#maybe a cemetery too. if there's one available

[pre-dawn-silhouettes]

one thing about me is i LOVE to dilly dally

[maple-seed]

Thrown - Chapter 48: Myth and Mortal

Summary: Loki attempts to come to terms with your nature.

Word Count: 1,667

Author's Notes: We're all in this together, okay? I'm not immune to the feelings.

Thrown Masterlist Loki Masterlist

You hadn't invited Loki. You hadn't mentioned it, even. Loki wouldn't have known at all if it weren't for Thor.

"I apologize for not attending lunch yesterday. I had to be here to receive an important shipment." Thor gestured at the hall, which was bustling with the finishing stages of construction. He put on a sly smirk. "I would be available tomorrow, if you felt I needed to make it up to you." You laughed. "Maybe dinner instead? Tomorrow is Gerdy's birthday. I usually bring her flowers." Thor nodded. "Dinner it is. Please give Gerdy my regards."

That had been all that was said on the matter, but it didn't sit well with Loki, the idea of you going alone. And so the following day the waning morning found him at your doorstep. Knocking on the door was no longer something that occurred to him, and he simply stepped inside. You were in the kitchen, placing ingredients into a slow cooker. No doubt the dinner Thor had negotiated.

You offered him a bright smile as he approached. "Hey, what are you doing here?" He placed a kiss on your cheek. "I would like to join you this afternoon, if that's alright." "Yes." Your smile warmed. "I would like that, thank you."

He helped you with the rest of the preparations for dinner, the two of you had a quick bite for lunch, and then set off together down the road towards town.

The walk was typical, with light conversation and laughter. You stopped at a flower shop in town and selected a small bouquet that primarily featured forget-me-nots. The walk grew quieter as the cemetery grew near, and Loki took your hand as he followed you through the silent plots. The quiet grew heavy. It was a lovely day, the sun was bright and the grass was full and green. The area would be quite pleasant if it weren't for its purpose. Eventually you came to a stop and the both of you looked down at the headstone. Loki glanced over to you, you were wearing an expression of resigned sadness. He squeezed your hand gently, and you met his eyes with a slight smile. You sighed, then bent to place the flowers in the vase attached to the grave marker.

"Happy birthday, Gerdy." You stood and straightened. "I brought Loki with me today."

You then proceeded to speak to her about things in your life, the goings-on of old friends, pottery techniques you were working on. You spoke about Loki, and it was clear this wasn't the first time he had been brought up, which warmed his heart in a way he couldn't quite explain. You spoke to her as if he had known her. In that moment, more than ever, he wished he had. He wanted to know this woman who had been such a powerful impact in your life. Who had sheltered you in a time when you needed it most. In a time before he could. He wondered which parts of you had come from her. He would have liked to see you side-by-side, to recognize the influence himself.

Your one-sided conversation drew to an end. You stood for another moment or two in silent contemplation, then wished Gerdy a farewell. Loki offered her a hushed thanks before turning to follow you again.

The walk back was far more quiet. You hung off his arm as you walked, with your eyes distant. A thought that had been prowling the edges of his mind, held at bay by his duty to you, took this opportunity to strike. He had been fighting it off, but it grew like ice in his stomach now; some day he would be making this walk alone. Some day all too soon, at that.

Mortal. It was a word he had taken for granted, even knowing what it meant. Mortal. Mort. You were named for your death. Suddenly he reviled the word. He may never use it again. It suddenly became clear that he had been harboring a certain amount of denial. Your life was limited, he knew that as a fact, but still some part of him didn't believe it would come to bear. As if somehow, somewhere along the way, he would find some way to save you from your fate and keep you forever. This walk had cast a harsh light on the reality of the situation. He tried to push it out of his mind once more.

Apparently, in the silence, you had been following a similar train of thought.

"I'm going to get old, you know." "Yes, that is the natural order of things." He said matter-of-factly. You rolled your eyes. "What I mean is I'm going to get old and you won't. Every year I'll get more wrinkles and a little flabbier and you'll stay just as young and handsome as ever." "I'll grow even more handsome, I suspect." You chuckled. "I'm sure. What will people think, watching us walk down the street?" "I imagine they will finally question why I am with you, rather than the other way around." He glanced down at you. "It will be a refreshing change of pace." "Please. People don't question that." "Oh, I'm quite certain they do. You simply don't hear the whispers. Perhaps you are already going deaf?" You huffed an exasperated sigh. "You are impossible." He smirked, victorious.

You left it at that, for a few minutes at least, but clearly this was weighing on you. "Really, you don't think it will bother you? Years down the road?" He gave you a reassuring smile as he walked. "I will cherish every line on your face, as they will be tokens of the time I had with you." You bit back a smile. "And the flabby bits?" He clasped your hand in both of his. "A greater surface area on which to bestow my affection." You laughed. "I'm not sure I believe you." "No need. It will all be proven true in time."

The two of you passed out of town and onto the road to your home. Several more minutes passed without a word. Loki could feel something brewing in your thoughts. Your grip on his arm tensed ever so slightly. Still, you didn't say anything, and he was beginning to think it would pass. The two of you were almost to your cottage, walking alongside the low stone wall that enclosed your field, when it came to a head.

"You're going to outlive me." He deftly smothered the panic inside him. "Yes, but I believe finding a replacement shouldn't be terribly difficult. There are literally billions of humans, after all, so my-" "Loki." You came to a halt, he had no choice but to do the same. Your face was drawn into a solemn expression. "When I'm gone-" "Darling-" "Please. It's important." He clenched his jaw and looked down at your hands in his. In this moment they seemed much more fragile. You took a breath. "Promise me that when I'm gone you won't bury yourself too. None of those ideas like your century-of-isolation plan. Don't wall yourself in." He managed a half-smile as he brought a finger to trace your jaw. "Worried that all your good work will be undone?" "You did the work." You mumbled. His smile grew as his hand cupped the back of your neck. "Our joint efforts, then." "Don't do that to yourself." You whispered, clutching his shirt. "Please promise me."

His feet shuffled and he had difficulty meeting your gaze. When he finally looked down at you again he could feel tears threatening the back of his eyes. "I won't be ready." It came out weaker than he anticipated. He looked away and took a breath to steady himself. "It doesn't matter how long-" His voice cracked unexpectedly and he swallowed the rest of that thought. "I won't be ready." You shook your head slightly as you reached up to cradle his face, wearing a sad, sympathetic smile. "We never are."

He pulled you in close, and you let him. Your arms wrapped around his waist while he buried his face in the crook of your neck. You were solid and present beneath his touch, but he knew this was all too ephemeral. He didn't want to move, he didn't want to leave this moment. He wished for some power that would allow him to stretch it out across a thousand years.

He stood with you like that for quite some time. You held him patiently, made no effort to step away. Eventually, Goat had taken notice of the two of you and began making his way across the field, bleating obnoxiously. That finally broke the spell and Loki sighed, taking a step back, but clung to your hand.

"I imagine you have things to do." He murmured as he lifted your hand to place a kiss against the back of it. You nodded. "A couple things to sort out before Thor and Valkyrie show up." "Let's go, then."

Rather than walk to the gate, Loki crossed over the stone wall, then helped you do the same. He laced his fingers with yours and started toward the cottage. He let the silence rest for a moment.

"I suppose our story needed some element of tragedy." He mused quietly. "If we're to earn our constellation, that is." "Oh?" You smiled. "You think they'll put us in the sky?" "Oh, certainly." He squeezed your hand. "The stuff of legends, you and I." You laughed. "And to think I was going to settle for just a star." "The best star, mind you."

You opened the door to your kitchen. Preparations were made. Friends arrived. Dinner was shared. It was as so many nights had been before, and as many nights certainly would be again.

But perhaps on this night, when you were alone once more and sleeping in his arms, Loki held you a just little tighter.

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[thereraigoes]

“how to make millions before grandma dies” through my own lenses.

these days, the internet is filled with people recommending this film to be added in everyone’s watch-list. 1) asian family themed 2) people said it’s tear jerking 3) it’s available at the nearest cinema from home— those three points intrigued me to give the film a toss to try. a moment after i went from the cinema, i know well that people who keep recommend this film is not lying at all.

reviewing a film is never my forte but this film makes me want to write something after watching it. i guess it’s the bond of similarity that this film has to me, especially i’m an asian as well.

i would like to give the five stars to,

the color grading.

i am always a big fan of films that have pretty color grading. htmmbgd has a really pretty, i would even say it’s the prettiest color grading from all the movies that i’ve watched lately. if you look closely toward color grading of each film, sometimes several places have its own colour— so does this film, somehow you can know exactly where the film is located just by looking at its color. i don’t really know how to describe it but when i saw that warm, sunny that sun can sting your skin but someplace is kind of shady.. somehow it really screams asia, and it feels so homey.

also a plus point that it is neither over saturated nor under saturated. it’s unpleasant to watch the artist’s skin look so orange where they are not meant to be a tangerine or look so grey where they are not meant to be someone who hasn’t eaten for a week.

it just.. chef kisses. a lot of scenes that show scenery around the setting and it doesn’t lessen the plot, it makes the audience know about the place without too much movement from the camera.

the sound choice.

it adds drama and spices to the films so much and without them, maybe people can survive this film without crying. it plays an important role as well to the plot since we know that m is known as a scaredy cat and amah’s lullaby is the one who relaxed him down and vice versa (i’m not mentioning that scene okay!)

“you can’t leave this cinema without crying buddies.. it’s okay you can cry, okay cry now” that would depict how the sound’s role in htmmbgd.

the plot.

i won’t say a lot about this but kudos to the filmmaker because it’s really good! the plot doesn’t always go like the audience prediction but somehow it’s relieving.. that’s just the same as how the real world does right?

the highlighted-scene and little details that i care for,

a heads up. i might mention some scenes and maybe some of them are spoilers to everyone who hasn’t watched it. so feel free to stop reading if you feel the spoilers are too heavy for you. i’ll try to lessen it!

amah’s paperbag

while watching the film, i realize that amah never wears a proper ‘bag’. we only see that she always wears paperbag that m always carries for. in my interpretation, it symbolizes the humbleness of amah. we know that amah only sells congee for living— three children and herself. those moneys that she get from is always prioritized for her children needs, not her needs— especially for secondary and the tersier one. if it’s enough to carry, then let it be. but we know, there lies a thing that meant a lot for her family inside it.

m and amah talks when m asked why amah always wanted to have a great land of cemetery for her soon.

i can’t help but cry in silence when this scene appears because it’s just so.. ironic. amah always wants to have her children coming together with her, even when she is passed away so she thinks if her children don’t want come when she is alive— a good cemetery would probably help her desire to have a nice gathering without an argument.

pomegranate and amah’s implicit love.

just like common asian themed poem, there will always be mom cutting fruit to symbolize mother love. but i never read (this could be i am the one who never find it, send me one if you ever read it!) a grandma who is cutting the fruit.

even for her own son, amah forbade him to eat the pomegranate because it was meant for m only. she has kept that pomegranate tree for years, water it everyday, cut the rotten branch, wrap the pomegranate with plastic so the caterpillar won’t eat it– she cares it just like she cares m.

even though amah is grumpy toward m (she knows since day one that m is hiding something from her), she still loves and cares for him.

“sons got the assets and daughter got the cancer”

i want to hug ma so bad. she is the most hardworking one between amah’s children yet she assumes that she never receives amah’s love. it just.. i want to hug her so bad.

and finally, the deeds.

i don’t really know about other families but mostly i reckon that this issue is really controversial. family can separate to each other because of this issue only, they highlight the importance of inherited parent’s wealth. i know it is their right to have it but neglecting the fact that their parents need their children’s time and only wanting their wealth is so sickening.

we know that m cares amah only for her deeds at the first but slowly he knows that it is not always about the deeds, it’s about cherishing the memory with her while it lasts.

it’s bearable that m is mad to know that soei is the one who got the house– i mean who doesn’t mad though if the one who got the house is the one who never helps to care about amah, never have a job and a burden to amah, even steal amah’s money. it happens commonly in asian family, my family as well. sometime i don’t really know what on their mind.

but through this, i realize that how old we are, our parents still look at us as a child. that’s why amah apprehends soei, she’s worried that if she doesn’t give soei her house then he could never solve all his problems.

but that mindset is a fatal flaw as well, by then we can see that soei only rely to his mother. he could never stand on his own. i’m relieved that m scolds for him even though soei is much older than him.

conclusion and rating from me, rai,

it’s worth to watch, at least once in a lifetime. you can always rewatch it though but beware running out of your eyecream because it really makes your eyes swollen right after you leave the cinema.

cherish everyone in your life while it lasts. don’t be so bitter to people, sometimes they need help but they are afraid to reach you out.

lastly, it’s a solid nine out of ten.

[doctorbrown]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 7 / 31 * BACK IN TOWN 」

April 13, 1989, 23:51

1646 Riverside Drive

Marty had barely registered the walk in the evening air, his body functioning on autopilot to lead him to his second home, the place he thinks he could navigate to in his sleep. At this hour, not even the birds are awake, and Marty feels the stake of loneliness drive deeper and deeper into his very soul.

Doc should be here, he thinks as he steals the key from its usual hiding spot under the mat. This is where he’d greet me and ask what happened that brought me all the way out here at this hour.

The rhythmic ticking of Doc’s clocks is the only thing that greets him now.

The door screams into the darkness as it swings open and Marty makes a mental note to oil those hinges the next time he comes around. The old garage feels hollow without Doc’s larger-than-life presence filling it and his shoulders sag as he trudges to the couch, plopping himself down on it with a sigh that ages him twelve years.

His home feels like a prison. Jennifer’s asleep by now. He needed somewhere—anywhere—to be and before all this, before this new and improved timeline with a family that pays too much attention and smiles and laughs together so much it’s still a little unsettling, he would come here to escape from the world.

Even without Doc here, he still finds himself doing that. 

Maybe one day he’ll come back.

I’ve got a million and one things to tell you, Doc. I wish you were here.

I hope you’re doing okay back there.

He’d checked religiously that first month after coming home for another tombstone popping up in Boot Hill Cemetery, his heart leaping into his throat every time he walked from one to the next, terrified that everything he did was for nothing—that in the end, Doc was fated to die and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it now.

November came and went, the names on the tombstones never changed, and after that, Marty had allowed himself to check less and less frequently, limiting his visits to once a week, then once every two weeks until there had been only one visit per month.

Doc was still alive and well and Marty breathed a little easier, finding some small comfort in that fact. At least he wasn’t alone. Clara was back there with him, sharing in the moments of Doc’s life that Marty couldn’t be there for.

All he has left are ghosts of his best friend frozen here in time in this garage, collecting dust.

The time machine plans are safe, even if they’re all but useless now. He’d picked up a thing or two from Doc over the years in the sciences, enough to where he could keep up until he started speaking a second language, diving into fourth-dimensional mechanics that admittedly made his head spin. Three dimensions he understood fine. Four, however, made things confusing—it turned everything on its head, leaving him floundering to try and keep up.

The space-time continuum.

N-dimensional space.

What isn’t yet will be and what is never was.

Sometimes, he thinks about laying out every one of Doc’s meticulously kept notes across every available square inch of his room and burning the formulas into his eyes until something finally clicks into place, allowing him to recreate his best friend’s genius.  

Doc had wanted the time machine destroyed—Doc made sure the time machine was destroyed, stranding Marty in a reality without him—but if he stares long and hard enough, he could do it, he could reconstruct it, he could get Doc back—

Sometimes, he wants to throw the entire box into a blazing fire and watch until time crumples before his very eyes, reduced to nothing more than dust and a dream. Time-travel fixed his life. Time-travel had thrown him to hell and back, threatened his existence, warped his entire perception of the world, leaving him a stranger in a strange land he’s only still learning how to navigate, and now it had stolen his best friend from him and ensured that Marty would never see him again.

Tonight is one of those nights where he curses time-travel, where the reality of his and Doc’s situation hit harder than normal, throwing him into a dark cavern he bloodies his hands trying to crawl out of.

“I wish I’d never invented that infernal time machine. It’s caused nothing but disaster.”

—Me too, Doc. Then at least you’d still be here.

April 14, 1989, 01:31

The sound of a mechanical scream rouses Marty from his unintentional slumber with a start and the adrenaline now coursing through his veins makes quick work of any lingering sleep in his eyes and mind. He squints under the lights and grabs for the first thing within reach—a broken piece of pipe Doc had been using for one of his old experiments—preparing himself for the worst.

“Stay back, whoever you are! I’m warning you!”

An all-too-familiar shriek roots Marty where he stands.

“D—” The word catches in his throat and Marty runs through every prayer he knows that he’s not imagining this. “Doc? Is that you?”

Doc recovers in the blink of an eye, turning to face Marty with a bright grin on his face. “Marty! I didn’t think you’d be here—what are you doing here a—you know what, never mind that for now. I’m so happy to see you, Marty. It’s been so long.”

The pipe tumbles out of Marty’s stunned hands and he rubs at his eyes, half-convinced the illusion will disappear right before his eyes and break his heart all over again. Doc is still there, blurred slightly at the edges, and Marty lunges forward, grabbing his best friend in a back-breaking hug.

“Doc, I can’t b—how are you here? I thought I’d never see you again.”

Doc returns the hug with more strength than Marty remembers him having and he grunts slightly, wishing the moment to stretch an eternity to make up for the last four years.

After a beat, Doc breaks the hug, holding him at arm’s length with his hands firmly pressed on his shoulders. Marty knows that look; it’s that same conspiratorial you won’t believe what I’m about to tell you look Doc wore that night at the mall when he’d unveiled the DeLorean.

“We’re moving back to the Twentieth Century. I’m here to check on a few things.”

His breath catches. “You’re—that’s great, Doc, that’s—you mean it? You’re really coming back?”

“That’s right. We’ve still got several things to sort out, but once everything is taken care of, we’ll be moving here. We’ve come to the decision that it’s too potentially dangerous to stay in the Nineteenth Century for the rest of our lives.”

“Wait a minute, Doc—who is we?”

[hollyethecurious]

CS AU: Being Ghosted (1/?)

Summary: "I dare you to sit alone in the Storybrooke Cemetery until after midnight." Who knew a game of Truth or Dare would become an issue of life or death?

A/N: Much thanks to @kmomof4 for giving this a once over for me. This checks off the cemetery square of my Bingo card and the next part (coming soon) will earn me a BINGO!

Rated T for now / Also available on ao3 and ff.net / add to tag list / Curious? Come Ask Me!

Part One

I dare you to sit alone in the Storybrooke Cemetery until after midnight.

Emma Swan hated her friends.

Why couldn’t they have dared her to something more typical of a college student on Halloween? Why not dare her to slam a beer, or kiss one of the random guys that had crashed the party, or go streaking down the quad?

Because they obviously hated her as much as she hated them.

Okay. Maybe hate was too strong a word, but still… she had unfriendly feelings toward them at the moment.

A curse slipped from her lips as she tripped over one of the flat gravestones that littered the area of the cemetery closest to the public park. She’d decided it would be best to not park her bright yellow bug at the actual entrance of the cemetery, seeing as visiting interred loved ones after dark wasn’t exactly permitted.

After traipsing through the treeline that separated the public park from the cemetery with nothing more than an old flashlight and its quickly dying batteries - leave your phone in your car. You have to be completely alone - it was no wonder she’d nearly lost her footing. There was practically no moon and the faint solar powered grave lights adorning a few of the headstones did little to illuminate more than the names and dates of those long passed.

Trudging a bit further into the center of the cemetery, Emma found a tall headstone to rest against. She spread out the blanket she’d brought with her, sat down, leaned back, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“This is stupid,” she muttered, refusing to let the intrusive, ridiculous, superstitious, completely irrational thoughts currently parading through her mind make a home there.

There was nothing to be creeped out about. There was nothing scary or unnatural about a graveyard. All she had to do was sit here for…

A frustrated sigh huffed from her chest. Without her phone, how was she supposed to know when midnight was?

There was nothing for it. She’d have to go back and get her phone so she could keep tabs on the time. There was no way she was staying out here a second longer than she had to, and not because she was scared, or creeped out, or had chill bumps already forming on her arms. Nope.

Leaving her blanket behind, Emma set off back towards her car. She’d only managed to walk a few steps when the flashlight batteries finally gave up the ghost… so to speak, plunging her into darkness.

Slapping her palm against the infernal thing in the hopes of reviving it, Emma let out another expletive.

“The fuck am I gonna do now?”

“Good question,” a voice said from behind her.

Emma screamed and spun around. The face of a strange man, being illuminated by his own flashlight shining up from beneath his chin, had her stumbling backward. If not for his quick actions, she would have tumbled over the back of a headstone and probably landed on her head. Instead, she found herself wrapped in his embrace, having pulled her back onto her feet in just the nick of time.

“Whoa there, lass,” he said, adjusting her in his arms to ensure she was steady. “You don’t want to go joining these poor souls before it's your time.”

Attempting to wriggle out of his hold, Emma straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “Let go of me.”

He did as he was told, staying close for a moment to make certain she was sure on her feet before stepping over to where she had left her blanket.

Gathering it from the ground, he held it out to her. “Best not linger here, love. The cemetery is no place for the living after dark.”

Taking the blanket from him, Emma’s eyes narrowed at the man - the handsome, heart-flutter inducing, accented lilt that could make her toes curl, while giving off an air of danger that just made him an impossibly more appealing type of man. Dismissing the erratic beat of her heart as something simply caused by the fright he’d given her and not the lop-sided smile and smoldering eyes currently fixed her way, Emma hugged the blanket against her chest and demanded to know, “What are you doing here then?”

“I work here,” he informed her with all the confidence and authority of a practiced liar.

Because it was a lie. Or half-truth at the very least. Emma could always tell.

Letting out a quiet hum that expressed her doubt, she clocked the way he pawed at a patch of skin behind his ear before glancing around them as though he expected someone else to make an appearance.

Was there someone else in the cemetery with them?

“Look, love,” he began, his tone a bit tighter and more urgent. “I really must insist that you leave here at once. For your own good. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Emma scoffed. “I don’t even know you.”

“All you need to know is that if you stay here you’re putting yourself in danger.” Before she could pull away the man grabbed one of her hands. “Here,” he said, placing his flashlight in her palm. “Take this and get back to your vehicle.”

“But you still haven’t told me what you’re…”

Her words fell away, choked out by shock and a fresh swell of fear. When she’d cast the beam of the flashlight after the man who was quickly rushing away, she caught sight of a mound of freshly dug earth on the other side of the cemetery. A shovel was sticking out from the pile and she could barely make out the dark chasm of the grave that had been newly exposed.

Was he some sort of grave robber?

Emma turned on her heel and made a beeline for the trees. Her only thought was to call the police, but before she reached the boundary of the cemetery a cold gust stole her breath away. A shrill shriek forced a ripple of terror to tremble down her spine and a silent petrified scream tried to force itself from her lungs when a ghostly figure of a woman manifested right in front of her.

“Get down!” the man shouted and Emma turned in time to see him brandish a shotgun.

Dropping to the ground, a blast went off overhead and she felt small, hard pellets rain down on her as another shriek pierced her ears.

“Are you alright, love?”

The man hauled her to her feet, and unlike the last time it was Emma who now clung to him, her hands holding fast to his upper arms as she tried to reconcile what had just happened.

“W-What was that?”

“That,” he said softly, his gaze filled with obvious remorse as he confirmed her worst nightmare. “Was a ghost.”

“A g-ghost?” Emma shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am deadly serious,” he said, brushing the substance he’d fired from his shotgun off her head and shoulders.

“A ghost,” Emma repeated, her mind still grasping for reality as her grip remained tight around his bicep. “Who… whose ghost? How did you…? Is she…?”

“Her name was Cruella,” he told her. “She died in the 1920s and has been haunting the park since her family home, which used to reside there, was torn down in the early 80s. Haven’t you heard the stories?”

“About de Vil Park?”

The man nodded as Emma searched her memory for the tales people often told about the public park. It had been donated by the family whose estate had once been the central landmark of affluence until a murderous scandal had tarnished the de Vil name. The mansion had fallen into disrepair and was ultimately condemned and bulldozed, the land left to the city for public use and made into a park.

Emma had heard stories about people refusing to walk their dogs there, something about the trails making the animals skittish or aggressive. There had been a public health scare when she was in middle school. One fall several kids had been bitten by varying animals - squirrels, a raccoon, and maybe a possum? - and one of them contracted rabies. Most people avoided feeding the animals in the park, fearing attacks, and although after dark activities were allowed, few went there after sundown.

“Is she the reason that animals act strangely there?”

“Aye,” the man said, his eyes casting about and the muscle at his jaw pulsing. “More recently though, she’s taken to tormenting a local woman who unknowingly purchased one of Cruella’s fur coats from an antique store.”

“And you’re here to…”

His eyes cut back to hers, locking on with an intensity that had the same breath stealing effect as the ghost - for different reasons obviously - and causing her to nearly miss the vow he uttered in a low, gruff timbre.

“To put a stop to the bitch. For good.”

“How?”

His reply was cut off by another screech and drop in temperature.

“Bloody hell! Get behind me, love.”

Emma did not hesitate, clinging to his back as the apparition appeared. With practiced skill, he opened the shotgun chamber, loaded two shells, snapped it shut, aimed, and fired a spray of something that made the ghost vanish once more.

“What was that?” Emma asked, following at the man’s heels, his destination becoming clear as they approached the freshly unearthed grave.

“Rock salt,” he answered. “It won’t destroy a spirit, but it does act as a deterrent, forcing them to dissipate briefly.”

“What does destroy a spirit? How does one kill something that’s already dead?”

“You have to salt and burn the bones of the person,” he said matter-of-factly, reaching into a duffel bag and pulling out a canister of salt. “And any earthly object the spirit might be tied to.”

Jutting his chin down towards the grave, the man turned her attention to the ghastly scene six feet below. The lid of her coffin had been pried open, the decaying, partially skeletal remains of Cruella de Vil exposed to the elements for the first time in a hundred years. She’d been laid out in a black gown and once luxurious fur, her fingers and neck draped in jewels, and her hair, still attached to patches of skin affixed to her skull in contrasts of black and white, had been fashioned in a split bob which had been popular in her day. At her feet rested a well kept, white fur coat with black spots, and Emma could only surmise that it was the very coat he’d mentioned moments ago.

A shower of salt crystals rained down on the corpse and coat, followed by a flood of lighter fluid. Emma’s nose wrinkled at the fumes wafting up from the grave, and she finally tore her eyes away from the body when he warned her to step back.

She complied while watching him dig a lighter from his pocket and held her breath when he flipped open the cap and set his thumb against the flint wheel. Another angry gust swirled around them and Emma was too late to call out a warning when the ghost of Cruella appeared once more.

“Look out!” she screamed, but the spectre already had the man by the throat. Hoisting him off his feet, she slammed him against a nearby crypt, his face turning purple from the crushing force against his windpipe. His hands desperately clawed at fingers he could not touch and his eyes began to roll back in his head. With great effort he managed to croak out, “Burn her!”

Emma scrambled about on her knees in the grass at the foot of the grave, knowing he’d dropped the lighter there when the ghost attacked. With shaking hands she flipped open the cap and swiped at the flint wheel futilely a few times before a flame finally sparked. Dropping the lit lighter into the grave set off a cacophony of screeches, shrieks, screams, and wails. Emma covered her ears and balled herself up as a means of protection. Wind whipped around her, the chill of the air and the cries of the ghost causing her to shake violently.

An eerie silence fell over the cemetery, broken only by the sound of the flickering flames consuming Cruella’s corpse and a soft, aching moan groaning from the man as he picked himself up off the ground.

“Are you okay?” she asked, uncoiling herself yet unable to stand just yet, not trusting her legs to hold her.

“Aye,” he croaked, lumbering towards her. “Thanks to you, love.” Rubbing his neck, he looked down at her with awe. “You were bloody brilliant. Amazing.”

She let him help her up, the two of them staring into the other’s eyes, their chests heaving in tandem.

“So, um,” Emma began, pausing to wet her lips and noting how his gaze fell to follow the action. “What now? Is she… gone?”

“She is,” he assured her. “And we should probably vacate as well.”

“Right,” she said, shaking herself from the attraction she should absolutely not be feeling for the ghost hunting, grave digging, creeps about in cemeteries at night, dark and mysterious man.

He also broke away, scratching that patch of skin behind his ear once more before telling her he needed to fill in the grave.

Unsure as to whether she ought to stay until he was finished or leave now, a thought suddenly occurred to her, prompting her to ask, “Um… you wouldn’t happen to know what time it is, would you?”

He paused and pulled his phone from his back pocket to check, then told her, “11:53. Why?”

“It seems stupid now, but, um… I’m supposed to stay until midnight.”

“Midnight? Why midnight?”

Embarrassment prickled over Emma’s skin as she admitted, “I was dared to during a game of Truth or Dare with friends.”

The man laughed and began filling the hole once more. “Truth or Dare, huh? I couldn’t tell you the last time I played Truth or Dare.” Pausing again he pondered the thought for a moment then stated, “Actually… I’m not certain I’ve ever played it.”

With a shrug he set to work again and Emma could not fight off the compulsion to explain herself and why she’d played the childish game in the first place.

“Yeah, well. It’s my senior year of college. I graduate in May and it seemed like a fun thing to do. You know… before I have to seriously start my adult life and whatnot.”

Shut up, Emma. You’re rambling like an idiot!

The man made a sympathetic sound, another shovelful of dirt landing in the now shrinking hole, and admitted, “My adult life began the day I went on my first hunt. I was eleven.”

“First hunt? You mean…”

“Ghosts?” he supplied, when she couldn’t bring herself to finish the thought. “Aye. Although, they aren’t the only supernatural entity we hunt.”

“We? You mean there are others like you?”

“Fewer now than there used to be, but…”

His words fell away and his attention jumped towards the cemetery entrance.

“Fuck,” he muttered, quickly wiping down the handle of the shovel. “Someone’s called the police.”

Emma spun towards the entrance and saw the red and blue strobes of police lights pulling into the parking lot.

“What do we do?” she whisper-yelled at the man who was stuffing his things into the duffle bag, the wiped down shovel cast aside atop the pile of dirt he hadn’t managed to return to the grave.

“Where did you park?” he asked, zipping up the bag and taking the flashlight from her.

“At the park. Why?”

He grabbed her hand and rushed them towards the treeline. “That’s where I’m parked as well,” he informed her. “Less conspicuous that way. With any luck we can get to our vehicles and get out of here without being seen.”

In their haste, Emma nearly forgot about her discarded blanket, but they managed to locate it before exiting the cemetery. They came out of the treeline near his car, a classic 1970s Chevelle, and he wasted no time stowing his duffel bag in the trunk and stripping off his jacket and outer shirt which were covered in dirt.

“I, uh…” Emma began, unsure of what to say, but it didn’t matter. The presence of red and blue lights, preceding a cruiser that was about to turn into the park had her pivoting. “Come with me,” she said, taking him by the hand and leading them back into the treeline.

“What are you doing?” the man demanded in a frantic voice. “We can’t go back that way, they’ll--”

Emma cut him off, her fingers pressing against his lips as she urged, “Help me spread out the blanket.”

With confusion knitting his brows, he did as he was told then knelt down beside her on the now flattened blanket.

“Kiss me,” she said, causing the man to balk.

“What?”

Knowing time was not on their side, Emma grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled his mouth to hers with enough force to topple them over. He grunted as they hit the ground, but didn’t pull away when she slid her lips against his and threaded her fingers through the back of his hair. It didn’t take but another quick beat for him to catch on to her plan, and when he did, he threw himself into the ruse with great enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm and passion and heat and… oh my.

His tongue pressed against the seam of her lips and his hips shifted, settling into the cradle of her thighs. Emma groaned and pulled him closer, the taste of him and need of air making her lightheaded. His fingers grazed a path along her ribcage, his thumb tracing the swell of her breast, awaiting a silent cue of consent before he cupped her in his hand and began to knead the needy flesh trapped beneath her bra.

With one hand still held fast in his dark, silken tresses, she raked the other down his back until it reached his jeans, pulling noises from him that made the heat in her belly and throb between her legs intensify. Slipping her hand into his back pocket, she gripped his ass and lifted her hips, grinding against the rigid length that hardened further as something akin to a growl rumbled in his chest.

An honest to God whimper quivered off her lips when he pulled away, but it was quickly replaced by a sharp wanton gasp at the feel of his hot, rough tongue outlining the shell of her ear.

“Gods, love,” he murmured hoarsely, his teeth nibbling at her earlobe while he rocked his hips into hers. “Tell me your--”

“Who's there! What are you two doing out here?”

She and the man both froze at the sound of the policeman’s voice, and Emma had to squint past the shine of flashlights to make out a second officer coming towards them from the opposite direction.

“You heard him,” the second officer shouted. “What are you doing out here?”

“U-Um…” Emma stammered from beneath the man whose attention was set squarely on the first cop. “Truth or Dare?”

~/~

“Let me get this straight,” the officer said, continuing to scrutinize their IDs. “You were at a Halloween party, playing Truth or Dare, and he got dared to come out here. Then a little bit later, you got dared to join him.”

“That’s what the lass said,” the man replied in a derisive tone.

“And what is the lass’ name?” the officer questioned with a smug expression.

“It’s uh…” Furtively, the man cast his eyes to Emma’s before sheepishly reaching up to scratch the back of his neck.

“You didn’t get her name before you--”

“I would have gotten it before we parted,” the man said in an attempt to defend himself and Emma was struck by the truth she heard in his statement.

“Did someone report our vehicles or something?” Emma asked, attempting to throw the officer off his questioning. “We told you why we’re out here. Why are you?”

“Someone called in a disturbance,” the officer replied. “You two didn’t see or hear anything?”

“We were a bit preoccupied,” the man quipped, tossing a smirk at Emma. “What sort of disturbance?”

“Someone dug up a grave and set fire to it. You two know anything about that?”

“Bloody hell!” the man exclaimed, his disgust and shock perfectly believable and authentic sounding.

Emma hoped hers did as well. “Seriously? Who would do something like that?”

“You didn’t see anyone else out here?” the officer asked again, his focus intently set on trying to ascertain whether they were being truthful.

“No,” they both emphatically insisted.

“Are you saying they did this recently?” Emma said, pressing into the man’s side. “While we were out here?”

The man put his arm around her shoulders and held her close, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her arm while casting a nervous glance around them. “And you’re certain they’re gone?”

“We aren’t certain of anything,” the other officer said with a sigh, returning from the cemetery to inform them, “Crime unit just got here. You two are free to go.”

Emma snapped her head towards the man who met her gaze. Before either of them could move, the interrogating officer said, “Hold on a minute.”

Joining the other officer, the cop asked in a low tone, “Are you sure? Don’t you think we ought to take them in for further questioning?”

“They’re just a couple of horny college students, not grave desecrating whack jobs,” the other officer countered. “You’ve got their info in case we need to follow up. For now, cut them loose.”

Emma did not have to be told twice. As soon as the officer handed them back their identification they made a beeline for their vehicles.

“Do you know the diner around the corner from here?” the man whispered in her ear.

“Granny’s? Yeah. It’s a popular hangout. Why?”

“Meet me there,” he said, opening her car door for her and letting her slide in behind the wheel before snapping it shut and heading towards his Chevelle.

His engine purred to life a moment later and Emma warred with whether or not to follow him. Chewing her lip, she watched his tail lights disappear and a buzzing sound pulled her attention to her phone.

Twenty-six texts and three missed calls.

Ruby: Remember. No phone!

Ruby: You better not have your phone

Belle: I hope you’re okay.

Belle: And I hope you aren’t too mad at us!

More of the same from Mary Margaret and August. A couple of texts from her brother, demanding she call the moment she’s back at her car. A few more from Ruby with links to ghost story articles. A missed call from David at 12:01. Another at 12:07. The last from Mary Margaret at 12:21.

Emma made a quick group text and sent them all a message.

Back in my car. Safe and Sound. Is the party still going? Gonna run to Granny’s for a hot chocolate then I’ll come back if you guys are still partying.

With her mind made up, Emma set off towards Granny’s and did her best to ignore the constant buzz of her phone during the short drive. When she walked through the door, the bell chiming overhead, her mystery man’s head snapped up from the steaming mug he had wrapped in his hands and a wide smile bloomed across his face.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show,” he said, reclining back in the booth and draping his arm along the back. “Thought you might have ghosted me.”

His brows danced over his eyes, his smile turning mischievous and Emma couldn’t help but roll her eyes while attempting to swallow back an amused response bubbling up from her chest. Stopping at the booth, she waved off his offer to take the seat opposite him, preferring to stand.

“I almost didn’t,” she admitted, tucking her hands into her pockets and scuffing the tile at her feet with her toe. “Would that have disappointed you?”

The man shrugged and shook his head. “Nope. ‘Cause I would have just gone after you.”

“Oh, really?” Emma said in a dubious tone. “And why’s that?”

Leaning forward, he caught her with a sultry gaze and crooned, “Because… I know how you kiss.” Resuming his previous posture, he added, “And I enjoy a challenge.”

“That would be a challenge, all right,” she replied in a taunting tone. “You don’t even know my name.”

“Your usual, Emma?” Granny questioned from the counter, pulling a grin and deep chuckle from the man.

“Emma, is it?” he cheeked. “Does my saviour have a last name?”

Rolling her eyes again, Emma answered, “Swan. Emma Swan, and I’m no saviour.”

“I don’t know about that,” he countered. “You certainly saved my ass tonight. Twice, in fact.”

“Yeah, well… you saved me first, so… we’re even, I guess.” Turning to the counter, she called out to Granny, “Can you make that hot chocolate to go?”

“To go?” the man questioned with evident disappointment.

“Yeah.” Tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, she said, “My friends keep blowing up my phone and if I don’t get back they’re liable to call the cops and I wouldn’t want them to blow our cover story, so I…”

“You can’t stay.” His eyes had dropped to the table, an expression of resignation set in his features.

“I was hoping,” she began softly, earning her a hopeful glance from him. “If you’re not busy tomorrow, I thought you might want to get lunch or something?”

He smiled up at her but it was bittersweet in its corners. “I would love nothing more. Truly. But I have another job to get to. It’s a few hundred miles from here, so I have to get on the road soon.”

“Oh. Right. Sure.”

“However,” he said, sliding his phone across the table towards her. “If you give me your number, I’ll call you the next time I’m in the area.” Sincerity poured from his forget-me-nots depths as he declared, “I would very much like to see you again, Swan.”

Emma tried to smother a self-satisfied smile and picked up his phone from the table. “So you know my name and now you want my number, yet… I have no idea who you are.”

“Fair point,” he conceded on an amused breath. Standing from the booth, he pressed in close to where she stood and took her hand in his. “Killian Jones,” he murmured, lifting her hand to his mouth and brushing a soft kiss to the backs of her knuckles. “At your service.”

With her lip caught between her teeth, Emma pulled her hand from his and punched her number into his phone before handing it back to him.

“One hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon to-go,” Granny announced from the counter, a taunting tone underpinning her words.

“Thanks, Granny,” Emma replied, ignoring the woman’s knowing expression as she took the cup and turned back towards the man, who she now knew to be Killian Jones.

“So…” she drew out in an effort to stall a bit longer. “Thank you for a most memorable evening.” Killian chuckled at that and the sound absolutely did not make her heart stutter. “And um, good luck on your next job.” Realization of what that next job might entail had her insides growing cold for a moment and she took his hand, squeezing it tightly, as she implored, “Please, be careful.”

Killian threaded his fingers between hers, entwining their hands and assuring her, “You don’t have to worry about me, love. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s surviving.”

The truth in his words did not give her much comfort. How many times had it been tested in order to be proven true thus far? Emma wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Perhaps sensing her continued concern, he added, “I’ll be careful, Swan. I promise.”

Her back pocket began vibrating once more, a deluge of texts and calls from her friends, no doubt. The buzzing must have reached his ears.

“You should go, love. Don’t keep your friends worrying about you.”

“Right,” she said, forcing herself to take a step away from him. Then another. Then another. “See you around, Jones.”

“Count on it, Swan.”

~/~

One Year Later…

“What do you mean, we released a ghost when we uncovered that skeleton in the wall?”

“Exactly what I said, Neal! We’ve got an angry spirit in the house and we need someone to help us get rid of it.”

“Who the hell is gonna help us get rid of a ghost, Ems?”

With a long suffering sigh, Emma admitted, “I just might know a guy.”

Part Two - Coming Soon!

Tagging the Curious Crew: (add to tag list)

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[darlingpwease]

Omega SHI MEI AS A YANDERE imagine alpha reader reject him but is in love with omega Chu wanning

okay now listen here wifey imagine omega yandere Shi Mei caught alpha reader and Chu Wanning making out

I first thought that 'wifey' is about shi mei and the first thought was 'cheating on spouse yandere omega shi mei? the simplest idea, it's always a bad ending and a one-way ticket either to the cemetery or to full mind control/basement in modern au', but then I realized that, apparently,,,, is this for me?,,,,, 👉👈 /hj /affectionate

winners are not judged

♡ unhealthy behaviour, animalistic behaviour, secret relationship if you squint, forced relationship implied, age gap implied, mention of heat drugs [consensual, shi mei], sexism & dehumanisation if you squint (butterfly-boned beauty feast omegas)

♡ dubious consent / non consent elements (?) [at the very end; there is no indication of sex, but there are words about being forced to mark and heat], heavy petting if you squint, sex during mating season ('heat) if you squint

In fact, all of these four — Shi Mei, Mo Ran, Xue Meng, Chu Wanning — do not cope very well with jealousy and possessive outbursts, even if their causes are different.

And SHI MEI, although he has one of the most emotionally flexible and hardy reactions out of the whole four, is no better — perhaps his past, his intense obsessiveness and almost dependence on you, mixed with his desire to be your omega and seeing you as his ideal, is under very strong pressure when it turns out that you are nothing of this, you do not feel for him, not even considering him as an 'omega with whom you could have puppies'.

He doesn't have to see you kissing; after all, Chu Wanning rarely ever allows himself to be intimate with you outside of closed places where you are definitely alone — but when you come back one day and smell too strong, with slightly swollen and brighter lips due to long kisses, and SHI MEI notices how you hurriedly bring put yourself in order and try not to look like Mo Ran looks like after brothels — for some reason this comparison seems to him the most correct, especially with burning jealousy and disgust at the fact that you preferred not him, — then he understands everything anyway.

And SHI MEI is quite proud and even somewhat overbearing, using his charm as an omega and as a butterfly-boned beauty feast to attract and hold you — but he is not too proud to use his body and unique body structure, especially for alphas who are intoxicated by his smell, but very easily loses control when he sees that his control over you lost and you slip out of his hands like a fish in the water.

Even if he is not a cat, nothing prevents him from immediately grabbing you with his claws.

... He doesn't do that, of course.

He has two goals — and since one of them is already kick the bucket, then why doesn't he kill two birds with one stone? Undoubtedly, the option of 'leaving a flower in you' (which he did not do earlier, otherwise you would have been attached to him — and he cannot help but reproach himself for this, although he previously hoped that your relationship would be mutual and amicable) is no longer available — he longs for you, but he is not an idiot, he knows that Chu Wanning will realize that something is wrong when you abruptly start to get colder and lose interest in him, which is clearly very intense between you judging by the strength of his scent on you, but that doesn't mean that you are the only option.

There is also Mo Ran. A strong, domineering alpha; maybe a little too problematic, but still capable of a lot. SHI MEI does not deny that he manipulates and uses — as if he has a choice — when, with the help of cunning and meanness, he leaves a flower in him, just as he should have done with you, but you are too infatuated with Chu Wanning to notice that something is wrong, clearly experiencing the flowering of your feelings for more the older omega (why?), but SHI MEI just smiles sweetly and nods, making it clear that he is happy for you, slyly flashing his eyes, and you are almost ashamed of how obvious it all probably looks — although you are sure that 'obvious' It's just for him, — but you can't help but bring him small things from time to time, even if Mo Ran looks belligerent.

(Shi Mei carefully keeps these things in his nest and looks at them for hours, thinking that he will do the same when you become his alpha.)

And counting on someone to disturb you is even more pointless.

There's not much you can do when his plan goes very smoothly, even if no one really knows who's pulling the strings.

SHI MEI has no regrets — if you don't want to look at him voluntarily, he will make you not look away from him, no matter what you have to sacrifice.

You chose it yourself.

And when a strong, very sweet and alluring smell that can cover the mind of anyone spreads through a small house, SHI MEI also knows what he is doing, squinting with pleasure, gently sliding along your legs to your hips, looking down at your figure.

Few alpha can resist omega in heat — and no alpha can resist butterfly-boned beauty feast omega in heat.

“Have you already left a mark on Chu Wanning?”

SHI MEI is willing to bet that no — in the end, shizun, even if we depend on you, does not look like the type who will openly submit and allow himself to be vulnerable and defenseless until he completely subdues himself, just to protect himself emotionally.

But SHI MEI is not like that — his heart belonged to you from the very beginning, and if you had played well, you would not have ended up here.

“Do you like my nest?... I've been building it for you for a long time. Mo Ran did a good job of getting you here, but I thought I should also do my part, like a good omega...”

His skin is soft and cool, with beautiful shoulders and a flexible neck, completely uncovered and clean, without even a hint of someone else's mark.

“Or do you prefer sloppy cold omegas? I can be like that.”

Your thighs are hot, much warmer than his skin, and sitting on them is very comfortable and exciting, making him relax and feel even more heated.

“What did you like about him? His cold? His unsociability? Do you like omegas that are tough on the outside but soft on the inside? Do you like touchy-feely? Or the way he was constantly scenting you and was addicted to you?”

Shi Mei is not in heat soon, but he knows that these pills cause forced estrus — they are often used on his omega relatives, but SHI MEI could not even imagine before that he would use them for this.

(he could)

“Just one bite... you'll take responsibility, won't you?”

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Ten: Keyhole

Written for day ten (of october) of @remadoramicrofics. 642 words. Also available on Ao3.

Their house could get really quiet and solemn. Teddy, as young as he was, was able to listen close enough to know when it wasn’t a quiet day before stomping down the hallway, demanding breakfast and clashing his toys together. On quiet days, he slid on his socks towards the kitchen, where he found one of his parents (usually mama, but sometimes da), pancake batter in hand and finger up to their lips.

On those days, mama opened all of the cottage’s doors and windows so she could keep an eye on Teddy and an ear on da; da put on the gramophone, soft where it was usually fun, and Teddy ran from the house. He’d take Bongui and Tammuz to Little Forest and spend the times between meals there, making hares sprint and birds fly away. Despite the cicadas, the birds, the cows, the dogs, the crickets, the quiet wouldn’t quite let him go, clinging instead to his sweater, his boots and his hair. So Teddy screamed louder, jumped harder, attempted to make the world shake and wake up. On quiet days, the world was too soft and too adult, like the old ladies dressed in all black or the visits to the cemetery. So when he peeked through that keyhole on a quiet day, he knew he’d grown up, a little. That he’d lost something, or maybe gained something, and now couldn’t go back.

It’d been a quiet day, but it had also been a rainy day. Teddy hadn’t been able to escape the stifling, dusty, timeless silence of it all and he was restless. He’d woken up and da had been there, jazz and candles and finger to mouth and water against glass, and Teddy, who had been looking forward to skipping school, had grumpily thrown himself on the couch and let the quiet settle on his shoulders and his frown. Da had let him have breakfast where he was, had kissed his hair and brushed it back with a warm, calloused hand, and then had taken a tray to the exotic territory of the master bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

Teddy looked at his chocolate milk. Then he looked at the door. An adventure was an adventure, wasn’t it? Weren’t parents’ bedrooms just as mysterious as caves in between a tree’s roots? He got up, quiet as a mouse, and avoided the places where the wood creaked, even on quiet days but especially on rainy days, sliding on his socks. Bongui and Tammuz hid him while he held his breath and looked through the keyhole, hands away from the door just in case.

It hadn’t been the first time Teddy saw blood (with Bongui around, he’d seen his fair share of dead animals and what his mama called “crime scenes.” And she’d know! She was an Auror and one of the best) but it was the first time he saw blood on his parents and he wasn’t gonna cry, because he wasn’t a baby and his mama was the strongest in the whole world, so she’d be fine, but she didn’t look so tough under da’s quiet hands, even as she smiled and tried to make him laugh.

(She did manage to make him smile. His da smiled a lot, especially when mama and Teddy did silly stuff like grumpily throw themselves on the couch or recoil from the medicine with an affronted that’s disgusting!).

They were quiet like an old lady dressed in black and quiet like a secret and quiet like they usually weren’t. The gramophone played on and the rain drummed outside and Bongui and Tammuz’s nails were loud on the wooden floor. Teddy moved away from the door, careful and quiet.

On the next quiet day, he stayed indoors. Maybe the quiet would get smaller, he thought, if there were more people to carry its weight.

[decadentworld]

The Baptism.

Billy’s journey to changing his last name, in a last attempt to fully disassociate himself from Neil, takes him to a place he’d never have expected.

※ Billy Hargrove-centric. Side Billy Hargrove/Male Reader.

※ 3,106 words

※ Personal work (not request).

※ Trigger warnings: Child physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. Gaslighting. This might be very triggering for some people.

※ Content & warnings: Original character. Hurt/Comfort. Billy cries a lot. Character death. Non-graphic mentions of smut at the end. Neil is in jail because I said so but it’s not mentioned.

※ Work available only on Tumblr and under ArchiveOfOurOwn pseud of the same name (DecadentWorld). Do not repost, edit, or redistribute. Do not use for TikTok videos.

Billy’s always wanted to do change his last name. Initially, he wanted his mom’s last name, but after everything that’s happened and the growth he’s had, he finally understood that, while his mom might have showed him some kindness, she still abandoned him. Left him to rot in that cemetery he had to call house, with the man who murdered him on the inside. She did; Billy did not jump to conclusions. He did his detective homework and found her having already formed another family. So, in that same vein, he does not want to associate himself with her anymore. It hurts to have this notion of his challenged, but it’s getting better with time.

Billy thinks. Paces, in his mind. Scratches at his head, thinking what else there could be, where he could get a new last name from.

At your now shared house, his newfound group of friends (friends!) try to give him some help. Mostly.

“What about your grandpa’s last name?”, asks the puppy of a metalhead he has as a friend.

“Dumbass. That’s ma’s last name, too.”

“Oh. Right.”

The exasperated babysitter chimes in. “Can any of your relatives reclaim you?”

“No living relatives that I know of, Harrington. Plus, I’m already legal. What’s the use?”

“You can still be adopted if you’re over eighteen. Maybe Susan could adopt you…? She has the grounds for it, now.” The badass columnist has a point. But.

But.

Billy looks uneasy. “M-Maybe not.”

There’s a bit of rueful tension after this. You, his anchor, hold his hand and rub circles on it with your thumb.

Billy’s newfound emotional support lesbian chimes in with a sly smile, and she’s joking, but. “Maybe you could take his last name, hm?” Points at you. Wiggles her eyebrows.

Billy blushes so darkly he has to hide in your chest. But quickly deflates. Right. It’s not allowed.

Maybe he cries a little bit over it at night.

And one day, the epiphany.

His littlest superheroine touches his cheek again, like he always allows her to, ever since that 4th of July.

“You have a memory right here. On the tip of your tongue. Wants to come out.”

“Which of all, mousey?”

Her eyes quickly flit over left and right. “A woman. Is old. Has kind eyes.”

Billy feels something rattle at his chest. “What do you mean?”

“She is good to you. Touches you like I am. Makes it better. But is so… ‘ephemeral’.”

Billy doesn’t realize he’s tearing up. Doesn’t even ask the girl where she learnt that big person word. “Wh-What— What does she look like?”

“Red hair, but it’s… She dyed it. Her teeth are all crooked. Her right eye is—”

“White.” Billy can’t speak. “C-Cataract.”

How could he forget? How could he have forgotten?

Granny Maude.

Billy saw her exactly one time in his life, but he’s not sure why he might have forgotten about her even then, for all the impact that she had in his young life.

Billy’s mind fills in the blanks. A little Billy running away from home, limping all the way across the empty beach at night, right after Neil laid into him with steel-toed boots included. When he can’t run anymore, he still runs a little more, just so that he can collapse on the doorstep of a random house and bang his fists on the door.

That’s the only time in his life when Billy asks for: “Help.”

He sees her so clearly right now. He recalls almost being thrown off by her appearance at first, but quickly pushing this aside when she takes him into her little secluded house, sits him on her rickety old individual sofa, asks him if he’s alright, gives him water, aspirin, treats him so nicely that he cries. Ruefully tells him he looks like someone she knows. Asks his full name so that she can call the police.

“Hargrove?” It’s not a common last name. The old lady has a foreboding at the back of her mind. Quickly puts her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Sonny, what is your father called?”

Little Billy tells her. It can’t be possible. The septuagenarian runs to the phone but the banging on the door stops her.

“Maude, open up! I know he’s in here!” The booming voice of the monster roars.

The woman continues to the phone, dials the emergency line, starts to rely the message but the quick turning of a key in a keyhole makes the phone slip off her hands and shatter on the floor from the impact.

The big bad barges in and rips the base of the rotary phone off the wall for good measure.

“You never told me you had a son! I have a grandson?!”, she screams at him with all the vigour a 74-year-old can manage.

“Senile bitch. This doesn’t concern you.” The villain’s boots shake the foundation of the house as he approaches his son. He grabs him by the hair. “I fucking hate you right now. I do not want to hear a single word from you—”

“How can you treat your own son like that—”

“Shut up! Cops are on their way and not for me. Maybe they’ll finally commit you.” He turns to the boy. “Go to the fucking car. Get in and don’t let a single person see you. If anyone does, I’ll fucking kill you.”

It’s a bit of a blur after that. From what the therapist told him, it’s normal that his mind might have supressed some memories, especially if they had to do with Neil’s abuse.

Wait. The words. He remembers— He keeps hearing them—

“She doesn’t exist, William. She’s not fucking real. Forget that you ever thought up someone like that. She’s not real.”

He understands. Neil forced him to forget she ever existed.

And as always, with everything Neil said, Billy obeyed.

Billy finds himself hysterical and screaming with how much he’s crying after resurfacing from this memory. Jonathan, Will, Joyce, and Jim are now on the sides of him, trying to calm him down without understanding much of what’s going on.

“H-He made me forget her. He m-made me think she n-never existed. But she’s real. She’s real.”

She’s real. Or was.

Deep digging doesn’t do much this time. Any leads on who Maude Hargrove is or might have been are hard to follow. Which is when it occurs to them to hire Murray, see if he has any knowledge on genealogical tree tracking.

And he does. He’s an expert, actually.

“Largo al factotum, I said.” And with that sentence, he closes the case.

Maude Rathbone.

It turns out she never took her husband’s last name. Billy commends her for it, knows how unusual and frowned upon that must have been in her era.

Maude Rathbone passed away at the age of 77 in 1981, when Billy was about to turn 14, about four years after that fateful night. She died not in the comfort of her cozy old home or in a caring nursing facility, but in a psychiatric hospital. Neil did end up committing her that night. Dialed the charm up and told the police officers he was so worried for his mother, that he was afraid she was turning senile, that she had called him into her home because she was seeing a boy that just wasn’t there. No one even bothered to check Neil’s car, within which a frail little boy was fearing for his life.

Billy learns a new word in therapy the next day: ‘Gaslight’.

Murray helps them more. The next few days you, Billy, and Hopper gear up and go to the psychiatric facility all the way in California to get more answers.

Everyone there believed Neil that time. Who wouldn’t have? A charming middle-aged man versus an old woman they found undesirable because they thought cataracts and crooked missing teeth and cheap red dye was a sign of poverty, of carelessness, of mental illness. All things society is not ready to tolerate. The folks in charge at the psychiatric are nonchalant as they imply all this when the three ask for a Maude Rathbone, saying she wrote letters to a boy that didn’t exist, that they assured her the boy received if only to palliate the outbursts of a senile elder in her last days. Only, those letters never left the facility.

But when Billy soon-to-be-ex-Hargrove announces himself as that very boy, the people in charge can’t believe it.

“Of course I’m fucking real, you fucking assholes! ‘You never thought to look me up or anything?!”

Hopper lets him have this. He all but demanded to be brought in with you and Billy if there needed to be some more convincing on his behalf, but he figures it’s not necessary, in the end.

Obviously, they allow him to take all those letters and the rest of her trinkets with them. It’s the least they can do.

Later in the evening, at the hotel, you comfort Billy, who’s already started to cry as he reads the first letter.

Dear Billy,

You are real and I am real. Whatever my son has told you, because I know he has, is untrue. That man is a real piece of work and never told me about you. War changed him, but that’s not an excuse for him, because he walked right into it all on his own. He would get violent with me, cut all contact with me because I was spot on in telling him he was spiraling. Reminds me of Mortimer, but the piece of shit died before he was even born, so I had quite a few years of peace before all that.

Billy laughs softly between his tears and lays his head on your shoulder. Mortimer Hargrove was her husband, Neil’s father. So his grandfather was also shitty, but he felt glad Maude could lay into him and say things like they were.

Neil got paranoid after some time. I knew he thought I was going to report him to the police. I wouldn’t have. I didn’t have anyone. No one would have believed me. So of course I believed you. He hurt you badly, his own son. I think it’s fate that you knocked on my door last night. I still don’t know if it was completely out of the blue, or if you felt like I would be welcoming enough, and for that, you are very brave.

Tears drip constantly on the yellowed sheet of paper. Billy was about to enter a void of self-deprecation, but the next few lines stop him in his tracks and pull another laugh out of him, because it’s like she was reading his mind at the moment she wrote the letter.

Now, don’t you dare think any of this is your fault, sonny. I know your kind, because I was it. I know you’re probably thinking I got put in this place because of you. Stop it. None of this could have been avoided. I would’ve surely ended up in a place like this sooner or later.

Billy disagrees. The way she expresses herself in these letters is so clear; she was extremely lucid for a 74-year-old at that moment.

Billy’s heart breaks as he keeps reading the last few lines.

Please, find me. Come live with me. We can run away from him together. I could prove to them that you’re real, and they’d give me the grounds for adoption. I know there’s no saving that monster.

I love you, sonny. I will find you somehow.

Gammy Maude

Billy breaks down in your arms. “Sh-She only knew m-me for like ten minutes and she still lov-ved me.” He starts hyperventilating. “She f-found me. She found me, in th-the end!”

It takes well over half an hour before Billy’s composed enough to keep reading the rest of the letters. His heart breaks a little more with each one.

At first, they end with:

Hope to see you soon. Love you.

But as he keeps going, it gradually turns into:

Neil’s not letting you see these, is he? Please write back.

And then, into:

Are you real? Lord, give me a sign that my sonny is real.

Fuck Neil. Fuck the police. Fuck the psychiatric handlers. Fuck society. Fuck everyone who ever saw this little old woman and wholeheartedly believed she could be a menace. Billy cries for her. Mourns her, because Lord knows no one ever did.

For the night, Billy forgets that this all started because he wanted to change his last name. Even if he can’t, in the end, he’ll content himself with this.

But he can!

“Look, she’s a direct relative. Blood-related relative. They have to allow you. It’s basically your God-given right. And if for whatever reason they wanna fight it, then all these letters of hers? They’ll be as good of an evidence as there can be. Look at the writing. The exact same as all the legal files on her name. And the signature! God, I love your grandma. She made this so easy.” Murray is almost histrionic as he shoves sheets upon sheets of paper on the table.

Billy can’t help but agree. Gammy Maude was a genius. She somehow had the foresight to add her signature onto the letters, like she knew they could be used as evidence someday.

Everything is arranged that same day.

Billy starts crying before Hopper even hands him his new identification card.

“Kid, you haven’t even seen it yet. Save the tears for after.” Another one of Hopper’s hidden skills: be persuasive enough to accelerate the ID card making process, photo-taking included. So much so that the shiny new plastic is in Hopper’s hand before the day even ends.

“C-Can’t help it, chief. This is my new life we’re talking about.”

Hopper just gives him a gruff chuckle and puts a hand on his shoulder. Billy takes the card and pointedly doesn’t look at it until he goes to stand next to you, near the stairway outside. There are curiously-colored flags in this part of California. They make Billy feel even more accepted and at home.

“Come on,” you gently encourage him. “Look at it.”

He does. The tears can’t stop.

You hold him through it, and even as his eyes get so blurry from the tears that he can’t possibly read what’s printed in the plastic card anymore, he still looks at it like his eyes are pulled to it.

That’s how everyone’s going to call him from now on.

Billy Rathbone.

Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Billy doesn’t answer you, and you realize that he didn’t even take in your question. He cries, so hard that you worry for him, but he’s smiling so widely at the same time, and that dissipates any doubts you might have.

“You did it, honey.”

“N-No. We did it. A-All of us.”

You hoist Billy up and spin him around, rejoicing in his screaming laughter.

Back in Hawkins, things gradually change for the better.

Steve challenges him for a basketball match, wanting a redo of their previous rivalry without the bitterness.

“Come on, Rathbone. You stomped on my crown twice. Was King of Highschool and Keg as well. Not gonna let you be King of Basketball, too.”

God. Steve is so obvious with this attempt, even trying to channel his King Steve persona into his words, but Billy’s smiling so much he temporarily forgets he should respond with anything at least vaguely antagonistic.

Steve smiles shyly. “Creamed your pants for a second there?”

Billy rolls his eyes. “You’re insufferable. Bring it on!”

Robin all but drags him to a big gathering with the party. “Hey! You guys remember Billy Rathbone?!”

Robin’s even more obvious than Steve, emphasizing his last name so overtly Billy’s almost worried for a second of how everyone’s going to react. Eddie and Steve almost chide her.

No need for that. The kids look at him in wonder. El gives him the biggest grin ever. Lucas raises his eyebrows amusedly. Dustin gives him the toothiest toothless smile. Erica only looks smug for once in her life. Will has the softest smile on his face. Mike can’t keep his self imposed grimace of someone who’s sucking on a lemon for long enough because it’s clear he’s trying not to smile.

And Max?

From her sitting position on her wheelchair, she extends her fully healed right arm. “Let me see it.”

“Let her see it! Yeah!” Robin is so enthusiastic about Billy showing Max his new ID that she’s almost jumping in place.

Max takes a good look at the shiny new plastic. Then slowly looks up at him.

Billy doesn’t know what to make of her expression and the sepulchral silence that follows before she speaks.

“Of course you had to go and call yourself Rat Bone.”

Everyone laughs. Billy does, too. He doesn’t know why he was worried.

Wait. He’s tearing up a little bit as well.

Max downright forces him to hug her.

“Don’t you dare say anything, shitbird. What kinda name is May Field? Sounds like… uh…”

“Yeah, yeah. Give yourself an aneurysm thinking of something, will you.” They separate. “Just tell me everything after it.”

And he does. He tells them about Gammy.

“Hey,” you say to Billy, him so comfortable deep in the bedsheets after you’re done laying all your love on him. “If… no, when we’re able to marry,” and he of course has to blush to the tips of his ears, even after you’ve literally just finished making love, “…you’re not gonna take my last name, right?”

Billy tears up. “Please, d-don’t make me—”

“Of course I won’t. That was a threat.” You smile at him while you make him this oh-so-scary threat. He smiles as well. “You better not. ‘Billy Rathbone’ just sounds too good to change.”

There’s always hope.

Billy Rathbone wears a different necklace nowadays. Whereas he used to have a Virgin Mary one, which belonged to his egg donor, he now has one in the format of a locket. There is a photograph inside, the only one Murray could find. But it’s perfect.

Of course, he did not crop the original photograph. He put it through the photocopier once, twice, three times before it was the perfect size.

In this locket, he keeps a photocopied picture of Maude Rathbone, smiling with her gorgeous missing and blackened crooked teeth, sporting a lovely frizzy hairdo that’s just the perfect hue of vintage red, looking at the camera with one ethereal cataractous eye.

[highoctanegem]

[pm] I have been weighing the available options we've looked at. The houseboat is too fragile. The home on Pewbuck Lane is... nice, but something about it does not sit well with me. The one on Deecompe Ave is preferable, and the lawn was nice and brown. The blue house is your color, but we should paint the exterior of any home to your liking regardless... and that one did not have a cat bedroom. I still approve of the storage unit. What do you think?

[pm] You're like the most adult adult I've ever met. It's so attractive of you. You should defo weigh your options near me. And look super serious while you do it. Glasses and pens are welcome.

SEE, I was totally vibing with the rocking of the houseboat, but I think you knew that. And... [user cackles] baby, you should try sounding out Pewbuck, maybe that will enlighten you as to why you're not vibing with that one. Me? I thought it was cute! It checked like, most of our requirements, right? Didn't you luuuurve the dead bird in the front yard? It was a nice little detail.

The blue house is totally disqualified, I showed it to the kitties and they mrowed endlessly. Even Melody wasn't happy. The spoiled brat. But the one with the brown lawn did make me smile, thinking of how we can garden and stuff <3 Plus! It's like, the closest one to a cemetery we've found yet. That means I'll be home so fast after hunting.

[largesunglasses]

Night one JT was different. I met up with my cousin at her parents house to Uber in. I cried on the way to their house when I passed the now closed Chili's which was the last place I saw my grandmother alive. It was really weird and random and I've driven past it so many times but today I got a little teary and it could have been the song playing in the car that set it off but yeah it was weird. I was going to try and stop at the cemetery where my dad's parents are but I didn't. I felt like I needed to keep driving and I don't know if my dad's brother is buried there too now and for some reason I felt like I couldn't see that if he is.

Anyways concert related. We got there when doors opened and found our seats were at one end of the section that was over so far if we looked straight it was a wall and to look to the left where the stage was I'm not sure what we would have been able to see.

I'm sure we would have been able to see something but even this picture I was standing and sitting it was worse. When we got to the venue there was someone holding a sign that said upgrades were available and we found the women. She explained the upgrades and I asked if we could see them first she brought us to the "box seats" area first and when she showed us the last one that was available I said I'd take it. It was an extra $100 a ticket but my cousin paid for the Uber and dinner and I said screw it I didn't come all this way to look at a wall and maybe be able to see a guitar.

This was the "upgrade" we did have someone sit across us on the other side of the table but they were chill. The concert was amazing and even though we were high up I'm pretty sure Dorian pointed at me while I was dancing. James signed a few autographs after the intermission so I'll be prepared tomorrow with my Ted Williams hat just in case. If he doesn't do it again I'll be ok but worth a shot. I did check out the seats for tomorrow because if they were bad I was going to upgrade before we even got there to guarantee the best seat I could get.

That's tomorrow's view still over to the side a good amount but can actually see.

[jamesunderwater]

having an anon friend always seems like so much fun and i’m somehow jealous of you.

my fave time of day: my favourite time of day is definitely just before the sun sets. like when the sun looks so much bigger and the sky is a bunch of different colours, that’s my favourite time. (it’s also the time i go home everyday so maybe it’s also the fact that it’s home time).

my favourite character: alaska young. the book version though. there was something about “looking for alaska” that hooked me in at a young age and i’ve never quite been the same since.

one fact: i failed high school english. most of my friends see me as highly literate so when i tell them i actually failed english (it’s my first language too) it always comes as a big shock.

now my questions for you: what’s your favourite holiday? if you could have any fast food brand available to you at a moments notice, what would it be? if you had to describe yourself using two colours, which would they be? 🩶

friend anon!!! despite my considerable neglect of our friendship, i want you to know that replying to your asks was literally on my to-do list for months. i hope that this feels like a compliment -- i only write out "reply to so and so" and "text so and so" when i really care xD

okay if you came off anon though OR figured out how to stealthily leave a message about wanting a friend anon (idk how you'd do that, but worth a try lol) maybe YOU could have a friend anon too. i need to be someone's friend anon, actually. it's such a sweet feeling to make someone feel seen like that, to make someone smile by showing them people care and are interested in them as a person. thanks for being the kind of cool person who does that! <3 i hope you get a friend anon, you deserve one too.

ohhh, that moment before the sun sets is such a beautiful one!! i'm curious what your landscape is like when you're heading home each day -- are you seeing this sky against a city backdrop? an expanse of fields? suburban streets lined with houses? a mountain with houses scattered all down it? the sea or other waterscape? i must know.

haha i am excited that you ended up choosing a character i actually know! fun fact, when i was in high school, my childhood best friend and i reconnected and we always had a kind of ethereal bond. one day we were sitting in her car in a cemetery and decided we wanted to rename ourselves based on our truer nature, but decided we should name each other. i actually named her Alaska, because she so, so reminded me of Alaska from that book. she was just (still is, even now)...unearthly in some ways. magic kind of poured out of every part of her. she ended up changing her name to Alaska really everywhere, truly went by the name for years. I think she only recently started going by her birth name again. (she named me Luna, if you're wondering, and what a compliment, to be compared to the moon in any sense)

i hope it's not rude to say, but i love your one fact? cause fuck school. it is so not a measure of our actual intelligence or proclivities. kinda love that you prove that with that story -- though i am sorry you had that experience, because I'm sure it was very stressful.

okay, i probably already apologized for this, but like.......sorry again for having absolutely no capacity for short replies. i don't really know how people don't comment on every little thing like this? hopefully you don't hate it!

favorite holiday: generally speaking, Christmas. Huge fan of Halloween as well. but the last few years Christmas has been very quiet for me, and while I haven't hated that, it just isn't exactly the holiday it used to be. So you know what? In this moment, I think my answer might be New Year's Eve instead. for several years now I've spent that day in reflection, and journaled for hours at night about the previous year or years, hopes for the new year, all of that. I love it. and I love that, unlike other holidays, I don't really feel the need or even desire to be with others that day -- so the fact that I'm usually not doesn't feel strange or like something i need to fix.

fast food brand: i don't really eat fast food much, or eat out that often at all. but despite the fact that i hardly ever eat red meat, for some reason my brain has associated "i did a hard thing and now i deserve heavy-calorie, easy meal" with Five Guys. which is basically really expensive, wonderfully greasy burgers, and i always feel like shit afterward, but there you have it.

two colors: oh how i love this question... it's hard not to jump to my favorite colors, but that's not what you're asking here. i'm so curious what my friends would say 😆 but me? i think i would say the golden yellow of ginkgo leaves in fall. and... mm, yeah, the dark green of a spruce tree (i looked some up, and i think the black hills spruce tree is the best representation of the green i mean).

<3333 thank you for these questions and the wonderful conversation, friend anon. i hope you had the loveliest of holidays and this week is restful for you.

[toad-games]

WIP Wednesday

This is a bit of a longer one! Just a fragment of a scene of a much longer fic that’s been bouncing around in my head for ages. Also, TW for a description of an anxiety attack. Nothing too graphic, but I’ll put it under the read more just in case.  

Olive visits the cemetery on Memorial Day, and it isn’t as empty as she’d hoped.

The cemetery is quiet again, and there’s a weight in her chest that wasn’t there when she arrived. A tightness she hasn’t felt since she was a kid. To add insult to injury, it’s almost offensively beautiful out today. Finally starting to really feel like spring, maybe even summer. She curls her frigid fingers into a shaky fist. 

The agency SUV Rebecca disappeared into is practically silent In its retreat. Olive wonders dimly if it’s an electric car, or a hybrid, or maybe some kind of top secret tech that isn’t available to mere mortals. She takes a deep breath, or tries to. She feels like her lungs are locking up. Her ribs suddenly static and unmoving, holding her breath hostage. She can taste something like pennies. Something a little like blood.

She should call someone. Her thoughts come to her slowly, like fingers of fog creeping up the beach. She should be worried. She should get in the car and leave. She should call someone. She should call Mason. No, not Mason. She couldn’t stand to look at him right now. More accurately, couldn’t stand to have him look at her. Not with this vacuum expanding in her chest. Maybe she should call Tina, or Verda. Verda lives nearby, and it is Saturday. He would be home.

She realizes she’s crying the same time she realizes the stems of the flowers she’s still clutching have snapped. There’s a shower of yellow and white petals at her feet. A cheap, shitty bouquet she’d picked up at the grocery store on her way over. They’d been picked clean, the checker had said. Always happens around Memorial Day.

Her throat is so tight not even sobs can escape. She curls forward, forehead resting against the roof of her car, glasses digging into her cheek. The metal is warm beneath her and she clings to it.

She knows that this is just an anxiety attack. The same way she knows that her nightmares are just a trauma response. The same way she knows that Murphy is gone, caged in a facility miles away. Which is to say not in any way that makes it less awful.

She wants to go home. Not the warehouse, to the room that looks like hers but isn’t. She wants to curl up in between her grandparents headstones, the same way she would curl up between them in their bed. Wants to feel her grandpa’s sandpaper hand in hers. She wants to call Mason. Wants to fall asleep next to him, and have him still be there when she wakes up.

By the time her lungs are free again, the shadows have almost reached her and the car. She’s not quite sure how long she stood there, hunched and crying into her folded arms resting on the roof of her car. Long enough that it’s cool again, and her neck aches from the awkward angle. She keeps her cheek pressed against the roof but looks up, watching the pine boughs sway above her. Watches an enormous cloud roll over the sun, plunging her and the cemetery into shadow. She reaches for her phone.

He answers on the second ring, “Hey Liv!”

She smiles, Felix’s bright voice washing over her just as the clouds roll back, bathing her once again in sunlight.

“Hi Felix,” she mumbles,

“Hey,” she hears a rustle on his end, as if he’s suddenly sat up, his voice instantly growing softer, “hey are you alright?”

“Allergies,” she says, keeping her face pressed against the car, “just another one of those fun human things you don’t have to deal with.”

“Actually, vampires can have allergies.”

“What?” She’s so thrown she actually lifts her head. She’d been trying to gather the energy to do that for an hour, and this was all it took apparently.

“Yeah, Adam’s allergic to pine. He can’t touch the needles, he gets all itchy.”

“Huh,” she looks up at the pines surrounding the cemetery, lining the neat walkways, “that sucks that he lives in Wayhaven, then.”

“Oh he’ll live,” says Felix cheerfully, “I like it here, I don’t want to move again. Where are you?”

“Um, Morley Park, just um, taking a walk.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be, if your allergies are that bad,”

She laughs. it sounds a bit wheezy, a little strained, but it helps open up her chest a bit more, uncurl the knot at the base of her throat, “Yeah, maybe, what are you doing?”

“Nothing much,” he says, “just got back from a patrol.”

Olive looks back up at the sky, turning a soft purple as the sun starts to sink, then down at the quiet graves around her. At her bundle of wildflowers on her grandparent’s grave, and then down at the petals at her feet. Her pathetic attempt would have been lost among all the gifts that litter Rook’s grave anyway. 

She opens her car door, “Have you ever been bowling?”

[sukratyaropia24]

Withered Love(Part 3/3 FINALE)

The final part, once more, this is something I cooked up for a performance output for school.

Summary: Two guys fall for each other, one is too early whilst the other is too late as both come to a misunderstanding that leads to the death of one under the petals and flowers, thinking that the other doesn't feel the same way.

Chiluc Modern!Au

Warning/s: Might be occ but Idc, hanahaki disease, mentioning of star tear disease, heartbreak, miscommunication, death, 'So close yet so far'.

Recap:

He liked his annoying, cheerful personality, completely contrasting with his own. Maybe one day, he will confess. But not right now, not when the man wasn't here, and yet, Diluc didn't dare to go find his dorm room and ask why hasn't gone.

The next day rolled by and Ajax felt even worse, despite only being overnight, usually it will take a few days for the pain to worsen but today it got worse.

He couldn't think straight, he looked pale, lips stained with blood, and breathing raggedly. One of the teachers noticed his condition and asked if he would want to go to the infirmary, yet, he shook his head, he couldn't let anyone know what disease this was nor what caused it. Despite the concern, the teacher sighed and continued. Meanwhile, outside the classroom, the Student President was there, looking over at Ajax. Why was he doing this? It had only been a day since they last saw each other, he didn't know the answer. But as soon as the bell rang, he tried to approach Ajax, but before he could, another student in Diluc's class approached him, and started to get close to him whilst flirting. As Diluc tried to pry the girl off, he didn't even realize Ajax was already looking at him. What's worse is how Ajax took it the wrong way.

Of course, Diluc already had someone, a girl, why would he even like a boy like him? His lungs flared up again as he covered his mouth before running to the nearest comfort room and into one of the stalls, before puking a load of fully bloomed petals alongside a concerning amount of blood. 'Shoot… It got even worse…' Ajax thought to himself. Now the sounds of crystallines breaking had started again, and great, he started crying too. "Why does everything had to go wrong this year…." He muttered as he continued to cry as Diluc on the other hand had finally pried the girl off and now was trying to find Ajax, but no avail, and soon he gave up, but Diluc wonders why the man had became so pale as he hoped it's not what he thinks it is after that incident with the girl.

Days had gone by and Ajax was nowhere to be seen, now Diluc was really concerned, he had already asked many of Ajax's friends to no avail. He had no choice but to go and find his dorm room to check. But the worst came for him as he heard a few students talking about how a sophomore student was heard to be unconscious with blood coming out his mouth. A sophomore student, he already knew who it was and yet, he didn't believe it as he suddenly ran as fast as his legs took him, it can't be him, right? "Please, let it not be you, Ajax… Please" he muttered as he reached the dormitory for the sophomore, and he felt his heart drop at the seen. An ambulance was already there with a few students and teachers surrounding the building. He was about to go through the people until a group of ambulance helpers came out with a person in the trolley, his heart dropped as he saw who it was. That it was indeed Ajax who was the one unconscious on the trolley. What matters worse is how now that he was found, the idea of the hanahaki and star tear disease came up as Diluc realized Ajax had both. All his question was, who caused all of this? But deep down, he knew he started this mess.

.

..

...

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

'Huh…? Where am I…?' Ajax thought as he looked around, 'A cemetery? I… Oh,' he muttered as he looked down, seeing his name engraved on a tombstone.

'Here lies Ajax Tartaglia, Died by the Hanahaki Disease.' The tombstone wrote. Ajax chuckled, "I guess I died, huh…" he said, a sad smile on his face that slowly turned into a frown. Everything in his body felt free, at peace, but despite this, his mind isn't, everything about this. "And I didn't even get to tell him…" he muttered once more, a golden tear fell down his cheek. He continued to look down at his tombstone, slowly, he wondered, why was he still here? Is there something else? It was that until it was as if his question was answered immediately as he heard a car door opening and closing. Ajax turned around and his eyes widened, it was him, the person he loved underneath all the bloody flowers.

Diluc got out of his car with a bouquet of his and Ajax's favorite flowers, and there was him, eyes darkened and red as if he just finished crying. 'There's no way…' Ajax thought as Diluc slowly approached Ajax's tomb, 'This can't be right, right? There's no way he liked me too…' he thought, tears forming in his eyes as he watched as Diluc knelt down on one knee and gently placed the bouquet of flowers right beside Ajax's tombstone, before kneeling down on both knees. "Hey… How are you? I… I hope you're doing good up there…" Diluc spoke, he couldn't even finish a full sentence without tearing up as he wiped a few tears with the sleeve of his jacket, which was once Ajax's. "I know it's my fault you were in so much pain before dying… And I'm sorry, I didn't know the girl and I never was… It's because…" Diluc paused as he swallowed the lump forming in his throat.

"It's because it's you whom I liked- No, loved all this time… And I never had the gut to tell it to you… And I should've told you already to ease the pain, and I regretted every single one of it…" he confessed as Ajax watched with both of his hands covering both his mouth, tears falling down his face. He knew they would never be able to love each other all because of a single misunderstanding.

Two guys falling for each other, one was too early whilst the other was too late as both came to a misunderstanding that led to the death of one under the petals and flowers, thinking that the other doesn't feel the same way, only to watch the other sat in front of his grave as the other spoke as if he was the other's light.

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

A/n: That is it for 'Withered Love', now some parts are edited upon posting because of grammar reasons, but assure you, it's pretty minor. Anyway, thank you for reading my fiction. :DD

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Have you ever had the desire to write your initials in wet cement?

Ever gone mountain biking?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What's the right tip?

Have you called a plumber to your home lately?

How superstitious are you?

How much money would it take to make you spend a night at a cemetery?

Do you display this as a trophy?

Do you have a pet?

Do you have a sweet tooth?

Do you believe in the power of a curse?

Have you had your hearing tested lately?

Planning a trip soon?

Can you remember the tallest man you've ever seen?

Do you love to go a-wandering beneath the clear blue sky?

Have you noticed what big star's real estate agent's have become?

Are you careful with your personal records?

Does your computer ever seem to have a mind of it's own?

Have you ever visited a china town section at a major city?

Have you ever visited a flea market?

Have you ever visited a truck stop?

Did you ever had a job as a waiter?

Have you noticed how many successful restaurants are theme based these days?

Does your computer ever seem to have a mind of it's own?

This isn't one of the questions in that section, and I still don't really know what it means, but yes, my computer at various times has:

1) frozen the browser (and crashed the computer) after opening more than a dozen windows of the same browser on different websites

2) crashed the browser (and deleted itself from the list of apps) because it ran out of available memory

3) crashed the browser (and deleted the book I'm reading) because I forgot to tell it to quit the previous window and reopen a new one and keep going to the last window I had open, leaving it with not a single open browser window

4) crash the computer from a sudden loss of memory

5) crash the computer with a message from Google Chrome saying there was an unknown problem and the computer needed to shut down

6) freeze itself from being asked too many questions by a website

7) and finally, of course, immediately after that, after I had a lot of spare memory I didn't know I had, crashed and had to start over from the start when I closed the browser, which deleted itself from the apps list and took some other things with it, and then the browser crashed again, and started deleting things again, and then I had to start over again from the start after that, and then it took a while to figure out that the computer was no longer crashing, and I forgot what happened after that

8) crash the computer by trying to run an.exe from a folder I had downloaded, because I wanted to know what it meant

9) crash the computer by running too many windows in the same browser and I closed one too many windows of the same browser to close the program that had been running that browser and then all of a sudden I had a blank screen with the program that had been running that browser and the only way to get it back to normal was to restart the computer

10) freeze itself for a moment from being asked more questions on a website

Are you careful with your personal records?

I used to keep a daily calendar, but that has gotten old and I have fallen out of the habit, although I recently started using a Toddler to take notes on the calendar-like interface. I have kept a weekly calendar in one case for a while and in another case I tried to write down a list of events and tasks at the beginning of the month and then sorta lost track of it, but that was back when I wasn't a total failure at keeping track of things.

Has a doctor ever told you you might have a neurological problem?

The only doctors who've told me this kind of thing were doctors I knew from my time in college, one of whom told me about a time when I had a headache for several hours and told him he should send me to the hospital right away, and that I might have a tumor, and the other one was more like "you have bad eye vision but that might be due to something else (if I remember what) and anyway you might want to get some new glasses or something, and also maybe you should see a specialist about this stuff."

Do you love to go a-wandering beneath the clear blue sky?

Very much. I have a strong desire to go walking along the ocean whenever I can, even though the Pacific Northwest is not exactly underwater. I guess this is mostly about the desire to hear the sound of the sea, I can't really describe it any other way.

Have you ever visited a china town section at a major city?

Yes. I went to the Chongqing (not to be confused with the Chongqing of the Three Kingdoms/Ten Provinces Wars in the early-to-mid 1700s), and the Dinghai (the name of a nearby town) parts in Tibet.

Do you think your house has a spirit?

Yes, and also sometimes it's the spirit of history, and sometimes it's the spirit of nature, and sometimes the spirit of politics, and sometimes it's the spirit of the people who live in it, and sometimes the spirit of me, and so forth.

Some houses have spirit houses, so there is that to think about. But I do think of my house as having the spirit, in some sense (in the same way that I think I know what the spirit is of the person I live with).

Ever wondered what the ocean's deep blue heart feels?

Sometimes, yes. I've wondered whether there are certain things I have forgotten in my lifetime and will have to rediscover in another lifetime, and whether some of them I might rediscover as I die, and what they would feel like if I could experience them now.

Planning a trip soon?

Next year I want to drive up the coast to Nass Head in Connecticut. This is just a one-step plan that I intend to execute in the next year.

When was the last time you told someone you loved them?

Maybe a year ago. (I told a girlfriend in the fall about last summer that I had decided not to move in with her after all, so I'm counting this as "told a lot of people I loved them." I told my sister that I liked a song she wrote, which seemed sufficient.)

This may count as the same question asked in a slightly different way, depending on which person it is that you're trying to tell.

If someone tells me I should have been their friend as a kid

[mademoiselle-red]

Top 5 beverages!

Turkish coffee, but as a pour over

A controversial opinion, I know, but hear me out: I find traditionally brewed Turkish coffee a little too strong and bitter for my tastes, but I absolutely love buying ground Turkish coffee (without cardamon, another controversial opinion, forgive me) from the Asian grocery store and making it into a pour over at home. The result is a much milder version that still retains the spicy flavors of the coffee, but with none of the bitterness, and it goes down very smoothly with a dash of milk. Plus, no coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup to deal with once you are done, since it’s all been filtered out!

Italian Hot Chocolate

Let me set the scene for you: it was an afternoon in late December, between Christmas and New Years. My traveling companion, an archaeologist, had enthusiastically dragged me away from the shopping district that I was quite happy to find myself in and set us out on a long trek to some obscure church so she could show me a mural that I “simply have to see”. We arrive at the old church and learn that the final entry of the day was 20 minutes ago. Deflated, cold, and hungry, we walked through the streets of Milan, heading back to the neighborhood our hotel was in to look for dinner. It was getting dark, and it started to rain. We turned a street corner and saw a dazzling sight: a beautiful cafe with a white storefront, lights glowing from its large windows illuminating the marble tables within. As we pushed in the heavy doors, we were greeted by the smell of hot chocolate, and the menu above the white marble counter confirmed our senses: this was a chocolate bar, offering a dozen different flavors of Italian hot chocolate. I ordered one with dark chocolate, hazelnut, and whipped cream. A few minutes later, it arrived on my table. It was heaven in a cup. A very small glass cup (only a third of the normal serving size typical here in America) in which one could see thick black-brown liquid chocolate, topped with rich whipped cream (a little over-whipped, on the buttery side, which is exactly how I like it), and crushed hazelnut drizzle. It was glorious. I bit into the whipped cream, sucked in the hot chocolate in one big slurp, felt the thick lava-like liquid roll down my throat, and relished in the warmth that spread as it passed through my chest. It was much more bitter than American hot chocolates, and richer in flavor, with a nutty almost caramel-like aftertaste. This was the first time in my life where I wished I could stick my tongue into a cup and lick the inside clean.

Hot Apple Cider with whipped cream and cinnamon

This one is a winter classic in Germany. I first had it in Berlin on a bright sunny day in a cafe attached to a beautiful cemetery that I’d scrolled through that morning. It was the first time I had whipped cream with apple cider, and it made the entire thing feel extremely indulgent and i think it helped bring out the natural sweet-sour taste of the apples, add in the cinnamon and you have liquid apple pie in a cup 🤤

Riesling

IT IS THE BEST WHITE WINE (although Retsina is a close second). And the brands that are usually available at my local store in the states suck 😭😭😭. A good Riesling should be slightly sour, slightly sweet (the bad ones are usually too sweet), and dry. Riesling is the perfect summer drink, good for picnics in the sun, or dinner out on the balcony, with seafood, arugula / rucola, and white asparagus (with ham and hollandaise sauce, of course)

Japanese-Style Whisky Highball

Ice, whisky, and soda water (and maybe a dash of lemon to change it up). It tastes fantastic. Perfect for every season. Easy to make at home, great to order in restaurants and bars. It’s especially great with yakiniku or any kind of barbecue / grilled meat dish. I also tried a Shochu version of this in a canned bottle from 7-11 in Japan.

[eisthenameofme]

Re: Cemeteries. (Not US) I know they're sometimes used this way, since I've been to some concerts and other events held in them. That being said, here most are managed by the municipality (even if people can own individual plots) and not intended as a third space (at present), so if they receive too many complaints from passerbys they'll probably crack down over "mobs disturbing people" regardless of whether that was ever actually a thing - Further complicated by "but what if you loiter over a plot you actually bought or otherwise have some tangible claim to (having a relative buried there for plausible deniability reasons)".

So no simple answer, and worth checking what's the law around all that in your state and who's actually in charge of cemeteries, since they should be contactable (to report a broken gravestone or littering if nothing else).

(Ask bc this is too long and convoluted for comments/Anon bc anxiety.)

Huh, I hadn't ever heard of anything like a concert being held in them before. I'd only ever heard of like. Ghost tour groups and seances and shit getting permission to host events, or maybe in more famous/larger places holding regular tours. But I just checked and it looks like they happen in some places here, too. When I said I had heard of them being used in that way in the past, I was remembering having heard about them being used essentially like regular parks are to walk and have picnics and that kind of thing in like the 1800s.

It seems like the specifics of management vary pretty widely here, and I've seen some with full websites and clear contact information and some with barely any information plainly available at all (and stumbled on one with a fuckton of bad ratings because it was overgrown and people could apparently neither locate their relatives' plots nor contact anyone about it).

I certainly wouldn't say they're like. 'intended' as a third space here, and I could imagine that a larger group, especially meeting regularly (and in some cemeteries moreso than others), might attract negative attention and be asked to leave, but I don't think I've heard of specific rules against people just walking around and enjoying the area during hours when it's explicitly open. But yeah I agree with there not really seeming to be a straight answer; it probably varies a lot by location and individual cemetery and maybe to an extent also the locals (there's one near me in a small town that got really infamous for Paranormal reasons and it is now also notorious for the locals being deeply hostile to anyone not from there visiting for any reason)

I frequently avoid attaching my name to asks too just because I've seen one too many instances of people/their followers being unexpectedly hostile for reasons I would not have predicted