#my friend is taking a marine biology class and mentioned how they were weirded out by a whole chapter and whale reproduction

[fvedyetor]

fvedya . can you PLEASE elaborate on the icelandic penis mueseum that you casually mentioned in the tags . im literlaly begging

YES I CAN

(um i talked quite a bit and i think some people may want to opt out of hearing about this soooo its under the cut)

ok so theres this museum in iceland called the 'the icelandic phallological museum' that features penises. HUNDREDS of specimens' species' penises its so crazy. including whales!! whale penises are wild, a lot of people mistake them for monsters in the ocean (tbf, in grainy photos, they do look like the lochness monster. but no, they're just cocks.)

the museum also has a bistro called the phallus cafe and bistro where you can get penis waffles. and theres a gift shop with penis themed wares.

the penis museum is looking for human donors last i heard. its been a while since i checked in on the museum so take it with a grain of salt, but they have a human penis on display but its really small and sad due to poor conditions and a bad detachment process so they are supposedly looking for a bigger and healthier one!

anyways its like my dream to go there (and omg if i could work there- thatd be so cool!!)

anyways heres the website theres not many photos and its not really explicit or anything (they got to be professional on the internet ykyk) but the waffles look soooooooo yummyyyyyy omg

[hermannsthumb]

possible prompt for a university au: newt is the biology major who maintains all the fish tanks in the physics building at 11pm and hermann is the physics student who likes to wander the halls to think. newt accidentally flings water all over the ground and hermann trips, hijinks ensue.

earlier today I was thinking about how I wrote a college AU fic almost 3 years ago to the date, and how I wanted to do more bc its fun thinking about newt and hermann as dumb college students

----

Newt's not really sure how he ended up with the weirdest work-study job on the planet, but honestly, things could be much, much worse (he could be stuck down in the dining hall, or dealing with confused freshmen in the school bookstore) so he keeps his thoughts on the whole thing to himself. Every Friday at eleven sharp, Newt pulls on his grodiest t-shirt and a pair of long rubber gloves and treks all the way over to the physics department to set to work scrubbing down the fish tanks that line the classroom walls. Why does the physics department have fish tanks? Newt's not really sure about that, either. It's kind of an insane amount of them, too, more than even the marine bio department has. Maybe it's supposed to boost morale or something. Hey, look at these crazy cool tropical fish who get to do nothing but eat and swim in circles, sorry you're stuck inside calculating velocity and shit.

Whatever, Newt's not complaining about that either. Let the physics nerds have their fun. It'll be good for them to branch out a little, realize there's life beyond robotics club meetings.

Also, Newt likes the fish. They're cute. He likes to think they like him, too, because they're very well behaved when he has to scoop them out of their tanks and plop them into smaller fish bowls (the kind goldfish in movies always use). He's going to teach them tricks eventually—he had a beta fish once who would do a little flip when Newt tapped the glass a certain way because he knew he'd get rewarded with dried worms, so Newt knows it's possible. Just imagine, a hundred fish doing flips on command. Newt Geiszler, fish whisperer.

Yeah, maybe the job could be more glamorous. It's really hard to get algae out of the gloves, and he hasn't been allotted the budget for a new pair yet.

"Hey, guys!" he shouts as he pushes in the door to room 214. The fish don't acknowledge him: they just continue swimming in their giant tank. In and out of plastic plants and rock caves. The rock caves were a gift from Newt three months into the job, and so were some of the moss balls—stimulation is important for fish! He wouldn't want to be trapped in a glass box with nothing to do, either. "I bet you missed me. Ready for a clean tank?"

Newt always talks to the fish, even if they don't talk back, because he thinks it's important to build their trust. He'll usually keep a running commentary of his week as he scrubs the tanks, just get everything off his chest that he needs to get off. Stuff he's worried about. Stuff that went well. Stuff that went badly. Therapy's expensive, and Newt's student health insurance can only cover so much, but talking to fish? That's free.

That's also kinda why he does it so late at night and over the weekend. The last thing he wants is an audience. Because, one, talking to fish is admittedly weird, and two, no one wants a glimpse at Newt's psyche like that, probably not even the fish.

The first step in cleaning the tanks is relocation. Newt digs his stereotypical goldfish bowls and an industrial-size mesh wand out of the supply closet, fills the former with some of the special tank salt water, and begins the slow and arduous task of scooping out the fish and depositing them into the bowls. "I had the lamest week," he announces once he's about three clownfish in. "I was working on a group project Saturday—"

Then Newt stops, because he hears footsteps in the hallway just outside the classroom.

Serial killer, Newt's instincts supply helpfully.

No, Newt corrects himself, that's dumb. Why would a serial killer wander into the physics building at eleven o'clock at night? Why would anyone, period? He's probably imagining stuff. Lack of sleep, stress over his upcoming projects, residual embarrassment from his disaster study session Saturday, all of it culminating in Newt thinking there's someone there. No, definitely imagining it. Newt can only even get in this late to the department because his ID swipe card is set up with the right permissions—not even the physics students have the permissions he does to be in this late at night. Well, not unless they clean the kitchenette in the student lounge or something.

Or if Newt left the door unlocked.

More footsteps. Closer now.

Newt's pretty sure he didn't leave the door unlocked, because he thinks it locks automatically behind him, and he would have to literally prop it open for anyone to get in after him. But anything's possible. The door could've caught on a dropped pencil or a paper scrap or other weird shit that physics students leave around, and a serial killer could've noticed and taken the opportunity to sneak inside on the off chance a hapless young biology major was scrubbing slime off fish tanks in the middle of the night. Any minute now, Newt's about to end up on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. The Physics Department Murder. The Disappearing Biologist. (Nah, neither of those are very good titles, but that's why Newt isn't on the creative writing track.)

Step-tap-step. Closer now; Newt's heart leaps to his throat. Step-tap-step. Step-tap-step. Pausing just outside the door of room 214. God, why didn't Newt turn the lights off? Why didn't he shut the door?

Newt reaches for the first vaguely weapon-shaped thing he can find—an empty fishbowl, because Newt's not going to sacrifice any of the fish for this—and, as the door swings open, hurls it with a cry.

The bowl clunks on the ground. Except it turns out Newt grabbed the wrong fish bowl, because (even though it doesn't shatter, thank God) water quickly begins to seep across the slate floor tiles towards Newt's serial killer, a pathetic little clownfish (Newt thinks this one is named Albert, because the physics department is made up of nerds who do shit like name their random pet fish after their kind) flopping around in the puddle. Newt's serial killer, meanwhile, cries out similarly, his arms windmilling as he loses his footing and slips backwards, his cane—

Oh, fuck.

The intruder is not a serial killer. It's someone possibly worse, actually: Newt's mortal enemy, Hermann Gottlieb.

Newt's not really sure at what point Hermann became his mortal enemy and not just some guy I have class with that I hate, but he can pretty easily say that they've hated each other since the moment Hermann walked through the doors of Engineering 101 and was deigned Newt's lab partner by the Alphabetized By Last Name Seating Chart god. Something about Hermann just gets under Newt's skin. It's not his prissy English accent, or his oversized sweaters, or his absolutely horrendous haircut, and it's not even that he takes every opportunity to savagely rip apart every single thing Newt says in class. Don't get Newt wrong, that's all super fucking annoying, but it's annoying levels he can deal with.

It's the stuff they have in common that makes Newt hate him. It's like Hermann's a slightly broodier and more angular mirror that reflects all of Newt's most egregious faults—his arrogance, his stubbornness, his social awkwardness, his desperation to be taken seriously—right back at him. It sucks.

Plus, one time Newt caught Hermann ripping down the flyer he put up on the quad for Anime Club to advertise his stupid chess club instead, and he's never managed to forgive him for that.

Newt may hate Hermann, but he's not about to let him land on his ass in a puddle of fishy water (especially not on a freezing November night) just because the subsequent bitching would be unbearable, and, yeah, it would be supremely shitty of Newt, so he leaps forward just in time to catch Hermann and his cane before he hits the ground. He's so impressed with himself with his amazing catch that it takes him a few seconds to realize that Hermann is shouting and probably has been shouting since he slipped.

"—bloody maniac! What on earth are you doing in here? How are you in here? Did you just assault me? I'm going to phone campus police, you wretched—"

"Hold that thought," Newt says.

He rights Hermann and snags the mesh net and rescues poor Al before it's too late, dropping him back into the big tank with the rest of his friends. Newt can't be sure, but he thinks Al blows a bubble in thanks at him. Maybe he needs to make friends outside fish.

Hermann is still yelling at him.

"I am going to tell the head of the department you're—you're skulking about in here after hours!" he declares. "You're a menace. Pay attention to what I'm saying to you, Newton!"

Newt sighs and turns around. Hermann's turned an interesting shade of red—sort of like an over-boiled lobster, or if he fell asleep in the sun for too long. Newt wonders if it's from embarrassment (almost falling on his ass) or anger (almost being knocked on his ass). Probably anger. "Look, dude, I'm sorry," Newt says. His face twists like he ate a lemon, and he hopes Hermann doesn't notice. Newt hates apologizing to Hermann. "It's my job to clean the tanks every weekend. You scared the shit out of me and I freaked out—it's just that, like, no one ever comes by this late. Ever." He decides not to mention the serial killer thing. Hermann might make fun of him for being jumpy or paranoid or something.

Hermann's scowl doesn't lessen, but he does nod. Plus, he stops shouting. That's as much as Newt's gonna get of forgiveness. "Hmph," Hermann says. "You clean the tanks?"

"Every weekend," Newt repeats. He realizes he got some fish tank slime on Hermann's button-up when he caught him. Oops. Hopefully Hermann won't notice until Newt's in the safety of his dorm. "Gotta pay for my textbooks somehow." Then he frowns. "Wait, so what are you doing here? I didn't know you had access to the building this late."

Maybe Hermann is the kitchenette-cleaning guy after all. But, to his surprise, Hermann sniffs and casts his eyes to his dorky Oxford shoes. "Er," he says. "It's just—I was having trouble working out a solution to a problem, and thought a walk might do me good. Chilly nights like this one always do. And I quite like this building at night—it's calm, and much quieter than my dormitory." He fidgets. "And—well—only don't say anything to anyone, but I rewrote the permissions of my ID card so I could come and go wherever I please ages ago."

"You rewrote the permissions?" Newt says. "What the hell, wouldn't you have to hack into the security system or something to do that?"

"Well, obviously," Hermann says.

Despite himself, and despite Hermann being his Mortal Enemy, Newt is genuinely impressed. "Dude," he says. "That is so badass." Since when has Hermann been a badass?

Hermann's eyebrows jump, and he blinks at Newt behind his dorky librarian glasses. What twenty-one-year-old wears librarian glasses? With a chain? "You think so?" he says.

"Uh, totally," Newt says. "What problem were you stuck on? The one from Saturday?"

Being lab partners for engineering means Newt and Hermann have to collaborate on pretty much everything, including their midterms. Their midterm is what they've been working on for the past two weeks. On Saturday, though, they met in neutral ground to work on it (a reserved study room in the library), and, after a stupid and massive argument that had the librarians hoisting them out by their shirt collars and threatening to ban them for life, Hermann called Newt an idiot and stomped off into the night. Newt still hasn't gotten around to giving the problem another shot. Whatever, they have another week before the dumb thing is due. Plenty of time. Hermann nods. "Yes," he says. "Er—that one."

Newt glances at the clock ticking away on the wall. Quarter after eleven. Hermann's delayed him a whole fifteen minutes. Technically, he reminds himself, he doesn't actually have to have the tanks scrubbed by Friday night—he has the whole weekend to get it done. Also, he kind of feels like he owes Hermann for attacking him the way he did. Accidentally attacking. "Listen, Hermann," he says, feeling totally insane for what he's about to suggest. But he kind of wants to know more about Hermann The Badass. "What if we went back to my place and worked on it together? I'll buy us pizza, and I have, like, a bunch of energy drinks." The pizza place nearest campus is open until three in the morning, almost definitely because they get all of their business from sleep-deprived undergrads. Plus, they have midnight specials where you get free breadsticks with every pizza. Newt could go for some breadsticks. "It might be...fun," he adds.

Fun? With Hermann? Hermann will think he hit his head or something.

But to his surprise, Hermann doesn't hesitate even a second before saying "Alright, then."

"Oh," Newt says. He honestly thought Hermann would put up more of a struggle. "Cool!"

"But I might need to borrow a jumper," Hermann says. "If you'd be so...courteous, that is. I'm a bit chilly."

For some reason, the thought of Hermann (Newt's mortal enemy, but also a secret badass) curled up in one of Newt's baggy sweatshirts makes Newt feel all weird and warm all over. He swallows a few times, because his throat feels a little weird, too. Too tight. Like he just ate something he's allergic to. "No sweat," Newt says. "Let me just get these fish back in the, um, the tank. And—" He waves his slimy, gloved hands. "Take these off. And clean up that puddle. Gimme—um, gimme like, ten minutes?"

"Of course," Hermann says, and gives Newt a small, terse nod.

From Hermann, it's a smile. Newt almost slips on the puddle he's so blindsided by it. Stupid Hermann, making him feel all weird and clumsy.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 11: You Don’t Come Around No More]

A/N: I apologize profusely for the long wait. Thank you all so, so, so much for your support. Every single reblog, message, comment, emotional rant, and/or screech of despair makes my day, and I couldn’t do this without you. 💜 Only THREE more chapters left!!!

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “More To Life Than Baseball” by Petey. 

Chapter Warnings: Language, angsttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Word Count: 7.5k. 

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​​​​ @bramblesforbreakfast​​​​​​​ @maggieroseevans​​​​​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​​​​​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​​​​​ @escabell​​​​​ @im-an-adult-ish​​​​​​ @queenlover05​​​​​ @someforeigntragedy​​​​​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​​​​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​​​​​ @deacyblues​​​​​ ​ @tensecondvacation​​​​ @brianssixpence​​​​​ @some-major-ishues​​​​ @haileymorelikestupid​​​​ @youngpastafanmug​​​​ @simonedk​

The Rain

I wish I felt empty.

I’m supposed to feel empty, right? I’m supposed to feel steeped in grey, oceanic misery; I’m supposed to dip in and out of depressive naps all day and sob delicately over creased photos and fading, wistful memories. I always envisioned heartbreak as a soft and inherently feminine sort of affliction: the hems of nightgowns and bathrobes sweeping along hardwood floors, Kleenex boxes and concave couch cushions, weepy phone calls to friends and aunts and mothers, Queen Victoria wearing black for the rest of her life after Prince Albert’s death, Mary Todd Lincoln sinking into dark and hushed obscurity. Women, hollowed out by despair, cross the history of the earth like lines of latitude.

I don’t feel empty at all. I don’t even feel sad. I feel razored by sharp, red, ceaseless anxiety. I am consumed by thoughts of what I did wrong, what I said that started the wheels of doubt spinning in his mind, if he had known how it would end from the start. I dream of white, clawed hands dragging me down through cold waves. I hear words scream to me as I toss at night in my suddenly too-spacious bed, words that now hit me like knuckles to the gut: Shhh, hey, it’s just me, don’t get up, as Joe slipped beneath the Arizonan blankets, wrapped an arm around my waist, kissed my collarbone as I tumbled back into sleep; I love you to death, as his Subaru idled in Charlie’s driveway; Baby Swan, listen to me, nothing is supposed to hurt, okay, so if anything hurts, ever, at all, you tell me and we stop, deal? as we stood in the doorway of our hotel room at the Four Seasons in Chicago. And now...and now...

And now everything fucking hurts.

It doesn’t make any sense; and yet it does. Look at him. Look at me.

The Polaroid photo from Homecoming was still taped to the top of my full-length mirror. I peeled it free like a layer of translucent, friable reptilian skin, tore it straight down the center, burned both halves over a brand new three-wicked, lemon-scented Bath And Body Works candle—a gift from Renee and Paul—and closed my eyes like a child casting a wish over her birthday cake like a spell. I wished for my memories to vanish with the photograph. I wished to get hit by a truck and wake up in the hospital with no recollection of the past two and a half months. I wanted the Lees to dissolve into distant, enigmatic mystery; I wanted to join the rest of Forks in believing that they were nothing more than bewildering and yet harmless freaks, barely worth noticing, one of those glitches of the matrix that were better off ignored like liminal seconds of déjà vu. I wished to carve out every part of myself that they had ever touched.

And Joe’s voice came rushing back from where we stood by that star-lit fountain outside the Church of Saint Lawrence, accompanied by falling raindrops and a crooked grin: I can make wishes come true.

The three tiny flames flickered in the breeze that sighed through my open window. The bright, citrusy scent of the candle reminded me of Lucy. I couldn’t fucking win. What else is new?

I turned back to the mirror. I flinched when my gaze snagged on my reflection: bloodshot-eyed, swollen-faced, utterly unbeautiful, restless like a caged animal. Look at him. Look at me.

I ripped the last memento off the mirror—Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!!—and watched the yellow square of paper catch fire, curl up around the edges, become unrecognizable, turn to ash. And I wished over and over again, like a poem, like a prayer: Let me forget, oh god please let me forget.

Charlie keeps asking if I’m okay. The answer, of course, is no; but I can’t tell him that. So I wear a serene smile like clip-on fangs, a cheap polyester cloak, crimson smudges of lipstick like trails of spilled blood down the side of my neck. Every day is Halloween for me now. I dress up as someone who isn’t haunted, who hasn’t become a ghost.

And when Charlie turns up the World Series or I’d Do Anything For Love on his geriatric, staticky kitchen radio—the same radio he’s had since my mother was the one joining him for daybreak coffee and Pop-Tarts—I choke back tears like dragonfire.

Missing In Action (Revisited)

Joe wasn’t here. Neither was Ben.

Lucy, Rami, and Scarlett were sipping cups of tea at the Lees’ usual table, their eyes downcast, their voices low and murmuring, their pristine lunches neglected. Lucy and Rami were dressed in matching charcoal grey turtleneck sweaters; Scarlett had come from Fencing Club and was wearing royal purple yoga pants and a black tank top, her duffle bag of gear on the floor by her sneakered feet. Her hair was in a long fishtail braid. Archer hadn’t mentioned her since Joe broke up with me. That either meant that it was going blissfully and he didn’t want to injure me further, or that Scarlett had ended things as well.

Since Joe broke up with me. That sounds so fucking pedestrian.

I stared at the three present Lees, almost leered, commanding them to see me, to acknowledge me, to admit that I had once meant something to them, that this hadn’t all been some transitory delusion to fill the cavernous void of losing my home, my life as I knew it in Arizona. They took no notice whatsoever.

Jess kicked me beneath the lunch table. My attention snapped back to her.

“Sorry, what?”

“You want to go shopping with me and Angela tonight?” Jessica’s hands were folded just beneath her chin, her voice gentle, her eyes large and sympathetic and watery. This was her version of being supportive. I appreciated it...in a perpetually tormented and preoccupied sort of way.

“No thanks.” I forked my cold, sauceless spaghetti listlessly. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch. I didn’t have an appetite anyway. I had deleted the GrubHub app from my iPhone and had no intention of using it ever again in my comparatively short and calamitous human life.

“You could come to temple this weekend,” Jessica pressed.

“Uh.” Mingling with a churchful of sociable, wholesome, marriage-obsessed adolescent Mormons sounded like the absolute last thing I’d want to spend my evening doing. “That’s a really generous offer, but I’ll pass.”

“Well you have to do something,” Angela said. “You can’t just sit in your bedroom alone all weekend and stare at the wall and wallow in self-pity.”

We’ll see about that. I turned to Jess. “How’s Vodka Boy from your Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class? Did he ever reappear? What’s his name again, Elmo? Ellington? El Chapo?”

“Ellsworth.” She frowned as she slurped her patron-drink-of-Mormons Sprite. “And no, he definitely failed out or overdosed or something, because he never came back.”

“Tragic,” I noted.

“But I’m pretty sure Mike’s coming over this weekend, so we’ll see if I can get some Netflix and chill action going.”

“Jess,” Angela chastised, widening her eyes and nodding to me subtly (but not quite subtly enough). No talking about getting lucky in front of the heartbroken single loser, that look said.

“I think I can be emotionally supportive without taking a goddamn vow of chastity, Angela!” Jessica hurled back.

“I gotta go.” I stood, threw on my backpack, discarded my nearly untouched lunch.

“You’ve barely eaten anything!” Angela protested. “You’ve barely eaten for a week!”

“I’ll live.” I picked my umbrella up off the slippery tile floor—peppered with muddy shoeprints and pearlescent drops of water fallen from coats and limp, sopping locks of hair—and headed out into the pouring rain. I hated the rain. I hated it. Maybe I had forgotten that for a while, but it all came hurtling back now like a hurricane, like a hand cracking across my face. I ached for the desert, for blatant and unapologetic heat, for palm trees and cacti and naked stars in the night sky. I had been researching marine biology graduate programs in the Southwest. There were good ones at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Texas A&M, the University of Southern California, UCLA. I would miss Charlie and Archer—and maybe Jessica and Angela on occasion—and absolutely nothing else about Forks. At least, that’s what I promised myself.

This is a no-giving-a-fuck-about-Lee-boys zone, I thought morosely.

Ben was brooding at our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom. It was the first time he’d shown up to Chemistry since that day Joe met me on the beach at La Push, since the place I’d once occupied in his universe had closed like a wound. I took my seat beside Ben. The window was shut today, the downpour outside torrential. Ben recoiled, just enough for me to notice; he was wearing his oversized black hoodie and practicing his Welsh, his handwriting messy and unbalanced.

“You could have warned me,” I said.

Ben didn’t glance up from his notebook. “Would that have made it any easier?”

“No,” I realized in defeat. I guess it wouldn’t have. I pulled my own notebook, my favorite pen, and a can of Diet Coke out of my backpack.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ben said. “You really need to know that. It had nothing to do with you. And none of us are happy with the current situation. None of us.”

None of them. That included Joe. “Interestingly, that didn’t stop him from creating it.”

Ben was thoughtful, debating his next words. “We’re probably going to be moving soon.”

“What?” I startled; my turquoise blue pen dropped out of my grasp and rolled across the table. Ben snatched it up and returned it to me. “Really?”    

“Yeah.”

“And what, just redo this whole college thing?”

Ben shrugged. “We’ll probably start our junior years over again. Gwil will say there was some horrible family tragedy and we needed a few semesters off. I could use the extra time to figure out Calc anyway. Parametric equations make me want to kill myself.”

I just stared at him. It didn’t make any sense. “But...why would the whole family leave Forks? Because of me? One pathetic, aggrieved human? Do you all pack up and relocate every time Joe fucks and dumps someone? That must be exhausting.”

“It’s better for everyone if we get some distance. Put more space between our world and yours.”

“But...” I tried to imagine never seeing any of them again: no Mercy humming merrily as she tossed handfuls of homegrown carrots to the alpacas, no Dr. Lee dabbing away my blood with an ageless sort of patience, no Scarlett or Lucy or Rami, no brief glimpses of Joe as he avoided me in the campus library. It’s exactly what I wanted; and yet it wasn’t. It so, so, so, so wasn’t. It keeps getting worse. How is that possible? My voice was flimsy and quivering, absolutely pitiful. Disgustingly pitiful. “Who will be my lab partner?”

Ben peered over at me with wide, confused green eyes. And then—gingerly, awkwardly, like holding an acquaintance’s baby for the first time—he laid his hand over mine. “I’ll miss you too.”

Professor Belvin lectured about coordinate covalent bonds. I didn’t absorb a word. I conjugated Italian verbs with my turquoise blue pen, sketched disordered whirlpools of ink, tried not to think about whether this was my last-ever Chemistry class with Ben, whether it was my last-ever weekend sharing Forks with the Lees. Those rageful, frantic thoughts were back. What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? Why did he have to leave?

My nomadic gaze caught on a flier on the wall next to our misted window. I had assumed it was a leaflet for some club or protest or seasonal dance that I would definitely not attend, but it wasn’t. It was a missing poster.

Have you seen this student? the flier asked in bold, businesslike black font. It was urgent, but not quite despairing; not yet, anyway. I could hear a Dean of Student Affairs cajoling some affluent, strings-of-pearls-adorned mother over the phone: Yes ma’am, you have my full attention and I can assure you that we’re very concerned, but I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding...he’s probably gone backpacking or sailing with some friends and forgotten to call home. You know how college students can be. Beneath a large photo of a grinning blond kid—pink polo, flushed cheeks, clever crop job to nix a can of Natty Light clutched in one fist—was a name: Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin.

Ellsworth, I thought, my stomach plummeting. The guy from Jessica’s Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. He hadn’t failed out. He was missing. Missing like a 20/20 episode or a true crime podcast, missing like the pregnant stillness before a murder is confessed in some glaringly florescent-lit interrogation room, before a distended and bloodless corpse washes up on shore.

I turned to Ben. He noticed me eventually, crinkled his brow, shrugged in that way that seemed so petulant if you didn’t know him well enough to not be offended.

I pointed to the flier and raised my eyebrows. Ben twisted around in his chair to look. Then he sighed, scribbled a sentence in the corner of a piece of notebook paper, tore it free, and slid it across the table.

Ben’s note read, in atrocious penmanship: Are you seriously asking me if I ate that guy?

Maybe, I wrote back after a moment’s hesitation. Maybe that wasn’t exactly what I was asking; maybe I just wondered if he knew anything about it.

In either case, Ben’s reply was swift and resounding, and underlined three times: No.

Sorry, I wrote, abruptly remorseful. I am a jerk. And I added a frowny face for good measure. Ben chuckled when he saw it, shook his head, gave me a drawn little smirk. His words tiptoed around in my skull, leaving searing imprints like footprints in the sand. I’ll miss you too.

I have to forget about them. I drummed my turquoise blue pen against my notebook as Professor Belvin drew families of molecules on the whiteboard with squealing dry erase markers. I have to find a way to make myself forget.

Jessica was waiting for me in the hallway after class. It was part of her convince-Baby-Swan-not-to-jump-off-a-cliff initiative. “Hey.”

“Okay,” I told her with steely resolve. “I’m ready for you to set me up with one of those guys from your church or temple or whatever. I’m ready to be a nice wholesome wife, pop out like six kids, learn how to scrapbook, give up caffeine and horror movies, do the whole white picket fence thing. Sign me up.”

Jessica blinked at me. There were flecks of fallen mascara on her cheekbones like ashes. “What?”

“You’re a Mormon, right?”

“Girl, I’m not a Mormon,” Jessica said, puzzled. “I’m a witch.”

Lucille

I found Joe where he usually was these days: sprawled on the sofa, engulfed in the same blue Snuggie he’d been wearing for thirty-six uninterrupted hours, gazing catatonically at the big-screen tv. A 90 Day Fiancé marathon was on. Some rodentish guy named Colt was apologizing to his gorgeous, aspiring-green-card-holding Brazilian love interest for calling the cops on her during their last screaming match. He was also apologizing for the fact that they lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother. I didn’t need clairvoyance to see where their future was headed.

“Hey,” Ben said when he spotted me. He was sitting next to Joe and occasionally tried to shove pieces of popcorn into his mouth, which Joe accepted passively like coins plinked into a gumball machine. Ben had been his shadow for the past week; he was perhaps the best equipped of us to understand this degree of melancholy, of hopelessness.  

“Ciao.” And then, to Joe: “How are you?”

“Terrible,” he replied, not tearing his eyes from the tv.

“I figured.” I squeezed between them on the couch, curled up next to Joe, rested my chin on his shoulder. He ignored me completely. I could hear Mercy tapping at her laptop keyboard out in the dining room; she was browsing through Zillow listings in Portland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Dear god, please don’t let us end up in fucking Cleveland. “Guess what.”

Joe stared at the tv for a long time before he answered. “What.”

“I had a vision of you. Just now, as I was doing laundry. Crystal clear and very scenic too, I might add.”

“Fascinating,” Joe said flatly.

“What happened in this vision?” Ben asked, far more invested, which I was thankful for.

“It was pretty far away, maybe a year from now. I saw you in the desert at night, under a full moon. There were cacti everywhere. The shadow of the Milky Way was threaded through the sky, and the stars were very bright. I could make out the constellations Pegasus and Cassiopeia. You were filling up a tiny glass bottle with dirt.”

“That’s remarkably helpful,” Joe said.

“It is, a little bit,” I insisted. “It means you get through this. That you have a future. I get nervous when I go too long without a vision of someone in the family. But now I know you’re going to be okay.”

The reflections of the feuding 90 Day Fiancé couples danced in his glassy eyes. “Being alive doesn’t mean you’re okay.”

“That’s dark,” Ben said. “Even I think that’s too dark.” He pushed a handful of popcorn into Joe’s mouth. “Are you gonna hunt at some point or what?”

“No.”

“You’re just gonna sit on this couch and waste away?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to bring you anything? Grizzly bear? Brown bear? Fuck it, I’ll get you a polar bear if that’s what you want. There’s probably some on the black market. Rami would know.”

“He what?” Mercy called from the kitchen. Her typing had stopped.

“Nothing, Mom!” I shot back.

“I don’t want anything,” Joe said. That was a lie, of course. We all knew what he wanted. Rami couldn’t stand to be around him; the thoughts were relentless, smothering.

I linked my arms around Joe’s neck, laid my head against his chest, sighed deeply and mournfully. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I know that doesn’t fix anything. But I’m so, so sorry. And I’ll help however I can. We all will.”

And I had accepted that Joe wasn’t going to respond at all when he finally whispered: “I just wish I could forget.”

Cato

My rolling suitcase snagged on the cobblestone driveway. The tiny spinning wheels bashed against concrete as I scaled the front steps. As the taxi pulled away, I dug around in my suit pocket for my keys, found them, unlocked the enormous front door, stepped inside the palace as my suitcase trolled along the marble floor.

“Cato’s back!” Charity announced as she breezed down the nearest staircase, beaming and embracing me. She was a lovely, innately warm woman from Pointe-Noire, Congo; she still wore the silver cross necklace her mother had once given her around her neck. “Did you have a nice flight? Wait, let me check.” She pressed the fingertips of her right hand to my cheek. I felt the memories rush up like blood to a flushed face: the bite of sipped champagne against my tongue, the thin semi-transparent newspaper pages gliding between my fingers, the husky voice of the bearded, bearish naval officer who sat in the seat beside me, the misted silhouette of Vladivostok as it rose up out of the Pacific Ocean. “Uneventful, but pleasant enough. You flew commercial?”

“The jets were otherwise occupied, apparently.” Charity could see things with the predictability and precision that Lucy so often lacked, but only the past. I pushed her hand away. “Was that really necessary?”

“You’re not mad,” Charity declared, confident, impish, helping me shed my suit jacket and draping it over her arm. “You’re never mad.”

She was very nearly correct. “Where are the rest of the kids?”

“In the kitchen. Go say hello, they’ve missed you dreadfully.”

“I know the feeling.” I kicked off my Berlutis, ran a palm over the wiry fur of the Irish Wolfhounds that appeared to greet me before they resumed padding watchfully around the palace, and went to the kitchen, my black socks slipping a bit on the marble floors.

I could hear their voices before I reached the door: laughter, teasing, complaints, requests. The scents of pancakes and cold butter and maple syrup were thick in the air. Charity was one of our four newest recruits, and they all still had that energetic lightness of being human, a youthful enthusiasm, a relative normalness. I spent quite a lot of time with them. It was my job—to help with the transition, to keep them happy, to facilitate the welding of their individual parts into the beastly machine that was the Draghi—but oftentimes it felt more like a reprieve. Some would stay close to me as they matured, others would grow in different directions, like ambitious vines climbing the skeleton of a garden trellis. I usually missed them when they ‘grew up,’ so to speak...although there were exceptions. I had never liked Liesl. I had always liked Ben. I opened the door.

“Ah, you are home!” Ksenia cried from where she stood over the stove, a spatula in her right hand, bouncing excitedly in place on her small bare feet.

“Hey!” Max and Austin called together. They were both sitting with their shoes propped up on the unglamorous kitchen table. There was a massive formal dining room that could accommodate up to twenty-five guests, but we rarely used it.

“Good morning,” I said, aware that I was smiling for the first time in days.

Max groaned as he scrolled through his Google search results on a burner phone. “What the fuck. My name is one of the top five dog names again. I think I’m gonna have to change it.”

I ruffled his long blond hair, stealing a piece of bacon from his plate. Max had grown up a trust fund kid in Perth, Australia. His mother was old money; his father was a professional surfer. “Your name is fine.”

“Really, Kato Kaelin? Is it really? How am I supposed to intimidate people when I have a fucking dog name?”

“So make them call you Maximilian,” offered Ksenia in a heavy Ukrainian accent. She’d only been with us for eight months, but her English was coming along swimmingly. She flipped a massive A-shaped pancake on the sizzling griddle. That one was for Austin.

“Seriously?” Max said. “That is just way too many syllables. They’ll be halfway down the block by the time I’m done introducing myself. ‘Hey, come back mate, I haven’t killed ya yet.’”

“At least you aren’t stuck with a basic-white-boy-circa-1992 name for all of eternity,” said Austin Tyler McInerny, originally of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He was chomping on a multicolored Fruit Roll-Up, which swung from his mouth like a lizard’s tongue. He’d been working at an ailing skatepark when Larkin found him. He still enjoyed showing off his kickflips, and kept insisting that he was going to teach me how to ollie. I didn’t have the faintest idea what an ollie was.

“Do you want a pancake, Cato?” Ksenia asked, passing Austin his plate and wiping her hands on her pink apron. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail with a matching rose-colored ribbon. She looked so young. She was so young, actually. Nineteen. And she would be forever.

“No, thank you dear. I’m alright.”

“I like Alaric,” Max decided. “First king of the Visigoths. Alaric is a name fit for a vampire. Creepy, yet dignified. Or maybe Silas. Or Draco.”

Austin shook his head as he swirled a river of viscous maple syrup over his A-shaped pancake. “Definitely not Draco.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the Harry Potter connection is unfortunate. People will hear Draco and think of that obnoxious white-haired kid from the evil snake-people house or whatever.”

“Oh, right,” Max sighed. “Like I said. Alaric would work.”

“So many A-shaped pancakes!” Ksenia poured a K on the griddle for herself.

“It’s good for you,” Austin replied, pointing at her with his fork. “We’re practicing English.”

“Alaric Luther,” Max mused, scrolling through his phone. I didn’t think he’d find that on any list of trendy dog names. “Alaric Lothaire...Alaric Lucian...”

“I like your name, Max,” Larkin said from the doorway. None of us had heard him arrive. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, wearing a deep maroon suit and a ring on every finger, grinning hugely. He was exactly as I remembered him: stunning, captivating, terrifying. The kitchen fell quiet. I could smell Ksenia’s pancake beginning to burn.

At last Max chuckled nervously, pushing soggy pancake hunks around on his plate with his fork, averting his gaze. “Guess I’ll keep it then.”

“I thought I heard you come in,” Larkin told me.

“It’s always a pleasure to be home.”

He nodded out towards the hallway. “Come. Regale me with the stories of your travels.” Then his eyes flicked down to my socks, and he grimaced—slightly, briefly—before turning away. “And find your shoes.”

I followed him through the hallway, the living room, the grand front foyer with the crystal chandelier, into the elevator. Larkin did not speak, but he hummed as we ascended: House Of The Rising Sun.

It hadn’t always been like this. It was difficult for me to pick out the details of what had changed—the tone of his voice, the proportion of wonder and gratitude I associated with him versus fear, the way this palace (or the one in Reykjavik, or Juneau, or Ivalo, or Murmansk, or any of the others) felt when I stepped inside it—but I knew something had. It had begun before Ben left. It was much worse now. Older vampires, in my fairly learned opinion, are something like the stars. They mellow as they age, temper their character flaws, grow wise and patient like Nikolai or Honora or Gwilym Lee; or they rage until they burn away every last atom of humanity, until they destroy themselves and take entire solar systems down with them. Increasingly, I harbored fears that Larkin was a vampire of the latter variety. And we were all his planets.

In his study, Larkin dropped into the chair behind his desk, brought a hand to his forehead, surveyed a disarrayed flurry of papers: letters, notices, deeds and titles, meticulously managed accounts of finances and disciplinary actions. Larkin had a laptop and burner phone, of course, as we all did; but he liked to work in paper as much as possible. That’s how he’d done things for centuries, since long before the name of the inventor of the internet (or harnessed electricity, for that matter) was a whisper on his parents’ lips. The sky outside was clouded and seeping soft rain.

“Things have been busy?” I ventured.

He frowned, gesturing to the cluttered desk. “I’m in purgatory.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Can I help?”

“The Lancaster coven says they’ll need an extension for their dues. That’s the second year in a row, now it’s not just an exception, it’s a precedent. If you let one coven bend the rules, others will follow. So something will have to be done. Then there’s Stockholm. Anders’ coven has eaten a few too many locals—including the mayor’s favorite niece—and now the city is launching an investigation. Fucking idiots. They’ll probably all have to relocate. There’s some new territory dispute in Lima between Alejandro’s coven and a group of strangers that just came out of the Andes. We’ll have to make their acquaintance, of course. And as if all that weren’t enough, Rigel accidentally fed on a heroin addict and he’s currently detoxing in a cell in the basement. Would you check on him for me? I’m sure your presence will be a...” He waved his hand distractedly, almost dismissively, searching for the words. “A comfort to him.”

“Of course.”

“How are the Lees?”

“Fine. Typical. Gwil’s putting in a lot of hours at the hospital. Rami’s planning to get another law degree. Ben is, uh, adjusting. Slowly, very slowly. He’s not particularly content. But he hasn’t murdered anyone that I’m aware of.”

“How nice.” Now his eyes darted up to catch mine: focused, luminous, unreadable. “Nothing new at all?”

And instantly, I wanted to tell him everything. I forgot why I had ever planned to blunt the girl’s existence, to conceal her talent entirely; I felt her name rising in my throat. And then I remembered again. I’m doing this for Gwil, for Ben.

I pretended to ponder Larkin’s question, as if it was so difficult to remember, as if there was nothing left to sift through but a trunkful of mundane details from the trip like a grandfather’s tattered correspondence and tarnished war relics. That was something an average family might have squirreled away in their attic, I assumed; I’d never met my own grandfather, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have had anything to leave me if I had. “Joe’s got some new girlfriend, but I don’t think it’s serious. I doubt she’ll be around long. You know how Joe is. Scarlett’s seeing someone too, actually. A Quileute kid.”

“Poor boy.” And Larkin grinned like a shark beneath burning eyes. “He’s in for a lifetime of disappointment. Who will ever be able to hold a candle to those memories?”

Larkin had a moderate preoccupation with Scarlett’s beauty, her...tenacity. Her lack of talent was a great disappointment to him, a somehow more egregious fault than Joe or Gwil or Mercy’s. What a shame, Larkin often said. And I believed I knew what came after in his mind, although never aloud: What a partner she could have been.

He was still grinning at me. His expression was hollow, vacuous. A shiver clawed down my spine. He was waiting for something. No, he was searching. I stared back, and I willed for that intangible, contagious harmony I carried around like a wedding ring to hit him like carbon monoxide or bromine: undetected and yet inexorable, knocking him off his path of inquisition.

What does he suspect? What does he already know?

“Anyway,” Larkin continued abruptly, turning his attention back to his paperwork. “I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about in Forks. Liesl will be back in the next few days, Rigel will be ready to work again, I’ll come up with a plan to handle all this and my mood will improve tremendously.”

And where has Liesl been? I almost asked; and then I didn’t. It was a good sign that she was coming home. I had looked for her once while I was in Forks. When I made up my mind to find someone—when that switch flipped in my skull or in the tangle of nerves of my solar plexus or wherever it lived—it wasn’t like poking around on Google Earth: zooming in here, scrolling over there. A goldish trail lit up on the floor, a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ Honora and I sometimes joked, and I followed it. And I had no way of knowing how far that trail might lead. A route heading dead east from the palace might stop in the next town over or continue across the Pacific Ocean; my search might last one day or a hundred. In Forks—as I perched in a soaring western hemlock tree in the forest outside the Lee residence on a cool October evening—Liesl’s trail had led north. North to Vancouver, to Victoria, to Dawson, to Alaska? Who the fuck knew. I was just relieved it hadn’t led to the tree next to mine.

“Well, as always, I’m happy to assist however I can,” I told Larkin. “Just let me know and I’ll be on the next flight out of Vladivostok.”

“I appreciate that, Cato.” He smiled, paternally this time. And then he spun his chair around to peer out the window into the episodic flares of lightning that illuminated great dark clouds like neurons in a celestial brain. I hate thunderstorms. They remind me of South Carolina. “But I think you’ve earned a rest.”

After checking in on Rigel—irritable, frenetic, pacing, and yet predictably pacified somewhat by my visit—I trotted up the main staircase to the second floor of the palace. I found her in our bedroom: sitting at her easel, a paintbrush held in one graceful hand, an image like a photograph on the canvas. I promptly pried off my Berlutis for the second time today and tossed them into the closet.

“Ciao, amore,” I said.

“Ciao!” Honora replied, beaming. Her curly brunette hair was pinned up and away from her face; wayward tendrils spiraled down to brush her bare shoulder blades, the back of her neck. “Just give me five minutes...I have to finish the shadow of this tree...”

There weren’t many in the Draghi who survived the transition from Nikolai’s leadership to Larkin’s, but Honora had. She was gentle to a fault, a hopeless warrior, turned into an immortal on her forty-fourth birthday when Rome was still an empire; and she was without any talents whatsoever, except for one which was useless in combat. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures adorned every palace the Draghi owned. Each year, Larkin would ask her to paint all of us together, incorporating any new faces, erasing the memories of those who had proven themselves unworthy. One such portrait, I knew, hung in Gwilym Lee’s home office.

I went to the woman I called my wife, laid my palms on her shoulders, leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Take your time, love.”

“Everything’s alright?” Honora asked, looking hopefully up at me with large, wide-set jade eyes. No, not just hopefully. Trustingly.

“Everything’s alright,” I agreed, not knowing if I believed it.

Shadows And Spells

“He just...just...disappeared?!” Jessica sputtered, scandalized, gaping at me as she held a Styrofoam cup of spiked apple cider in her clasped hands.

We were on a quilt near the outskirts of the sea of beach towels and blankets that circled the bonfire. Women—wearing flowing dresses or robes or tunics or not very much at all—flounced around the flames banging tambourines and reciting chants that I didn’t know the words to. Some carried torches, beacons of heat and light in the darkness. Jessica was wearing a short black shirt, fishnet tights, and a black crop-top turtleneck sweater; I had opted for a bohemian blue dress patterned with stars, an old thrift shop find and the closest thing I owned to Wiccan festivities apparel. I had a cup of hot apple cider as well, enhanced with a generous splash of Captain Morgan, but hadn’t quite conjured up the rebelliousness to drink it yet.

I suddenly recalled Mercy bringing me an endless supply of virgin autumnal sangrias as Joe and I swam in the hot tub on the Lees’ back porch. As soon as you turn twenty-one, you can have the real thing. I frowned, shuddered, took a bitter and burning sip.

“Yeah,” I replied. “He told his roommate he was going to a frat party or something and never showed up and never made it back home either. The parents are blaming the university, the university is insisting he must be off with a girlfriend or on some hipster soul-searching nature adventure or whatever, it’s a mess.”

“Jesus,” she murmured. “What does your dad say?”

“He’s been helping the state police with the investigation. There’s really no evidence of anything. No witnesses, no footprints, no surveillance footage, no handy anonymous tips...”

“No body,” Jessica finished.

“That’s morbid.” I downed the rest of my cider. Was the world already beginning to list like a ship on choppy waves, or was that just my imagination? I guess it would be possible. I’d barely eaten all day.

“You were thinking it.”

“Well, one’s mind does tend to wander towards homicide under such circumstances.”

“It is the season of the dead.” She grinned wickedly, then took my empty cup. “He’s probably fine. I bet he wants to drop out to become a weed farmer and hasn’t worked up the guts to tell his parents yet. You want another?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back.” Jess rose to balance on black boots with five-inch heels and staggered off to the foldable table piled high with cans and bottles and snacks. I was getting the impression that her Wiccanism was more of a novelty than a spiritual commitment.

The season of the dead. Now that’s VERY morbid.

There were some guys laughing, smoking home-rolled cigarettes, and toasting glasses of red wine on a nearby mandala blanket, bespectacled intellectual types who were probably getting PhDs in Anthropology or Medieval Studies at the University of Washington. One of them—curly-haired, pale-eyed, wearing a sweater vest and a cautious smile—raised his wine glass in my direction. I waved back without much enthusiasm.

“He’s cute, right?” Jessica asked, plopping back down onto our quilt and shoving a full cup of spiked cider into my grasp. She motioned for me to drink. I did. “That’s Sebastian, but he likes to be called Bash. He’s twenty-three and speaks fluent German.”

“Charming.”

“He’s very...uh...gifted. I’m not saying I know from personal experience, but I’ve heard it from a very reliable source. And his parents own a beach house in Monterey. You could go skinny-dipping.”  

“In the ocean?” The world was definitely wobbling now. I was warm all over, numbed, fuzzy; it was becoming difficult to picture Joe’s face, to hear his voice. This was good. I kept drinking. “No thanks. Too many sharks. They have great whites down there.”

Jess tossed her long, loose hair and sighed impatiently. “I’m just saying that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. So you should pursue that.”

“I’ll totally consider it.” I lied. I would not consider it.

She smiled, sympathetically, fondly. “I can’t believe you thought I was a Mormon.”

“I can’t believe I’m out in the Washington wilderness commemorating the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but here we all are.”

Jess glanced over my shoulder. “Oh my god. He’s coming over here.”

“Ugh.” I craned my neck to see. Sebastian—whoops, my mistake, Bash—was approaching. “Please distract him. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Also I’m pretty sure I’m getting drunk and I don’t want to do anything humiliating, like sob uncontrollably about how much I miss my ex-boyfriend.”

“Don’t worry. I gotchu, Baby Swan.”

“Hey Jess,” Bash said, but he was looking at me. He pitched his cigarette off into the trees. What the fuck, who does that?

“Only you can prevent forest fires,” I told him in a woozy, mock-Smokey Bear voice.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“Ignore her, she’s drunk,” Jess said quickly. “So what’s up? Come on, sit with me. Keep me toasty. Teach me some German...”

As they chatted and giggled and snuggled closer together—I’m starting to think that Jessica might have been her own reliable source—I studied the forest, watching to make sure the cigarette didn’t begin to smolder in the damp brush. The voices and crackling of the bonfire and sharp ringing of the tambourines faded into one muted, uniform drone. The trees reeled in the haze of the spiked cider; the cool wind moaned through them. And then, for only a second: a glimpse of something impossibly quick, something silvery and reedy and sunless.

What was that?

I blinked. It was gone. I blinked again, staring penetratingly. The swarming heat from the cider evaporated from my skin, my blood. There were goosebumps rising all over me.

What the hell was that?

I remembered how Calawah University students sometimes reacted to Ben: flinching, withdrawing, autonomically fearing him on some primal, evolutionary level. They knew he was a predator. They knew they were prey. It was chillingly similar to what I was feeling now.

I have to get out of here. I have to go home.

I shot to my feet. Oh, wrong move, that was too quick. I swayed, and Jessica reached up to steady me. “Are you—?!”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I gotta go home now.”

“What?! We just got here! Look, chill out, let me get you some vegan samosas or something—”

“No, seriously, I have to go.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessica conceded. “I’ll finish my drink and we’ll call an Uber, alright?”

“Really?” Bash asked, crestfallen.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I told Jess. “You stay, I’ll go.” Maybe she shouldn’t stay, I thought foggily, irrationally. Maybe it’s not safe.

“I can’t let you go alone. I got you drunk and now you’re a mess and if you end up murdered it would be my fault. There are unsolved mysteries going around, you know.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Girl, there’s no way I’m gonna—”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get in the Uber and I’ll stay on until I’m physically inside my house, okay?”

Jessica considered this. Bash leaned in to nibble her ear. I could smell the red wine and nicotine and animalistic lust sweating out of his pores. And unexpectedly, agonizingly: a biting flare, a muscle memory, Joe’s fingertips skimming down the small of my back and his scent like winter nights saturating the capillary beds of my lungs. Stop, stop, stop. “Okay,” Jess agreed at last.

“Awesome.” I was already opening the Uber app on my iPhone.

My driver was a Pacific Northwestern version of Santa Claus: wild grey beard, red flannel, L.L.Bean boots, rambling about his upcoming trip to hunt caribou in British Columbia. I honored my promise to Jessica and kept her on speakerphone for the duration of the twenty-minute drive. I rested my whirling head against the seat, let my eyes dip closed, watched the intermittent streetlights appear and disappear through my eyelids. I let myself into Charlie’s house when I arrived, wished Jessica goodnight (and reminded her not to get pregnant), and meandered clumsily into the kitchen for a glass of water and a cookie dough Pop-Tart to ward off a possible hangover. Charlie was snoring quietly on the living room couch. I watched him for a while, smiling and achingly grateful, before heading upstairs to my bedroom.

My window was wide open; that’s the first thing I noticed. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. I was always neglecting to lock the window, sure—I kept forgetting that there was no one to leave it unlocked for anymore—but I hadn’t left it open when I went to meet Jessica this evening. Icy night air flooded in. The stars were bright and furious in an uncommonly clear sky.

“You trying to give me pneumonia, old man?” I muttered, thinking of Charlie. I tossed my iPhone down onto my bed and crossed the room to close the window. And as it creaked and collided with the sill, I heard my closet door open behind me.

Someone’s here. Someone’s in this room with me.

I turned, very slowly; it felt like it took a lifetime. She was standing in the doorway of my closet, sinuous and white-haired, wearing black leather pants and stiletto heels and a long-sleeved lace blouse the color of blood, the color of her eyes. And she was harrowingly beautiful; not like Lucy or Mercy, not like Scarlett. She was beautiful like a prehistoric jawbone, like a serrated crescent moon, like a blade.

The owl. The goddamn albino owl.

I recognized her immediately. I heard Joe’s words as he introduced each vampire in the immense painting hanging in Dr. Lee’s upstairs office to me, though I desperately didn’t want to: She’s literally Satan, only blonder.

Her name tumbled from my trembling lips. “Liesl.”

“Wonderful, we can skip the introductions.” Her voice was like windchimes, cutting and brisk, with a hint of an Austrian accent like a shadow. Now she was at my bedside and picking up my phone, scrolling through it with lightning-quick and dexterous thumbs. “Hm. No texts from any of the Lees in the past week. So we don’t have to worry about them dropping by, I suppose. Joe got bored with you already, huh?”

“Evidently.” My own voice was brittle, anemic, weak; just like my ineffectual human body.

“That’s quick, even for him. How sad.” She sighed, tucking my iPhone into her red Chanel purse. “There’s a private jet waiting at the Forks Airport. Pack a bag. You have five minutes.”

“Please don’t hurt my dad,” I whispered, scalding tears brimming in my eyes.

“Of course not,” Liesl replied with a savage, saccharine smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

[collapsingintojupiter]

Sea Urchin

I made me some analogical fluff bc honestly, why not?

Characters: Virgil, Logan, (brief) Roman

Relationships: Analogical, platonic Prinxiety

---

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Roman?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course it’s a good idea!”

“Fish? For a date?” Roman sighed, slinging an arm around Virgil’s shoulder. 

“I’m telling you, oh panic-at-the-everywhere, that taking him to an aquarium will literally make his year. Logan loves the ocean, man.”

“And...and you’re sure he won’t think it’s weird?”

“No, because he’s weird. And so are you.”

“Hey!” Virgil shoved Roman away and glared at him, though it melted into a grin when he laughed that stupid laugh of his.  

“Relax, Virge. He’ll love it, I promise.” He sighed. 

“Okay…”

Half an hour later, Virgil was standing on the doorstep to the Crofter house, his hair awkwardly styled (Roman’s fault), and a plush shark in his hands (also Roman’s fault). Logan opened the door when he knocked, eyes widening at the sight of the plush shark. 

“I uh...here.” Virgil shoved it into Logan’s hands, then tried to remember what Roman had told him to say. “Uh, guess where we’re going today?”

Logan looked at the shark, then up at Virgil. 

Holy shit, I’ve never seen him this excited before. 

“Are...are we going to the aquarium?” At that, Virgil couldn’t help but smile. Maybe Roman’s terrible idea wasn’t so terrible after all. 

“Correct. I heard you were into marine biology, and they have a sale on the admission fee today. Roman also told me you liked sharks.”

Logan smiled--adorably, Virgil thought. 

“Yeah, I do. They’re such fascinating creatures, despite the terrible reputation they’ve been given.”

“That’s good, ‘cause they’ll have plenty where we’re going.” Virgil motioned to his car, which actually wasn’t his car, but his mom’s. “You ready to go?”

“I believe I am adequately prepared, yes.” Logan still held the plush, and carried it to the car with him where he set it on the dashboard. 

“Will it be okay if I keep it in here for now?” he asked as the two climbed inside. 

“Oh, sure!” Virgil said, and his voice definitely didn’t crack. He tried not to look at Logan as he backed the car out of the driveway and started into town; at his messy hair, the soft blue sweater he currently wore over a white button-up, at his blue glasses which had tiny goldfish painted on the sides - Roman’s work, most likely. And it was perfect.

Roman had been Logan’s best friend since the first grade, and from what Virgil had heard the two had become friends in much the same way he had when he’d been transferred to their school in fifth grade. Promptly after arriving Roman had made it his personal goal to befriend him, though Virgil had never understood quite why. Logan said he didn’t either; Roman merely shrugged when asked and said they’d seemed lonely. 

Not that that was true, or anything.

Whatever the case, Virgil did eventually succumb and become a part of the odd group. Later, when they reached highschool, it was again Roman who convinced him to finally ask Logan out. 

At first glance, Logan was little more than a quiet and studious kid with a weird fascination for both space and the deep ocean, something that was weirdly connected to and disconnected from Virgil’s own fascination with cryptids, conspiracies, and aliens. The more he’d gotten to know Logan, however, the more he learned about the nerdy kid’s wilder side; about his impulsive (but fun) antics in the name of science, his crazy ideas “for research purposes only, obviously,” and his long rants about stars at two in the morning when he couldn’t sleep. 

And Virgil fell in love with him. 

Roman noticed he had before he did, actually. He also said that Logan liked him too, and after several weeks of nagging Virgil finally worked up the courage to ask him out himself. And when Logan accepted--well, Virgil didn’t think he’d ever been happier (though he’d never tell Roman that).

“What’s your favorite ocean animal, Lo? Aside from sharks.” Logan glanced up, grinning crookedly. 

“I love eels,” he said. “And sea snakes. And crabs. And...” he stopped himself, and Virgil both tried and failed to hide a laugh. 

“Go ahead,” he said. “Um, do you have a favorite shark species?”

“Certainly. I am most fond of the tiger shark; their unique patterns are quite aesthetically pleasing. Speaking of sharks, did you know that shark skin feels like sandpaper?”

“I didn’t,” Virgil said, even though he did. “Tell me about it.”

“Their skin is made up of specialized placoid scales, which form a special kind of armor for the shark that’s actually quite thick. It’s also so rough that it can actually injure animals that rub against it the wrong way--it’s relatively smooth the other way, compared to it. The shape of the scales also makes the shark more streamlined in the water, so it loses less energy to drag when it’s hunting prey.”

Virgil kinda froze, even though he was still at the wheel, and once again he was struck by how damn smart Logan was, not to mention how cute he was when he got excited, and--

“Uh, Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“You missed the turn.”

“Dammit!”

- - -

Virgil stood back a little, grinning to himself as Logan pressed his face up against the tank. On the other side of the glass, a rather uncomfortably large fish looked back at them. Virgil had already been dragged around four different rooms in the span of less than fifteen minutes, but despite that he couldn’t wipe the dumb look of adoration from his face as Logan excitedly rambled to him about parrot fish. 

“Did you know that they create bubble nets out of their mucus to hide in from sharks?”

“Uh...no, I didn’t.”

Man, the ocean was weird. 

“Ooh, this way! They have touch tanks in here!”

“They have what now?” Virgil asked, as Logan grabbed his hand and started pulling him into another room. 

“Touch tanks! So you can touch the anemones, urchins, sea cucumbers, and whatever else they have in there! Very fascinating textures, they have. Especially the anemones.”

“Wait wait wait...touch them?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Logan said quickly, coming to a halt at the room’s entrance. He glanced at Virgil. “If you want I can show you first, and then you can decide. They won’t hurt you.”

“Uh...okay.” Virgil wanted to say no, mostly because being wet was not what he had planned, but Logan seemed so excited about it that he couldn’t help it. Besides, it was just his hand. He’d be fine.

“Here’s a purple sea urchin.” Logan pointed at a little spiky thing in the sand, grinning from ear to ear. “Their spikes can’t hurt us, but they’re cool to touch.” He dipped his hand in, running his finger along one of the urchin’s spines. 

“Whoah, they’re closing together around your finger!” Virgil leaned over the edge of the tank, eyes wide. Logan grinned at him. 

“They trap food with their spines like that, isn’t that cool?”

“You mean it thinks your finger is food?” 

“Yup! Don’t worry though, he can’t hurt me. See?” Logan pulled his hand away easily, showing Virgil. “Wanna try?”

“You’re crazy.” He looked down at the urchin. “...Yes. I’ll try.”

The water was stupid cold, but Virgil rolled up his sleeves, pretended he didn’t notice the adorable smile Logan was giving him, and dipped his hand in. The urchin’s spines were hard, but smooth, and quickly hugged onto his finger as he watched in surprise. 

“You haven’t been to an aquarium before, have you?” Virgil glanced at Logan.  

“I haven’t, no. Ocean always gave me the heebies. Didn’t realize it was so...uh, cool…” he turned away to hide his face, which had turned a delicate shade of rose, and quickly washed his hands while Logan tried to pet every sea cucumber he could find in the tank. 

“They’re very squishy,” he said as he joined Virgil by the entrance. “Very smooth. I like them.”

“I can tell,” Virgil answered with a grin. 

They went to more tanks, then ate at the cafe inside. Logan excused himself after they sat down, leaving Virgil alone for a few minutes as he disappeared. 

Virgil pulled his patch jacket closer around his shoulders, and let out a small sigh. He’d never been much of a learner like Logan was - sleeping in class, doodling on the margins of his notebooks, ignoring the teacher and everything around him...but learning from Logan was so different, so...fun. He realized he’d been enjoying himself immensely the whole time, even though he now had more facts on sea cucumbers than he’d ever know what to do with. 

Being with Logan was fun, he thought. 

“What are you thinking about, Virgil?”

“GAH! Logan, why?”

“I apologize.” Logan sat down, a smile hiding in his eyes as he tried to look sheepish. “I uh, didn’t realize that you hadn’t noticed my presence.”

“It’s alright,” Virgil shook his head, pushing a plate of food towards him. “You just startled me.”

“I will try to avoid doing so in the future.” 

They talked about black holes and green sand; about comets and cone snails and nebulae and nurse sharks. 

And Virgil loved it. 

At last, the day had gone and it was time to go. Virgil was exhausted, but glowing with happiness as they made their way towards the exit. Logan held his hand; similarly quiet, similarly happy. 

As they reached the front door, he stopped and turned to him. 

“I uh...got you something,” Logan said quietly, holding something up for him to see. 

“Is...is that an urchin plush?”

“I, uh...I thought that since…I went back to the gift shop...wanted to get something special...”

“I love it.” Virgil gently took the plush from Logan, cupping it in his hands and feeling how soft it was in his fingers. Logan grinned widely, and before either boy knew what was happening they were in each other’s arms. Logan’s embrace was gentle, but firm, and Virgil was pretty sure he never wanted to leave his arms again. 

Silently, he thanked Roman for his best terrible idea ever.

[lottes-ocs]

one chapter (first chapter maybe? def towards the beginning though) of my story. i turned it in for a workshop in class (capped at 12 pages double spaced). a note from my workshop document:

“Since this is going to be a longer work, I will likely expand upon Adam’s personal and inner life towards the beginning, so that the breakdown and the subsequent conversation with Ezra don’t feel as sudden. I will definitely add more documents like the emails, maybe therapist’s notes or text messages, and I might play around with POV in some later chapters, however, my plan is for Adam to be the primary narrator throughout.”

also lmk if i get anything egregiously wrong. i do have ptsd myself, but i also consulted 2 of my schizophrenic friends to make sure i didn’t include any details that would conflict with that and also to get details about antipsychotics correct

tw for suicide mentions, mental illness, unreality, some graphic imagery.

[January 21st, 2019 // 9:00 AM] Since I got discharged from the hospital last month, I’ve been grateful to live alone. Granted, it makes the paranoia worse, but I’m the only one who needs to know how often I’ve tried to talk to shadows or woken up yelling at the void. And I’m the only one who needs to know that I, a 30-year-old man, have been sleeping with a nightlight. But look, when my room is completely dark, mirages of my father and Dr. Wronski appear in the corner with their faces peeled off like in an autopsy and they won’t stop apologizing. I tell them I forgive them and they double down, I offer them solace and they weep with guilt, I articulate my own guilt and they articulate what it feels like to die. Only the nightlight makes them go away. Does that all sound stupid? Sure it does, but it feels a lot less stupid when I just need some sleep after another day trying to balance crushing grief with debilitating mental illness with my normal-person job, teaching abnormal psychology. Classes have been back in session since last week, so for a week, I’ve felt like a fish teaching marine biology. Or something out of Mariana’s trench. Ezra walks into my office, looking just a little too put-together for the workday (as usual), perfectly-tailored pants, perfectly ironed shirt, and perfectly styled curls, and snaps me out of my self-pitying daze by setting down a large stack of papers on his desk next to mine. “The anxiety essays,” he says with an imperious sigh. “Was I this dumb in undergrad?” “Probably not,” I say. “You were a little older than them.” “And I actually had anxiety.” He’s made a point of bringing up his own issues since I got back. I think he’s doing it so I don’t feel embarrassed or isolated, but he does love to talk about himself regardless, and besides, the support of one grad student doesn’t outweigh the nastiness of some of the higher-ups. “Do you have any new bits, Ezra?” I try to change the subject to his comedy (he does standup on the side, and I hear he’s not bad). “Eh, nothing good. You look tired.” He brushes me off with forced nonchalance. “I’ve had plenty of work to catch up on.” There’s actually no reason that he should know why I was gone, it’s my business, but he definitely does. Everyone does. I work in the psych department, so the people here know what it means when someone’s witnessed the death of their mentor and is subsequently out for a month with no further explanation than “illness.” “Have you, uh…” he clicks his tongue in thought. “Did you drink coffee this morning?” I nod with an exasperated smile. “Well, y’know, the Keurig’s in the lounge if you need it. And I’m in 522 most of today if you need help. Catching up on work, or whatever.” He drums casually on the doorframe, shoots me finger-guns, and heads down the hall. I like Ezra. He’s my TA now, but we were both in grad school working towards our doctorates together, up until last spring, when I received mine. We’re the same age, and he’s definitely smarter than me (as he is most people), he just started college late. I think it’s very sweet of him not to be a condescending dick to me (I seem to be a popular target for condescending dicks lately) especially because Ezra can muster up a dangerous amount of condescending dickishness when he feels the need. However, I process absolutely none of what he said. I was listening, I was trying to listen anyway, but my head’s not working right, not right now. I really didn’t get enough sleep. It’s a vicious cycle. The hallucinations and intrusive thoughts keep me up, the lack of sleep worsens the severity of the hallucinations and intrusive thoughts. In fact, since I arrived at work forty-five minutes ago, I have kept a mental tally: Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab myself: 3 instances. Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab Dr. Carlisle for looking at me weird: 2 instances (fuck off, it’s not like I’m going to act on it). Sudden and overwhelming urge to break down crying: 45 instances. Rats underneath my desk: Yeah, I don’t know, I called maintenance and they told me they’re fake, so I guess they’re fake, even though I can see them. Hanging woman in the back corner of my office: Don’t mind her, she’ll be gone within the hour. I’ll be sorry to see her go, though. A sense of unreality is creeping in. I try to keep Dr. Beauchamp’s voice in my head, “if there shouldn’t be any real dead people in the room, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room.” Well, there was that one time, you asshole. No, fuck it, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room. I reach into my briefcase, desperate for the pill bottle, because I know my thoughts are going to turn into alphabet soup if I don’t do something soon. I split a Clozaril tablet in half and swallow it hastily. I am not supposed to split it in half, and I am not supposed to take more than one dose in a span of 24 hours, and I have a Ph.D. in psychology, obviously I know I’m lowering the efficacy in the long term and increasing my risk of side effects. But at this point, let me die of agranulocytosis if that’s what I’ve got coming. I’ll be out of a job and wasting eleven years of higher education if this shit doesn’t stop. Maybe that isn’t true. It feels true. Maybe it isn’t.

[January 21st, 2019 // 1:30 PM] FROM: Dr. Raymond Carlisle TO: Dr. Adam Collins SUBJECT: Checking in.

Dr. Collins, I sincerely hope all is well. I received word that you cancelled a lecture today. I need hardly tell you that you just had a month off for Winter Break, and two weeks before that for the beginning of your hospitalization. I hardly think an even further extended reprieve from your work is fair, and if you genuinely do, that’s a conversation we need to have. To be frank, Dr. Herrmann and I feel it is irresponsible to allow someone in your condition to continue to work, in the field of psychology no less. Though I do not at all doubt the competence of our colleagues at the medical center, nor your mental facilities, I feel compelled to let you know that if your psychological state continues to cause issues with your work the department might require you to take a leave of absence. While I hope your treatment plan begins to work to its full effect soon, your own safety and the integrity of this department are top priority.

Best wishes, truly,

Dr. Raymond Carlisle Head Professor, Psychology (555) 555-5555

My hands tremble with anger (and hopefully not tardive dyskinesia) as I type my reply.

FROM: Dr. Adam Collins TO: Dr. Raymond Carlisle SUBJECT: Re: Checking In

Dr. Carlisle, all is as well as it possibly can be needs to be. I don’t respect you as a colleague and I believe your total comfort in your new position, which I need hardly remind you is Dr. Wronski’s old position, is quite frankly borderline disrespectful.  If it’s irresponsible for someone in “my condition” to continue to work then why do you give a shit if I cancel my lectures? Leave me the fuck alone or I’ll mention you by name in my suicide note.   At the moment, it is difficult for me walk by Dr. Wronski’s old office, which I have to do to get to 525 (where that lecture is held). Could I request a change of   I was having a panic attack you absolute dick how are YOU allowed to continue to work in the field of psychology when you have NO compassion My new medication has occasionally been making me sick. That issue should be resolved either way after I meet with my psychiatrist next week.

Thank you for your concern, Dr. Adam Collins Department of Psychology

[January 22nd, 2019 // 10:30 AM] I think back to our last faculty meeting, at least my last faculty meeting, in November. It does feel like a while ago, and it’s hard to fathom that Dr. Wronski was still here then. It gets easier to fathom when Dr. Carlisle comes in and takes his seat at the head of the conference table, simply because of how wrong that is. I picture her there instead, how things are supposed to be, how it should have been. I think about how someone should have helped her when they still could have. I really picture her there instead for a moment, her image replacing Carlisle’s. I blink once and she’s gone, and he’s back. As he starts talking, though, I feel a tap on my shoulder and see her behind me for a split second, ephemeral and transparent like the dots in a grid illusion, then she walks away and disappears. My whole body is left feeling cold, sharp, and jolted, as if I fell on a blade without expecting to. I’m filled with dread as I realize Carlisle’s words are simultaneously turning to nonsense and growing louder in my ears, and a high, harsh noise like microphone feedback intertwines itself with his voice. Dr. Wronski reappears in his place again, but she is lifeless this time, blood pooling from her head like it was when I found her, circling her hair in a grim halo. Her eyes are clouded with even more film, her mouth is agape, and I can feel my breathing grow rapid. I squeeze my eyes shut. I know I am in the middle of a meeting; I will not fall apart like this in the middle of a meeting, not when my “mental facilities” are already being called into question. I pinch myself, internally repeating “there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here—” “Dr. Collins, are you with us?” Dr. Hermann’s voice pierces through my mantra, entirely unfriendly, entirely accusatory, despite the faux-sweetness she is trying to summon. “Yes.” My voice sounds thin and weak, and blood rushes to my face. I shut my eyes again, since I feel tears prickling at the corners of them. Not fucking here, Jesus Christ, not fucking here, I think to myself. Then I think again about my last meeting, the old hierarchy, the time when I fell asleep at one of these in October after a particularly long night and Dr. Wronski just pulled me aside afterwards and asked if I was okay, and if there was anything she could do. And now the image of her corpse won’t leave my head. It overwhelms me. I don’t see her in the room anymore, but I might as well be back in her office when I first found her body, the first time in my life I had ever truly hoped that I was only seeing a figment of my imagination. The gun in her hand— I try to think of anything else. Anything to keep it at bay. I click my pen repeatedly (Carlisle asks me to stop), I scratch at my wrists and pull at my skin, anything to shift my focus to anything else. Nothing is working. The lump in my throat grows. My heartbeat gets faster, my chest starts to hurt, and suddenly I can smell the blood and rot that permeated the room that night, and I am helpless to stop it— Someone grabs me. I look up to see every eye in the room on me. I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, and I realize I’m in the middle of this meeting, crying and having a full-on panic attack, surrounded by people who already think I’m a headcase. I am sobbing and shaking and unable to steady my breathing and to them it seems completely unprompted at best, and at worst, it seems like it’s because Hermann and Carlisle snapped at me. And even in the midst of my abject humiliation, the image of Dr. Wronski lying in a pool of her own blood is still in my head, still absolutely fucking killing me, and I couldn’t calm down if I tried. I get up and walk out. That’s what fucking happens when I’m forced to try to power through episodes. I could care less what Carlisle does to me right now, I will not stay in there and continue to look like an emotionally unstable baby in front of my colleagues. I go to finish up my breakdown in the privacy of my office, catching a glimpse of myself in a window on the way and hating myself even more at the sight of my own disheveled hair and bright red, tear-streaked face. I sit down and hide underneath my desk, pop another half-a-Clozaril tablet that I try not to choke back up (I’m still hyperventilating so hard I could vomit), and bury my face in my arms. “Adam?” I look up. “Ezra.” I am barely composed, still hyperventilating, swiping at my eyes furiously and futilely. I look away, and I hope maybe he’ll think I’m just sick. I expect him to walk away, pretend that he never saw me like this and just silently let it color his perception of me. But he comes and sits down next to me underneath the desk. I don’t know what to say. “Do you want me to go?” he asks, after a moment. “You don’t have to.” I don’t want to admit it, but I don’t really want him to. Nobody else is this understanding with me anymore. I keep trying to collect myself, barely noticing at first when he puts his hand on my shoulder. “Do you need anything?” I shake my head, still not making eye contact. Theoretically, I’m getting the help I need, and maybe I do need the support of a friend right now too, but I don’t want to trouble him. Besides, I must look pathetic, cowering under a table and weeping, almost comically vulnerable. Hm. “Ezra,” I turn to him, finally, after a few more minutes of whimpering. I know my eyes look crazy, bloodshot to hell. “Can you take me to a mic?” “A mic?” “Yes. A standup mic. I want to see what it’s like.” “Really?” he smirks. “Yes, why not?” I can’t think of the last time I laughed, at least not genuinely. I can’t think of the last time I let myself. My self-loathing has become entirely unfunny, my psyche and my job both absolute nightmares, not to mention the actual nightmares—I need something light. Something just a little bit light. “You would… enjoy that?” “Yeah.” It makes me sad that he seems surprised, though I can’t blame him. I’ve been awfully serious, not even just for the past week or month, but probably since my dad died last spring. He reads my disappointment. “Sorry, Adam, I just… do you like comedy?” “I don’t know. My therapist laughs at my jokes sometimes.” He smiles at that, and I smile too, through dissipating tears. “Well, if you really want to, yeah. The next one is Thursday night.” I nod and take a deep breath. I realize Ezra hasn’t taken his hand off my shoulder, and he is absent-mindedly rubbing circles into my back. Maybe it’s stupid, but I stay as still as I can. I don’t want him to notice that he’s doing it and stop. “Is everyone there funny?” I ask, just to keep his focus. It’s a dumb question. I rephrase myself, “How funny is everyone?” He exhales a chuckle. “Honestly? About thirty people go up every night, sometimes more. They’re mostly shit. Don’t worry, though, there’s plenty to laugh at with the shitty ones.” He proceeds to tell me about the guys who show up high every time and just get up on stage and talk about nonsense (or weed itself) for 5 minutes, the wannabe Dangerfields and Seinfelds and Mulaneys who “never actually managed to glean what joke structure is” (though to be fair, It’s not like I have either), even the bigoted old men still trying with unflinching determination to resurrect “get back in the kitchen” jokes. I am losing myself in his stories, feeling at least marginally more relaxed, when Carlisle appears in my doorway. Ezra takes his hand off my back. Carlisle glances at us with confusion and disgust. “Dr. Collins, if you would please… get up and come see me in my office.” “We’re actually grading papers right now,” Ezra shoots back, in a tone of voice that says “yes, I think you’re stupid.” “Take a break, please,” Carlisle replies, glaring and exiting. I look hesitantly at Ezra, before getting up to follow him. “I do want to come,” I say. “To a mic.” “We’ll talk more later. I should still be here after you’re done facing the wrath of god.” I know I’m about to get chewed out to an extreme degree. Still, I can’t help but grin back at him.

[imtryingsomething]

All Down Hill

Chapter 2

A/N- this is super late. But I’ve just had little motivation for writing. If anyone enjoys this please tell me because I don’t know if I’ll continue it. I have idea of where I want this to go but I don’t want to take the time to write it if nobody’s gonna read it. As always reblogs are awesome, but please don’t steal this. Comments are also really appreciated. Requests are open, there’s a list. (And sorry that I don’t know how to do the ‘keep reading’ thing.)

Pairings- just friend and sibling.

Characters- Scott McCall, Sam McCall (oc), Stiles Stilinski, abd Derek Hale.

Warnings- none really, mentions of wounds, didn’t proof read.

“Jesus Scott! You should tell Mom!” Sam exclaims, she stares at the bandage covering Scott’s abdomen.

“I’m not telling Mom. You’re already in trouble, think about if she found out you lied about me being there last night.” Scott turned to Stiles, “And besides I have more exciting new! I found the other half of the body!”

“Dude!! That’s awesome!! Where?!” Stiles practically shouts. “This is the best thing that’s happened to this town since... Lydia Marin. Hey Lydia....you look..like you’re going to ignore me.” Defeated he turns back towards to McCalls.

Patting his shoulder lovingly, “Better luck next time.” Sam starts to walk past him into the school.

Scott and Stiles partially bicker about social status on the way to their first class. Though Sam didn’t share is with them she walked to their class before heading off to hers.

Advanced chemistry. Stamped in bold letters as Sams first class. Strolling into the classroom she noticed Lydia sitting at one of the lab stations alone, she already had a notebook out. Sam had picked up on how smart Lydia is, after sharing advanced classes with her over the years. Sam plopped down next the the red head, digging through her bag to grab her yellow notebook for the class.

“How was your summer Lydia?”

“Good, went away to the city for a few weeks. You?”

“Didn’t go anywhere, mostly worked, designed, and read. But is was fun all things considered.”

The extent of Sam and Lydia’s relationship is meaningless small talk and discussing the lessons. They were friendly, having not reason not to be but they never took the relationship into friendship. Sam knew enough about Lydia’s life to know she was smart and well off.

The day went along uneventfully. Sam liked all her classes, ap chem, ap calculus, ap English, ap biology, Spanish, photography and design, and auto tech. Classes that would help her get into her top college. Stiles always mocked Sams need to plan ahead, how she already had a handful of colleges picked out. How she already knew what field she wanted to go into.

“This is ridiculously idiotic.” Sam leaned forward, resting her elbows on the center consul.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well for one we’ve already gotten in trouble for being out in the woods and two the killer hasn’t been caught yet, which means they could still be out in said woods. And three Scott was just attacked by something which clearly isn’t afraid of humans.”

“What difference does it make if the thing that attacked Scott was afraid of humans?”

“If it was afraid of humans then it wouldn’t have been so bold as to attack one.”

“We’ll be fine. It’s daytime, I’m sure that whatever’s out there won’t attack in broad daylight.” Scott tried to sound reassuring but he couldn’t have sounded any less comforting.

Fall leaves crunched underfoot as the three of them trekked to try and find half a body along with an inhaler. Sam caught sight of a few squirrels scampering from tree to tree, preparing for winter.

“And that’s not the only weird thing, I can hear things I shouldn’t be able to hear. And smell things I shouldn’t be able to smell.”

“Smell things? Like what?”

“Like the mint gum in your pocket. What if it’s some sort of infection, like my body is flooding with adrenaline before going into shock!”

“I’m telling you should tell Mom, have her look at it.” Sam pointed at the wound.

“I think I’ve heard of this, I think it’s called lycanthropy.”

“What—What’s that? Is it bad?”

Sam gave a pointed look at Stiles, trying to hide a smile.

“Yeah it’s bad, but it only happens once a month.” Stiles paused to howl.

Scott shoved his shoulder grumbling to shut up, Sam made ears out of her hands turning to Scott.

“It should be right here, I swear it was right here.” Going around in circles, Scott tried to find the body.

“Dude it was dark out and you were scared out of your mind. The body isn’t the most important thing right now. It’s your inhaler, Mom will kill you if we don’t find it.”

“Maybe the killer moved the body.” Stiles suggested kicking some leaves.

“Yeah well hope he left my inhaler.”

Sam was nearly knocked off her feet by Stiles frantic shove in the shoulder. She turned to glare at him when she saw the dark figure lurking a little ways away.

“What are you doing here? This is private property.” The man shouted.

Sam gripped onto Stiles jacket, “Sorry man, didn’t know.”

“Yeah we were just looking for something but forget it.” A small object was launched at the group. Scott caught it turning in his hands. The familiar blue inhaler rested there.

“Dude that was Derek Hale!” Stiles exclaimed.

“Who?” Scott and Sam question.

“First of all its creepy when you two do that, like the Shining. And second don’t you remember? He’s only like a few years older than us. His family died in a fire like ten years ago.”

Looking back into the woods Sam only saw the swaying branches in the wind.

[hamiltimebinches]

John Laurens x Reader: Flowering Affections Chapter 1

A/n: I really don’t know what to say here..... I really liked how this one turned out though. Chapter 2 is here.

Timeline: Modern

Warnings: None

Words: 1,496

     Perfection. We all know the word. Everybody wishes to be perfect: the perfect student, the perfect parent, perfect writer, perfect artist, even the perfect basketball player. They all strive to be perfect, and they all fail. When they fail most start to beat themselves up over it, when really there is nothing to be angry about. No one can be perfect, so why try so hard and be disappointed when you don’t achieve perfection? The most you can do for anything is to try your best. You can never be perfect, so why not be the best you can possibly attain. You may not be the perfect painter, but you do the best you can and that’s just fine. It’s okay to not be perfect at something, it’s okay to be just the best you can manage to be. I’m (Y/n) (L/n) and I’m not perfect, that’s just fine with me.

    But why all this talk of perfection? Is there a reason I’m telling you all this? No, not really. It’s just my flower thoughts. Flower thoughts? What are flower thoughts? Well, they’re sort of like shower thoughts. You all know how you get those life changing thoughts while sitting in the shower. Flower thoughts are also like those thoughts you get before you fall asleep, the ones that momentarily change your thinking before you drift off into your own sleepy paradise or nightmare. Flower thoughts occur when you are sitting in a meadow just playing with the flowers, or watching them, smelling them. Flower thoughts are the thoughts that come to you when you just kind of lose all your cares while admiring the flowers.

    I’m sorry, this probably is just confusing you. No one goes to meadows anymore. They’re all too busy inside working or just browsing the internet. They all are too concerned with the business of life to just take a step back and relax a bit in the warm summer air with a light breeze while they sit in a meadow. I’m not like that, not really. Sure, I get busy and get caught up in the commotion of life, but every now and then I like to just take a step back and admire life and think. Think about what? Think about anything of course.

    That’s how I got on the topic of perfection. I had noticed how worried I was about being perfect all the time then came to the realization that not one person can be perfect. Not me, not you, not my professors, not my parents, not my friends, not one person. That doesn’t stop us from thinking some people are perfect. That doesn’t stop me from thinking some people are perfect. Now though, I think of perfection in a different light. No one is truly perfect, but some people seem perfect to us, even when we take into account their flaws. We see someone as perfect, even though we realize they make mistakes just like us. Those people are perfect to us, even with their flaws, even if they aren’t perfect to everybody else. We can see friends and family as perfect, but more seriously we can see people we are attracted to as perfect in every way, even with their flaws they are perfect to us. There is even someone like that for me. That man’s name is John Laurens. To me, even with his flaws, he is perfect.

    John goes to the same college as me and is majoring in marine biology. I’m majoring as a psychiatrist. The only reason I met John was because we share the same Biology class. Technically I didn’t meet John in the classroom, I met him at the campus library. I had been doing research for a paper I need to have done by the end of two weeks. I had been stressing because the paper was counting as half of my grade for the quarter.

    I had been at the library to pick up some books I needed for the paper and then planned to work on the paper with my laptop at one of the tables, preferably one that would allow me to sit in the warm sunlight. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to get two of the books because they were too high up for me to reach. John had been passing by as I once again stood as far up on my toes as I could. He saw me struggling and decided to come over and offer some help. I gladly accepted seeing that it would spare me some time. I know, cliche, right? But I guess some things in life just simply are cliche.

    Another cliche occured that same moment. John had asked if we had ever met before, I looked very familiar to him. I responded that I thought we shared the same class, even though I knew we did. I didn’t want him to think of me as weird and freaky for remembering him from a class of over fifty. So, I let him think I just vaguely remembered him. He had listed off the names of some of the professors he had but none of them matched with mine, until he mentioned Professor Bros. I’m not kidding, my Biology professor’s name is Professor Bros, that’s his actual last name. I had gotten a kick out of it when I saw his name. I had imagined him to be a more laid back teacher, I was wrong he was the strictest teacher I had and he didn’t take any bullshit from anyone. John and I conversed a little longer, totally not mentioning how much of a hardass Professor Bros was when it came to teaching and grading, before going our separate ways.

    Here I am, sitting in a meadow, and once again my thoughts have drifted off to John. more specifically when we met. My thoughts wandered from that occurence to what he is actually like, physically and personality wise.

    Physically John is, well, handsome. I don’t know how else to perfectly describe him. His skin tone is constantly tanned, as though he was working out in the sun constantly, which he probably was during his summers back in South Carolina. His eyes remind me of caramel and all his freckles remind me of constellations. Even though he comes from a hot and humid state and it’s not quite in fashion he’s grown his brown and curly hair out a little past his shoulders, he always has it tied back in a low ponytail. Sure, there’s plenty of men out there who have grown their hair out long, but a lot of them just don’t look good with long hair. John, however, is not one of those men.

    He is a bit on the loud side, especially when around friends, and very passionate about his beliefs. Unless someone gets on his nerves or the situation is serious he always seems to have a smile on his face. Back to the point about his beliefs, he will fight you if you say he’s wrong. He will fight you and tell you why he’s right and why you should shut your mouth, especially if what you said was racist. Don’t get me wrong though, John is not mean. He’s far from it actually. He’s kind and friendly. C’mon, he likes turtles, especially tiny baby ones. His friends, which I am now included as one, have literally seen him cry over a baby turtle he saw. In his words. “It’s just too cute and precious.”

    I let out a dreamy sigh as I wondered how I managed to even become friends with John. Why would he want to be friends with me? Why would he want to be seen around me? Those are two questions that always nag at me. Those questions always end up answered with cruel thoughts. Yeah, why? There’s nothing special about you. You’re just a nobody that comes from a little town in Florida that no one has ever even heard of. You’ve always been a nobody and you always will be.

    I sadly looked down at the flowers that were swaying in the light breeze. I focused on a dainty yellow tulip. Tulips have always been my favorite kind of flower, but not even seeing my favorite flowers can seem to lighten up my thoughts. I absentmindedly reached out and gently dragged my finger over the yellow and soft petal.

    I was startled out of my thoughts by a loud, abrasive ringing. I looked down at my lap to see my phone was the cause of the noise. Picking up the phone I looked for who was calling me. It was John. I felt a smile flicker across my lips. No matter how many times he’s called me I still get a giddy feeling and become happy to know he is calling me. I swiped my thumb over the answer button and lifted the phone to my ear.

    “Hello?”

[singulari-taee]

The Danger in Duality | 03

COLLEGE! AU  |  ASSASSIN! AU  |  ANGST  | SMUT  | COMEDY | 6.5k

BTS X Reader

CW: Violence, Sexual Assault attempt mention

“You and your seven best friends must take on the struggles of being world-class assassins while also living as full-time college students.”

       Not being a morning person meant hitting snooze four times before realizing you shouldn’t have. It felt like a good idea in the moment, reaching past your mounds of covers to shut up your noisy alarm, just to fling yourself off the bed and rush to make up for lost time.

       Which was what you were doing right now.

       You had agreed to meet up with the boys for breakfast before classes like old times, a simple tradition you all seemed to have forgotten when the workload got too hectic. It sounded okay when the proposal was made, but you were having second thoughts. Who’s idea was it to have breakfast at 7am on a Friday anyways?

       Namjoon probably.

        As you spat out the foamy toothpaste, did your best to tame your bed hair, and threw on something to wear, you heard clanging in the kitchen. Everything sounded especially loud while you still struggled to wake up.

        Flinging your backpack onto your shoulder, you opened your bedroom door. A sweet aroma hit you as you rounded the corner. You saw Luna take a baking pan out of the oven.

         She turned to you, a smile spreading across her face, “Good morning!” she sang.

         “G’morning,” you said as you made your way to the door.

          “Wait! I made these for you!”

           She held up the tray of fluffy, golden muffins. They looked scarily perfect, like they were brought straight off of some Sunday morning cooking show.

           “You made these for me?” you asked dumbly. The scent wafted up to your nose more and more with every passing second, “Oh wow…you didn’t have to do this.”

             “Nah, I woke up early and had some extra time on my hands so I figured I would. It’s no problem really.”

           “I…don’t know what to say. Thanks,” you began, “I’m actually about to go get breakfast with the boys, though.”

        “Ah, no problem. Here, take them with you. You don’t want them getting cold!” she proceeded to put them into a large Ziploc bag as you watched. She reached it over the counter to you, and you took it in your hands gingerly, “Oh! How did that history quiz go?”

         “History quiz?” you asked, distracted as you put the muffins into your bag. You handled them daintily like bombs.

        “You know, the one you and your friends were up all night studying for a couple days ago.”

          Your head shot up, “Oh yeah! I-it was cool I guess,” you shrugged.

          “That’s great,” she said, “Hey before you head out, do you have any laundry of yours that you want me to wash? I was going to put a few loads in before class.”

             “Um, I’m good actually, thanks,” you laughed, inching to the door.

             “Okay, just let me know if you ever need anything!” she called, “Happy Friday!” 

             You waved and closed the door behind you, exhaling as your body relaxed. You were sure some people would kill to have a roommate that made them muffins and offered to do their laundry, but this was something you didn’t know if you’d ever get used to. You hated handouts and depending on people, as it made you feel like you owed them something in return. Existing in debt was something you avoided at all costs.

            You rushed across campus until you made it inside the cafeteria. It didn’t take long before you found the table of rowdy boys, talking a bit too loud considering how early it was.

             You walked up to the table and dropped your bag onto the floor.

           “What time’s your funeral?” Yoongi asked out of the blue, “Because you look dead.”  

             “Where’s your toilet? Because you look like a piece of shit,” you shot back, “But what else is new?”

             “Hey, be nice. You know _______ doesn’t do well with mornings,” Seokjin said.

             “You guys are lucky I’m even here. I was this close to rolling back over and not showing up,” you muttered, “I could have gotten a whole extra hour of sleep. Do you know what I could have done with an extra hour of sleep?”

             “Sleep?” Namjoon asked.

             “Exactly.” 

             “Remember that one day back in training when she missed all of our classes, tutorials, meals, and workouts,” Hoseok said, “and was nowhere to be found the whole day so everyone was worried.”

             “And when we finally busted her door down, she was just in bed sleeping,” Jungkook laughed, “Not sick, not dead, just sleeping.”

             “I got 16 hours that day, a personal record,” you said proudly.

             “And I thought Yoongi slept a lot. How much did he sleep that one time? 14 hours?” Seokjin said.

             “That wouldn’t be the first time ______’s beaten him in something— sorry, sorry, okay I’ll shut up now,” Hoseok backtracked when his squad mate sent him a death glare.  

             “Well I hope you’re all caught up on your beauty sleep, because you’re gonna need energy for tonight,” JImin said, a sly smile spreading.

             “What’s happening tonight? I don’t think we have any missions for the rest of the week,” you said.

             “Don’t tell me you all forgot, I’ve been telling you about it for the last month,” he said, “The frat party!”

             “Oh…” said the table.

             Jimin adapted to the fraternity life better than anyone would have imagined. Even though everyone knew he was a social person, it was surprising to see how perfectly he fit with the house of greasy boys. This was probably because a frat was the second closest thing to his old gang lifestyle as he was going to get. Even if he didn’t say anything, you all knew he missed it.

           “I don’t know if I’d like being in a room full of people who can barely hold their alcohol and are just trying to sleep with anything that breathe,” Seokjin said.

         “Yeah, and I kind of already planned on using this free time to study for my Marine Biology exam next Monday, so….” Namjoon said.

         “All you do is study!” Jimin said, “You all promised you’d think about it at least, come on!”

        “What are we talking about?” Taehyung asked as he walked up to the table with a tray full of food.

         “Jimin’s frat is throwing a party tonight and he wants us to go,” you said.

         “A party? I’ll go, it sounds like fun!”

          “See, that’s the enthusiasm I was looking for,” Jimin said, “It’s too late to back out now. Live a little, let’s do more than kill, study, and eat together for once!”

          The group looked around at each other before erupting into a chorus of sighs and shrugs. But that was good enough for Jimin, and the satisfaction was written all over his face.

           You pulled the muffins from your backpack, too lazy to get out of your seat for an actual meal. They were still warm when you put them out on the table, but they weren’t there for long before a long fingered hand snatched them away.

          Hoseok opened the bag and began helping himself. You blinked at him.

          “Wow, ____,  you made us muffins?” he asked, talking around the pastry in his mouth. The other boys reached in, breaking off pieces for themselves.

          “I didn’t make them, Luna did.” 

         They stopped mid-chew.

         “Luna? Like your roommate?” Jimin asked.

         “Yeah, she made them for me this morning before I left. I think she said something about her having extra time on her hands.”

          “Wait, so your roommate woke up to make you muffins out of the kindness of her heart…just because she had extra time on her hands?” Seokjin asked.

         “Yeah,” you said, already hearing where he was going with this. 

          “That’s not normal,” Jungkook said.

          “She sounds like a psycho,” Yoongi added. 

           “What? A girl can’t bake muffins for her roommate before sunrise and offer to do her laundry…?” the more you spoke the more ridiculous it sounded, and from their expressions they felt the same way, “Okay yeah, maybe it is a little weird.”

           “She offered to do your laundry too? That’s next level psycho,” Jungkook said, “Do you have space for another roommate?”

          They kept eating through the bag and you watched them, baffled, “If she’s so crazy why’re you still eating them?”

          “We never said that they weren’t fucking delicious,” Jimin said.

           “We’re just checking to make sure they’re not poisonous or anything, we have to look out for you, duh,” Seokjin said.

           Taehyung was holding them now, and when he saw your unamused look, he timidly reached the bag over the table, but you waved it away.

           “No keep it, I didn’t need to eat anyways,” you said,  “I hope she did put something in it, greedy asses.”

           “By the way, is there a theme for the party?” Namjoon asked.

            “I’m glad you asked,” Jimin grinned, “Naughty Catholic school.”

            “What the hell does that even mean?” Yoongi asked.

            “Exactly what it sounds like,” he said.

            You were beginning to regret everything, “Um, Jimin, wh–”

            “Great, see everyone at my place at 11!” he said, suddenly jumping up from the table and grabbing his things before anyone could protest further, “And you all better come!”

            He was across the cafeteria by then, far out of reach from anyone’s complaints. You sank into your seat.

            It wasn’t even 8am yet and you were already over the day.

______________________

          The campus was dimly lit. You sat on the edge of the fountain, holding a cardigan to your chest as you looked at your phone for the millionth time that night.

             11:02

             The others had agreed to meet you there at 10:45 so you could walk over to Jimin’s together, but it was getting later by the minute. Your self-consciousness grew with every person that passed, and you couldn’t help but wonder if they too were thinking, What the hell is going on here? Crossing your legs did little to help the cool breeze that sent shivers up your spine.

             You heard familiar voices and heavy footsteps.

             “Oh, there she is!”

             When the boys walked up you eyed each other, not sure if you should laugh.

             You saw Yoongi open his mouth, but you held up your hand to stop him, “Shut up. I know, I did research on the internet and this is what it called for, okay?”

             He shrugged, “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

             “Sorry we took so long, we couldn’t figure out how to make it look ‘naughty’,” Jungkook said, “Looks like you didn’t have trouble, though.”

             “Just going along with the theme,” you murmured, still holding the cardigan to cover your chest, “Come on let’s go.”

            You made your way over, the dark roads alive with loud music from other parties going on that night. When you walked to Jimin’s  street you started to see your crowd, groups of boys and girls like yours walking in costumes that made you feel a bit less stupid. Most of their skirts were shorter, and you were pretty sure a few of them weren’t even wearing underwear based on the view you got when the wind blew. To each their own you guessed.

          Your own skirt was pleated, cutting off mid-thigh, along with a white button up shirt you had raised and tied to be a midriff, your hair in two pigtails. Nothing too scandalous, but just enough to fit the criteria.

        The other boys had cut the sleeves from their white dress shirts, and wore checkered shorts. All your outfits had the same matching pattern on the material. You got the uniforms from an undercover mission at a Catholic school earlier in the year. It had been collecting dust in the back of your closets since then, but now you had an excuse to wear them again.

         “Your costumes aren’t even naughty,” you snorted, “All you did was cut off the sleeves.”

         “We unbuttoned the shirt all the way down to our nipples and didn’t even tuck it in! No catholic school would let their students walk around like this,” Namjoon defended himself.

          You finally made it to the house and walked up the stairs to the door. Jungkook banged on the barrier, the music already blaring from outside. You weren’t sure how anyone would hear you knocking, but a few seconds later Jimin was standing in the doorway. 

           He broke out into a wide smile when he saw you and your stunned faces, “Welcome!”

          He was completely shirtless, nothing to cover his bare chest but a loose tie. The scene behind him was wild to say the least. Even through the blinding fluorescent lights you were able to make out the room full of people dancing drunkenly on tables and grinding to the heavy bass. You were sure you even saw a couple lap dances happening in the back.

         “Jimin what is this?!” Seokjin asked, appalled.

         “A party!”

         “Are you sure this isn’t an orgy?!”

         “Nah,” he laughed, the red cup in his hand shining against the lights, “that only happened once, and that’s the one party I missed because of a mission.”

          He took in your awkward stances and pulled you in, “Come on don’t be scared! Alejandro! Tony!” he called over the party. Two equally naked frat boys turned around, “Be useful and get my friends some drinks!”

            A group of people came in behind you all, pushing you further into the party. The two boys came up to you and handed you a cup.

          “I like your pigtails,” one of them said, sending you a wink and grazing your fingers before turning away.

            Your hair stood on end. You looked inside to see a pinkish liquid, the smell burning your nose when you took a sniff.

           You and the boys pushed past the crowd to stand in an empty corner, observing the view before you.

          “Well…this is something,” Yoongi said. 

           While almost everyone had troubled pasts, none of you were wild party kids growing up, except Jimin. Your youth was spent studying kill tactics, not learning how to get just drunk enough to still remember what happened the night before. It was a little overwhelming, but not enough to completely turn you off.

           You turned to see Taehyung stare at the dancing crowd, eyes wide and mystified.

           “You alright there, Tae?” you nudged him.

          “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said, “It’s amazing.”

          “It is,” you said thoughtfully. You took in the bobbing heads and flashing lights. There was something about it, something inviting.

           “Hey, if we’re going to be here, we might as well enjoy it. I don’t want to stand here against the wall the entire time,” Hoseok said. He knocked his drink back in a few gulps, face contorting as it went down, “Ahhh, I’m ready to go in. Anyone coming with me?”

         “I will,” you said, the words slipping out before you even allowed them to. The drink in your hand felt heavy, and everyone watched the contemplation cross your face as you stared at it, “Fuck it.”

         You did as Hoseok did, chugging the drink back without taking a single breath. You weren’t sure how he did it so easily, the liquid blazed down your throat like it was sent straight from hell itself.

           When the cup was empty you all but slammed it on a nearby table. The boys stared wide eyed (and impressed if they were being honest).

          “Let’s go!” Hoseok said, pulling you by your hand into the mob. You threw your cardigan towards the boys, not even looking back to see if someone had caught it. It was tight, neither of you having enough space to move your arms. It wasn’t as intimidating when you were among the gyrating bodies. Everyone moved in a single motion, and it wasn’t hard to follow and sway. The song changed, and everyone began screaming, jumping up and down and pumping their fists in the air. You and Hoseok shrugged, following the crowd. You were beginning to feel the effects of the drink. You felt more free all of a sudden, less constricted.

         You weren’t sure how, but shot glasses ended up in your hands, and were quickly filled with a strong smelling brown liquid. Someone counted down and everyone around you knocked it back. It burned more than the drink you had had earlier, but it was a nice, searing feeling that traveled all the way down your body. After came two, three, and then four, and five more more as the heavy bottle of the mystery liquid was passed around the crowd. Some dripped down your fingertips as Hoseok got ahold of it and tried to pour you more. Even with your slowly blurring vision, his wide smile and reddening face was clear.

          Jimin was on the opposite end of the room, chatting up some girls wearing leggings and hot pink push-up bras for tops. It didn’t quite follow the theme, but was Jimin going to complain? Hell no.

         The remaining boys watched as the three of you got lost in the party.

          “I’m going in,” Jungkook said, getting rid of his own drink in a few sips.

          “Me too!” Taehyung did the same, stumbling immediately after.

          The two all but ran over to the drink table, reaching for anything they could get their hands on. They were double fisting beers and shot glasses, getting rid of the drinks in record time.

           A boy came up to Jungkook, tapping him on the shoulder. He was stoned out of his mind, red eyes barely focusing, “Hey! Aren’t you the guy that choked out Minhyuk and Barom in the library?!”

        Jungkook paused, “Maybe.”

        “That was fucking incredible!”

        The flashing lights did little to help your cloudy vision. The faces in the crowd were becoming harder and harder to distinguish, but you still noticed Hoseok at your side.

             “Hey, I need to go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back!” you slurred. You couldn’t really tell if he was nodding while he danced, but you just took it as an ‘okay’.

            You slid out from between the sweaty bodies and walked down a packed hallway. You felt along the wall until you found the first door. After twisting the knob, the first thing you saw wasn’t a toilet or bathtub, but instead four people snorting white powder on the counter top.

           “Oh shit!” one of them said.

           “Want a hit?” another asked with a giddy smile.

            You slammed the door before he could get an answer.

             Blinking fast, you sighed and kept walking blindly around the house. The deeper you went got down the hall, the emptier it got, sounds from the party getting farther and farther away. You were sure you had heard moans coming from more than one room you had passed. There was only one more door left at the end of the hallway, and in your tipsy mind this was your last chance of finding an empty place to pee. You opened the door not to find a bathroom, but a bedroom. The floor was covered in clothes, and even in the darkness you saw the empty pizza and takeout boxes scattered everywhere.

            You hadn’t even realized you were almost in the middle of the room until you heard footsteps behind you.

            “Hey, no one’s supposed to be in here you know.”

          You turned to see Haneul standing in the doorway, drunken smirk covering his face.

             “What are you doing in my room? Finally came to give me your number…or something else?” he was past tipsy, and was very sloppy as he approached you. He sat the beer in his hand down on the nearby desk, locked the door behind him, and stalked over. You stepped back with every step forward he made.

             You knew where this was going.

             “I was looking for a bathroom but I suddenly don’t have to go anymore,” you said.

             You went to step around him, but he slid in front of you, trapping you to a wall with his outstretched arm.

           “The fuck do you think you’re doing?” you asked. Your eyes focused the best they could and shot their most deadly and annoyed stare.

           But in his intoxicated mind, it didn’t seem to register, “Just talking to you, babe,” his breath reeked of cheap liquor, and it was nauseating, “Fuck, you’re hot.”

          His hand went up to caress your face, but you slapped it away, “Don’t make me hurt you, asswipe.”

          You really didn’t feel like killing anybody that night, especially when you weren’t on the clock.

         He laughed, “Funny and cute, I like that.”

           Haneul suddenly leaned down to kiss you, placing a hand on your waist. Before his lips could land, you hitched your knee up and aimed for his crotch. The alcohol had taken a toll not only on you vision, but on your aim, as it landed in his hard abdomen instead. He gasped and held his stomach, but almost immediately, he grabbed you by the hair and threw you down onto the floor. He straddled you with his free hand covering your lips.

        “Feisty, too? No wonder why Jimin’s been keeping you to himself–”

         You opened your mouth, took his fingers between your teeth, and bit down.

         Hard.

          He let out a scream, but it was stopped when you used two fingers and struck him straight in his windpipe. He sat stunned and gasping for air, but his grip only got more tangled up in your hair.

        The doorknob jiggled.

        “____? ____! You in there?! Shit…” the voice sounded strangely familiar.

        Without warning, the door burst open. Yoongi stood in the doorway, eyes wild as he looked around and saw you pinned against the floor.  

        You took advantage of Haneul’s confusion, and shifted your weight. You used your legs to fling him off of you and had him lay face down onto the floor, where you were now sitting on his back. With one hand on the back of his neck and the other gripping one of his arms, you pulled the limb up roughly and and heard the loud pop you had learned to love over the years.

        “FUCK! MY SHOULDER! YOU DISLOCATED MY FUCKING SHOULDER YOU BITCH!” he cried as he writhed in pain on the floor beneath you.

        Yoongi all but ran over to you, pulling you up by the arms and looked you up and down, “Hey! Are you okay? The hell did he do to you?!”

       You stood there, a stuttering mess.

         “I–I…n-nothing…he didn’t do anything…,” you managed.

         “FUCK YOU! BITCH, JUST WAIT UNTIL I GET OFF OF THIS FLOOR!” Haneul went on in his drunken, pained, rant.

          Yoongi’s eyes flashed over to the guy with a look of anger and disgust you hadn’t seen in a long time. In a couple steps he was crouched above him, hands around his neck and head in a hold you knew all too well.

       “Don’t!” you screamed.

      “Why not!?” he screamed back.

      “Because it’s over! I handled it, don’t kill him!”

      His hands lingered on around him, still strong and aching to twist his head just the slightest bit to get the job done.

        “Yoongi, don’t. Not tonight…please.”

        Yoongi stared at you for a moment longer before sighing and standing up. You should have known he wouldn’t have surrendered that easily, but even you flinched when he kicked Haneul in the head, knocking him out cold and silencing his screams.

         “He’ll be okay, sadly. Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said pulling you by the wrist. You followed, dumbfounded with slightly distorted vision. You had already sobered up a bit, but his grip on your arm had made you more alert than before.

        You both moved past the bodies in the hallway and living room. The party was still in full swing, and you passed Taehyung who was sprawled out unconscious on the floor. Namjoon and Seokjin were sitting next to him with a cup of water, while the rest must have been lost in the crowd.

         You made it outside, and down the stairs. You were both halfway down the street before you pulled your arm back. He shot you a look.

       “What are you doing?”

         “What are you doing?” you said, “I’m fine, you don’t need to drag me down the street like a child.”

        You walked past him and heard his footfalls following you.

         “Hey, I was just trying to help you out. And from the looks of what I walked into, I came right in time,” Yoongi snapped.

          “And I appreciate it, I really do,” you said, still walking, “But I took care of it. It’s over. I’m just…I’m okay.”

       You were still disturbed. Disturbed that a piece of trash like Haneul had somehow managed to put the skills you had been working on for years into question. Made you actually have to fight back, even if for a couple seconds in your tipsiness. Even when drinking at a party, your guard could truly never be down.

        And the sinking realization was more off-putting than you liked. You were always on the clock.

      “I’m walking you home,” Yoongi announced, “and you better not say you don’t need me to or I’ll drop kick you like how I used to back in The Academy,” he joked. 

       You both walked along in silence, him a few paces behind you. The streets were foggy, and it had gotten colder.

       “How did you know to come back there and find me?”

       “I saw the bastard watching you from the moment we had walked in,” he said, “When you went and disappeared in the back, he followed you. You were gone for a while so I figured something had happened.”

        You nodded, “Good instincts.”

      “I guess I’ve got 12 years of training to thank for that.”

       In no time you were standing before the door of your apartment.

       You turned the lock and peered at your squad mate, standing there with his usual tired look and his hands in his pockets. You were about to walk inside, but you turned on your heels and wrapped your arms around his neck. He stiffened, just as confused as you were.

       “Thanks…thanks a lot, Yoongi,” you muttered when you let go of the embrace, “I owe you one.”

       “So that means you’ll give me that pay bonus you got?”  

        Your expression dropped, “I hope you enjoyed that because I’m never hugging you again,” you walked back inside and slammed the door in his face. You heard him laughing from outside.

__________________________

        “Are you kidding me!?” Jungkook yelled, rising from the sofa, “Where is he now?!.”

         “You should’ve let Yoongi snap his neck, _____,” Hoseok said. He didn’t even bother to tell the youngest to sit down and relax.

         “I’m surprised he even listened to you. I wouldn’t have,” Jungkook said, “I say we bust in there right now and string him up by his balls.”

         Yoongi shrugged.

        The eight of you were scattered around the living room of the eldest’s apartment. They had asked why you and Yoongi had left the party so early, and this was their reaction.

        “He didn’t need to be killed,” you sighed, “He didn’t do anything but piss me off.”

         “But he had the audacity to try,” Namjoon said, “I really don’t think a dislocated shoulder is enough.”

         “We kill terrible people all the time, I say we’d be doing the public a service by taking him out,” Hoseok muttered.

            Jimin had been sitting silently the whole time. His expression was unreadable, and his hands were clasped in front of his face as he listened to you all talk.

            “I saw him this morning when we were cleaning up the house. He looked really out of it when he came out of his room but I didn’t bother to ask why he looked like shit,” he said in a low voice. Haneul had been walking around the house with a face full of bruises and his arm wrapped in a t-shirt, “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with him.”

             “What are you gonna do?” you asked, not liking the faraway look in his eyes.

             “Like I said, don’t worry about it.”

             That did little to calm your nerves.

             Taehyung groaned from the opposite sofa, stretching out his sore limbs with a cold towel laid across his head, “I’m never drinking again.” 

             The boys had to carry him out of the party. Since his dorm was so far, Seokjin thought the best place to dump him was on their sofa. He was okay with having the drunk boy sleeping on their furniture until he started throwing up on their carpet in the middle of the night.

             “You were wasted last night,” Seokjin said, shaking his head, “Do you remember anything?”

             “Not really,” Taehyung said, reaching for his water.

             “Then you don’t remember when you chugged the beer out of that keg upside down?” Jungkook asked, “Or did body shots off that girl from the volleyball team?” 

             “I did?!” he asked, “Awesome…”

             “Tae, the last time you were that drunk was when we were all still in The Academy,” Namjoon said, “You remember that night?”

_______________________

        There were five rhythmic taps on the door.

        Namjoon cracked it open and Hoseok slid inside.

       “Surprise,” he whispered, pulling out a tall bottle of green liquid from his bag.

        “Oh shit,” Jimin mused, getting up from his bed and inspecting it, “Is this legit?”

        “Of course it’s legit, I got it from some guy in a German back alley,” Hoseok said, “Seokjin even helped me find the vendor online.”

        “Hey, I have nothing to do with this,” he said, hands raised.

        “That’s where you two disappeared to after the mission?” you asked, “I was sure you were busy sucking each other off.”

        “Haha, very funny,” Hoseok muttered.

         Only Hoseok could manage to sneak an entire bottle of unfiltered absinthe into The Academy. It was only hours after you had made it back from your first international training mission, and Hoseok had told everyone to meet in Jimin and Jungkook’s room because he had ‘something that you all would like’. You were all teenagers, too young to buy alcohol at home, but in Europe? It was a free for all.

        “You got this past security?!” Namjoon asked, fear marring his features. It took him a moment to remember that it was Jung Hoseok he was talking to, of course he did, “If anybody finds out about this–”

        “Calm down, Joon! Don’t get all ‘Grandson of the Founder’ on me, please. No one‘s gonna find out,” he said.

         “This isn’t normal alcohol, this will have you hallucinating in only a couple shots,” Jimin said. He had his fair share of drinks before joining The Academy, but even this was unexplored territory.

          “Even better, now let’s do this,” Hoseok said.

         Jimin dug through his drawers and found eight cups, passing them around the room.

         “First of all, is this anyone’s first time drinking?”

          Only Taehyung raised his hand.

          “Even you’ve drank before Namjoon?” Seokjin asked.

         “Let me guess, it was a glass of wine at dinner?” Jimin joked.

         Namjoon folded his arms, “….Maybe.”

         After Hoseok poured a shot into everyone’s cups and toasted, the rest of the night started to move rather fast for you. It was one after the next, no one bothering to pace themselves. You hadn’t drank in years, and the burn was unsettling.

             “You know…” Jimin began, scooting closer to where you sat on the bed. His eyes were swimming, “We could just kick everyone out of here and have a little party of our own.”

             “Oh really? And why would we do that?” you asked. You had to blame the absinthe for entertaining him in the slightest.

             “Because this absinthe isn’t the only thing I want to taste tonig–”

             “Okay, keep it in your pants, Jimin,” Seokjin said, dragging him away from you by his legs.

           “What did you all do,” Taehyung began, “before…all of this…?”

          His eyes were half-lidded from only two shots, and he was leaning on your shoulder with a goofy smile.

        “You mean what got us put in here?” Hoseok asked, “A lot.”

          “I think that counts for almost all of us. Besides the rumors, I’ve never heard the truth about your pasts,” you said, “I’ve always been kinda curious.”

        Hoseok sighed, “Okay, how about this. Let’s go around in a circle and tell our stories. But before you start you have to take a shot,.” you all agreed, and he poured himself another one, knocking it back with a wince.

        “I was a professional thief and street rat,” he said, “I’ve been one since I was a kid, that’s all I can remember, honestly. I was homeless for most of my life, and my parents weren’t there so it was mostly just me. I took food, clothes, whatever I needed, really. And when I got older I started to break into people’s houses, steal, and then sleep there…sometimes for a couple weeks without anyone realizing it.”

     “Well that isn’t creepy at all,” Seokjin muttered.

        “It’s not something I’m proud of. I never got caught, though. So I don’t know how The Academy even knew how to find me…I wasn’t on record anywhere. It’s kind of scary how much they knew about me, actually.”

         “Alright, _____, your turn,” Namjoon said, passing the bottle to you.

             Taehyung was staring up at the ceiling, unblinking, “Does anybody else see those butterflies?”

             “There’s no butterflies in here, Tae.”

             “You sure?”

             “He’s gone,” Jimin laughed, “Told you it made you hallucinate.”

             “Why aren’t the rest of us seeing things then?” Yoongi asked.

             “I guess because he’s the biggest lightweight.” he turned to you, “So…why are you here, beautiful?”

             You knocked your shot back and hissed, “I used to compete in underground fighting rings.”

             “Really?”

             “That’s badass.”

             “That makes sense.”

             “It wasn’t for fun, I just did it for the money…I brought it back to help support me and my mom. Some kids had chess club, I had fight club,” you explained, “The Academy tried to recruit me after one of my matches and scared the hell out of me.”

             “Oh yeah, my grandfather told me about you,” Namjoon said, “I heard you put up a hell of a fight and gave one of the reps a black eye. He said you were the hardest recruitment we’ve ever had.”

             “Hell yeah! Who thought it was a good idea to have two men in all black approach a pre-teen girl in the middle of the night to join their secret organization?!”

             After you, they had to reassess their recruitment tactics. Though it was hard to convince you at first, they promised to take care of your mother if you joined them, and that’s all you could have ever asked for no matter how hard it was to leave her at first.

             “Hey, Taehyung you’re next,” Jimin said.

         The whole time you were telling your story Taehyung had a koala grip around you and nuzzled into your shoulder. Though, as soon as the words had left Jimin’s mouth, he let go and fell out into your lap, passing out for the night.

         “If that’s all I had to do to end up between her legs I would have gotten wasted forever ago,” Jimin muttered too low for you to hear, getting a shove from Hoseok.

         “He’s down for the count,” you said, brushing his hair with your fingers, “I still want to know what he did to get in here. I can’t imagine it was anything too bad.”

         “If you really want to know I’ll answer for him,” Namjoon said as he took a shot of his own. He took a deep breath, “I don’t think we’ve ever told anyone….but Taehyung’s my adopted brother.”

         The room sat silent. Everyone knew the two were close, but didn’t know to what extent.

        “His parents gave him up, and my family took him in from a foster home when he was a baby. I think his mom was on drugs and his dad was in jail, or something like that.”

         “So…he didn’t actually do anything bad to get here?” Seokjin asked.  

          “Basically. He never did anything wrong or illegal,” Namjoon said, “He was just a lucky kid that got taken in by my family and ended up here…same as me.”

             You weren’t sure if lucky was the right word.

             “Yoongi, you’re up,” you said, beginning to slur, “What’s your story?”

             The boy had been sitting in the far corner, wordlessly watching you all with judging eyes. He was probably the most sober in the room despite taking the same number of shots.

             “Yeah, you’re the biggest mystery in this whole place,” Jungkook said, “I’ve known you for years…and still feel like….I know nothing about you–oh fuck I’m going to puke.”

             Everyone had now crossed the drunk threshold. It was the point in the night where your faces were hot, your vision stayed out of focus, and your judgement was at it’s worst. It was definitely at it’s worst, because on any other day no one would have dared to ask Yoongi that.

             It was just an unspoken rule across The Academy, for teachers and students alike.

            Never ask Min Yoongi what got him there.

             “Yeah, it can’t be worse than the rest of us,” Hoseok said.

             Yoongi just sat in the corner, telling you to stop while you were ahead with his eyes, but no one noticed.

             “It’s probably something crazy,” Jimin said, “I just get that vibe from him.”

             “Yeah, he probably skinned his neighbor’s house pets or something,” Seokjin laughed, making everyone else burst out into a drunken fit of giggles.

             “No, it probably had something to do with drugs,” Namjoon said, “I bet he ran an underground drug ring.”

             “Seriously what did you do, Yoongi, kill somebody?” you joked.

             The boys roared stupidly, rolling around on the beds and holding their stomachs.

             To this day you weren’t sure if the look of anguish you saw cross his face was a hallucination. But like a ghost he rose from his seat and wordlessly left the room, leaving the rest of you a cackling mess.

Previous   Next

[schfifty-five]

 so grateful to have had the science teachers that i did. every single one has had a profound effect on me, and they were all weird in a way that reminded me i wasn’t alone.  (ordered by grade 1-12, skipping grade 2)

mrs. perino: we passed a jar of heavy whipping cream around the class and shook it till we had butter. she brought bread it so we could try it!

mrs. giordano in third grade, still remember learning how your lungs take in your deoxygenated blood and convert it to oxygenated blood. (she gave away two reference books to the best 2 science students that year and i got the book about marine life and cheyne westerman got the book about the human body and i was honestly devastated by that and continue to be to this day)

mrs. nole, in retrospect, kinda scarred me for life with that day where she kept all the girls back from recess and let us out one by one in order of how well behaved we were. i was last. still relatively patient otherwise. she did, at least, instill a strong understand of the scientific method, which i would be helpless without.

mrs daviskiba, classic old lady science teacher. i remember her saying she didn’t understand why people tried to get rid of wrinkles because hers were only there because she smiled all the time and why would that be a bad thing

mrs. brugger taught me the value of reading and taking notes, as well as how to read a textbook without dying. didn’t really appreciate that till college when i skipped all my classes and taught myself everything in half the time by reading and taking fuckin notes.

MR DVORIN i think in my mind that class was just him and me having a convo. i remember many lessons would just be me, kneeling in my chair, talking with my hands, throwing out hypotheticals to get a better grasp of the scientific principles he was trying to convey. his patience helped me truly understand and love chemistry/physics concepts. i remember being so confused by a question on a test once, and not understanding why i didn’t know the answer, and i just fucking cried like a baby for at least one minute during a 7th grade science test. i distinctly remember him mentioning the statistic that 1 in 10 people are gay in response to something ignorant a classmate stated (which i do not remember). although not necessarily “fact”, it’s more than likely true (given that the current adult population was raised before the extremely recent and still-needing-work movement to accept LGBT ppl) and regardless, it opened my mind to the possibility that not being straight wasn’t “one in a million” type thing. also just in general, he would level with us like any good teacher does. a kid knows when you’re treating them like a kid, and i was so much more comfortable learning when i was treated how i felt.

for example, one time i think we were talking about bad habits or maybe someone was being critical of a nose-picker, but at one point he was like “no guys i’m not saying anything, but if you see a white honda accord sitting at the stoplight outside in the morning, you might see me picking my nose.” his delivery was better but it was validating to see an adult be as candid and as unashamed as i was (or as willing to embrace shame as i was), so i remember that. 

also interesting follow up story, the next year he fell off his roof and broke both his ankles and also got divorced because he was gay. so after knowing and loving him so much everyday for a year, and then having two major things happen to him and i had no way to reach out-- to say i’m sorry and you will get through this-- that was hard. it also made me wonder if he was suffering when i was his student. i was sad to think that someone was struggling with a decision, with a life change, and all i did was spectate. in my mind, he was my friend, and i felt like i had let him down. 

mr. smith was also a gift in that he made me appreciate mr. dvorin so much. he taught with enthusiasm and he definitely made “louder” (more dramatic or eccentric) attempts to convey information with visuals, experiments, jokes, anecdotes. he was a great teacher, but  dvorin was too hard an act to follow, and i’ll only remember mr. smith as a science teacher who was more of a Babysitter than a Science Friend. (which, in retrospect, was probably necessary. any teacher that didn’t tolerate my bullshit, like mr. smith, was crucial to me turning into a moderately acceptable employee)

mr. campbell (biology) i don’t know where to start with this class. the phrase “fucking iconic” comes to mind, but i think that’s more in reference to mr. campbell than the class. it was token milford though. the selection of kids, specifically. plenty of asshole lil bitch boys to pick on me, thankfully seated on the other side of the room. iggy bernotas in front of me. we actually got along great, he was nice and we became good friends on the basis of busting one another’s balls. i once wrote “fatty” (he was tall and skinny) on the back of his sweater as a tasteless joke (i was 14 and had a horrible sense of social norms). although the execution sucked, i stand behind the sentiment. that was the essence of our relationship. i think we were both a little too familiar with being the butt of mean jokes, and getting teased in a non-malicious way (by people who have nothing to gain or lose from you) is incredibly relieving. his mom found it though, and i got called to the principal's offiice. i bawled my eyes out trying to explain that we were friends. i had to take his sweater home and get the ink out, on the condition that i’d pay for it if i didn’t. i felt like an asshole, i just wanted to give him a hard time. iggy wasn’t mad though, i told him how bad i felt. everything was good. regardless, the joking and friendly vibe was arguably sustained by savannah right next to us. she had transferred to milford that year so she didn’t know i wasn’t cool. i don’t remember how i acted in that class, but i’m sure savannah was more tolerant that i deserve, and i remember how kind she was to both iggy and i. vinnie was in front of her, also very patient and kind. anyone that has been around me before yesterday is kind and patient honestly.

mr. campbell is not easy to describe. it takes a semester of his class to truly appreciate this man. i hope if i read this in the future i’ll remember exactly what i mean.  that year in biology was one of my favorites. I will remember the view from my desk forever.

MRS GLEASON taught me so much about love, forgiveness, enthusiasm, and how you don’t have to be bouncing off the walls every day, but that it doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to bounce off the walls if that’s the kind of day it is. i have a lot of ups and downs, and people have trouble dealing with unpredictable moods, so on down days, i used to spend a lot of energy that i didn’t have trying to poorly maintain the persona that people expected, and now i just don’t. i get down some days, and i get happy and energetic other days. that doesn’t mean i won’t still do a good job. mrs. gleason got through to me and i gained a majority of my scientific confidence in her class, but she didn’t have to be the exact same person everyday. a lot of people are stable everyday, but if you aren’t, that’s ok.

Mrs. Kempff would’ve been a great teacher, and AP chem could’ve been a way better class, but i was extremely anxious and in a bad way during junior year. i don’t remember much of what happened, but i know i could’ve mastered the content of that class if i had better tools to deal with my “fuckin head” as they say. 

mrs. gleason also taught me physics in senior year which was pretty fun. everyone needs to understand AT LEAST conceptual physics. if you have any interest in increasing the efficiency of your life and the actions you take, learn basic physics. if you have any interest in anything, basic physics.

i feel like i probably had one or two decent science professors in college, but i never went to class, so i wouldn’t know. I would like to thank me for teaching me science in college. me was very inspiring and showed me that you can accomplish anything you believe in, as long as it’s before the adderall wears off.

thank you for reading, i hope you have all had wonderful science teachers and you use your science knowledge to make the world more gooder.

[projectbadboy-blog]

2

Hauling my backpack up my shoulder I jumped off the bus and looked at the scene in front of me. The same school I once used to attend four years ago was still standing tall. The walls now repainted from peach to a pearly white color that complimented the tall blue tinted windows, the trees and bushes were well kept looking full and green. There were students walking in groups, some laughing the others trying to fill their friends with the latest scoop and what not. "Not much of a change here I guess." Duke spoke reading the expression on my face once he got off the bus himself. "It does feel the same." I chuckled. "Come on let's go inside, we've got ten minutes until the first class starts and you need to get a locker and the timetable and that might take some time so let's hurry, I also have a presentation in the first period." he nodded his head towards the entrance. He has a presentation? What if he gets late because of me? I can do this on my own, I mean I've been here before and it's not my first time in this school. "Hey why don't you go ahead and prepare for that presentation you have? I'll go to the reception on my own, it's not really the first time I've been here I'm sure I can find my way around." I smiled reassuringly as we walked towards the glass doors. Duke furrowed his eyebrows. "Are you sure about that?" "Yes I'm sure." I let out a laugh. "Oh okay, I'll see you around then." he smiled. "Yep bye, oh and good luck with the presentation!" "I don't need luck!" He said sounding annoyed. "Haha okay fine, do well." We then parted ways as I began heading over to the receptionist sitting behind her desk. The interior of the place still looked the way it used to, pearly white tiles and beige walls. "Excuse me, I'm a transfer student and I need a timetable and a locker." I smiled at the receptionist, she had brown hair pulled back into a tight bun, not even a strand out of place. She looked like she was in her early forties but who am I to judge? "May I have your name Miss Transfer Student?" she chuckled a little. I laughed sheepishly at my silliness, I'm so stupid I forgot to tell her my name, that's not embarrassing at all right? "It's Camilla Jervis." I replied still smiling feeling embarrassed. "Alright just a moment." she began clicking and typing away on her laptop and I stood there looking around me. The trophies sitting in the shelfs had increased and so had the certificates that were hung on one corner of one of the walls. "Ah yes, Camilla," she pulled out a sheet of paper from one of the stacks at her desk and scribbled something down on it, "here you go. That's the timetable according to the subjects you chose which happen to be the science stream and that's the pin for your locker. If there's anything else you need you can always come back to the reception." she slid the paper over to my direction and I grabbed it and  thanked her then left the reception and took a look at my time table. Looks like it'll be a busy day today, sighing I put my timetable into my bag and started skimming through the locker numbers looking for the right one; 201. 112... 146... 171... 199... 201! Found it, the lockers have gotten an upgrade, we first used to be given keys but now it seems tho we get a pin to unlock them. I began punching in the digits and tried opening it but it wouldn't budge. I tried again but still nothing. What is this monstrosity!? At this rate I'll be late and not to mention it's the very first day of school some impression I'll be leaving on my teacher. I tried again but still nothing. "Hey, do you need some help?" My head whipped towards the direction of the voice, there was a girl walking towards me. She had pastel pink hair tied into a messy bun and she was wearing a deep necked plain baggy gray shirt with a pair of leggings that had a paint splattered pattern on them. "The locker wouldn't budge." I said letting out a laugh. "Yeah I know, you need to twist the handle real hard." She turned the handle then grinned at me when the locker opened up. "Oh thank you so much I thought I was gonna get late for class!" I said grinning. "By the way I'm Ymir. She stuck her hand out for me to shake and I took it. "The name's Camilla but you can call me Cam too." "That's a cool name, so what are you having for the first period?" "Here take a look yourself." I said handing her my timetable. She skimmed over it before her lips parted. "Would you look at that, you and I are having a lot of classes together, it's best if we start becoming friends now." she laughed and I laughed along with her. "Come on lets get you to class, we've got Biology for our first period and as boring as this subject sounds, Ms. Carla really knows how to make it interesting."she finished with the usher of her hand and I started to walk alongside her towards our class. Walking into the class, I noticed there was no teacher in the class yet and walked over to an empty seat and let myself settle there getting weird looks in the process. I sat there looking out the window until minutes after somebody entered. "Good morning class," I ripped my gaze off the scenery outside to look at the woman standing in the front of the classroom behind the teachers desk, she had her hands on the table smiling, "I hope you had an awesome vacation and I'm happy to see most of you here today. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Carla and I'm your biology teacher so you guys are gonna be stuck with my for this year." she ended with a chuckle and I felt myself smile at what she said. I guess this year isn't gonna be so bad. ~~~ The day flew by so fast, it's already break. Ymir was right, biology wasn't boring at all with this teacher– what was her name again? ... Great, I forgot. I quickly placed my books into my locker and decided to head towards the cafeteria, I didn't get a chance to talk to Duke as he was sitting on the other side of the world during maths and so far that's the only class we've had together. I grabbed some food and sat on one of the tables that were left unoccupied and began to eat and the next thing I knew somebody slammed their tray of food on the opposite side of the table, "When I first heard that Camilla was back I didn't actually believe it because I thought she'd tell me first but look at you!" Looking up from my food, my eyes landed on the girl standing in front of me, she had a red jacket on top of her plain white shirt, a pair of marine blue skinny jeans paired with red wedged converse. Her hair was blond and perfectly curled reaching below her shoulders and her face – don't even get me started – it was caked with a lot of makeup.  "Err– do I know you?" I gave her a genuinely confused look. Her eyes went wide and her hands dramatically clutched her chest, "Oh my heart! I knew this day would come where you'll forget me! I knew it! after going to Dubai you totally forgot about me didn't you?!" "Umm..." I internally cringed at the amount of attention my table was now getting and whispers began to rise in the cafeteria. "Why don't you sit down and we can talk about this properly?" "Sit down?!" she scoffed. "I am so disappointed in you! You actually forgot your best friend, your partner in crime, the girl who'd always scold you like your mother! You completely forgot about me!" she started to sob dramatically. Woman, you're already nagging at me like my mum. "Look I really don't know you, maybe you've mistook me for some other Camilla, I'm sure there are a lot of other Camillas lying around in different parts of this school... or better yet different parts of the world." She suddenly turns toward the girl standing beside her – I didn't even notice her presence, Ymir was standing there with a poker face she then gave me an acknowledging look. "Do you hear her talking? She says she doesn't know me." she enveloped Ymir in a tight hug and sobbed harder whereas Ymir uncomfortably patted her back afraid that if she did anything wrong the blonde would pull her neck off. "Meredith, Meredith Collins." she suddenly pulls away and throws those words at me. "Woah, woah, woah, how do you know that name?" And that's when it hit me hard. This was the girl whom I would do every kind of crazy thing with, we'd never look prim and proper, wearing bright colours and a lot of make up was a no-no and now look at her all dolled up. "Meredith you stupid girl what is wrong with you!? what happened to your clothes, your short hair, and oh my Lord, your face!" I emphasized the last bit. She immediately grinned forgetting she was trying to be mad at me. "Do you like it? I like dressing up now I mean its so cool what makeup can d to you, don't you think?" "You traitor." I said narrowing my eyes. Ymir on the other hand kept looking between us not understanding what we were going on about. "It's a long story." I looked at her and laughed and her lips formed an 'o' letting out an awkward laugh. "But seriously, how could you not remember me, just because I now like dressing up doesn't mean I got a plastic surgery done and you can't recognise me anymore." "Well you do look different." "You have gotten pretty too." she smiled. "Mer I never said that you looked pretty and hold on– did you just say that I used to look ugly before?" "Mhm." the two of them had settled down an had began to eat, Ymir nibbling on her sandwich and Meredith sophisticatedly continued eating her chicken salad, I looked down at my plate at my half eaten slice of pepperoni pizza then looked back at Meredith who was talking on about something with Ymir sitting beside her completely engrossed in her phone. Just what have you become Meredith? ~~~ Once again, I'd really love your feedback 😄