#red wood banister

[zaynsource]

Vinyl - Exterior

[nanaminokanojo]

BAD NEWS (part 58)

-just when you thought you were over your humongous crush on your older brother’s best friend, geto suguru, you couldn’t have been more dead wrong, except satoru doesn’t like suguru for you because he knows his kind all too well: a huge ass playboy who breaks hearts like he changes socks. but you think, MAYBE you’ll be the exception…maybe not.

CHARACTERS: drummer!geto suguru x you/afab reader | gojo satoru | various jjk characters

GENRE: full-length smau + prose | band au | college au | stupid pining | aged-up characters | friends to lovers (?) | smut

TW/CW: strong/mature language | adult content so mdni on some parts | mentions of alcohol, drugs | mentions of cheating, promiscuity, mild dubcon, etc. | god-awful pet names | toxic behavior | will add more if something arises

MASTERLIST | CHAPTER INDEX

<<prev part 58 next>>

A/N: Smutty things ahead, be warned. Panels 3 to 10 at the end. 😊

Red-bottoms in hand, you slung one arm over Mai's shoulder, both of you dissolving into giggles when you started dancing barefoot on the stone steps that led to your doorstep while her twin looked on in abject annoyance. It was mostly about Mai who insisted on coming out of the car to walk you to the door and you basically encouraging it. She didn't know what was worse, this or when you guys jumped into a loud discussion about your favorite pro footballers earlier during the ride.

"What's the code to the door, Y/N?" Maki asked you as she hoisted Mai over to her other side to split the two of you up.

"Code? Code..." You swayed dangerously towards the side of the elevated step by the door, and she was only able to pull you in time before you fell on the rose bushes. You laughed at how she rolled her eyes before stumbling towards the door, almost hitting your head against the hard wood. Still, you repeated the same word over and over again, thinking long and hard about what to punch on the glowing blue buttons.

"Well?"

"Ah!" you responded, raising your index finger up. "Toru...it's..." You swallowed hard, the action coming with a little hiccup that sent Mai into another round of giggles, also triggering you.

"His birthday?" Maki supplied for you and you nodded vigorously, about to raise your arms but you hit your shoe against the door, gasping as you checked for scuffs as if you could see straight.

Shaking her head, she punched the numbers into the keypad, successfully opening it. "Get inside. I'll help you to your room."

You waved your hands at her. "No, no...'m fine, Captain." You stepped in rather unsteadily.

"You sure?"

Again, you snickered at the way her brow arched but nodded nonetheless, doing a little dance as you said goodbye to Mai whom Makit dragged away to the car just as you were closing the door.

"Toru?" you called, but got no answer, swaying towards the stairs and haphazardly holding onto the banister whilst you still held onto your heels, careful not to drop them. One wobbly step at a time, you pulled your weight up, snickering when you nearly tripped. You did that halfway up and made it the rest of the way crawling on all fours.

You blindly made your way to the second room from the stairs, slowly and quietly pushing the door, or at least as quietly as you can in your drunken state. It's more like you pushed your way in, hand faltering several times on the knob. When you finally stumbled in, it was dark. You didn’t turn on the lights, you were not confident you can find the switch anyway, so you just started stripping your clothes off until you were just in the tiny, form-fitting dress you wore to the club, your heels dropping with loud thuds on the laminate floors.

You still had the mind to think about washing the makeup off of your face, marching towards the wall you knew your dresser was at, but you didn't see it there.

"Huh," you muttered under your breath, the effort you exerted trying to walk without falling making your head spin even more. There was no way you were making it anywhere else, so you opted for the bed which was closer, and finally fell into it.

You could have sworn you heard someone groan somewhere near you, but you couldn’t care less, giggling when you felt an irregular lump on where you had fallen. You nearly slipped off the bed, but somehow, you didn't, a warm, snug feeling engulfing you as you lay face down, comfortable on the spot you've chosen. You clung to that feeling of sleep starting to devour you, afraid that if you opened your eyes, your world would start spinning again so you screwed your eyes shut, and soon, you were dead to the world with nothing but the feeling of warm hands soothing your back.

Wait...hands?

The idea seemed ridiculous to you. You kept your eyes closed, thinking it was just the alcohol and that you were probably just imagining things. Very specific ones involving a man with beautiful, long, ebony hair and the way he smelled – smoky wind in a pine forest with hints of something akin to limes and sandalwood – along with that familiar warmth that reminded you of home and everything else familiar to you.

You were still too dizzy, but not without any coherent thoughts as you seemed to lack just moments ago. How long you've been trying to get sleep in the suddenly uncomfortable position you were in, you didn't know. But you were slowly realizing that something was amiss, making your heart thud heavily in your chest. You, however, couldn't pinpoint just what it was in your state of inebriation.

Just then, you felt the "bed" you were laying on shift, and you could have sworn you felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around your shoulder and waist, gently easing you to your back.

"Kitten?" came those deep mellow notes you'd know anywhere, and something seemed to click in your brain, the dress you were wearing suddenly feeling too tight as heat flared up all over your body. Ironically, you felt like shivering.

In the seconds that followed, the cogs in your brain moved and you realized you made a bed out of someone, and when you finally came to full awareness and opened your eyes, you were confronted by the face of your older brother's best friend, mere centimeters from yours, slowly breaking into that lopsided smile, faint dimples making themselves known as he looked down at you sleepily. The action enhanced his features even in the semi-darkness, hot-wiring your already addled brain.

You wanted to bolt right out of bed, but his steady amber gaze held you there, not to mention the alcohol in your system. “Su...suguru?” You chuckled, torn between thinking your seeing the real thing or some specter of your fantasies. But at that point, who cares?

You tilted your head to the side, flashing him a sultry smile even as his brows furrowed together. "Whatchu doin' here, sexy?" you slurred.

“I slept over,” he answered, grinning cheekily at you as he got rid of some stray hairs on your cheek, his cold fingers brushing over your skin. You inched towards his touch, humming in satisfaction. “What are you doing here, kitten?”

You did a little scoff or something close to it. “This is my room.”

“No, sweetheart, this is the guest room.” His voice sounded so velvety, making you shiver visibly.

“Well shit…” You chuckled as you closed your eyes, willing the nausea away. “Give me a sec.”

You felt Suguru move closer to you, your foreheads touching as he wrapped his arms tighter around you as he laid back down, guiding you to lie on your side. “I don’t mind.”

“Funnily enough, I don’t either.” You looked at him unsteadily, seemingly unable to focus as you blinked slowly, trying to make sense of what you were currently seeing. Without thinking, you placed a hand on his cheek, running the pad of your thumb over his skin. And then you broke into a smile. "I can never seem to reach you..."

Suguru placed a hand over yours. "What do you mean? I've always been here," he whispered back. "You'll always have me, kitten. You know that."

You shook your head. "No..."

"No?"

"Not..." You breathed in, moving your fingers over the line of his nose, trying to be gentle, afraid that he will disappear. But when he didn't, you dared to touch his cupid's bow, tracing along it as you slowly released your breath a little at a time. "Not like this."

Suguru looked at you in confusion now."Not like what, hm?" At that, he started nuzzling you on the cheek until your lips were mere millimeters away. "Care to explain that?"

"Like this."

"Mhmm?" He brushed his nose against yours.

"This close..."

This can't be real, you thought, your heart sinking in your chest. In the slowness of your mind, you suddenly had so many things making themselves evident. You hated how even in your drunken moments, it was only Geto Suguru that you could think off; how your longing was conjuring images in your head so damn real, it made your yearning even stronger. You've wanted him for so long that your brain is making things up.

You sat up, easing his arms off you gently, but then, the look of disappointment on his face made you stop.

"Y/N, what's wrong?"

"This whole thing – this...y-you, here, right now. This isn't right – You're not even real, why am I talking to you?"

He, too, sat up, his face inching closer towards you as if daring you to move farther from him, but you didn’t. "I am real, Y/N. I am in front of you."

You chuckled as you felt your resolve faltering, submitting to your daydreams and imagination, making you lose yourself enough to believe what this version of Suguru was telling you.

“I’m still drunk, right?”

Suguru snickered, nodding. “Pretty much.”

You leaned closer. “Good. At least I have an excuse.”

"Excuse for?"

Instead of an answer, you cupped his face as you rose to your knees, crashing your lips to his slightly parted ones, hoping and praying to every higher power that this was real, and not just happening inside your head.

**

How could you tell him he wasn't real? You weren't real. None of this was.

It's not real that you just strolled into the guest room Suguru happened to be in, drunk to your toes. It's not real that you just decided to make a bed out of him. It's not real, everything that you said to him. It's not –

Oh. But this felt real – the feeling of your skin against his, warm and flushed and so smooth under his calloused palms; your presence as you weighed down on him, hands firm at the sides of his head as you coveted him; the feel and taste of your plush lips, a cocktail of your lip gloss, alcohol and whatever you were made of, pressed against his, the air you were breathing one and the same.

This was real. It's happening. And he wanted it. Oh, how much he had longed for it...waited for it. Before he knew it, he was opening his mouth, fingers delving into your hair to hold you in place, returning every adamant movement of your lips, giving it back with his. It's been over a year since you left him with the taste of you lingering at the back of his mind and the tip of his tongue, thinking he will never have the pleasure of ever knowing it again. And yet there you were again, in his arms, him locked in yours, giving him what he's always wanted and filling that void that he tried so hard to fill when you went away without acknowledging matters between you.

"Suguru," you spoke against his mouth, almost begging, trapping him in a bewitching spell from which he never wanted to snap out of as if you were calling his very soul. He never thought his name ever sounded so good coming out of someone else's mouth, and yet you seemed to be giving it a whole new meaning.

Entranced and enchanted, he unconsciously took the initiative, recapturing your lips as he pulled you even closer to him. A nagging voice at the back of his head told him to stop, but it went unheard when you slid your tongue between his lips, the sound of your moaned out triumph rendering what's left of his capacity to reason useless. You took your fill of him, giggling when you found that piece of silver embedded on his tongue, reaching for it with yours.

With a whine, you anchored yourself on his shoulder, kneeling astride his lap and leveraging the tangle of sheets below you to push him backwards until he was lying against the pillows. You followed after him, in hot pursuit of his lips which momentarily detached from yours, eyes glazed and wild as you laughed quietly, the sound almost sounding like a purr.

Getting a bit of clarity, Suguru pushed himself up, steadying you by the waist to stop you from going even further. "Kitten," he shook his head, "Y/N, you're drunk – mmmff –!"

Huge mistake as you were having none of it, your lips immediately finding his like a homing missile that's got its target locked. And if that didn't make a hot mess out of him, you deliberately ground your hips against his, the fabric of his sweats and your underwear providing much of the friction both of you yearned for yet not enough. You gasped as the apex of your thighs rubbed precisely over his hardening length, but it didn't even take you a second to do it again, unable to get enough.

"Kitten, don't – holy shit, baby..."

"Want you," you mumbled against his lips as you continued to grind against him, your hand reaching underneath you as you grabbed fistfuls of his gray sweats, clawing at the fabric and along the skin of his iliac furrow, making him hiss as you managed to pull it off of him. He held onto your wrist in an attempt to stop you again, but to no avail.

Suguru knew you had a one-track mind, and like Satoru, if you wanted something, come hell or high water, you will get it. The means didn't matter. You were both such brats growing up that he knew as much. And it seems it didn't matter what state of mind you were in either. You sought and you took without thinking twice, the same way you saw your goals on the field and executed them. This time he was the field, and you were going to conquer him regardless.

You bent down, kissing him senseless again, your hand firm on his nape while the other one guided his hand under your dress. You smirked into the kiss, nipping at his lower lip before letting go and saying, "Take it off."

"A-are you –"

"Yes."

You didn't have to tell him twice. In the next second, your pesky underwear was out of the way and your bare, wetness was pressed down midway his cock, pinning it flat against his stomach. Your grip on his shirt was tight as you started to rock back and forth over his length, setting your rhythm.

Again, as much as he thought it wasn't really happening, that his mind was probably trapped in a perpetual oasis of dreams that were solely made of you, Suguru was much too awake to deny it, all his nerves firing within him as the realization dawned that you were there. Crazy drunk. On top of him. Chasing your pleasure and taking you with him.

His hands were all over you, not knowing where to touch until he finally found purchase on your ass, kneading your flesh as he directed your movements closer to his tip until it was repeatedly catching into your slick folds while also simultaneously stimulating your sensitive bundle of nerves. Your snagged breaths and airy moans made him want to just topple you into the bed and take over you, but Suguru kept his restraint, merely satisfying himself with the view of you dominating him, your lips parted as you threw your head back in pleasure.

This was about you, and he wouldn't have it any other way. If you wanted him, you can have him, use him to your heart's content even if it meant you will forget when you wake up.

Do you even realize what you were doing? He wondered at that, feeling a twinge on his chest at the thought that you'll slip from his grasp again when daylight comes.

No, he thought. Not this time.

He felt your movements grow erratic, your nails scratching at the skin of his chiseled abdomen.

"Fuck, baby, right there," he encouraged you, helping your movements as you evidently grew tired chasing your high. His fingers will bruise your hips with how tight he was gripping you, intensifying the heat between where you were touching until you were spasming and letting out high-pitched moans, your release fueling your movements as it dripped onto him.

"Sugu...ru..." you called his name, mostly broken parts of it as he let you ride your high, eventually leading to his own undoing.

"K-kitten – fuck!" he let out along with his stuttering breaths when he, too, came hard, staining his stomach and the inner side of your thighs.

He breathed deeply, sweat matting his skin. He let out a quiet chuckle as he watched you listing towards the side, all spent and succumbing to the exhaustion, coupled with the alcohol still in your system.

Before you could fall, Suguru got up, gently laying you down on the bed before removing his shirt and silently making his way to the bathroom, suddenly reminded that Satoru was just at the end of the hallway.

He's fucked, he knew that, but he couldn't help but smile to himself as he watched you squirm and groan in your sleep while he cleaned you up and changed your clothes, patiently removing your makeup even when you swatted at his hands irritably.

After all that, he carried you back to your room, making sure you were comfortable, leaning down to place a kiss on your forehead, the act seemingly chaste and out of place after all that you two have done.

He sighed, much too awake to get back to sleep, his mind on the consequences of the night's events, but he couldn't care less, not even at the thought that Satoru might hate him.

Because Geto Suguru may be damned to the deepest pits of hell, but as long as he has you, he'll gladly suffer in the flames for it.

TAG LIST: @lilc77 @strxkbylightning @lavender-hvze @maya-maya-56 @kibananya @nerdisthenewcool @darkstarlight82 @lysaray @ti-mame @ri-sa20 @diogodxlot @starlightanyaaa @sugurubabe @guacam011y @yeehawslap @luvvmae @s-j320 @ichorstainedskin @iaminyourfloors @tanchosanke @hellyyy06 @tacobellfreshavocado @mrs-monkey-d-luffy

© ORIGINAL WORK BY nanaminokanojo. CHARACTERS ARE INSPIRED BY GEGE AKUTAMI’S “JUJUTSU KAISEN”. [20240605]

PHOTOS/IMAGES/GIF/FANART/ANY MEDIA CREDITS GO TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

[neesieiumz]

ma bellamour ⇴ ”someone as beautiful… could love someone as me” ⸻ c. kamo

Part I. Part II

synopsis ⇴ "Ooh, love is beautiful, love is wonderful!" ⸻ ma belle evangeline.

warnings ⇴ 18+. sm*t. soft-dom!choso. minors do not interact. fluff. mobster!au. (this shows up more in part ii) inn-owner!reader. takes place similar to new orleans but it's not! has lots of time skips as well. single-mom!reader. yuuji is a little kid in here. choso is the best big brother as well. black!coded reader. afab reader. female anatomy. sukuna ryomen is his own warning. however, he is only in a small part in this part. mentions of torture. there are also ocs in here, the most important one is reader's daughter, who is also named evangeline as well. choso has a huge scar on his chest, it's for the plot. descriptions of torture. no beta readers cause I need to get this out in time. choso art credit — affectbitter on twitter

writer’s notes ⇴ THIS IS SO LATE I KNOW! It was supposed to be a Valentine's Day gift for you all but I was indecisive about how to do it! y'all must know where I got inspired for this work. my favorite Disney princess movie! as you can tell it's pretty long... but I really hope you guys enjoy It!

word count ⇴ 9.9k

The air smelled of old car oil, and the rumbling sounds of the cars going up and down the cracked streets. The sidewalks were filled with people, constantly moving up and down, with all walks of life interacting with each other. He held his brother close to him, feeling his chest move up and down as he slept soundly. They were covered in dirt and grime, exhaustion weighing heavily on his eyes. The train journey was long and tiring, and he could feel his stomach cramp up in hunger and dehydration. His clothes were heavy with sweat and dirt, adding extra weight to his already weary body. However, he still pressed on, the feeling of his little brother’s heartbeat close to him. Choso maneuvered through the crowds, pushing through until he rounded a corner. A hanging sign, deep oak colored with fancy shimmering light green words caught his attention, Marina Inn, Bed and Breakfast. There were floral designs around the sign, in the same light green sparkle color the words were in, a simple but eye-catching design. 

However, what really had his attention was the words under it, an obvious sliding sign, for those who wished to change the words under them, now said capacity: Vacancy. He could almost collapse in relief, everywhere he had gone was full. According to conversations he overheard, a huge fair was in town, attracting all kinds of people worldwide. So to see somewhere with some kind of space where they could rest their heads. He approached the door, slowly bending down to place the suitcase in his hand on the concrete ground, careful not to wake Yuuji. He then opened the door, using his foot to prop it open before bending down, and picking up his luggage back up. He stepped inside the hotel, the door slowly closing behind him. 

It was cozy, the lobby as Choso glanced around, a fireplace roaring with a flame in front of him. Dark-colored wood, matching the color and material of hanging signs outside surrounded him. The banister of the stairs led up to the upper levels of the inn. A brim-brick fireplace, roared with an orange-red flame, the heat engulfing the area. He took a deep breath, his shoulders unintentionally relaxed, this aura, this palace had a familiar sense to it. One he had not felt in a very long time. He glanced down at his sleeping brother, the tufts of his pink hair moving up as he softly snored. Beside the fireplace, was a desk, the check-in desk. It was empty currently, and his eyes landed on the sign standing on the desk, next to a bell. 

Ring for assistance!

He placed his bag down once again, shuffling Yuuji in his arms to give himself some reprieve, before pressing the bell two times. He waited for a moment, taking in his surroundings just a bit more before a sweet voice called out from the back:

“I’ll be right with you!”

He didn’t know what to say, so he just waited, resting his now free hand on the one holding his brother. Choso soon heard footsteps approaching him, getting closer and closer before the sound of heavy breathing got closer as well. 

“Sorry bout the wait, there was a grease clog in one of the stoves and my fixer ain’t coming until tomorrow,” your voice was much clearer as you came out from the back, approaching the desk. 

You had yet to look at him, but Choso had seen you. Your hair was wrapped in a white scarf, now obviously stained with dirty black-yellow grease. Tied around your neck and clothes was once a pure white apron, stained with the same color grease stains. You also wore a simple creme blouse, along with a yellow-and-white checkered skirt, flowing all around you. They were both covered in grease stains as well. Choso slowly shook his head, slightly mesmerized by your very form, despite the grease and grunge.

“It’s fine,” he finally pushed out, “I’m not in any kind of rush anyways.”

You nodded your head, and that’s when you finally looked up to see who was in front of you. Your eyes widened in concern at his state of being. 

“Oh my, you must have come a very long way, I’m assuming you’ll be needing two rooms?” You said, pulling out a book. 

Immediately, he shook his head, “just one please.”

You glanced between the two of them, “are you sure, sir?”

He took a deep breath nodding his head, “yes, one is just fine, preferably with two beds if you have it?”

You hummed,, before flipping through the large book, “we have available rooms with two beds, if that’s what you prefer.”

“Will that cost extra…?” he could help but tentatively asked.

He left with only so much money, enough for the train tickets to get all the way here and some food for Yuuji. You look at him, before peering down at Yuuji sleeping soundly in his arms. Smiling softly, you shook your head. 

“No, it won’t be extra, depending on how long you can stay of course?”

Dropping his clunky rectangular suitcase, he trudged through his pocket, before pulling out both his wallet along with a folded napkin. He tried to reach over, but with Yuuji still in his arms, he couldn’t fully open up the wallet and napkin. He grumbled, reaching over and over again but he still couldn't reach. He whispered a curse to himself, before jumping as he felt a hand gently tap him on the shoulders. He looked over and it was you, no longer standing behind the counter desk. You held your hands out, glancing down at Yuuji before looking at Choso.

“I can hold him, if you wish to get settled first?” You asked him.

Immediately, he shook his head, “oh no, I couldn’t bother—”

You shook your own head back at him, “nonsense, it is no bother to me at all. Plus, he reminds me of my daughter.”

Choso doesn’t know why that singular piece of information dampened his heart, is it the idea that you were married? He had no time to focus on that, he thought to himself as he leaned down, allowing you to slowly scoop Yuuji from his arms. The small pink-haired boy whined for a moment taking a deep breath, and with no extra beat, he relaxed in your hold, snuggling against your form and unconsciously making himself comfortable. Your sweet smile slightly reverberated in his heart as you slightly rocked him, walking back to your post behind the desk. With his newly-freed hand, he was able to open up his wallet, pulling out the last few bills in it. He placed that on the desk, before reaching towards the folded napkin, revealing the secret stack of bills. His heart slightly dropped at what he had to do to get them, the life that he had to leave behind for something better. 

He looked up at you, “how… how much would a week stay be?”

You hummed, looking away from Yuuji to look at him, “one week…?” you questioned.

You told him the amount, and he could feel himself almost fall to the floor with relief. He had enough for that, luckily, unfortunately, he’ll have to dip into the blood money he took, currently wrapped up in the dirty napkin. He pulled out a few extra bills, before putting his now empty wallet and the folded napkin back in his pocket. He then handed you the money, which you thanked him for before placing it in a drawer you must have unlocked while he was distracted. With your free hand, you handed him the log-in book, telling him where to sign his name and date. 

He handed you back the book, allowing you to look at his name, “Choso Kamo,” you tested on your tongue, elongating the “o” in his last name.

He straightened up, unconsciously as spoke his name. He watched you turn back around, picking up the key that dangled around your neck. With no warning, you pulled the key right off your neck, before sticking the keyhole in the wall. Twisting and turning the key, Choso heard something unlock before the wall split into two sides, before opening up, revealing the rows of keys. They were all the same color, rustic brown with a dangling tag hanging off the end of each of them. Maneuvering your pointed hand, you ‘tsked multiple times to yourself, figuring out which key to give them. You soon picked a key in the top right corner, the very key in the top corner. You dropped the key in your pocket before closing the hidden wall, hearing the familiar click before twisting your key, and pulling it out. 

Turning around, you stepped from behind your post once again, smiling over at Choso. 

“Follow me, and don’t forget your bag!”

With that, he was hot on your trail as you led him up the stairs, the sounds of your more dainty steps combined with his more heavy ones. The wood squeaked under him, and he almost thought he was too dense for these stairs. However, you paid the sounds no mind, continuing up the stairs, passing the second floor, the hall split into two directions, making some kind of ‘L’ shape, with the stairs being right at the corner. You continued to lead them up the stairs, heading up to the more quiet, more private third floor. It only had one hallway, looking straight ahead. The low ambiance eased the pounding headache he constantly ignored. You lead them down the hallway, passing by a few doors, before stopping two doors away from the end of the hall, in which another door stood.

You pulled the key out of your pocket, before sticking it into the keyhole in the doorknob and twisting it open, the door clicking open. An indescribable feeling ran through Choso as he looked upon the new room, where he would be laying his head for an indescribable future. It was spacious and looked as if a family was supposed to live there instead of two brothers. He said nothing as the two of you walked into the room, there was a living room and a bit towards the back, seeing the opened door leading to a bedroom with a large, readily made bed. He looked over to the right where you were heading, seeing another opened door and finding a much smaller bedroom in there. You pushed the door open further, revealing a simple room, with a bit more color than the environment in the makeshift living room. It was obviously a children’s room, which made it perfect as you slowly reached down, pulling the sheets back before placing the small child on the bed, before pulling the soft blankets over him. 

You soon turned back to Choso, pressing your index finger against your lips, he nodded slowly before the two of you tip-toeing out of the room. Once out of the room, you reached out, slowly closing the door behind you with a soft click. 

“This room is definitely more than the amount I paid, with all due respect ma’am…” he trailed off, soon realizing he didn’t know your name. 

You giggled a bit, before giving him your name, “and I don’t know what you mean Mr. Kamo, last I checked this was my inn, so I made the prices.”

The sound of your name rang through his head, as you hummed, before turning to the right, heading toward the much bigger bedroom. He couldn't help but shake his head, before following right behind you. He entered the room, and the size of it surprised him. 

“Here is your bedroom of course, please make yourself comfortable as much as possible, lunch was already served one hour ago but dinner will be at 7:30!”

You turned towards him, before dropping the key in his hands. He was still in slight shock at your amount of generosity, and how well you have treated him in so little time. 

You reached up, placing your hand on his shoulder, “get some sleep, Mr. Kamo, please.”

You waited a moment, only beginning to leave the moment he nodded his head. He heard your heels clicking against the wooden floors, before hearing the door squeak open. The door soon closed shut, and now Choso was left alone, nothing but his thoughts supposedly running rampant. However, he couldn't find the amount of worry and fear he had been so used to the moment he left his old life. Dropping the suitcase, the loud bang echoed through the room affecting him. He was like a zombie, slowly taking heavy steps reaching and going to his destination. The moment he reached the bed, he fell over, eyes closing shut and the moment his head hit the pillow, he was out. Gone to the world around him. 

Choso awoke with a sharp breath, fear striking his heart as sweat bullets appeared on his face. For a moment, he had no idea where he was. For a moment, he thought he was back at that place, shrouded in a certain darkness he wished to never experience again. Pushing himself up, he glanced around at the cozy, rustic brown-colored room before his memories slowly slipped back to him like the rushing waves in a mirror.

He escaped. He escaped, he escaped with Yuuji. 

Yuuji!

Quickly, he shot up from the bed, feet banging against the wooden floor before stomping out of the room. Scurrying across the room, he swung Yuuji’s door open, expecting to see his little pink-haired brother laying across his bed. Instead, he found an empty-made bed, with a piece of paper sitting neatly on top of it. His heart skipped several beats, feeling it drop as he basically jumped towards the bed, snatching up the piece of paper. 

The handwriting of the first line was too neat to be Yuuji’s. However, the second line looked more like the way he writes. 

Yuuji will be downstairs with me -- Y/n

P.S., you still snore too loudly when you sleep. :( 

Usually, he would have chuckled at that, but his racing heart and brain gave him no time. Crumpling the paper, holding it tight as he left the room, stumping away towards the stairs. Choso got to the stairs, a sudden burst of energy fueling him as he quickly scaled down the stairs. As he got closer to the first floor, he began to call out his name.

“Yuuji! Yuuji, are you here?!”

The moment his eyes landed on the inn lobby on the first floor, the back door flew open, revealing the bright-eyed young child. Choso's heart sighed in relief, the heavy beats immediately relaxed as he made it to the bottom floor. At the same time, Yuuji ran up to him, arms wide. Choso scooped him the moment he was close, holding him close to his heart. After holding him for a bit, he shuffled him around to look at his face, quickly checking over for marks on his face, bruises, and cuts that were not there before. 

“You’re not hurt, are you?” he couldn't help but ask, slowly sliding to the floor. 

The little one shook his head, “no, the nice lady helped me out!” He turned around slightly, pointing towards the back.

He looked up, only to see you standing there, but not only you. Gripping at your long skirt, was a little girl, just around Yuuji’s age as well. She had a blue dress on with pink patterns, and her hair was in little braids, with black and blue beads at the end, held in two ponytails. Her eyes were unwavering as they looked at Choso, continuing to hold on to her mother’s skirt. Looking back up at you, you still wore the same outfit as earlier, only wearing a new apron with no grease stains but rather stains of blue, and floury-chalky white. 

“My apologies if we caused you any distress,” your sweet voice rang out, “Yuuji couldn’t wake you up, so I wrote a note saying where he’ll be.”

You stepped forward, holding the little girl’s hands as you did so. Choso took a short breath before standing up fully, shaking his head. 

“No need to apologize, it’s just… it’s been a while since Yuuji left my side like that.”

You nodded your head, “of course, I understand completely.”

He nodded his head, before looking at Yuuji once again, fully taking in his state of being, “Yuuji, why are you covered in wet flour and…” he took a moment to lift up his coat jacket, sniffing it, “is that blueberries?”

He smiled widely, his white teeth shining against the light, “we were making blueberry muffins!!”

Choso’s eyes quirked up for a moment, “oh really?” He looked back up at you, seeing you nodding your head to confirm.

“We had just put them in the oven when you arrived, they’ll be done by the time people finish their food.”

He nodded his head, glancing around for some kind of clock to see the time.

6:34 pm.

Luckily, he still hadn’t missed dinner yet, he thought to himself as he could feel his stomach squeezing and turning from the lack of food from the past week. 

“Mr. Kamo, I’d recommend you freshen up, those clothes look dirty and old from your journey.”

He nodded his head again, yeah, a shower would do him wonders right now. He then turned to face Yuuji, “you’ll be okay without me, at least for a little more?”

He nodded his head, giving his older brother a thumbs up, “I’ll be fine!”

Choso glanced at you, before looking back at you, “stay with Mrs. Y/n, okay? Listen to her, alright?”

He nodded his head once again, “I will!”

He let out one final breath, before looking up at you, “can you continue to watch him for me, until I come back?”

You nodded your head swiftly, “of course, go get cleaned up!”

You basically shooed him as Yuuji walked back to you, standing right beside your daughter before whispering in her ear. The two of them smiled at each other, before basically running back into the kitchen and back room. Choso turned around, beginning to walk up the stairs, before taking a moment to look back, seeing your figure turned around, following behind the two rascals whose giggles could be heard throughout the lobby. Choso couldn’t help but smile at the sounds of Yuuji’s happiness, something he hadn’t heard in a long time. 

He scaled up the stairs once again, arriving back on the third floor before heading to his room. Choso went back to his room, pulling out another outfit to wear before heading to the bathroom. The bathroom still felt a bit humid from its last use, but he paid it no mind. He shrugged off his old, dirty clothes, placing them in a trash bag he found. He turned on the tub, putting it on the hot water as he waited for it to fill. As steam began to willow through the bathroom, he took a moment to glance at the mirror, his naked body staring right back at him. His scarred hands ran across his scared body, old bruises that hadn’t healed properly, and gnarly scars, scattered across his torso and waist. The most prominent one was the huge reddish-brown scar stretching from his right shoulder, all the way to his lower left hip. As his fingers slowly traced the gash, memories invaded his mind.

He writhed in pain, blood gushing, seeping into his off-white shirt. Above him, he can hear pained sobs, high pitched screams as Yuuji is pulled away from him. Choso cursed, the pain immobilizing him as he could hear his brother’s voice fade further away from him, but he could still hear him screaming his name. 

“...LET GO OF ME! CHOSO! PLEASE DON’T DIE!”

“Quiet, brat!” A stern voice called out.

For a moment, Yuuji’s tears and sobs hushed out of fear. The strong voice turned towards Choso’s writhing body. 

“This is his punishment, be quiet unless you want the same fate.”

He was sniffling, and his brother was sniffing but he didn’t cry out again. All Choso wanted to do was get up, hold him, and tell him everything was gonna be alright. To take him and run as far as he could. Yuuji, his little brother… 

Heavy footsteps soon began to fade, and he could hear something squeak, a door beginning to close. 

“Let’s just see if you can survive this, Choso?”

Darkness surrounds him once again, silence loudly ringing in his ear. His heavy arms pressed against his wound, hoping to somehow, someway, stop the bleeding. The metallic smell of blood hit his nose. He can’t die, and he won’t die, not when Yuuji still needed him. He needed him, they needed to get out, out of this place, out of this life. 

Choso Kamo will not die here. 

With a sharp breath, he forced himself out of the flashback. He glanced back, seeing the tub nearly filling up. He turned around, turning off the faucet before grabbing a clean rag, and slowly stepping into the hot water. He shuddered, taking another step into the heated water. He dipped his rag into the water, before scrubbing the soap along the rag before beginning to wash his body. White suds soon turned brown, evidence of just how dirty he was. 

He sighed, relaxing in the tub. 

To new beginnings, and a new life. 

He felt… renewed, that was the best thing he could describe himself. He thought as he jogged down the stairs. Once he made it down, there were a few more people in the lobby, congregating and talking amongst themselves. He trudged through them, using a simple head nod to greet those who would look at him. He knew what they were staring at, the thick bandage-like mark on his nose, obscuring some of his faces. Most people would just stare, too intimidated by his size to even ask about it. He paid them no mind, hearing Yuuji’s voice come from the open doorway towards the right of the lobby. There were more people in there, all sitting at different tables, with plates of food in front of them as well. He looked around the room, making eye contact with a row of long tables, with trays of hot food steaming from them. The smell wafted through the hair, the savory smell of roasted, seasoned chicken, pasta, and other foods. The sounds of Yuuji speaking got louder and he turned around, only to find him and your daughter sitting at a table in the corner. They both had half-eaten plates of food in front of them, as well as two coloring books in front of them with crayons scattered in front of them. 

He headed towards them, smiling as he headed towards them. As he got closer, his figure must have moved in their peripheral vision because they both looked up, looking straight at him. Yuuji smiled, shouting his name, pushing himself out of the chair before running up to him. Choso scooped him again, holding him close once again. The stains from before were cleaned up, and he now smelled of chicken and pasta. 

“Was the food good?” Choso asked him, his heart warming at his enthusiastic nod. 

“Miss Y/n is an amazing cook! Better than you!”

He tried to ignore the pang in his heart as he said that, smiling in his face. Yuuji gasped, before squirming in his arms. Choso bent down slightly, letting him go as he slid down to the floor before going back to the table. 

“Choso! This is Evageline!” Yuuji held her hand, bringing her closer to you. 

Your daughter, Evangeline, shuffled around, looking everywhere but at him. Just like how his appearance sometimes was off-putting to adults, children can find it unappealing as well. These types of interactions hurt his heart a bit more than with adults. Even so, he took a breath, before holding out his hand. 

“Hi there, Evangeline, my name is Choso. I’m Yuuji’s big brother.”

She glanced down at his hand, before looking back up at him. She was still a bit apprehensive, even taking a point to take a step back a little bit. However, before Choso could say anything, he could feel a figure approaching them from behind, standing right behind him.

“Now that’s not how we greet guests and people, is it Evangeline?” 

He stood up, turning around to face you, this time without any apron on your body. You walked around Choso, taking your daughter softly by her hand and turning her towards you. 

“Hey love,” you spoke softly towards her, “what’s going on?”

Evangeline whispered in your ears as Choso rose back, Yuuji came around the two of you, wrapping his tiny arms around Choso’s legs as the two of you looked at him. You whispered back into her ears as well, Evangeline nodding along with your words. Once the two of you finished speaking with each other, you rose up, holding her in your arms before turning around to the two of them. 

Evangeline looked at Choso before holding out her hand, “sorry, Mr. Kamo. My name is Evangeline.”

Choso couldn't help but smile, reaching out his own hand to gently shake hers, “it’s nice to meet you Evangeline.”

You placed her back down as Yuuji went back to the table with Evangeline, not before telling Choso that he saved a seat for him. You sat with them as Choso walked over to the food table, picking up a plate before stacking it high with food. He grabbed a glass, filling it with water from the pitcher before walking back to the table with you and the children. He placed his plate down, sitting down right beside his brother, picking up his spoon and fork. As he ate, the feeling of hot warm food, not bland as well, was something he hadn’t felt in a long time. 

“Choso, look!”

He must have been too focused on his food, looking up at all three of you staring at him. He could feel bits of food scattered around his mouth, which must have set off the little giggles from their mouth. 

“You look funny,” Yuuji laughed, covering his mouth as well.

Evangeline copied him as well, the two of them giggling away at Choso’s countenance. He looked over at you to see an amused smile on your face as well. Choso could feel his cheeks redden as he reached out, grabbing a napkin to wipe away his mouth. 

“My apologies,” he mumbled, reaching over to tickle Yuuji’s laughter only got louder. 

You shook your head, “no problem, I’m glad you're enjoying the food.”

The conversation flowed between the four of you, mostly between Choso and you as the kids were mainly focused on who can make the best drawing of Choso. He asked you about how you became the owner of this inn, and you delved into a great story about your life here. How this has always been a family business, originally founded by your great-grandmother. You had grown up here, as did your mother and your grandmother as well. Families grew here, before going out the world and making their own marks in the world. You told him the story of how your father saved your business, from a group of thieves with dangerous weapons as well. Unfortunately, he had lost his life in the attack but drove them away enough for the police to get there. You pointed over to the back wall where his face was memorialized on the wall of the dining hall, which was always his favorite place in the inn. You let off a bittersweet chuckle once you had told him that. Choso couldn't help but place a hand on your shoulder, trying his best to provide some comfort to you. 

“Thank you,” you sighed, placing your own hand on top of his, “I just hope he likes the way I run the inn now?”

He smiled, “I’m sure he’s very proud of his daughter.”

You thanked him once again, before feeling a tug on your arm. You looked over at your daughter, who gestured for you to come closer. You nodded along to her words before slowly rising to your feet, taking her hand before leading her away from the table. 

“We have to go do something, but it was great having a conversation with Choso. I hope to see you around the inn as well.”

You waved bye to the two of them, Evangeline did so as well, but more so Yuuji than Choso. That’s fine, he thought to himself, as the two of you headed out of the dining hall. As the two of you walked away, the people all around the dining hall greeted you, smiling in your faces as they complimented your food. The two of you soon disappeared through the open doorway, leaving just the two of you. He glanced over at Yuuji, who stuck his tongue out as he put the finishing touches on his portrait of him. He simply smiled, and ruffled his hair for a bit, before continuing to eat his food. 

Three days had passed, and no luck in finding a new job. 

Choso was at his wit's end, and he didn’t know what to do. He had constantly relied on your help with Yuuji, watching him as he went out into the world, giving his name to anyone who would hear him. No luck. No one would hire him, no callbacks to the inn, no nothing. He refused to want to dip into the folded money, which he had now placed into the bottom left drawer in his nightstand. Blood money, as he’s called it multiple times. However, the week was soon ending, and he needed to find another way to pay for another week in the inn. 

His head hung low as he trudged back into the inn lobby, hearing your voice talking to the new guests in the front. As he turned to the left, he looked over at you as you were instructing the new people on what to sign. For a moment, he looked up, and the two of you locked eyes. You smiled, waving at him, and him immediately waving back. One of the guests caught your attention and you turned back to her, speaking in that high-pitched people-pleaser voice he had heard you use so many times. With his heart lifted up just a bit, he continued up the stairs, soon making it to his room. It was empty, as Yuuji was still downstairs, most likely hanging out with Evangeline in an obscure corner of the inn. He soon made it over to his bed, laying across, letting out a deep, heavy sigh. He was tired, so tired of the constant job hunt, however, they couldn’t stay at an inn forever. He needs to do this, to provide a better life for Yuuji. 

A sudden knock came on the door, and his body sprang up in reaction. 

“Choso…? Can I come in?”

It was you, as you laid another knock on the door. Immediately he shot off the bed, shrugging off the suit jacket you allowed him to borrow. 

“Y…yeah!” he stuttered, walking slowly towards the door. 

He stood in front of the door, taking a deep breath before slowly opening the door. You stood on the other side, a small smile on your face as he looked at you. You wore long baggy, flare-out pants, and a simple black shirt tucked in with a belt as well. You weren’t wearing a scarf that time, your long braids hanging loose, falling to right around your waist. 

“How was the job hunt?” You asked him as you took a couple of steps into the room. 

He blinked, watching as you entered the room, unable to do anything but close the door and watch you for a moment. He soon snaps himself out of it, following after you as you take a seat on one of the seats. 

“I haven’t heard back from anywhere, so… not great.”

You hummed, nodding your head for a moment, squinting your eyes for a moment, before looking up at him. 

“On a scale of one to ten… how good are you at handy-man stuff? Like fixing stuff, etcetera, etcetera.”

He was confused, “if I had to guess… a good six maybe? Why?”

You blinked, “that’s all I need. My last handyman quit on me, so I need someone else.”

He distinctly remembered your meeting, you covered in grease as you complained of the same stove which gives you problems once again. 

“Wouldn’t your husband do things like that?”

Your face dropped for a moment, “husband?” you asked. 

His eyes widened for a moment, “...you’re not married?”

You couldn't help the snickers that came out of your mouth, covering it up immediately with your hand, “Choso, I’m not married. You’d think I’d have a handy-man if I was married?”

You couldn't help the wide-pressed smile at the sight of his cute face slowly turning red from embarrassment. 

“I… apologize, for assuming you were married.”

You shook your head, now showing off your smile, “no no it's fine, trust me. I’ve heard the worst assumptions. So about the handyman job…? You’ll no longer have to pay to stay here!”

He perked up a bit, as it hit him, you were offering him a job right here. Which would be even better for him, being close to Yuuji and watching over him much better. He can’t always rely on you to keep watching him. However, that also means they don’t have to leave the area, and with Yuuji and Eva attached by the hip. It was a win all around.

He nodded his head, “I’ll accept it.”

You smiled immediately standing up, “great! Because the grease stove is broken again and I am not fixing it!”

He stuttered, as you suddenly pulled him up from his seat, “wait I didn’t think we were starting right now!”

He could hear your laughter sound a little mischievous, much like when he would see Eva and Yuuji play a game and she would win multiple times. 

He now sees where she gets it from, he thought as he pulled out of the room. However, he couldn't help the smile that formed on his face as you dragged him downstairs.

He now wore the apron you wore when the grease stove broke the last time as you stood behind him, peering in on him as he got the new clog out. Yuuji and Eva stood behind you, watching Choso battle against the gas-grease stove. 

Once he finished, covered head to toe in black-yellow grease, you easily rewarded him with a glass of lemonade, which you enjoyed with the kids as well. As you stood there, wiping away his face that was stained with dirty oil, the smile the children shared was unseen to the both of you. 

The sun glared down as you sat outside in the back of the inn, your fan in hand. Today was a lazy day for you, not much traction as many of your guests enjoyed the city. The back table you sat at was surrounded by your friends, girls you had known since high school, and other places. On the table, a pitch of ice-cold lemonade sat along with smaller finger snacks you had made for their visit. Your hair, now in distressed long locs, wrapped up high in a scarf, matching the color of your multi-layered sundress. Your eyes were covered with sunshades as chatter flowed among the five of you. As you spoke, you could hear the sounds of laughter from the large yard not too far from you all. In the freshly cut grass, there stood Choso a wide smile on his face as he entertained the two little ones. He wore a sleeveless tank top, covered in grass stains and sweat. His hair was up in two spiky-like buns, a few strands of jet black framing his face. 

It had been five months since Choso and Yuuji became permanent fixtures in your lives, and since then you couldn’t imagine how you lived with them. Eva, having a constant friend around, has done wonders all around for her happiness. You also helped Choso with enrolling Yuuji into Eva’s school and were even put down as a guardian for him as well. Things that would constantly break would be magically fixed by him, and sometimes he would even help you with cooking dinner for the guests who would enjoy it. It was like the four of you had your own little family.

“Wow…” the sudden high-pitched tone of adoration broke you out of your trance.

The conversation spoon stopped as you noticed the rest of your friends looking the same way you were. 

The kids have gone back inside at this point, probably to cool down from the sweltering sun while Choso remained on the large lawn, using a rag to wipe away the sweat on his face, he began to walk towards them. 

“Girl,” one of them called out to you, “where did you find this man?”

You rolled your eyes at them, picking up your glass before taking another long sip. As you did so, Choso was within range of your table, and you could collectively hear sharp inhales all around you. Some of your friends even took out some of the fans to cover and cool their faces down. All this while a deep gnarly intensity was building inside of you, all while you sat there as Choso approached you all. 

“Ladies,” he nodded, giving off a shorter smile as your friends waved daintily at him. 

His eyes then wandered down to you as you placed your own drink down, looking up at him as well. His minute smile expanded as he stood right near he bent over, grabbing the only untouched glass of lemonade you had poured out for him. He stood straight up as he downed the whole thing in just a few gulps. The sweat on his body and the drink mixed together as he drank the sweet-sour beverage, your eyes followed along the clear-like liquid as it trailed down his neck soon reaching the valley between his pecs. 

The sound of coughing broke you out of your trance as you turned away from Choso, glancing at the rest of your friends who looked upon him as well. A couple of them glanced between the two of you, eyebrows quirked. However, before you could do something, the loud thud brought your attention back to him. 

“I’ll head back inside, you leave those two alone for a while and they’ll end up in chaos all over again. Thank you for the lemonade, Darling.”

With no other words, he walked back inside the opened door, following behind the muffled voices of chaos inside the inn. You let out an almost silent breathy sigh as you turned around the moment he was out of view from you. You could feel heat all over you, looking up and seeing four pairs of eyes right on you. 

“What…?” you asked, although you couldn't suppress that smile on your face. 

The friend to your left spoke first, “you acting like we didn’t see that. Girl… we are not stupid.”

You let off a tense chuckle, “what? What are yall talking about?”

That same friend rolled her eyes, “she’s really acting like we don’t have eyes.”

You reached over, filling up your almost empty glass to the top, before taking another sip of it, “how about we enjoy this lemonade and this beautiful day. It’s rare that we all can spend time like this with our busy schedules!”

Your other friend spoke up next, “so what we’re hearing is that Choso is single”

Your friends jumped as they heard your glass slammed back against the table, the drink spilling all over the table, your hands, and the outer glass. Heart racing as your friends glanced amongst each other, letting off small smiles and smirks amongst each other. You sat back once again, sipping your cold drink and fanning your fan in your face to cool yourself from the added heat of bashfulness that struck you like a bolt of lightning. Luckily, another one of your friends pulled the conversation into a different topic, relating to drama between people you used to go to high school with. 

The get-along went on until the sun began to set and they all soon had to return to their own homes. You told them not to bother with the clean up, as you had some responsibilities around the inn to get to. There you stood in the kitchen washing dishes and beginning to put them away as you heard heavy footsteps enter the kitchen. 

“I’ve put them to bed, if you don’t mind, they wouldn’t be separated from each other so they’re having a sleepover in Evangeline’s room.”

You smiled at the thought of the two cuties snoring away underneath Evageline’s bright pink covers, like peas in a pod those two were. 

“Thank you for that,” you said, continuing to wipe the water away from the dishes. 

He began to step closer toward you, his footsteps becoming louder and louder, “do you need any help with anything?”

You immediately shook your head, ignoring the pounding of your heart rattling between your ears, “mh mmmhh, no I’m fine. I can handle it all. You should head to bed, you’ve done a lot of fixing around this place.”

By the time you finished speaking, he was behind you. His bodily heat was radiating off of him, causing you to shudder silently, inhaling sharply. He let off a low hum, the sound reverberating through you as you hunched over slightly, catching yourself as your knees wobbling. Your hands were soapy, causing you to stagger and teeter, squealing as you felt yourself begin to fall. Large, rough hands wrapped themselves around you as they held you steady, slowly pulling you back up with ease. You glanced back, seeing Choso’s face right near your own. 

“You alright, darling?”

You nodded your head, unable to say anything at that moment. He smiled, his hands still on you as he shifted his body to your left side. He stood right beside you as his hands slid down from your shoulders, before landing right on top of your wet hands. With ease, and due to your slight trance, he was able to pry your hands away from the sink before slowly guiding you away. 

“Let me finish off the plates, go sit down by the fireplace, darling.”

“Wait—” before you could protest, he grabbed a rag before wiping your hands clean.

You let out a short gasp, mouth wide as he basically took over the last of your chores. You glanced between him and the opened door, revealing the inn where the fireplace was still blazing. Smiling, you turned around, your footsteps sounding off as you left the kitchen. The low dulcet sounds of jazz sounded off from your record player as you entered the small, comfortable lobby. You sat on the loveseat right next to the fireplace, sighing at the radiating heat, relaxing into the softness of the couch. Along with the music, you could hear the clink of glass against the metal sink, and the sounds of suds being pressed out of the sponge, washing away at the dishes.

You thought about the past, how your life has changed once again. How, despite you not showing it, your life was slowly becoming bleak. An everyday cycle for both you and Evangeline, of waking up, walking her to her bus, walking back, making breakfast for the guests, cleaning up rooms, organizing everything, Evangeline coming home, making dinner for the guests, cleaning up again. Not to mention, hospitality for new guests as well as dealing with rowdy guests as well. 

Choso and Yuuji have been a light in an increasing vignette of darkness within your life. 

“Darling,” a soft voice, shook you out of your trance.

Slowly opening your eyes, which you had no idea you even closed, you looked up only to lock eyes with Choso’s dark, concerned-filled ones. 

“You alright?”

You nodded your head, sitting up fully to look at him. His arms were covered up once again, wearing a thin jacket as he held his hand out towards you. Smiling, you placed your own in his much larger one, before he pulled you, squealing at the sudden force. You stumbled upon your steps, before feeling his other hand slide around your waist, stabilizing you once again. 

“I’m sorry, it seems I still don't know my strength,” you heard him say, feeling his fingers rub circles on your side. 

You shook your head, ignoring the heat that ran through your body, “it’s fine, perfectly fine.”

He hummed, before glancing around, and looking at the record player not too far from you. For a moment, he let go of you, before stepping towards the player. Slowly increase the volume, just loud enough to take up the lobby, but not too loud as to wake up the few guests you had. You couldn’t help the smile as he stuck his hand out towards you, bowing slightly. He honestly looked a little silly, but your heart clenched as he asked you, 

“May I have this dance?”

You shifted your head, eyebrows curling up, “what’s the occasion?”

He shrugged his shoulders, “no reason. Just because, darling.”

Every time he called you darling, you could swoon into the moon. However, instead of flying away, you accepted, placing your hand in his once again before being swirled away into a world of sweet jazz and melodious waves of motion. Your hand in his, sticking out while the other rested upon his broad shoulders, while you felt his other hand resting right on your waist. As you two danced away, looking at each other for a quick moment before looking away, still holding each other close. 

“I just wanted to thank you, darling,” he mumbled lowly in your ear. 

You blinked, “thank me… for what?”

“Changing my life, saving me.”

You hummed, curled your eyebrows up, and looked up at him, “how did I do that?”

He looked around the inn lobby before looking back down at you, “giving me a chance, helping me with Yuuji… I’d never thought my life could end up like this.”

The hand resting on his shoulders slowly slid up. Reaching and caressing the side of his face, heart-melting as he nestled up against it. 

“I should really be saying this about you, my life has been so much brighter since you two arrived here.”

He shook his head but you wouldn’t have it, “I mean it Choso, this was a blessing to me, you are a blessing to me.”

He said nothing, as your steps began to slow down, as you bored into each other’s eyes. Nothing could interrupt your silent conversation, as you felt his hand that once rested on your waist slide down to your hips, dangerously close to your bottom. You took a step closer towards him, as the hand you placed on his face slid back, intertwining with his dark hair. There was barely any space between the two of you, and nothing holding the two of you back as Choso leaned down, hastily pressing his lips against yours.

You gasped out his name, before being overwhelmed by him. You found balance in gipping his hair, and his shoulder, feeling his overwhelming stature pushing up against you. His free hand copied his other hand, resting right at your hips before gripping them, bringing them close. For a moment he let go of your lips before whispering,

“Jump.”

With no other words, you jumped right into him, his arms holding you up as you wrapped your legs around him as best as you could. Your dress rode up, mint-green fabric bunching at your waist as the two of your locked lips once again. Choso stumbled backward a bit before feeling him sit down right on the couch where you just sat at you. You rested yourself comfortably on him as your fingers unravel the two messy buns in his hair. Your hips moved along against him, and you could feel his hard-on pressing against you through the thick fabric of his jeans. 

“Choso,” you gasped, releasing the kiss to take in a deep breath.

However, you couldn’t do anything but let out breathy moans as Choso began to lay kisses all along your neck. 

“We should, fuck, we sh… should probably go upstars, Choso before a guest comes down here…”

He hummed against you, feeling his hands massage your ass before gripping it tightly, suddenly standing up. You squealed, a smile appearing on your face as he basically took you towards the stairs, carrying you up the stairs. He was careful not to make too much, as he took you past the second floor of the much more inclusive third floor, where only the four of you were staying. Approaching his door, he kept you up with one hand as he fished out his key, unlocking it with ease before hauling you inside. The room was dark, as it was empty due to the sleepover the kids were having in Evangeline’s room, which was connected to your own. 

You shrieked a little as you were suddenly thrown onto soft blankets and pillows. Pushing yourself up, your eyes landed on Choso's form, his silhouette illuminated by the low lantern light from the makeshift living room, as he slowly peeled away his jacket, once again revealing the arms you previously drooled over. Licking your lips as he soon reached down, unbuttoning and unzipping his pants before throwing them into an indescribable corner. He then kicked off his boots, and slid the door close, completely enshrouding you in darkness before climbing right on top of you. Your hands rested on each side of his face before pulling him down for another deep kiss. His hair, no longer contained in its buns, tickled your hands as your fingers dug right back into it. His hands dug under your dress, pressing up against the back of your knee before slowly pushing your leg back, your dress scrunching up further and further. Moving your hands from his face, before nimbly slipping your fingers through the thin straps of your dress before beginning to slowly pull them down, right along with your dress as well. 

Choso helped you out, pulling the rest of the fabric down, and exposing yourself to him. You hadn’t worn a bra, leaving you in nothing but the cotton panties you wore underneath your dress. He threw the dress on the floor before beginning to slide down the bed, letting go of your kiss. Stomach twisting in anticipation as he laid ghostly kisses against your abdomen, fingers strumming at the hem of your panties. They then hook underneath the thin fabric, before slowly pulling them down, the sudden cool air causing you to shiver and gasp in the dark room. You lifted your legs, fully exposing yourself to him. Gasping, back arching against the bed as you felt a thick finger pressing against your cunt, your seeping arousal dripping against them. Sweat began to drip down your body as heat arose within you, toes curling as you felt his finger slowly sinking within you. 

“So beautiful,” he mumbled against you as you jolted, moaning out into the air.

You couldn’t say anything as he continued to finger-fuck you against the bed, his body sliding up back to you. It was bliss upon earth, and it only increased further and further as he acted upon you. He towered over you, taking in your every expression, every twitch and quiver you made. You were so wet for you, your slick drenching his finger and parts of his hands, you were ready, perfect for him. Slowly he pulled his finger out, taking a moment to lick and suck away at your arousal.

“God I can’t wait,” you heard him whisper before feeling his hands pressed up against the back of your knees, bedding you further and further into the bed, until your body couldn't take any more stretch.

His one hand easily pressed you back, and his other one soon left your body. A few moments passed before you were suddenly gasping, the feeling of his tip, the thickness of it pressing up against your hole. For a few moments, he swiped up between your soaked labia, his actions pulling out short, breath-like moans out of you. 

“Choso, fuck, Choso please,”  you moaned out, begging for him to press into you, take you in any way he wished. 

He almost came right then and there, and could no longer hold himself back as he slowly pushed himself inside of you. Choking on your spit, your head was thrown back in complete ecstasy as he pushed himself deeper and deeper inside your pussy. For a moment he slowed down, stopping all of his movements. Just as you were about to complain, he darted, suddenly thrusting himself. Your body convulsed, a scream leaving your wet lips. 

“Fuck fuck, you okay, Love?” He groaned, his deep voice causing you to shake underneath him. 

Euphoric, cloud nine was within your reach as he began to slowly rock his hips into you. Both hands pressed up against your knees, allowing him the balance to reach deep within you. Your words came out garbled, jumbled for the mind-numbing pleasure with a few twinges of pain that accompanied this overwhelming feeling. Your hands now freed, they dragged themselves against his naked back, nails digging into his skin. As he continued to fuck you slowly, he leaned down, pressing soft kisses against your cheeks and neck. 

As you let out another choked sob, Choso whispered in your ear, pressing sweet words into you. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry love, bare with me.”

Your face twisted, gasping as another sharp thrust took the breath straight out of you. He could feel himself reveling in the way your face and body convulsed under him, your reactions so delicious to him as he continued fucking you slowly. He ached for more of it, he wanted to make you feel like this all the time. cHoso could feel it taking over his every being, his every sense. Sweat dripped down his face as he began to pick up the pace, his moans intensifying with every slam. The sounds of your arousal dripped all over him, mixing with the sweat that was building on your body, the warm air and stench that was permeating through the air. 

“So, so so deep,” you slurred, your nails digging into his skin, breaking through. 

“Yeah baby?” he mumbled in your ear, as he pounded into you. 

The nickname caused you to thrash against the bed, a loud moan echoing through the room. Immediately he shushed you, a hand leaving the back of your knee, going to your lips, pressing his thumb against them. 

“Shhhh, don’t wanna be too loud and wake up the kids?”

You shook your head, the taste of his slightly salty thumb pressing up against your tongue. He steadily removed the pads of his fingers as he leaned down, whispering “good girl,” right beside your ear before suddenly pulling you up, his hand now around your waist as he sat up. Squealing, you asked Choso what he was doing, but he shushed you as he stood up on his knees for a quick moment, before flipping the two of you onto the bed. You now sit right on top of him, shuddering as his dick reaches new depths in the new position. You then sat back against your ankles, feeling his hands slide upright to your hips, gripping into the fat and muscle underneath. Stabilizing himself, propping his legs up causing you to gasp, hands flying down and grabbing at his broad shoulders. With no hesitation, he began slamming back up as if nothing interrupted him in the first place. The sounds of wet skin slapping against wet skin echoed through the room once again. 

Choso couldn't help but be transfixed by your blissed-out look, tongue lolling out, lips wet with spit, and head thrown back in ecstasy. Every whisper and whimper you made went unnoticed in his presence. From the moment he met you, he knew just how much you would change his life. 

You suddenly let out a shrilled moan, nails breaking skin once again, “Choso, god I’m gonna come.”

A familiar feeling of urgency zapped through him, feeling heavy heat building up within, similar to you as well. Hair sprawled out on the pillow under him as his grip on your hips became bruise worthy as he didn’t let up, surrendering to the aching of the building climax within him. All he could do was focus on your moans, your words driving him further and further. 

“Coming, fuckfuckfuckfuck, I’m coming!”

With one final squeal, you throbbed and tightened around him, Choso’s throwing his head back at the sudden soaked tightness around. Hips lifted high into the sky as you shook and trembled above him. Your own overflow caused him to reach his climax, his orgasm spilling right into you, filling you right up. Deep heavy breaths echoed through the room from the both of you as your body felt heavy, slumped with sudden tiredness. You could feel Choso lift you off of his cock, feeling your body slump over as he carefully laid you across the bed. Eyes heavy, you whined as you could feel his body heat move away from you. He quietly shushed you for a moment, placing a soft kiss on your cheek. You could hear his steps walking away from you, before hearing the faint sound of water rushing, and the squeaky sounds of a sink. He soon came back, hearing his steps get closer to you. You forced your heavy eyes open to see better, only to jolt as the feeling of something cold and wet slid all across your thighs. CHoso wiped away the mixture of cum that was seeping from you, as what dripped all along your inner thighs as well. 

Once you and he cleaned up, he put the rag away in a place where he’ll take it tomorrow before climbing right back into the bed with you. A smile instantaneously took over your face as you snuggled into his broad build, his arms wrapping around you and pulling you close. There were no words exchanged between the two of you soon after that, the sounds of your breathing lulling each other to sleep, and the added safety of you being in his arms. 

Though as you fell asleep, Choso couldn't help but worry as he gazed upon your relaxed, tranquil countenance. His mind ravaged him with fear, memories of a time before, is this all too good to be true? To be here? With someone, who he loved ever so dearly? He thought of the family he created, of how much Yuuji enjoyed it here. He gazed down at you once again, before placing a kiss on your temple. He snuggled into the bed, making himself comfortable.

No. He will be happy. 

Choso Kamo will be happy. 

taglist --

@homewithnobodies @mimi-sanisanidiot @swinginprunegothcop @foxthroats

[theglamorousferal]

Persephone's Binding Part 4

AO3 Prompt Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Jazz guided Jason through the halls to the library, it seemed to be in a different wing of the castle from where the living spaces were. When they reached a split between a hallway and a set of stairs she hesitated, placing a hand on one one of the banisters and turning to face him. She looked at him considering before nodding to herself and picking up her skirts to go up the stairs.

"We'll take a shortcut over the wall, because you're death-touched you can safely breathe the air without it overwhelming you with intense emotions and obsessive behavior." She said absentmindedly to him as if air that could cause such things were normal.

"Uh, glad for that then?" He said following her. She opened the door at the top of the stairs and strode outside, not even glancing at the absurd sky.

It was eerie to say the least, swirling Lazarus and emerald green with purples and blacks making the sky look like an oil slick. He expected the air of the dimension that contains all the afterlives to be colder, but it was pleasantly warm with a gentle breeze blowing by. If he closed his eyes he could imagine standing on a hill watching the clouds go by. On one side of the wall they were atop was a courtyard containing plants that Ivy would drool for, it was nearly as overrun as her greenhouse.

He noticed one of the towers had what appears to be an observatory, though he wasn't sure what besides doors, floating islands and general terrifying shapes they would see through it. "What's with the observatory?"

She glanced at it and gained a fond smile on her face. "That's Danny's. He always wanted to be an astronaut but circumstances prevented that. That telescope can connect to any telescope in our home universe. Even the ones in deep space. He's going to IRU right now for aerospace navigation. There's a dimension he was hoping to spend a couple years in before he has to take the crown that has intergalactic space travel as the norm." She seemed to light up when she spoke of her brother, obviously proud of him.

"Wait, Danny's who you're Regent for? Not a son?" Jason wouldn't have minded if she had a kid kicking around, but to find that the kid he met earlier is the future King of Everything In-between was surprising.

"Oh, yes, Right, I'll explain everything I can once we get to the library, it's just through here." Once inside again, she took brisk steps forward to doors directly across the hall. "Here we are, my favorite spot is just this way."

They stepped out onto a second floor balcony of a three story high library. Books spanned from floor to ceiling in a room the size of a small stadium. Shelves and tables made from a purple wood polished to a shine. Deep red velvet seats on all the chairs and couches in each of the reading spaces. Jason stood flabbergasted at the sheer volume of books present. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to see a conspiratorial smile in teal eyes. "I had the same reaction when I first came here. Come on, my favorite spot to talk is this way."

They made their way to a corner of the library that had a pair of chairs, a tea table between them and a small fireplace, lit with a ghostly blue flame. They sat and she looked at the fire, then at him, then back at the fire and sighed heavily. She closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts before she spoke.

"Once upon a time there were three scientists in college who wanted to build a portal to the 'Ghost Zone' as they called it so they could study an research entities they referred to as 'ghosts'. Their definition being that any entity that produces, metabolizes or consumes the substance ectoplasm is a 'ghost'." She paused here, clasping her hands together and looking down at them. "There was an accident, I'm not going to go into too many details for now, but just know that one of the scientists became something more than human. The first of his kind in a millennia, a statistical improbability. Some things happened and he believed that he lost the only woman he could ever love to the man that caused him to become something other than human, to become partially one of the creatures they sought to capture and experiment on.

She glanced up and stared into the middle distance, remembering. "Twenty years pass and the two other scientists are now married with children. They've had a lab in their home since they graduated college at the top of their field in ectoscience. They have a daughter and a son, both are born ectocontaminated though they don't know for years later. They've been working on a new portal, this time bigger, large enough to fit a car through." She laughs lightly. "I remember coming down and shoving granola bars and thermoses filled with soup when they were on work binges, determined to get 'just a little bit more done Jazzy-pants, then we'll go to bed'" She gazed wistfully at the fire. "They usually did once they finished whatever food I brought to them, not wanting to have a repeat of the last time they left something with old food in it and it gained sentience and mass enough to chew a few hazmat boots."

She seemed lost for a moment before she cleared her throat. "Sorry, um, where was I?" She blinked before raising a hand up pointing at the ceiling. "Right, the portal. So they spent a good decade start to finish on it. It was going to be their crowning achievement, but when they plugged it in they saw some sparks, but nothing else happened." She folded her hands together on her lap. "They left for a weekend. Went to search for some cryptid they had been meaning to go find for years, but had put off to work on the portal. I was in charge for the weekend, a thing I was used to from whenever they were on design binges. Danny had his friends over and I was in my room studying. I had my headphones on, I don't even remember what band was playing, and I think I was working on chem homework?" She shook herself from the thought. "Anyway, there was this power surge, I remember just thinking that I was mad that it happened right during my favorite part of the song and I was singing into my pencil. When the lights went out, I had the usual expected dread in the pit of my stomach, but something felt especially frightening in this moment. I didn't have time to dwell on it, shaking it off as just being paranoid. I was more concerned with getting my music back on after that. I should have realized something had happened." She tightened her hands until the shook, pale knuckles stood out.

"I'm not telling you details, but there was another accident with a portal, this time it was Danny. He became something more than human. He became the second halfa in a millennia."

"Halfa?"

"Yes, Half human, half ghost. An anomaly, a myth, a statistical outlier. He walks the line between life and death. He will have many titles once he takes the throne, and one of those will be the Balance."

"Damn, that's a lot to put on a kid. How'd that happen?"

"I found out all of this second-hand mind you. I may have known his secret when it all happened, but he didn't know I knew yet."

"How'd he hide suddenly having powers? I don't expect he had particularly good control over them at first, I know several supers who didn't."

Jazz hung her head in shame. "I was too deep in my own head at that point. I was neck-deep in research on how to parent troubled teens because while I missed all his slips for power usage, I did not miss his decline in grades. Especially when the chemistry teacher approached me about the fact he kept 'dropping' equipment." She held up air quotes. "Turns out not being able to control tangibility can cause mass amounts of property damage, who knew?" she shrugged her shoulders.

"So basically, the original halfa guy from earlier managed to gain wealth and power using his powers in increasingly shady ways. He also grew obsessed with my mom and blamed my dad for turning him into a halfa. He wanted revenge. He invited us all to a college reunion where he found out about Danny. Things happened and they became nemeses with Vlad wanting Danny to denounce our father and become his son with my mom at his side. You're allowed to say ew, it was very ew for a long time." She laughed at his scrunched up face. "Anyway, he finds out about ancient ghostly artefacts that are supposed to give the user unimaginable power, and finds out where they are. He finds out they are locked away with the former King of the Realms, and he expects to be able to just grave rob the ruler of the Infinite. He manages to get the Ring before Pariah wakes up, and somehow manages to escape back to out home dimension. All ghosts flee the Realms through the most stable portal available; the one in my family basement. This causes alerts to go out all across the town and my parents put up defenses for people to huddle under during everything. Some stuff happened and it ended up leading to Danny taking a suit our parents had built and defeating the former King Pariah Dark and sealing him away in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.

"Infinite Realms Law dictates that if the leader is defeated in single combat, and the combatant continues after said encounter, then they are to be crowned High Royal and any family members gain royal titles as well. Danny is, however, too young for his classification. He is too young by human years, he must be twenty-one for that, and too young for halfa standards, he must be a halfa for a decade. He won't be of the majority for at least another five years, and then he must have it on the following solstice. Until that time, he is High Prince and must work on learning leadership and combat skills." She gazed calmly at him, resigned for her brother's fate.

"So how'd you end up Regent?" She sighed and closed her eyes, shoulders dropping.

"We had a council for a while, the Council of Ancients, new and old working alongside the Observants. It worked for a little while, but something happening in my home dimension was causing issues. You see, the ghost problem in our town after the portal opened became a pretty big issue when property damage resulted in the thousands and you can't bill the dead. Danny was doing his best to fight off as much as he could, but he wasn't trained and was very new to his powers. It didn't help that our parents were shooting at him while he was trying to save people." She grumbled and Jason's hands tightened to fists.

"What do you mean they shot at him?" He asked as evenly as he could. He could feel the tinges of old hurts coming to the surface. A Batarang to the throat.

"They never hit him, he dodged every time. They didn't know it was him. They thought it was just a ghost, and to them, all ghosts were evil. They had a lot of bias in the majority of their research, but as soon as they found out who he was they immediately changed tack. They had Danny stay at Vlad's for a weekend, which was it's own can of worms, while they disarmed the house and set everything to ignore his ecto signature." She looked thoughtful. "Apparently Vlad wasn't a complete jerk that weekend either, Danny told him what they found out and Vlad, worried for the second of his species, actually helped him through some emotions and helped him train some. I think it's what started on his redemption actually."

Jason breathed out heavily letting his rage dissipate. "You keep saying 'the second' instead of the 'the only'. There are more?" He quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, yes, there's Ellie and Dante. Ellie is my younger sister, she's a clone of Danny Vlad made, and Dante is an evil alternate timeline version of Danny and Vlad that fused together and is inhabiting a clone of Danny Vlad wasn't able to pull into consciousness." She let him digest that for a moment.

Jason choked out a laugh. "Man, and I thought my sibling situation was weird."

Jazz's eyes narrowed, appraising him almost like a predator eyeing prey. "Hmm. We'll discuss your family situation later." She cleared her throat gathering her thoughts. "Anyway, so the property damage led to the government getting involved. More specifically a branch known as the Ghost Investigation Ward or GIW for short. They were founded on the first research papers my parents produced which were heavily biased against ecto-entities on a whole. They were extremely prejudiced against ghosts.

"They started out as a nuisance. Someone easily distracted by getting their suits dirty or faulty equipment. Then the Anti-Ecto Acts were ratified. Then they got bolder. They paid my parents a fake amount of money to buy the house as-is with the portal. They planned to send a nuke in to destroy the Realms believing it to be full of horrendous monsters. Thankfully the nuke was a dud model and someone definitely got fired that day in ordering. But after that they just started to get worse and worse. They were starting to go after anyone who pinged on their detectors, which were just getting more and more precise as time went on.

"Here's the thing about Amity Park, my hometown. It was founded by witches fleeing the witch trials. It sits at the crossing between ley lines, and it's always been a spot that the veil was thin. Ectoplasm would leak through natural portals that popped up from time to time. Add a stable portal to the mix? The entire town was now ectocontaminated. They were now classified as liminal. They were now death-touched enough that they pinged on the GIW's equipment. They began raiding people's homes, accusing them of harboring ghosts. Danny's entire home room got taken in for questioning one day, they had set up little interrogation rooms like a blood drive in the gymnasium." She chuckled darkly. "They got so close so many times, too many times." Her left hand clenched into a fist.

"My parents found out about Danny when the raids first started. He'd decided it was time to come clean because it was only a matter of time before they came knocking at our door. Thankfully, they came while Danny was at Vlad's and they never had the guts to storm the billionaire's house. I managed to avoid detection by wearing a Specter-Deflector and my parents were always in their hazmat suits so they didn't ping either. Things got worse, Danny had to beg the Council to make an edict to not come through the portal for the foreseeable future.

"It didn't work, various beings saw it as a challenge. They began to lose faith in their future ruler. If he couldn't protect his little town and the people in it, how was he supposed to protect them? It was a common sentiment. It was something I grew tired of hearing during one particular fight." She stared at the blue flames of the fireplace, not seeing the flickering light. "Danny was down. Mom and Dad and Vlad were fighting together to both capture the ghost before they could do more damage and stop the GIW from capturing another ghost to experiment on and dispose of. The ghost was the fourth one that week spouting the same bullshit." She spat the word out like a curse, growling before looking into the middle distance with sad eyes. Softly, she spoke, "There was an explosion." She blinked, coming back to focus. My parents were down. My youngest siblings were now fighting. I made a decision." She squared her shoulders and tightened her jaw, determination filling out her features. "I had been helping Danny study to become King, I had read up on all the important laws. I took the Specter Speeder to the council chambers. I stood before them and declared as the eldest and therefore heir and head of the Nightingale family, the Royal family, and that I was at the majority for my classification, I would be taking the title of Regent until Danny reached his majority. I took the Crown and the Ring and my own suit and went to the fight.

"I told Dante and Ellie to get Danny and go, there was nothing that could be done for our parents. I subdued and contained the ghost and then beat back the GIW until they were at the borders of Amity. Then, using power I had just gained, I pulled the entire town into the Infinite Realms." She held out her hands, gesturing to the general vicinity.

He sat with that for a moment. "Wait, wait wait, you're just gonna skim over the fact your parents died?"

Jazz's eyes hardened. "Never." Her eyes glowed yellow for a moment and her hair seemed to float a bit when she said the word. "I just met you, and it's still a sore wound, I'd rather not get into it if that's alright with you." She held herself rigid as if expecting him to press the issue.

"Whoa, it's okay, nevermind, touchy subject, I get it. Most people I know have their parents as a touchy subject. Especially dead ones." He kept his posture open, slouching a little to show he didn't mean to pry.

She hummed thoughtfully, appraising him once more. "So, I told you my story, earlier you told me some of yours. I think that's enough sharing for one day. I don't know about you, but I am very tired. If you like, you may stay here. Just ring the bell on the mantle and Jeeves will be here to assist you. If not, I'd be glad to walk you back to the guest rooms, they are down the hall from the family rooms." She stood and waited for his response.

"Um, yeah, let's walk back together. I had a couple questions about some of the books in my room?" They walked and talked together as they made their way towards the bedrooms. They parted ways with a promise to read the same book and give each other feedback on it in a week.

"Well, this is me." He said awkwardly indicating the hall his room was in, hers was in the opposite hall.

"Yup, I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to see you tomorrow, I have a full day up until dinner, but I'll see you then?" She looked inquiringly at him.

"Yeah, definitely! See you tomorrow!" He said and turned down the hall. He jogged until he got to the door, opened it and then leaned against it falling to the floor. "Okay, so I may not have entirely screwed this up, but man, she's been through a lot already. Do I want to add my shit to it?" He thought to himself, spiraling until he was clutching his hair. He growled and stood up, then stalked towards the bed and flopped down on it, back first this time.

"I mean, I might be stuck here, so would my baggage really matter that much?" He laid there for a moment before deciding to get ready for bed. Once laying down again, he kept thinking of all the different ways he as a person could fuck this or her up if he pursued a relationship. He worried himself to sleep that night.

[werecreature-addicted]

I wrote a small little blurb with Pre tadpol!Durge putting out a cigarette on Gortash :3

You stand alone on the balcony looking over the lower city. Baldurs Gate looks back up at you. The city smells like piss and cheap wine, but also more pleasant things: blooming flowers, baking bread and roasting meat. The city lights keep the night from being too dark, but the torchlight is dim enough that you still see the stars. It’s hardly a peaceful night, you can hear shouting down below and what sounds like a band playing farther off, but still, you find yourself at ease. You’ll have to come up here more often, you think to yourself as you light a cigarette. The sewers are home, but the city has its own charm. 

You start smoking, enjoying the bustle below you. The door behind you opens and the hairs on your neck stand on end. Your instincts tell you to whip around, to not give your back to the person approaching. But you still yourself, you know those footsteps, and he wouldn’t hurt stab you in the back… at least not literally. 

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Gortash says, wrapping his arm casually around your waist as he comes to stand beside you. With his other hand, he starts toying with the sleeve of your robe. His robe really, but you’d snatched it for the night, the clothes you’d come in nothing more than blood-soaked shreds at this point. You look down at his hand and can see the tan lines where his gauntlet should be, his skin slightly paler where the metal usually rests. It looks silly you think, but you don’t tell him that. 

“It’s more recent, I only took it up to quit drinking,” you admit. He hums and leans into you further, pulling the collar of the robe to the side and pressing his mouth to your neck, tickling your skin with his stubble. 

“Trading one bad habit for another,” he teases in between kisses. “Wonder what you’ll have to take up to quit smoking.”

“Something worse I assume,” you say, tilting your head to the side so he can kiss his way up your neck to your jaw. Suddenly he sinks his teeth into your neck biting you hard. Your body jolts and you let out a soft “oh” of surprise, which makes him laugh. You smile too. You’ll get him back for that. You’re sure of it. You go to put your cigarette out on the banister but Gortash stops you. 

“Hey- that’s expensive, and wood. You’ll burn the whole place down,” he protests. You’re sure he’s more upset at the idea of the ash singeing the glossy wood than he was actually concerned that a little ember would burn down his entire estate. 

“Fine, I'll put it out on something cheap then,” you say and press the burning end of the butt into his arm. You expected him to scream or curse you out. Instead, he hisses and then lets out a low groan of pleasure. A shudder goes through your body at the sound and you grind the butt deeper into his skin, before pulling it off, a nice red welt left behind. The smell of burning hair and flesh fills your nose and you flick the crushed trash away, letting it land somewhere on the city streets below. 

He glares at you, holding his injured arm and looking at the small burn. “It’s nothing a Cleric can’t fix, but you really are a brat, someone should put you in your place,” he grumbles. The idea excites you

“Yeah? Why don’t you take me back to bed, and you can try to ‘put me in my place’ as you put it,” you tease. 

“You think I can’t?” he asks, his eyes shining with the challenge. He cups your jaw in one hand and brings your mouth close to his, but not kissing you quite yet.

“It's the opposite," you admit, your eyes falling to his full lips, "I know you can.”

[ronearoundblindly]

ALSO from the kiss list: ransom and #45, 46, or 47???? ur ransom from the root of all ransom is so 😩😩🫠🫠🫠🫠

Ransom Drysdale x rich!Reader from The Root of All Ransom series

Out of Spite, one of my Valentine's Fics for 2024

Summary: Ransom's childhood home gets sold in his parents' divorce. The first time you see it is the last time he ever will.

Warnings for cursing and dirty memories from our boi. DEEP FEELS. If you've never read any RoAR, that's fine! You just need to know that Ransom is a filthy, bitter man who used to defile his parent's house any chance he got. Oh! And that Harlan did tell Linda (Ran's mom) about Richard's (Ran's dad) cheating. MINORS DNI. There's plenty for you on my Light Masterlist, but this one is not for you! WC 1746

He didn’t think he’d feel this way.

Everything is different but exactly the same.

Ransom can remember when this house was a happy place. Of course, it felt that way only when he was very young and really stupid. He actually thought his parents loved each other back then.

Fucking idiot.

He learned quickly though. Once he paid attention, that’s when he saw. His father didn’t look at his mother that way; Richard looked timid or indifferent, waiting for the money decisions he floated to be approved, waiting to make sure Linda hadn’t stumbled on some evidence of his indiscretions. Meanwhile, Linda…worked. That was it. She just worked.

A child sees that. Whether they are ready to or not, a child sees.

Ransom didn’t understood why that sort of relationship was so fucking infuriating—because if that’s your relationship, don’t have a fucking child,—but he saw.

Just like fashion and furniture and people, he can tell in one look what he doesn’t want.

He doesn’t want…whatever the fuck this was.

Ran drags his hand over the polished wood banister to lead you upstairs to his old bedroom. It’s now a gym, and in a month, who knows, because in his parents’ divorce, the house is getting sold. His dad has ten more days to move out.

Unsurprisingly, nothing has been packed yet. Richard pays someone else to do that, like he and Linda paid someone else (many other people) to raise Ransom.

He didn’t think he’d feel this way on the last occasion he’d ever be in this house.

He’s hated it a long, long time. He used every opportunity he could to taint and tarnish everything from floor to decor, invisible marks of defiance that his parents never saw, or if they saw, they never understood.

Ransom doesn’t lack respect completely; he just lacks respect for them.

And yeah, to be fair, there are less than a handful of people on the planet he’s found he can respect, but he is capable. They just aren’t worthy, and he doesn’t fucking care.

He thought he’d feel anger or bitterness. He thought he’d feel a sense of justice, maybe, because this veneer of unity is finally being stripped away. He thought, at very least, he’d feel a marked disappointment because they could have done better. His parents are capable of better. They just fucking weren’t.

He feels…nothing.

He feels nothing when you two walk past the railing where his prom date, Candace, almost took a short drop and a sudden stop because she’s an adrenaline junkie and wanted him to fuck her while she held on with nothing but her acrylics. Ransom had to fake coming because he was so distracted by the thought of having to clean up that bitch’s brain from the foyer.

He feels nothing as you two traverse the hall where he terrorized the nannies, throwing whatever he could get his grubby fucking paws on and aiming for them every time.

He was awful; why doesn’t he feel awful?

He still feels nothing when he flicks on the light at the southernmost room and sees…no trace of the first nineteen years of his life. Maybe he feels nothing because there is nothing?

Ran told his mother, point blank, that she could burn anything he left behind for all he cared, and at the time, he didn’t care one iota. Those memories were not worth one red penny to him. He derived more joy from knowing what he’d done here and left for them to clean up than he did from any of the actual stuff.

That’s the thing. Even if the stuff didn’t bring him joy, that was all he had for nineteen years. Possessions hold value to him because emotions didn’t fucking exist in this house, unless you count denial, arrogance, and willful ignorance.

He’s so caught up in his emptiness, he’s forgotten all about speaking during this little tour.

You follow him around, silently, from room to room in a too big house that unsuccessfully contained the egos of only three people. No one was fucking happy. No one wanted to be there. Everyone had to be there, for appearances.

You rest your arm on his shoulder and run your fingers through the short hair at his neck, but you don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say. He feels nothing.

And so you two head down to dinner with Richard, a bizarrely familial toast to the house before it’s on the market.

Ran’s father hasn’t cooked, mind you, because that would really be the cherry on the weird shit sundae. No, it’s a catered meal for three fucking people in a house owned by none of these three people.

However, if there’s one skill passed down through generations of Thrombeys and Drysdales alike, it’s ignoring anything going on around you that you don’t care about (and the not caring in the first place, so two skills). Ransom is a really skilled Thrombey and Drysdale.

He has no fucking idea what the conversation is about over the course—courses—of the meal, but he watches you in an awe that makes him feel sorta queazy. How can you still smile and nod at Richard? Ran reached his limit weeks ago, and you’re still barreling through what he can only imagine is the finest, superficial bullshittery the whole county has to offer.

Why?

Why are you here?

This place is not a fucking home. 

Why are you putting up with this? Why put up with him, for fuck’s sake?

But the emptiness swallows that outrage as fast as his mind can churn it out.

“Ya know, I think I’ll take my plate in,” you say sweetly to his father, standing, so there’s no argument to stop you. “I never got to peek at the kitchen.”

The help part like the sea for you.

Richard chuckles, leaning back in his chair with his drink. “Not sure I ever really peeked in there myself,” he mutters. 

“Please, allow me,” he hears you encourage from around the corner. “I’d like to look out the window.”

Ran mouths ‘window’ questioningly to Richard, who suddenly remembers that they redid the deck and added a pergola eight months ago. Ransom vaguely remembers his mother griping about contractors, but he didn’t listen to the details. He didn’t fucking care.

He’s up and heading for the kitchen before his father can offer to have dessert served outside.

Ransom, clearly in a mood, tells the caterers and wait staff fuck off to a different room when steps in. He has no clue if he knows them previous events. It doesn’t matter.

He’s engrossed, watching you rinse a plate in the sink, something so simple it hurts.

Because the kitchen, Ran thinks, is where you prove you can stand another person—you trust them with your food, they can know what you like, and you aren’t afraid of them in a small space with knives. This is the place where couples work together. They spend time getting things for each other, making things for each other, even when they don’t have to.

In that sense, this is not and never has been a kitchen. It’s a showroom, but tonight it showcases you.

He walks over and looks where you look. Beyond the reflective pane with your faces is a canopy of lights overlooking an open space the length of the house.

It’s beautiful, just one of many helpful additions made after he left. Some other family will get it now. Some other kid will enjoy it. For once, Ran wishes people he doesn’t know a happiness he never had. That’s new, too, that feeling.

Pride swells in Ransom. No one can take that from him.

He is not a good man, but he’s proud as fuck not to be his parents despite their indifference. It’s a miracle he isn’t exactly the same as Ol’ Dick in the dining room, alone, scared for what the future holds when the money runs out.

That was a near miss of fate, Ran remembers, because if he’d been backed into the same corner, if you hadn’t been there to offer a lifeline, he would have fought. He would have killed to survive.

That’s what he knew. That’s what he learned in this house. Fight. Kill. Show no emotion. It doesn’t matter anyway. Each man, woman, and child for themselves.

Richard and Linda live with the consequences of their actions; Ransom lives with the consequences of his parents.

He turns to you, a hand on your hip, and sees you warp you mouth in apology.

“Needed a break,” you admit quietly.

Ran snorts. “I hear that.”

“Just dessert and then home,” you hum. “No drinks outside, okay?”

Then it dawns on him. When he bought his current house, its true beauty was not being this one, but that’s not all anymore. Ran can make a house into a home. He can make himself into the home you deserve, the one he would have killed for.

This house may hold bad memories, but he can make new ones. Houses can be expanded, lit, and warmed. Space can be made to fit the needs of those using it.

His mind can do that, too. Ran can do that.

So, out of pure spite for the wretched monument all around him, he leans over with a smile and kisses you fiercely.

Such a simple thing. A new memory. One happy memory to bury in this dead place and leave forever.

He’ll go back to his home, with you, and get you water from the kitchen even if he doesn’t want any. He’ll watch you cook, and you’ll ask him to taste it or hand you things just a few feet away. You’ll sit in ‘his’ spot on the couch because the new place for him is with his head resting in your lap. He sees it all very clearly.

His parents were right about something: it doesn’t fucking matter. This house doesn’t have to matter to him. Only his real home should do that.

When dinner is over and you two shut yourselves into the Beamer, he looks back one final time.

He doesn’t have to care. He doesn’t have to feel anything. There will be empty spaces in his life, but that’s okay. That’s a consequence of living.

You voice Ransom’s innermost thoughts just before he turns the key in the ignition.

“Good fucking riddance.”

Jimmy Dobyne and a kiss in public ⬅️ ➡️ Steve Rogers and a kiss where it hurts

[Main Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

@supraveng @1950schick @patzammit @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @yiiiikesmish @ashesofblackroses @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @brandycranby @buckysprettybaby @starkleila @tenaciousperfectionunknown @rogersbarber @spectre-posts @ellethespaceunicorn

[c-rose2081]

I don't know if you're interested, but here goes, any Red and Chloe fic or headcanon from your childhood friends?

Knowing Red, she must have convinced Chloe to help her steal the desserts her mother baked and that she definitely forbade them from eating before dinner.

I haven’t written a ton of kid Chloe and Red yet, but I do know they got into so much trouble together. The terrible two, you know lol

Stealing deserts? Absolutely. Playing pranks on staff, sliding down the banisters, wrestling in the fresh dirt put down by the gardeners, running through the woods to climb the most impressive trees or playing in the river during the summers, and even (at a slightly older age) stealing Bridget’s ATV for a joyride.

They even turned a few stuffy royal dignitaries hair flamingo pink once, forcing Bridget and Ella to withhold their laughter at a royal dinner.

Ah yes, these two got into plenty of mischief together and I hope to write them soon ^^

[yearningaces]

Good question!

It takes weeks.

Buying the old mansion was worth the sheer amount of time you were spending fixing and cleaning and repairing and arranging- all by yourself!

Sage -your partner- kept to their own, occasionally moving from the room you were working in so they could keep writing in peace. Their book -a romance no less- was important to them, and that was fine.

You could take care of your new home anyways.

In a way it was a sort of prideful thing. After a life of never having anything that was yours, for you, not leftovers to be thrown away, scraps, hand-me-downs, or whatever had been forced into your hands? You were ecstatic with this home.

It showed as you worked as well. Cleaning baseboards, and beautiful dark varnish wooden designs, from the archways to the stairs to the banister.

The realtor said this place was hand made hundreds of years ago, and what a piece of art it was. And you often said so.

When cleaning the cabinets, you found small yet intricate carvings in the wood, resembling vines and flowers in the corners of the cabinet doors, you'd gushed about it for the rest of the day.

When you'd cleaned out the soot covered fireplace, cleaning the old equipment, and placing it all back- you noticed how the metal shines beautifully and how the stonework was so delicately placed to form the spherical shapes, even the wooden mantle was crafted with care.

This house was a labor of love, and it was yours to love now.

So you did- And the house noticed.

The first few days were tentatively silent other than the music you'd turn on while cleaning, or the typing of Sage's keyboard.

After the first week, you realized something, you never had to open a door. If you needed to leave a room it would just be open. If you wanted to be in a room the door was closed before you could turn around. No creaking joints, no slam, no gust of wind. It simply was.

It was unnerving at first, but the best way to not be afraid was to act like you weren't and keep going. So you'd pass through the opened doors with a pat to the solid wooden doorframe. Sometimes saying a quiet 'thanks' whenever going into a room, knowing the door would be closed when you turned.

It never happened around Sage. And if you brought it up you might freak them out, so you kept quiet. No need to disturb the peace you've found and they've tentatively agreed on.

Then it was your chair.

Well- that is to say the chair that was left in the house that you claimed as your own.

In that office you'd found, halfway hidden through the library, there was a velvety chair, plush, dark red, old, and so sturdy it was a chair built to last. After cleaning it, it was a wonderful sitting spot when you were tired.

The issue was, the chair might be haunted?

You didn't know exactly, it wasn't being rude, it was just... There.

In the office, in front of the fireplace when you were tired. You'd set a drink on the side table, maybe open one of the many old books you'd found in the house and read. Maybe even nap.

Except now, it followed you.

Not visibly, of course. But if you showed signs of exaustion, especially when cleaning the lovely house of yours, you'd take a step back, your legs bumping into something behind that throws you off balance and you land in the chair. The large, heavy one that would need two people to move.

The first time, it understandably freaked you out, you jumped out of it, turned, and it was gone again. In the office.

Next time you never took your hand off it as you got up, to turn and see it still there. Until you looked away with your hand off of it, and the chair was gone again.

So you accepted you had a chair that would just appear when you were tired.

Then... More began happening.

Lights would turn on and off for you, in any room, even if you don't say it, as soon as you reach for the switch, it would do it itself.

Dishes would arrange themselves at your table, setting the entire dining room table when it was just you and Sage living there.

The old record player you found would start playing a new record if you were in the room, especially if you were working on anything.

If you were making a meal for yourself, the chair at the head of the table would be pulled out by the time you made it to the table.

It only happened when you were alone.

As if the very house tried to avoid interaction with anyone except for you.

You wonder how long it would stay this way... and what more would happen once the house grew more comfortable.

[thepenultimateword]

Claws and Fangs Part 2

CW: Discrimination, essence of racism and hate speech (just with made-up terms because its supernatural creatures)

Part One

[Vampire!]

The little girl standing tiptoe in the doorframe sprang at the vampire's chest, nearly knocking them backwards down the long flight of stairs. Luckily, Fangs managed to catch her under the arms and swing her weight back toward the door just in time.

"Aggie!" they cried, matching her energy. They rubbed noses with the child as they shifted her to the crook of their free arm and reached behind them to find Claws’s arm again.

The child, Aggie, clung to their neck. "Daddy said you weren't coming!"

"Plans changed." They gave the little girl an extra squeeze before smoothly positioning Claws in front of her. "This is [Werewolf]. They're staying the weekend with us."

The little girl lit up for an instant but then froze, sniffing the air and wrinkling her nose. "Why do they smell like that?"

"Aggie!" a new feminine voice scolded, this one older, huskier. "That's no way to treat a guest."

A tall, raven-haired woman in a long red dress appeared in the doorway. Claws only needed a second to recognize her as another vampire. She carried the same red-eyed glint and predatory elegance as Fangs.

Her gaze roved up and down, taking in their utter unvampireness, but she still smiled as she met their eyes.

“Excuse my daughter. She hasn't had much exposure outside a clan.."

Aggie wriggled out of the Fangs’s arms and darted past her mother's legs and into the house.

"I'm [Vampire's] sister, Nerezza. You must be [Werewolf]."

"You know me?"

"Of course, we've been trying to get them to invite you for a dog's age." She gasped, covering her mouth. "I am so sorry."

Fangs covered their face with one hand. "Nerezza."

Claws's face heated. Apparently, their identity was no mystery. "Er, it's fine. I didn't really notice."

"Until you made a big deal out of it," Fangs said.

"Excuse me, [Vampire] for being careful," Nerezza snapped. "I didn't want to offend them before they even got through the door, and I only just remembered that dog is a derogatory term!"

"You can say dog, just don't call them one."

Nerezza glanced at Claws for confirmation, as if she only trusted the explanation from the source's mouth. When they nodded, she noticeably relaxed.

"Well come on in before you catch a cold standing here. Just leave your bags by the door; the staff will take it up to your room. Now. Let's introduce you to everyone else."

Fangs squeezed their hand as they crossed the threshold. "Here we go."

The house was even more beautiful inside than out. Rich red rugs swathed pearly marble floors. The walls and banisters were dark chocolate wood decorated in tapestries and oil portraits of vampires that looked suspiciously similar to Fangs and Nerezza. At the end of the hall, Nerezza turned through an arched entryway into a great, round sitting room. The sofas and recliners were draped in white fur throws and a rose and silver-leaf garland hung over the hearth, the hearty, pine-scented fire within accenting the room with an orange glow.

"Evening everyone!" Fangs said

Several vampires twisted their heads around as they entered, one man on the end of one sofa with his dark silky hair pulled into a bun immediately began sniffing the air.

"What in burning silver is that smell?"

The man beside him, looking nearly identical except for his hair--pale blonde and plaited over his shoulder, promptly punched him in the ribs.

"Told you, told you, told you!" Aggie sang from the floor where she was very meticulously putting together a puzzle of a frog pond.

Fangs's hand slipped out of Claws's grip and settled more protectively around their waist, seeming to forget for a moment that their partner was over a head taller and a few palms bulkier than they were. Though they wouldn't deny that having that supernatural vampire strength wrapped firmly about them was comforting.

"This is [Werewolf]. You know about them. My...er...well, we're engaged. Sort of."

"Sort of?" Man Bun said condescendingly, this time blocking his brother's fist.

"I haven't actually asked yet, but we both already know--"

"You're going to," Claws helped. "It just hasn't officially..."

"No, not quite yet."

"Soon though?" Claws tipped their gaze meaningfully toward Fangs’s face. Standing in front of their family for the first time probably wasn't the time or place for hints, but they couldn't help it now that the topic was out in the open. They had been waiting for a while now.

"Oh, yes, yes, very soon!" Fangs said, and they both strained smiles at the room. Fangs clapped their hands together. "Anyway. Aggie and Nerezza greeted us at the door, this is my brother-in-law, Gabriel."

The vampire he gestured to was in fact the only one who had not bored holes into Claws upon entering. Mostly because he was reclined all the way back in the biggest armchair, snoring. Claws still committed his enormous frame and the pink elastics in his auburn beard and hairline to memory.

"My brother Renwick,” Fangs moved on, introducing the blonde man. “The especially rude one is Lauden." They pinched Man Bun's cheek and turned their tone babyish. "Our baby."

Lauden swatted them away. "Shut up, I'm grown! ...Unless the last blood custard is up for grabs, then I'll gladly be the baby."

"My mother and father, you can call them Jacqueline and Valerian.

Jacqueline strained a smile, but Valerian was as still and austere as one of the oil paintings in the hall. Claws could definitely tell who had the strongest genes. Jacqueline's blonde hair and storm gray eyes had passed to Renwick, but the rest of the siblings shared their father's raven hair, amber eyes, and delicate bone structure. They still needed to get used to vampire parents looking nearly as young as their children.

Fangs gestured to a regal, middle-aged man in the armchair closest to the fire, not a recliner for how stick straight he sat, pale hand planted firmly around the gold knob of his cane. His dark hair was a mane brushed straight back and streaked at the temples with silver.

"Grandfather Ambrose," they mumbled quickly and then immediately brighter, "And that’s everyone!”

Before Claws could reply so much as 'pleased to meet you,' Fangs's strong arms dragged them off balance, plopping them both on the floor beside Aggie, Claws in the center of Fangs's lap.

Claws looked at the floor. It still wasn't the full moon, but the phantom sensation of a tucked tail and ears plagued their body. Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea. The air of awkwardness and disapproval was worse than being alone.

"So, [Werewolf]," Nerezza said, breaking the quiet. "How long have you and [Vampire] been together."

"W-we met a year and a half ago. So I guess officially...a year? How long have you known about me?"

"A year sounds right," Renwick said, leaning his elbows forward on his knees and resting his chin in his hands. His eyes seemed intent on dissecting Claws bit by bit. "You're name came up several times, but [Vampire] has always been a closed trap on the topic. Now I know why."

"Not that it matters, of course," Nerezza piped in quickly.

"Of course," Renwick agreed, though his tone was much less concerned. "How old are you?"

"Er, 27."

"Ah."

What was that supposed to mean?

"Ren," Fangs warned.

"What I'm just getting to know them. Isn't that what you want? Isn't that why you brought them?"

"This a probationary meeting. For if you ever get to see them or me again."

Claws melted closer to the floor, tracing the pattern of the rug with their eyes.

Aggie tugged on their sleeve. "Can you help me find the froggy eyes?"

She pointed to one of the background frogs on the box, his eyes only the corner of a mostly pond puzzle piece.

"Of course, let's see..." They sifted through several nearly identical, greenish-gray pieces. "Ah ha! One set of froggy eyes!"

Aggie's amber eyes lit like embers as she fit the piece into place. "And the dragonflies?"

Claws slowly slid off Fangs's lap and sprawled onto their stomach. "Pink or blue?"

"The pink."

"Ah, those ones are tricky, huh? Well, it looks like they're an edge piece, so can you help me find all the pieces with flat sides like this?"

She nodded adamantly, and together they made a small pile. Claws already saw the dragonflies, but instead of handing the piece to her they said, "See any pink ones?"

Aggie bit her lip mildly with one fang, flicking her eyes back and forth like a cat stalking a mouse. All at once, she pounced, finger landing on the center of the piece.

"Right there! Right there!"

"You found it!"

Aggie giggled. Claws was vaguely aware of a slight back and forth of their hips, habitual even with the absence of a tail.

"Look at them wriggle, just like a--"

"Why don't we all change for dinner," Jacqueline said, cutting Lauden off. She stood with a flourish, fluffing the skirts of her creamy vintage evening gown. “Lauden, dear, come with me, and I’ll help you with your tie.”

“What are you talking about?” the young man said, crinkling his pale brow. “I know how to tie—”

“Come.” Her eyes flashed like lightning in the violent storms of her irises, and Lauden quickly got up to follow her.

***

Claws threw themselves on the bed, giving a luxurious stretch as they stared up at the rich velvet canopy. They rolled on their side as Fangs closed the door.

“Alright, infamous outfit change #1. Help me, my love, what am I ever supposed to wear?” They tossed their head and pressed the back of their hand to their forehead.

Instead of playing along, Fangs sat on the edge of the bed and took their hand. “Do you want to go home? Because one word, and we’re out.”

"Hm?"

"We've only just arrived, and they're already being rude. It's going to get worse as they get more comfortable."

Claws crawled the couple of feet between them and flopped their head on their legs. "I’m not so much of a coward that a few mean words can chase me away. I’m from a wolf pack, you know. We deal with rough every day. Besides, I’ve been through worse.”

“Like what?”

“You.”

“Ow. What?”

“You were not pleasant when we first met. In fact, you called me the d-o-g word. Multiple times.”

“Because I was stupid! And I didn't know it was a slur! I didn't exactly talk to werewolves yet."

Claws reached up and smoothed the creases out of their face. "I know. The point is I can handle it. I'll let you know if can't."

Vampire wore a pout but nodded. They pointed at the suitcases. "It's the grey suitcoat with the red cravat. I'll help you tie it."

"You think I can't do it on my own?"

"Oh, I know you can't. Now stay there and sit still. I'll explain a bit about dinner."

Master Taglist:

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[philliam-writes]

you are in the earth of me [02]

Pairing: Anthony Lockwood x fem!Reader

Content: canon-typical violene, patching up Reader, author pining for Lockwood

Summary: Your eyes pop open. Lockwood is standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the banister with his arms crossed, an amused look on his face. All tousled dark hair and brown eyes as sharp as glass, he is as tall as Kipps, perhaps taller, and lankier. But their demeanours are quite different. Where Kipps is calm and steady like stone, reliable like the earth that is always solid under your feet, Lockwood seems striking like a flash of bright lightning—quick-witted and assured in the path he carves as though the mere thought of something standing in his way is so far-off that he just barrels ahead with no regard of what he sets ablaze.

Notes: [01] | [03]

Words: 7.3k

A/N: Nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming positive feedback I got for chapter 01!! Thank you so much for everyone who's joined the ride. I hope you guys will enjoy this as much as I!! (I'm on my 4th rewarch of Lockwood & Co. and I still delight in noticing all the small details they put into the show. Also. Lockwood's voice! Makes! Me! Weak!

02: for whom the bell tolls

each man’s death diminishes me, for i am involved in mankind. therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee

      — John Donne

The Rotwell dormitory you live in, nicknamed the Lions Den, is a stocky brick house taking up a good chunk of Dovehouse Street. There used to be a hotel there, way before the Problem, and then an apartment complex for the rich elderly until Rotwell bought the whole building and its private gardens just to prove they can. Echoing the classical Georgian townhouses of Chelsea built out of pale toast and earthy red shades of brick, every residence features timber-panelled walls, triple-glazed windows, and smoked oak floors throughout.

The front entrance has glass doors sliding open for anyone entering. Somehow, the foyer always smells like pine needle polisher. To the right side is a row of mail boxes with each tenant’s name, on the left side is the guard’s office, separated from the foyer by sleek glass panels. Someone decided to put a whole rainforest inside, monstera, rubber trees, philodendrons. They nearly swallow tonight’s agent covering the shift: a bulky, young girl with dark curls to her chin looking like a malformed porcelain doll—delicate features on top, sinewy muscle stretching the seams of her wine red agent jacket going down. She stares at you for a moment, blinking with her long black eyelashes.

You wave.

She doesn’t wave back, and returns to painting her nails a vibrant yellow you could pick out from space.

Inside your mail box, you find ads and unpaid bills, reminders to pay said bills, and a very unflattering drawing of you working out in the dormitory’s underground gym area. You crumble the note and throw it back inside, slamming the window shut.

Your two-room apartment lies at the end of a long corridor, facing the backside and gardens. It is a copy paste of all other living complexes inside this building: a small entrance leading into a spacious living area with a cream-coloured two-seater couch at its centre, a solid cherrywood desk next to the curtained window and a heavy antique armoire twice your size pushed against the wall. Behind an ornate cedar door is the small bedroom, king-sized bed and heavy bureau and all that makes it look more like a hotel room advert than a place where you could wind down after a hard day.

As always, you stand in the hallway for a moment before turning the lights on. It is quiet, the room smells of polished wood and washed laundry. As always, it feels as though the walls are closing in.

You flick the light on and stash your rapier inside the umbrella rack by the front door, ignoring the two trash bags waiting to be thrown out. The laundry has been hanging for three days, but there was just no time to clean it away because you’re barely here—every minute spend within these walls is taken up by sleeping, eating or occasionally staring bleary-eyed at the ceiling and counting the heavy thuds from above whenever the agent living in the upper apartment decides it is time to practice tango in high heels at three in the morning.

You cross the room and open the window, letting in the cool night breeze. The smell of dawn hangs in the air, crispy and cold like the crackling of dry leaves. It will take only a few more hours for the sun to rise and draw London’s people from their homes to go about their daily lives. Jobs, grocery runs, late afternoon dates, strolls through the parks. When the world wakes up, you turn in to sleep, bloody, beaten and bruised, but alive.

You wonder if every day will be like this. Fight against the Problem and only chip away at the immeasurable scale of its extent. This night, you have secured two Sources, stopped two hauntings. But how does this affect the grand scheme of things?

Your head hurts. Best to leave the existential crisis for another day; right now all you need is your soft pillow and the familiar smell of your lavender-detergent. The Problem will still be there once you wake up; it will not ruin those precious hours asleep where you don’t have to worry about anything.

Every apartment has a tiny kitchen and bath adjacent to the living area. A cup of tea before you turn in, and maybe one or two of those chocolate chip biscuit a client gave you last week in appreciation for driving off the Lurker in her basement.

The kitchen looks just like you left it: as though a salt bomb has gone off. There was no time to put away the dishes or give the pan a quick scrub before you left for your shift, and now the leftover burnt bits stick to the dark surface. The half-full cup of coffee has grown cold since the morning, left forgotten. You’re too tired to clean up. It’ll have to wait until you wake up, or maybe even after the next shift.

You consider throwing your head back and screaming for a second when all of a sudden an intense hate for this apartment geysers up and threatens to swallow you. It is tiny, suffocating. There is nothing personal about this—you could disappear from the world and it would just become someone else’s responsibility and property. Nothing would indicate that you left a mark in this place.

Putting the kettle on the stove, you pick out your favourite mug with a broken handle—Kipps’s fault when he knocked it off the table a couple months back—and return to the living room. Your coat smells of burnt fabric from ectoplasm. The agency is very strict when it comes to appearance and representing Rotwell's splendid work ethic, so replacing it will put another dent in your account, but that is still better than going through the same trouble as last month when you appeared with a chocolate smudge on your jacket and every supervisor spotting you gave you hell for it.

Half-shrugged out of your coat, you walk back, past the closed window.

And stop.

Slowly, you turn. Only your own reflection stares back at you—wide-eyed and dishevelled from today. There’s a dark patch on your shoulder where ectoplasm has eaten like acid through the fabric of your coat. The lock is latched firmly on the inside, the metal clip winking at you under the Tiffany lamp’s reflection. Suddenly, everything depends on how still you are against the moving world.

Where did you leave your rapier? Ah, inside the umbrella rack back in the hallway. What’s the closest bludgeon weapon you can get your hands on? Only an empty Pringles can, yesterday’s dinner.

In the window’s reflection, the dark patch on your shoulder rises, distorts. Grows a head. Even with the room plunged into silence, your heart beats rabbit-fast and you hold your breath to keep from making a sound. Just this once, you’re thankful you were running late this morning and didn’t have time to clean up the leftover breakfast on your office desk that stands against the wall. Not even five steps separate you from the blunt silver knife glinting under the lamp with specks of dried jam on its blade.

The shadow behind you grows bulky shoulders and broad arms. When it steps onto the small area just a little to the right from the entrance, the wood creaks.

The world jerks back into motion.

You lunge for the knife on the table when a hard body slams into yours. You crash against the wardrobe, your head hitting the hard wood with a loud crack. The room spins as all air is knocked out of your lungs. You notice a blurry shadow rising in front of you, and your body moves on autopilot—rolls to the right and falls to the ground just in time to dodge a fist punching a hole into the wardrobe.

Nauseating headache throbs like lightning flashes in the back of your head as you scramble back to your feet, wheezing from the pain spreading through your body from the impact. Your rapier. You need your rapier.

Wood splinters when your attacker draws his hand back. He is almost two heads taller than you, completely clad in black. Even his face hides behind a ski mask. All you see are two pinpricks of unfathomably dark eyes as though this man has gazed into an abyss and the abyss has gazed right back at him.

He doesn’t move for a second, stands as though frozen on the spot. Only his hand flexes, relaxes. Clenches. Silver glints off his gloved knuckles. He is here with one intention only: to hurt you.

You don’t have time to ask why. His legs are longer; he closes the distance between you with two long steps, swings his arm towards your face. You spin and fling yourself over the backrest of the sofa, bounce off its cushions and jump to your feet on the other side. With furniture between you and the intruder, you finally force yourself to take in deep breaths. Think.

The smell coming off of him. You recognise it. Grainy, woody with a fruity note. The sweetness you picked up earlier this night must have been caramel. Alcohol.

“Look, if this is about me bumping into your table earlier at the Green Goose, you could just ask for a proper apology,” you press out between gritted teeth. Your whole body feels like a giant bruise, sore and laden from exhaustion.

Every step he takes around the couch, you mirror until it becomes a dance of bodies and mind to see who gives in first; who slows down and loses focus.

At first you believe the noise to be your frantic breathing—or his rattling wheeze, but then you pick it up. A rough, scratchy voice.

“Dickey … need … dickey …”

Your muscles are so taut you fear they might snap any second. Another circle around your couch you go. “What? I don’t—I don’t know what that is.”

“The … the key,” he repeats, louder this time. “I need the key.”

“Key? What key?” You feel the gnawing urge to squeeze your eyes shut against the vertigo of this situation. “I don’t have a key—”

The memory flies back so fast it nearly knocks you out like an incoming brick. Bronze, small, resting within the cushions of a small seal. Disappearing into the deep pockets of a black coat. The echo of death and violence still sticking to your fingers even through the fabric of your gloves.

You round the couch again and stop, the desk at your back. The knife is just in reach. “I don’t have that key.”

“I saw it. He gave it to you. You have no idea how important it is to us.” His voice rises to a snarl, the quality rougher than satin scratching over bark.

“He never gave—” Another memory hurtles your way—it is a wonder you don’t pass out from a concussion. The candy. It is still inside your pocket, suddenly heavier than a stone.

Everything makes sense now.

You take a step back towards the table. “You’ve got it all wrong,” you say, your words tumbling over themselves in their haste to get out, “I don’t have the key, and I don’t know where it is. I’ve got nothing to do with it.”

“LIES!” he hollers, and punches the backrest of your couch. The loud thud is like a gunshut, and you move, whirl around and grab for the knife—and completely misjudge where it is. Instead, your hand slaps on the dirty plate.

It could be worse.

Heavy steps thump behind you. You grab the plate, turn and hurl it at the man. It slams into him, shattering into thousand pieces.

You fly past him, towards the hallway and umbrella rack where your rapier is waiting. Stretching your hand out, your fingers brush against the silver handle—

A hard grip catches the end of your trenchcoat, yanking you back. The blow comes out of nowhere, slamming into your face so hard you see stars. Your back teeth clang together. Black dots dance before your eyes and blur your vision as pain radiates from your cheek. Something sharp and hard slides across your knees, slicing the fabric of your jeans clean in half.

Fingers curling, tightening their hold around the familiar hilt, you turn and draw back your arm, and let it snap forward like a snake lashing out and sinking its venomous teeth into its prey.

The silver-tipped edge of your rapier drives into the man’s shoulder and he cries out in pain, staggers back—and takes your rapier with him. He curls his gloved fingers around the thin blade and yanks the tip out of his shoulder, throwing your weapon to the ground where it lies useless and completely out of reach.

He reaches into a side pocket and draws a jagged, razor-sharp knife.

On second thought, maybe you should just run.

You bolt for the hallway once more, this time aiming straight for the door. The sound of a fast-moving object sailing towards you—something moving quickly and swiftly and with enough force to slice the air in half—makes you throw yourself forward, just in time to dodge the glinting edge nipping your hair.

You yank at the handle, letting white light spill into the apartment from the outside hallway.

Two thinks happen at once.

You wrench the door open and squeeze through the narrow gab. The man behind you slams bodily into the door and you hear a pained groan. At the same time, something sharp cuts through your trenchcoat and jacket. Searing-hot pain explodes in your left side.

You manage to push through and shut the door with a loud slam. A second bang shakes the door; he must have run into it again trying to chase after you.

Hot pain radiates from your side. You grit your teeth hard enough your jaw hurts and follow along the hallway all the way back to the foyer.

When you reach the night guard’s office, there is nobody inside. As if this night couldn’t turn even worse. A small glass bottle lies disturbed on the table, spreading yellow nail polish like spilt blood on its surface. The girl must have knocked it over, now gone to fetch a cleaner.

Great.

You throw yourself under the table and disappear from sight; somewhere on the first floor a door slams shut.

There has to be a way out. A way to draw attention; a way to drive him away. As your eyes rake across the room to find something, anything, they land on a red button behind a small glass window. The ghost-alarm in case of hauntings inside the dorms.

You crawl out from under the desk and scurry across the room, heart beating in your throat. If you turn and he is behind you …

Slamming your fist into the small panel, the button gives away without any resistance.

Sirens blare in the building. More doors slam—opening this time as hundred agents emerge from their rooms. Voices echo from the hallways, drowned by the sprinklers going off and raining salt from the ceiling like little diamonds.

You back into a corner, wide eyes staring at the foyer and counting down the seconds until your attacker enters—any moment, any moment, any moment. Only agents begin to spill into the hall, pale faced, groggy from being rudely awakened after tiring shifts.

With the imminent threat gone, the adrenaline pumping through your body slowly ebbs away—leaving behind bone-deep exhaustion, and mind-numbing pain as though your whole body is one giant bruise.

Your clothes stick to your skin, something warm tickles down your side. You cross the room on wobbling feet, forcing yourself not to look; convincing yourself that it is just coffee, just like a few hours ago when you sat in the booth next to Kipps.

The phone receiver on a corner stand is heavier than you remember. Your fingers move as if possessed, finding the familiar numbers on the dial. It rings. Once, twice.

Tears prick in the back of your eyes as it keeps ringing, your call remaining unanswered. Maybe he hasn’t come home yet. Maybe he is still out. Your throat is dry. You feel like an animal trapped against a corner. Suddenly, everything goes blurry.

Click. Kipps’s tired groan is all you get for a hello.

“Quill,” you choke out. Because despite having to call DEPRAC or maybe an ambulance, Quill Kipps will always be the first you turn to in moments of crisis. “Quill, I might have been stabbed.”

Silence. On the other line, you hear fabric rustling, as though he is crawling out of bed.

“What,” Kipps says, his voice rough from sleep, “the fuck.”

You still don’t know what is so special about the address Kipps has sent you to compared to the hospital or Scotland Yard where you assume they are more qualified to handle your dilemma, but you hope that you arrive soon because the daggers the cab driver keeps throwing at you seem more lethal than the gashing wound in your side.

When he finally stops the car—abruptly enough to launch your body against the frontseat—you rummage through your pockets and empty them completely, leaving a generous tip for bleeding on his car seats.

You barely manage to close the door behind you when he speeds off, leaving a dust trail behind.

The sky is turning cotton pink on the horizon. Dawn spreads light and hope across the city, bright and clear, and very painful for your strained, exhausted eyes. You turn away, taking in your surroundings.

The cab has left you in a residential area at the centre of London where the Victorian semis look like they might belong on old postcards from better times, before the Problem. 35 Portland Row is an inconspicuous, four-level house at the very end of the street. Just like its neighbours, it would not suffer from a new repaint, or maybe just a good clean-up.

A lone shadow sits by the stairs leading into the building, rising when you approach. Kipps looks like you feel: his hair sticks out in all directions and there are half-moons of shadow under his eyes, as if they have been smudged there with coal. He rubs the back of his neck as though that would release all the tension from the last twenty-four hours. Worry is etched deep into his face—worry and guilt, and it is an expression you haven’t seen in a long time. It makes your heart clench, turning it into something small, hard, and cold.

He meets you halfway and catches you when you stumble into him, allowing yourself to be held at last. His hold on you is strong and hard, until you hiss when sharp pain from your wound makes it hard to walk. Kipps’s hold lightens.

“What the hell happened?” he demands, his long fingers gently nudging your head left and right by your chin. You’re pretty sure there is a nasty bruise blooming from the punch.

“Turns out someone out there really wants that bloody key,” you say, unable to put quite the heat into the words like you wanted.

The effect is pretty much the same.

It is like a door slamming shut; his expression closes off completely. He puts your arm around his shoulders and hauls you up the stairs. To your surprise, the door is already unlocked and swings open when he pushes against it with his other shoulder.

You enter into a narrow, dark hallway, only illuminated by light streaming into it from an adjacent room. The house smells of iron and salt, leather coats, and a curious dusty, musty tang. On both sides of the walls hang weird masks and odd curios on shelves. Everything about this entrance screams extravagance, but also something inexplicably homely. The complete opposite from your apartment. Voices sound from the first door to your right, silencing upon the front door clicking shut behind you. Now everything is dead silent.

Kipps leads you past an old, chipped plant pot that functions as an umbrella stand and rapier holder. They are old French models with specks of ectoplasm stuck to blades, and dents in the hilts. One long, black umbrella is bent in the middle as though someone had used it as a weapon and didn’t get around to throw it away.

You emerge into a small, cluttered living area containing a fireplace, an old sofa and a few sturdy armchairs grouped around a coffee table. Heavy dark curtains obscure half of the window where the first streaks of sunlight steal through the gap, showing dust dance in the light.

Three heads swivel your way, all in different states of confusion. You recognise one face.

Anthony Lockwood jumps out of his armchair. It has only been a few hours since you last saw him, and so far he has only taken off his black coat. His white shirt is wrinkled, his black tie thrown over his shoulder. There is something restless about him, like a moth fluttering from flame to flame.

Kipps slides you into the free seat on the sofa right next to a giant pile of crumpled ironing. Shirts, pants, and briefs tumble to the ground as you finally allow yourself to slump into the seat and let your guard down.

The room tilts for a moment. You close your eyes, trying to comprehend today’s events. Multiple voices bombard you from all directions and turn into a pounding headache at the back of your skull.

A metal lid clicks open. Careful hands remove your coat, then lift your shirt where the blood has seeped into the fabric, making it stick to your gashed skin. When your eyes flutter open, Kipps kneels before you on the rug, a deep worry crease slicing through his forehead as he inspects your wound.

“Well, good news. It’s not that deep,” he observes. With swift fingers, calloused from handling rapier and tools, he takes the antiseptic and a clean wipe from the first-aid case—expert hands that are used to medical attention; that know the dance of patching up wounds and tending to injuries. You doubt it is something any agent will forget, even when they have served their duty.

When he applies the disinfect after cleaning the blood, you hiss; your body tenses from the pain. “Cool. I’ll thank him next time I see him,” you say through gritted teeth.

Kipps gives you a curt, quick look—but there is still some relief; relief that even now you can be snippy.

“Did you see his face? What did he look like?” Loockwood asks. He’s leaning over the back of the couch, hand holding onto the backrest hard enough his knuckles turn white.

“I don’t know, I was busy trying not go get turned into a shish kebab.” You kick at Kipps when he dabs the gauze a little too hard into your wound.

“Stop moving,” he warns.

“That didn’t work out much,” a girl’s voice notices drily.

You open your eyes. Behind Lockwood’s shoulder, two agents stare at you, blinking their wide eyes like owls.

The boy’s nose twitches. “She bled on the new rug, Lockwood.”

You feel like an exhibit in a museum. Lucy Carlyle and George Karim. Names only familiar to you because you can’t remember a day where Kipps has not complained about them as much as about Lockwood.

“Yeah, why exactly—am I here?” You shift in the seat. Something is poking you in the back. When you pat the cushion, you find an old, dry biscuit.

Behind Lockwood, Lucy gives George a long, pointed look. Seems like this isn’t the first time they witness someone finding leftover snacks in the crevices of their couch.

“You said he was looking for the key?” Kipps is applying gauze to your clean wound which makes everything just a little better; you begin to feel like a human again. Now all you need is a good, healthy amount of sleep. Preferable for the next three days.

“He thought I had it on me. Said something about … how important it was to them.”

Lockwood perks up. “Who is them?”

“Well, he didn’t give me a list or anything.” You pull out some stray socks from under your bum and let them join their siblings on the ground. Slumping into your seat, you notice it is quite comfortable. You’re sinking into the cushions and there is something calming about the smell of old wood and the heavy curtain’s detergent. “But he was desperate. It seemed like … I don’t know. He’ll be in serious trouble without it.”

“Well, good thing it’s with DEPRAC now,” Kipps says, settling back on his heels after he finishes bandaging you up. The silence hanging in the room is stifling. Kipps looks over the backrest of the sofa at Lockwood. “You did bring it to DEPRAC like we agreed to. Right, Lockwood?”

Slowly, Lockwood leans away from the sofa as though that is the only appropriate measure to take in case Kipps decides to hurl himself over the sofa and strangle him. He has the good manners to look almost contrite. “I might have missed out on the chance to deliver it to Inspector Barnes,” he says slowly. His face is calm and betrays nothing, like the blank statue of a saint in a cathedral.

Kipps is on his feet in an instant. Red patches of rage have broken out over his face and throat. “You lying, conniving piece of—”

Lockwood claps his hands loudly. “This just proves that we cannot let anyone except professionals handle this case. Least of all DEPRAC. Someone’s after it because they know whatever that key unlocks is important.”

“Or he was the Visitor’s killer and he knows it could be evidence,” George points out. “Like Annabelle Ward and Fairfa—”

Lucy slaps her hand over her coworker’s mouth. Her wide eyes stare at him, then pin you down. George blinks, then nods slowly.

You raise your hand. “You know, being the one who got stabbed over this, I veto you let the adults handle it.”

Lockwood gives you a dazzling smile. “Overruled.”

“Let’s sleep on it first,” Lucy says, rubbing the exhaustion from her eyes with her sleeve. “We’ll decide what to do next when we wake up. And yes, leaving it with DEPRAC is still an option.” She looks over at Lockwood, her eyebrows raised. You can’t think of many who manages to make a proposition sound like a threat.

“First reasonable thing I hear any of you say today,” Kipps scoffs. There is still anger in his voice, but you don’t think it is directed at anyone specific this time. This anger smells of frustration. It stems from knowing days like these are in the fine print of becoming an agent. The danger from having to deal with the living from time to time, which can be so much more dangerous than the dead. He turns to you. “Let me drop you off at a hotel.”

“I—” You don’t want to be alone, not after tonight. But Kipps also lives in the Fittes dormitories and they are mercilessly strict when it comes to non-employed visitors, despite being a senior supervisor like Kipps who enjoys some privileges.

“We must assume whoever attacked you might be out there still tracking you,” Lockwood says, and leans forward to settle his elbows against the backrest. His white shit stretches taut over his shoulders and back, catches over his spine. He lowers his dark eyes to you, within which swims a quiet, but solid confidence as though he has never faced a situation he couldn’t handle. It makes you want to rely on him, a thought you quickly push away the moment it steps into your mind. “We have a spare couch in the library you can crash on until morning—” He glances over his shoulder towards the window where sunlight peaks through the heavy curtains. An almost coy smile captures his lips, showing the hint of a dimple. “Until we wake up.”

You raise both eyebrows. “I can?”

Both Lucy and George give Lockwood the sideye. “She can?”

Lockwood frowns. “Unless you have somewhere else to go?”

“A couch sounds perfect.” You are tired enough you wouldn’t mind sleeping on the floor. You throw Kipps a quick look. He doesn’t look happy, but even he realises this is better than leaving you all by yourself.

With nobody objecting, George heaves a defeated sigh. “Let me go and pick up the empty chips bags,” he says, and shuffles out of the room. You hear wood creak when he stalks down the hallway.

When you tear your eyes away from where he left through the door, you notice Lucy keeps staring at you with an odd look you can’t place. As though she doesn’t really know what to think of you and why you are suddenly here, only 'here' doesn't seem to apply to the living room of her home. It feels like she doesn't seem to know why you have suddenly stepped into her life. She manoeuvres around Lockwood, painstakingly making sure there’s furniture between you and her.

Kipps is by your side helping you up. He follows Lockwood's directions through the entrance hall. You pass the stairs to the end of the hallway where George is carrying an armful of empty bottles and plastic bags out of what you assume must be the library.

It is a small, oak-panelled room across the hall from the lounge. No light sneaks inside with the heavy curtains shrouding the windows. Up to the ceilings, hardback volumes are crammed into black, heavy shelves that line all four walls. It smells of books and ink and printed paper, making you immediately feel at ease under the dim, warm light of an old standard lamp tucked into a corner.

Kipps makes sure you’re comfortable on the leather couch, throwing a worn, chequered wool blanket over your legs. He looks at you for a long moment. Then he seems to crumple inside, like paper; he sinks down in the leather chair opposite you, and puts his face into his hands. “I should have just told Lockwood No when he asked for someone with Touch. I never wanted you to get involved like this.”

“It’s a little too late for that now, isn’t it?” you state, but there is no malice or accusation in your voice. You are too tired for that.

Still, Kipps makes a sound like a kicked puppy. When you look over at him, you see him pale and slumped down, like someone who’s taken so many blows that the doesn’t want to stand anymore.

Your grab for his hand and squeeze until he returns your gaze. His pale green eyes look haunted. “I don’t think this is anyone’s fault,” you say. “Least of all yours.”

Kipps purses his lips. You squeeze his hand tighter.

“Maybe,” he allows. He scrubs at his face, eyes flitting over the hardcover books surrounding him. You grow drowsy with every steady ticking of an ornate mantel clock above the fireplace. To your side is a small, mahogany Victorian pedestal table with a leftover cup next to a stack of London Society magazines. “Or maybe I should have been more careful,” he continues. “Be more careful. So this doesn’t happen again.”

The fog of sleep that almost takes you is cleanly cut by his words. You blink against the dizzy feeling that tries to pull you under; dragging you down like wet clothes when you swim. You let go of his hand and sit up. “You are not responsible for me,” you say, unable to keep the heat out of your voice now. It comes back full force, scathing and blazing. “I can look after myself perfectly fine, and I would not have you waste your life away because you think you are obliged to protect me.”

“You could barely fend off that attacker by yourself,” he shoots back—his voice strains to remain diplomatic, calm, but this is Quill Kipps, and he has never been capable of putting the lid on the smouldering fire when it comes to your safety. “I made a promise and I mean to keep it until you’re retired and old and stop getting into danger—”

The rage that always lives inside you rears when he says that ugly word—promise. It is an almost physical pain, like nails against flesh.

“You are not my brother,” you snap. “And I don’t want you to be!”

All colour drains from Kipps’s face, then comes back in a rush of angry red as he tries to keep his anger under control. You know a lot about rage. How hard it could be to rein it in without a lifetime of practice. How it could eat you up inside.

He stands, slowly, calmly—and that is so much worse than when he explodes. This is him in his upset mood that you call ‘scary-calm.’ It is a calm that makes you think of the deceptive hard sheen of ice before it cracks under your weight.

“Quill—” you begin, but he is already moving towards the door.

“If I were Matthew,” he says at the threshold, not looking at you, “I would actually be able to protect you.”

It is a blow not meant to be a blow, and yet it drives through your chest like a poison-tipped spear. It stirs up age-old dust from a past you try to bury so hard that now you choke on it.

Matthew. Mat. Mat is gone because of you. And now Quill leaves you too.

You jump to your feet, ignoring the piercing pain in your side and stumble after him. Kipps disappears down the hall, then you hear the front door open, and slam shut.

You close your eyes and bang your head silently against the doorframe. Beneath your gloves your palms are slick with sweat and your fingers shaking. All day you felt like walking on a tightrope, and now a single misplaced step sends you plunging. You have never felt this alone before.

“Do you do that because you enjoy it, or because it feels good when you stop?” says a drawling voice from the corridor outside.

Your eyes pop open. Lockwood is standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the banister with his arms crossed, an amused look on his face. All tousled dark hair and brown eyes as sharp as glass, he is as tall as Kipps, perhaps taller, and lankier. But their presences are quite different. Where Kipps is calm and steady like stone, reliable like the earth that is always solid under your feet, Lockwood seems bright like a flash of lightning—quick-witted, assured in the path he carves as though the mere thought of something standing in his way is so far-off, he just barrels ahead with no regard of what he sets ablaze.

Any retort dies on your lips when he throws something your away, and you catch the first object mid-air, pulling a face when your wound protests. It is cold and heavy—a pack of ice cubes wrapped in a towel. The second thing hits you in the shoulder and clatters to the ground. A package of painkillers. If you would look up the word Oops in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Lockwood’s current expression.

You bring the ice pack up and press it against your cheek. “Thanks.”

Lockwood gives a crooked smile. “Plenty of time to figure everything out later. If you need anything, our rooms are just another floor up.”

Your mouth is dry. He isn’t nice because he wants to; he too does it out of an obligation. “OK. Thanks.”

He crams his hands into his pockets, eyes raking from your feet up to your face. It seems as though there is something else Lockwood wants to say, but he decides otherwise and ends up simply nodding before he ducks back towards the kitchen where you can hear the hushed, urgent voices of Lucy and George.

You retreat into the library and shut the door gently. Only the clock’s ticking fills the room now, so loud it is almost grating against your ears. You tug your gloves off gingerly and place them next to the magazines. The skin on your knuckles and the back of your hand is dry like sandpaper. Later this evening, you have to make sure to get your hand lotion.

Ignoring the unpleasant feeling, you lie down and shimmy under the blanket. You tug your hands close to your chest where there is no danger to accidentally touching anything—you know there is no threat from objects belonging to the living, but after almost a decade of experiencing death echoes ranging from mild joy to severe depression, it is soothing to know that the gloves conjure a sense of separation, of safety. Without them, you feel naked and vulnerable.

Just a few hours of sleep. Then you’ll figure out what to do. Maybe you can pretend the whole day didn’t happen—run a few jobs, clean up your room after the attack. Return to normalcy. Return to your day-to-day life before you got roped into Lockwood & Co.’s business and their wayward modus operandi.

You close your eyes and pretend you don’t feel strangely safe listening to the muffled voices coming from the other room.

Something has taken a hold of your legs.

Your stomach roils with panic as you thrash against its grasp, smelling damp soil and rotten leaves—someone is trying to put you under the ground, bury you alive in unholy ground where all hope and virtue is lost, just like—

You jerk free—

—and fall.

The floor is hard and unyielding, slamming you awake on impact. The pain follows right after, radiating from your side to the rest of your body. Groaning, you try to turn to your other side, but with your legs still half-entangled in the blanket, you don’t make it far.

There was a dream. At least you think there was a dream. You can’t remember much, only the smell of rotten soil and copper.

From under the closed door, you see a slim sliver of late afternoon sun peak into the dark room. You lie very still for a moment, even though your back and neck hurt from being curled up on the small couch all night. It is not the foreign place that startles you, but the noises that belong to a lively home: cabinets open and close. Dishes clatter. Water boils. Voices drift through the walls, muffled but heartily warm and bright. It smells of heated butter, herbal tea, and something burnt.

A home. This is a home where people come to wind down after work, to be vulnerable, to pick up the broken pieces after a case.

For just a minute, you close your eyes and imagine this is your life. Your home. This is your room, smelling of books, ink, and candles. Somewhere downstairs a cup smashes into bits, but there is only laughter, bright and cheerful—someone shouts a jolly “Luce!”

You pop your eyes open; the pipe dream dissipates. Your body is a medley of bruises and aches as you get up. Kipps was right, the cut isn’t too deep, you didn’t even bleed through the gauze during the night. You look at the ornate clock hanging above the fireplace. It is past three o’clock. You have to be at Rotwell’s in an hour.

Blinking against the sting in the back of your eyes, you get up and grab your gloves from the small table and your torn, dirty Coat hanging from a chair’s armrest. The fabric stinks of blood and sweat, but there is no time to get back home and change into clean clothes. You can’t get late to work a second time this week.

Your initial plan to just march through the front door and leave doesn’t work out when you pass the open kitchen door. It is a small, cluttered room with a huge table in its centre like a pillar of strength. Several plates with food have been placed down, breakfast served for three people: boiled eggs in cute little eggcups, sandwiches, a fruit bowl, some hot, greasy sausages just out of the pan. There is flatbread and right beside it a plate with small bites like fruits, walnuts, sliced cucumber and radishes.

The agents of Lockwood & Co. coordinate around each other in a way that seems like a practised dance—Lucy swiftly dodges George carrying a plate with doughnuts while Lockwood steps out of her way striding towards the water kettle without even looking.

When she pauses and says something to him, he does that thing you find annoyingly attractive in men: since he’s much taller than Lucy, Lockwood leans down and tilts his head towards her to hear her better. He has a striking side profile, all sharp lines and elegant curves, a pointed jaw.

You see him smile, and grow increasingly annoyed at how effortlessly handsome he is.

George clears his throat, and then all three are staring at you standing in the doorway.

Lockwood’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Hiya.”

Lucy’s mouth twitches into something that hasn’t decided yet if it wants to be a smile or a scowl.

George notices you looking at the food on the table and promptly says, “We don’t own enough dishes for another person.” He calmly closes the cupboard behind him where you see another stack of plates and cups.

“Wasn’t interested. I’m not much into burnt toast,” you say like a liar. George huffs in offence. “I have to go anyway. Work and all that.”

Three heads nod at the same time, a conjoined Hydra.

Remembering you have something like manners, you quickly add, “And thanks for letting me stay.” That should be enough pleasantries. You hastily make your escape through the front door and manage two steps downstairs before you hear footsteps behind you.

“One more thing,” Lockwood says, propping himself against the doorfrome. You wonder if he owns any other piece of clothing other than his white shirts and ties. “Regardless however we proceed with our case, it would be to both our benefits to work out an association. There is no harm in having friends in established circles.” He puts on a smile, one you recognise from meeting him for the first time. Charming, but bashful, he plays coy to try and pull you around his little finger.

So this is how he wants to play it.

You slip into your jacket and smooth down the fabric to appear at least somewhat dignified. “We are not friends, Tony,” you say, and notice with some satisfaction the tick in his jaw whenever someone uses that nickname. “And frankly, if our paths don’t cross anytime soon, I wouldn’t mind. Now, if you excuse me—“ well aware of the ectoplasm stink and the tears in your jacket, you push your shoulder blades together— “we at Rotwell are quite busy with actually solving the Problem instead of playing detective games.”

With a confidence you don’t feel at all, you grant Lockwood one of your sly grins, your usual selling argument whenever you’re wearing your Rotwell armour. Lockwood’s face remains impassive. When you turn, heading out to the main street to get a cab, you feel his eyes burying like a dagger into your gut. In the distance, a church bell rings on the quarter hour, and you try and remember the poem about the bell tolling.

A/N: I cheated a little, the Rotwell dormitories are pretty much the Auriens Chelsea apartment complex. I'll upload a masterlist for this sometime this week to keep things a little more organised.

Taglist: @helpmelmao, @simrah1012, @chloejaniceeee, @fox-bee926, @frogserotonin, @obsessed-female, @avelinageorge, @quacksonhq, @wordsarelife, @bilesxbilinskixlahey, @che-che1, @breadbrobin, @anxiousbeech, @charmingpatronus, @starcrossedluvr, @yourunstablegf, @grccies, @sisyphusmymuse

(Just a heads up, if I can't tag you, it might be because of your settings)

[sirfrogsworth]

Small direct flashes are the bane of a retoucher's existence. Some photographers will get attachable brackets so the flashes are higher up and don't give red eye. But it is still a tiny light source and tiny light sources are not flattering. (Remember all of my ring light rants?) They remove all dimension from the photo. They make colors flat and sterile. And they make it very difficult to achieve natural tones.

This is why I bounce my flash off the ceiling. Then the ceiling becomes the light source and the ceiling is big as heck.

Unfortunately back the days of film, sometimes a small flashgun was your only option. A dark church is one of the most difficult environments to get good photos in. Nowadays you can crank up the ISO and use a denoising plugin in editing. But back then, even if you got the fastest lens and the most sensitive film, it still wouldn't be enough to get a proper exposure. And since big studio strobes had power packs the size of a mini fridge and were not portable enough for a wedding gig, your only alternative was a tiny direct flash.

So I am not blaming the photographer for making this 40 year old photo difficult to edit. But I do wish that church had chosen more attractive carpeting and wood banisters. Film is not great at rendering large patches of red and that wood seems to only look puke color no matter what I do to it.

And so this turns into a philosophical question. Is it more important to preserve this memory exactly as it happened? Or is it okay to improve the aesthetics with marble stairs so you aren't distracted by the ugly wood and carpeting and can just enjoy the fond memory?

So far everyone I've asked is leaning toward keeping it original for a print and just showing them the marble one.

[calicohyde]

Lady In Red: Chapter One of Curse The Messenger Draft 1.4

I reached a follower milestone hosted a poll about what I should do to celebrate, and you all voted that I should publicly post this chapter of Curse The Messenger! I'm posting this here as well as on AO3. If you prefer to read it there, click here. Listen to this WIP's playlist while you read!

Chapter Summary:

Eddie Alfaro is dissatisfied with her job as a clairvoyant private investigator. The community of witches that makes up her clientele are prejudiced against her for her gift of Seeing, and the cases are always inconsequential and boring anyway. Infidelity, stolen heirlooms, that kind of thing. On top of that she's struggling with survivor's guilt, grief, and alcoholism, and she thinks her sibling is starting to get sick of her shit.

Then a gorgeous, elegant stranger shows up on Eddie's door and offers her an interesting case - a murder with no body. The woman says the case is Eddie's to solve, provided Eddie can figure her out first.

ENTICEMENT TAGS: Horror, Detective Noir, Urban Fantasy, Modern with Magic, Murder Mystery, Suspense, Surrealism, Character(s) of Color, Queer Character(s), Autistic Character(s), Nonbinary Character(s), Neopronouns, 1990s, Private Investigators, Romance, First Meetings, Butch/Femme

CONTENT WARNINGS: Body Horror, Sleep Paralysis, Possession, Unreality, Blood, Alcohol Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Smoking

All nights are dark, and a fair few are stormy too. On those nights, the trees lining the streets shake in vengeful winds. Water comes down sideways. It could soak a loyal guard cat through all the way down past its thick undercoat. It would have to swim through the intersections.

Human beings don't mind the wet so much, though. No city truly sleeps, and Cane Street still enjoys a sluggish cacophony of visitors even late on a night like this. The chatter of people - and of the things besides people that hover around them - rises above the din of the rain pattering down on the striped awnings. The soft, desaturated glow of decorative string lights in the shallow darkness casts ill-fitting halos over the heads of smoking diner patrons. Lightning snaps bright across the dark sky, forcing any wandering shadows back into place beneath their casters.

On the residential streets, the noise from the commercial block is muffled but still present under the rain. It's darker here too. There's less light pollution of course, but that's not the only thing keeping the night black. Shadows would be wise to stick a little closer when walking here. The cats watch from the trees and the quiet apartment buildings, ready to catch anything that makes itself a little too interesting.

The houses are dark for the night and just shy of uniform, each with brick porches and wrought iron banisters. But every now and then there is one that has the air of witchery about it. Lots of people have power, though there aren't many with enough to do anything with. That's luckier than not.

Barely audible to a particularly sensitive ear is the click click click of someone in heels coming nearer and nearer. Most nights, there isn't anyone there. The gutters are full with rushing water and the stench of stirred up sewage, and beady little eyes. Some of them are just rats.

There is a two family home on the corner of Seventh and Spring, right across the street from a hole in the wall bar that would never let itself be seen closed. The house is exactly the same as every other in the neighborhood - when observed with only five senses.

The pillars are square and brick. The wrought iron railing along the concrete porch steps is the same boring twists as all the others. It has two dark wood front doors, both with even darker curtains covering their thin windows. The birch tree in the yard is ostensibly for shade, but was more likely planted for the benefit of the property value.

The only thing that separates the house that two eyes can see is the lively honeysuckle vine crawling its way up the right side, the buds reading out into the cramped alley in between this house and the next. Currently, it's wilting pathetically under the onslaught of rain. Fragrant crushed petals litter the alley gravel. What makes it special is that it blooms all year round, heedless of the seasons. Rumor among the local coven says that the residents of the building were given the plant by their absent father when he left them.

Rumors are loathsome as a rule. That one is in especially poor taste.

On this particular dark and stormy night, a long-haired person in an ankle length beige skirt comes out of the right side door of the house, crying softly enough not to be heard in the rain. Another person comes out after them - Fred, the elder of the siblings that live here. Xe's dressed in xyr typical ensemble: a fitted suit in some pale color, the exact shade obscured by the darkness of the hour and the ugly yellow of the porch light.

If an observer could look with more than two eyes - as more than one might like to think can do - the house is a stinking, glowing locus of magic. The two people on the porch stand out from it with their own auras of power.

Fred gives the impression of the palest of purples, like the honeysuckle flowers growing unnaturally in xyr yard. The other person isn't as powerful as Fred, but still of note. Their metaphysical shade matches their skirt, a pleasant light tan. The two auras interact strangely with the glaring overhead porch light. Occasionally the thing flickers, throwing their faces into drastically alternating shadows and relief.

Eventually, Fred claps a hand on the stranger's shoulder, ever more personable than xyr sister. Xe steers them toward the steps. The beige person doesn't have an umbrella with them, and yet they don't seem to get wet as they walk out from underneath Fred's porch and into the downpour. Fred does not watch them go.

Inside is dry and warm, but not much quieter. The windows are open to let in the noise and the washed-clean air. The spicy, earthy scent of burned sage almost covers up the smell of grease and salt from Chinese food take-out. Eddie sits cross legged on top of the work desk.

The desk is an imposing piece of work that was given to them by their papá before he left. Unlike the bit about the honeysuckle, that's a fact. It looks just like him too - hard, brown, and square. It's more than a decade old now and it shows; it's covered in scuffs and scratches and condensation rings. There are noodles on top now too, because Eddie still can't use chopsticks for shit.

The strap of Eddie's black coveralls falls down over one of her slouched shoulders. Her thick brown hair is dry and tangled, just beginning to curl over the collar of her white t-shirt. She'll be taking to it with a pair of kitchen shears some time soon.

Eddie's aura is stronger than her sibling's. That means she's more powerful than Fred, but for unfortunates who have to perceive it, that's no blessing. Eddie's presence is angry and sour, dull even despite its strength. It's the same bloody piss shade of brown as the whisky she's gulping down in between bites of lo mein.

"'Watchtower,'" she slurs derisively, continuing on from some age old argument that deserved Fred walking out on it. Her voice is thick, both with drink and with scorn. "What are we watching, anyway? Not shit. We're a joke."

"Don't say that," Fred says quietly. Xe could stand to be a little less feather light on xyr sister, but xe won't be. Not tonight. Tonight xe will fall on her cool and gentle, like the rain as it slows.

"It's not like anyone ever asks us to do anything important," Eddie insists. "And even if they ever did it's not like we could do it. We should just give up." Before Eddie finishes speaking, her sibling is already shaking xyr head.

"Eddie," xe sighs. Xyr voice is half scolding and half preternaturally patient. It's impossible to say how xe does this. "What we do is important to our clients. We help people."

Eddie only laughs, meanly, and drinks.

The siblings sit in silence for long minutes, until all the food has been eaten and the candles have all gone out. Then Fred rises and wrestles the booze away from xyr sister. The painful routine about to unfold is familiar to them both.

Fred tugs at Eddie's shoulder, Eddie grumbling in drunken recalcitrance and refusing to stand until Fred gives up and drags her bodily off of the desk by force. Papers rustle as they're crushed and ripped under Eddie's ass. There's the dull clink of hard plastic falling to the wood floor. The siblings put all their glass away a long time ago.

Fred all but carries Eddie from the right side of the house, the headquarters of Watchtower Investigations. Past the organized chaos of crystals and candles and dubiously legal photographs, through the door with the frosted window, and across the hall to the left side apartment where they live. Fred drags Eddie through there too, and then dumps her into her bed. Xe doesn't let her see xem flinch when she turns away from xyr attempt to kiss her forehead.

It may take hours for Eddie to sink into sleep, or it may take minutes. Inebriation can make telling the difference a little difficult. The drink makes her limbs heavy and keeps her tears at bay, never mind if she might like to cry them or not. She can hardly remember what that feels like by now, after so many years of falling to bed from Fred's arms just like this. Although as drunk as she is, she can hardly remember much else either.

When at last Eddie does sleep, the sky is still dark but now clear.

The moon and the light pollution in the city together are easy to see by, even in the dirty back alleys. She can navigate them without much trouble, each one familiar to her from all her time spent here during the days. She creeps past the cracked open back door of a bar. The lights from inside fall half across her face, the smell of booze and the smoke of cigarettes gusting over her like the bar is breathing.

She expects a rancor of cheerful voices with an undercurrent of tinny rock music. Instead there is silence, heavy to near painfulness in her ears. She wants to pause in the doorway and stare, to take a moment to reconcile the sight with the lack of sound, but her gaze and her body continue on as if she is not their pilot.

Her dirty blonde hair falls into her face and she blows it away with a puff out the side of her mouth. Her hands are full with her camera in one hand and the pocket knife her girlfriend gave her in the other. Her glasses slip down her sweaty nose, and she can't push those up either. Luckily her frames are large enough that she can still see through them, for now.

Finally, a lone noise comes to her ears from up ahead. It's the muffled splat of something wet landing onto the gravel of the alley below it. It's not loud; it must have fallen - or been dropped - from a short distance.

Her heart picks up speed. She hadn't noticed it was already racing, but now it pounds painfully against her sternum, impossible to ignore. Her grip tightens on her camera, her shaking finger hovering preemptively over the shutter button as if it's the trigger of a gun.

If she's right she'll finally be able to prove it, get someone to take her seriously and do something. But if she's right - and she knows she is - that means she's in more danger than she's ever been in before, and that's not saying a little. She should turn and run. She should go back home, or even better she should go to someone else's place. Maybe she could move into Bacchanalia for a while.

But she's never been known for that kind of caution. She's wise in other ways. She takes quiet steps closer.

She's woefully, sickeningly unprepared, she realizes all of a sudden. She has all the knowledge she could possibly have (and knowledge is power; she truly believes that). Her confidence in her evidence is unflinching. When she set out tonight, she knew the pocket knife she wields now wasn't much as far as weapons but it was more than she'd usually carry and it made her feel safer. It made her feel like she could be more of a threat, if she needed to be. But now she can only feel the sucking lack of power in herself. There's a sense of absence there, an unfamiliar helplessness crawling up and down her spine chillingly. It nauseates her, like the slow slimy touch of a giant slug.

At this moment, she is only exactly as she seems. Something about that just doesn't feel right.

Still, she continues forward. She's desperate at this point to turn back. The urge wells up behind her eyes like unshed tears. No part of her pays her feelings any mind. (That, at least, is not so unusual.)

Shaking, she flattens herself against the brick to her side as the building comes to an end at a corner. She takes a deep breath that serves only to make her panic worse, sucking in the scent of damp earth and bar trash and blood, thick and tangy metallic in the air. It's more blood, she's certain - despite the ease with which she recognizes the smell - than she has ever encountered before.

The rough brick of the wall scratches against her cheek. She tightens her grip again on her pocket knife, regardless of her lack of faith in it. She raises her camera with her other hand, pointed toward the other side of the alley, the open corner, the wet redness in the dirt oozing closer to her…

It's still dark, but the darkness is impenetrable. It doesn't matter that Eddie can't see; there are no true surroundings here, no details to parse, nothing more to know than the existence of herself. There is only the weakness of her body, the numbing pain in her wrists, her cold sweat, the chill of the tile flooring against her back through the sheer fabric of her dress. The smell of blood remains.

Eddie raises her arms with great effort. They feel so heavy, and they shake. Her biceps feel the burn of the exertion within seconds, but she doesn't drop her hands. Working past the fatigue, she closes her hands around her own throat. It's hard to get a grip, her hands slippery and slick with warm wetness.

"Please," she begs aloud. Her voice comes out wrong, but familiar. A little higher, a little sweeter, softer, happier. The voice of a distant memory, a voice from her childhood. She wants so badly to take comfort from it. She wants so badly for things to go differently this time.

She tightens her grip.

"My baby, my sweet girl, please, let me live."

Eddie starts to cry, and it's such a fucking relief. Her tears are warm and salty when they fall over her lips. Her stomach roils with nauseous fear and guilt, but part of her has already accepted her fate. Part of her wants it. She continues to beg herself for her life, but she smiles her forgiveness all the while.

Her neck begins to bruise. Eddie feels the almost satisfying give under her hands and the crushing pain in her throat together. Still she squeezes down, her nails digging in to keep her grip, scraping away furrows of skin. Her voice is unaffected somehow, still light, still cheerful and gentle and kind. She gives herself no mercy, until finally she stops breathing and she is at last silenced.

Her body dies and goes stiff and cold, but Eddie remains aware. The stillness of her heart and her lungs fills her with a terror that grows inside her like the opening of a terrible maw. She wishes she could just give into it, let it swallow her up whole and crush her down into nothing. She's already dead, really, so why should she want so desperately to breathe? But she does, clinging to the facsimile of life she still has.

There is movement in the deep darkness. She sees it from the corner of her eye, but she can't turn to look closer. Dead bodies don't move. A whimper builds behind her teeth, but she doesn't have the breath to give it voice. Even if she did, she couldn't open her mouth enough to let it out. The only thing she can do is wait, and hope - that she'll be able to breathe soon, and that whatever the thing is won't make her stop again.

The thing gets close enough to see, resolving itself out of the darkness into her father. He stands over Eddie in the outfit she last saw him in. A brown tweed duster, the same style of overwear that Fred now favors, a denim shirt buttoned all the way up, thin dark brown scarf, pants and a belt and boots that match it. Apá always liked to look just so. Fuck, she misses him so much. She's glad to see him, even though she's dead and he's looking down at her like he might look at any other corpse he stumbled upon in the dark.

"Why did you do that?" he asks eventually. His tone is mild, curious, as familiar and nostalgic as the other voice that came out of her own wretched mouth as she killed herself. He sighs deeply. Eddie's crushed throat and her chest are tight and hot with the need to copy him. To breathe. "Tell me that, querida. Why would you kill your own mother?"

Eddie knows she's dreaming now. She's had this one before. She needs to wake up so that she can breathe. She needs to breathe if she wants to wake up.

If.

She could always just stay here. Maybe it would be just for a minute, but dreams always feel longer than they really are. It might even feel like forever. She could stay here with Apá. He's staring down at her with disappointment and disgust, but at least he's here.

He's wearing his dumb overthought outfit and his stubble is salted and Eddie would bet he probably smells like palo santo and fresh tobacco like he always did before. Eddie can't smell him, and she won't even if she stays, because she can't breathe. But even though her chest is painfully tight and Apá obviously hates her, she can think of worse ways to die.

More importantly, she can think of plenty worse ways to keep on living.

It doesn't matter what she wants, either way. Not in this and not in anything else either. She dies at the whim of her dreams, and she lives on the say of whatever wakes her.

Eddie wakes up.

Her eyes are closed and the darkness and her father are the only reality, and then her eyes are open and she's staring up at the plaster ceiling of her bedroom. She still can't move and she still can't breathe, but she can feel the breeze coming in from her open window tickle over her exposed face and arms. She can hear the patter of the rain. Her sheer curtains billow.

Something moves in the shadows.

Eddie stares hard into the dark, her heart racing and making her need for air even more urgent.

She sees dark hair and two dark eyes, a frown, the suggestion of broad shoulders covered in tweed.

Apá. Still glaring down at her. He mutters but Eddie can't understand what he's saying no matter how hard she strains her hearing. She tries to reach out for him, but her arms refuse to so much as twitch.

Before Eddie's tired eyes, Apá starts to melt. The lighter tones of his skin drip down onto the deep darkness of his clothing. The shadow of his hair ruins the lines of his features. The shine of his eyes in the moonlight snuffs out and his height decreases in a lopsided rush that disappears into the negative space of Eddie's unlit bedroom floor.

Eddie gasps into full wakefulness when the specter of her father is completely gone. She breathes in deep - both the air and the rush of becoming aware of her power again. The late summer air is wet and cool in her lungs; her magic feels heavy and warm like an internal weighted blanket. It would be pleasant, but Eddie can only think about Apá and how he's gone again. That hurts more than getting her throat crushed with no contest.

The nightmare is awful and familiar. It's been a recurring punishment for Eddie ever since Apá disappeared for the last time of many, nearly twelve years ago now. Eddie loses him all over again almost every night and it never hurts any less. It happens so often she might even have been able to get used to it, pain and all, if she could ever be positive he isn't really there. She can't be sure he doesn't blame her too, that he doesn't choose to leave her again and again and again.

The other parts, the sneaking around in the alley to take pictures of something dangerous and bloody… Well, that could just as easily be some random nightmare her brain decided to make up to torment her with as it could be a real premonition. They're tough to tell apart. Most of the time these days, Eddie doesn't even bother to try.

What does it matter, anyway? The nightmare she woke up to is just as real and true and any premonition, if maybe not quite as literal. And there's not a damn thing Eddie can do about either of them. There never has been, and there never will be.

When her chest has stopped heaving, and the tears she cried in her sleep have dried, Eddie rolls over towards her bedside table. Her hair falls into her face, dark brown like it's supposed to be. She pulls open the little drawer roughly and tugs out her dream journal and a pen. She ignores the crumpled pages that fall out, uncaring. There's a lamp on the table but Eddie doesn't turn in on to write, scribbling haphazardly across a page that looks like it's probably blank. She opens her hands and lets the book and pen drop to the floor when she's done, and flops onto her back.

It's supposed to help. Writing it down. Fuck knows how. But it's a habit now.

Eddie lies in bed and stares up at her ceiling. The off-white plaster looks the same now as it had minutes ago when Eddie woke up paralyzed and could only see the rest of her room by straining her peripheral vision. It's gray in the silvery moonlight. The ghostly shadows of her curtains dance across her blanket covered legs when the wind gusts them around.

Eddie holds her breath for as long as she can. Nothing steps forward out of the dim.

The fatigue and painful tightness in the chest when suffocating feels a little bit like a heart attack, Eddie muses idly. Once a client's husband had one while they were working his case. The case had only been to find the guy's long lost auntie or something, completely unrelated to his husband. But Eddie had the privilege to die with him anyway.

The bruising of her throat, her windpipe getting crushed, that could be likened to being hanged. Someone that used to go to the bar across the street had done themselves in that way once. They hadn't been working a case for them, hadn't been introduced as far as Eddie remembers, might not have even ever seen each other in passing. But still, Eddie got to die with them.

The light in the room changes slowly as the night and its storm both come to end and the sun begins the arduous process of rising. The early morning sounds of the city come in through the window with the summer breeze now. The chirping of the early birds is loud and sharp, each tweet stabbing into Eddie's ears like an ice pick. She grits her teeth and rolls away from the window, thinking hard about how badly she wants them to shut up. Maybe if she can just be annoyed enough everything will stop.

There's a prickle on the back of her neck, the feeling of being watched. She ignores it. It could be a holdover from the dream. Or maybe she has a stalker. Who gives a shit.

Soon enough, Fred gets up. Eddie listens to xem going through xyr morning routine from underneath her slightly musty pillow, held tight over her ear. She needs to do laundry soon. She needed to do laundry a week ago.

Fred sings in the shower. Eddie's throat goes tight again, her eyes hot, but no more tears come out. She can't cry when she's awake. Her grief is reserved for strangers.

She's so fucking proud and grateful that Fred can be happy. She's also wretchedly jealous. Resentful. She can't help but want that for herself, and she hates Fred every now and then for having it when she can't. She makes herself sick.

The drawers open and close in Fred's room down the hall as xe gets dressed. The creaky floorboard in the hall whines as Fred passes Eddie's room to go make breakfast for both of them. In short order, the smells of coffee and breakfast sausage join the smoke of Fred's first cigarette of the day.

Get out of bed now , Eddie tells herself. She doesn't move. Her body is so heavy and distant. It feels just as beyond her control now as it does during any premonition or nightmare, except that right now there's no reason for it. She should be able to just get the fuck out of bed . She scolds herself that Fred will want her to get out of bed on her own like a goddamn grown up for once.

Then again, Fred would probably have a better morning if xe didn't have to deal with Eddie at all, in bed or out of it.

Get out of bed , Eddie thinks, fiercer and more frustrated with every repetition. Get up. Get the fuck up. Get up. But she never manages to move.

"Eddie?" Fred asks softly from the doorway. Eddie hadn't noticed her door open, too busy trying to get herself to function. "Are you awake yet, cariño?"

Eddie wants to answer because Fred deserves to be treated nicely, but she also wants Fred to just leave her alone. She ends up splitting the difference and just grunting at xem. Fred sighs deeply, and Eddie seethes. She's not sure if she's angry at Fred or at herself. Probably both.

"C'mon, hermanita," Fred says, xyr voice growing closer as xe comes inside the room. The closer xe comes the tighter Eddie's shoulders coil, until the tension starts to hurt her neck. She dreads Fred reaching her bed without her moving and then having to tell Fred she won't get up today. Either Fred will accept that with a disappointed sight and leave her here, or xe'll insist Eddie get up. Both are equally as terrible as each other.

Eddie continues to demand of herself to get up , to fucking move , frantically now, inside her head. Still nothing happens. Fred's weight settles on the bed at Eddie's side and xyr hand cups her shoulder. Xyr touch is gentle and warm and could easily be comforting, if Eddie wasn't so fucked up that she can only feel one thing - or nothing at all or, sometimes, on bad days, some inexplicable twisted combination of the two.

"Come on, Eddie, get up," Fred says, shaking her gently. Eddie grits her teeth. If a simple urging could do it, Eddie would have been up hours ago. It's not that easy. There's no reason it should be any harder, but still it's just not that easy. She wants to shrug her sibling's grip off, but she can't even do that. She just lies still in her unwashed sheets and bears it.

"Okay," Fred sighs, and Eddie's dread builds. Now is the moment. Either Fred will leave her here all day and continue on living life without her, or xe will make her get up and she'll be forced to listlessly go through the motions of the minimum eight to ten hours before she can come back here to her stale and lonely room.

Apparently, today it's going to be the latter option. Fred tugs the pillow out of Eddie's clinging hands. Xe ignores Eddie's childish whine. Xe tosses the thing down to the foot of the bed so that Eddie would have to sit up to get it back, if she wants it badly enough. Then xe goes back to Eddie's shoulder, xyr touch much less gentle now, not intended for comfort at all. Fred pulls Eddie over onto her back, and then when she doesn't move from there except to turn her face away from xem, xe stands and looks down at her with xyr hands on xyr hips.

Eddie knows Fred probably isn't judging her, or at least not in the way she fears, but since she's not looking at xyr face she can't know for sure. She's too much of a coward to take the risk and double check.

Eddie listens as Fred moves around her bed. Xyr tread is as light as always on the hardwood floors, but the buckles on xyr boots jingle flatly with each step. Fred is like some kind of punk rock souvenir bell. Ting-ting -socialism is cool- ting .

Fred's hand circles around one of Eddie's ankles.

"You know I'll do it, Ed," xe says, and xe's not lying. Fred definitely will drag Eddie bodily out of this bed, and Eddie knows it from extensive past experience. Some days a little tussle between siblings in the morning gets the blood pumping and the rest of the requisite eight to ten hours end up with buttery yellow stripes of happiness coming in like sunlight through the broken drawn blinds of Eddie's faulty brain. Some days it's just another layer of shit on top of the festering pile that Eddie is already buried under.

Eddie tries to convince herself one more time to save them both the humiliation and frustration and just get up on her own. She can even feel the potential energy build up in her extremities; she's right on the cusp of moving, maybe, any second now. But the energy only continues to build up until Eddie feels like she's vibrating with it and her half-desperate half-hateful thoughts go buzzing around her head like angry flies.

"Okay," Fred repeats, xyr voice soft and sad. Then xe pulls.

It takes long unhappy moments to get Eddie upright. Fred does most of the work. In the case of standing on your own two feet, it's not the thought that counts at all. Fred is breathing a little heavily and xyr hair is messed up by the time Eddie is upright and standing on her own power.

Eddie mostly just wants to go right back to bed, or to melt into the floor like Apá did - or her dream of him, but who can tell the difference. The thought triggers a surge of guilt, and it compounds with the shame, making Eddie feel heavier and weaker and heavier and weaker.

Turns out she was right. Fred would have absolutely had a much better morning if not for Eddie.

"C'mon, I made breakfast," Fred tells her as xe turns to leave the room. They both know Eddie already knows that, from hearing and smelling it and from the routine. Fred always breakfast or else nobody will and the two of them will have to subsist on cigarettes and booze, respectively. Fred likes to take care of xyr body, aside from xyr one vice, and so xe makes breakfast. Xe makes enough for Eddie every time out of the goodness of xyr heart.

Eddie vacillates sluggishly between the call of food and coffee and the warmth of her bed before finally following her sibling into the kitchen. She'd love to collapse onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, but they're too high and she's too short, so instead she has to boost herself up with a foot on the rung between the legs. It's more effort than it should be, but she does like that she can swing her feet like a kid once she's up there.

Fred has already eaten, xyr lone dish already rinsed and sitting in the sink. Xe stands between the back counter and the bar, facing Eddie as she serves herself some eggs on autopilot. They're probably cold by now, and eggs aren't her favorite thing to begin with, but she puts some into her mouth with her fingers anyway. She chews perfunctorily and swallows it down. For a moment she has the uncharitable urge to open her mouth and make a show of proving to Fred that she ate it.

Unaware of Eddie's boorish attitude, Fred makes a face at her table manners. Xe fishes a fork out of the drawer and slides it across the bar to rest at Eddie's elbow. Eddie leaves it where it is and pointedly licks grease off of her fingers. She'll live, fine, but she's not going to be polite about it. Fred sighs through xyr nose, on part exasperated and one part amused. Eddie will take one part over none.

"Jay's case won't be too difficult," Fred says. Xe slips a cigarette out of xyr shiny case and lights it up with xyr zippo lighter. Eddie picks at her food in silence, waiting for the dark and spicy scent of clove smoke to reach her across the breakfast bar. It's the same scent that used to cling to Apá's coat. Same brand and all.

Fred flips the zippo open and closed as xe takes a long, long drag. That particular lighter was a gift from Apá the last time they saw him. Fred likes to say it was for xyr nineteenth birthday, because that was the closest occasion. Eddie closes her eyes and breathes in the smell, remembering.

"Yet another stolen heirloom," Eddie mutters over her cold eggs, referring to the case in question. Jay was here last night. Eddie knows she probably made a shit first impression, though she doesn't remember it clearly. It was past dinnertime and she was well on her way to hosed in preparation for bed. "Riveting stuff. Real important."

Fred takes another long, long drag before speaking, visibly gathering xyr patience. Eddie wonders when that resource will finally run out.

"The diamond isn't just an heirloom, Eddie," xe says once xe has taken the cigarette out from between xyr lips, leaning over the breakfast bar to emphasize xemself. "It's part of an active spell. If some blockhead secular swiped it looking for a payday it could be dangerous."

Eddie doesn't answer. She knows the diamond they've been hired to track down came out of a blessing box passed down to Jay by a great great great grandmother, and that it'll have the family's magic all over it. It could react badly to being separated from the other components of the spell.

She also knows that they're Jay's last resort. Jay didn't say so, but Eddie doesn't need to hear it said to know it. Jay isn't a Clairvoyant, like the two of them are, so there's no way they were a first or second, third, or fourth choice. Eddie doesn't begrudge people their hesitance though. She'd avoid her too, if she could.

"Look, hermanita," Fred says, mostly sympathetic this time, though Eddie doesn't doubt it's at least half put-on. "We've got that little diamond Scrying ball now. I can probably just use like to find like, and you won't need to use your gift at all for this one."

Eddie laughs, bitter and sharp. It stings in her throat, like whisky coming back up.

"You and I both know Seeing isn't a gift," she counters, her mouth twisted up into a painfully wry approximation of a smile. Her dreams from the night well up behind her eyes like her mind is a backed up garbage disposal. Whoever that blonde was is probably dead by now, and all Eddie feels about it is one part gladness that she wasn't there long enough to know and one part resentment over how she has nothing to do with anything in Eddie's life and Eddie still had to feel her terror anyway. "And I don't use it. It uses me. Whether anyone needs it to or not."

Fred just sucks down the rest of xyr cigarette, looking like xe might cry when Eddie pushes aside the rest of the cold eggs and pours herself a glass of red wine instead.

It could be worse, Eddie reasons to herself as she takes a generous gulp. At least this is made of fruit.

Eddie finishes her 'breakfast' at a leisurely pace while Fred lights up another clove. Xe is always getting onto Eddie for her drinking, as if xyr vice isn't just as bad for xem. But Eddie supposes that's what older siblings are for, if you don't have parents to do the job. After the wine is gone and the last wisps of smoke are lingering near the ceiling, it's time to get to work.

The office is just next door. There are two doors out front, one to the office and one to their home, as well as one between the two inside. The door windows are frosted and tinted slightly purple, the color of Clairvoyance. At least they get to be pretty. Both office doors have the business stuck on with vinyl in the window in a compressed serif font. Watchtower Private Investigations, named so after the height of the building, unusual for the street. The hinges and the wood floor both whine in complaint at Eddie's rough treatment of them as she makes her way inside before Fred.

The office is a hodgepodge of the usual administrative office stuff and the more esoteric detritus of witchcraft. The desk is covered with meticulously labeled manila folders, though some of them have been crumpled or strewn across the floor due to Eddie's flawed dismount last night. The bookshelves are filled half with shiny paperbacks on business, finance, and law, and half with yellowed old tomes on dream-working and potion-making. There's an altar set up on cloth on top of the filing cabinet.

Eddie crosses the space, avoiding looking at the files she ruined so diligently that she steps on a few. The windows at the back of the room are still cracked open. The air in here is perpetually hazy from the smoke of Fred's cigarettes and all the incense they burn. Fragrant dust swirls around in the sunbeams from the tobacco stained glass. It's probably beautiful, in its way.

Eddie yanks the curtains closed, blocking out the light. Her head hurts enough already, and she forgot her sunglasses downstairs and across the hall.

Fred sighs through xyr nose at Eddie's heelish behavior, clicking xyr tongue in disapproval at the files on the floor. Xe visibly debates stooping to pick them up, before sighing one more time and turning away from the whole sorry scene. Xyr shoulders are strong, nearly as broad as Apá's, but they droop under xyr neatly pressed seafoam green jacket. Xe sighs so much, Eddie thinks, because she makes it harder for xem to breathe than even all that tar can manage.

While Fred's back is turned, Eddie picks up the files. She does her best to smooth out the ones her ass tore up last night, and the ones she stepped on just now. She doesn't have much luck, but then again she never really does. Except maybe with the ladies.

The wingback chair at Apá's desk is ratty and faded, but still imposing. It's one of Eddie's few joys in life to sit in it and feel it at her back, making her a little bit bigger in her britches. If she wore britches. Whatever the hell britches are. It used to be a deep, velvety blood red, but that was before Eddie was even born. Now, it's a patchy burnt orange with blooms of light mauve where the friction is highest and the pile has worn down to pale threads. The thing is sturdy, though. Sturdier than the fucking floor, apparently, since unlike the floor it doesn't creak a bit when Eddie drops herself into like ice into a glass.

The top drawer on the left has a bottle of Jack in it. Eddie's fingers alight on the drawer's handle, dancing along to the tune the whisky sings from inside. The tinkle of piano keys, of ice in a lowball, promising to bounce anything and everything else at the door. Or at least to charge it a few details to get in.

"Don't," Fred murmurs, across the room and with xyr back still turned. "At least help me with this spell first before you start."

Eddie leaves her hand on the drawer, ornery. I've already started , she thinks of saying. Or maybe, You're not my parent . But she's been childish enough for the first few hours of the day. She curls her hand into a fist, and then she tucks it under her knee.

Fred eventually joins Eddie at Apá's desk, xyr arms full with the paraphernalia of xyr intentions. A small crystal ball, a stand for it, the Scrying board, a cup full of colored chalk, a box of incense cones, and a ceramic tray to burn them on. Eddie clears the center of the desk for xem, files on either side. One of those is probably Jay's. No doubt she'll have to dig it out in a minute.

Fred sets up the Scrying altar in the center of the desk to xyr specifications. Fred's power and process is as much a mystery to Eddie as Eddie's is to Fred. Not that Eddie really has much of a process to understand.

"Like to like," Fred explains idly as xe marks symbols onto the wood of the Scrying board with the chalk. Xe came up with the symbols xemself, sigils to make the ordeal of connecting to the crystals easier, and to help xem actually do what they intend. Even with the help, often Fred still ends up connecting to something that doesn't help them. Xe has near-equal chances here to find Jay's diamond as to end up spiritually trapped in a Shane Company warehouse.

Fred's own diamond is modest, as far as crystal balls go. Just barely big enough to fill the palm of Fred's hand, smoothed into a perfect sphere but otherwise uncut. It glitters with yellow-golden flecks and black impurities, but besides those it's clearer and more reflective inside than quartz is.

Eddie lights the frankincense while Fred sets the ball into its stand. The earthy, spicy-sweet scent surrounds them quickly. Elecampane would be better for this, but it's rare and expensive and often faked. Its only use is for Clairvoyance, after all. Anyone seeking it out is probably better off with the dud. Frankincense is a good enough substitute, magically speaking. And it even smells similar, too.

Fred shoos Eddie out of the wingback chair when the set up is done, and Eddie reluctantly cedes it to xem. Xe contorts xemself into a cross-legged position in it, and then stares into xyr diamond ball intently.

To Eddie, nothing seems to happen. Not outside of Fred, anyway.

It's always a little bit scary to see Fred scry. Xe seems to disappear entirely from xemself, leaving xyr empty body behind. Xyr pupils dilate like xe've done a line. Xyr irises take on an oily purplish sheen, the something else that is controlling the operation showing through. The incense smoke curls around xem like a pet snake, overeager for affection - or for a meal.

Out loud, Fred intones, "West. Dark. Familiar."

Fred's voice is low and quiet, with an inflection that makes xem sound inhuman, but other than that it's as familiar as always. It reminds Eddie of both of their parents; the steadiness of their father, the sweetness of their mother, and the underlying croak they all have from smoking like chimneys.

Eddie writes down the insight, and then the only thing she can do is wait for the crystals to release Fred back into the living world. She leaves Fred at Apá's desk to go collect an Ensure from the minifridge, as well as the communal emergency office back and zippo. It's less because Fred will need these things in a hurry so Eddie had better have them ready, and more so that she can spend less time looking at Fred's blank, reflective eyes and the lack of a person behind them.

That's Eddie's big sibling, her protector, the person who practically raised her, and her only friend, crowded out of xyr own body and replaced with an unfeeling object. Fred is one of the lucky ones, the luckiest in the Alfaro family. Scrying is the least horrible form of Clairvoyance, and one of the safest. It's almost certain that Fred will be able to settle back into xemself with only a few tiny diamond stones to pass at worst. But the risk is never zero.

Crystals grow, after all. Some of them faster than others.

This time, as all the times before, Fred resurfaces. Xyr eyes melt into their natural dark brown and xe blinks back to awareness. Eddie lets out the breath she was holding and collapses into the wooden chair on the other side of the desk that they have for clients. She leans over the desk to offer Fred the Ensure, and then sets it down within xyr reach when Fred seems to be still too out of it to take it from her. Eddie lights a cigarette for xem next. She takes the first drag for herself.

Her hands are shaking. This shit is almost more frightening than it already would be because Fred never seems scared at all. Like it's nothing to xem if xe comes back to her or doesn't.

The scent of burning tobacco revives Fred the rest of the way. Xe gestures greedily for the cigarette first, and Eddie readily hands it over. Only after several fortifying puffs does Fred crack the seal on the Ensure. Xe takes carefully paced, delicate little sips, though Eddie knows xe'd rather gulp it down. The two of them learned that lesson the hard way when they first started this business out - with Fred on xyr knees in the bathroom and Eddie holding xyr long hair back.

Finally, Fred takes a deep breath and asks hoarsely, "Did I find it? Felt like I found it."

"Seems like you did, yeah," Eddie confirms. She slips a second cigarette out of the emergency pack and lights it for herself. She doesn't usually prefer cloves, but she needs to settle her nerves. "You said something about West? Here, I wrote it down."

Fred waves away the notepad Eddie holds out, instead beginning to ruffle sluggishly through the files on the desk. There are dozens. They don't exactly have an organizational system in here, and it's been a full decade now of accumulating them. They get pretty decent work, considering. Eddie hadn't really thought it would work, when they'd started. It had all been Fred's idea, hairbrained, and Eddie had just gone along with it because she couldn't think of anything better.

"Aha!" Fred exclaims when xe finds Jay's file, becoming more and more like xyr lively self the longer xe goes about with xyr head clear of stones. The file isn't one of the ones Eddie ruined last night, though it does have what looks like a coffee ring on one corner. That could have been either of them.

"I assume you don't remember any of what Jay said when they were here," Fred mutters as xe flips over their standard intake sheet to get to the handwritten details underneath. Eddie's stomach clenches. She wishes she could argue.

"I didn't know they were coming," she defends herself weakly.

"No," Fred agrees softly. "I know. I'm sorry." Silently, and without looking at her, xe hands Eddie the intake sheet for her to look over.

Eddie does remember most of this information; Jay's name, the date they took the case, a description of the missing diamond, bare-bones estimated timeline of the theft, how much they're charging. She stares down at the page unseeingly anyway and lets Fred hog the more interesting details. It's not really Eddie's job to come up with suspects anyway - at least not when she hasn't Seen them. She just follows whoever Fred tells her to.

"I'm thinking the niece's boyfriend," Fred says eventually, breaking a silence between them that isn't exactly uncomfortable. Eddie makes a vague noise of agreement. She doesn't remember anything about the niece's boyfriend. Fred highlights something in xyr notes, and then passes them across the desk to Eddie.

Turns out he's a college student who has been dating Jay's niece - who lives with Jay over the summers - for the last three months since the spring semester ended. A secular too, just like Fred had posited at breakfast, who likely would have no idea that the diamond in question is more than just a very expensive rock. He lives to the west from here, and from the diamond's home, in Little Italy.

"Yeah, I like him for it," Eddie agrees around the filter. "Surveillance beat?"

"Ugh," Fred groans, but xe nods. "No job right?" Eddie nods. According to the background they have, the only thing Boyfriend does all week is visit Jay's niece and effusively compliment Jay's cooking.

"A daytime stakeout," Eddie says, in unison with Fred. The siblings smile at each other briefly. They've always had something of a penchant for being on the same wavelength like that. Apá's absence, Eddie's drinking and pessimism, and Fred's apparent ability to just move on from anything may all be doing their damndest to push Fred and Eddie apart, and maybe some days it seems like they'll get their way. But sometimes, they're still the same as they were as kids. Jinxing each other, practically reading each other's minds.

"That's tomorrow," Fred says. Xe turns xyr attention back to Jay's file, shuffling the pages to xyr liking before reaching for a drawer. Eddie tenses. Fred already knows the booze is there, as evidenced from xyr admonishment earlier, but knowing that doesn't stop Eddie from feeling like she'll get in trouble if Fred sees it there.

Luckily, Fred doesn't go for that drawer. The legal pad xe needs is in the drawer above that, and xyr favorite clicky pen is in the top drawer on the other side. When xe has what xe needs, xe starts writing up the mid-investigation report for Jay. Xe delicately picks out straight, even capitals that nearly look typed, remarkably quickly for how neat they are.

Eddie leaves xem to it. She's not great with the customer-facing end of things. A little too negative, a little too blunt, acerbic. A little too to-the-point as well. Their clients want to think every case is complicated. They want to be reassured and validated in addition to having their mysteries solved. Eddie would just as soon write one sentence and be done with it, and then they'd probably lose the case because it wouldn't look like enough work to pay them for.

Eddie much prefers doing the books. She likes numbers because you don't have to interpret them. There's no nicer way to put them. They mean what they mean.

When the report is written, and the budget is calculated, the siblings make up a surveillance itinerary for tomorrow. They'll start early in the morning to make sure they don't miss him if he does go out, and take set shifts to piss or pick up food. They're already familiar with the area, so they don't have to get to know the streets and landmarks in person this time. The nearest convenience store is marked out on Fred's roughly sketched map, the best exit routes highlighted.

Jay's case is the only one Watchtower Investigations has open at the moment, so here is where the siblings separate. For Fred, the workday is done. Xe leaves the building out the front. Xe has enough friends and acquaintances that xe can meet up with someone any time.

Eddie could call it quits too, if she wanted, and she's doing so in all but name. Her mood has improved enough since the morning that she doesn't immediately want to go back to bed and pretend to never have been born, so instead she pilfers one of Fred's post-Scrying Ensures from the minifridge to serve as her lunch. Then she contorts herself into a catlike curled up position in the wingback chair. She opens the middle drawer but instead of the bottle of Jack, she pulls a battered romance novel out from underneath it.

The air from outside the still open window behind her smells green and fresh after last night's rain. There is no breeze, there never is in the summers, but the storm cooled it down enough for the humidity trapped amid the crowded city buildings to not feel so oppressive.

Afternoon sunshine drips sluggishly over Eddie's shoulder like honey, spilling gold over the book as Eddie finds her place by the page number she memorized last time she put it down. It's from Mrs. Zilbersetein, a secular from two houses down, given as part of her payment to them for the pictures of her ex-husband and his mistress that she used in her divorce. The pages are soft and thin from wear, showing how much she'd loved the book before Eddie. The cover is illustrated with a voluptuous blonde ingenue in a red dress and an imposing man with a fedora and a handgun.

Eddie makes it through two chapters and one sex scene before there's a knock at the outer door.

Eddie considers not answering; Jay is paying them well so they don't need to cram in as much work as they can at the moment. But curiosity gets the best of her, despite her general distaste for the kind of work Watchtower usually ends up doing. So, she leaves her steamy book open and upside down in the seat of the wingback and goes to see who's there.

When she swings the door open, Eddie comes face to face with an impressive set of cleavage clad in what could easily be the very same red dress from the illustrated cover she'd just put down. She stares for a moment, briefly mesmerized by the shiny liquid-like fabric draped artfully over smooth dark skin, before blinking herself back to reality and relegating her gaze up to the woman's face.

Her features are just as elegant and striking as her attire. She has a heart shaped face, near-black dark brown eyes, and loosely curled cherry red hair. Her lip color matches her dress and her hair, and her skin glows in the slowly reddening sunlight. Beyond the sight of two eyes, she looks to be secular. The concurrence of exceptionalism and mundanity is dissonant to the third. If Eddie keeps looking so closely, her headache will come back with a vengeance.

"Uh," says Eddie eloquently. "I, uh. I think you have the wrong place. Ma'am."

The woman - the lady, really; the way she's dressed surely she can't be called anything else - doesn't smile, but Eddie thinks she catches a dimple crease her cheek on one side before it's gone again.

"Watchtower Investigations? Miss Alfaro, I presume," she asks. Her voice sounds like one that could be heard at a vintage speakeasy, crooning sad slow jazz tunes to an audience of pipe smoking men in pinstripe suits.

"Yes- Sorry," Eddie says. She steps aside and holds the door for the lady like a gentleman, feeling very nearly as out of touch with herself as she ever has during a premonition. Her body takes her through the steps of this interaction as it should be, without pausing for her to think about it first.

"Don't worry yourself, doll," says the Lady in Red. "I'm overdressed, I know. I usually am." She adjusts the sheer, glittering shawl fathered at her elbows and steps past Eddie into the house. She smells, somewhat unexpectedly, like leather.

Eddie leads the Lady in Red up to the office, holding open the door with the frosted window for her too. She has the half-hysterical urge to pull out her chair as well, but there's no table to pull it from. She sits in the wooden chair in front of the desk and crosses her long legs, a high slit in her dress parting around her thigh. Eddie takes the wingback, stuffing the romance book uncomfortably between her ass and the back rather than reveal it.

"What can I- What can we do for you, Miss…?" Eddie asks leadingly. The Lady's dimple comes back, and this time it stays. Eddie tries to to feel too proud of herself, just for a little politeness. True it's not a skill of hers, and she usually doesn't even bother to try, but still.

"Miz," the Lady corrects smoothly. "Jessica. And I want you to solve a murder."

Eddie's breath catches in her throat and she swallows it down with difficulty, conflicted. The cases they usually take are… not thrilling, to say the least. But murder is maybe a bit too thrilling. Especially when taking into account that Watchtower has only ever dealt with background checks, theft, spell sourcing, and infidelity. They've never even handled a missing person.

"That's not really in our wheelhouse," Eddie admits, as gently as she can. "The police really would b-"

"Oh, I've already tried the pigs," Ms. Jessica interrupts. The disdain in her voice is palpable. Eddie can't blame her. After all, Jessica is visibly not a person cops traditionally 'protect and serve'. Eddie herself isn't one of those either. They usually take murder pretty seriously in most cases though - provided that it's not one of their own murders, and that there's someone left behind who cares enough to report it in the first place.

"I know it can seem like it's taking a long time," Eddie tries again. Jessica's foot twitches irritably, the champagne colored pump on it catching the now purplish light of the approaching dusk in the window behind Eddie.

"No," says Jessica, simple and firm, and Eddie shuts up. "They told me they're not investigating. They don't believe me."

If Eddie's interest wasn't piqued before, it certainly is now. She turns aside her reservations regarding Watchtower's qualifications - or lack thereof - and leans forward over Apá's desk to listen more intently.

"There's no body?" Jessica shakes her head. Her foot stops kicking; she must be relieved to truly have Eddie's attention. It seems likely now that, like everyone else who comes, she's here as a last resort.

"I don't think there could have been much of one left, to be honest with you," she says. Her voice is lower now, a little scratched up, but she doesn't waver. "There was a lot of-" She chokes, and for the first time looks away from Eddie. Her gaze seems to catch on the altar on top of the filing cabinet and Eddie wonders if she'll latch on to the easy subject change it might offer.

Watchtower gets very few secular clients. They're in the phone book, sure, but their business comes almost entirely from word of mouth, and witches and seculars don't tend to cross paths more than incidentally. Eddie has to wonder if that altar is something Jessica was expecting to see. Does she know what they are, or is she even now assuming they're some kind of new age hippies?

In the end, Jessica doesn't take the out, though she doesn't finish what she was going to say either. She concludes definitively, "She's dead. I know she's dead."

Jessica's eyes meet Eddie's across Apá's desk, and instantly Eddie knows Jessica has to be right. In the depths of her brown eyes, Eddie recognizes the same feeling she had when she knew Apá wouldn't be coming back this time. It's the same feeling clients have in their eyes when they already know their spouse is cheating on them, or that their trusted friend has robbed them. Intuition, maybe. Or the brief, terrible omniscience that comes from grief.

Sometimes Fred and Eddie's job is not so much to find out what happened, but why .

"I know this isn't what you usually do," Jessica adds eventually. "But my- Maddie. Maddie Ward. She deserves at least some kind of justice. I had to try. Will you consider it?"

Eddie shouldn't. She shouldn't full stop, but she especially shouldn't decide to take a client without Fred's input.

"Of course," she says.

Eddie forgot to grab a fresh intake sheet from the filing cabinet on her way to the desk when she first let Jessica in (along with the travel pack of tissues Fred always offers to a new client), but she's not willing to backtrack across the room and look foolish or bumbling in front of this elegant lady. Not to mention if she gets up there's a chance the book she's all but sitting on will be exposed. In lieu of that, Eddie drags over the nearest casefile, flips it open, and poises herself to write on the back of the topmost paper, whatever it is.

"You got a last name, Ms. Jessica?" she prompts, looking intently at her own hand wrapped around Fred's favorite fountain pen. Her name, her number. These are professional necessities. Eddie has no ulterior motives, no need for Jessica's information beyond the purposes of solving her case. More to the point, Jessica is out of Eddie's league - and probably playing a different game altogether anyway.

Jessica gathers herself, mentally and physically, and rises gracefully from the very ungraceful chair she's been occupying these last long moments of the day. Her shadow casts itself around the room in fractals not unlike any of Fred's crystals, or like the ambiguous movement of something unknown beneath rippling water. She sees herself to the door while Eddie is still mesmerized.

"Let's see if you can find that out yourself," she challenges over her bare shoulder. "Consider it an interview." Her enigmatic smile seems to imply that the interview could be for the job, or maybe for something a little more personal if Eddie performs well enough.

"Call me when you find me," Jessica says as she slips out the door. Her silhouette pauses behind the frosted window, flutters its long fingers in a coy little wave, and then fades away with the hollow clip of high heels on hardwood.

I will accept constructive criticism on this chapter from mutuals. More in this Universe: Cat's Eye View | Feline Retribution | Beer, Brandy, Belladonna

Taglist: @girlfriendsofthegalaxy @haectemporasunt @jezifster @blackhannetandco @fearofahumanplanet @littlehastyhoneydew @rainbowabomination @antihell @isherwoodj @marrowwife @ashen-crest @wildswrites @ceph-the-ghost-writer @garthcelyn @muddshadow @cohldhands @unrealistic-android @glam-pir @outpost51 @mrbexwrites @vacantgodling @blind-the-winds

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[letstalktea]

Content: Homegrown Pet | Hector x Reader, Humanoid Hector, blood, fluff, cuddling, Hector is treated like a (spoiled) pet

Word Count: 0.7k

The basement was dark on purpose. The light bulbs had been removed and the power cut to punish anyone that dared to venture in without a sense of familiarity. The only way to navigate forward was with a flashlight, and that suddenly flare would serve as a warning. The other warning would be the inevitable reaction of whoever suddenly came face-to-face with the scene hidden by that darkness. Since this was your basement, it was the lack of reaction that was most telling.

There was blood on the banister, trailing down the stairs in haphazard puddles and stray droplets, and spreading out into the cracks between the floorboards. The wood was stained red from years of viscera and death and there was a pungent odor that only grew stronger the further down one went. 

As you approached the bottom flight of stairs, you could hear rustling somewhere in the darkness; rustling, hollow clattering, and the squelch of something thick and wet. 

“Hector?” You called through the darkness.

The noises stopped.

The flashlight in your hand flickered as you pressed the button to turn it off, allowing yourself to be swallowed up by the darkness. It was like a welcome sign of a seedy motel blinking as it slowly burnt out over your head.

You stood unmoving in the darkness, listening as the rustling that had previously stopped started again. This time, however, it was growing louder; creeping closer; slowly approaching. The wooden floorboards creaked under the massive weight moving toward you.

It stopped.

There was a wind against your face; wet, hot, and smelled of meat.

You slipped the flashlight into your back pocket before reaching into the front one, grabbing a small, hard candy wrapped in plastic. The transparent plastic crinkled loudly in the darkness as you unwrapped it until all that was left was the candy inside, which you held in front of your face between your thumb and pointer finger.

Then you waited.

You knew he was waiting too, like a good pet should.

Only once you were satisfied with his display of obedience did you say, “Now.”

The sudden warm, wet muscle that wrapped around your fingers sent a shudder through you. As you felt teeth graze gently across your skin, you wondered which of his many mouths was the one eating. Clearly it wasn’t the one on his face since your eyes – just beginning to adjust to the darkness – could see how he towered above you even as he gently took the candy from your hand.

“That one is peaches and cream. How do you like it?”

His mouth pulled away from your hand, the only proof that he was there being the saliva still left on your fingers.

“Good,” he gurgled out in fractured words. 

“I’m glad. I wasn’t sure it would be to your liking, but I suppose you like anything sweet.”

With your eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to distinguish the outlines of objects in the room, you turned from Hector and carefully made your way toward the lump in the corner. You made sure to step over the remains of his lunch – your most recent job – as you approached the plush chair that existed purely for your convenience. Rewards and treats weren’t enough to keep a pet’s affection. It was important to spend time with them, and you chose to do it in comfort.

You practically fell into the soft embrace of the chair, letting the cushions swallow you up with little resistance. Only once you were comfortable did you motion for Hector to join you by patting your lap.

He found his seat eagerly, crawling into your lap while also trying not to put his full, crushing weight on top of you.

A low rumbling grew deep in his throat, his version of a purr.

With a smile on your face, you combed your hand through his hair. You were careful to avoid the eye hiding on top of his head, but it was difficult when he kept leaning into your touch.

“Make sure you finish your meal after I leave. I don’t want you getting sick from hunger or to have to hide the bones myself this time.”

Through the same gurgling voice, he muttered a small, “Okay.”

You only continued to pet his head as he relaxed into your lap with a, “Good boy,” as his reward for following orders.

[projectionistwrites]

GESTALT | 1999

YEAR ONE.

pre-outbreak!Joel Miller x afab!babysitter!reader (2.7k+)

RATING: EXPLICIT (18+, mdni) WARNINGS: age gap, slow burn, fluff, no smut in this part NOTES: this part is boring asf but i promise it gets better

next part →

JUNE 12, 1999

You could recall the first day you met him—a blistering hot summer evening in Austin, Texas, with cicadas chirping and the asphalt burning. You were sprawled out on a red-and-white checked blanket—the quintessential picnic accessory. A book was in your hands—Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury—and your nose was buried in it as you laid on your stomach, feet kicking absentmindedly in the air behind you.

Footsteps padding to your right startled you out of your intense focus, and you lifted your eyes to glance over the top edge of the cover—a young girl was stumbling towards you, laughter bubbling from her throat as her bare feet waded through the grass.

“Quick! Don’t tell him I’m here!”

The child whisper–yelled, narrowly avoiding tripping over you as she skipped up the steps of the neighboring porch, ducking behind the banister and railing.

“Tell… who?”

“Shh, shhh! Just—please.”

The small girl begged, and although you could just barely make out her face peeking from between the two posts, you could see her big brown eyes were round and pleading. With a sigh, you relented, settling in once again to resume reading.

This time, when a pair of footsteps approached, you couldn't be bothered to shift your eyes away from the pages.

A throat cleared to your left.

“Excuse me, miss?”

A rich voice called out, doused in a Southern twang. Your line of sight lifted, focusing in on the pointed toes of a pair of brown leather boots. As your eyes adjusted to the blinding light, your gaze trailed up the length of his thick figure—up his jean-clad legs, the gray fitted t-shirt that clung to his chest and cut into his biceps, before finally landing on his face, which was shaded by a wide-brimmed cowboy hat. His jaw was chiseled and covered with faint stubble, his brown eyes were deep and calculating. You couldn’t help the low whistle that sounded from you lips.

“Well, he-llo there, cowboy,”

you sing-songed teasingly, a small smirk overtaking your pink lips.

The man’s posture stiffened at the comment, but the semblance of a chuckle escaped from his throat.

“Sorry to intrude on your...”

He paused, as if unsure of what to make of you and your setup.

“…afternoon, but I was hoping you could maybe lend me a hand.”

Your lips curled into a flirtatious smile, looking up at him through thick lashes, doe–eyed.

“Of course. Anything.”

Your attempt at coquetry seemed to be lost on the man, as he looked around carefully.

“I’m just lookin’ for a little girl, about yay high,”

he gestured with his hand to indicate her approximate height.

“—thought I heard her comin’ this way. Any chance you mighta seen her?”

“Lemme guess. Curly brown hair, purple tank top, bare feet?”

The man’s eyes immediately brightened.

“So you saw ‘er, then?”

“Nope.”

You answered nonchalantly, shaking your head with a sly grin. The man’s brow furrowed.

“The hell do you mean—”

“Haven’t seen her. But you can go stand on my porch if you’d like. You might have a better view of the neighborhood from there.”

You offered him a knowing look, subtly gesturing with a nod of your head up to your front porch, where a pair of small hands could be seen on the wood, fingers wrapped against the wooden posts.

The man smiled in recognition, offering his own mischievous glance to you as he sauntered towards the steps, whistling theatrically to himself.

“If only I knew where little Sarah could’ve gone…”

He trailed off, ascending towards the front door, until—

“Gotcha!”

A fit of laughter erupted from the girl as she tried to avoid the man as he lunged, but to no avail. He scooped her up easily into his arms, throwing her carelessly over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold, smiling as he listened to her contagious giggling.

When he turned back to you, you were seated upright now, a soft smile gracing your lips as you watched the antics unfold. The man approached you yet again, ignoring the pounding of little fists on his back as Sarah continued to laugh.

“Sorry about that.”

The man offered sheepishly.

“No worries.”

Your smile was dazzling as you gazed up at him, and he studied you carefully, finally allowing himself to truly take you in. He’d never seen you before—he definitely would’ve recalled a face as beautiful as yours.

“I’m, uh—Joel, by the way.”

He reached down with his free arm to offer his hand, and you shook it graciously, your palm soft and warm.

“Y/N.”

“Don’t think I’ve seen you around before. You just move in? Didn’t realize the house was for sale.”

Something shifted in your expression, a sudden darkness cresting over your features, but it was quickly replaced with your signature smile.

“Just moved in to keep my mom company. I’m from California, but I’m going to the state school that’s right around here.”

The man’s brows lifted in slight surprise. College.

“Huh. Is that right?”

Joel pondered, but was quickly interrupted by the sound of Sarah shrieking in protest—something about the blood rushing to her head and pooling in her brain.

“Oh, this is, uh—”

Joel flipped the girl from his shoulder and placed her back on her feet next to him.

“—Sarah. My daughter.”

Your brows lifted.

“Daughter?”

You repeated, although it came out as less of a question and more of a statement.

The girl in question swayed on her feet as her eyes refocused, clearly dizzy from being suspended in the air for so long.

“Hi, Miss Y/N. You’re pretty.”

You blushed.

“Thank you, Sarah. You’re very pretty, yourself. You have a beautiful smile.”

Sarah looked down shyly at that, kicking at the grass beneath her feet. Joel nudged her shoulder with the back of his hand.

“Thank you... I’m gonna run while he’s distracted. See ya!”

"Bye, Smiles!"

You waved, and the man hummed at the use of the newly-found nickname.

The girl was racing back across the lawn in an instant, and Joel sighed exhaustedly, hands on his hips as he watched her go.

“Cute kid. Must run in the family,”

Joel barely registered the comment before you were standing, brushing yourself off as you gathered the picnic blanket in one arm and held your book in the other.

“Yeah, if she’d actually come inside when I called ‘er. But, she’s… I’m lucky to have ‘er.”

There was a softness in his tone that melted your heart, and you joined him in watching the girl as she whipped open the front door and bolted inside, disappearing from view.

“Dinnertime with the missus?”

You questioned, and Joel immediately bristled at the comment.

“No. No, it’s, uh—it’s just me. Just us, I mean. Me and Sarah.”

You nodded gently, attempting to fight off the triumphant, satisfied smirk that was trying to overtake your face.

“Well, she’s lucky to have you, too.”

A comfortable silence befell the two as the sun started shifting across the horizon, the sky morphing from pale blue to a purply red.

You interrupted the moment of pause.

“You seem—I mean, I don’t mean to pry or anything, it’s just—you seem—”

“Young?”

Joel finished for you, and you released a breath, nodding.

“I was. I mean—I am. We were real young when we had her, that’s why—well, I mean, that’s why her momma didn’t stick around, wanted more time to grow up or somethin’ that.”

You offered a sympathetic smile, and Joel scratched the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Sorry. Not sure why I told you all that. Just been awhile since—”

“You don’t have to apologize, Joel.”

He tried to ignore how much he liked the way his name sounded coming from your mouth.

He parted his lips to he speak again, but a somewhat distant shout beat him to the punch.

“Oh, no! Looks like I’m gonna eat dessert before dinner! I sure hope no one comes to stop me!”

Sarah yelled dramatically, very clearly hinting her intentions to the two adults.

You chuckled, before turning to the man.

“Sounds like you’re back on the clock.”

He sighed in acknowledgement, shaking his head slightly.

“Always am.”

His attention shifted when he felt a warm hand grip his arm. His eyes landed on your fingers as they wrapped around his bicep before lifting to meet your gaze. You smiled softly.

“It was nice to meet you, Joel.”

You said softly, tone genuine.

“Yeah. You too, Y/N. I’m sure we’ll be seein’ more of each other—er, at least, with Sarah, and all…seems to like you already.”

You laughed at his slight stumble, eyes twinkling. You ventured off towards your home, calling back to him over your shoulder.

“See y’around, cowboy.”

AUGUST 02, 1999

“Mornin’, stranger.”

Joel was pleasantly surprised to see his neighbor leaning against the column of his porch, watching as Sarah practiced on her skateboard in the street, not too far away.

“Got you up early today, huh?”

Joel chuckled quietly, coming to stand beside you. He was still in his plaid pajamas pants, a mug of black coffee in his left hand.

You shook your head.

“I don’t mind. S’nice, you know? Having someone so excited to see you every day. Said she had some tricks to show me.”

The man hummed in agreement, watching as Sarah tried—and failed, yet again—to successfully ride the curb on her board.

“Well, she certainly does like seein’ you. Talks about ya all the damn time.”

There was a jokingly annoyed lilt in his voice, and you laughed.

“I’m sure you love that.”

You bumped you shoulder into his teasingly, and his lips lifted at the corners, although he didn't offer you a glance.

You watched Sarah in comfortable silence for a moment, before he spoke again.

“School’s startin’ up again real soon. ‘M sure she’s gonna miss days like this.”

You nodded in agreement.

“What do you do? For work, I mean. Sometimes you’re here, sometimes you’re not.”

“I work in construction with my brother, Tommy. Pays the bills, but makes it hard to find time for things like this— ‘specially when she goes back to school, and with soccer practice. It’s a lot to juggle.”

“I can imagine.”

You shook your head, before your eyes lit up.

“If you ever need help with Sarah, I’m always around. My classes are all during her school hours, and my clinicals are only on weekends. I’d be happy to lend a hand if you needed.”

Joel turned to you, brows furrowed in question.

“You’d do that?”

You laughed.

“Sure. I actually happen to like your kid, and besides—s’not like I have much else goin’ on right now.”

Joel chuckled at this, only to be interrupted by Sarah yelling an expletive at another failed attempt at her trick.

“Language!”

The two adults chastised in unison, your eyes meeting briefly in amusement.

“Well, I’d really appreciate that, Y/N. I’d—I’d pay you, of course. Especially with—”

You lifted your hand in dismissal and shook your head pointedly.

“No, no—no need, really. I’m a trust fund baby. My dad’s some big hotshot surgeon in LA, and he covers all my expenses, so really—it’s not a problem.”

Joel pursed his lips, wanting to protest.

“I really couldn’t ask you to give up your time for free, that’s—”

He felt your fingers skate across his forearm teasingly, and there was a smirk on your lips as you leaned closer to him.

“Well, I mean, if you’re so adamant about paying me, I’m sure we could figure something out.”

Heat flooded his cheeks as you fluttered your lashes at him, but before he could respond, a loud CRASH! sounded from the asphalt. The pair looked to find Sarah on the ground, cradling her knee to her chest in pain.

“Ah, shit.”

Joel mumbled, and the two adults made their way down to the girl, who had tears pearling in her eyes.

“You okay, Smiles?”

You asked calmly, kneeling at her side, opposite of Joel. Sarah gritted her teeth.

“Skinned my knee.”

She huffed, looking up at her dad with her lip quivering. Joel’s eyes were soft as he took hold of her ankle, pulling at her leg to have her straighten it out. He examined her knee carefully, watching as small droplets of blood began to freckle across the scrape.

“Whaddya think, cowboy? Is she gonna make it?”

You asked dramatically, causing Sarah to giggle.

“Dad can fix it. He’s magic.”

You feigned shock.

“Magic, huh?”

Sarah nodded vigorously, and Joel smiled sheepishly.

“S’true. It’s a Dad superpower. Magic kisses.”

You felt your heart melt to a puddle when the man leaned down a pressed a soft, tender kiss to the child’s knee. She sniffled before a grin found it's way on her face.

“All better?”

He asked, and Sarah nodded, wiping clumsily at her teary eyes.

“All better.”

Moments later, Sarah was back up on her skateboard, and the two adults were settling back onto the porch, sitting beside each other on the steps.

You knocked your left knee against Joel's right.

“Magic kisses, huh?”

You teased, and the man rolled his eyes, face flushing.

“Spare me, please.”

“It’s sweet.”

You assured, leaning forward to find his eyes. He glanced at your softly, a barely-there smile forming on his face.

“Wish my dad had magic kisses. He was always more of a rub some dirt on it kind of guy, which is ironic, seeing as he’s a medical professional... at least, he was when he was actually, you know, there.”

Joel stayed silent at the confession, watching you through the corner of his eyes as you leaned forward on your knees tiredly.

“How ‘bout your mom?”

He asked hesitantly, afraid to overstep, but you just shook your head.

“Mom is... sick. Been sick for as long as I can remember. That’s why she stayed here in Austin when my dad got the job in Cali. She stayed with my Aunt, who took care of her, until... well, you can fill in the blanks.”

“M’sorry.”

Joel offered quietly, but you just shrugged, seemingly unfazed.

“Nah, it happens. That’s life, I guess. Besides, I always knew I wanted to come back to Texas for college. Didn’t plan on having to take care of my mom, too, but—well, everything worked out the way it was supposed to.”

You smiled at him again, and he offered a sympathetic smile in return.

“So, nursin’, huh? Followin’ in your dad’s footsteps?”

The subject change came easy, and you snorted in response.

“No. Absolutely not. My Aunt was the nurse, but I can’t lie... being a nepotism baby definitely has its perks. Probably wouldn’t have even been accepted into the program here straight outta high school if my dad hadn’t—”

Joel blinked once, then twice, the sound of your voice fading into the background as a low buzzing noise filled his head.

“I’m sorry, but—did you just say ‘straight outta high school’?”

The man’s brows were furrowed, his lips parted slightly in confusion. Your smile melted fairly quickly.

“I—yeah. Why?”

Concern was laced in your words as you crossed your arms over your chest, feeling your heart pump just a little bit faster at the look on Joel’s face.

“What’s—what’s that make you? Eighteen?”

“Makes me old enough.”

You joked, although your ordinarily witty and playful attitude had dampened significantly.

“S’hat a problem?”

Joel shook his head a little too quickly, and you watched on, helpless, as he began building a wall up between you two.

“No. No, just—thought you were older.”

“Oooh, the classic mature for your age line. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Joel watched as you stood up and straightened, hands pressed to the small of your back as you stretched yourself out.

“Well, I’ll get outta your hair, then. I know Smiles told me you were taking her to the soccer fields, later.”

The man nodded, although he was clearly distracted.

“You just let me know when you need me to watch her, and I’m there.”

When you were granted no response, you looked back at the man, who was glaring into his almost-empty mug of coffee, deep in thought.

“Hey.”

You nudged his shin with the toe of your sneaker, and he finally looked up at you, where you smiled at him teasingly.

“If you’re lookin’ for a way to pay me, you certainly have a few skills that would be good for a nurse to know.”

Joel stared, clearly confused, causing you to laugh as you started off across the lawn and towards your home.

“Magic kisses. You’ll have to teach me some time.”

Joel’s cheeks flushed bright red.

[foundtherightwords]

The Firebird - Chapter 6

Pairing: Prince Paul (Catherine the Great) x OFC, Fairytale AU

Summary: When Paul, a spoiled young prince, spots a strange bird in the forest near his palace, he impulsively chases after it, hoping to both escape from and prove himself to his disapproving mother. Thus he is plunged into an exhilarating adventure across a magical realm populated by enchanted princesses, dangerous monsters, and powerful wizards, an adventure that may change him more than he can ever imagine.

Chapter warning: none

Chapter word count: 3.4k

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5

Chapter 6 - The Tsar's Quest

At close quarters, Tsar Afron's castle was as sumptuous as it was from afar. Though it was constructed of wood like the rest of the town, the carvings were a lot more intricate, draping like lace along the roofs, running down columns and banisters, surrounding windows and doors like decorations on a marzipan cake, and painted so they stood out against the rich brown log walls and shone even in the twilight. Every roof peak was topped with a gilded weathervane or an ornament in the shape of a horse. The inside was even more resplendent, with walls and ceilings painted in the brightest shades or covered in the richest tapestries, all illuminated by the light from hundreds of gold chandeliers. And everywhere was the image of horses, in every configuration and pose, carved into the wood or painted in gold. Paul, used as he was to the splendor of the palaces of Saint Petersburg, had to remember to close his mouth lest he drooled at all this opulence and looked even more like a fool than he already did.

Not that he had much of a chance to take it in. After Zhara's demonstration on the pasture, the soldiers wasted no time bringing them to Tsar Afron, and now he had to scurry to keep up with their long strides down the many corridors of the castle. To make things worse, the soldiers had been too frightened to rebind Zhara's hands, but had neglected to untie him, so he was forced to march with his hands behind his back like a common criminal. He didn't dare complain. He could feel Zhara's anger coming off her like a heat wave, and he was afraid that wave would burn him to a crisp on the spot if he so much as opened his mouth.

He had been a fool, he knew. Yes, he could try to blame Zhara for not trying harder to warn him, or even blame the horse for moving toward him first, but at the end of the day, he was the one that had decided to steal the horse. He was the one that had gotten them into this mess. Somehow, in this strange land with its strange, bewildering rules, Paul was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore his own fault.

The commander stopped in front of a door covered in so much carving and gilding that it hurt Paul's eyes, and instructed them to wait. Zhara seemed to have simmered down a little, so Paul cleared his throat and turned to her, hoping to get back into her good graces with something he'd never uttered—an apology. "Listen, I'm—"

"No, you listen," she interrupted, a finger pressed into his chest, hot enough to burn through his shirt. "Once we are in front of the tsar, do not speak. Do not make a sound. I don't want to hear so much as a peep from you. I shall handle the talking, and if you still wish to see your precious Rus' again, you shall follow my lead. Do you understand?"

Paul was quite certain his shirt was starting to smoke and scorch. There was nothing else he could do but nod. At that moment, the door opened, and they were ushered into the throne room. It was more magnificent than the rest of the castle combined, all crimson walls painted with gold vines, gilded window frames, and, on a raised platform, framed by a red velvet tapestry, stood a pure gold throne flanked by two gold horses, where Tsar Afron was seated.

For all the equine imagery around the castle, Paul had expected the tsar to be something of a Tartar, but the man he saw was rather weedy and colorless, with pale skin, thin hair of an indeterminate shade, a downturned mouth that gave him the look of a sulky child, and eyes that were watery blue under one light and gray under another. Those eyes squinted inquisitively as Paul and Zhara were led into the room. Zhara dropped a curtsey. Paul, following her lead, sketched an awkward bow.

"Lady Zhara," Afron said in a wheezing voice. "Forgive me this rather unfortunate welcome, but I was told that you were a fugitive..."

"No, my lord, it is I that must beg forgiveness," Zhara said. "What you heard is not true"—and here she gave a brief summary of the story she'd told Paul and of their goal to find Baba Yaga. "We were on our way to ask for your help," she continued, "but my—companion here was worried that the horse would not take to us and decided to introduce himself." That was a rather clever way of explaining their presence in the pasture without admitting that they had been trying to steal the horse. "It was an honest mistake. We never meant to disrespect you."

Afron let out a deep sigh. "I, too, have heard disturbing reports from Arthania that match your story," he said. "Had you come to me first, I would have done my utmost to help you put an end to your brother's reign of terror." Paul could feel Zhara's glare boring a hole into the side of his head, and he hung his head in shame.

"But," the tsar continued, "the truth of the matter is, you did disrespect me, by entering my land and putting your hand on my most valuable property without permission. These trespasses ought to be severely punished."

Paul wanted to shout, The horse touched me first!, but he remembered Zhara's warning and kept his mouth shut.

"However, out of respect for your late honorable father, I shall excuse you, if you perform a certain service for me." The tsar said this in an oily voice that reminded Paul of the way the soldiers had leered at Zhara, causing him to bristle. Well, if Afron insisted on behaving the same way as his men, then Paul would have to speak up, regardless of Zhara's wrath. He would allow no one to talk to a lady that way.

Zhara asked warily, "And what service would that be, my lord?"

"Bring me back Tsarevna Elena the Fair."

Afron's request didn't come as a complete surprise to Paul. It was how it happened in the tale. The question was, did it happen this way because it was in the tale, or because he, knowing the tale, had inadvertently caused it to happen...? It hurt his head to think about it, so Paul stopped thinking about it.

Zhara frowned. "Tsarevna Elena of Bryansk, you mean?"

"Do you know of any other tsarevna of the same name?" Afron replied, his eyes turning dreamy as he looked at a spot somewhere in the distance. "For so long I have loved her with my whole body and soul, but her mother, Tsarina Kostroma, is proud and rejects my suit. The Horse with the Golden Mane will be yours, if you can bring me Elena's hand in marriage."

The lustful look on the tsar's face made Paul feel quite sick, and he saw Zhara's lips curl in barely concealed distaste. Then she set her mouth in a resigned line. "As you wish, my lord," she said, inclining her head. "If you would be so kind as to provide us with some supplies, we shall be on our way presently."

"Presently?" Afron said, surprised. Paul glanced at Zhara in dismay. It had been several long days, and he was rather hoping for some rest and proper food. Well, he supposed he should have thought of that before deciding to steal the horse.

"Time is of the essence, my lord," Zhara said. "We cannot delay."

"Very well," Afron said. "I shall have my servants prepare for your trip."

He clapped, and a string of servants appeared to replace the soldiers in leading Paul and Zhara out. Once they were safely away, Paul held Zhara back, out of the servants' earshot.

"What's the rush?" he asked. "I would've liked to sleep in a bed for one night at least."

"You don't deserve to sleep in a bed," she hissed, not looking at him. "You deserve to rot in Afron's dungeon!"

"Fine, leave me here then! I'm done trailing after you!"

"Perhaps I should."

She sounded rather serious, which made Paul stop short in his track. He hadn't considered the possibility that she might really leave him, and it filled him with trepidation. She was the only one who knew he was a stranger in this world; what would happen if he angered a leshy or a rusalka or one of the many strange creatures that roamed this land and she wasn't there to warn or shield him?

"You're not going to, are you?" he said plaintively. "I know I should have listened to you..."

She turned and examined his sheepish face for a moment or two, her eyes softening.

"Well, I guess someone ought to keep an eye on you," she said. Paul gave her an uncertain smile, which, strangely enough, seemed to fluster her. "Just so you wouldn't wander around trying to be a hero!" she snapped, before turning and following the servants down the corridor.

Despite Zhara's refusal to stay the night, Afron still insisted on treating them as honored guests. Paul soon found himself luxuriating in a hot bath in the tsar's personal bathhouse. It was heavenly, except for a startling moment when he again caught a glimpse of another green-skinned creature covered in birch leaves, but it quickly disappeared. He then had his shoulder wound redressed with some sort of herbal poultice and was given a new suit of clothes in the old style, before Peter the Great introduced European fashion to Russia, made of the finest fabric and beautifully embroidered. His own clothes were cleaned, and even his wig was carefully brushed and set aside for him. Paul hesitated to put it back on—it did not go with the old-fashioned clothes, making him look like the Fool of his mother's court—but he felt naked without it, so he wore it anyway.

"Wow" was all Zhara uttered when he rejoined her outside the dining room. The bath seemed to have lifted her mood. She had changed into nicer clothes as well—a snow-white chemise, a red sarafan embroidered in gold, a gold headdress studded with pearls and rubies, and a string of coral beads around her slender neck. But for all the regal air they gave her, her sarcastic, impish grin remained the same.

"Stop it," Paul said sullenly, tugging at the upstanding collar of his shirt. "I look like an imbecile."

"No, you look like you would fit right in with the Lukomorians," she said, her eyes twinkling. "Even with that ridiculous wig." Her teasing only made Paul scowl and ram the wig more tightly onto his head, out of contrariness.

They entered the dining room and sat down to a scrumptious supper. It was nothing like the feasts that Paul was used to in his mother's court—the food was simpler and heartier—but the taste was incomparable. He was so busy stuffing his face that it took him a while to notice Afron was asking him something. He looked up, bewildered.

"I say, are you a knight at the court of the late Tsar Artyom?" the tsar said.

Paul gave Zhara a panicked look, not knowing how to answer.

"No," she smoothly interjected. "He's—a court jester."

"A court jester!" Afron exclaimed, looking rather offended at having to share his table with a fool. Paul, too, stared daggers at Zhara and opened his mouth to protest. She gave his leg a swift kick under the table.

"Yes, my father's favorite," she said. "And he has been most loyal and attentive to me since my flight from Arthania, so I thank you, my lord, for rewarding him with your kindness and generosity."

Afron's thunderous expression dissipated, and once more, Paul had to reluctantly admit that Zhara's quick wit had saved them.

"That explains his outlandish dress and manners then," Afron said. "But, my lady, will you be safe traveling with a jester as your only companion? I am quite worried for your safety."

Though clearly not worried enough to offer your soldiers as protection, Paul noted.

"Oh no, I trust him with my life," Zhara was quick to say. Paul glanced at her to see if she was speaking in earnest or not, but her face was turned toward the tsar, and her side profile gave nothing away. He looked down again, feeling rather hollow. It was likely that she said that simply to avoid raising Afron's suspicion.

After supper, Zhara insisted on departing right away. Afron saw them to the castle's front door, where their mounts and supplies were waiting. Upon seeing the animals, Paul almost shouted out in indignation and had to bite his tongue to keep quiet. Zhara, who seemed to see nothing wrong with them, curtseyed to Afron, thanked him, and promised to return soon with Elena the Fair's hand in marriage. They then mounted the animals and rode out of the fortress, under the light of a full moon.

It was only when they had gone far enough that Paul made his displeasure known.

"Donkeys!" he exclaimed. "I bet he has a stable full of horses, and he gave us two donkeys! What a miserly little—"

"Donkeys are perfectly good animals," Zhara said calmly. "Besides, horses are no good for us where we're going."

That sounded ominous. "Why? Where are we going?"

"There." She nodded toward the mountain range in the distance. "Perun's Crown." Paul had only given it a passing glance that afternoon, and now, his stomach dropped to see how far it spread out, a veritable wall of silver and crystal under the moonlight, stretching as far as the eyes could see, with peaks so high they were lost in the clouds, and so steep they were like knives cutting through the night sky.

"Elena the Fair lives up those mountains?" Paul asked, his voice coming out squeakier than he'd intended.

"No, don't be silly. Her kingdom is behind those mountains. But the quickest way is to go through them. And these donkeys are experts in crossing mountains. So stop your complaining and keep up."

***

It took them three days to reach the mountains. By the second day, Paul realized that Zhara had been right about the donkeys. The ground was becoming rougher, with almost no discernible path, yet the donkeys picked their way through the rocks as surefooted as walking through a level field.

Though Zhara still took care to hide under Paul's cloak during the day, they met very few people on their way. During the first two days, they traveled with some convoys of merchants, but one by one, these convoys all turned right as they neared the mountains and followed the river instead, and they were on their own.

"It may be easier traveling along the river, but for us, it is safer this way," Zhara said when they stopped on the second night by a rock outcrop, the mountains looming above them like some giant, ancient god. "We don't want to draw more attention to ourselves than we already have." She had changed out of her finery and was back into a coarse linen chemise and dark blue sarafan.

"Do you think your brother is tracking you?" Paul asked.

"I don't know. He may use the victims he has transformed into animals, like poor Alyosha, but that takes a lot of strength from him, so he is going to focus on protecting his death. He knows he only has to bide his time; I shall have to confront him sooner or later." She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them close to her body, her eyes fixed on their fire. "Besides, I wasn't just talking about me." She nodded at Paul meaningfully. "I didn't wish to stay at Tsar Afron's castle for longer than necessary because I didn't want him to start asking about you."

That reminded Paul of a question that had been bothering him for some time. "About that—how come you know I'm from Rus, but others don't?"

"Those of us with magic in our blood can always tell," she replied. "I don't know how to explain it—we simply know. Be thankful that the rest of Lukomorye do not have such ability."

"Is that... bad?"

"Anything from Rus' is a great curiosity here. If they knew who you are, they would descend on you like a pack of wolves. How would you like to be paraded around like some exotic creature, to be ogled at?" She smiled at Paul's horrified look. "I suppose it would be the same if I ended up in your world."

"It might be worse," he said. "You might be burned as a witch, even though that practice had been outlawed for a century now." Now it was his turn to grin at her.

Zhara laid her head on her knees and regarded him with interest. "What is it like, your world?" she asked.

Paul thought about it for a while. "It's—like here, but different," he said lamely. He did not know how to put into words the otherworldly feeling that constantly coursed through him ever since he set foot in this land. "The trees, the mountains, the river, even the people... they're all similar, but back in my world, they're more—dull, solid, while here, there is this air about them... I can't describe it. It's the same with how you can tell me from a Lukomorian, I suppose. It's—"

"—magic?" Zhara prompted.

It wasn't quite what he had in mind, but it would have to do. "Yes, magic," he agreed. A strange little smile flitted across Zhara's face. She said nothing more and went back to watching the flames.     

They arrived at the foot of the mountains on the third day. There was a stone-built shelter there, and Paul and Zhara found themselves in the company of an old man, who said his name was Simeon, and that he was placed there to aid travelers in their crossing. He gave the donkeys some hay and stoked the fire to make tea, while Zhara opened the supplies Afron had given them and shared their food with him.

"It's been months, nay, close to a year, since I had anyone passing through," Simeon said, biting into a hunk of cheese with relish. "They all follow the river these days. Even large groups avoid the mountains. It's odd that you two would take this route..."

"My mother lives in Bryansk," Zhara said. "She is very sick, and I must go to her as soon as possible." This was the story she and Paul had agreed on, should they meet another traveler.

"Well, you're traveling light, so I suppose you don't have much to worry about—except for those two donkeys—" The old man considered their packs and clothes with the eye of an expert.

"Worry about what?" Paul asked.

"Who, my lad, worry about who," Simeon corrected him. "Nightingale the Robber. You have heard of him, yes?"

Paul wracked his brain for the old stories. "The one with the deadly whistle?" he asked.

"The very one. He has staked out these mountains as his own. His nest is on Perun's Peak, and he perches there, whistling down mountain passes, blowing men and animals against the rock. Many merchants have had their entire stock of goods and their animals taken, so now they just avoid these mountains altogether. And even then, those that stray a little too close to them may still be in danger."

Paul looked at Zhara and met her worried returning glance.

"Perhaps we should—" he began, but she shook her head.

"No," she said firmly. "It's going to take months to go around, and who knows what my—what might have happened to my mother by then." She glared at Paul briefly, giving him a silent warning to say no more.

Later, after Zhara had settled down on the narrow bed in a corner of the hut, Simeon clapped Paul on the shoulder. "Listen to your missus, my lad," the old man said. Paul's cheeks flamed. Though he and Zhara had agreed to pose as husband and wife, the idea still made him feel oddly shy. "I know you're worried about Nightingale, but trust me, having a wife and a mother-in-law angry with you is worse," Simeon continued in a friendly tone. "Why do you think I stay out here in this stone hut even when there's no traveler?" Chuckling, the old man climbed on the stove to sleep, leaving Paul to make himself comfortable by the fire.

Chapter 7

Taglist: @ali-r3n

[foggyfanfic]

Dodgeball

Alma would like the record to show, that she has always tried to understand her son. Of course she has, she’s his mother, if she doesn’t understand Bruno, then who does?

Nobody, that’s who. Nobody understands Bruno.

Lately, ever since they started talking, really talking, she’s understood his anxieties, his hurt, his loneliness, his love of rats, and even his decision to live in the walls for ten years. But she has accepted that she will only ever understand half of what comes out of his mouth.

It started when he was six and everything he didn’t like was “square”, then when he was a teenager and everything good was that English word “nifty”. Lately, anytime Bruno saw Pepa or Julieta being affectionate with their husbands he would look his sisters in the eye and say “That’s cringe”. She assumed this terminology came from the future, but honestly, Bruno had always been so creative, he might have just dreamed this stuff up.

Now, Alma stared at the box the merchants had brought back from the city at Bruno’s request and debated if she even wanted to know.

Alma took a deep breath in, closed her eyes and slowly breathed out.

“I am trying to do better,” she quietly reminded herself, “I will be interested in, and supportive of… whatever this is.”

With that said, she opened her eyes, turned towards the stairs and started the short journey to her son’s door. She knocked on the blank wood next to the new and improved carving on Bruno’s door. Then she waited.

Eventually, the door opened, and Bruno gave her that quiet smile she had missed so dearly while he was gone, “Hola Má, what did you need?”

“A package has arrived for you,” she told him, “it’s too big for me to carry upstairs-.”

She apparently didn’t need to say anything else, because Bruno’s face lit up and he eagerly stepped through the doorway. He rushed to the banister and looked down at the box, grinning.

“Oh, that’s great!”

“Indeed,” Alma said, doing her best to smile warmly.

“I’ll open it right now and get it outta here,” Bruno promised her, already walking to the stairs. 

Alma followed, “No rush mijo. Do you need any help?”

“Ah, sí. I uh, I will probably need help inflating them,” he said, thoughtfully.

“Oh, well, I don’t know how much help I could be in that regard,” she frowned, then remembered something, “although I think I might know where the air pump is.”

Recently, Luisa had been trying to learn how to ride a bike, and she had picked up a small pump that Alma was pretty sure was in the closet by the laundry room.

“That’d be perfect,” Bruno nodded eagerly, practically skipping down the stairs, “a-and I’ll probably need something big to hold them in. If you don’t-, if you can think of-, por favor.”

“I will see what I can do,” Alma agreed, walking down the stairs at a much more sedate pace.

Bruno’s sandals slapped noisily against the tile as he rushed across the courtyard to the box waiting for him in the entryway. His hands fluttered around it excitedly for a second, then he patted his pockets down for the small pocket knife Camilo had gotten him for his first Christmas back. He carefully opened the pocket knife, then slid it through the tape holding the box closed.

“Bruno,” Alma finally dared to ask.

“Sí Mamá?” He didn’t look up as he unfolded the top of the box.

“What exactly is a ‘El Señor Divertido’s Super Bounce Dodgeball’, and why have you ordered a box of them?”

“Oh! Remember how Mirabel was saying we should find some way to stop people from pestering me for visions?”

Alma pursed her lips, “I do, however, I’m not sure throwing balls at people is the best solution.”

Granted, she wouldn’t stop him if he chose to start throwing harmless rubber balls, but Alma had put a lot of effort into softening the villagers towards her son. Him going on a red rubbery rampage might undo that hard work. Sure, there had always been days when she’d been tempted to throw things at various villagers for the way they talked to Bruno, but in some ways, her renewed determination to protect her son from the village’s disdain required she hold her tongue around others more so than before. Let Isabela and Pepa outwardly fight for Bruno, Alma would use her position as village leader to support his reintroduction into society.

It was the least she could do.

Thankfully, Bruno’s plan did not involve throwing things, or at the very least, didn’t involve him throwing things.

“What? Oh. I guess I could do that,” Bruno paused, frowning down at his box of deflated red rubber balls, then he shook his head and his grin came back, “B-but actually this is based off a joke that’s going to be really funny in the future. You’ll see! This is going to be great.”

She shoved aside her doubts and kissed Bruno’s cheek, “I’m sure it will be. Now, let me see if I can find that air pump.”

It took a day or two, and some help from her grandchildren, but Bruno got all of the dodgeballs inflated and stored in giant laundry sacks. He put the sacks of balls on a wagon and took it into town, leaving it in the town square. 

On the wagon he hung a sign that said “Only people that can aim with the accuracy of Apollo may receive the gift of prophecy. If you want me to give you a vision, first you have to hit me with a dodgeball. You get one try, and are liable for any property damage if you miss. Anyone who misses, then pesters me for a vision regardless, will be reported to Pepa.” 

He’d signed his name in green paint, along with a little hourglass, then in parentheses put “(Oh, and to the kids, you are allowed to play with balls as much as you want, just put them back in the wagon when you’re done. (Kids can also ask me for help re-inflating the balls, adults have to take care of that themselves.))”

Alma and Julieta stood in front of the wagon, staring at the sign. On another day, Alma would have taken the time to be amused that Julieta was standing the exact same way Pedro used to when he was confused, but today she was too busy being confused herself. Confused and concerned.

“Juli, mija, I-, you know I have been trying not to ask too much of you lately, so of course you can say no, however, would you mind-?”

“Making extra arepas in case Bruno gets pummeled with red balls for the sake of a joke nobody will get for another few decades?”

“Sí.”

“I will mind, but I will do it anyway. So long as I am also allowed to pummel him with red balls.”

“…that’s fair,” Alma nodded.

As they watched, a kid ran up and read the sign. His face lit up and he dug into the laundry bag for a ball, he paused long enough to smile politely at Alma and Julieta, then ran off with the ball held over his head.

“Guys, guys, el Señor Bruno is lending us this brand new ball,” he shouted, presumably at the other boys down the street.

“Well, at least he’s making the kids happy,” Julieta noted.

“Indeed.”

They stared at the wagon for another few seconds, then Alma sighed through her nose and walked away. Julieta fell into step beside her a second later. When Alma spared the wagon one last glance, Osvaldo was reaching into a bag for one of the balls.

She sent a silent prayer to God, Mother Mary, and any saint who felt like listening that this wouldn’t end with her son being grievously injured.

It turned out, however, that her fears were misplaced. 

Her first update on the dodgeball situation came from Camilo the next night as they all sat down for dinner. Luisa was giving Camilo a doubtful look, repeatedly asking “Really?” to which Camilo repeatedly answered “Really!”.

When Bruno walked in, head buried in a book, Camilo cheered, “There he is! Watch this!”

Without further ado, Camilo picked up a tortilla and threw it like a frisbee at Bruno. Pepa immediately began admonishing her son, but everybody else watched the tortilla as it sailed towards Bruno’s downturned head. At the very last second, Bruno ducked and the tortilla passed over his head, hitting the wall with a quiet “thwap”.

Bruno lifted his head from his book and looked at the tortilla as it slid down the wall to the floor, then he looked at Camilo, who was applauding him.

“E-even if that had hit me, it wouldn’t count,” Bruno told him, “It has to be, y’know, a dodgeball.”

“I know, I know, but Luisa was doubting your dodging skills,” Camilo retorted, jabbing a thumb at his cousin.

“I wasn’t doubting him!” Luisa immediately said, giving Bruno an apologetic look, “I just… y’know… was having a hard time imagining Tío Bruno jump over three balls at once.”

“Myeh, that’s fair,” Bruno shrugged. He pulled a bookmark out of his pocket and closed his book around it, then sat down, the book disappearing under the table.

Alma had no doubt Bruno would be sneaking peeks at it throughout the meal.

“Three dodgeballs at once?” Isabela asked, then she wrinkled her nose, “How would that even work?”

“El Señors Garcia, Cortez, and Lopez all wanted Tío Bruno to predict how this weeks football tournament will go so they could place bets,” Camilo said, “so when they saw Tío Bruno in the market they ran to the wagon then each grabbed a ball. You shoulda seen it, they were tripping each other and shoving each other, then they all got to Tío Bruno and threw their balls at the same time. El Señor Cortez had to throw his from the ground ‘cause Garcia had tripped him. So all three balls go zooming at Tío Bruno and he doesn’t even flinch, he just jumps straight up and let the balls go past him.”

“Really?” Mirabel asked, turning to look at Bruno.

Bruno shrugged again, “I-It’s not like I didn’t get plenty of warning. They were cussing each other out the entire time.”

“Yeah, but you just jumped straight up! I swear you jumped at least as high as the roof of the bookshop,” Camilo pointed out, gesturing to indicate exactly how high Bruno had jumped.

“Oh! Like in the walls,” Mirabel said, “like how you jumped over that big hole.”

“Basically,” Bruno nodded.

“Big hole?” Alma asked, unable to keep the worry out of her voice. She knew this was in the past, but she didn’t like the idea of her son jumping over large holes when he was in the walls, unable to get help if he got injured.

“Oh, yeah, heh heh, that,” Bruno rubbed at his arm, “w-well it didn’t start out as a big hole, at first it was a little hole. I-it’s only towards the last few years in there that it, you know, got uh, got… well, big.”

Alma frowned, “That doesn’t sound very safe.”

She was doing her best not to let her fears affect the way she treated her family, but she’d found, somewhat counterintuitively, that expressing those fears helped her to move past them. Besides, when she openly expressed her concern for his safety and well-being, Bruno would smile sheepishly. In the past when she had simply said things like “Do you think that was wise?” Bruno used to hang his head, shoulders drooping.

It was a small change, but one that had made a big difference in their relationship.

“I-I was fine, it’s like Mirabel said, I just uh, I just jumped over it,” Bruno reassured her, “it uh-, I actually got really good at jumping. Hence, y’know.”

Bruno waved a hand at Camilo, who once again acted out Bruno’s jump via hand gestures.

Alma breathed out through her nose, allowing her son's words to reassure her. She smiled at him, and nodded to indicate she believed him. Bruno grinned, as pleased as ever to have helped in any small way.

Dinner continued without any more mention of dodging or balls or jumping. And it was several days before she heard another word about Bruno’s little game.

The next update on Bruno’s new rubber ball based system of distributing visions, was heralded by a lot of angry shouting at Casita’s front door. Alma stood behind the door and strongly considered if she truly wished to open it.

“The sign itself says anyone who throws a ball and misses is liable for any property damage caused,” the voice that sounded suspiciously like la Señora Rivera shouted.

“Well I wouldn’t have missed if Bruno hadn’t moved!” retorted the voice of el Señor Marius.

“What?! You expected him to stand completely still so you could hit him?” Rivera snapped, “In case you didn’t get the memo, this is called a dodgeball. Dodge-ball.”

Alma didn’t wait to hear another word, it sounded like la Señora Rivera had this well in hand. Meanwhile, Alma needed to get started on that grocery list.

As she walked away there was an insistent knock on the door while Marius shouted, “Dona Alma?! Did you know your son has set a trap in order to turn the people of Encanto against each other?!”

“It’s not a trap, you’re just a dumbass!” 

Julieta peeked her head out of the kitchen, curiously. She raised an eyebrow at her mother in a silent question. Alma tapped a finger to her lips.

“We’re not home,” she informed her in a whisper.

Julieta glanced at the door, then slowly nodded, and obediently agreed, “Sí Mamá.”

After that, news of Bruno’s little game trickled into Alma’s ears through a variety of sources. Félix passed along a message from his football team that after seeing his agility and quick reflexes, they’d be happy to have Bruno, if he was interested. Bruno, who hadn’t been invited to join anything since he was seventeen, had blushed and admitted he’d already agreed to help coach the various kid’s teams and wouldn’t have the time.

Osvaldo showed up at Casita in need of an arepa after he threw a dodgeball at Bruno and ended up hitting a particularly vengeful donkey when Bruno ducked and rolled.

Various groups of children came by Casita with flat red balls and happily asked Bruno how he had learned to cartwheel so many times in a row, or jump off walls like that, or bend over backwards the way he had.

The game stretched on for three months, and changed shape as it did so. As far as Alma could tell, the object of the game had stopped being to win a vision two weeks in. Now, the young athletes and old braggarts of the village just wanted to be the one to finally hit Bruno. New rules had been drawn up and transcribed on a sign that was hung next to the first, such as “trapping Bruno is cheating” and “handing the ball to Bruno does not count as hitting him with it” and of course “hitting somebody who looks a lot like Bruno is not ‘close enough’ and Oscar is very sick of you throwing things at him”. 

This last rule was followed by the comment “maybe Oscar should learn how to dodge”, which itself was followed by a note, presumably from Oscar, that had to be covered with black paint and a reminder that kids read that sign.

Finally, in a great twist of fate, it was Agustín who won the game of dodgeball. 

Bruno and Agustín were out with Alma, helping her pick up the last two crates of wine for Dolores’ wedding. For obvious (albeit gently stated) reasons, Agustín was carrying the complimentary chocolate that the winery had thrown in as a wedding gift. Meanwhile, Alma and Bruno each carried a crate with nine bottles of wine.

As they passed through the town square, Alma smiled when she saw a bunch of school children kicking one of the now familiar red balls around. She turned to Bruno and remarked, “If nothing else, you have brought a great deal of joy to the village children.”

Bruno chuckled sheepishly, “Yeah, that’s-. Good, happy to, uh, make people happy. I guess.”

“Oops! Sorry,” one of the kids called to all the rest when he apparently kicked the ball out of bounds, and it rolled over to them.

Agustín, being the only one with a free hand, picked the ball up and said, “I’ll take it back over to them.”

They nodded, Alma bit her tongue to say something that might sound unintentionally judgemental like “Sí, that would be best”. Idly, she tried to think of a casual, non-patronizing way of saying “The fact that you know your limits and work with them instead of getting defensive shows exactly how good of a man you are”. She supposed it would have to wait until a quiet moment, when she could take the time to properly express her admiration of her son in law’s character.

Old Alma would have been content to assume that Agustín understood how much she''d grown to respect him over the years, however Old Alma had also been content to assume that her son understood how much she loved him. And that clearly hadn’t-.

“Whoops,” Agustín yelped, interrupting Alma’s musings.

What came next, Bruno would later insist at dinner, was proof that Agustín was perhaps the most magic person in the village.

Agustín tripped over a raised cobblestone and the ball flew out of his hand. It soared towards the door of the shoe cobbler’s shop, which flew open just in time to smack the ball away. The ball shot into the center of the square, where it bounced off the front of a passing wagon. Now zooming through the air at dangerous speeds, the ball passed over head bystanders as said bystanders threw themselves to the ground. It hit the wall of the church, cutting some of its momentum but changing its trajectory. 

Straight towards Alma.

Alma had maybe three seconds at most to stare at the now rapidly incoming red ball and try to come up with a response. She couldn’t throw herself out of the way, that would mean dropping the wine. However three seconds isn’t a lot of time, and that was the only thing she could think of.

Then the ball was gone, hidden behind her son, who was suddenly standing toe to toe with her, curled protectively around his crate of wine. 

Bruno screwed up his face, and planted his feet. His body jerked as Alma heard the unmistakable sound of the ball bouncing off his back.

For a second the entire square was silent. 

Then Bruno sighed, stood up straight, turned to Agustín and said, “Oh come on!”

People cheered, children applauded, Alma half expected somebody to throw confetti. Some guys came up and firmly patted Bruno’s shoulder, telling him it was “a good way to go out”, while others shook Agustín’s hand.

It took them about an hour to get home as Agustín and Bruno unexpectedly found themselves at the center of an impromptu award ceremony. Turns out, somebody had been keeping track of how many days Bruno had gone without getting hit, and an actual medal with the exact number was being made. Agustín was handed a trophy, probably the only athletic award he would ever receive in his life, and asked to give a little speech. He stumbled through thanking his wife, and saying what a great honor this was, then hit gold with the crowd when he highlighted some of the most memorable attempts by people who were actively trying to hit Bruno.

Soon after, Bruno was convinced to make a tradition of it, although he said that he would want to put some sort of time limit on the game next time.

“M-maybe a month long event?” he had suggested, “It could be-, we could make it a whole tournament?”

Finally, they were allowed to go home as people began debating how they could turn the dodgeball game into a month-long tournament. However, even when they did get home, Bruno and Agustín were cajoled into telling the story at least six times. Bruno added more and more ridiculous ways for the ball to be tossed around the square with each re-telling.

Dinner featured the most exaggerated version of the story of all, with Camilo and Antonio happily chiming in with suggestions to encourage Bruno. And, of course, there was the very noisy debate over whether or not Agustín had magic.

"If he gets magic, I better get magic too," Félix joked, "you ain't the only one who married into this family."

Then, finally, after everything had wound down and the family was headed off to bed, finally Alma got the chance to hug her son.

“Gracias, mijo, for what you did earlier,” she whispered as she hugged him, then pulled back, cupped his blushing face, and kissed his cheek.

“It… it was nothing,” Bruno chuckled in his quiet, awkward way, “don’t mention it.”

Alma shook her head, smiling softly, “Ay, you know, you’ve always been so modest. Even when the entire village crowded around you to tell you how special your gift was, you were such a humble child.”

“O-oh?”

“Sí,” she sighed quietly, “you have always been a good son, you know that, don’t you? Even when I didn’t show it, I have always been proud of you.”

Bruno smiled down at his toes, stuttering over half aborted sentences. Eventually, he laughed quietly, then gave her a crooked half smile, his strange sense of humor glimmering in his eyes, “Right in the feels.”

Alma chuckled, shaking her head. She gave him another hug and bid him good night. It was true that she would never fully understand the things Bruno said, but she knew what he meant.