#like i knew what was coming (i wrote it and this is like 4th attempt at editing it) and i STILL got chills

[magic-is-something-we-create]

forgot that my all-time favorite reveal in TMS was so (relatively) early in echoseers and its making me want to yell about it from the rooftops but its one of those reveals that i want to hit SO hard and i just. hnnnng.

[rubberduckyrye]

So, a friend of mine showed me a "Kokichi Defense" video that mentioned one of my metas a couple of times. And while I watched it mainly to see if they referenced me anywhere else (and just for the shits and giggles), it does remind me of my own theories regarding Kokichi... and how a part of me st ill feels like I never quite finished analyzing his character as shown on screen.

I wrote a LOT about certain aspects of him, about the things I saw in his character arc and story--but despite me not really knowing what else I could have added to the table, it still feels like I left things on a cliffhanger. Like there was more to dig but that I couldn't see, or got burnt out to the point everything was a bit of a blur.

However... There is one thing I do know I want to talk about, and it relates to my Mass Mercy kill Theory, and why I believe that Kokichi's actions towards the mercy killing were genuine. Something that I was thinking for a long minute about after I had watched the defense video. Not something related to Kokichi, but to my perspective on things, and why I came to the conclusion of his Mercy Killing plan being more genuine than others like to believe.

It's because... well, I know what it's like first hand.

I think I mentioned it on my original theory that I didn't want people to argue with me about the Mass Mercy Kill theory in general because of "personal reasons." Well, this is why--it's because I know what that despair is like personally.

When I lived with my parents, it was a horrible situation no matter where I went. Abuse left and right, degradation, dehumanization, helplessness, worthlessness, hopelessness--there was no "safe" place for me. Hell, I once considered it to be safer to be homeless than to live with my parents, and had to be talked out of it by my friend.

When faced with such a despair... suicidal thoughts are easy to come by. Yet I think this is why my perspective on Kokichi's actions in the 4th trial are different than most--because where I think a lot of people don't think about their motivations for their suicidal thoughts as deeply as "I was miserable/depressed", I took the time to analyze it extensively. I guess you can say the thoughts I had during those times were so terrifying that, as a coping mechanism, I wanted to know its source.

I wanted to know what made me think living wasn't worth while.

Self esteem issues are often a big culprit, but... my main source for these thoughts, they were just... a plea for release. The mercy of death. The hope of everything just, finally coming to an end--because suffering was pretty much all I knew, and thought I would only know.

Mercy killing was introduced to my life in the form of pets who grew old and had to be put down, so the concept to me wasn't anything new. I knew when my first dog died, because my parents didn't lie to me about it. They told me straight up they put her to sleep. I was probably like five or six when my first dog died.

So when I had these horrible thoughts, it was really easy for me to like, immediately know where the desire was. I was suffering, so thusly death must be my only answer.

It is, at its route, mercy. Even in its most fucked-up, twisted form of logic, it was still a desire for mercy.

I think that maybe that's why I think of Kokichi's actions in trial 4 to be a genuine attempt at a mass mercy kill plan. Because I saw myself in that situation, except in a situation that was far more miserable and far more dire. One where living would be truly meaningless.

From that perspective, everything made sense to me, because I already know that feeling well. It was easy to make the leap of "Mercy kill everyone before the find out the horrible truth" in logic because I knew where step one was.

I often have memory problems when I think about my time with my parents--the first twenty years of my life. My mind actively tries to forget how bad it truly was, just for a semblance of normalcy. Like, maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe I was the one in the wrong.

But... no. That's just the lie my mind tries to tell me when I can't remember the first 20 or so years of my life well.

But yeah, sorry for the downer of a post. I just kind of wanted to get my thoughts out on it before I forgot.

[colemillerg]

So let’s talk about my mental health some. I’ll try to give the gist of what I battle with. Have you ever thought about killing yourself? How would you do it? Would you write a suicide note to leave behind? If you’ve never had those intrusive type thoughts maybe you’ve just had thoughts of what it would be like if you died suddenly and unexpectedly? Would people mourn your loss? How would your family go on without you? These questions that a normal person may intrusively experience once or twice in their lifetime are a 24/7/365 intrusive thought occurrence for me. Doctors call it being passively suicidal or suffering from suicidal ideation. Perhaps you don’t really have a clear plan to act on but you think about committing suicide regularly and demonstrate risky behaviors (ex: driving recklessly with no seat belt) that could result in your death. Then there is being actively suicidal. You have a plan. You’ve maybe even researched how you want to carry it out. Perhaps you’ve written suicide notes to leave behind. You begin to give away things or prepare for your death in other ways such as saving money for funeral expenses. I teeter between being passively suicidal (most of the time) and actively suicidal (occasionally). Have I ever attempted suicide before? Absolutely. Multiple times.

One of the first times I ever truly attempted was after my ex fiancé and I got into a heated argument. She threatened to end the relationship and left our apartment. I tried to hang myself while she was gone. She found me and cut me down. The most serious of attempts? When my ex fiancé and I finally did split for good, I was a wreck. I’ll detail the story of she and I in another post but for now just know that we were engaged and she was a narcissistic abuser. She left me and I discovered she had feelings for her ex husband. I was devastated because I felt like I had given my all to make the relationship be the total whirlwind romance it initially was. Maybe a month or so after we split and I moved back into my parents home, I decided to kill myself. I had lost my fiancé, home, friends, her family which was like my own, pets, finances, all of it gone. I wanted to go painlessly and quickly just like anyone would. Hanging myself? Too much of a struggle. I watched dark web videos of people hanging themselves only to slowly suffer in agony when they weren’t killed instantly from the fall. (I did at one time attempt asphyxiating myself the way Robin Williams had. Loop a belt around your neck then close the tail in the top of the door and sit down.) Death by cop? Well that would just make me look like a psychopath, which I’m not. Drowning? Too easy to come back up for air and fight it. Slitting my wrists? Painful and if I didn’t do it just right I might end up in the hospital’s psych ward on an embarrassing involuntary hold. Shooting myself? Seemed the way to go. It’s quick and from research depending on where I aim the barrel, I could be precise in ensuring that I don’t fuck up and live a life as a vegetable. What made this even easier was when my grandpa died in 2019, his pistol became mine. I’d never owned a gun and now I had a .45 caliber revolver at my disposal. I wrote 3 letters. 1 to my mom. 1 to my ex (letting her know I don’t blame her) and 1 to a friend. The 4th note detailed where my mother could locate my body and instructed her to call the police and not to attempt to come to me herself. I didn’t want my mom to see me dead like that. I left the 4 pieces of paper out for her to find them. Packed up a couple of beach towels, trash bags, and my pistol. I chose the location with great purpose. I drove 30 minutes out into the country to a small one lane road called Groce Road. It is at this location I was in a nearly fatal car wreck in high school and I knew how isolated it was. At the end of the road there is a park. It was fall and the leaves were beautiful. I smoked as much marijuana as I could thinking if I was out of my mind, I wouldn’t be so scared to do it. I laid out the towels and trash bags so my brain matter didn’t make a mess of my truck. I pointed the pistol behind my right ear at the base of my skull to ensure the damage down would cease all life function capabilities. As I sat there, I noticed how beautiful the fall leaves were and I thought about how my actions were going to hurt those that loved me. If you’re going to kill yourself, thinking can really fuck up the process. I decided in my state of delirium that I would rather suffer with the feelings I was feeling than to make those I wrote letters to suffer my loss (ex fiancé included). I drove home and hid all the evidence of my attempt and nobody ever knew the difference. Do I regret not following through? Every day. Do I also think I made the right decision? When I see my mother or help someone at work, yes.

Suicidal ideation, severe depression, PTSD, and anxiety are my diagnoses. I started this blog because right now I am leaning more towards being actively suicidal than passively suicidal. I guess this is my way of both documenting my struggle should I commit to killing myself and me reaching out for help from others who may sympathize with what I’m going through.

[author-a-holmes]

Preface

This year was a year where I learnt a lot about myself. As many of you know, I released my debut novel, Changeling, in March. This was a literal dream come true for me, and I spent the majority of January, February and the first half of March editing the final files, and organizing the release.

All while trying to continue writing Darkling.

And then I burnt out. Hard. I wouldn't call it a mistake, I've learnt a lot about myself and the publishing process, and what my limits are, but it took me quite a bit longer than I'd have liked to recover from that burnout, and so my stats for this year, once I take a look at this, probably aren't going to be a steady as I'd like.

And what I mean by that is there were several periods where I tried to push forward, but had to let it go and continue just recuperating.

It's only been in the tail end of 2023 I've begun writing semi-regularly again, but I digress. Let's dig into some statistics for 2023...

Projects Worked On

Darkling 77,136 words (This year! Total manuscript is almost 100k right now) - Bonus Scene; 1,109

Flash Fiction Pieces 1,264 words over 4 pieces of flash fiction

Fanfiction 825 words over 2 pieces of fanfiction Fandoms: @night-market-if's The Night Market Interactive Fiction

Total Words Written in 2023: 82,415 Total Time Spent Writing in 2023: 71 hours 40 minutes

First Quarter - January-February-March

Words: 19,428 Time Writing: 19 hours 30 minutes Time Editing: 11 hours 20 minutes

This period I was hyper-focussed on getting ARC's of Changeling out to readers, finalising formatting, particularly for the Hardcover, reviewing proof copies, setting up all the various sales channels, and most of the time I logged in January was Editing Time as I needed to review the notes left my by Editor before release.

Once the editing was finalised, I tried catching up with Darkling in between everything else and this is where I really began struggling. I'd thrown myself into my self-edits in December of 2022, and in hindsight I really needed a break but, with a deadline approaching, I just couldn't take one.

Second Quarter - April-May-June

Words: 5,224 Time Writing: 2 hours 20 minutes

April and May I wrote absolutely nothing. Not a single word. And while I never announced it publically, June was supposed to be the original release date for Darkling.

Which meant I had to cancel my editor slot, and re-evaluate where I stood on what I could reasonably accomplish. This is really where I began to recognise how hard I'd pushed myself into a burnout.

After writing nothing for two months, June was where I tried to do a complete reset, and start from scratch building up my daily wordcount and, well. I just wasn't ready yet. I managed 2 days in June, on the 3rd and 4th, and then crashed back into writing nothing.

Third Quarter - July-August-September

Words: 1,346 Time Writing: 1 hour 20 minutes

After crashing in my reset attempt in June, I knew I had to just ride the burnout to it's end. Pushing was only going to make it last longer. I also knew I had a long-awaited holiday set in September. It was my first holiday in about 15 years, so I decided to not set any goals for this quarter. If the mood to write struck me, I'd go with it, but otherwise I was concentrating on reading, on preparing for my holiday, and on outlining other ideas, worldbuilding, and anything to do with my books that wasn't actually putting new words down on the page.

One of those things was figuring out a bonus scene to give away for Darkling Preorders, and I did try working on that a little in August. That's where most of my words for this quarter landed, but most of my time was spent outlining.

And the thing is, the holiday actually really helped. Where I went on holiday happened to be a very similar landscape/enviroment to one of the location in Darkling, and I found around the middle of the holiday I was handwriting in a notebook. I'd not done that in a long time.

Fourth Quarter - October-November-December

October Words: 2,439 Time Writing: 2 hours 45 minutes

November Words: 51,841 Time Writing: 43 hours 45 minutes

December Words: 2,273 Time Writing: 1hour 40 minutes

I came back from my holiday re-energised and knew I wanted to dive straight back into Darkling while still riding that high. I spent some time writing in October, before I hit a few snags and realised I needed to get a birds eye view on the plot.

So I stepped back from writing again to rehash my outline. I now have a timeline of events stuck to the large cupboard in my living room, but it set me up for success in November's Nanowrimo.

My original goal for Nano was 75k, which would have completed the Darkling Manuscript, but November Nano's are always hard, and I've only just pulled myself out of a 6-month burnout, so I had no intention of pushing myself too hard. I did win Nano, but with 51k and change.

Which left me just December to finish the final 20-25k. I'm always a little slower in December. A reaction to a fast Nanowrimo/November, combined with family and holiday seasonal stuff pulling at my time, so I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked, before Christmas prep took up all my free time. I did still managed a few thousand words though, so I was happy enough with that considering how the rest of 2023 had gone.

Goals for 2024

I try and keep my goals vague and loose, because I know I can't always commit to things, especially long term, but in general I'm just going to try and make self care a priority this year, while still making progress and moving forward with my writing.

Make my health a priority

Pace my writing and editing time to avoid burnout

Publish Darkling

Complete the Fey Touched manuscript

Send out my newsletter regularly

Books Read in 2023

I do consider the books I read part of my process. Something to refill the creative well, so here's a list of books I've read over the course of the year too...

Lux by Rae Else (My Review of 'Lux') .

Shut Up and Write The Book by Jenna Moreci (My Review of 'Shut Up & Write The Book') .

Fernweh Saga Book One (Interactive Fiction) (My Review of 'Fernweh Saga Book #1' on Steam) .

A Rival Most Vial by R.K. Ashwick (My Review of 'A Rival Most Vial') .

Changeling by Arista Holmes (Yes, I did reread my own book!) (Goodreads Reviews of Changeling; 4.58 Stars) .

The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff (Tradpub) .

The Night Market Book One by Zinnia Demitasse (Interactive Fiction) (My Review of 'The Night Market Book #1' on Steam) .

Wrath and Wraiths, Chronicles of the Dawnblade Book Four by Andrew Claydon (My Review of 'Wrath and Wraiths') .

The Signature Move by Cassandra Diviak (My Review of 'The Signature Move') .

City of Souls by Mel Harding-Shaw (Reread!) (My Review of City of Souls) .

Shards of Stasis by Mel Harding-Shaw .

Shrine of Stars by Mel Hardin-Shaw . And my current read it;

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski (Tradpub)

[liniestlink]

First Story

I posted this on my cohost first and will remain posting every writing I do there first and then sending it over to here at a later date.

A story I wrote in early high school fresh after reading A Clockwork Orange and you can tell, I went through, edited, and changed a few things but this is still the same story I wrote so many years ago. It is not good, you have been warned!

Date wrote: December 17, 2014

So… this is the story of a little incident that occurred about over two months ago, I wasn’t able to reflect on the incident until now due to personal connections so- please bear with me as I relive this event. It all started on January 4th, 1994, it was a rather chilly night as me and a friend were strolling down an alley as per-usual; we would stumble around and kick things just being carefree juveniles. Now none of this is to care for but I’m foretelling what has happened leading up to that day. I came over to my friend for no reason at all and struck him--- He looked at me dazed and confused and in a calm tone spoke to me in disfigured words. I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying because to be truthful I didn’t give a damn. So, after he put himself together, he got up and left; I smirked at the sight of his back to me, this was a sign that I had taken down yet another coward.

I sat alone in the cold as I looked back at the events that had just occurred, I snickered and checked my watch it read “twelve twenty-five” I slowly got up and finally decided maybe I should be on my way. I arrived at the shack of a home that I partake of slumbering in around one in the morning of course no-one was home. I went to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of some mischievous liquids and went on my way to bed. I awoke late into the night to a loud thump; I spoke to myself “Blasted idiots can’t they be quite when they come home” I go downstairs and to my surprise it wasn’t my parents, It was the friend of mine who I had recently ruffed up, in his hands smashing my stuff was a bat and at that moment I knew it was going to be a long night. I slowly walked in front of him “what are you doing in my house you dirty skunk” he replied in such hatred “I’m going to teach you not to mess with the great Attila he then attempted to strike me down but to his sad effort I laughed and spit on it. “The great Attila, ha what a sad name but it fits a fool like yourself so come make a mockery of yourself, I’m begging you.” This enraged the young fool as he charged this time... But I was mistaken for where he was swinging and found the bat on my knee, the pain was tremendous, and I fell onto my other knee.

He was quick to strike again and hit me upon my head and I dropped like a bag of bricks as he continued to beat me with the bat to a bloody mess. This was my last moment as he turned around so I reacted I slowly rose up and grabbed him by the shirt… the air then filled with a mixture of red to be exact, it didn’t take long for the night to go by but when I awoke the kid was gone leaving his filthy blood on my stuff; I must of got him real good I smirked at the thought of the bleeding limping fool. I slowly pushed myself up and grabbed my side in pain, I removed my hand and noticed it was drenched in red I winced and then slowly walked towards the door and swung it open; I stumbled around outside for about ten minutes before I collapsed in some random yard as I turned the snow around me red… it wasn’t long before the day went dark. I awoke inside a house freshly bandaged confused, dazed and not wanting the cops to find me I get up and head out of the stranger's door back out into the day, I glance at my wound bandaged now and thought a grateful thought but brushed it off in a matter of seconds. I didn’t need the help if I would have died, I would have died it didn’t mean any difference to me I rather be dead then live in such a dreadful world as I live in now but if I were to die it would be by someone else’s hand as death by my own would be a cowardly move. Since I was slashed last, days have gone by, I’ve done nothing. Its January 9th here and the new year is fresh and already filled with misery, but I believe it’s going to get worse from here on out and boy was I right but at first it wasn’t. As usual I walked to the old gas stand to pick up some milk and a little pint of the ol’ mischievous liquid. Now this isn’t what was eye catching about today as it was usual for me but what did catch my eye was a rather familiar face at first, I didn’t recognize the young fool and I imagine he either didn’t see me or was scared but it was the boy who gave me this dreadful gash. I could have attacked him right in the store but I rather not have witnesses so I will wait to find him and then the snow will be lined in his filthy blood just like it was with mine only a few days ago. So, I’ve been thinking what I will do and use to carry out my lovely act… oh boy the thoughts and ideas fill me with joy and delight.

A couple of days have passed since the run-in but nonetheless here we are surprisingly not rotting in jail, yet. It was a rather cool day especially for it being January, the wind was light, and the snowflakes drifted ever so kindly. It seems like a perfect day, but I haven’t had my way with that fool. I walked over to where I wanted to go. It was at the gas pump store a few days ago, I went in and bought some potato crisps and another bottle of that fine mischievous liquids this one had a fantastic smell like grapes to be exact. I walked outside and, on my way home in the alley I noticed someone just sitting, I wore a devious smirk and walked into the alley; maybe this wasn’t who I was after but either way the fun was coming. So, I walked up to this fool and roughed him up a bit, stealing the little cash he had and this lovely watch he had, now the fun was cut short when he yelped loudly, so I took off not taking a chance of ending up in the local jail. I was very cheerful after that today was a very cheerful day, I danced and sang on my way home with dried red on my knuckles and the biggest smirk on my face oh boy oh boy was today turning out to be one swell of a day. I arrived home around five and settled in on the sofa looking up gazing at the ceiling, that was the last thing I saw before I dazed off into slumber for the next few hours.

So, I awoke after a long night on the eve of January 15th. It was a Sunday and the Friday before stirred up some fools speaking of bad mojo as if a silly thing like mojo even existed such naive fools. I ran into that agitating idiot Attila and oh boy was today a great day to stop his chest from flowing. As you might have guessed, yes, he’s gone, and I could be in a few days if the cops catch on, but they’re fools, we will see how this all pans out. It was a Sunday and I was by the stream, this is where it happen I ran up on the poor Attila while fishing he noticed me right away, He looked at me and smirked “come back for more eh’” I walked slowly to him “You won’t be walking nor breathing any longer” so he got up and pulled out a pocket knife, I knew that if I didn’t end him here I wasn’t going to come back from this one. We walked in a circle staring each other down, it didn’t take long for him to lunge and get me good, really good to be exact his blade was now completely red and I was in a painful situation but he must have thought he won which was a huge mistake as I lunged onto him grabbing his arm and pushing his head underwater. I then held it there for minutes after he stopped moving, after I pulled him out, I smirked and began kicking him, for the final touch, I took his knife and jammed it into his chest.

January 19th, it took them long enough, but they found the trash that I left behind and now it was all over the news, but being the great person I am, I seemed to have left no evidence this time, so I watch and laugh at their pitiful efforts. The coppers did come to talk today but oddly it wasn’t for questioning of the murder but oddly enough it was if I was doing fine, now this is rather odd seeing on how there was a murder recently that I was involved in, maybe they suspect me. My suspicions were greatened through the past few days as they continuously stopped by to check on me, I knew what I had to do; I had to leave or be sent to jail and have a rather miserable life from here on out. Today is January 20th. I’m going to go out and buy some supplies such as food before I go to Ukaly where a friend awaits me. He promises to help me out seeing as I’m in a bit of trouble. It could be a day or two before I report again if I ever do it again.

So… I believe it’s January 23rd and my suspicions were correct; I should have just gone to jail it would have been a lot better than what happened. So, let’s recount on the events that took place the last three days, well on January 21st I arrived in Ukaly and stayed at my friend’s house. Now when things turned sour, he was the least person I would suspect to push me to the ground but he did, maybe I deserve all that’s happened this month for the things I’ve done… too late to turn back now what happened, happened. I stayed at my friend’s house that night and that wasn’t it as on January 22nd I was forced out and beaten by him… I don’t know why this happened from what I remember I didn’t do him wrong… well not to him personally. I may have did something unspeakable to a family member of his, his sister to be exact, that’s it then the world is turning on me for the bad I have done maybe it’s trying to force me to change but that’s not how this works; try to change me it won’t work not even with karma I’ll just strike back harder.

It's January 24th. I left Ukaly after I paid my old pal a visit. You should have seen his face as I stood there beating it in with a pipe; his screams filled me with such delight. I left him lying there barely breathing. Now I’m not the bad guy here, he was most indefinitely asking for the beating, you never provoke your superior. Now that there was nowhere left to go, I decided to go back to where it all started, I was going back home where I should have stayed all this time. I took off from Ukaly the day I beat that fool to death and arrived home on January 25th back to the pitiful town of Besharan’ my hometown, I waited outside the city limits till night fell just in case the police were still after me (if they even were in the first place.)

The police were waiting for me in my house to apprehend me and take me off to the brig. Look at this, the month is nearly over, and I have to spend it in jail, there is no sign of life in this cell just cold and the void of darkness. I wonder how long I’ll be here; I can’t take it in this dreadful place. Jail isn’t the place for me to be, I can’t do what I wish to do anymore, hopefully I get off with a fine of some sort seeing as this all happened in self-defense technically.

Hello, my good people, sorry to bring you such fright, I know I was a little late. I had the most wonderful time and now five vessels lay ready to be shipped off. I won’t go into too great of detail seeing as I got a little carried away, the initial plan was for only one or maybe two and come describe them full on but seeing as there’s a few more I’ll just give a brief explanation of each. So first off let’s start with the young lass I got to know, I may have enjoyed her to much especially after the eyes rolled out; sadly, for her family they won’t recognize her anymore poor little girl you were fun while it lasted. Now for the next unlucky visitor his name was Ronald he actually was off work at the time I meet him, the poor miserable man, something rose in me after I got rid of him, a disgusting feeling in me, what’s wrong?

I’m sorry, it is now January 29th and after these few days of silence, I don’t feel the same anymore, I feel a sickness deep within myself and I don’t know what to do. Is this what guilt feels like? I don’t know how much longer I can allow this feeling to eat at me, maybe some hard medication can help ease this feeling and I can go back to how I used to be. It’s now one thirty in the morning and I’m shaking the images of people I have hurt keep flowing into my mind and my stomach continues to grow uneasily… this feeling is swallowing me alive and there seems to be no escape; even the countless pills don’t help me. How could I have these feelings? It’s not natural I shouldn’t have these regrets they deserved what happened to them! Maybe I just need sleep… maybe it will all go away in time… these images though are eating away at me.

It’s January 30th approximately nine twenty-five, I had a decent sleep, and the images only flooded my dreams once, it turns out that my sleep deprivation was causing these dreaded hallucinations; I am fine once more and due to by health I will have to go out and make these two days’ worth it. Those dammed images came back… I don’t know what’s happening my mind is racing and I’m struggling ever so greatly to cope with it… I don’t know how much longer I can hang on… my regrets and guilt are building up… I believe if I don’t get help that I’m going to fall and collapse… please my people I need the help… please… your superior is begging for your assistance.

January 31st…... January is ending, and I believe I have as well… I can’t hang on any longer. I finally have been consumed by regret… the horrible…dreadful things that I have done. I don’t deserve to belong to this world; ungrateful scum is what I am. Imagine this a person like me thought so high of himself now at his breaking point, this in the end tells you that even ruthless people such as myself have breaking points. Why did it have to come now…? I enjoyed myself the most at this time of the year… whatever be the case, I can’t take it anymore. I haven’t slept for hours upon hours and when I try, I see the horrid faces of victims of my acts. In the end I was right I am going to fall and collapse for people to watch… Goodbye my friends and now out the window I go into the soft ground cover in sheets of snow.

A Detective’s Afterthoughts

After about three to four days the cops found out who the man the leaped from the window was… it was a nineteen-year-old named Boyd Richards, he had a troublesome past and seemed to suffer from delusions. His parents have been dead since he was three, I believe this could have something to do with what he did but, in the end, he was just another killer. Goodbye now Detective Armistead takes his leave- stay safe out there, this case may be closed but I believe it’s far from being over even with Boyd dead.

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (474): Tue 4th Jun 2023

Ant and Dec have announced they will produce a reboot of Byker Grove. It’ll be interesting to see how they work around the fact that in the final episode of the original show the characters all discover that they are just fictional characters in a TV show. I imagine they just won’t mention it. What I don’t get is how come Ant and Dec never turned up to the finale? They showed up for Geoff’s funeral so it stands to reason they should be able to return for the death of the entire show!  In school I had to write a report on the Battle of Britain but couldn't be bothered so instead I turned in a screenplay I wrote called "PJ Gans Mad" where PJ from Byker Grove gets an eye transplant from a dead serial killer who possesses PJ and makes him kill the other Grovers. Speaking of Ant and Dec I remember seeing a documentary on Michael Barrymore where they said one of the reasons ITV resisted bringing him back is that a lot of their adverts are for travel shows and involve swimming pools. This is a bit rich because I imagine that there are some car adverts in between shows featuring Ant McPartlin.

I had an appointment with the physiotherapy clinic at the university tonight. The lass asked me about the issues I’ve been having with my neck and explained about the surgery and the fact that my neck was still uncomfortable. Annoyingly after all this she asked me what I expected to get out of physiotherapy. I mean, surely this is covered in day one of physio school right? This is like a chef asking someone in their restaurant what they are looking to get out of food. She asked me what I did for hobbies and I told her that I was going to Jiu Jitsu classes before all this shit with my neck started. I do have other hobbies but I doubt she need to know about my attempt to read every Edgar award winning novel. As she was massaging my back she asked why my calf muscles were so big and I told her it’s because I go running quite a lot. She asked me why I didn’t mention this when she asked me about my hobbies and I said it was because running is not a hobby. I fucking hate running but I do it so that I don’t get so fat that I die of a massive heart attack. Anywho she ended up giving me a load of other stretches to do with n order to strengthen my spine and blah blah blah. I knew I should have gone to a fucking chiropractor. I’ll give these exorcises a go but I know for a fact they’re not going to make a bit of difference.

[havroth-traveler]

J3: hpmor pt 5

The headmaster office was full of noise and movement. A hundred little pops, ticks and whirls, filled the silence as we entered the room. Dumbledore indicated that I should sit, as he took his own seat behind the desk. "Now, Mr. Maynard, I think you should tell me what you think you know"

I took a deep breath and started with basics. "I know about Harry blackmailing you to get Snape errrr Professor Snape to be gentler with the younger students." I hurried on before he questioned home I knew about that, while avoiding his eyes. "I know about the prophecies about Harry Potter. I know about the 3rd floor corridor." I kept rushing on, as the headmaster eyebrows furoghed more and more.

"I'm not doing a very good job of this head master. I've never tried to explain this to someone before". Dumbledore nodded a little and expressed that it's okay to be over whelmed about everything, especially if I know so many things that other 11 year olds do not. "I can know everything that's going to happen in the next 5 months like it was a book a read years ago."

I took a breath, let it half out and paused. I looked the head master in the eyes. "I give you permission to look in my mind and see what I'm about to tell you is true." The Headmaster blue eyes bore into mine, like he was staring right into my soul. It had been years of being a criminal, and working with criminals and now here I was playing with school children. I know the power of > would prevent anyone from seeing too deeply, and the real truth about everything but it felt like all the dirt and grime of what I did I'm empire city was exposed.

"It seems you've had a hard life before coming here, David, though I feel that isn't your true name". I nodded at the headmaster's words. "I hope you can trust me to act on my best judgement on what your about to tell me." Again I nodded and started to tell him what was going to happen in the next 6 months.

I highlighted a few key events, that might make my suggestions at the end more reliable. I asked for parchment that I could write down my predictions and so that my words could be verified without Dumbledore foreknowledge tampering with events. He was very understanding for not meddling with the timeline.

The first letter was titled "Azkaban". I folded it in half, and on the inside wrote "Bellatrix Black will escape. This will happen roughly while harry is having lunch with professor Quirrel during occlumency lessons. Harry will not admit to anything, but faux will comfort him"

I repeated the process a second time. I titled it "Bullies". Inside I wrote "Hermoine Granger will lead a group of witches to fight bullies ending in a very dramatic, dark ritual like performance. The ritual was organized by Harry, and executed by Quirrel, who will attend masquerading as one of the bullies. Snape will also be at the final event, but will be found out."

The third note titled "Troll", "A troll will be released in the castle. It will attack Hermione granger probably to death. Harry, Fred and George Weasley will attempt to save her. This will happen after Hermione is put on trial for the attempted murder of Draco Malfoy"

Finally with the 4th note, I wrote "For when I have your trust" This was possibly the most problematic piece of the puzzle. I wanted to the head master alive, but also have Hermoine Granger revived.

"If you read this after Bellatrix escapes, than you need to know, Professor Quirrell is Tom Riddle, more specifically he is the reformed soul from a horcrux. He tricked Harry into freeing Bellatrix with stories of how the Dark Lord twisted her with torture and dark rituals.

The biggest problem is that Tom has several horcruxes, and must no be slain. If he is slain he will reform in nearly any other of several dozen horcruxes. I believe stunning him, memory charming him, and transfiguring his still living body into a rock would be the most reliable method of sealing him.

If I have gained your trust after the Bullies, then you should know that professor Quirrell has, or is about to preform a series of memory charms, and Ligilimency to make Hermione ruminate on how Draco wants to hurt her. I do not know the details, but the wards of Hogwarts should be tuned to detect slow damage to students, and memory charms, even those cast by professors. I hope to avoid a plot when Hermione attempts to kill Draco with a blood cooling charm. Failure to prevent this is the single biggest sign that one who will devours the very stars is sure to appear.

Finally if the troll has already arrived the tragedy has happened I will tell you of what will happen at the end. During the final quidditch match of the year, Tom, and Harry will attempt challenge and gauntlet of the 3rd floor corridor. They will practically breeze through the tests. Harry will be made aware of the professors true nature, and his connection to him. Harry will be used as a bargaining piece and hostage to escape the trap you have set in the mirror.

If Tom gets the stone, he will be able to revive Hermione, and will place Harry under a substantial unbreakable vow. Harry has the tools and trick to escape, slay the remnant of the death eaters, and seal the dark lord. He will position Hermione as the slayer the dark lord.

the earlier you read these things the less reliable the rest will be, but the sooner you have a chance to act. "

With a sign, I set down my quill, folded the last letter, and massaged my arm. That was some of the tenses writing I've ever done. I watched as the head master gathers the letters and carefully tucked them away in his desk.

"I don't know what your wrote but your clearly bothered by it. If you ever have more you feel you need to tell me, ask Professor Flitwick to arrange it." He gestured and the behind me door opened. "And I'll trust to your silence the details of what you saw today" I nodded "Of course Professor" and left.

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

Jump

Character sheet

First post  

[alatusxiaoo]

i like him, not you!

synopsis: in which you’ve finally mustered up the courage to express a bashful confession to your best friend and six-year crush…only to accidentally dispatch your heartfelt message to the wrong person.

character/s: albedo, ayato, childe, kazuha, xiao, scaramouche, thoma

a/n: @sohyuki ilysm have a wonderful day queen <3

the first thing you do is run away.

in a way, you have always been good at that. scampering from those undivulged words and imminent encounters that instilled fear in you. it spoke to you almost like a natural instinct, left you with a bitter taste on your tongue, tormented you with a sick sensation twisting your stomach.

because of this, you ran from a lot of things. from your parents whenever they frowned upon a low grade on your report card, from a pompous asshole you later mustered the tiniest courage to shove down during fourth grade, from the unwitting attention of sunbeam-amber eyes meeting yours, and from your best friend whom you’ve practically loved for the longest time.

and you decide the last one is something you’ll finally want to quit running away from.

eight little letters and three simple words, yet for six long years they have meant more than the world to you. he has always meant more than the world to you.

so you attempt to construct it all within proper sentences — desperately trying not to jumble up your phrases while trying to provide the impression that you sure as hell hadn’t been shaking tremendously as you wrote it.

but it’s so difficult to even spare a meek glance at it. so annoying that it pesters thrumming vibrations in the depths of your stupid heart. so fucking frustrating that you don’t actually bother looking at it anymore when your fingers hover over the word ‘send’.

you’ve shut your phone off after that singular moment, and stashed it away in a nearby drawer for safekeeping. and for the entire weekend, you convince yourself that you didn’t really care anymore. six years didn’t matter because you weren’t expecting an answer. just an outlet for these emotions and a burden lifted off your weighted shoulders.

and for the first time in a long while, you acknowledge how liberating it feels to not want to run.

Y/N’S CONTACTS.

him <3 (kaedehara kazuha)

✉ 4:47 am, april 4th (mon).

[ 1 new message! ] : psst. arcade after class today? :)

ah, but who would be an idiot not to fall for him?

you’ve guessed he’s received so many incessant compliments and heartfelt confessions, that despite how frustratingly courteous he was — could never actually bother wasting his time sorting through each and every one of them.

so you figure that you’re in the clear, and he won’t have to burden himself with formulating a sharp answer.

or at least, that’s what you reassure yourself when monday comes around and he greets you with an ever-familiar and warm smile.

and is also perhaps why he pretends like nothing has actually happened…

because if that happened to be the case, he was rather good at acting pretty normal. you knew that if you’d ever received such a confession from somebody, you would have been freaking out a lot more — and depending on whether you reciprocated their emotions, either avoiding or confronting them.

but this…was a little too cold of a reaction.

and yet, at the same time, you were thankful he still kept approaching and talking to you as usual. above all, kazuha was your best friend before he was the person you wanted to be romantically involved with. you could never really bear the thought of losing him as a close confidante.

but it hurt like hell because he was always too kind, always too impossible not to love. always with the 1 am calls and his soft voice when you couldn’t fall asleep. always with the weekend home visits to his place so you could share a meal together. always with the sleepovers or out catching a midnight film. always a shoulder to lean on when the tears were too much. always, always there.

you know he’ll never love you the way you knew just exactly how to love him. and that’s okay.

but if looks and words could have honestly fooled, it almost seemed like he was ridiculously unaware that you had even confessed to him in the first place.

everything stayed the same.

and you can’t help but feel sick at the reality, because a part of you wanted to believe that kazuha was in love with you, at least once in his life and perhaps never again. in sleepless turned drowsy midnight calls, in fleeting glances inside the deserted cinema, in homemade meals and warm smiles, in drowning tears and comforting hugs. in the briefest of seconds when he realized you were always there.

but the thing about love is that it’s blinded you enough to not think about the probability that he might just like you. that he may or may not have been avoiding all other confessions because he only hoped for yours. that he may be hesitating every time you two get closer because he thinks you won’t want him back. that at 1 am while you’re whispering softly through the phone about your day, kazuha’s thinking about all the pragmatic reasons not to blurt out mid-conversation that he’s always been madly in love with you.

you know one thing for sure when you dazedly stare at your phone later that day. love has blinded you enough to not think twice about why kazuha might not be acting any differently than you had initially expected. why he’s so infuriatingly unfazed. why he should have been having a more violent reaction instead of making the same silly jokes with you.

and boy, you’re bewildered when you find two chat notifications waiting in your message box. one from kazuha, inviting you to the nearby arcade after class…except for some absurd reason, there’s no record of an embarrassingly heartfelt confession registered in your shared chat history.

the second from a boy you barely knew but always subconsciously noticed in class, sitting rather ominously in your DMs with the strangest of messages. and it’s only when you begrudgingly open your shared chat, that you clearly feel how your heart stops in one horrifying instant.

because sitting there in the most unexpected of places, lies the culmination of six long years building up to a terribly emotional confession.

but…it’s not for the boy you had hoped would receive it.

that guy in class (xiao)

✉ 11:54 pm, april 2nd (sat).

[ 1 new message! ] : who are you?

xiao wishes there was a guidebook for how to handle all probable awkward situations, in the unfortunate circumstance that he’d ever find himself impossibly lodged in the middle of one.

but there’s none that exist to date. and he thinks not even the internet can help him figure out what to respond to a sudden and random heartfelt confession sitting peacefully in his message inbox.

he hasn’t exactly done anything to be loved or wanted by anyone. and at first, your contact name barely registers anyone he recognizes in his head. so he sends the first question he thinks of as a response, and shuts his phone to close his eyes and rest.

but then sunday morning comes and it clicks. he remembers. he knows who you are. because of that, xiao finds it all absurd.

it wasn’t like he intended to stare at you. he was always prone to dozing off mid-classes, eyes instinctively sweeping across every inch of the classroom, outside the window to greet the blinding light of the morning sun, and then reluctantly retreating back inside…

only to see you. and for you to see him.

so the odd pattern repeats. everyday.

you’d think he have broken out of such a quirky habit of looking. he’d think you’d have stopped meeting his eyes every single time. but you always manage to see each other — and past that, neither of you dare make the effort to talk to one another.

it was some sort of unspoken understanding between you two, momentary peace that isn’t built on a real connection. just that he finds comfort in your eyes, while you’re left breathless at his.

but for you to confess, and oh so suddenly without any particular reason to make you like him.

so he realizes the message presently occupying his DMs (and unconsciously plaguing his thoughts) isn’t truly meant for him.

monday eagerly arrives, and he stares. more often than usual, more often than he’d want to. he wonders if you’ve noticed how you fucked up, because he’s almost certain he knows who your vulnerable confession is intended for.

and it’s late in the afternoon when you shyly pull him aside to talk about it. how embarrassed you were by your clumsy mistake, how deeply you felt apologetic for sending it to him, but most importantly of all —

“i’m really sorry, but i like someone else and not you!”

strange how your first conversation turns out like this. he’s always imagined it would begin very differently. perhaps with you pointing out the fact that he always gazes at you, him asking you in return why you always look back.

and almost on impeccable cue, you suddenly smile and tell him about all the times you recognized him because of how often your eyes met, even though you’ve never talked to each other. you’re sorry for not talking with him sooner.

but xiao thinks nothing is going to change just because you’ve verbally acknowledged each other.

he was sort of wrong. the next time you met glances, you smiled. several more times after you’ve started doing it, he starts to reciprocate with the smallest of smiles too — the kind that makes you feel like its your shared little secret.

and you’ve both changed in certain ways. you talked with each other more often, occupying vacated classrooms during breaks and making a bit more room for each other within your drastically different lives. he even starts to join you during lunch whenever kazuha was too occupied with homework, and lets you drag him along to amusement parks or anime events you presumed kazuha wasn’t too interested in.

but the craziest part about it all was that you admitted to never actually confessing to kazuha after all that’s happened.

perhaps you were left traumatized by your previous opportunity to confess to your best friend. perhaps because of a certain “someone’s” consistent jokes, you were too horrified to ever want to confess to somebody ever again. perhaps you were simply confused about the new boy weaving his way into your life.

one thing’s for sure, xiao feels strangely relieved that you decided not to send the actual message to your crush.

and maybe even a little dirty part of him hopes you’ll eventually forget about confessing to kazuha at the end of it all.

saturday boyfriend (childe)

✉ 9:06 am, april 5th (tues).

[ 1 new message! ] : so you’re the girl who likes xiao?

the thing is, childe could have never actually perceived the day when he’d get a phone call late in the evening from xiao, inquiring about what to say in response to an abrupt confession from a stranger.

his brusque and characteristically quiet best friend — had suddenly gotten some crazy chick to fall for him? with that shitty personality?

oh, the unexpected news gave childe the laughter of a lifetime. and yet, he couldn’t help but feel curious about the idea of it. what kind of interesting person would ever be attracted to someone like that guy? (respectfully, of course.)

fortunately to satiate the whirlwind of questions that night, xiao later sends him a text of your name with a message not to bother you.

and childe’s eyes go wide when he eventually puts a face to the name. you, the weird chick always absently staring over at xiao in classes?

perhaps he should’ve seen it coming. he did think it was weird how he sometimes found you glancing quietly towards his friend. but he sort of assumed you’d have liked kazuha instead — you know, your actual best friend — over some guy you’ve never even talked to in your life.

so with the right determination, he makes it his personal mission the following monday to devote his own precious time for a stakeout. because who’s to say you weren’t secretly some disgusting pervert targeting your uninhibited emotions to an innocent classmate?

childe observes you from afar the whole day. from the moment you found your seat in class that morning, watching you lock eyes with xiao mid-science discussion, routinely tagging along with kazuha for lunch, and even as you’re concentrating on a note-taking phase during the afternoon break.

you haven’t made any explicit moves towards xiao…yet. it’s a rather normal and innocuous day for you.

until afternoon comes — and near the school gates, he watches as you awkwardly tug xiao aside to talk to him briefly. childe pauses in his steps, staring at your huddled silhouettes while attempting to decipher the distinct mood of the conversation. he sees you smile at one point, and how you courteously greet each other goodbye when it’s over.

did xiao accept your feelings then?

that night, he gets your number from a mutual friend, and sends you a harmless text message the next morning. if xiao reciprocated your interest in him that day, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to eventually get to know each other during the long run.

but when he arrives in school, he’s greeted by the sight of you staring at him in surprise and asking if you could spare him a minute of his time to talk. and it’s right then that you explain and attempt to clear up the misunderstanding that transpired between you and his best friend.

it still makes childe laugh at the absurdity of it whenever he thinks about the mistaken confession, and how throughly embarrassed you must have been for unhesitatingly sending it to a complete stranger.

from that fateful day on, you two started to become close friends. and to mark that unforgettably momentous occasion for you — childe would routinely find a way to weave his presence into your saturdays, bringing flowers, chocolates, typical department-store love letters, or text you a long ass cheap excuse of a profession — to remind you of your “beautifully executed confession”. even though really, it’s just a dumb excuse to poke infuriating jokes at you.

those continuous, and admittedly humorous endeavors of his, became some part of the reason why you could never bring yourself to confess to kazuha again…or anyone else for that matter.

and you know, maybe celibacy was the way your life was always destined to be. maybe you weren’t supposed to give out your heart to other guys, because you were solely meant to receive any form of romantic gesture every saturday from a certain ginger-haired bastard. and well, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing to have in the world.

or maybe he’s accidentally caught feelings when he suddenly put more thought than he should have, into picking out a gift on a random saturday.

maybe one average saturday, he’ll unconsciously fall for your smile and the sarcastic words of gratitude you’ll throw back at him.

and maybe, just maybe…on some imminent saturday, he won’t know what more to give other than his real and heartfelt confession to you.

homework hotline (albedo)

✉ 6:15 am, april 7th (thurs).

[ 1 new message! ] : hey, coming over to yours later for that project due next week.

you’ve had close friends come over to your apartment often, but none have ever made you feel as utterly relieved compared to when albedo visits.

it’s always been challenging for you to keep track of homework loads, or stay motivated while reviewing for an upcoming test due the end of the week. and albedo’s presence magically helps you to be productive with exactly all of that.

perhaps you feel more motivated, or somewhat pressured to accomplish tasks in the company of a person who’s actually mastered diligence. whatever it is, for the past few years it’s given you higher grades than you’ve ever expected to receive pitted against your previous academic years.

and ever since then, you’ve made it a point to always partner up together during projects, which he easily obliges to. plus, you’ve succeeded as a team in plenty of tasks for so long, that albedo naturally feels more inclined to work with you.

he also can’t deny that the company is indeed familiar and comfortable, therefore making it the most preferable alternative.

besides, he’s made himself at home in your apartment for a handful of years now, that it’s almost as if he practically lives together with you. an extra toothbrush left in your bathroom cupboard, a similar set of pillows and blankets stashed inside your closet, albedo’s hoodies and clothes folded in a neat pile within a separate drawer — his presence in your home was always just there.

which is why later that evening, as you and albedo are busy preparing dinner before you cram an overnight agenda of finishing several projects in advance, he casually suggests the idea of moving in together instead.

and it’s frankly not that terrible of an idea. the rent would be split between you both so you’d save much more, there would be no more trouble commuting to each other’s places to finish school-related tasks, house chores would be divided amongst the two of you, and albedo could occupy the apartment while you were out on weekly visits or sleepovers in kazuha’s.

so the deed is done. by the following week, you’ve already prepared other necessary accommodations, and albedo comes over with a small duffel bag (since most of his stuff was already left at your place) and a brand new key for your shared abode.

neither of you can really feel like something has changed. if anything, it seems more natural to have him permanently living with you because it makes things more convenient.

and ever since then, you’ve been constantly seen together a lot more frequently inside the university premises (causing some familiar faces grow envious at the sight of it), but the both of you preferred to keep your current home status as a personal secret so as not to fuel too many strange rumors.

you do homework with each other a lot more often. you’re also left in awe by the occasional detailed doodles scrawled across the corner pages of his lecture notebook. one late evening, you were wondering if it was the sleep taking over you, or he actually drew a little portrait of you on one of the tightly folded pages.

everyday, you’d take turns doing certain things during your well-deserved breaks. albedo, on one hand, teaches you how to draw and paint. you’re not exactly the best at artistic endeavors, but he was always patient and supportive, going as far as to provide specific remarks on the things you needed improvement with.

on other days, you’d convince him to sit down with you to binge food while watching your favorite films. he’d initially oblige to appease your kindness and hadn’t realized it at first — but at some later point, he ended up loving all the same movies as you did.

it’s slow but anticipated, the way he falls in love with you. perhaps a part of him has always seen this ending coming — recognized the dangerous path he was treading, and yet took it without any complaint.

even though he saw through your heart and how you wanted someone else. even as he witnessed the romantic gifts you carried back home with a giddy smile. even while he listens to you upsettingly vent about the most impertinent guy who keeps making his way back into your life.

because maybe deep down, he’s always hoped to love someone like this. the sound of your laughter filling his ears while making dinner. films on television illuminating your face in the darkness. yawns you stifle when it’s midnight and you’re almost finished with homework. fluttering eyes in the morning. enchanting smiles quirking across your lips. napping soundly on the study desk even though you kindly insisted on waiting up for him before you both slept. how it feels to talk about everything and nothing at the same time.

it’s natural and innate. foreign yet so familiar. a breath of fresh air. and yet, the feeling of home lingers across his fingertips.

a written, unchangeable, and hopeless destiny for albedo to always fall without constraint. and the saddest truth is — he wouldn’t have wanted this love for any other way.

BLOCKED — 4th grader asshole (scaramouche)

✉ 2:35 pm, april 9th (sat).

[ 1 new message! ] : you’re paying for the next meal dumbass.

scaramouche to you was a lot of things. perhaps the first and most notable one of them all was that he was an impressively pompous asshole.

and you suppose he’s always been like that. the same bitchy bully you’ve regretfully crossed paths with during the fourth grade.

the strangest part is, you’ve never actually done anything to piss the boy off. or at least, none you could still vividly remember. but you were certain that you weren’t too shitty as a kid, and your first interaction with scaramouche wasn’t even close to offensive.

it happened on the elementary playground, when you first caught sight of the little boy eagerly chasing after his friends, before suddenly tripping over a rock and diving straight into the ground. you remember the degrading echoes of his friends’ laughter, how you worriedly walked over to him and asked if he was okay. how you stretched your hand out to the kid on the ground, and how he stared at you with an unreadable gaze. and before you even knew it, past that singular moment, every single day of 4th grade became absolute war.

could anyone blame you for simply being courteous? he had terribly shitty friends and you only wanted to help…which yes, unexpectedly backfired with irreparable consequences. how were you to know in that second that something horrible would happen?

maybe you should never have approached scaramouche that day. or maybe you also would’ve regretted never helping him out.

either way, the thought has always plagued the back of your mind, and you wonder if your life would have changed so drastically had you made a different choice in that playground.

even until today, he still somehow manages to wander into your life oh so effortlessly. in the hallways, ramming into your shoulder without sparing a mere glance or an apology. in the middle of class, absently toying with your free locks of hair while you grumble several coherent insults towards the boy. during gratitude day, him stealing your white blouse scribbled in your friends’ messages and writing some of his own unwanted words on it. in the art room, cornering you with that devilish smirk and a finger against his lips as he warns you not to make a single sound, while the hall monitor angrily screeches his name around the deserted corridors…most likely intending to throw him in detention.

even at the comfort of your own home — he’s the neighbor who (unfortunately) moved around the same time as you did, except he lives in the spacious flat two floors below.

and it infuriates you to the ends of the earth. how he’s always been there. how he somehow still is.

when you aced a major test, he was there with an irritated scoff, reminding you not to get too full of yourself. when he saw how you started to fall for kazuha in the early years, he was there to poke fun of you for wanting a “nice” guy, because nice was just an equivalent for boring. when he saw you standing outside your house beneath the rain — soaked, shivering, and frustrated after a big argument with your parents — he shoved an umbrella in your face and told you how you looked absolutely horrendous.

he’s seen too much of you, both in your happiest and at your worst. not even others like kazuha or close family friends have witnessed or known such dark parts of you. why did it have to be him? this boy who has been constantly tormenting you for several years of your life?

even as you surround yourself with better people, you still think about the insolent asshole roaming around the hallways. still overly conscious about his presence whenever you’re in the same room (more than you would have wanted). still thinking about his umbrella in the rain.

and perhaps that was the most perplexing thing which unknowingly drew you to scaramouche. that you never really knew which side of him you were going to get everyday.

one moment he’s explicitly arguing with you in the middle of plain daylight (which unfortunately, later lands you both in detention) — then all of a sudden, you’re riding a bus at midnight to your apartment alone, and he’s the person coincidentally seated next to you, flinching at your snot as he hurriedly juts a handkerchief towards your teary face.

he’s always headed towards the apartment at the same time you exit the bus coming from the university. and although you two constantly bicker and fight along the way back to the building, he was there to accompany you on the lonely walk home.

he pokes fun about your painfully obvious crush on your best friend, but tones it down on the sunday he sees you with puffy red eyes after confessing and attempting to convince yourself you didn’t care if he didn’t want you back.

even more so when you’re unwillingly forced to share a table with him inside a popular and crowded restaurant during lunch — him insulting you for the way you scarf down your food like a pig, and yet his hand subconsciously reaches out to wipe the sauce smudge on the corner of your lips before casually licking it off his thumb.

you’re staring at him in confusion, grateful yet weirded out at the…generous gesture. but all he does is scoff disapprovingly at your face, because there’s no masking the strange red flush that creeps up your cheeks from the uncharacteristic tension and his sudden physical contact.

and for the first time in the years you’ve known him, you’ve only made yourself presently aware of the reddish tint that sets the tips of his ears aglow.

what you’ll never actually realize is how much effort he’s been constantly making to conceal that singularly instinctive (and frankly, repulsive) action that reminds him of how vulnerable you’ve always made him feel — ever since you gave him your hand back in fourth grade.

it would’ve helped him a lot more if he had never noticed you prior to that. how nice you were to the other kids and teachers. how adorable you looked in those neat pigtails. how you had unknowingly charmed every single person into the palm of your hand, and how you were still so infuriatingly enchanting and oblivious at the effect you had on others…even until today.

he hated feeling vulnerable more than anything else in the world, knowing that he was also one of those idiots helplessly wrapped around your finger. just that unlike the rest of them, he’d never actually stoop down so low with his pride to say it out loud.

and he hated that everyday, you were always making it all the more easier for him to admit it to himself. to scream out to the world that scaramouche hated how much he has somehow, foolishly, and quite impossibly, always been in love with you.

organization hottie (ayato)

✉ 5:23 pm, april 9th (sat).

[ 1 new message! ] : see you on monday.

you tried not to squeal too loudly when you suddenly received the text message. but albedo could see the way you tightly pressed your lips together to stifle back a wide whooping grin.

and why wouldn’t you be thrilled? you had just gotten accepted into your university’s official charity organization! it was certainly the perfect opportunity to expose yourself to more learning experiences and activities past the fields of academics.

obviously, it wasn’t like a super attractive person was currently heading the committee and had just sent you a text saying you got accepted a couple minutes ago…

or…okay.

so maybe there’s a bit of an influence. i mean, was it that bad to find a guy who devotes his time for others insanely charming?

of course, it wasn’t anything serious like the way you felt for kazuha. it was more of a happy crush, if you would call it — someone you have a slight romantic admiration for, but don’t exactly harbor any deep feelings towards them.

admittedly, you had naturally considered the prospect of finding yourself with nothing to do over the course of summer, and you figured applying in the organization wouldn’t do much harm for you anyway…even though you had some reservations about the final decision to sign up for it.

and then, you heard about how ayato was recently elected to oversee the committee activities for the following year. thus, the rest was simply history.

the next week, you’re swamped with exchanging introductions among several new members and almost immediately busying yourself with the upcoming project meeting.

oddly enough, you’ve been assigned in the same team as ayato for your first project. and although you began on a rather rough and awkward start together, he guides you through the transitioning process until you’ve learned at least enough things to handle some separate tasks independently.

you’ve always assumed ayato was an overly formal and aloof person to approach compared to the others — however on the contrary, you were pleasantly surprised to discover that he also beheld a mischievous side conflicting his own outer demeanor.

there were days when even he would occasionally reach out to talk about things past organization-related matters. simple questions such as asking about some input on a certain movie, if you had completed this previously given assignment, or merely checking how your day was going.

and maybe it was just strange for you to suddenly realize how human ayato feels.

sure, he was often distant and burdened under plenty of responsibilities. you’ve heard your fair share of rumors and how he was always seemingly placed on a pedestal above all — perhaps you’d almost forgotten that at the end of the day, he was still just trying to get his own shit together, like everybody else.

he was precisely nothing short of a normal guy. the kind who pokes good fun around and plays chess on breaks. the kind who still asks if you want to accompany him to springtime festivals. the kind who smiles at you when he sees you standing across the hallway. the kind who elbows you subtly when you’ve dozed out in the middle of somebody’s monologue. the kind who feels like you‘re somehow beginning to know him better than you know yourself.

and ayato thinks you’re the kind he wondered what would happen had he met you all those years ago instead. if he had an opportunity to know you better before, than he did today. if he would have liked you any sooner, or always just a little later.

maybe it’s true that ayato could work hard to be a lot of things. after all, he couldn’t have become half the man he was today if he hadn’t convinced himself to put in more effort than anybody else.

but maybe there were also some things ayato could just never bring himself to have, no matter how hard he tried. maybe there were always meant to be some moments and people he wasn’t possibly cut out for.

and maybe he could try all he wanted, but he could never really work hard enough to ever make you notice his own lonesome heart — always patiently waiting.

BONUS CONTACT ! — a short side story.

radio boy (thoma)

✉ 3:07 pm, april 5th (tues).

[ 1 new message! ] : hey y/n! do you mind stopping by the broadcasting room for a bit?

although thoma has always been well-favored among people of all ages, he feels that there’s nobody else he’d rather spend his company with than you.

it’s not that he’s wanted you for ill intentions or in a romantic perspective. just that you were his favorite person who was so invariably easy to talk to.

you first met thoma inside the broadcasting room, randomly paying a visit out of curiosity to ask the title of a particular song played during the morning break. and then the following day, you came back to ask on behalf of your friend about another song.

before either of you knew it, you were making regular yet brief appearances to the little recording area — not just to ask about songs, but also to initiate small talk about how the other’s day was going. it was later on you discovered that thoma was a student from another class in the same university who volunteered to work for the campus radio station.

on most days, you’d bring him pastries or coffee to satiate his empty stomach, since thoma preferred to spend most of his free time in the broadcasting room. sometimes, he’d also be generous enough to let you borrow some of his cd’s or flash-drives of music playlists that he thinks would suit your taste.

during periods when you were too busy to pay a visit, you’d send him a quick text apologizing in advance. but not even five minutes later, a familiar song would suddenly blast through the classroom speakers in response, and you couldn’t do anything to hide the contented smile from quirking across your face.

when thoma begins to fall in love with you, he finds himself secretly dedicating certain songs to you on the campus radio — either playing tracks he knows you love, or music that he thinks reminds him of you.

of course, you’re not really sure when the boy behind the radio started liking somebody. just that all of a sudden on an average weekday, you belatedly noticed how his choice of tunes changed, and never became the same as before.

and every time you’ll teasingly question thoma about his arbitrary selection of songs in hopes of prying him for a name drop, all he does is shrug with a quiet smile — saying that you, out of all people, should know her all too well.

[jacquelinemerritt]

On my Realist Tendency

Originally posted March 4th, 2015

My Film Criticism professor was certainly correct in his suggestion that I have come around to the Realist perspective, and seeing it as valid. And in fact, while I do not denounce Formalism, I have certainly moved away from it, but the reasons for this shift have less to do with a change in perspective on these paradigms of filmmaking, and more to do with a realization of where my natural paradigm lies.

See, I have written a feature film that squarely fits into Zavattini’s perspective on Realism, and I wrote this before I knew what Realism and Formalism were. It’s a feature film about a man suffering from depression who creates a bucket list of all the things he wants to do before he kills himself (which I am working on producing this summer), and its goal was to be a realistic depiction of depression, and what it can do to a person (while also partially serving as a “how to” guide for someone to begin to work through those issues).

While it is meant to serve as a very realistic depiction, it also delves into the psychological in a manner very similar to Fellini in 8 ½, as there are multiple scenes where the realistic portrayal of events is skewed significantly to fit the perspective of the protagonist (which while technically qualifying as formalism, still fits in the Neorealist paradigm). All of this I wrote into the film before knowing about Neorealism, simply finding it the best way to portray the message that I wanted.

So when I said that I don’t know whether I am more of a Formalist or a Realist, it is because the Formalist paradigm logically makes sense to me as the best way to make film, but when actually attempting to make film, what I end up producing falls significantly more on the Neorealist and Realist paradigm than the Formalist paradigm.

If you liked this, consider supporting me on Patreon, or donating to my Ko-Fi.

[simpingfortheages]

//EYE CONTACT//

CORDELIA GOODE X FEM READER

(ANGST AND FLUFF)

A/N : she be looong as fuck sorry nat sorry 😂

Eyes are the gateways to the soul, words and feelings can be exchanged by a simple act of making eye contact.

Cordelia is busy and seems to no longer have time for the reader . All the reader wanted to do was help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~♤~~~~~~~~~~~~~♤~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cordelia knew that being Supreme was tiresome, but she never thought that it would be to this extent. She hasn't slept in almost a week and she is pretty sure that there is coffee coarsing her veins instead of blood. Cordelia has been up, keeping track of all the suspicious activities happening around the world in hopes the cause is a witch. That's just Cordelia for you. She is always looking out for others before herself. Putting the needs of others before her own. Staying up all day and night so that she can grow and teach those in her coven. She really is deserving of Supreme. Cordelia has been trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes for the past while. Her head bobbing while filling out documents and having to shake her head ever so often to keep on track of whatever file she was reading. Cordelia's new project has been her trying to track down this other witch, however her attempts have been futile. Everytime she thinks she has a lead on the witch she seems to change location and vanish . The witch is powerful and would be a great addition to the Coven. This took a toll on her, She was snappish and everyone knew it, but no one blamed her because she was stressed, even Madison didn't annoy Cordelia or made any snarky comments. After internally debating with herself, the choice of sleep won. She shifted the stack of paper that she was currently working on to the side of the mahogany desk. She laid her arm on the desk and laid her head between the crook of the elbow while her other hand tried to massage away the 3rd on coming migraine. Her migraine for the past days were seemingly becoming worse, as though her body was begging her to stop and reset herself. She didn't have a choice at this point, she needed to rest otherwise she would have crashed and gotten less time to get work done.

Y/N's POV

I am fairly new to Ms Robichaux's academy, I was "enrolled" 3 months ago, not by choice but by force. I set my mother's boyfriend on fire out of accident. YES BY ACCIDENT.... Well maybe not all the way an accident. I got angry and let my temper get the best of me. Surprisingly I didn't get in trouble from my mother, she said something about a witch bloodline. I didn't really pay much attention to her words or have much time to react to what i did,because my mother was quick to call some witch lady whose hair was firey red and the way she spoke was regal. I later learned on the ride to the academy, that her name was Myrtle Snow. I have learnt the names of my fellow sisters Madison, Zoey, Queenie, Coco and Mallory. So far they have been fairly nice to me but I don't really interact with them much. Most of the times I keep to myself and listen to Fleetwood Mac in my room all by myself. Apparently everyone has someone to room with but me,not that I am complaining. But i must say, out of everyone in the Coven whom I've met so far, my favourite is the Surpeme. The first time we met I was taken aback by her beauty. The way her blonde hair rested delicately on her squared shoulders , the way her makeup was done in such a way that it highlighted all of her best features, which by the looks of it. It was her whole body. Her eyes were captivating , she smiled at me through them. I couldn't help but stare right back into her dark brown eyes, they held power and safety. The eye contact wasn't uncomfortable, it was an unspoken exchange.

Cordelia took it upon herself to show me around my new home. It was majestic, I took note of every detail ,from the paint brush strokes done on the painting that hung on the walls to the crack on the 4th step going up the twin staircases. My favourite place however was the Greenhouse. Well, her greenhouse. She told me that it was her place of relaxation,her get away from it all. The walls were covered with vines, the sunroof allowed the golden rays of the sun to filter into the room and paint all that it touches. The walls variety of plant species and herbs that she has collected over the years was quite impressive. It was beautiful. Overtime this became our habit. After dinner or lunch we would both make our way to the Greenhouse to create new concoctions. Whether it would be sleeping potions, manipulation potions or simply love potions. We never used on each other , it was just done merely for the fun of it. I felt happy for the first time in many. The little hugs ,inside jokes and nicknames we would share. It was all innocent fun at the time until, one time I was making a potion and Cordelia stood right behind me watching my every moves. I don't know what came over me, I dont know if it was the closeness of our proximity ,the warm breathe of her breathing that brushed my neck whenever she exhaled or the fact that she kissed my cheek right after telling me how good of a job I was at following orders. After that day I can't help but blush whenever we locked eyes. Light brown on dark brown. Neither of us looked away. Her eyes felt like home, a place that i longed to be. These few months I've developed quite an attachment to the Supreme,one might even say a crush on her.

However these past days I noticed that she was quite distant. She wouldn't catch on to the jokes I made, like she normally would. The amount of times she paced up and down the walkway in the Greenhouse, the layer of dirt and colour of orange on the brick floor started to fade. Cordelia kept ranting and complaining about finding a certain witch. Of course I didn't mind her talking to me. I always liked to know what new projects she was up too. But It was evident that this one occupied her mind. When she was with me, she wasn't with me mentally just her physical appearance. She would sometimes forget about our daily meet up, some days turned into few days and eventually a few days turned into none. I didn't hold anything against her. She was busy. I took it upon myself to help her find who this witch was. So you know she can spend more time with me,it wasn't a selfish act. Just killing two birds with one stone. Cordelia would be able to finally relax and I would get to spend time with her more often. It's a Win/ Win.

Cordelia just went into her office so that meant I had basically the whole evening until dinner to find out who this witch was. As I sauntered my way to my room. I began to recollect all what Cordelia told me. It was a little witch on the run, maybe she didn't what to join a Coven like me. Cordelia knew every thing about the little witch. She was a slippery one, evading the hands of the Surpeme. I remember her saying that the witch was a little younger than I was, with black hair and green eyes. Her speciality is Cloaking, she could cover her tracks very well. A rare skill some witches possess.I laid out my pens and my leather bound notebook on the bed and started to make notes of what i knew so far. After I was done, I realised it wasn't much information. I needed more if i was going to help Cordelia. I needed to see from another set of eyes. I shifted my notes aside and laid flat on the bed. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. No one knew but i was Clairvoyant. I could make myself hear and see what someone was thinking.

******time skip*******

THAT'S IT !!. I found the witch. She was running from something or someone. The little witch was seeking safety,maybe she did need to be in a Coven. Without any time to waste. I quickly wrote down all that I gathered into my note book. I couldn't contain my excitement, Cordelia and I will finally get to hang out like old times. I scrambled off my bed and made a beeline towards her office. *knock knock* "Dee I found out how to get the witc-" I began,but she wasn't in her office. Huh where is she then? . After a few minutes of futile searching in the upstairs I decided to check the kitchen. As I walked downstairs, the kitchen came into my view. There she was. My supreme making her possible 7th cup of coffee. I couldn't help my heart from fluttering at the sight of her. We haven't spoken in so long. " Hey Dee, do you remember when we used to hang out in the Greenhouse, i miss those times but thats not the point, anyways you always used to speak about this witch you couldn't find??Apparently I never told you but i am Clairvoyant which is really handy beca-" I rambled but was quickly cut off by Corldeia," Y/N! Be quiet . Stop talking Oh my God shut up. Please can't you see that I am busy and tired??"

Immediately I felt small, wishing the ground would just swallow me whole. Her eyes were locked on mine, the once safety and calm that I loved were replaced with anger and annoyance ....at me. I could feel my chest tighten, so tight that it began to squeeze my heart till it slowly cracked. I bit my tongue to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. It was evident that Cordelia's expressions changed based on my now small demeanour. I forcefully swallowed the lump that built in my throath. Out of hurt I threw my notebook on the marble counter where she rested her half way made coffee. The only words i spat out were "There's how to get your witch to join this shithole Coven Miss Goode". Her mouth was now slightly ajar at my words. No longer wanting to stay in her presence, I turned my heels and made my way back up to my room as Cordelia struggled to find her words.

*******TIME SKIP PT 2********

Thanks to me Cordelia managed to get in contact with the witch who will be joining the Coven in 2 weeks time. For these past few days I have suscessfully managed to avoid Cordelia. Of course I didn't avoid her presence. I had more dignity than that. I just made sure that I was never alone with her. That way she couldn't "apologise"or ask me the questions she really wanted too. I was mad at her. She didn't have to yell at me,I know i am talkative to people when i get comfortable with them, but still out of everyone to yell at me I would never suspect that it would be her. I no longer joined her in the Greenhouse to help her with her potions. Having breakfast and lunch with everyone was the worst. I no longer sat next to her at the table, instead I sat next to Madison,but that didn't stop her from trying to talk to me. As everyone else engaged in mini conversations at the table, Cordelia silently spoke to me from the head of the table " Y/N how have you been?". I lifted my head and focused my gaze from my tea cup to the silver in her bracelet, dismissing the hopeful look in her eyes. "I've been better Ms .Goode" I replied with extra emphasis on her last name. You know for an extra punch of guilt. Cordelia has noticed my lack of eye contact over the past days and she couldn't help but feel hurt at the act.

********time skip pt3**********

It was probably about 7 pm when i heard the clattering on heels on the floor. Shifting my attention from the crackling of the fireplace I looked over my shoulder to see that all the girls were dressed up and ready to head out somewhere. "Hey? Where are you guys going?" I questioned. "Out." Said Madison. I couldn't help but scoff at her reply. "Okayy???And you didn't ask me because??". Madison abruptly turned around "You and Cordy need to fix whatever is going on between you too. Don't think we haven't seen the change" she commented as she roughly pressed her index finger into my chest. Before I could even find my words. The door was slammed in my face. If Madison and the girls think that I am staying alone in the academy with Cordelia alone they are wrong. In another situation I would have taken that chance in a heartbeat. Lost and confused at the exchange that just happened, this gave Cordelia time to enter the living room. " Y/N?" She spoken almost in a whisper. I swear to the ex Supreme herself my eyes almost jumped out my eye sockets . My movements were stiffened as i tried to turn around. I took a deep breathe and attempted to make the situation fall into the better of my hands. " Yes Ms Goode? How are you?" I asked, while facing the floor. " I am sorry y/n I didn't mean to yell at you, you helped me a lot on my project and I cannot repay you enough" Cordelia spoke. I genuinely smiled at her gratitude "you're so very welcome Ms Goode" . Suddenly I felt her hands wrap around my form pulling me in a strong hug. I was stunned for a while and didn't know how to react. Sobs and small apologises fell from her lips as she buried her head into the crook of my neck. I reciprocated her hug but this caused her to cry even more. " Ms Goode please don't cry" I tried to comfort her, but all that left her mouth was a small, muffled "no". As she calmed herself she pulled away and wiped her tears away as she tried to look presentable. "Don't call me that. Call me by my nickname" she demaded. I chuckled at her command " okay dee." She cupped my face into her soft palms. I could smell her vanilla lotion that she regularly applies on her hands. She lifted my face to hers, but my eyes still didnt need hers. " y/n look at me" she whimpered. " Dee I am looking at you" I said smiling nervously as my eyes darted over the beautiful features of her face, never settling on her eyes. " baby..." she whispered. My heart constricted . Cordelia repeated the statement to look at her once more. This time I complied. Did she really mean that? does she like me back?. Her eyes were watering, her gorgeous brown eyes even when they hold the emotion of hurt. I still cannot help but stare in awe. Her eyes were filled with longing and hope. I don't know who closed the gap but our lips met in the middle. Kissing Cordelia was pure ecstasy, the kiss was one of tender and love. It felt as though part of me was finally completed. After a while we both pulled away, she delicately laced her slender fingers together with mine, interlocking our hands. Both of us trying to catch our breathe , Cordelia slowly leaned forward and gently rested her forehead against mine. Ever so quietly whispering to me the sweet words," and I do feel the same..."

[moon-light-jukebox]

The Pretty Boy and the Purple Scarf - [Reid x Fem!OC]

masterlist

Summary: Sam is very surprised when she gets hand picked to join the BAU. She’s even more surprised to meet Dr. Spencer Reid. It’s not surprising that she would develop feelings for him...but he can’t feel the same way. Can he? 

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Original Character

Word Count: 7.9k

Rating: Explicit 

Genre: Fluff/Smut

Content Warning: Unprotected sex, Dom!Spencer, light bondage, oral sex (female receiving), language.

A/n: This fic was a commission I did for @imjusthereformggcontent‘s birthday. She told me last night that it was “so good” and it “deserved to see the light of day.” She was being overly kind as usual, but here it is. I wrote this in second person which is a bit ooc for me. I hope y’all like it. 😊

--The Pretty Boy and the Purple Scarf-- 

Everything about the day you transferred from the 4th floor to the 6th floor was unexpected. You had only heard of Aaron Hotchner by reputation, but you’d never actually seen the man.

Which is why you were very surprised when he came down to the 4th floor and personally requested you be reassigned to the 6th floor; truth be told, that requested sounded more like a demand. You barely had time to gather your things before you were on the elevator upstairs.

You had been greeted by a very bubbly blonde woman in hot pink high heels. She had squealed with joy when the doors slid open and she caught sight of you.

“I knew you were the right choice!” She had chirped, teetering towards you. “Your work record is phenomenal, you passed all the background checks, and you’ve technically already taken the required psych courses to be a profiler.” She was positively shaking with excitement. “And you’re as cute a stinking button and look at your hair!”

Several minutes later the woman introduced herself as Penelope Garcia. Not only was she the technical analyst for the BAU, but she also split the responsible of communications liaison with the unit chief.

She then informed you that these duties would now be split between three people, SSA Hotchner, herself…and you.

Once the initial shock had worn off, you were thrilled. You had taken the psychology courses because you had always been fascinated by the behaviors of others. You had joined the FBI because you wanted to help people.

This was your dream job!

But you’d be lying if you said that those were the only reasons that working with the behavioral analysis unit was your dream job.

When Garcia had introduced you to the team that very first day, you clicked with every member right away. David Rossi always offered you a fatherly smile whenever he saw you, Prentiss and Garcia had invited you out to their girl’s night multiple times. Derek Morgan had taken to calling you “pretty girl” which never failed to make you smile. Even Aaron Hotchner was friendly towards you…well, as friendly as he could be. Occasionally you saw his mouth twitch whenever you made a sarcastic comment; you took that to mean that he probably liked you at least a little bit.

While that was also wonderful…it wasn’t why this was your dream job.

During that very first meeting, Garcia had introduced you to everyone in the conference room. They all smiled warmly at you and offered a handshake.

“And this is our resident genius Dr. Spencer Reid,” Garcia had introduced with a wave of her hand.

Dr. Spencer Reid was easily the most unexpected part of the day. He looked at least a few years older than you, so you were surprised that he had the doctor honorific, but the most startling thing was what he looked like. He was tall, possibly the tallest person in the room, with a slim build and unruly curly brown hair. His straight white teeth were dug into his bottom lip while he fidgeted nervously. And then there were his eyes. You now knew that they were brown with flecks of gold near the center, but in that light, they had actually looked like honey.

You offered him your hand, anticipating that he would greet you the way the others had; but nothing about Spencer Reid was ordinary.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his eyebrows climbing up his forehead while he stared at your hand.

“The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering,” he informed you, much to the amusement of everyone else in the room. “It’s actually safer to kiss.”

Out of all the things you could have said in that moment, you decided to tease him. “I mean, you’re cute. I wouldn’t say no if that’s how you wanna introduce yourself.”

A choked laugh exploded out of SSA Morgan at your comment. “Oh shit!” He threw his head back and laughed loudly. “Watch out, she’s got your number, Pretty Boy!”

Pretty Boy, you thought. It definitely fits.

The rest of the team had shared in Morgan’s amusement. Even Spencer had seemed amused; amused and thoroughly embarrassed. The apples of his cheeks had turned bright red.

You just shot him a slightly awkward smile because holy fuck he was cute, especially when he was embarrassed.

Later after the rest of the team had left the conference room and returned to the bullpen, you saw Reid standing in front of the coffee station in the kitchenette.

“Hey,” you called, coming up to his side. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in there. I’m Sam.”

He offered a small smile in your direction while he poured an ungodly amount of sugar in his coffee. “Oh, you didn’t. I was 12 years old when I graduated from a Las Vegas public high school. I’m tougher than I look.”

“Dr. Reid is tougher than he looks,” you joked, crossing your arms over your chest. “Got it. I can’t promise I won’t tease you again.”

He just laughed. “If you’re going to tease me then you can just call me Spencer.”

--

Things had started to change about 3 weeks after that. You had finally gotten more comfortable around the team, Spencer included. True to his word, he didn’t seem to mind that you had teased him a few times over the weeks. It was all harmless stuff, of course.

“Cute tie, pretty boy” or “sweater vests are an odd choice, but I’m into it.”

Derek was thoroughly amused, telling you more than once that your remarks to Spencer were the highlight of his day and that he wished you had joined the team sooner.

Throughout all those comments, Spencer never teased you back. He’d duck his head, trying to hide the blush on his face, or he’d just smile at you.

That all changed one morning while you were standing at the coffee station. Garcia had joked that she never drank coffee before working here, but it was like the machine had some sort of hold over everyone. After almost a month here, you were starting to believe it.

You liked coffee, sure, but only if it didn’t taste too much like coffee. You were honestly concerned about people like Hotch who drank black coffee; it just seemed like they must have been through something.

“And you tease me for how much sugar I put in my coffee,” a voice said from beside you, barely able to conceal a chuckle that followed their words. “Jesus Christ, Samantha.”

You turned to smile up at him, your green eyes meeting his warm brown ones. “Nice try, pretty boy. I’m putting a perfectly reasonable amount of sugar in my coffee. I don’t use nearly as much sugar as you do.”

“Probably not,” he conceded, propping his hip up against the counter. “You’re sweet enough anyway.”

Your eyes went impossibly wide at his words, you were stunned. So stunned that you couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out of your throat.

Dr. Spencer Reid looked just as surprised at his words as you did, two bright pink spots appearing on the apples of his cheeks. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that,” he squeaked out, his voice laced with embarrassment.

“You’re never going to hear me complain about you flirting with me, Dr. Reid.”

“You can call me Spencer, Samantha,” he reminded.

His words were so soft you were afraid you’d misheard him. Based on the slightly awkward look on his face, you could tell you didn’t. “Okay Spencer,” you breathed out, testing how his name felt in your mouth.

He started to turn to walk away before you found your voice again. “Oh, and you can just call me Sam. Everybody else does.”

The corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile. “I know, but if it’s okay with you, I think I’d like to keep calling you Samantha.”

The tension in the air seemed to thicken at his words. How did Spencer just saying your name have this sort of effect on you? Trying to keep your composure, you just nodded. “S-sure, Spencer. You can call me Samantha if you want.”

His nervous demeanor melted away. “Good.” He had turned back around and crossed the room before you even realized what had happened.

--

After that day, a sort of odd friendship had started between you and Spencer Reid. What had begun as awkward flirting attempts every once in a while from him were becoming more and more frequent, and a little bit bolder in nature. You loved that he was getting more comfortable with you.

But you couldn’t ignore how things had started to shift inside you over the past few months.

Talking to Spencer was the highlight of your day. Every time he called you Samantha when the rest of the world called you Sam, you felt butterflies in your stomach. Your mood always lifted whenever you listened to him talk about something he was passionate about.

One of your favorite things was how his cheeks would turn just a bit red whenever he stopped by your desk on one of his many trips to the coffee pot.

“Hey, can I get you a cup?” He’d offer, tapping his fingers against the desk.

You’d always smirk at him. “This is a weird flirting strategy, Pretty Boy,” you’d say, your voice teasing. “Not that I mind watching you walk away.”

The first time you had made that joke it took Spencer a second to get your meaning; the moment he did he flushed beet red.

Even though he acted embarrassed by your comments, he still stopped by your desk multiple times a day. Whenever he did bring you back a cup of coffee it was always made perfectly, just the way you liked it.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago when you realized what these shifting feelings had meant. You all were working a difficult case in South Dakota that was really getting to you. During a coffee run, Spencer brought you back a white chocolate mocha. When you’d looked up at him, your brows drawn together in confusion, he’d just smiled at you before he shuffled away.

Spencer Reid was becoming one of your best friends…and you were not so slowly falling for him.

--

The day after you got back to Quantico from Sioux Falls, you were back in the kitchenette, only this time you were getting your lunch. You normally ate lunch with either Spencer or Penelope, but you hadn’t seen the Pretty Boy since this morning.  

You were so caught up in your own thoughts you didn’t even realize the very person you were thinking about had snuck up on you.

“What’s that?” His voice asked from beside you, causing you to jump slightly.

“Jesus, Spence,” you mumbled, embarrassed for your reaction. “Don’t sneak up on me!”

He just smiled at you, causing your heart to beat a bit faster. “You’ve never called me Spence before,” he said softly, his eyes searching your face. “Plus, I like scaring you. And you didn’t answer my question.”

It was hard to remember anything when he smiled like that. “Oh,” you said, shaking your head slightly in an attempt to clear it. “What’s what?”

He took a step closer to you. “You have something on your wrist.”

You were taken aback at first, because how the fuck did he see that? Nobody had ever seen that tattoo unless they knew it was there. It’s impossible, Garcia must have told him about it, you had reassured yourself.

His warm hands touched your arm, pulling it closer to him while his thumb traced over the almost invisible ink on your wrist.

“Is this a tattoo?” he asked softly, bending his head down to inspect it further. “I knew about the one on the back of your neck, but I didn’t know you had this one.”

You felt your stomach flutter. He had noticed the one on the nape of your neck too?

“Y-yeah,” you managed to get out. “It’s an anchor.”

Spencer made a noise of acknowledgment, his thumb still softly rubbing over the skin of your wrist. "It's interesting. You know, originally the anchor was a symbol of safety. It wasn't until years later that it got a newer meaning."

It was so hard for you to focus when he was near you, but now he was touching you too?

"Now it's a symbol of hope," he mumbled, his head lifting, his warm brown eyes locking on to your own. "It suits you, Samantha." With that, he dropped your arm and turned to get a mug for his coffee.

Now that he wasn’t invading your senses with his presence, you could gather your thoughts slightly. “How did you know about my tattoo, Spencer?”

He didn’t look up from his caffeine driven task. “A good magician never reveals his secrets,” he said cryptically.

You scoffed, earning a chuckle from him. Spencer turned; his amber-colored eyes were swirling with mischief, but also something a bit deeper. It didn't just feel like he was looking at you; it felt like he was looking into you. It felt like he really wanted to see you in the way that all people crave to be seen. He wanted to understand you.

He took a small step closer, his hand reaching up to brush over one of the green pieces in your long brown hair. “Maybe I just pay more attention to you than you think,” he whispered before he pulled away, leaving you stunned.

He was already back at his desk before you collected your thoughts.

Spencer Reid…couldn’t feel that way about you, could he?

--

Your feelings about Spencer were starting to seep into the front of your mind, no matter what you did to try and keep them at bay. What made matters worse is that you worked with profilers, the best profilers. How were you supposed to keep your feelings hidden from them?

You decided the best thing to do was try to put some distance between yourself and Spencer. It was extremely hard to do, considering all you wanted to do was be near him; but he just kept making these teasing little comments.

Of course, like most things in life, your plan didn’t go work out. You had been avoiding Spencer for exactly 3 and a half hours before he made his move.

You were coming out of Garcia’s lair when you felt a hand clap around your forearm, jerking you to a stop.

Now, you were normally not an overly clumsy person, but when your momentum gets shifted so quickly, it’s only natural to stumble a bit. You turned and tripped over your feet, causing you to tumble into a very warm person.

One of his large hands caught your shoulder, steading you. Your eyes traveled up, up, up, to meet the beautiful eyes of the one and only, Dr. Spencer Reid.

“Why do you insist on scaring the shit out of me?” you scolded, swatting at his chest with the back of your hand.

He looked completely unbothered. “I wouldn’t have had to scare you if you weren’t avoiding me.”

Your mouth popped open in surprise. “I’m not avoiding you!” you protested.

Spencer’s eyebrows pulled together. “Then why haven’t I seen you in the last three hours, thirty-five minutes and seventeen seconds?”

You couldn’t control your snort at his comment. “You’re so weird, do you know that?”

Something happened to Spencer's face just then; his whole expression seemed to soften somehow. "You don't mind that I'm weird though, do you, Samantha?"

Those pesky butterflies erupted in your stomach again, reminding you of your complicated feelings. You took a step back, plastering a friendly smile on your face…at least you hoped.

“You’re a weirdo, but you’re my weirdo, Spence.”

“I wouldn’t want to be anyone else’s weirdo,” he quipped, shifting closer to you. You could feel the heat of his body through your clothes.

“Good, because you’re stuck with me.”

His face turned thoughtfully before he spoke again. “You know,” Spencer said quietly, taking a step closer to you. “Your eyes have some yellow in them around the center. It’s almost like they’re sunflowers.”

You felt your breath catch in your throat. “Spence…you-you can’t…you can’t just say shit like that to me.”

His brows furrowed in confusion. “Why?”

“Because it makes me feel…It just makes me feel.”

“Is that bad?”

I don’t know. “No,” you decided. “I don’t guess it is.”

Those warm brown eyes continued to scan over your face. “No more avoiding me,” he ordered, pointing his index finger at you.

“I wasn’t avoiding you!”

He stepped away then, but not before he reached out and tugged on one of the green strands in your hair. “You’re a terrible liar, Samantha,” he informed you, before walking down the hall towards the bullpen.

“I really hope I’m not,” you muttered under your breath. You had to be a good liar right now…because what if how you were feeling made you lose your best friend?

--

“I need the BAU team in the conference room,” Hotch’s voice boomed out across the bullpen. “Now.”

You wrinkled your nose slightly; no cases had come in today…So why are we meeting in the conference room?

“Come on, Pretty Girl,” Morgan said when he walked by your desk. “You better hustle or else I’m gonna be the one that sits beside your Pretty Boy.”

“No, you’re not,” Spencer called out. He was already walking into the conference room, his eyes fixed on your face until the moment he entered the room.

“Uh-oooohhh,” Morgan teased, his mouth in a wide smile. “Pretty Boy is getting a little territorial, miss thing. It won’t be long now.”

Your face scrunched in confusion. “Won’t be long until what?” you asked but he was already running into the conference room. “Morgan!”

--

No matter how much you told yourself otherwise, you couldn’t help but feel like things were slightly different with Spencer. He had never been overly affectionate with people, but you were his friend, it wasn’t all that uncommon for him to hug you or brush up against you.

It was just that he seemed to be doing it so much more often. He was always sitting beside you on the jet, at the round table, he was even coming by your desk more than usual.

What’s more, he seemed to have a bit more confidence than normal.

You were almost positive you weren’t imagining it or letting your feelings influence your judgment.

“What are you thinking about?” Spencer asked, his leg extending so he could poke your shin with the tip of his converse. You had decided to sit in one of the seats at the back of the plane; you were thinking of it as an experiment to test your theory. There was no seat directly beside of you, making the closest one the seat in front of you that was faced in your direction. In all the time you had known him, Spencer had never sat back here if other seats were available.  

When he boarded the jet an hour ago his eyes had sought you out immediately, making his way to that set before flopping down into it.

Well, you had thought. I’m not totally crazy.

“I’m not thinking about anything,” you insisted, your eyes never lifting from your kindle. Spencer detested that you used an e-reader, but unlike him, you didn’t exactly feel like stuffing your go bag with heavy ass books.

He huffed. “One day I’m going to punish you for lying to me, Samantha.”

Your head flew up. “What!?” you hissed out in a loud whisper.

Spencer just lowered his eyes back to his book. “You heard me.”

--

The case had been a quick one to solve, thankfully. You hadn’t even been in town for 2 full days and the Tulsa police had already processed the unsub’s arrest, leaving your team free to go.

You probably could have gone home tonight if it wasn’t for the storm. There wasn’t actually a storm here that was the problem, it was the one that is Quantico. No matter how homesick anyone felt, it seemed like a unanimous decision to stay here one more night.

The team had arrived back at the hotel about 15 minutes ago, meaning you had only been in your room for 5 minutes when there was a knock on the door.

You had a sinking feeling in your gut that when you opened that door, you'd be met by a pair of warm brown eyes and wild light brown curly hair. It's not that you didn't want to see Spencer; the problem was how much you did want to see Spencer. No matter how many times you told yourself that the flirting was harmless, and he didn't feel the way you did, it didn't seem like your heart had gotten the message.

Maybe it’s not him, you thought. Maybe…maybe it’s a murderer.

No such luck was to be had, of course. You opened up the door to see the smiling, painfully handsome face of Dr. Spencer Reid.

“Spencer,” you laughed out. “We’ve only been here for like 10 minutes.”

The man just nodded, stepping around you and striding into your hotel room like he had a right to be there. "Can't I come to see my best friend?"

You tried to ignore the way your heart fluttered at him calling you his best friend. “You just saw me.”

“No,” he argued. “I last saw you 8 minutes and 13 seconds before you opened your door.”

Heaving out a loud sigh, you just shook your head and continued pulling things out of your go-bag.

“You don’t mind that I’m here, do you?”

That gave you pause. He didn’t sound like the confident Spencer you’d been seeing the past few weeks. He seemed like the awkward Dr. Spencer Reid who had blushed to the roots of his hair when you made a joke about kissing him.

You shot him a soft smile. “Of course I don’t mind, Spencer. You know I just like to tease you.” He seemed relieved at your answer as he went to sit on the edge of your bed. “And you seem to like teasing me too.”

“Who said I’m teasing?”

You rolled your eyes. “If you’re gonna be in here, make yourself useful.” You handed him your phone charger. “Put that in my go bag.”

“Yes ma’am,” he muttered, not trying to hide his smile at your bossy tone. “Why am I putting this…what’s this?”

You turned your head to see the purple fabric in his hands. “A scarf? Have you never seen a scarf before?” you teased. “Some genius you are.”

His face pulled a sour look at your words that made you smile harder. “I just haven’t seen it before. I like it.” Spencer started wrapping the scarf around his neck.

“Wow, Dr. Reid,” you called out, your eyes running over his form. “Very sexy. You’re gonna drive the girls wild.”

"There's only one person I'm interested in driving wild," he said softly before he snapped back into his teasing tone. "Purple is my favorite color, you know."

You weren’t even thinking when you said, “I know, that’s why I picked it.” Spencer’s head swung in your direction, clearly surprised by your words. “Anyway,” you hurried out. “Maybe you should keep it; you look adorable Spencie.”

He hated it when anyone called him Spencie and you knew that. You had made the comment to hopefully throw him off from your confession that you picked out that scarf because it reminded you of him.

“What happened to sexy?!” he demanded. “I do not look adorable.” His beautiful face was marred by a scowl.

You put your hands on your hips, giving him an exaggerated once over. “I don’t know, you look pretty adorable to me, Spencie.”

Spencer’s eyes had taken on a different look than you weren’t used to seeing directed at you. It was the same look he always had when he was trying to solve a problem. “You really think I’m just adorable, don’t you?”

Now it was your turn to look at him oddly. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?” He took a step closer to you as soon as the words left your mouth, causing you to take a step back. “What are you doing?”

“Proving I’m not adorable,” he said, his words quiet but harsh.

"How-" You never got to finish your question; before you could even realize that he was moving his right hand wrapped around your throat, using his momentum to push you back one final step until you were pressed between the wall and his body.

You blinked up at him, trying to ignore how all of this made you feel. Even in this situation, you still couldn’t believe that Spencer was actually attracted to you the way you were to him. This is probably just like his Eastwood impression, you thought.

His head was bent down, bringing his face much closer to yours than you were used to. You could see the perpetual shadows he had under his remarkable eyes, the small crease in his skin between his eyebrows.

"Is this how you prove you're not adorable?" You had tried to make your tone sound light like your heart wasn't about to beat out of your chest, but it hadn't worked. Your voice sounded breathy and curious even in your own ears.

He looked over your face one final time, looking for some sort of emotion that he must have found because the next instant his grip on your throat got slightly tighter. His face moving so much closer to yours that your noses almost brushed.

“No,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over your lips. “This is.”

Before you could process his words, his lips finally brushed against yours. He was hesitant at first, but he grew bolder when you gasped against his mouth.

How many times had you imagined this moment? Yearned for it? And somehow the feeling of his body against yours was more than you had ever imagined. He was more than you ever imagined.

He took advantage of the gasp you let out, his kiss growing more hungry, more frantic. His body pushed into yours, his thigh coming forward to wedge between both of yours. You were vaguely aware of his hand leaving your throat, but all thought left your head when you felt both of his hands cradled your face. His thumb rubbed against your cheek while he tilted your head where he wanted it.

Spencer Reid was in complete control of this kiss, and you were getting swept away.

His tongue brushed over your bottom lip, seeking entrance to the heat of your mouth. He groaned low in his throat when you immediately opened for him, the movements of your tongue just as bold as his. When your hands came up to grip his sides, one of his hands slid to the back of your head, his long fingers tangling in your hair.

There wasn't a moment of unsureness in this kiss; Spencer kissed you like he had done it a thousand times before. Eventually, the need for air became too great, causing you to break apart. You whimpered slightly when his teeth caught your bottom lips, tugging at it while he pulled his mouth away.

“I’m not adorable,” he panted out against your mouth.

You couldn’t do anything but stare at him in wonder. “I got that.”

His thumb moved over to run against your bottom lip. “No,” he whispered, his eyes scanning yours. “I don’t think you do.”

Those words seemed to hold a greater meaning that you couldn't quite put your finger on. How was anyone's mind supposed to work correctly when this man was standing so close?

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

"Yes." Because of course, you did.

For that moment he looked unsure like he was battling with something he wanted so desperately but was too afraid to reach out and grab. "If you tell me to stop, I will."

You didn’t get to ask him what he meant before he was on you again. This kiss was filled with the same passion as the last, but his hands had begun to roam around your body. Down to your throat, over your shoulders, brushing against the sides of your breast, and the sides of your waist, until they came to the bottom of your shirt.

He pressed his thigh more firmly against the part of you that ached for this man. When you groaned into his mouth, he broke away, his mouth trailing kisses across your cheek, then down to your neck.

Spencer gripped the bottom of your shirt, his thumbs ghosting against your skin before he started pushing it up your body.

Through the fog of lust in your brain, you realized what he was doing, causing you to tense slightly. He must have felt the shift in your body because he pulled his head up from its place against your skin, his eyes searching your face.

“We don’t have to do this, Samantha,” he whispered.

“No!” Your voice came out in a rush. “No, Spence I want to. I really want to.” He smirked at your words, one of his hands coming up to brush over the green streaks in your hair, his eyes still filled with fire, but somehow so incredibly soft.

“Spence, it’s just…I don’t know…I’m not…and you’re so…you’re so hot!”

He huffed out a laugh at your words, bringing the hand that had been touching your hair over to cradle the left side of your face. “You have to know that I think you’re the most beautiful thing in the world.”

But how could you have known that?

“Samantha, you have no idea how I feel every fucking time I look at you.” He brought his mouth down again, pressing a kiss to your forehead, then to both of your cheeks. “You have no idea what I want to do to you.”

You felt your breath catch. “Do it then.”

Spencer looked unsure for just a moment before he looked into your eyes again. "They really do look like sunflowers," he muttered to himself. "If you want me to stop, just tell me to stop."

You couldn’t help but smile at his words. “I don’t think that’s likely.”

He just smirked down at you before his entire demeanor changed. “We’ll see. Take off your shirt, Samantha.”

You were shocked at the sudden amount of authority in his tone.

“I won’t ask again, Pretty Girl.”

You were still slightly nervous, but the pull inside of you to obey his words was so much stronger than any sort of insecurity you felt. It was if your hands moved automatically, gripping the bottom of your shirt before tugging it over your head.

Spencer’s eyes ran over your newly exposed skin, lingering over your breasts. He reached his hand out towards you, his fingers brushing from your collarbones down to the tops of your breasts. Once they reached the edge of your bra, he paused, looking at you again.

“Your skin is soft, it’s like you were made to be touched,” he mused, unwinding the scarf from his neck. “Take this off. I’ve waited long enough to see your tits.”

Shocked at his words, you once again complied immediately. When your upper body was completely bared to him, he released another groan. “You’re so fucking pretty.”

You felt yourself almost blush at his words.

“Hold your hands out.” Both of your arms extended in front of you. Your eyes went impossibly wide when he brought both off your wrists together before winding your scarf around them, binding you.

“I’d prefer to tie you to the bed, but this will have to do for now.” The scarf was secured now, but you knew you could break out of it if you needed to. “I want you to lay on the bed, raise your arms over your head.”

Once you had reached the position he had instructed, you turned to watch him. He had taken his tie off before he came to your room, leaving him in just a button-down shirt and his slacks. The placement of your arms brought your breasts higher; a sight Spencer must have enjoyed based on how long his gaze stayed there.

Before you were ready, he started removing his shirt. He looked so slim in his clothes; you hadn’t expected his body to look so well defined. Spencer Reid without a shirt was quite a sight to behold.

He joined you on the bed, his face hovering over your own. “I left my pants on because if I don’t have anything to stop me, I’m not going to be able to hold back. I’ll fuck you until you scream.”

You whimpered at his words. “Don’t worry my pretty girl, we’ll get there. But I want to savor you first. Keep your hands where they are, if you move them, I will punish you. Do you understand?”

You were struggling to think, his hands were moving over your skin again, those long fingers finally touching your breast, moving closer to your nipple.

“I asked you a question, Samantha.”

“Yes,” you responded, licking your lips.

Suddenly his fingers reached your nipple, he ghosted his thumb against the bud before he gave it a sharp pinch. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

He groaned at the sound of his honorific leaving your lips before he gave you a smile that was almost predatory. Spencer shoved your thighs apart, bringing his body to settle against you. You could feel how hard he was against you, even though all of your clothes.

He only gave you a brief, soft kiss before he started moving down your body. He wasted no time now. His lips closed over the tip of one breast while his hand cupped the other.

“Oh my god,” you moaned out, already trying to rock your body against his. That feeling got more frantic when you felt his teeth graze against you before he started to suck you into his mouth hard. His hand left your breast, moving down your stomach until he found the fastenings of your pants.

With a pop, the button sprang free; the sound of the zipper lowering was so loud in the otherwise silent room. The shifting of your hips got more and more desperate when you felt his fingertips run across the elastic band of your panties.

With one final nip of his teeth, he lifted his head, staring down at you. “Such a needy girl.” He pushed his body off of yours, coming to rest on his knees between your thighs.

His hand both moved to your sides, just above your pants. He raked his fingers down the skin until he caught the waistbands of your pants and panties. Spencer revealed you to his gaze slowly; so slowly you were afraid you would spontaneously combust.

Once he had you completely naked on the bed, he ran his hands over your legs, admiring you.

“I was right to leave my pants on,” he chuckled. “It’s taking everything I have not to wrap your thighs around me and finally fuck you.”

“Please,” you whimpered out when his hand ghosted over the skin of on the inside of your knee.

“Soon, pretty girl. But first, I’d rather find out how those thighs feel wrapped around my head.”

You forgot how to breathe at his words. He leaned down, shifting farthing down the bed. Spencer's mouth moved over the skin of your inner thighs with a trail of wet, open mouth kisses.

When he finally reached his destination, he turned his head to the side pressing one finally kiss against your thigh before his teeth caught the skin. The sensation caused you to buck your hips.

“Hold still, Samantha,” he breathed against you. “I want you to hold still while I make you cum with my mouth. Can you do that?”

You weren’t sure if you could, but you bit your lip and nodded anyway.

“That’s my good girl.” That was the last thing he said before he pressed a kiss to your pussy.

His tongue ran against the entirety of your slit once before he parted you with his thumbs. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You’re so wet, pretty girl. You’re absolutely soaked for me.”

Even if you had wanted to respond to his words, you couldn’t have, because right after he finished speaking his tongue tapped against your clit. Using all the willpower you had, you tried to keep your hips still while his tongue made slow circles around your clit before moving down to your entrance.

He ran his tongue around it before he speared it inside of you, his thumb coming up to rub your clit while he fucked you with his tongue.

“You taste so good,” he moaned against you. The sensation making your legs shake.

“Please, please Doctor.” Your voice was a whine. Seeing Spencer Reid’s head between your thighs was the sexiest thing on the planet.  

You could feel his mouth turn up in a smirk. His thumb kept its tortuously slow pace. “Please what, Samantha?”

“Please make me cum, please.”

You felt his other hand move over to your opening, two fingers entering you without warning, causing you to arch your back.

He withdrew them immediately at your movement, raising his upper body to look at you. You were not expecting it when his hand came down against your pussy in a sharp slap.

“Fuck!”

“I told you to hold still, Samantha.”

Your thighs were shaking in your efforts. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m trying.”

He smiled, running his tongue over his lips. “I know, Pretty Girl.”

His fingers pushed back inside of you, curling up. He shifted his hand slightly until he brushed again the spot inside of you that caused you to moan out a broken plea.

Your eyes had closed in both pleasure and as a show of self-control. If you saw what Spencer was doing to your body right now there was no way you’d be able to stop yourself from moving.

When you felt his mouth close around your clit, you were unable to keep your eyes shut. You had to look at him. His eyes were closed in bliss, his arm moving at a faster past.

His eyes snapped open and his mouth lifted when you moaned out his name. “Are you gonna cum, Pretty Girl?” he teased. “I can feel your tight little pussy squeezing my fingers. Fuck. I’m so fucking hard just thinking about what it will feel like when you cum all over my cock.”

“Spencer, please. I’m so close Please.”

He moved his mouth back down to the seam of your body. “You’ve been such a good girl, Samantha. You can move now, but your arms stay where they are. I want you to fuck this pretty pussy on my face. Can you do that?”

You nodded, your hips already moving to grind against him, seeking out your own pleasure. When his lips took your clit into his mouth, sucking softly, while his fingers curled into you, you were unable to control the loud moan that came out of your mouth as your orgasm washed over you.

Spencer’s fingers still moved inside of you, bringing you through your orgasm. He pressed a kiss to your inner thigh as he removed his fingers when you finally started to come down from your orgasm, he then put his fingers in his mouth, sucking them clean. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before he spoke. “I’ve thought about how you’d look after you came for me so many times,” he said quietly, moving up your body. He pressed a soft kiss to your lips. “This is better than I imagined.”

You tried to deepen the kiss, but you knew you couldn’t move your arms yet.

“You’re not done, are you baby?” He laughed when you frantically shook your head “no.” You didn’t think you’d ever be done with this man.

His hand shot up to wrap around your throat; he applied pressure to the sides to restrict the blood flow. "When I ask you a question, I expect an answer, Samantha."

You couldn’t help but moan at the feeling of his hand against you.

“Still such a needy girl,” he teased. “Now, you’re not done, are you?”

“No Doctor,” you rasped out.

Spencer smiled before he brought his mouth to yours again. He didn’t remove his hand from your throat while his tongue slicked into your mouth. It twirled against your own until he sucked the tip of your tongue into his mouth.

He pulled away with a groan. “I can’t fucking stand this anymore.” His hands moved to his pants, undoing them in a flash. You caught sight of him inside of his underwear. He palmed himself, his eyes on your face before he finally peeled those down too.

Spencer was well above average in everything else, it wasn’t surprising that he was here too. His hand wrapped around his cock, giving a few pumps while his eyes ran over your body.

“Turn over.”

You moved onto your stomach; Spencer pulling you up on to your knees. You felt both of his hands run over your ass until his right one lifted.

He gripped his cock in his hand, bringing it to your dripping center. Even that powerful orgasm hadn’t satisfied your desire for this man.

You felt the head of his cock slip into you, causing you both to groan. “Fucking Christ,” he moaned. “You’re so fucking tight.”

He started to slowly fuck himself into you, going deeper with every thrust. Your upper body was propped up on your elbows, your head hanging between them. You had never felt so overwhelmed by a man like this before.

With one final thrust, his hips slapped against your ass as he filled you completely.

Your face dropped into the pillow when he started to move; you were unable to control how loud you were moaning.

Those long fingers tangled in your hair again, pulling your head up. “No,” he growled, his rhythm never faltering. “I’ve thought about fucking you for too long. I want to hear you, do you understand.”

Your teeth dug into your bottom lip while your hips pushed back against him. "Yes, Doctor."

“Good girl,” was all he said but he didn’t release your hair.

This was a torture of the sweetest kind. Your hands were bound, both of his hands were holding you in place while he fucked you in an almost primal way, but you need to touch your clit so badly you could cry. You were already so close again.

Spencer must have realized it then too. He pulled out of your body, causing a whine to slip from your throat, your hips pushing back to seek him out again.

“On your back, Pretty Girl.” He helped you roll, settling himself between your thighs again. His fingers ran over the bindings on your wrists before he brushed his mouth against yours.

He gripped his cock again, lining it up with your entrance before he slowly started to sink into you. He pulled your legs up higher around his waist, pulling him deeper. You both groaned at the sensation.

Spencer started rocking against you, his pelvis grinding against your clit. He kissed you again, both of his lips covering your top lip.

You let out another whimper when his pace quickened.

“I should be so mad at you, Samantha,” he rasped against your lips. “You’ve kept this perfect pussy away from me for too long.”

His words caused you to clench around him. He lifted his upper body again, only this time one hand when to your throat, the other moving between your bodies.

You felt his thumb circle your clit while his fingers choked you again. “Come on, Samantha. I want you to cum for me, pretty girl.” Your head was thrashing against his hold, your body moving against his desperately. “I can feel it; cum on my cock baby.”

You might have screamed when the orgasm broke inside of you but you lost all sense of time and space when you came for him. Spencer's pace never slowed, his hands lifting from you to grab onto the headboard. His thrusts were brutal and seemed to extend your own orgasm.

With one final thrust, he groaned out “Samantha”, a look that you would remember for the rest of his life on his face while he found his release inside of you.

He quickly reached up and undid the bindings around your wrist with one movement. You brought your arms down, wincing at the pins and needles feeling.

“Sore?” he asked, his thumbs rubbing over your wrists.

“It was worth it,” you teased.

He smirked up at you. “So, am I still adorable?”

“I don’t know,” you pretended to consider him. “There isn’t enough data to reach a conclusion. You’re a man of science, you should know that.”

“Only you would make a science joke at a time like this.”

“It’s why you like me.”

His gaze softened, his hand cradling your face again. “It’s one of the reasons.”

--

You hadn’t gotten a chance to really talk to Spencer since that night in Oklahoma. He had slept in your room, causing both of you to rush around frantically the following morning so you wouldn’t miss the plane.

Then you had a full day of paperwork before Penelope insisted that everyone needed to unwind and have fun. So, against everyone’s will, she had dragged us to a bar nearby.

Now it was the next day and you had a nervous sort of excitement fluttering in your stomach.

“It’s a bit warm for a scarf, Pretty Boy,” Morgan called out, startling you.

You had noticed your purple scarf was missing from your go bag but you just assumed you left it in the hotel room.

That was evidently not the case as Dr. Spencer Reid walked into the BAU bullpen with it wrapped around his neck.

“My neck gets cold,” he defended. “I’m not used to short hair yet.”

That seemed to satisfy everyone else, but you didn’t miss the smirk he sent your way, or how he placed the scarf on his desk where you could see it.

It wasn’t until after 10 am that you could finally get a chance to speak to him alone. He didn’t look at all surprised when you started walking towards his desk, he just turned his chair to face you, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

“Are you going to give me my scarf back?” you questioned, your tone both amused and expectant.

Spencer just smiled at you, his cockiness seeming to have vanished. He looked almost nervous when he asked, “Are you going to go on a date with me?”

Despite all you had done, you couldn’t control the rush of surprise at his request. “Yes,” you informed him with a huge smile on your face.

His smile was just as earnest. “Finally,” he muttered, turning his chair back towards his desk. “And since you said ‘yes’, I think I’ll hang on to the scarf for a bit longer.”

-- The end.

--

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[renetess-b]

First of all thanks so much! Secondly, I’ll answer the first question for now, as ep 5 will be in it’s own post. I think for now I’ll just explain what happened to these guys in the time frame between episodes 4 and 5:

I want to start with the Ocelots. Lukas, Maya and Gill had their own adventure during the first 4 episodes, which took a heavy toll on them. After the Wither Storm was defeated, Aiden manages to find them but they got into a heated argument and in the end Aiden was left alone. But now they were wondering what they should do next. They told Aiden they won’t go back with him, their home was destroyed and now they got basically nothing, so they’ve decided they could start anew. Some place away from here.

Eventually they’ve decided to take up treasure hunting as a hobby. It’s a great way to keep yourself busy because if you’re constantly destructing yourself with other things, you can just push away all the bad thoughts and not address your issues at all, surely that won’t backfire later

And that’s what they’ve been doing for 3 months. They occasionally got new information about interesting places from other people’s tips, purchased treasure maps etc. And one day they got some info about treasure that they found particularly interesting: a flint and steel that could open a portal to another dimension. So they start looking for that specifically, which was actually proven to be quite a task, with all the fake leads and limited information they got, but they’re still set on getting it.

And as about Aiden:

By the end of episode 4 Aiden and Jesse are not friends. They’re certainly not enemies, but they’re far from friends. They can talk to each other normally now, but only when needed for something, no friendly chit-chat.

So, after the failed attempt to reconnect with his friends and with nowhere else to go, Aiden returns back to Beacontown. He was hoping Lukas, Gill and Maya would change their minds and come back there.

When Jesse noticed that he came back alone, she became worried that something bad might had happened to his friends. She questioned him about it, but he could never admit to anyone that they rejected him, especially not to Jesse, so he lied, simply telling her he never found them.

At this point, he didn’t know what else he could do, but he surely didn’t want to stay here. Things were still really awkward between him and the others, not as bad as before, but awkward nonetheless. Since he, just like his friends, basically had nothing left in this place, he wanted to just get away somewhere else. So he tells Jesse he’s off to keep looking for his friends.

Jesse offered him that if he ever found a place he could stay at for a while, he could send a letter from there, informing her about his location. That way if his friends ever do come back here, she knew how to contact him about it. He thanked her for the offer and departed soon after.

At first, he wanted to revisit all the familiar places, in case he runs into Lukas, Maya and Gill again and have a second chance to explain everything to them. But this attempt was futile, as he couldn’t even find any trace of their presence anywhere, so he started aimlessly wandering the world. He was hoping he could at least run into them that way, but knew how little his chances were. After almost 2 months he finally decided to stay at a village for a while. He’d remembered Jesse’s offer and since he finally had a place he was spending most of the time in, he wrote a letter. Naturally, neither of them wanted to keep in touch more than necessary, each of them for their own reasons, so that was the last time they contacted each other until episode 5.

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

So, next event takes place almost 4 months after the end of the 4th episode. Now new members of the order of the stone are adventuring and gaining popularity, like in the original. But some of the raids were quite unsuccessful, with barely anything valuable left behind. In cases like these they’d always assume someone had beaten them up to it a long time ago.

On one unsuccessful night like this, they were all feeling pretty bumped out. But this time they’ve noticed that all the mobs’ items were still scattered around, meaning someone had just cleaned that place out. Their suspicions that they were not alone there were confirmed when they’ve heard voices coming from a distance. Curious as to who it was, they went to investigate the source of the noise and discovered that it was Lukas, Gill and Maya.

This was the first time they’d seen them since that fateful day. One thing that quickly got their attention is that Lukas’s wither scars were still so prominent. Usually they would either fade away completely if the sickness didn’t affect the victim for too long or, in most cases, they’d at least fade to a lighter hue. This certainly was abnormal.

As soon as they let their presence known, the Ocelots suddenly became tense and hostile. They had no ideas what the new order of the stone was up to these days, so bumping into them like that was quite an unpleasant surprise. They clearly had no interest in spending any time talking to Jesse and the others and their attempts to figure out what happened to them were unsuccessful. After this conversation, they just disappeared into the night.

Confused as to what that was all was about, they return to their base empty-handed. But as promised, Jesse writes Aiden that they’ve spotted his friends in the nearby area.

The fifth episode officially starts 3 days after this.

[romewritingshop]

I’m a Dad

Fandom: Choices, Open Heart, AU

Relationship: Dr. Ethan Ramsey X F!MC (Name: Alyssa Brooks)

Warnings: Fluff, slight angst, mentions of birth complications, Alan is okay no need to panic 😅, anxieties of fatherhood, slight injury (nothing gruesome).

Rating: 12+ Word Count Total: 3209

AN: This is a birthday commission for @tsrookie who wanted a fic of dad!Ethan. I hope this is what you wanted and enjoy. The song that inspired this was Michele Morrone’s Dad (Accoustic Version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cDNO--sPgE

I wanted to portray the significance of Alan in Ethan and Alyssa’s lives. It was emotional writing this 🥺.

Rome’s Birthday Celebration Masterlist 2021

CHOICES MASTERLIST

Tagged: @eleanorbloom @juliafranquet @me-and-my-choices @drethanramslay @choicesficwriterscreations @queencarb @miss-smrxtiee @melaninnntae @they-callme-ami @openheartfanfics @mvalentine @starrystarrytrouble @drariellevalentine @nikki-2406 @caseyvalentineramsey @kiara-36 @choicesreal @sophxwithers @brightningstar @tsrookie @gryffindordaughterofathena @arnikki-2406 @mercury84choices ​@theinvisibledreamergirl @stygianflood @ethansramsey

A blissful silence settled in the room as Ethan tossed his house keys onto the kitchen countertop. Flicking the switches as the lights turned on in his house. A large suburban white painted house that he and Alyssa bought a few years ago. Ethan’s eyes wandered around the living room, taking in the quiet. Alyssa wasn’t home yet which gave Ethan the time to head to his study. Clambering up the stairs and going to the first door on his left, a spacious room with forest green walls. A metal case of shelves with wooden baskets filled with stationary, was diagonally placed in the corner to the door. Directly opposite the door was a mahogany table with a cushioned wheeled office chair.

To the left of the door, was a red and green small plastic table and bench. Crayons and pencils were scattered on the table and floor, there were sheets of coloured papers with indiscernible scribbles. The furrow in Ethan’s eyebrows relaxed as he slipped off his black cashmere jacket and hung it on a hook to the left of him. Crouching by the small kids table and glanced at the drawings, noting the curved shapes to be attempts at writing. Writing what exactly? He wasn’t too sure. 

Nathan and Savannah were the smartest kids he knew. Why wouldn’t they be though, since their parents were the acclaimed doctors of Bloom Edenbrook’s diagnostics team. Ethan put their drawings in a woven basket which had a label of ‘kids’, he held onto all the crayons and pencils and placed them in their respective labelled pots. Placing the pots in their woven basket and placing their basket on top of the shelf unit. Alyssa probably didn’t have time to tidy up their mess because they were spending the afternoon and evening with Alyssa’s friends.

Maybe now was a good time to get started on his project as he pulled out a basket and took out a few sheets of thick matte paper and an envelope. Bringing them over to his desk and seating himself, opening a drawer in his desk. He took out a few ink pens and placed the pens next to his paper, his eyes darted to the wooden picture frame of Alyssa and their three kids: Allison, Nathan and Savannah. He still couldn’t believe that he was theirs, and they were his. It was only yesterday, when he and Alyssa were in the reception, treating for a thoracotomy and now they had a house and kids.

Ethan knew what he had to do as soon as he brought his pen to the paper, the words flew right through him as he wrote. The memories of his kids flooding his brain with a warm familiar glow.

~~~~~~

“Out of the way!”

Ethan rushed down the stairs, shoving past nurses and doctors before slamming the corridor door open to the maternity ward. Sienna was hot on his heels as he growled and grimaced at people, his eyes went to the pager as a message from Naveen popped up. ‘4cm dilated’. Ethan was close as he weaved through a never ending maze of Edenbrook’s corridors. In the distance he spotted Naveen, his dad Alan, and his daughter Allison were looking into the window of one of the maternity rooms.

“Ethan! There you are!”

“Daddy!”

His crinkled grumpy face relaxed at the sight of Allison. Five years old with a knack for mischief and a carbon copy of himself. She had his eyes and ears but Alyssa’s nose, lips and hair. Alan was taking care of Allison while Ethan and his wife were working, however, Alyssa’s contraction pains strengthened and her constant lavatory needs indicated that she needed to be checked in. Naveen came up to stand beside Ethan; who took Allison into his arms.

“Naveen, how is she?”

“Well the contractions are hurting and I have a feeling the babies are coming now. Dr. Delarosa is in there with her. Are you ready Ethan?”

Ethan gave a nod as he turned to Allison, a calm gentle smile reserved for her.

“Time to get your new siblings. You okay to wait here with Uncle Naveen and Grandpa?”

“Yeah! Uncle Naveen is buying me chocolate!”

Ethan quirked a brow at his mentor, who in return stuck with a confident grin before Ethan placed Allison down. Naveen clasped his hand around her tiny hand and led her to the staff break room, whilst listening to her ramblings about her new siblings. Ethan took a deep breath as Alan stepped up to rest his hand on his shoulder.

“I’m proud of you, son.”

Ethan smiled and was about to step into the room, when something held him still. His buried nerves leaked through his wall as memories of Dolores seeped to his front. Alyssa was pregnant with twins, that alone carried several complications in terms of the positioning of the babies, possible post partum haemorrhage. On top of that she was one week late, twins born post due date carry risks to the mother and the babies.

A flash of baby Ethan in the NICU drained the warmth from his face and he felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t breathe as he pressed a hand against the door ledge, bowing his head as Alan stood beside him. Alan could tell Ethan was panicking. His shoulders shook as Alan gently probed.

“Ethan?”

“What if something happens?”

“Boston’s famous doctor is worried about a twin birth? Ethan, you’ve done this before. You know what to do.”

“It’s different. Alyssa is in there. She’s the patient. What if I can’t make the right decision?”

“Ethan Jonah Ramsey. You are a diagnostician. A famous one at that. You look at the possibilities before you make your decision. You have it in you son. Plus she’s a fighter. She won’t back down. But she needs you. Be brave and if you can’t be brave, be brave for her. She needs your support.”

His father’s words felt like a warm wash of life as he inhaled the air, exhaling his anxieties and giving a steady nod. Ethan smiled at his father before pushing open the door to step into the room, stepping into action to help make Alyssa’s labour as easy as possible.

~~~~~~

“Daddy! When is Twilight Sparkle coming?”

“In a bit. If you finish your lunch, then she’ll come.”

“Daddy! Will she bring a lot of presents for us?”

“An average amount, Nathan.”

Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose as he watched over the several little kids munching on their mini pizza slices and tater tots. It was the twins’ birthday today and the two of them invited their whole class to celebrate, the sun was shining as the kids sat on picnic blankets. The Ramseys’ had a spacious garden which could hold for nearly twenty five kids and several adults. Bryce, Jackie and Elijah were keeping an eye on the kids as Ethan slipped away to the kitchen where Alyssa was sat on a breakfast stool with her foot in Sienna’s lap. Aurora was beside them as she carefully tapped a finger against the swollen skin near her ankle. Jenner paced on his paws with nervous energy as he whined at his mom, Alyssa.

“Alyssa has sprained her ankle … Ethan.”

The friends still had a difficult time addressing Ethan by his first name but he paid no heed to it as Alyssa tried to come off the stool, trying to brush off the pain.

“It’s nothing, I’m sure I’ll be fine as long as I don’t walk on it.”

Ethan sighed rather exasperatedly as he folded his arms at his wife. That motion alone made Alyssa meekly smile and remain in her seat. Aurora handed her a cool pack for Alyssa to use for her sprain. She knew that she needed to rest her ankle but the twins would be so upset.

“Fine. But how are we going to solve the entertainment issue?”

At that moment the front door opened and closed as Alan strode in with a confident excited gait. He had a white cardboard box in his hands as he hummed and placed the box on the table, unveiling it to reveal a My Little Pony cake with ‘Happy 4th Birthday! Nathan and Savannah’. Alan’s brows sagged at the sight of his daughter-in-law.

“What happened?”

“I … fell.”

Ethan resorted to pinching the bridge of his nose before explaining the story. The children were showing off dance moves and there was a little girl who was showing off her gymnastics ability. Alyssa thought she could show off her talent by demonstrating a cartwheel, unfortunately her cartwheel was aimed the wrong way and Alyssa landed awkwardly in a bush with her legs askew. Alan smiled at Alyssa as he realised that there was an issue of entertainment since Alyssa was planning to dress up as the kids’ favourite character, Twilight Sparkle.

“I guess that means Alyssa can’t be Twilight Sparkle.”

Sienna gave a nod and spoke up.

“Aurora, Jackie and I would do it but I don’t think there’s enough time for any of us to learn everything about My Little Pony. The kids are gonna see right through us.”

“It’s a conundrum.”

Everyone took a moment to think before Alan’s eyes twinkled with an idea.

“I have an idea. Sienna, start watching some My Little Pony, I’ll stall the kids. ‘Lyssa, where did you keep your guitar?”

Alyssa’s eyes twinkled as she informed Alan of the guitar, to which Aurora ran up to search for it. It seemed everyone knew what to do, everyone except for Ethan, who placed his hands on his hips, turning to his father.

“Would you mind clueing me into your plan?”

“A little singing will have the kids distracted while Aurora, Alyssa and Sienna get ready. The kids will love it!”

At that moment, Bryce popped his head through the glass garden doors, there’s a slight line of sweat near the crown of his neck as he nervously glances back.

“The kids are going rabid if Twilight Sparkle doesn’t come in the next five minutes.”

Aurora rushed back down and handed Alan a brown varnished acoustic guitar, a gift from Alyssa’s patient Remy. Alan hung the strap over his shoulder and strutted outside to where all the kids shrieked and yelled.

“Okay kids! Who’s gonna sing the My Little Pony theme song?”

Ethan went out and noticed all the kids sitting at their picnic blankets, bopping and singing while Alan strummed the tune of the My Little Pony theme song. Ethan and Rafael took the time to begin cleaning up the rubbish whilst Bryce, Elijah and Jackie kept an eye out for Sienna, Aurora and Alyssa. All the kids and the twins were enraptured, even Jenner was happily panting to the music. Alan was going through a list of songs going from the My Little Pony Theme Song, to the lime and coconut song and to  the rhinestone cowboy.Not long after, Alan got a thumbs up from Bryce and Jackie to which Alan smiled and announced.

“Now children! There is someone who’d like to wish two special children a Happy Birthday!”

Nathan and Savannah jumped up with excited shrieks as Alan strummed the music of the theme song and out came Twilight Sparkle. It was Sienna donning a purple sparkly dress, wings protruding from the back and a dark wig flowing off her shoulders. Her unicorn headband was fixed into the wig and her purple make-up shone in the sun as Sienna skipped towards the kids, tossing bounds of glitter.

Aurora and Jackie were helping Alyssa settle on a deck chair as the twins hugged and cried at the fact that Twilight Sparkle had come to their party. Ethan and Alyssa sent a thankful smile as Alan returned their smile, everyone’s faces warming at the twin’s excitement.

~~~~~~

Ethan used the back of his hand to wipe off the sweat on his brow as he pushed the front door of his apartment open. Baby Allison happily chewed on her yellow teether while bouncing in the baby sling, strapped across Ethan’s chest. Alyssa was working at the hospital after spending four months at home and it was Ethan’s turn to stay home with Allison. He was glad he opted for a loose linen shirt and khaki trousers as the Boston heat was slowly racking up. Ethan had gone out to buy some ingredients for their dinner: stir fried tofu and broccoli. 

Alyssa would need some good comfort food after going back to work and he knew that Chinese would delight her. He unclipped one arm strap, pressing a palm to hold up Allison before unclipping the other to carry his daughter to her high chair in the kitchen. Allison was teething so he handed her a teething ring to help Allison improve motor skills. His daughter smiled and babbled at the sight of her dad as Ethan pressed a kiss onto his daughter’s forehead.

Allison was a daddy’s girl since she would whine and cry with Alyssa, but when it came to Ethan, Allison babbled and laughed. Alyssa was sure that she would say ‘Dada’. Ethan grinned as Jenner padded into the kitchen, bringing himself up to stand on his hind legs beside Allison. The dog was protective and loving to Allison as she tried to swat at Jenner’s nose.

“Jenner, keep an eye on her.”

Jenner barked as Ethan began taking out utensils and the shopping to get started. Draining the water from the tofu and breaking up the broccoli into florets. Every so often, his eyes would wander to his little girl on the high chair. Ethan still couldn’t believe the fact that he was a father. A living breathing child was in his care, one he made with the woman he loved as his eyes glistened at the memories of her birth. Despite expecting for children to not be in the cards for him, life had a way of telling him that it was always the case.

As Ethan stared longingly at his daughter, Jenner could smell something faintly burning; turning his head to hear a loud crackle and pop. Jenner barked furiously which had Ethan snap out and realise the onions and garlic had burnt in the wok, the broccoli was charred beyond recognition as Ethan turned off the induction hob. The loud barks caused Allison to startle and little beads of tears streamed down her face.

His heart lurched as he immediately stalked to his daughter to take her in his arms and get her to settle down. It was the first time in a long time that Ethan burnt dinner as he exhaled at the time on his wrist watch. Alyssa would be home in an hour and it was too late to restart. He didn’t have enough ingredients and he couldn’t whip up something else in time for Alyssa to sink her teeth into.

At that moment his phone rang as Ethan reached into his pocket to rest the phone between his ear and shoulder, while bouncing a teary Allison in his lap.

“Ethan Ramsey.”

“Ethan.” The corner of Ethan’s lips curled upwards at the recognition of his father’s voice. “I’m just about ten minutes away from your home. Alyssa invited me to have dinner, do you need anything?”

Ethan glanced at the mess behind him, a low exhale left his lips.

“Can you please pick up some Chinese on your way here?”

It wasn’t long when Alan arrived with several bags of Chinese take out from Xing-Fu’s Restaurant. Ethan took the bags from Alan and set up the dining table while Alan took the time to talk and play with his granddaughter, Jenner wagged his tail rapidly as he watched Alan and Allison. Not long after the kitchen was clear and the dinner table was set, Alyssa had entered the apartment with a smile on her face.

She took a moment to freshen up before joining the Ramseys at the dinner table. Her eyes sparkled at the array of side dishes as she pecked Ethan’s cheek before digging rather ravenously into the food. All the tension from the day melted under the spicy heat of duck and the softness of lotus buns. Ethan and Alan share a knowing smile as they too get stuck into their meal, Allison smiles and babbles in her high chair next to Alyssa. Glad to have her mother with her.

~~~~~~

The memories faded as Ethan lifted his pen from the letter, a soft nostalgic smile brushed on his face as he pushed the frame of his glasses up the bridge of his nose. A faint sound of the front door opened as excited chirps and barking fluttered into his study. The kids, Jenner and Alyssa were home as Ethan smiles at the incoming thunder steps, spinning his office chair to the direction of the door. The twins come tumbling in and launch themselves into Ethan’s arms, not giving a chance for Ethan to pay attention to their chatter. Jenner is sitting at the entrance of the door, while Allison stands behind him with her hand scratching the top of his fur. 

“Nathan, Savannah! I cannot understand your rambling.”

“Yeah, they had a lot of pastries. Aunt Sienna made a lot of cakes and biscuits.”

Ethan shook his head with a teasing grin at the twins. The two of them hid their mouths as Nathan denied.

“No we didn’t. Ally did!”

“Liar, I saw you two take two slices of the chocolate fudge cake.”

“No! You’re dreaming Ally.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow at his troublesome twins but pressed long kisses into their hair. Savannah leaned over his shoulder and noticed the pen and paper before pressing her two palms on Ethan’s face, forcing him to look directly at her as she asked.

“Are you drawing without us?”

Ethan shook his head as he explained.

“I’m making a gift for grandpa.”

“Are you gonna give it to him tomorrow?”

Before he could answer, Alyssa appeared at the door with her hands on her hips, dressed in a green cotton dress and brown knee high boots. Her mom voice was coming through as she moved her eyes between the troublesome twins.

“Nathan and Savannah. Time for bed. We’ve got to wake up early tomorrow if you want to spend the whole day with Grandpa.”

“Do we have to?”

Ethan stood up and held on to the twins as he smartly urged.

“Come on if you get dressed for bed, you can stay up late tomorrow.”

The twins gasped as they scrambled off Ethan’s arms and rushed to their bedroom to get into their pyjamas. A small smile curled up on Alyssa’s lips as she turned to the eldest Ramsey child.

“You too, Ally!”

“But Mom!”

“Come on.”

Ethan steps up to the doorway and sweetly kisses his wife as she cupped his cheek.

“You coming?”

“Just finishing up.”

Alyssa gave a nod and led her daughter away to her bedroom, Jenner obediently bounding behind them. Ethan returned to his desk to read over the last words he wrote.

Look at me now. I’m a dad.

Thank you for making me the man I am today.

Love,

Dr. Ethan J. Ramsey

[nasaty]

Forget me not

What else would this be but an

Aizawa-Sensei x Y/n-Sensei fic

TW: (eventually) violence, discussion of past death, just some bad feelings all around.

Part 1/??

“Aizawa are you fucking kidding me?!” You barged into his office as loud as humanly possible, slamming the door behind you. He was grading papers, seconds from falling asleep, holding his chin in one hand and a red pen in the other. He looked up like he hardly noticed you were there.

“…yes?” He said in his usual low, monotone voice.

This made you even more angry. “You’re trying to get Shinso to transfer into the hero course?! You didn’t even discuss this with me!”

“Not required to.” He didn’t even look up from his grading, and he tapped the pencil on the table in annoyance.

“Are you fucking serious?” You questioned.

He rolled his eyes without caring that you could see, “when am I not serious?” He asked rhetorically.

“Shinso is one of my best students. You really think it’ll be best for him to move him from my classes?”

“He wants to be a hero.”

“YOU want him to be a hero!” You banged your fist on his desk, holding the paperwork for Shinso’s transfer in it. “I don’t care how alike you *think* he is to you, he can make his own decisions!”

“He already did.” He growled.

You were seething. “You didn’t even give him a chance to choose!”

“Get out of my office.”

“UGHH.” You groaned, spun on the ball of your foot to leave and slammed the door behind you.

Making your way down to the teachers lounge, you mashed your teeth together and your face was bright red with anger. You were mumbling to yourself when you were interrupted by someone.

“Are you okay, y/n-san?” You were snapped back into reality when you saw Yagi Toshinori looming over you. He placed a gaunt hand on your shoulder.

You took a deep breath. ‘No need to involve Toshi in this, he’s too stressed anyway,’ you thought. “I’m fine, Toshi, thank you though.”

“You’re bright red, y/n. Are you sure you’re okay…?” His gleaming blue eyes stared into yours as he leaned closer towards you. You couldn’t lie.

Sighing, you stated, “Aizawa-Sensei has decided to try and take Shinso into the hero course. Without consulting me before starting the process.”

“Oh….” Toshinori had such a soft, subdued voice, it calmed you down a bit. “Have you spoken to him…?”

“Shinso? No, I just got the paperwork a few minutes ago.”

“I meant Aizawa-Sensei. Did you talk to him yet?”

“There’s no talking to Aizawa.” You pout.

“You went into his office and screamed at him, didn’t you.” He deduced.

“…maybe a little. He deserved to be screamed at though!”

“I didn’t say he didn’t!” Toshi put his hands up in innocence. “I’m sure you have a good reason to be upset about this, so maybe you should bring it up with him.”

You signed in defeat. “Fine…. I need to cool off first though.”

“Would you like to accompany me for coffee then? I was just about to head out.” A wide grin was plastered on his face.

“That would be nice, Toshi, thank you.”

“Anytime, y/n-san.”

You went to a nice cafe with Toshinori and drank coffee in his car so people wouldn’t bombard him. Even though he wasn’t the All Might everyone used to know, people recognized his form now, so it was hard for him to go anywhere. He appreciated your company and for working crowd control a bit when you tagged along.

Making your way back to the school, you decided you would send Aizawa an email to explain and attempt to meet up and discuss the situation. You wanted to be prepared so you wrote down a few points you thought you’d forget, and once you were at your office you sent the email to him.

“Aizawa-Sensei,

I apologize for my behavior earlier. I had just received the paperwork regarding Shinso and was upset. I hope you can forgive me. I was wondering if I could have a bit of your time to hear your reasoning for this transfer though, if I may. Again I am sorry for my emotions getting the best of me.

-Y/n”

You did a little sucking up because you really didn’t want him to take Shinso. You thought he belonged in the General Studies course so he could cover more broad topics and really decide all the things he wanted to do with his quirk and his intellect. There was no reason to limit him to just hero work.

Your computer dinged and you opened the most recent email

“Have you calmed down then?

A.S.”

“UGH!” You groaned. He was so rude! He always knew how to piss you off in just the right way and you felt like an idiot. Still, Shinso having a say in his future was important to you, so you decided to ignore his games.

“I have. I’m sorry for how I acted.”

You sent back.

“Are you sure?

A.S.”

He could not be more insolent.

“No. I’m sorry for how I acted but I’m not sorry for why I acted that way.”

“Fair. Come see me during 4th period office hour.

A.S.”

Finally, he agreed to at least discuss the matter rather than just going behind your back. You agreed to the meeting time and wrote down a few more points to hit in your conversation.

[elitegymnastics]

Q: What is this?

A: It’s a flyer for a virtual fundraiser on June 4th that Elite Gymnastics is playing. You can access the show at quietyear.com

Q: Hasn’t Elite Gymnastics been inactive for like, ten years?

A: Yes. This is the first Elite Gymnastics performance of any kind since November 30th 2012, at the Horn Gallery at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. 

Q: Why did Elite Gymnastics stop playing shows?

A: Elite Gymnastics started out as me (Jaime) and a bunch of my friends agreeing to help me play my songs live back in 2009. I made a lot of weird demos in GarageBand and my friend Dominique Davis from the band Dearling Physique got tired of watching me sit on them. So, he booked me to play at a show he was curating as part of a small local music and arts festival called Clapperclaw. For several months that’s mainly what EG was. At some point the focus shifted to making recordings rather than playing shows, to participate in the emergent culture of new music distributed via MP3 file-sharing. The lineup winnowed to just me and Josh Clancy, who began creating digital EPs that we posted on this Tumblr page as ZIP files full of MP3s accompanied by a PDF of artwork. This is the incarnation of the group that most people are familiar with.

This was before Patreon existed. If Bandcamp was around, we’d never heard of it. Though MP3 file-sharing culture and file transfer sites like MediaFire and MegaUpload allowed anyone to distribute music freely across the world via the internet, it was still pretty difficult to get people to pay you for it. I think it was for this reason that a lot of internet music back then featured a lot of sampling. A lot of artists’ first forays into the world of DAWs and production took the form of mash-ups, bootleg remixes, and DJ mixes. Artists like Animal Collective, MIA, Kanye West, and Daft Punk for whom sampling was a pillar of their creative process were extremely influential. Elite Gymnastics was no exception - the first song of ours to gain traction online was “Is This On Me?” which made no attempt to hide the fact that it heavily sampled Faye Wong’s “Eyes On Me.” The fact that it was so difficult to make money off MP3s pushed people to make different creative decisions than they would have otherwise. It was sort of a free-for-all.

Eventually, all of this started to change. The major labels started getting a lot more aggressive about trying to destroy MP3 file-sharing culture. Platforms like MegaUpload were raided and taken offline. The replacements that sprung up to replace them were increasingly infested with ads and malware. Corporate platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud adopted Content ID filters to prevent the proliferation of copyrighted music there. Blogs and private torrent trackers being taken down meant thousands of hours of labor were wiped out in an instant. Some of the best archives of the history of recorded music ever created were destroyed without hesitation. Even the most devoted participants lost the will to keep repairing and re-making the stuff that cops and record companies kept obliterating.

Josh and I both dreamed of being able to make a living as musicians. We still do. Back then, we were willing to accept a lot of changes in order to make that possible, which seemed necessary. A lot of the stuff that we were great at just didn’t make any money. Once, we were asked to do a remix of a song called “Sa Sa Samoa” by the band Korallreven. I did the remix by myself, which was normal for us, and Josh was so inspired by it that he spent a week working non-stop to create a video for it. People loved it - the day the video dropped, Pitchfork designated the song as a “Best New Track” and New York Magazine wrote about it in their “Approval Matrix.” The video led to a ton of exposure, but from a financial perspective, it just did not make sense to put that much effort into promoting a remix of someone else’s song. The stuff we were personally excited by just seemed to have less and less to do with what actually makes money.

A lot of internet bands during this era began to palpably shapeshift in an effort to succeed in music as a career. Artists who’d first attracted notice for sample-based bangers they made on a laptop started posing with vintage hardware in their press photos and trading in their laptops for live bands and recording studios. It became harder to distribute DJ mixes or mash-ups that contained copyrighted music in them. Influential bloggers either closed up shop or were absorbed into the traditional music industry in some way. Feeds that once touted bizarre songs by laptop-toting weirdos with no industry connections started to become populated mostly by artists with labels and publicists. The bottom rungs of festival lineups started to consist mostly of new major label signings who have lots of money to spend on stage production but not much in the way of grassroots fan enthusiasm or media buzz. 

Internet music and what people tend to refer to as “indie music” split off into two separate streams. Today, there’s a pretty intense firewall between internet culture and whatever you want to call the culture of vinyl records, mid-sized indie labels with publicists, and positive reviews from the few remaining websites that still pay people to write about music. I call it “publicist indie,” “lifestyle techno,” or “prestige electronica” depending on whether or not the music features guitars and/or vocals. The recent online kerfuffle about NFTs really emphasized this split. The worlds of digital illustration and game development campaigned aggressively against mass adoption of cryptocurrency - if you saw any Medium posts explaining crypto’s environmental issues, chances are they were written by someone from those fields. Every new announcement by an artist that they had minted an NFT was met with a swift and vocal backlash from fans. Though I’ve never really been much of an Aphex Twin fan, it was still pretty startling to look at the replies under his NFT announcement tweet and see hundreds of furious people announcing that he was now dead to them. That’s an artist who has seemed more or less unimpeachable for most of my life up until this point! All of that seemed to change in an instant.

There is a massive disconnect between the insular world of the industry establishment and the cutting edge of online counterculture. We saw this again a couple of weeks ago with the online response to the crisis in Gaza. We saw passionate advocacy for Palestinians from games journalists and developers much more often than we saw it from musicians. This is a very serious problem for music! I do not believe it is possible to please both sides - that is to say, I do not believe it is possible to be part of internet counterculture and the industry establishment simultaneously. The music industry is too conservative, too compromised, too corrupt. If it weren’t for the ocean of valuable copyrights that labels are sitting on, most of them would be bankrupt within a year. If the industry was forced to live or die based on how they handle what’s happening right now in the present, it would most assuredly die. The only people who don’t realize this are those who are being paid to stay ignorant. 

Josh and I did not know this back then. From where we were standing, it looked like internet culture and established media industries were on track to converge. A career in the arts seemed genuinely, tantalizingly possible, right up until the moment that it no longer did. 

In my case, I had really been struggling up until that point. My life had been this ongoing sequence of evictions and hospitalizations, and it seemed to be getting worse, not better. I donated plasma twice a week to pay for groceries and while I was sitting there with a giant needle stuck in my left arm for an hour I would see my picture in The Fader or my songs being recommended by one of the Kings of Leon on Twitter or whatever. Music seemed like the only thing the world thought I was any good at. It felt like my only chance at a peaceful, happy life was somewhere out there in a world I could only perceive through a laptop screen. 

Gender, for me, was a big factor in all of this. The more invested in the craft of songwriting I became, the harder it was to repress or ignore my gender stuff. At that time I’m not sure I even knew what the word “transgender” meant - I just knew that when I showed up at a venue wearing a skirt, no one would talk to me or look me in the eye, and that reading about people like Anohni or Terre Thaemlitz or on the internet made me feel like if I could get out of Minneapolis maybe I could find a place where people would accept me. The internet was like, a pretty toxic place for someone in my position. When I tried to find people to talk to about what I was feeling, nobody tried to tell me to read Judith Butler or ask me what pronouns I preferred. The internet was just like, overrun with predators who just wanted to fetishize me and exploit me. Music seemed like the only way I’d ever have an actual life as myself. I was desperate for that. I was well and truly desperate.

Between all the big changes that were happening to us individually and the music industry moving farther and farther away of the anarchic free-for-all of MP3 file-sharing culture, the strain on us just got to be too much. We stopped trusting each other. We became the unstoppable force and the immovable object, crashing haphazardly against one another’s resolve in a dazzling display of youthful futility. Our partnership ended, and after finishing out the remaining live shows on the calendar by myself, I retired the name “Elite Gymnastics” and started making music on my own under other names. That was that.

Q: Why is Elite Gymnastics coming back now, then?

A: Over the years, Josh and I eventually started talking again. Though there was a lot we did agree on, and potential future projects were discussed, nothing truly felt right. We haven’t been in the same room since Summer 2012, and we’ve both changed a lot since then. We both have other projects and we’ve both developed other ways of working since we stopped working together. It’s a pretty big commitment to put all of that aside in order to join your fortunes together with someone you haven’t seen in a decade.

Recently, Josh decided to leave Elite Gymnastics. His reasons are his own, and I was very surprised by his decision, but after having had time to adjust, I’m really grateful to him. I had kept these songs at a distance for many years, because it seemed foolish to allow myself to get too attached to songs I didn’t feel like I was allowed to think of as mine, if that makes any sense. The songs felt like casualties of a conflict that I had to bury in the ground and try to forget about. Being able to embrace them again felt like re-growing a severed limb or having a loved one come back to life, almost. Feeling like it was safe to love these songs again made me feel whole in a way I didn’t expect to. I became really excited by the prospect of revisiting them, so that’s what I decided to do.

Q: Does this mean you’re going to put RUIN back on Spotify?

A: No. Taking the record off Spotify was the right thing to do. That record was only ever intended to exist during the era of MP3 piracy. I never envisioned a world where the music industry would be so aggressive about policing the way that copyrighted music is allowed to exist online. If we hadn’t opted to take the record down when we did, someone would inevitably have forced us to. If you want to hear those specific recordings again, you’re going to have to do it the way we originally intended: by downloading MP3 files from the internet. Try SoulSeek.

Q: What’s next for Elite Gymnastics, then?

A: Here’s the situation currently. There is no Elite Gymnastics music available to stream or purchase in an official capacity anywhere on the internet. It wouldn’t really be possible for me to put the old stuff on Spotify or Bandcamp now because of all the samples. Like I said before, it was a different time. Those records were created to thrive on a past version of the internet that no longer exists. They weren’t designed to be compatible with the 2021 internet.

Technically, Elite Gymnastics didn’t ever release a debut album. We had EPs, a compilation, and a remix collection. We didn’t make an album, a record that existed as the distillation of all that experimentation that contained all of the songs that fans of the EPs would want to hear, all in one place. It’s like we did Good Fridays but stopped before we made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

So, I am currently working on the first Elite Gymnastics album. If you were following my stuff as Default Genders, you may have noticed me posting demos on my SoundCloud page from 2015-2018 that were all eventually reworked into the album Main Pop Girl 2019. The album I am making is taking that approach to all the old EG songs, including some unreleased stuff. I’m collaborating with others on some songs and I honestly feel like it has resulted in some of the best and most exciting music I have ever been involved with. It is a drastic reinvention, but iteration and reinvention have always been a big part of what I do. I want to make something that feels like the culmination of everything that came before, and so far, I think I’m succeeding.

Q: When will I be able to hear this new music?

At a virtual fundraiser on June 4th, 2021, where there is a suggested donation of $10. You can access it at quietyear.com

[jackest-jack]

I would very much like to hear about your spooky scary Sirens, pretty please 🥺

AJKSJAKISJAJAJF Ok so I almost had a heart attack when I saw you were following me because YOU’RE SO COOL so thank you

I already wrote about my spooky scary sirens over here, and they have pictures and I would be willing to write a short thing with them later but for right now I’m gonna pick a different thing and blab about it.

The most fleshed out and cohesive thing I have is the vampire band nerd slasheresque story with a police chase followup as well as a separate zombie apocalypse thing, so ig I’ll go with that. More under cut and warning for like a lot of gore and death and angst. I’m also only doing the first part of that because this is taking a long ass time

I came up with this in junior high, and I was in band, and I noticed that each instrument section had different personalities sort of, so I made characters around that and put them in a horror plot where they all die horribly, because what else are you gonna do? This is gonna be a plot rundown and it might get real long. (It is no longer a rundown. Its just unedited word vomit.)

anyways a bunch of friends, who I’m just gonna call by their instrument names, go camping in the woods for a couple weeks. They all take one car and set up in the middle of fuckin nowhere.

Clarinets a vampire pretending to be a high schooler for kicks, because she was 15 when she turned 5 years ago and got dragged away to the magic underworld (basically a series of safehouses and towns for the supernatural) and she wants a letterman goddamnit.

She gets adopted into a friendgroup despite her best efforts, and gets dragged along on the camping trip in the small car and close quarters with a buddy system and she hasn’t eaten anything substantial in like two months and its proving to be a problem when she starts thinking of her friends as snacks instead of people.

one night, percussionist gets up to go on a 3 am lake walk. But, the buddy system. So he takes Clarinet, who never seems to sleep anyways, with him.

They’re on the edge of a lake littered with huge old chunks of driftwood, looking out over the water, when Percussionist steps on something sharp. It went straight through his sandal and he pulls it out without much trouble, but “that nail looks kind of rusty and I’m Pretty Sure I’m bleeding a little bit, oh I hope I don’t need a shot-“

she falls on him like a cat on a wounded songbird. She has enough of her mind left to cover his mouth and stop the screams as he slowly loses blood.

He tries to fight back. He does. he jams the nail deep into her throat and twists away, but she catches his wrist and slams him backward, a sharp stick going through his stomach, sticking him bloody at the base of an old driftwood branch still attached to its old tree.

She stops draining just before he dies. And she waits, and waits, and waits. Finally, hours later, the corpse takes a deep gasp and its eyes fly open. It begins the excruciating process of pulling itself off the tree.

his wound is closed less than a minute later.

he comes to and sees her sobbing on the ground, bloody streaks under her eyes from where she tried to wipe away her tears with hands soaked from putting pressure on his stomach in a feeble attempt to save him.

“Vampires, huh?” He says, half joking, half looking for an explanation.

—-—

they’re sitting around a small campfire, and Clarinet tells him that he’s a vampire, he needs blood, he cant go back to camp or he will eat his friends. She leaves to find him something substantial before he loses it.

back at the original camp, its around sunrise. Flute notices a small trail of smoke not far off, realizes that Percussionist is missing, and gets French Horn to help him look for their idiot friend (and maybe put out a small fire.)

They make it about 3/4th of the way to the smoke when flute trips on a tree root and scrapes his knee. About a mile away, Percussionists head perks up.

He distantly realizes that he just left the campfire that he’s supposed to stay at, but he can‘t seem to care. The hunger doesn’t gnaw at him or hollow him out. Its not like looking for a fix either. Its an itch in his whole body, a near unavoidable function of his being. The hunt is as natural as a cough, a spasm of muscles to take away the awful itch.

He moves faster than he ever could before, and just to see if he can, he jumps up and begins running across the branches of trees. Its slower, but sneakier; his prey won’t see him coming.

Finally, he reaches them. He jumps on the smaller one, sending it crashing to the ground. It’s blood is what brought him here. He sinks his hollow teeth into its neck and begins feeding.

There is a scream and a crash as the taller one runs away. Thats ok. He only needs one.

———

French horn, for her part, is freaking the fuck out. The sun had just peaked over the horizon and orange light was streaming through the trees when everything went to shit.

The pale thing had fallen on Flute, and the noise he made… she was almost certain he was dead now.

She kept running. If she could make it back to camp, then maybe she could get help, or maybe leave before the rest of them died too.

She charges through a thicket, sharp thorns scraping and tearing every inch of her as she shoves her way through. She shuts her eyes as she goes, to avoid the thorns poking them out.

When she comes out the other side, she feels her gut sink.

She doesn’t recognize the trees or bushes around her. She doesn’t see a path.

She’s lost.

She wants to break down, to scream and cry the injustice to the heavens, to kick and punch and fight the thing that killed her friend, to sit down and rest and have a moment to breathe, to be home-

She picks a direction and runs.

———

Percussionist stops draining Flute just before he‘s dead, following the instinct that drove him to where he is.

He wants to be horrified. He does, really. But he was so hungry, and the itch is still there, waiting beneath his skin to pounce on him again. But for now, its gone, and he can think clearly. He can move without the instinct tainting his every twitch.

He turns to look at the person he drained and sees-

He sees his friend. And it hits him all at once.

He killed a person, a person he knew, a person he cared for, and he had been powerless to stop it. He didn’t even know- he didn’t realize- he would never have done it if he-

but he knew he would have. Even if he knew. He would’ve killed Flute, and he hates himself for that.

So he sits by the body of his dead friend, maybe in solace, maybe because some instinctive tick tells him to. He doesn’t want to know. He refuses to.

When Flute sat up and gasped, Percussionist could‘ve sworn he had a heart attack (even without a functioning heart.)

To Flutes credit, he made it through Percussionists halting and confused explanation before letting himself ask about the smell.

”what smell?” Percussionist asked, and lifted his nose to the air.

He got his answer. The smell of blood, salty and sweet and with a coppery tinge to it drifted through the air, leaving a hunger and odd comfort sitting in his gut. It reminded him of smelling baking cookies from the kitchen as a kid.

A leaf crunched, and he snapped out of his trance. Flute had stood up and broken into a run, faster than any human could’ve gone. After the person that had been with him.

After his friend.

Percussionist sprinted after him.

——

He had the chance to notice how fast he was really going, now that he could think through the hunger. He practically flew through the forest, leaping over a fallen log half his size that blocked his way. He ducked and dodged branches that threatened to slash his face, and if he were running for something else he may have threw his head back and laughed.

As it was, he was following the occasional red flash of a windbreaker that he could barely keep up with without being hit by a tree.

He could heal now right? Did he really even need to be worried about being hit by trees?

He let one slap his face just to test, and he felt the stinging pain all across his face as a deep cut opened across his nose and eyes. He faltered as his vision went red with blood. A second later, it was gone, and he could see again. ….And he‘d lost flute. Great.

He sniffed the air, remembering how he’d been able to smell the blood, and tried to look for his friend.

He could smell the whole forest. Sap and pine and rotting leaves, rotten flesh and mushrooms and a skunk miles and miles off, the sweet sting of honey and dew and campfire smoke, and over it all, the most lovely smell-

Well, looks like he couldn’t find him that way. He thought for a moment, and groaned. He could just follow French Horn and get to her first!

He began running again.

———

Clarinet had just made it back to the campsite, a live deer kicking around over her shoulder. She would’ve killed it, but she couldn’t quite figure out how without losing any of its blood, and since she drained and seriously injured Percussionist he would need a lot of blood-

and the campfire had a suspicious lack of vampires around it. Great. She could only hope that no one had cut themselves-

She stopped as the scent of blood hit her nose. She cursed and took off running, dropping the deer as she did.

——

French Horn thought she was going to die when she heard a bush rustle and snap behind her. She had stopped for a rest, thinking she was safe (if very lost). She was braced for her death when Percussionist crashed through the bushes.

”Oh, good, you’re still alive. We need to go like right now.”

Before she could protest, he grabbed her wrist and began pulling her away. With his very cold, very pale hand.

”Wait. Was it you?” She said, planting her feet.

”Yes.” his voice was solemn, and his eyes downcast. “But unless you want Flute to get you, we need to go”

She tore her wrist out of his grasp.

“Flutes dead. Flute’s dead and you killed him!”

And Flute hit her from the side. He sank his teeth deep into her neck, but only for a moment. Then he pulled back, looking horrified and ran away.

French Horn stands up dazedly. “That was…”

”Yeah.”

she lifts a hand to her bleeding neck where the bite is still gushing blood.

A rustle of trees comes from the side, and Clarinet skids to a stop in front of them. She takes in the situation and drops to her knees, tearing loose a piece of her shirt and holding it to the holes in French Horn’s neck.

”Wheres the third?”

French horn points to the copse of trees he disappeared into.

”I think we might actually be jinxed.” A pause, then “That was supposed to be a joke. Go after him. He’s heading towards the camp, and chances are he won’t be able to stop himself a second time.”

Percussionist nods, and then stops. “How do I get there?”

”just run straight! GO!”

and he does.

———

Clarinet gently explains to French Horn that vampires are real, and that she is one. When asked why she isn’t bloodthirsty, Clarinet answers that she has a lot of blood left in her still, and that she’s not all the way changed, and that the change will, in her words, “Stink. Its kind of the worst thing you’ll have to go through, and it’ll take way longer since you have blood, and you may not notice at first.“

French Horn pursed her lips. “Theres no way to stop it?”

Clarinet shook her head.

”Okay. Okay, shouln’t we help Percussionist?”

Clarinet swore. “You won’t be much help in the state you’re in, but I can drop you off by the camp. Pack our things and be ready to go.”

Clarinet scooped French Horn up and took off into the woods.

———

Percussionist got there just as Tuba was ripping Flute off of his neck.

Despite Flute being the smallest out of all of them, and Tuba being the strongest, he was struggling to keep the scrabbling, biting Flute away.

So, Percussionist did the only logical thing and full body tackled Flute, trying to hold him down. It worked, sort of. Long enough for Tuba to start running. Long enough for Sax and Trombone to see what the ruckus was.

Flute burst out of Percussionists grip, grabbed Trombone and ran.

Sax sprinted after them, and percussionist was left in the dust, standing dumbstruck as they all dashed off. He snapped out of it when Trumpet pressed an axe to his shoulder and told him to not move.

———

Flute knows this: he is very hungry. He also knows that blood tastes very good.

His last two meals escaped. He thinks he let the first go, but he can’t seem to remember why. The second was ripped away from him by someone like him, which was rather rude.

But this one won’t get away. He is far to hungry to let that happen.

He feeds as he runs, draining the squirming thing dry, pinning its flailing limbs against his chest. It stops wailing eventually.

He slows as he becomes able to think clearly again. He holds the body in his arms and revels in the fact he is no longer hungry. Then, he looks at the thing he drained.

And it’s his friend. He feels his stomach drop, and a hollow pit grow in his chest. His friend is dead, and it’s his fault. He tells himself there’s nothing to do but run, so he does.

Really, though, he just doesn’t want to see what she’ll become.

———

“What did you do to them.” Said Trumpet, each word slow and dangerous. She lifted the axe off his shoulder, and he felt relief before he realized she was lining up to take off his head.

He may be able to heal, but he did not want to see how far that ability stretched. Not like this, at least.

He swallowed his fear and asked, ”What makes you think I did something?“

She barked out a harsh laugh. “You go missing in the middle of the night with Clarinet, who still isn’t back. Flute and French Horn go to look for you and have mysteriously disappeared. Tuba came running from this direction, bleeding like a stuck pig. And here I find you, in the center of it all.”

Ah. He was fucked. Time to implement the worst plan ever, considering how fast Trumpet was.

”that’s- that sure is some pretty overwhelming evidence that I did something. I swear I didn’t, though but I know you won’t believe me so I’m just gonna RUN!”

He ducked under the axe she swung at his head, and took off running into the trees. He glanced behind him to see her struggling to keep up, and grinned. He was actually getting away with his head, and beating Trumpet in a footrace for once-

He turned back around just in time to see the tree that crumpled his skull.

———

He wished he could say he didn’t feel every excruciating twitch of his skull righting itself as he laid there. As it was, it was painful enough he was functionally passed out.

Which is why he was surprised to see trumpet dragging him by his feet deep into the woods.

Not half as surprised as trumpet, who dropped his feet and swore when he sat up and gasped.

”What the hell? You were dead! that killed you!” She yelled.

Percussionist was still reeling from how much growing his skull back sucked, and latched on to the first thing he noticed.

”Did you steal my shoes?”

”what are you?” She asked in a tone that was decidedly horrified.

He fiddled with a piece of grass somewhere to his left. “A vampire, as of yesterday. Really though, why do you have my shoes?”

“Not important. What do you mean as of yesterday?”

”Last night, really. Me and Clarinet-“

”Clarinet and I.” She said.

”Whatever. We went on a walk and turns out she’s always been a vampire, and then she did the vampire thing, and now I’m a vampire, and things have just been spiraling from there-”

”That explains a lot, actually. Who else is a vampire?”

Percussionist, feeling slightly more alive, realized they weren’t by the camp anymore.

”Where are we? Why do you have my shoes, and why are you so calm about this?”

”oh.” She said. “I may have made an action plan for something like this. You know, in case of murderers, or if supernatural stuff was real.”

”thats cool. Why steal my shoes?“

”I was framing you for murder.”

an awkward silence settled over them.

”We should get back to camp. Stop more people from getting vampired and all.”

”Yeah. Lets do that.“

———

Sax skidded to a stop in front of Trombones body. She was limp, and pale, and by all accounts dead. He whipped out his phone to call anyone, anyone at all, and pitched it into a tree when it read no service.

He sat, and he cried by his best friend, who always made the shittiest puns, who was the worst at sports, who thought anything with soulmates was stupid but still read all the stuff he suggested her. Who was dead.

He was still crying when she sat up and latched onto his neck, draining him dry.

———

French Horn and Clarinet ran across Tuba, who was holding gauze to his neck where he had been bit. French Horn was starting to feel slightly feverish, but otherwise okay.

”Guys! Are you okay? The weirdest thing just happened.” He said.

”We need to leave.” Said Clarinet. “Now.”

”No argument here. Have you guys seen Flute? He was with you last time I saw him.“

French Horn and Clarinet shared a look.

“I’ll go find him. You two pack. we leave before dusk.”

They watched as she disappeared into the leaves.

”Whats going on?” Asked tuba, a hint of worry in his voice.

French Horn took a deep breath in before saying “Vampires are real.”

Tuba burst out laughing.

“Oh. You’re serious.” He said as he hefted a tent into the back of the van.

”you don’t believe me.”

“How could I? I haven’t seen any proof that they exist.”

She threw a bag of trash in the van with more force than nessecary.

“What attacked you then?”

At this he paused. “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a vampire.”

———

Percussionist and Trumpet made it to where Trombone was crying over Sax, the late afternoon sun reflecting off of their now pale skin.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. He’ll be alright.”

Trombone looked up at him and snarled, all teeth and rage, and Percussionist jumped back.

”He’ll end up like me, won’t he.”

Percussionist nodded.

”I don’t know what world you’re living in, but this isn’t fucking alright!”

Trumpet walked over and knelt in front of Trombone. She held out her hand, and Trombone scrambled away.

”I don’t believe you would hurt me. Not right now. I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

”so what?” She scoffed. “I still did it. Should I just go on existing as whatever I am now? Just kill people so I can live?”

”Actually,“ Percussionist said, “we can live off of different types of blood.”

Trumpet looked back and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Shut up you twatwaffle, can’t you see this is a delicate moment?”

”just figured it would be some good information to have.“ he said.

“Are you seriously telling me my angst fest was for nothing?” She asked.

Percussionist leaned against a tree. “Oh, don‘t worry.” He said. “Theres still plenty of angst about the immortality.”

“Sax did always say he wanted to be sixteen forever.”

Trumpet rolled her eyes. “Lets go home.”

Trombone reached out to take Trumpets hand, and Sax shot up and clamped his jaws around her throat. Trombone grabbed Trumpets wrist and pulled her away as Percussionist peeled Sax away.

”Let him.“ choked out Trumpet. “I‘ll be one of you either way.”

”Absolutely not!” Said Percussionist. “Trombone, go find literally anything else with blood.” Sax kicked and snarled in his grip. “Hurry! I’m not sure how much longer I can hold him.”

———

“Flute!” Yelled Clarinet. She had been looking for him for an hour now, and still couldn’t find him.

She was walking along an old trail that went out of use years ago when she almost tripped over him. He was curled up in the shade of a tree, hiding away in a hollow.

“What do you want.”

”I want to take you home.” She said.

he laughed. “Something like me doesn’t deserve a home. I killed people, and I knew there was another way, but I did it anyway. Just leave me here to rot.”

She remembered when she’d been like this. She had forgotten to eat, had slipped up. Its not a hard thing to do. When you’re a vampire, you brain tricks you into feeling fine by your old standards until you‘re so hungry you can’t stop it.

She believed it was all her fault, though. The only way someone had gotten through to her was something they had called twisting the knife. She had always called it shitty.

She sighed. “I wanted to say sorry.”

He poked his head out a little, peering up at her. “You didn’t do anything.”

”But I did.” She said. “I drained percussionist dry last night, and then I left him to find you. I watched while you attacked your friends, and now, I’m giving you a chance to fix the harm we caused. What will you do with it?”

”You made me like this?” He asked.

”Yes.”

he lunged at her face, fingers clawing for her eyes. She turned around and ran for the campsite, making sure he was behind her, and praying that he would forgive her for the stunt she just pulled.

———

The campsite was packed, and Percussionist and Trombone had made a game of who could catch the best songbird for Sax. Sax was less murderously inclined, though it was hard to tell if it was because the blood he had consumed or trumpets growing nonhumanness.

After the third or fourth time of watching Sax suck down a bird or squirrel like a juice box, Tuba was forced to admit that maybe vampires were a little real.

(He noticed his neck wound had already scabbed over and was halfway gone. He was afraid to ask if he was becoming one.)

The sun was slipping behind the tops of the trees when Clarinet charged out of the forest, leapt over the van, And yelled “Flutes trying to kill me!”

Flute burst into the clearing and lunged at Clarinet. Percussionist stepped in the way.

”What happened?“

”She did this in purpose! She said she dropped you in the woods to kill us!”

Percussionists blinked. “No she didn’t. She told me to stay where I was while she got something for me to eat.”

he stopped yelling. Now, he just looked confused. “But she turned you.”

”Yeah? It was an accident. She obviously regretted it.”

Percussionist backed off, and Flute looked at clarinet.

”why did you say all that then?”

“You were’t gonna come with me if I didn’t. Besides, you were spiraling and this was the easiest way to stop that.”

”Sounds like the shittiest way to stop it, too.” Scoffed Tuba.

She sighed. “Yeah. It was.”

”Hey,” asked sax. “Are any of us still human? I know me, Percussionist, and Trombone aren’t-“

”Percussionist, Trombone, and I.” Said Trumpet.

”-And I saw you two jump over my van, but whats up with the rest of you?”

”Basically,” said Clarinet, “anyone who was bit is or will become a vampire, depending on how much blood they had left in them after the bite. Was there anyone who wasn’t bit?”

everyone was silent as they all glanced at each other, looking for anyone who could say yes. It quickly became awkward, and was broken by Clarinet muttering “Fuck.” quietly under her breath.

”Who all, um, died today?”

Flute, Sax, and Trombone slowly raised their hands. Clarinet squinted at Percussionist, which prompted him to say “What? I died last night.”

French Horn yelled “past twenty four hours, dingus.”

He rolled his eyes and raised his hand.

”Alright. You three,” -she made a sweeping gesture towards the three with their hands down- “Are going to have the worst couple weeks of your life. Take a few days off of everything. Don’t go to the hospital. Stay isolated. Call me when the pain’s mostly over.”

Tuba’s lips pursed. “What, exactly, is going to happen to us?”

”The way it was explained to me was that your body slowly cannibalizes itself. It sucks.”

”hm.” He said. He looked very troubled.

They got in the van and drove through the night.

For now, they rest. A short break, before they have to figure out the rest of their lives.