bucky like they just did, but how could you call him that. Especially when you know what he's done, what he’s capable of doing.

    “I thought I was an ass?” Bucky questioned teasingly, raising an eyebrow at you. You shake your head, rolling your eyes as you turn back to pick up the wet towels.

    “I’m gonna go put these in my bathroom. Once I wash them, I’ll give you back your towels,” you tell him as you walk back to what Bucky guesses is your bathroom.

    Bucky grabs a rag from your sink to dry his hands before stepping into your living room. Files scattered on your coffee table catches his eye, causing him to look back to make sure you haven’t returned yet. He picked up one of them and scanned through it quickly. 

    So this is why you’re here.

    “Thank you so much, Bucky. I’m sure you want to go to bed now,” you said as you walked back into the room. Bucky turns around smoothly, dropping the file back on the table behind him. 

    He licked his lips as he nodded. “Yeah,” he replied shortly, scratching the back of his neck. He started towards your door, you following right behind him. “Um, good night,” he tells you with one of his tightlipped smiles. 

    “Night. Thanks again,” you respond with a smile. 

    Bucky couldn’t help but feel somewhat normal while he was around you. You reminded him of his life back before the war. When it was just him, his family, and Steve against the world. He… liked it.

    If you get too close to her, something bad’s gonna happen. It always does, Barnes. Keep her out of it.

    Shut up.

    “Everything okay, Bucky?” 

    He looked up to see you already looking at him, your eyes full of concern. He doesn’t understand why, but he’s come to slowly learn that’s how you are. Maybe his therapist is right. Maybe he should make a friend. Especially one like you.

    “Uh, yeah... Hey, if you’re up for it, you wanna get some coffee tomorrow? Well, later,” Bucky asked you, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants.

    To say you were surprised was an understatement. You never thought that he would actively want to hang out with you. He always seemed to want to be alone, and given what he’s been through, you don’t blame him.

    Then your instincts started kicking in. It was a bad idea. You shouldn’t be around him more than you have to. It was dangerous. He was dangerous. You were even once sent after him with your team. He used to be one of your targets.

    But as you watched him wait for your response, how he bit his lip, how he glanced around the hallway somewhat nervously, your instincts didn’t matter. After all, he wasn’t the Winter Soldier anymore, right? 

    “I’d love to.”

××××××

@bucky-bunnie @learisa @magconfangurl1 @lylthy @rosiahills22​ (If you would like to be removed/added please let me know!)

[yahnnieee]

(So before I start the story I wanna tell you this is my first post so please don't judge my writing and story also the stories I'll be writing are not short or like mid-long. And I'm mostly going to be using my name at all times and so bye bye~ have a great day or night)

I woke up to my alarm ringing, I looked to the side seeing '4:20' flash in the clock I shut the clock and got up I took my phone that was charging in my nightstand. I looked at it and saw messages pop up. "Morning sunshine" I smiled and replied with "Morning, William" I went to the bathroom to take a bath and get ready for the day.

Let me introduce myself. Hi, I'm Rianne Suh I'm an Actress, Model and Dancer I'm 19, half Filipina, British and Korean I'm currently living in London and I'm in a relationship with NCT's Lucas Wong's Brother (Kris Wong) and I'm currently working on a project with Will Poulter and Thomas Sangster along with Ki Hong Lee and Tom Holland about a Mafia Couple who started there own little family and taking the biggest heist of 1.8 billion. Will and I are the main characters as for Ki Hong and Thomas being our helpers and Tom as our enemy.

After taking a bath I went to my walk-in closet and took a black spaghetti strap crop top and black ripped jeans. I took a pair of black ankle boots and a gold bracelet with a golden watch. I put on lip tint and styled combed my hair keeping it down but I still bought a black hair tie that was resting in my wrist. I looked at the Mirror for the last time, I then took my phone and a small gold and black backpack then put necessary things I'll need. I went downstairs to my kitchen and put my backpack down. I went to get a bowl and oatmeal with some berries and hot water. I took the oatmeal from the upper shelves and lucky me I'm 5'8 so I can reach high shelves and stuffs. I poured the hot water in and stirred it alittle then put the berries and banana slices on top of it. After prepping my breakfast I sat down eating while checking my emails and talking to Will. After I eating I picked up my bag and went to my garage, I picked out my black Lamborghini and hopped in. I drove thru the city of London to Our filming site. After 25 mins I got there, I went out of the car and was greeted by staffs I greeted back with a smile. I got inside the site and saw Thomas talking to our Director. "Hey Rianne!" Thomas greeted me with a smile. I smiled back hugging him. "Hello" I said patting his back. "How's your morning?" I heard someone ask as I pull away from Thomas. I looked over to Thomas' shoulder and saw Will walking towards us. I exclaimed and walked over to him hugging him tightly, almost like we didn't see eachother for years. "Rianne, hey!" Someone greeted me and I looked back. It was Tom. "Hey Tom!" I greeted as I hugged Tom. "Great..." He replied chuckling. I chuckled and heard our director call us. "Rianne, get ready please. Filming starts in 45" I nodded and walked over to my make-up chair. I sat down with Thomas and Will next to me and Tom next to Thomas. "What's today's series or something?" I asked as my makeup artist put on gold eyeshadow in my lids. "Umm... Meeting up with Tom" Thomas replied, his hair stylist fixing his slightly messed up hair. "Ohh... Hot!" I said and laughed alittle. "How are you and your boyfriend?" I heard Will ask. I looked over to him my brows furrowed. "Oh... Close to breaking up, I'm actually going to break up with him" I said simply. Everyone stopped there movement for a sec trying to comprehend what I said. "Why?" Tom asked. "Well.... I really don't wanna hurt him but I love someone else I started feeling this way a month ago and it got stronger as the days pass by" I replied. "Who's this lucky guy?" Asked Thomas. "Secret" I replied after a minute my make up was done, I stood up and took my phone walking towards some staffs.

After a few minutes Thomas, Will and Tom came all in the same time, Thomas sat next to me and asked. "Seriously... Who's the guy?" "The guy I'm working with at the moment" "Which one?" "William.." "Shuck! Mate seriously?" "You think?" "Well yeah" "then yeah" Thomas and I whispered shout at eachother while I could feel Tom and Will's gaze directed to us. "Rianne.. Will ,Tom on set please" our director called us out. I stood there with Will and Tom in front of us. "Action!"

It's been a few hours since we started filming and we're actually done already. It's currently 6:22 pm and we've been filming for 12 hours straight. I'm currently sitting in my makeup chair taking my makeup off and washing my face. Will came in and sat next to me. "Tired?" He asked leaning back. "Yeah" I replied leaning back too resting me head after drying my face. "It's definitely tiring when people are all over you" I said. "Introverted" he said chuckling. "Hey Will, do you wanna stay in my place? I'm feeling really weird when I'm alone this past few days well not weird or alone I think I just need someone with me" I said waiting anxiously. "Sure... Why not?" He said I quickly looked up at Will smiling. I jumped out of my seat and run to him hugging him tight. My legs wrapped around his waist tightly, his hand landed his hands in my waist pulling me closer. "Thank U" I said lifting my head looking at him our face only inches apart. Suddenly the door open Thomas entered the room, his eyes grew wide seeing us in our position. "I'll leave you 2... Continue what your doing" he said and quickly shut the door. I looked at Will again and we burst to laughter. "Let's go home." I said standing up he stood up right after me and we both went out picking out things up and saying goodbye to our other crew. We took his car and drove to my house. We got home after 30 mins stopping by 7/11 to buy snacks. "Come on..I'll just go take a shower" I said and went to my room. I showered and put on an over sized shirt and shorts. I went to my room and saw Will sitting there looking at some framed photos of me and my fam and with Will himself. "Hey... Will? You good?" I asked catching his attention. "What's this?'' he asked picking up the framed photo of me and him. "Nothing... Can't i frame it?" I asked, he shook his head and stood up went to the bathroom to shower. He came out after a few with a towel loosely hanging in his waist. I stared at his toned upper body, he noticed this and smirked. "Staring is not very respectful you know" he said staring at me. "Just get here already!" I said and layed down. Will layed next to me wrapping his arms around me protectively, my head resting on his chest. I looked up at him seeing him stare at me I then I meet our lips kissing him, he kissed back immediately making me smile in the kiss. "I love you" I said staring at his bluish green eyes. "I love you too,baby girl" he replied kissing my forehead. And we both fell asleep in eachother's arms.

(So I'm going to do a part 2 of this and again please don't judge my writing!! If you have any advice to make a story better I'll definitely appreciate that so Thank U and have a great day or night ❤️)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Whumptober Day 27: Extreme Weather

CW: Environmental whump, references to drug and alcohol use, references to Derrick (see: The Break-Up for his last appearance), Kauri’s Bad Life Choices, slut-shaming, trauma response, untreated abuse survivor with fucky headspace, referenced abuse

When Krista opens the door, Kauri stands on the doorstep to her apartment soaked to the bone, water dripping off the flattened curls of his hair, stuck to his forehead. Water runs in rivulets down his cheeks like tears, drips from the sleeves of his sweater onto her doormat.

She’s proud of that doormat. She picked it out at Target and it says Shoes Off, Witches. 

Krista decorates for every holiday, because she can, because the holidays belong to her. There are tiny pumpkins, alternately white and orange and painted with little patterns, lined up along the little railing on their concrete patio. She has little witch figurines in the centerpiece of the circular dining table she and Sonya found at a garage sale, and a Halloween wreath made of black and orange leaves hangs on the door.  

Mrs. Richardson didn’t celebrate Halloween, because of something to do with celebrating our sinful natures and something something demonic influences hidden in seeming fun and the devil something harry potter witchcraft something, but Krista celebrates every holiday, just because she can.

Sometimes she thinks of Miss Alyssa and wonders if she celebrates Halloween, now, too.

“What are you doing here, Kauri?” Krista squints past him, shivering against the chill air even in her big soft purple sweatshirt. It had cost her six hours of work to pay for it, it was so expensive, but it’s the softest thing she’s ever felt in her life, like wearing a cloud with a hood on it everywhere she goes. 

“Can I crash here?” Kauri blinks rainwater out of his eyes. 

Behind him, the rainstorm that’s been going for nearly three days continues, pouring water like it’s falling from overturned buckets from the dark gray skies. “Sorry, they shut the buses down, it’d take me like five hours to walk to the shelter from here, and…” He rocks up and down on the balls of his feet, and Krista winces at the squelch from his thin black-and-white checked shoes. 

Krista takes a deep breath, looking over her shoulder. Sonya is still in the bedroom, finishing up a call for work, speaking in her Phone Voice, softer and pleasant, with all the edges sanded off. When Krista was a pet, she spoke in a voice like that. Sonya speaks for her job to men who constantly interrupt her, but somehow when she does it, the voice is gentle but commanding, where Krista always felt her voice just sounded… weak. “I don’t know, Kauri, I’m not… I’m not sure.”

“Please?” Kauri’s eyes are huge and blue, and water frames them as it runs from his hair. He shudders, as a winter breeze blows at his back. A spatter of the tiniest water droplets is blown with it, and Krista blinks rapidly against the feeling. “Please? It’s just for tonight, they said the buses should be running tomorrow morning if it doesn’t get worse… please?”

“If it doesn’t get worse,” Krista repeats, her eyes scanning back into the parking lot. Someone drives past, their headlights on, and the rain falls in such thick sheets that Krista can only see their headlights, not even the car.

Who would drive, in something like this?

She looks back at Kauri, and figures maybe someone who would walk in rain like this, someone who doesn’t have a choice. Not every business is closed, after all, and not everyone can work from their laptop like Sonya. Not everyone can afford the days off if they call in. There are people who don’t have the option to stay safe from the floods. There are people who are told to risk their lives or they will not eat. 

There are times Krista wonders how anyone doesn’t become a pet. At least she never had to watch a paycheck disappear from a bank account nearly as soon as it was deposited before.

Not that she knows of, anyway.

“It’s just overnight,” Kauri says, softly. “I know she doesn’t like me, but… but it’s just one night.”

She looks at him, in his soaked-up shoes, shivering in the rain and with his backpack dripping as hard as everything else, and then she sighs. The felt leaves on the Halloween wreath rustle against the door as she steps back and to the side. “Take your shoes off and stay on the mat, I’ll get you a towel to get you to the shower. I think you can probably wear some of my sleeping clothes.”

Kauri’s eyes brighten, and he kicks off his sopping shoes and peels off soaked-through white cotton socks. His toes are wrinkled from being wet for so long, and he spreads them with a sigh of relief against the rough doormat. 

“Thank you, Krista, thank you so much-”

“Get inside,” She says, but her voice is gentle, and he steps in to stand on the inside doormat (this one just says I hope you brought tacos) while Krista walks away, across the soft beige-gray-nothing-color carpet in the apartment, swinging around the low-slung coffee table by the couch. She ducks into the small bathroom and grabs the towels off the towel rack.

Sonya calls out, “Baby, do I hear someone at the door?”

Krista hesitates, towels in hand - she bought them at Target, too, the bathroom is fall-themed and the towels are a deep saturated pumpkin orange and a hunter green and they have cream-colored stitching that reads thankful and choose joy - and looks towards the closed bedroom door. “Um, yes. You remember Kauri Grant?”

There’s a pause, and then the bedroom door cracks open, and Sonya peeks through. Her short, straight brown hair is pulled back with clips to keep it out of her eyes, and she’s still in her pajama pants and t-shirt from last night. “That druggie friend of yours? The homeless guy?”

Krista shakes her head, nervously twisting the bunched-up towels in her hands. “He’s, he’s not-... he’s not on drugs, Sonya, I told you he’s not on drugs.”

“But he is homeless.”

“... yes.”

Sonya’s lips are a straight line, and the look she gives Krista makes her heart flip unhappily. Kauri always makes Sonya look like this. She doesn’t trust him, thinks he’s going to get Krista arrested, thinks he deals or buys or something, but Krista knows the truth and it’s a truth she can’t tell.

If she told Sonya what Kauri is, there would be questions, and then Krista would have to explain what she is, and she… she can’t.

What if Sonya reported him? Krista would shatter if she were the reason someone had to go back. So… she keeps his secret for him, and it’s just one lie, but it means Sonya only ever believes the worst.

“Well.” Sonya takes a deep breath. “What does he want?”

“They stopped running the buses,” Krista says, keeping her voice low. “Because the roads are so flooded.” The TV is still going, running a show Krista doesn’t even remember turning on, and Kauri is still on the inside doormat, dripping and cold and wet and in need of somewhere to stay. “He just wants to crash overnight, Sonya. Please.”

“I’m tired of you letting this guy take advantage of you, Kris,” Sonya says, and then just sighs, raking a hand through her hair and getting it caught on the clips, frowning and jerking her fingers back out, leaving her hair all mussed and beautiful. Krista wants to kiss her, but this isn’t the time. 

“It’s just one night-”

“It’s never just anything with Kauri Grant, Kris, and you know it. Just one night with Kauri Grant means he’ll eat half the food in our kitchen and you’ll end up washing his clothes for him-”

“He shouldn’t have to pay for laundry!”

“How come he can’t stay at a motel or something?”

“I don’t know, probably he hasn’t been making much money, if it’s raining people don’t go walking around to give-”

“Oh but somehow he always has money for drinks when he calls to see if you want to go out, though? You think I haven’t noticed that?”

Krista sets her jaw, at that. “Sonya. Please don’t do this. You know he almost never has to pay for drinks-”

“Because he’s fucking all the bartenders, Kris!”

“He just needs somewhere to crash for a single fucking night. Come on, Sonya, don’t be-... don’t be like this. He’s my fucking friend. It’s not like I have a lot of those.”

She never curses, and the unusual word coming from her lips pulls Sonya up short from whatever she intended to say next. There’s a silence, and then her girlfriend sighs and pushes the door open a little more. She holds out her arms and Krista steps into them, taking the tight embrace and soaking it up.

On the bed, their black cat Pepperjack looks up, gives a soft chirping meow, and lays his head back down again. 

“I’m sorry,” Sonya says, softly. “I know you care about him. I just wish I understood why.”

Because we’re the same, in all the ways that made us. Because he needs to know there are places where he is allowed to stay. Because of a million reasons I can’t tell, secrets I have to keep. 

Because he’s a ghost, and he wears the face of someone who died for him to be born.

Just like I wear a dead girl’s face, just like Leila does, like Chris and Antoni and all of us, we’re all walking around in someone else’s discarded body.

And I can’t tell you.

“He’s my friend,” Krista says again, more softly, and kisses Sonya’s cheek. Her girlfriend turns her head to turn it to a kiss on the lips, and Krista relaxes into the soft reassurance that comes with the love in that kiss. “One of my first friends, really. He’s just going through some stuff right now-”

“Baby, you always say he’s going through some stuff. When does he finish going through it and get out on the other side of all that stuff?”

Krista sighs, and nuzzles her way back into another kiss. “I don’t know. But he’ll leave as soon as the buses are running again, I promise, okay?”

Sonya nods, and they rest their foreheads together for a moment, let the softer silence stand. Then Sonya says, quietly, “Okay, baby. Just. I feel like Pepper over there is all the strays we need in our life, you know?”

“I know,” Krista murmurs. “But he’ll have somewhere to go once it stops raining, I promise.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ll start making a list for replacing all the goddamn groceries he’s gonna eat.”

“He doesn’t get much good food out there-”

“Kris. He’s a taker. He uses you. And when he’s here, he uses us. I don’t see why you don’t get that.”

“He’s not-”

“Kris, listen to me. Stop trusting some pretty dude who is just going to get you hurt when he pisses the wrong person off. I know you guys met at the same homeless house or whatever, but he’s going nowhere fast and you can’t let him take you with him.”

“Sonya, stop.”

“Kris-”

“I said stop it.” She pulls back and away, grabbing some of her baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt from the pile of ‘clean’ clothes folded on top of the dresser until she has the energy to put them in the dresser - which is never, Krista delights in being able to be messy in her own home - and carries them out. Sonya stands in the doorway watching her go, and then sighs and goes back to her headset, back to work.

Kauri, still just inside the doorway, is lowering his phone from his ear as Krista comes into view. Nat bought him that phone, so she’d know Kauri was alive the weeks he was gone. Nat bought him the phone, he bought his clothes with panhandling money, his sweatshirt is Dustin’s. The backpack he found abandoned at a bus stop. 

Nothing Kauri is wearing, or holding, is really his own.

A little plastic ziplock-style sandwich bag sticks out of his pocket. He had his phone in it to keep it dry, Krista thinks, and wonders how long he’s been wandering around out there in the rain. She hesitantly speaks up. “Here, Kauri, I’ve got towels and some clothes to change into-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kauri says, softly, and glances up at her  before he looks down again. Water drips from his hair onto the phone’s screen and he wipes at it with his finger, squinting. “I’ll be gone in a second.”

“What?” Krista goes still, and realizes that she and Sonya were not as quiet as they thought they were. “What do you mean? It's pouring-”

“I called someone,” Kauri says, flat and sharp, without looking at her. “Gonna walk to that bus stop with the little roof and he’ll come get me. Don’t worry about it.”

“Jake? It’s not- Kauri… it’s not safe for Jake to drive all that way across the city, half the roads are flooding-”

“Not Jake.” Kauri isn’t just not looking at her, he can’t. His face is a little red, splotches on his pale cheeks. Is some of the water on his face tears, now, and not from the rain? “I know someone else who lives near here. He’s coming to get me.”

“Kauri…” Krista closes her eyes, guilt twisting around inside of her that he’d heard. He knows Sonya doesn’t like him, but Kauri is so sensitive to being disliked. She should have pulled Sonya into the bedroom and closed the door. “Who is it?”

Kauri blows air through his nose. “It’s Derrick.”

Krista hitches in a breath in surprise. “Your ex? Kauri, didn’t-... didn’t he threaten you when you broke up?”

Kauri shakes his head, gives her a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “No. I misunderstood him, that’s all. I thought, um, I thought he was angry, but he was just… sad. The whole stupid fight was my fault anyway, and I’ve seen him since and he agreed to be friends. It’s fine. I asked, and he wants me there. I’ll sleep on his couch.”

No, you won’t. We both know you won’t.

“He wants you there,” Krista parrots, plaintively. “Kauri, you don’t have to leave, or anything, I swear. I’ll make you a bed up-”

“It’s fine,” Kauri repeats, and gives her another breezy, airy smile. He sticks his phone back into the little clear bag, closes it up, and shoves it back in his pocket. He slips his soaking-wet shoes back on and Krista winces as she hears the way his feet push water around inside them. “I’m fine, Krista, it’s really not a big deal. Derrick always says I can call him, when I run into him-”

“You’re still seeing him?” Krista licks at her lips. She holds the towels and clothes useless in her arms like a child hugging a teddy bear, feeling guilty and useless. Kauri came here for somewhere safe to stay, and felt unwanted, and now…

“No, but he… we show up at the same places sometimes.”

“... Kauri, is he following you?”

Kauri gives a brittle, bright laugh. “What? No! It’s fine.”

“It’s fine,” Krista repeats, and then says softly, “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. You… you always say it’s fine. How many times can you say it before you just… admit when it’s not, Kauri?”

Kauri’s smile drops, for a second. His blue eyes meet hers, haunted and sad, making the choice to hurt himself rather than be hurt by anyone else. Kauri Grant is a ghost, she thinks, and very nearly says out loud. You don’t have to haunt us, Kauri. You could have a home.

He takes a deep breath, pulls the hood of his zip-up sweatshirt over his head, where it flops, just as soaked-through as everything else, providing no safety from the rainfall at all. Water drips off of it onto his nose. “I’ll say it as many times as it takes to believe it,” He says, heavily.

“For who to believe it? Us, or you?”

“I’ll catch you later, Krista. No big deal. Thanks for letting me hang out for a minute.”

Krista watches, helpless, as Kauri turns and walks back out into the rain, shoulders hunched. The rain is so thick that he disappears from view before he’s even fully across the parking lot. From a man to a shade of the fog to nothing at all.

Sonya wanders out of the bedroom to find Krista still staring outside, through the open door. “Baby? Where’s your friend?”

“Where’s my friend? He heard us talking.” Krista’s voice is thready trembling. “He found someone else to stay with.”

The ex-boyfriend, who told Kauri he was a ditz and kind of dumb, who told him he was lucky someone put up with how difficult he is, who broke up with him while threatening and scaring him, who… who still let him leave, at least.

So it’s better than where he came from, maybe.

But not by much.

“Oh. So he did have somewhere else to go. Probably he just called his dealer, Krista. Nobody looks that strung out without being on something.”

Krista’s fingers tightened on the cloth she held in her hands until the tension hurt, ached up her arms and to her shoulders. “Sonya, he’s just-... he’s messed up, but he’s not-... he’s not on drugs. He’s just had a hard-... a hard life.”

“Yeah, I mean, a lot of us have. But you always let him take advantage of you, Kris. That’s all. That’s all I worry about. I mean, I’m sure he’s a fine guy, but I’m not on Team Kauri, you know? I’m Team Krista. I worry way more about how you get all weird for a couple days every time he’s here.”

“Sonya-”

“He’ll be fine.”

Krista shakes her head, but repeats, “He’ll be fine,” to settle her own nerves. She realizes belatedly that Kauri’s socks are still balled up on the concrete step outside her door, and she moves forward, closes the door, and does up the locks, leaving them there for now.

Maybe he’ll come back for them.

He probably won’t.

Pepperjack meows softly at her, and she turns to see the black cat winding his way around a leg of the coffee table. Something in his eyes looks… reproachful. Pepper likes curling up with Kauri when he stays over, warm against his back or on his chest, just under his chin. 

Krista walks past Sonya to hang the towels back up, puts her clothes back in the clean clothes pile, and curls up on the couch with Pepperjack in her lap and Sonya at her side. Warm, dry, and guilty.

She sent the ghost away - or Sonya did - or she did, by not defending him enough… and still, Krista feels haunted. She pulls her own phone out from the pocket in her pants and texts Jake. He went back to Derrick.

She doesn’t have to say who he is. She sees when Jake reads the message, but he doesn’t send anything back right away. Maybe he’ll call Kauri. Maybe he’ll convince Kauri to go somewhere other than his shit ex-boyfriend’s place. Maybe maybe maybe, but it all relies on Kauri not running away.

It all relies on Kauri. Kauri’s a survivor, she tells herself. They all are. She texts Jake again. I’m sure it’s okay. I’m sure he’ll be fine. I’m sure.

Yeah, is all Jake sends back. She can feel the anger through the inconsequential bloodless single-word response. Anger, fear, and worry.

She closes her eyes. 

He’ll be fine. He’s fine.

How many times do they tell each other Kauri is fine, when everyone knows it’s not true?

---

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